If the race is over by the time your settle in front of the Telly it’s a
sprint; if it is still on after you have finished the popcorn and beer
it’s a marathon or long distance run.
For some people life is a jog
and others it is a lark. You see them early mornings / evenings with
fancy running kits, ears plugged into an iPod. Many of them have never
broken into a sweat about mundane things like mortgages / EMI, tuition
fees, inflation or recession.
Years of living in countries like USA, Canada and Europe, a regular diet
of proteins and carbs have built up muscles, and the sprinters with a
dash of steroids have build bodies that move like greased lighting. For
most people in cities life is one big sprint racing through everything
in life – school to B schools, career, work, dropping the children,
soccer classes, tuitions, music lessons and the occasional barbecue in
the back yard.
When we race against the clock there is no time
to ruminate or chew the cud, when you decide to smell the zeitgeist,
it’s time for antacids and angioplasties. On the Olympic track running
is not such a glamorous part time, the marathon is tough business.
The Marathon is packed with people from underdeveloped countries like
Ethiopia, Kenya, and Morocco………. Athletes, who have struggled for a
meal, no training facilities, who have no shoes and literally begged to
find sponsors to travel and foot the bill.
Slight and wiry men,
running the race of their lives, but with the will power, patience,
strength and endurance required - an aerobic experience where the body
has to produce oxygen. Compared to distance runners a sprinter has
longer muscles & lower body fat. Sprinting is an anaerobic exercise –
it uses energy stored in muscles and they are the glam boys of
Athletics, while the other has to go the distance to just survive.
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