Marathon

I ran last night. And it doesn’t matter that I was overtaken by a snail or that I have now lost the use of my legs. The fact is that I finished 8km. Now, that may seem like a meagre distance to some of you but to me, the most sedentary human being in all of Asia, it is an achievement not unlike trekking to the North Pole solely on a pogo stick.

I might have intimated before that I’m running because I’m a vain pot. This is not strictly true anymore because I am now supposed to take part in a marathon along with three (or is it two?) other lunatics. There are, of course, certain obstacles in the way. Like my heart, for instance, which will almost certainly explode after 10km. And then there’s that steely determination of mine which is made up completely of feathers.

But the worries don’t end there. You see, with every running step, your body is forced to absorb up to three times your body weight in pressure. Over 42km, that works out to about the weight of a small continent. Which is fine if you’re Atlas, but you’re not. The result is that the average runner loses two centimetres in height over the course of a marathon. This is due mainly to a compression of the spinal column which means that my torso will be shorter while my limbs will still be the same length which means that I’ll cross the finish line looking like Gollum. Clearly, that is unacceptable. The whole point of doing a marathon is so that you can pay an obscene amount of money for a picture of yourself looking heroic at the end. And that’s ruled completely impossible if you turn up looking like you’ve just taken a few steps down the evolutionary ladder.

So then, a marathon is tiring, pointless and you’ll come back a midget. And yet here I am training for it. Maybe I really am mad.