Why oh why...take 2

So post 1 was devoted to "why oh why do we blog". Post 2 is to be devoted to something 33,999 other people can related to right now: why oh why do we do marathons? On Sunday I did the London marathon. I trained pretty hard and ran better than I expected. But I'm in agony now. So why did I do it?

And the answer to this is that I'm not really sure. I think people do it for different reasons. I read the other day that the average age of the competitors was 41. 41! Just the age where you'd think people were settling into middle-age, struggling to pay school fees and dealing with their renegade children and most likely evaluating their work-life as well as home-life. Surely life is tough enough? So where's the logic to run?

For me (as a spritely 26 year-old) it was all about the challenge. The process went something like this:
1. My wife works for a charity. One of the girls she works with had put her name down to do it, and decided she didn't want to. She therefore asked my wife if she knew anyone who'd want to do it.
2. My wife said "Chris might"
3. She suggested it to me and I told her I'd train for 2 weeks. At that point I'd evaluate 1. how my body was going and 2. how my commitment was going
4. 2 weeks on I'd been training and figured I'd started the challenge so I couldn't very well stop
5. Turned up on start line thinking "it can't be that bad"
6. Spent the following 26.2 miles later realising "it can be that bad"

So I'm not sure that's an inspiring story for anyone. But that's how I fell in. Was it worth it? My answer now is yes. My answer at mile 23 the other day was not so resounding. Would I do it again? No. However, a little voice has started up in the back of my mind telling me there's a difference between someone who's run a marathon and a marathon runner.

Again, the prospect of a challenge presents itself...