4.3 Kennard. No One Cares That You Ran a Marathon

4.3 Kennard. No One Cares That You Ran a Marathon 41

later shows how bloodthirsty rebellion is simply part of his nature. While much of The Odyssey is narrated in the moment, this part is a rarer example of him reflecting on past crimes. This moment when Odysseus could choose to redeem himself by showing a purer true character ends up proving the exact opposite.

On the other hand, when Makina arrives in Mexico City, she sees some coyotes trying to take advantage of the boys who had harassed her. Instead of walking on and letting them get what they had coming, she warns the boys of the danger they are facing. “Watch it, they’re out to screw you,” she says and then continues on her way (Herrera 36). This ability to switch between vengeful and empathetic illustrates how Makina has simply learned to adapt to a hostile world, but inside she has a kind heart. Being kind in the cruel world she is living in is a kind of rebellion too, even though it technically breaks no laws. These two glimpses into the characters’ inner personalities really bring home the monumental difference between the two, even if they have many similarities.

Though the main characters of Signs Preceding the End of the World and The Odyssey are both defiant and unruly, their individual journeys, social status, and character make their acts of rebellion profoundly different. Makina must use stealthy ways of showing her worth, like pulling a transgressor’s finger back, whereas Odysseus gets to be very open and murderous to his opponents just because of their respective levels of power. In fact, Odysseus’ actions might not even constitute rebellion under a traditional definition. Odysseus must keep other people quiet in order to be kept secret upon returning home, while Makina must herself comply with powerful figures in order to get her job done. At the heart, though, Makina chooses to be much more empathetic, even to her foes, than the great hero Odysseus does to people who have done nothing wrong. Though the rebelliousness of many of the so-called rebellious acts of these characters could be disputed (Is the act rebellion if that rebellion is a societal norm? Is it rebellious to stop an act of generally accepted rebellion?), they reflect how even people who share the characteristics of a rebel can choose to and be forced to use that disobedience in different ways. Everyone has to start somewhere, and that’s never a choice, but what makes the biggest difference between rulebreakers – and between anyone – is how they choose to move forward.

References [1] Yuri Herrera. Signs Preceding the End of the World. Translated by Lisa Dillman. 2015 (cited on page 39).

[2] Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by Emily Wilson. W. W. Norton Company, 2018 (cited on page 39).

[3] REBELLION | Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary. URL: https : / / dictionary . cambridge . org / us / dictionary / english / rebellion (cited on page 39).

4.3 No One Cares That You Ran a Marathon

By Cyd Kennard ’23

“Running in a tank top and shorts when there’s frost on the ground is a wearisome existence” is the paraphrased thought of one of my teammates. She came with us to the last meet of the season but wasn’t able to run, so was ironically anointed “bagman” for carrying the layers we discarded in a large yellow sack. I agreed, and wondered who in their right mind thought that long distances should be run in thirty degrees Fahrenheit—certainly spectators can’t enjoy our discomfort. For that matter, certainly spectators can’t enjoy running to any degree. But that thought is partly a fallacy; short-distance races have their moments. I would stand in the cold to watch three minutes of an 800-meter run. Longer distances, on the other hand, seem a lost cause. Who would wait for hours to watch a half-marathon? A full marathon? That brings up a seemingly simple, yet layered question: why are people so much more drawn to watching sprints than marathons?

The first response that you might pose to this question will likely be that short distances just take less time to watch. This is entirely valid: even the longest shortdistance runs take a few minutes at most, giving spectators fast and easy entertainment. While with long distances, the reward is much more gradual. It’s not difficult to imagine why any accomplishment might lose its appeal to viewers (that is, after said viewers spend hours watching a competitor, only to witness the grand climax of them crossing a bright line on the ground).

But it’s more than the brevity that draws us into sprinting and away from marathoning, isn’t it? After all, some of society’s favorite sports take an hour or more to watch (soccer, basketball, football). And additionally, while sprints themselves may be brief, the meets that they are a part of last at least twice a marathon’s duration—a track and field meet of only four hours is not in many athletes’ vocabularies. The next, most obvious answer is the pain and tedium that simultaneously characterize a marathon and drive viewers away. Even the best long-

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distance runners in the world finish their races in delirious pain—something far less appealing than the burst of semiexhausted joy which comes from sprinters’ finishes. But let’s be honest, that isn’t really the problem either. No matter what we might choose to believe, humans don’t always object to watching other people experience pain. Think again of other sports—boxing, wrestling, football, rugby, soccer—where the most exciting moments are when the underdog pounds their opponent to the ground, or when your home team delivers a particularly sharp kick to a player’s shin. This type of pain is expected, even welcomed by viewers. So why is the pain of marathon running any different?

Well, for one thing, long-distance running is a lot like life. People tend to associate the pain and tedium of this sport with the arduous times of their own existence—subconsciously, at least.

Imagine one of the world’s most efficient longdistance runners, Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya. As the first and only person to break the two-hour barrier in the marathon (although largely assisted by pacers and enhanced footwear), Kipchoge is additionally famous for maintaining a calm, even leisurely expression throughout all twenty-six point two miles [6]. This makes him a sort of outlier in the category of distance runners—some appear to be in excruciating unrest; others manage to look worse. In his lifetime, Czechoslovakia’s Emil Zátopek was observed to be “bobbing, weaving, staggering, gyrating, clutching his torso . . . [running] like a man with a noose around his neck. He seemed on the verge of strangulation” [2].

About a year ago I went for one of my longest runs, paced off of three older boys who were considerably faster than I was. Their recovery (slow or easy pace throughout the run) was my workout. In the seven-and-a-half miles we ran, they were able to maintain a conversation the whole time, whereas I was breathing so hard that it came out as a pant. But this is how these things tend to go—the young, inexperienced runner (me) follows in the footsteps of the veteran athletes (them). I felt my pace slipping as time passed, while they seemed to gain speed with each stride. By the last half-mile they had slipped from my sight. In a depressing sense, I remember seeing that run as a reflection of how my life could be: an endless stream of time spent trying to catch up to people who are, plainly, just better than I am.

Conversely, if long-distance running reflects a dull reality, then short-distance running embodies a sanguine yet unrealistic message: you’re only ever a step or two behind those who truly excel beyond you. Take it from one of the fastest runners in the world, Sha’Carri Richardson of the United States. Placing first in the Olympic Trials for the 100-meter dash, Richardson earned a time of 10.86. Chapter 4. Social Science

Her teammate Javianne Oliver finished second at 10.99 [3]. This 0.13 of a second is a considerable separation in sprinting, yet the ordinary person would see it to be virtually no time at all. Richardson was the clear victor of the competition (though she was barred from racing in the Olympics because of arguably nonsensical marijuana restrictions) [4], and yet Oliver could still reason that she might have beaten Richardson if conditions were ideal. Indeed, Oliver was only a footstep behind; maybe less. In a race where all finishers come in within seconds of each other, sprinters see their competitors as always within their grasp. Even Jamaica’s acclaimed Usain Bolt, who won Rio’s 200-meter dash in 19.78, was only 0.65 seconds faster than the slowest runner [5]. These short distances of sprinting inflate runners with the idea that they are always exceedingly close to beating their competitors, and by extension communicate to spectators that in their own lives, they are mere footsteps away from overcoming impossible odds—a thought which is often improbable, and irresistibly attractive all the same.

As explained by Bolt: “I just imagine all the other runners are big spiders, and then I get super scared” [7]. To move with such explosive strokes, sprinters need to temporarily minimize their pain, and increase their breathing, heart rate, and strength. This is achieved through adrenaline—often a result of an exciting or frightening situation [2]. For many, the quick, intense atmosphere of a sprint is the perfect stimulus to produce a wave of this hormone (though for Bolt, the thought of spiders incites more adrenaline). These athletes spend such a brief amount of time competing, with the time that they do spend being buttressed by this adrenaline rush. As a result, in the moment that they compete, sprinters find themselves fueled by the fantasy of having infinite strength. In truth, sprinters can conquer anything with adrenaline in their system—maybe even life itself.

But life is no fantasy. Short-distance might provide a tempting facade of immortality, but as the saying goes: all good things must come to an end.

And life is a truly good thing, isn’t it? When watching the tortured runner struggle through the last mile of twenty-six, some might disagree with this statement. But behind the pained mask, there is joy to be found through distance. There is joy, and there is relief. There is sorrow and suffering as well. In short, there is life.

If you’re lucky, there are also goats. As in one of my favorite runs, which involved four of my teammates and a small cluster of farm animals. In the group of brown and grey, there was a single white goat; it had black eyes, though we claimed they were red. We called it a devil because every time we ran past it, one of us would trip (the trail was slanted to the left with rocks sticking out of the ground, but we still blamed it on the goat). We

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ran three one-mile-long loops around the goat pen (the oldest runner fell first, the youngest second). I stumbled on the third—It was my fault, I looked the goat in the eyes and missed the tree root beneath my shoes—and fell to the ground with scuffs on my knees and dirt up my nose. I felt more pain than joy in that half-hour, I know, but the happiness it left me with outweighed any ache. Because that’s the moment I remember the run by. Not by the strain of my calves, or by the air that couldn’t quite inflate my lungs, but by the white goat. The white goat, and the way my teammates laughed as we ran away—a sound that couldn’t help but echo and spread—something which hovered in the air and mixed with the crinkle of our footsteps as we rushed across the dead and dying leaves.

In terms of long-distance running, Zátopek describes the atmosphere to be along the “borders of pain and suffering . . . [that] the men are separated from the boys” [1]. Many would see this sentiment as an adequate metaphor; though in reality, it couldn’t be more flawed. Other than exclusively speaking of male athletes, Zátopek characterizes a marathon as a race that can only be completed by the strongest of body and mind. But if a marathon is life, then every person who lives must run—every person must be running now. One mortal life, one long-distance run. Each marathon does more than just remind us of our most painful and tedious days; it reminds us of the instances weaved between, those which bring meaning to our larger picture. Though the finish line comes slow, it arises all the same. Marathons prompt the idea that all those moments which compose life will one day come to an end, which, nevertheless, we dread.

We are far less drawn to watching marathons than sprints because the extended pain of long-distance running reminds us that we are mortal—eventually, we will have to end the amalgam of emotions from suffering to joy that is running, and simultaneously, is life itself. And of this, we are terrified.

Though that fear doesn’t need to impede our experience of life. In fact, it’s not able to. “I am human,” tweets Richardson after the win of her race, death of her biological mother, and one-month suspension from competition. “I’m you,” she says, “I just happen to run a little faster” [4]. Richardson’s speed has caused many to call her remarkable; but she is still no supreme being. She is as mortal as me, as human as you. Her life contains laughs and laments, lively ecstasy on top of unimaginable loss. That is why the fifteen-second view of the world which is internalized from a sprint is not reality: you cannot fill each moment of life purely with strength and joy and adrenaline and success. There’s a reason people say that life is a marathon, not a sprint. But this isn’t for the cliché that you should pace yourself through life; it’s because at the end of the day, your life is just that: one life. It goes on for the long run, with all of its trials: tedium, exhaustion, joy, pain, adrenaline, strength, weakness. Marathons remind you that, regardless, you run on—you can never stop.

Run until the end.

References [1] Simon Burnton. 50 Stunning Olympic Moments No 41: Emil Zatopek the Triple-gold Winner. June 2012. URL: https : / / www . theguardian . com / sport / blog / 2012 / jun / 22 / 50 - olympic stunning- moments- emil- zatopek. (cited on page 43). [2] Jacquelyn Cafasso and Debra Sullivan. Adrenaline Rush: Everything You Should Know. Nov. 2018. URL: https : / / www . healthline . com / health / adrenaline - rush # symptoms (cited on page 42). [3] Taylor Dutch. Sha’Carri Richardson Wins the Women’s 100 Meters at the Olympic Track and Field Trials. June 2021. URL: https : / / www . runnersworld . com / news / a36772234 / %202021 - olympic - trials - womens - 100 meter- results/ (cited on page 42). [4] Adam Kilgore and Rick Maese. Sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson Suspended One Month after Marijuana Test, Putting Olympics in Doubt. July 2021. URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/ olympics / 2021 / 07 / 02 / %20shacarri richardson - drug - test/ (cited on pages 42, 43). [5] Olympic Channel Services. Rio 2016 Athletics 200m Men Results. 2016. URL: https : / / olympics . com / en / %20olympic - games / rio 2016 / results / athletics / 200m - men (cited on page 42). [6] Amy Tikkanen. Eliud Kipchoge. Nov. 2021. URL: https : / / www . britannica . com / biography / %20Eliud- Kipchoge (cited on page 42). [7] Cameron Tomarchio. 9.58 Reasons Usain Bolt Is the World’s Fastest Man. July 2014. URL: https : / / www . news . com . au / sport / 958 - reasons - usain - bolt - is - the worlds - fastest - man / %20news - story / 33edf559786bf1a4c64b4a272b9e51a8 (cited on page 42).