A few weekends ago, I flew up to CT for the long-anticipated Hartford marathon – I know, for those of you who keep up to date on my far and few between facebook status updates (Lia), I’ve said before that only crazies run marathons. I was referring to myself, sister, and mom. And Pheidippides. According to the legend/historical account/wikipedia, Pheidippides (not actually sure if that was his name) ran from the Battle of Marathon to Athens (a distance of 26.2 miles) to announce that the Persians had been defeated – he ran the entire time (they didn’t even set up water stations for him), then burst into an assembly and yelled, “Nenikekamen", transalation, “We have won”, collapsed, and died.
I can’t tell from looking at this picture if the people are afraid of him, trying to help him, praising him, or just shocked at the sight of him. Pheidippides, though, sure looks like how I felt after running 26.2 miles, except that he’s naked. (which…I’ve got to wonder what happened here? Maybe he was in battle garb and at about mile 15 thought, “This is not working, something’s got to go…” and took off all his clothes? Kind of awkward…but then again his battle garb was probably not light)
Anyways, so this all took place in 490 B.C., and it wasn’t until 1896, with the first modern Olympic games, that the race became an actual sporting event, males only- but see this article about women’s marathoning. I like Stamatis Rovithi, who, despite the head officials telling her she was excluded from the marathon, she went and ran her own marathon on a different day (same course). And also a woman named Melpomene, who was also denied entry but ran along the side of the course. When she got to the finish stadium (4 and a half hours later) it was empty and locked, so she finished with a lap around the stadium. Hero. Here is a picture of some guys running the 1896 Athens marathon:
And in 1908:
So…(drumroll) on October 9th, 13th, and 16th, my mom, sister and I did it! My mom and sister followed in the footsteps of Melpomene and ran against all the odds; Mom developed a sciatic nerve issue the week before, then Mish was sick the night before…so they ran the marathon a little late, but if you ask me I think what they did was AMAZING (because they are amazing, it shouldn’t surprise me ;). I had live entertainment, lots of strangers cheering me on, lots of strangers suffering alongside me, and lets face it, misery loves company. Mish and Mom had family (yes, better than strangers) but just watching people who are riding bikes (and complaining...) while you feel like you’re dying for 26 miles, kind of puts you in a sour mood…for anyone who Mish told she was going to punch in the face – that was the marathon speaking. Promise :)
my mom, ever the optimist!! :)
I promised Dusty I’d do a cartwheel for him at mile 20 – here it is :)
And she’s just too cute to not post this picture :)
After all this, I kind of feel like Pheidippides just might be looking at all us marathoners and saying, “Don’t y’all have cell phones? Email??” I mean, the man died – shouldn’t we have learned a lesson there? But we didn’t, and every year more people put their bodies through hell and back (excuse my language, but it seems pretty accurate, coming from an amateur) to honor ancient Greek civilization…or maybe just to prove that we can do pretty much anything we set our minds to, even if it defies logic, sense, sane-ness and gravity (I thought gravity was going to win around mile 23-24, but I conquered). And, of course, get super hot bodies. WE. ARE. MARATHONERS. Congratulations Mish and Mom, we did it!!!
