Revenge...fun...and instant gratification ... by running?

Some people do strange things for revenge, for fun, or instant gratification. 

Sometimes they are interchangeable. People do revenge for fun. Sometimes instant gratification means dishing out revenge (like the road rage incident I witnessed today). Often instant gratification = fun. 

But its strange to think of running being the platform for each of these. Interestingly, this last week I have come across running being used for all three:

1. Instant gratification

This week someone said to me “Melbourne Marathon has opened for registration. I've been training for 5 weeks. I'm going to run and then I’ll be fit and healthy.”  It was as though they thought "fit and healthy" comes just as easily as clicking their fingers. Good luck, my friend,  you've got a long way to go …… 

Running a marathon is anything but instant gratification.  There’s a big misconception I wish I could eradicate about running marathons.  Just because I ran one once upon a time, doesn't mean I can do it again.

Or thought of in a different way, no matter how experienced I may be at falling out of a tree, whenever I do it it still hurts!

The concept of instant gratification simply doesn't exist for marathons.  It’s impossible to think today “I will run a marathon tomorrow” and then go do it – without hurting! After months of training guess what ... it still hurts!!  Its just a question of how fast you run and how much it hurts. That’s what training helps with. 

I often hear people say “I wish I could run a marathon” or “one day I will run a marathon” (probably just as often as “you’re crazy”).  Well if you say that, just forget all about instant gratification ……

I loved this cartoon. I wish it was that easy!

2. Revenge

This week I heard some really different motivation for running this year’s Boston Marathon:  “It’s the best form of revenge I could think of”.

Wow – that made me think.

Yes, running it in revenge – and fundraising for it – is great, I initially thought. (I know of some people who have raised money for cancer from a run and crossed the line triumphantly in memory of another person, but that’s a bit different.)

But it’s instant gratification: I run the marathon and I fix the revenge issue. Unfortunately its not that easy. The issue of addressing terrorism goes on – and will take a marathon to overcome.

Option 1.

Option 2.
Better.

Option 3.
My choice!

3. Fun

Yesterday my daughter and I ran the Color Run together. It’s promoted as the “happiest 5km on the planet”. And it was. 5km around the Australian Grand Prix circuit was great fun – nothing else. Everyone was deliriously happy. It was an amazing cacophony of people amped up with happiness. Wow. 
The power of happiness wins.

That's us in the white tshirts ...

Doing a 'snow angel' in the blue zone (happiness makes you do crazy things!)

Told you you'd recognise our white tshirts!  Crazy fun!
Maybe they have got this "happiest run" thing right.

So run because its fun. Run because its hard. But there’s no value in revenge – running or not. And the same goes for instant gratification:  if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. 

Run for others. Run for yourself. Run.

What do you run for?