Five months of intense training, of getting up at 4:30am five times a week have culminated in me hearing the final countdown at the starting line…and watching from the sidelines all the people I had diligently trained with all these months start down the long road for the big long race against the clock. It is not the first time I have been sidelined at such an event. The last was two years ago. Instead of running the Rome marathon, I found myself center stage under the bright lights of a surgeon with a sharp scalpel doing minor auto mechanics work on my heart.  This time it was only flu. But a flu that hit me two days before the event. Up until an hour before the starting gun I was undecided. “Yes I can do this, worst case I will finish ten minutes slower". On the other, the belated realization that if I started this race my pigheaded determination would make me see it through to the end, far past the point any reasonable person would throw in the towel and quite possibly causing me either serious long term health problems, or perhaps even a bonanza for my wife and family in cashing in on my life insurance policy.

So it was with more than a few tears of disappointment that I reluctantly turned back with Dina towards the hotel long after the last runners had departed.  For a healthy active person it is hard to admit that over the years things change and I am no longer the “El indistructo” person I always was ….

I had two thoughts strike me on the way back (see, when you are not running you have some spare time for thinking). The first was when I saw the wheelchair people line up at the starting line for the second starting gun. Some of them in pretty bad shape. One person had only one hand which he could use to propel the wheelchair. He was in the race. Life is like this race ….. just overcoming the obstacles,  taking them one at a time, adapting and moving on.  The second thought is what a wonderful time we all live in and how thankful we ought to be that we are alive in it now. The core function of running is basically twofold. Either you are trying to catch something for supper or you are trying not to become supper for something else. The fact that we are running simply for the sheer joy of running, the movement and the freedom of it is a deep expression of our most basic nature and that is something to cherish. 

For those of you with whom I have shared many km of asphalt over these long months, I wish you good luck in the race. I am sure that many will surprise yourselves with your achievements. For me, I am going to continue to Barcelona in two months time. Like the warrior who retreats to fight another day, there is always another race to be run. Love you all for sharing my passion and proving time and again that we always can do more than we think we can.  

Postscript I: am (After marathon)

“Wow”, is all I can say. “Congratulations to Barak for cracking the 3 hour nut and to Avi Arush and Omer for their superb times. Congratulations also to all our first timers… our favorite trio of girls and for everyone in our group who met and exceeded their own expectations. For those who may have liked to do better on their time, remember... there is always another Marathon.”

Postscript II: Dina's observation.

During the race Dina took a walk down the road and visited the ancient Roman baths at exactly the 40km mark. At 11:30, exactly two and a half hours from the starting gun, she noticed three runners walking towards the finish line. Dina tried to encourage them, shouting, clapping and saying that it was only another 2km to the end, but they waved her off dismissively. They knew that at two hours and thirty minutes they were not "in the money", so what was the point of wasting more energy to run the last two km? Everything in life is relative.