Take a Deep Breath

And today is the day of the ever popular New York Marathon. The weather looks good, although a bit on the chilly side. But I believe that will affect the cheering masses more than the runners. If you have never been a spectator for this event, it is quite a day in the City. I have gone when I have known people running in the event, but I will always cheer for anyone who took the trouble to write their name on their shirt. This is a practice I encourage, since you never know when a cheer from the crowd, no matter how small, can give a person that little bit extra they needed to keep going. It is sort of the random act of kindness that we would like to practice in our everyday lives, but always seem to need a special occasion to do it.

Now I have always felt twenty-six miles seems like sort of an odd number of miles to throw into a race. Why not a nice rounded number like twenty or thirty (hey, you just ran twenty six, what's four more)? Here is where the tradition of the ancient Greeks steps in, and where the name of the race comes from (for all of you who thought the marathon was named after a candy bar). Around 490 BC, King Darius of Persia had a burning need to show those upstarty little Greeks (Athenians to clarify, since Greece wasn't really a unified country then) who was the boss of them. So he has his generals land his troops on a beach near the Plain of Marathon, where they found a smaller, and very much unexpected, Athenian force awaiting them. The Athenians launched a surprise frontal assault, sending the Persians packing. Knowing that the people of Athens were waiting for news of the battle, a runner named Pheidippides was selected to make the run from Marathon to Athens, a distance which tradition lists as twenty six miles. Pheidippides runs into Athens, proclaims "We are victorious", and drops dead on the spot.

The moral here is cooling down is every bit as important as warming up. If Pheidippides had taken a deep breath of two, and walked it off a little before proclaiming anything, he may have enjoyed quite the hero's welcome. Just a little bit of helpful advice to all my friends who enjoy a little twenty six mile run.