Craft By Zen

4 min read

Second Wind

People who run marathons are sadistic. The feet wear down after a dozen or two dozen miles. Full recovery takes a days. Mental capacity gets beat up. Hunger sets in. To say at the very least, this was my state on Sunday. And I’m saying I’m sadistic.

You think after my first marathon, I wouldn’t run again. Despite the critics, I threw myself back in the pool.

Critic: “Why would you pay to run?” The event is an incentive to get in shape. I dragged myself on extended runs because paid to participate.

Critic: “But why? You could run on your own?” I guess so, but I like running in large groups. Plus, I like being catered to by marathon volunteers. In this event, that includes the police.

After the run, I love getting small ego boosts when I tell someone I ran the San Francisco marathon. I get an extra boost when they told me how much of an accomplishment that is. I admit, I’m shallow.

Critic: “Are you crazy?” You should have asked me that the first time around.

The SF marathon is held annually. This year, 27,000 runners took the marathon challenge. I feel proud to have finished under the time limit. But I feel like crap that I made some rookie mistakes. Please don’t make these mistakes.

Now that it’s all said and done, I’m glad I ran again. I got to meet people from all over. I got to suffer with people from all over. I got a lot of cheers from all over.

Someone in the race told me, “Not everyone can do this, you know.” She’s right. Not everyone can run a full marathon. But, you’ll never know if you don’t try. I put myself in the arena, and I hope this is your invocation to begin.