on Marathons and Personal Dignity

London Marathon Dalek. Good thing there aren't any stairs!

Not that we know all that much about either. But we have recently started running again (well, run/walking) and we are verily all fired up about it as we have made a deal with God that every time our computer crashes we will do something useful while waiting for it to come back up, whether that is laundry, washing dishes, straightening up the living room, or going for a workout.

And yea, verily, we hates the housework we does.

And so. So to the quote o’ the day, in which our protagonist (far too whingey and self-absorbed to be a hero) learns at least one of the many lessons that a Marathon can teach one.

From the Guardian:

Surrounded by very short young women, whose legs must have been half the length of mine, I told myself I was pathetic if I couldn’t keep up with them. Thompson is not impressed. “If you are then passed by the short-legged women that might be soul destroying,” he cautions…

“When you get overtaken by six vikings carrying their own boat it does take you down a peg or two,” says Loosemoore. “You’ve got to prepare yourself for that before the marathon. The real battle is against yourself. You are going to be overtaken. There will be extremely good marathon runners in rhinoceros costumes. Try not to be distracted by that.”

Maybe you had to be there, but I found it funny.

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16 thoughts on “on Marathons and Personal Dignity

  1. This was my reaction as well. I remember in the Victoria Marathon there was a guy there dressed as a Viking, pulling a cart with his bulldog in it. The dog was wearing a crown. He still finished in respectable time, but the wooden shoes played heck with his feet.

  2. I’d attend a marathon to watch that, but the one they have out here in Georgia is the Peachtree Road Race. It never involves costumes, and they usually choose a blazing-hot day to do it on. I’m surprised more people don’t pass out from heat exhaustion.

  3. It doesn’t matter how much housework I do it seems like a marathon – it’s never ending. Someone very sweetly likened my living conditions to Iris Murdoch, and other lesser-known academics. I thought that was such a nice way to say my house looks like shit.

  4. Marathons ARE a bit wackier up here. Way more people in costume. And the London Marathon is notorious for nuttiness.

    Philipa, you have the choice: be house-proud and spend your life in drudgery or rise to the example set by some of the greatest minds of our time and dismiss the activity of housework as beneath you. Only you can make that choice; you can’t have it both ways.

  5. Exercise is a dirty word. Every time I say it I wash my mouth out with chocolate. And I hate housework. You make the beds, you do the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again.

  6. LOl… Couldn’t understand most of the comments but I’m getting there… So what if a women passes you with a baby stroller or a fat women with pumps on speeds by you; would that knock you down a notch?

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