their own Everest

Last month the marathon came to lola and lolo's front door. Though I could watch golf on television for hours, I have never really watched a marathon on TV, attended one, or, least of all, considered running in one. My god, why would anyone run in a marathon? We were about to find out. Maybe.

Hearing runners talk, I know part of the answer--for many people it's like a hike to the peak of Mount Everest, a way to set and achieve goals that lends a person a sense of accomplishment. Of course, in order to realize this sense of accomplishment, you have to spend oodles of money and risk death (Everest) or train your body for at least six painful months for four consecutive hours of nonstop forward progress during which there is no guarantee that what is left of your body won't fall apart completely (marathon). It's an easy choice, right?

No. It's a brutal and misguided choice and your body is not going to be happy. That's probably why it also confused Jean Baudrillard, the French critic. JB compares marathon-running to the moon landing, having children, making a sexual conquest or committing suicide: things people do primarily to say I DID IT! It's interesting that he also sees in running a form of publicity for life: the marathon is a "demonstrative suicide, suicide as advertising: it is running to show you are capable of getting every last drop of energy out of yourself, to prove it ... to prove what? That you are capable of finishing. Graffiti carry the same message. They simply say: I'm so-and-so and I exist! They are free publicity for existence" ("America," p. 21).

The marathon gave PC and the rest of us a chance to witness what happens when people can't afford to hire a Sherpa and die a lonely frozen death in some remote stretch of Nepal. When Outdoor Magazine doesn't decide to send you up there with loonies to watch them die and write award-winning books about it like Jon Krakauer. When they decide to run a marathon.

This raised some questions. What do you do when watching a marathon? And if you clap, given that these people just decided to inflict unimaginable and unpredictable pain on themselves, for what, exactly, are you clapping? Most people can't breath, mind you, and a wave back isn't a great option, so your wave is actually a weapon that makes you culpable should this or that runner die. You have to think twice. Do the people in front deserve more vigorous applause than the ones at the back, who are clearly going to Walk this Damn Marathon If They Have To so they can say they Did It? Or is it the other way around? I mean, didn't the big butts at the end achieve more than the group of skinny East African men that floated by doing sub-five minute miles?

Lola and Lolo live on mile 11--literally. And as we stood there for an hour or two, spotting a familiar face now and then, a feeling of superiority slowly enveloped me. They had decided to run and I had decided to clap for awhile before going in the house and eating breakfast. I had my philosophical musings; they had the mythical "wall" of Mile 20 to look forward to. And perhaps a t-shirt loved ones could put on them for a visitation before the funeral.

We knew that the closeness of the marathon's path to the house meant that we'd have to pursue alternative parking spots. So on the morning of the suicide march I mean marathon we parked about two blocks away, put Buford on a leash, strapped PC into the stroller, and made our way. As we assumed proper spectator positions, I heard my name (with title, meaning it was a student) shouted unexpectedly from a seven-wide throng. I was able to spot, ever so briefly, smiles on the faces of two former students gliding down the street in complete comfort, pausing their conversation with each other to yell my way. Freaks. Would it help to know they were both Division I scholarship athletes on the swim team? Maybe a little. There was far less talking and much less athleticism as the hours rolled on.

Beyond my feelings of superiority, the best part of the marathon was realizing that the alternative parking meant, for a moment, at least, that PC was in the marathon too.