Some Thoughts on the Olympic Women’s Marathon

Anyone watch the Olympic marathon this past Saturday? I am assuming there will be a resounding YES with this group!

It was a very exciting race to say the least. Lots of back and forth and eventually, an unlikely winner. As I watched this, a number of thoughts came to the forefront. Allow me to share them:

• The Chinese woman who won the bronze medal trained on average. . . get ready for this one. . . 750 miles per month! That is around a marathon a day. Amazing to say the least.
• The best announcer for these types of events is Al Troutwig. He correctly stated, “The marathon is divided into two equal parts — the first 20 miles and the last 6.2 miles” How true is this.
• American Deena Castor unfortunately dropped after around 2 or 3 miles with a foot injury. It goes to show that even the very best can never be sure about the marathon distance. It is a bear. Very sad to train for years and years, only to drop out after around 15 minutes.
• On a lighter note, the Budweiser commercial with Hank the Horse is one of the all times bests.
• Finally, the Romanian woman who won gold was such an inspiration and really taught a huge lesson for everyone. She broke away from the pack with around 10-12 miles to go and raced to finish with a big win. One of the messages that came through is that when you go for it. . . I mean REALLY go for it. . . you can fall on your face OR in this case,  achieve gold. Conversely, when you sit and wait and think and try and wait some more, runners. . . and life. . . pass you by. Life is a risk. Going for something is a risk. Not participating is an even bigger one, except this one, unlike the others has NO rewards.