The new Everest?

After 10 wasted minutes, the pace picked up. But this wasn’t because people started running, but because I reached a point where I was out-walking them. And for a while I was enjoying the marathon; muscles stretching for the first time in a while, the wind cooling my face, the scorching sun giving me a red-neck tan. I felt alive... at least until I noticed runners coming to the finish line. Then I felt slightly humiliated. I eventually reached the end in a devastatingly bad 1:21:09, or the same time it takes an average Ethiopian to run double the distance. But I did it. I survived the death trap of the slippery roads soaked with empty water bottles, the cute girls in tight jeans blocking my route and the disappointment of watching people take short cuts. But all that no longer mattered, and I could go and pick up my well-deserved complementary medal, just like everyone else. 

 

The organisers felt differently, however, and I had to fight for the tin medal before being manhandled by two men with pliers (they only wanted to cut the electronic timer off, thank God), who then told me to find somewhere else to stand. As I made the long, lonely 200m walk off the grounds – muscles aching, blood boiling – it suddenly dawned on me how the Greek soldier Pheidippides had it real easy. At least he simply collapsed and died after running his marathon. Still there’s always next year.