学进去

Weeks ago, the longest I had ever run was 5K.What’s more, I didn’t like running, so often I would fasten my old shoes, walk out of the house with heavy steps, get less than a mile in and wonder why I was bothering, especially when there are many more satisfying ways of exercising.Before last summer, I had never participated in any kind of race at all.

At the end of July, I had completed triathlon(铁人三项) after two weeks of training. At the end of it came the run—which ended up more like a walk. But afterwards, I realized something about it appealed to me. The extremely painful fun of doing something I hated and was unprepared for turned out to be like a difficult task to test my abilities and skills.

So when an invitation to do the Berlin Marathon dropped into my inbox a couple of weeks later, it felt like a twist of fate. After the triathlon, hadn’t I been saying that I should start running, precisely because I hated it so much? The joy of the triathlon had been that I challenged my limits. It felt necessary to find out again where those limits might lie. There was a very good chance that I would not only fail but embarrass and hurt myself in the process. But there were plenty of reasons not to do it, I said yes.

Marathon training is supposed to take at least 20 weeks or more, and that is for someone who has run before. But I don’t even know what speed I’m aiming for. Finally the training plan becomes something to stop me worrying when the race seems too frightening. This happens often, as I count the days to the race and picture I fell over in the middle of a Berlin street. This anxiety feels sure to happen, but there is something equally unavailable about the training plan; if I follow it, then I have done everything I can; if I do everything I can, then I can’t regret what comes at the end. In the most extreme training week, I run about 40 miles.