Big in 09: Marathons
I’ve noticed a new trend in America. It’s not the iPhone or a new television show. It’s not the whole I’m-a-chef-because-I-watch-cooking-reality-shows-on-TV thing either. It’s marathons. Everyone is now “training for a marathon” or “competing in a half-marathon.” Where did this come from?
I always felt like marathons were this incredible thing that only super-motivated people did. Now, every asshole with a pair of running shoes is doing it. Or at least training for one and making sure they write constant Facebook updates about it and changing their profile picture to one of them running.
That’s the worst part. Half these people could just be using it as some sort of notch in their belt. Technically, training for a marathon could be an endless process – one that provides an unspecified amount of time to be used in convincing people you’re way more motivated and in shape than you actually are. I know I run every now and then, but I’m a realist. I don’t have the stamina, talent, motivation, body, drive (and on and on) necessary to ever sniff a marathon. I tried training for a 5k but gave that idea up when I realized it wouldn’t be easy.
Here’s the thing. I know I should be supporting people running marathons and being in shape (albeit weird, skeleton showing, distance runner-style shape). But I really think that if everyone does a marathon, they kind of lose their glimmer. “Oh, you ran a marathon? I did too.”
I’m pretty sure this is all just sour grapes on my part because there’s no way I can run a marathon, but I know a ton of people who all the sudden decided to train for a marathon completely out of nowhere. Didn’t even work out regularly. Was it on Oprah recently or something? Oh well, as fads go, this one is less annoying than the I’m-going-to-quote-every-funny-line-from-the-Chappelle-show craze that we went through a while back. Not to mention the whole Texas Hold ‘em fad. That one really sucked.
What else am I missing?
Don’t forget the ever-popular “talking like Borat” fad. I wanted to fly kick those people in the larynx whenever they did that!
It’s not a fad. When you are 14, you go to high school, 18, college and in your 20’s, you run. You don’t hear anyone that just hit 40 saying they are going to run their 1st marathon – unless it’s in some FiberOne commercial. Basically, people hit their mid-20’s, realize that life is boring or their job sucks and death is looking them in the face, because if you like it or not, tomorrow you are going to wake up and be 40 and then you’re totally screwed. So they think to themselves, I need to run – run away from something or towards something else and they do it. And they are stupid and will most definitely get some crazy-ass blisters and as they train, they will talk about it on Facebook and MySpace or Twitter because they realize they have nothing else to say and everyone dies. But, hey. At least they ran a marathon.