Why run a marathon?

Recently I was stationed for 9 hours on a golf cart at the corner of Larned and Rivard in downtown Detroit at mile 25 as 10,000 runners filtered past me during the Detroit Marathon.

As a member of the Detroit Marathon medical team, I provided medical care for runners, if they should need it. At mile 25, not many runners opt for medical care. They’ve pushed themselves to the brink by this point, where only 1 miles stands between them and finishing. I ran beside a man with blood streaming down his face after a fall, offering him help. “He wants to finish first,” his friend politely told me. 

Honestly, I get it. But my medical care partner for the day did not. This person was adamantly “not a runner.” 

As person after person ran past us, I tried to find the words to provide a rationale as to why these people would participate such a grueling event. Why they would do this to themselves, put themselves through this. The reason is so clear to me as a feeling, but the words are harder to find without sounding cliche, pretentious, or silly. I know in my soul why these people would attempt this marathon, even without guarantee to finish without a blood soaked face. Without the guarantee of finishing at all.

The magnitude of the accomplishment of running a marathon changes you, even if it doesn’t go the way you expected. I have run 2.5 marathons and none of them have gone “well.” In 2018, after finishing the Bayshore Marathon 14 minutes behind my goal, I felt proud. Happy, even. And I knew not many people would understand why. I had missed my goal by a long shot. I walked a lot during a race, something I never thought I would do. Runners passed me the entire race. Yet I count it as a very important experience in my life.  

Robert Browning wrote a poem about the first marathon, run by Greek soldier Phidippides to save Athens. (This poem inspired organizers of the modern day Olympics to include the marathon in the Games, so all marathoners owe credit, in part, to Browning.) The poem is long, and one part reads:

“Ran and raced: like stubble, some field which a fire runs through,

Was the space between city and city: two days, two nights did I burn

Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks.”

Yesterday I watched 10,000 people run farther than most people will ever attempt. A few cruised to PRs, most struggled, yet they all attempted. They embodied the words of Browning: They ran and raced in the space between the city, like fire through a field.

I can’t quite verbalize the “why” of running a marathon. But even if I never run another marathon, I will always understand the pursuit, the burning over the hills, up the dales, down pits and up peaks. 

Katie Noble is a Doctor of Physical Therapy, a journalist, and a runner. She enjoys empowering and supporting female runners with evidenced-based education.