I will admit I am fascinated by other sports.
Ok – when I say fascinated it isn’t ever about doing other sports – I am not very coordinated as it is nor am I the best ‘rule follower’ but that is a story best left for another day!
My fascination comes with the culture surrounding a sport and for this weekend: it’s long distance running.
My son-in-law J. is running his first half marathon and we are all pretty excited. He is excited because he wants to compete. My daughter is excited because he got free stuff in his little goody bag. (We have a long-standing and time honoured tradition in our family of loving “free”) I am really excited because I saw a young woman today wearing running shoes with fuschia sequins which I now covet!!
If you ever needed to know – marathon could also be the term used to describe the number of activities a runner needs to do before ever hitting the course.
From the picking up of the kit with all of the stuff you need; to hitting a local dollar store to get a disposable rain poncho, gloves and hat; to attending a Friendship Fun Run this morning hosted by a downtown Toronto Running Room location – it’s been a busy couple of days.
It was at the Friendship Fun Run that I got a dose of inspiration. Now, please understand that I am not now nor will I ever be a person who would use “Fun” and “Run” in the same sentence. That said, they advertised that would have snacks. ( I’m in. )
As my daughter, J and I were standing around trying to look we belonged – wait – my daughter and I were trying to blend in – J already looks the part – I noticed lots of people wanting to have their picture taken with a wee, elderly, Indian man. I tried not to stare. I was trying to figure out why this man was attracting so much attention?? And then it came to me: This was Fauja Singh – the sensational centenarian marathon runner who created such a stir at last year’s Scotiabank Marathon by finishing the 42km course at 100 years old.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/10/16/fauja-singh-toronto-marathon321.html
This morning Mr. Singh was introduced in the Running Room store to a great round of applause. We were told that he was going to participate tomorrow in the 5K as a “Victory Lap” and that he was going to run the 3K Friendship Run with everybody else just for, well, fun.
J finished the 3K quickly this morning and as we were walking back towards the car, we noticed a group of runners coming towards us. I was able to fumble with my Blackberry quickly enough to snap this picture of Mr. Singh(in the yellow shirt) making his way back to the store.
The CBC story says that he didn’t start running until about 20 years ago. Wow!
If I do the math correctly – I still have another 30 years or so to decide.