John Bingham is My Hommie!

You're probably not familiar with John Bingham.  I just met him tonight... well, met is probably the wrong word.  He writes for Runners World magazine, and I just read the best little article I think I have read in a long time!  I had to jump on here & share it!  By the way, meet Mr. Bingham!  --------------->

All of the following is from his article, and I claim NO credit for it's awesomness!

Rising to the Challenge

A Marathon is a test of strength that can take you to new heights

By John Bingham

John Bryant's riveting book "The Marathon Makers" recounts the story of the 1908 London Olympics - the first time the marathon was officially 26 miles, 385 yards - when the race leader, Dorando Pietri, stumbled five times in the stadium and was carried across the finish line.  When I met Bryant last year - where else? - a marathon expo, I asked him why, 100 years after the first 26.2-mile marathon, the distance is so popular with runners of all speeds.

"It has become the great urban Everest," Bryant said.  Like Everest, the marathon stands as a challenge to all who confront it.  The difference, as Bryant points out, is that completing a marathon is both "conceivable & achievable" for all runners.

Conceivable & achievable.  At some point in most of our lives we develop a long list of goals & dreams we'd like to accomplish.  Eventually, those of us with modest talent end up dismissing the vast majority of these aspirations because we realize how improbable they really are.

I've watched hundreds of hours of film about climbing Everest and yet I still can't conceive of doing it myself.  Not that I lack ambition or suffer from a terminal case of low self-esteem.  It's just that I know that my physical & emotional limits would keep me from trying.

But the marathon was different.  Years ago, when I was just starting to run, I met someone who had just finished a marathon.  What surprised me was that they he didn't seem all that different from me.  I though, Well, if he can do it, so can I.

And thanks to all the training programs & running clubs & coaches out there today, plenty of resources can help aspiring marathoners achieve their own goals.  Every year hundreds of thousands of people of all ages, shapes, speeds, and backgrounds make their way over 26.2 miles in races large & small.

The marathon wasn't always such a welcoming event.  In 1908, the myth of Pheidippides, who ran the first marathon in ancient Greece and then promptly dropped dead, still kept men from competing in the race.  Just a generation ago the ignorance of men who organized marathons kept women away.  But then our culture started to gradually change - and running evolved with it.  People of strength & character started breaking down doors of discrimination.  People like Katherine Switzer, who in 1967 became the first woman to finish the Boston Marathon with a bib number, made the marathon both a conceivable & achievable goal for runners everywhere.

And so the marathon has become the great urban Everest that Bryant describes.  It's a challenge that's open to everyone.  Young or old, fast or slow, all you need is the desire to test yourself, to push your limits.  Succeeding ath this challenge - wether it's your first or 50th marathon - can be one of the highest points in your life, a place from which you can look down on all that you've accomplished.

That pont may be at sea level instead of 29,000 feet, but it is a view that cannot be matched.

Waddle on, friends.

I couldn't have said it better myself!  John Bingham just bled awesomness from his pen... or keyboard!  LOL!