Run for Your Life!

When someone tells me that running a marathon is on their bucket list, my reaction is always equal parts admiration and incredulousness.

While I can respect the hard work and dedication that comes with training and running a marathon, I'm often left wondering, why?

To me, a bucket list should be something awesome. Like, I want to get called up on stage at a Green Day concert and play a song with the band. Maybe from their pre-1994 oeuvre, to show them how much I've continually loved them. 

I want to go to King's Cross and run into Platform 9 3/4 and get magically transported to Hogwarts, get sorted into Gryffindor (Ravenclaw would be a distant second)* and marry Sirius Black, since he's clearly a Bad Boy and troubled, but with a heart of gold. 

*commonly referred to as the Hermione Granger Conundrum

Or, I want a young budding singer songwriter to fall madly in love with me, and because of nebulous forces outside of our control (too much emotion, young love, family pressure, career differences, timing, etc.), one of us would break the other's heart and he would then be forced to pen a hit song about me. 

Sometimes in this scenario, I broke his heart and the song is all about how much he really loved me, and other times he broke my heart and the song is still all about how much he really loved me.

But when it comes to marathons, I'm left scratching my head and wondering why anyone would want to subject themselves to months-long training for an hours-long event that makes your body feel like it's going to shut down on itself.

People vomit, faint, cramp and seize running these things. The first person who ever ran a Marathon? The reason there are such things as marathons? Yeah, that dude DIED, along with a whole bunch of other people just like him, just for running them.

And guys, people shit on themselves during marathons. Why would you partake in an activity where there is a chance that you're gonna shit on yourself?**

**And before you ask, YES, that is exactly how I feel about childbirth. Childbirth. Marathons. Two strenuous activities that I don't really ever want to be involved because they look painful, your body takes a long to recover after them, and oh yeah, you can shit on yourself in front of a live audience while doing them.

So yeah, I've never understood The Cult of Running***, but there are so few things that make life enjoyable, and for me it's video games, music and eating, so if someone wants to run, who am I to stop, judge or sneer at them just because every activity I like doing is best enjoyed while seated? 

***Not an expert on runners by any means, but I know a few and they're easily spotted by just how important they think their running is to all of mankind.

I am, however, a big fan of saying things like: "Going out for a run! Be back in THREE minutes!"

These are the jokes, folks.

I wish I could search my Facebook archives more easily to prove to you that I really wrote what I'm about to tell you, all these years ago, but do you know what my motivation was during the one race I've ever run, my 5K training?

Zombies.

I would run outside or on the treadmill and would pretend zombies were chasing me. That is how I kept pushing myself to go faster, harder or longer. It took a lot more imaginative powers on the treadmill - because I think the last place you want to try to outrun a zombie on is a treadmill, am I right?!!

Clearly, my creative visualization aided me quite well during the actual race, because I finished it in under 30 minutes. Which was wayyyyyy better than I was expecting to finish, even though I'm aware how slow it really is in general.  So now I never really want to run another one because I'm pretty happy with that time and have nothing left to prove.

Until I saw what could be described as the most awesome thing I've ever seen:

It's an entire race and then zombies appear and chase you! And try to eat your brains, i.e. steal your flags!!!!

Why has no one thought of this before?

I am seriously considering forgetting everything I once said about never wanting to run another race again and signing up for this. How awesome would this be? I can imagine my adrenaline pumping, getting really freaked out, having fun, and also, testing my survival skills in case the zombie apocalypse should ever come!

Check out the site HERE. And definitely check out the VIDEO.

And at the very least, I think it'd make a good story for this old blog.