It’s not the marathon I can’t stand, it’s the endless social media bragging beforehand
THE email arrives earlier every year. Somewhere between readers kindly pointing out a typo in yesterday’s newsletter (I still wake up in cold sweats thinking about “guiltedged”) and PRs breathlessly informing me that one-in-four British couples disagree over room temperature, it reads: “We have some spaces for the London marathon. Would you like one? First come, first served.” Phew. It’s not a Vietnam War-style draft, then.
To be clear, I have no ideological aversion to other people running long distances for charity. I’ve made generous (got to be your own PR these days) donations to friends racing for a multitude of good causes on Sunday. And I’m happy to. Besides, I’d rather pay for people I like to be in gut-wrenching pain around mile 23 than be asked to contribute to a sponsored skydive or because someone is climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. I’m not going to pay for you to do something fun.
The issue isn’t the race itself, but the months of Strava screenshots that precede it. Throughout the winter, social media is plastered with squiggly orange lines of practice runs alongside suspiciously curated selfies and self-deprecating statements about how they’re not sure they can do it.
Real gluttons for punishment ought to search LinkedIn to find painfully earnest posts about how running the marathon is really a lesson in leadership. “A leader who neglects self-care may struggle to guide others effectively, highlighting the interconnectedness of personal and collective flourishing.” This is a real quote, by the way.
Some people, let’s face it, are unbearable. The old joke about how do you know if someone is from Yorkshire (they’ll tell you) applies double to marathon runners. The conversation always ends with a lesson about glucose levels, which I think is a sugar, but am always too fearful to ask, lest it lead to further discussion about the inner workings of the small intestine.
And so, as I doom-scroll past these pictures of health, I seek out proof that the marathon is, in fact, bad for you. Surely it causes arthritis (no evidence) or kidney damage (mixed) or most gruesomely of all, the loss of a toenail. Some point down the rabbit hole I come across research from the New England Journal of Medicine which studied 10.9 million long-distance runners in the United States between 2000 and 2010 and found 59 suffered cardiac arrest, of which 42 were fatal.
Out of an abundance of caution, I will state for the record I am rooting for everyone to finish and live. But the question lingers: what drives people to run so far? Many are motivated by raising money for causes that mean something to them. But this is a deeply weird way to fund important charities.
For others, it is the sense of achievement. Or to finally get fit. Or because, like Mount Everest, it is simply “there”. What unites them all is the pursuit of delayed gratification. And then I suddenly get it. The joy of a marathon isn’t in those final moments, but the months of training, running, stretching and lying in ice baths. It is one long marshmallow test.
Still, if like me, this Sunday will be a day of rest, take inspiration from my Evening Standard colleagues who have staked out the best restaurants and beer gardens in London from which to cheer on runners. Securing a free table on a sunny spring day is no less an achievement than finishing a marathon.
Indeed, if this were a LinkedIn post, I would have to call it a profound act of leadership.
WEEKS of patient prodding by Conservative Campaign Headquarters to blow the Angela Rayner story wide open, months of monetary tightening by the Bank of England to bring inflation down, and for what? Instead of a rare prime ministerial curtain call, tickling Labour discomfort over its deputy leader’s tax affairs and crowing that the plan is working on inflation, Rishi Sunak was forced to talk about Liz Truss. Again. Of course, Sunak is not one week of positive press away from overturning a 20-point polling deficit. Voters have longer memories than that. But by my calculations, every time Truss opens her mouth, the eventual (post-election) Tory comeback is postponed by a further three months.
Truss knows this, of course.
But she has a book to plug and a set of apparent beliefs to recapitalise. One must respect the hustle, if nothing else. • Jack Kessler is the Evening Standard’s chief leader writer and author of the West End Final newsletter
The old joke about how you know if someone is from Yorkshire (they’ll tell you) applies doubly to runners