Marathon Man…

The Missus has a friend running in the 2013 London Marathon so we head into town on Sunday to offer our support.

The friend expects to be at Blackfriars Bridge by about 2pm and the Missus tells me she's wearing a blue shirt and a white cap with red shorts. So we arrive at 1.30pm and jostle to get a good spot, then duly spend the next three hours waiting in the crowd as the runners go past but fail to spot the friend.

We do, however, see everyone else and really enjoy the afternoon. We then hear we missed the friend and she's finished the race is a none-too-shoddy five hours.

Running a marathon is an extraordinary achievement and I’m well impressed with the friend for doing it. It’s one of those challenges where it’s your will against your limitations and as a martial artist I can absolutely see how this form of masochism has its own peculiar pleasure.

Another friend who runs marathons took a picture of a sign at the end of the Dublin Marathon, which read: ‘On some days you’ll feel like you can never run a marathon again, but you now have a lifetime knowing that you’ve run this one…’ 

And I buy into that. I found the whole thing quite inspiring and started making the calculations of how long it would take me to train and be able to enter one.

I explained this thought process to the Missus. She sighed and rolled her eyes. She’s clearly not a convert to the idea…

PS. It turns out the friend was actually wearing a red top with a blue cap and white shorts but somebody apparently got the information wrong. But it's probably my fault...