Seven Reasons to Run a Marathon

The Experience

The road is long and in that 2 to7 hours feels like a lifetime of highs and lows. Standing, waiting in a crowd swirling with colours and ethnicities. Everyone will be running for different reasons; to prove themselves, for the challenge, weight loss, transcendence, you name it. Striving to break that hour mark or simply finish. The marathon is one of those experiences in life that you will always carry with you from the starting line onward. Look back on in life and feel a true sense of accomplishment.

Overcoming Limitations

So many people couldn’t imagine ever running a marathon in their lives. Even though constantly we are being shown how truly limitless the human potential is. The other week a friend of mine with cerebral palsy ran for 12 hours and at the moment the 3100 Mile Race is taking place, where runners are clocking up back to back marathons for weeks on end. A marathon means not only covering 26.2 miles but also overcoming doubts, fears and limitations, and makes anything we want to achieve in life tangible.

The Spiritual Benefits

Have you ever met a great athlete or an Olympian? They have a certain presence, which is both inspiring and captivating. They seem to radiate determination, perseverance and concentration, all qualities they have developed through years of training and discipline. Marathon running too requires those same inner qualities, and no matter what level you are at, the marathon is one of those events which you always have to draw off a deeper source.

Improved Health and Fitness

The physical benefits of running are countless, and running is histories oldest, simplest and surest way to gaining improved fitness. Having a strong, fit and healthy body is a real asset. By training and going out for long runs, a lot of dynamism is bought into the physical which makes getting up in the mornings a lot easier and strengthens the immune system.

Self Transcendence

"Regardless of who wins on the sports ground, each one should try to excel in his own life by competing with himself and going forward according to his own capacity to his destined goal. In this way each individual will all the time make progress and achieve greater and greater perfection. True happiness comes only from our increasing sense of perfection which we can achieve only through self-transcendence."

Excerpt from The Outer Running and the Inner Running by Sri Chinmoy.

The Human Race

The marathon itself is really the perfect metaphor for life; covering a long journey, meeting new people, encountering challenges and braving the elements. Many parallels can be drawn between running and living, as well as the marathon race and the human race. By running a marathon, amidst continuous movement and effort, it somehow creates a window into life and puts our life journey a little more into perspective.

Runners are Smilers

Running (just like eating chocolate) releases serotonin, a chemical that makes you feel happy. Running also clears the mind and is often the best thing to do to let some steam off if you’re not in a good space. Nothing feels better then fulfilling your goals doing the training for a marathon and running the race is truly admirable.

THE GOAL IS WON

Your days of orphan-sorrows are behind you and not beside you.
Why, then, do you helplessly cry?
Your days of excellence-joys are ahead of you and not beside you.
Why, then, do you not immediately run and declare:
THE GOAL IS WON.

- Sri Chinmoy