Comment by jfengel
12 hours ago
The winner is doing a completely different sport from me. I never even see the winners at a marathon. They are long gone by the time I get to the start line, and they've gone home by the time I finish.
There are age group leaders as well. That's perhaps a hundred people, of the tens of thousands running next to me.
Marathons are about running my own pace. The fact that there exists a world record is a piece of trivia.
> Marathons are about running my own pace. The fact that there exists a world record is a piece of trivia.
I do find the record fascinating. If I take the 5k, 10k and half-marathon world records and double them then I can run faster than that. But for the marathon I'm a long way off. There's something uniquely difficult about it because it's not just going for a run, but fuelling and training your gut and pacing. I've only done 2 marathons, but I do find them uniquely difficult so for me its extra special to see how fast a human can do it in.