A Work In Progress

Tonight I ate dinner at my grandparents house with Emily P. We went over for a farewell to my Paw paw's hamburgers and to write our itinerary for Nerinx Hall's pre-season meeting we're having this wednesday. If you don't already know, Emily is Nerinx Hall's new head swimming coach and when she was told she could choose her assistant coach, naturally, she chose yours truly, me. I'd like to think of us as "The Dream Team". Anyway, while we were eating dinner at my grandparents tonight we got talking about running with my Paw paw. He used to be a big time runner. I'm talking running marathons all the time, St. Louis, Chicago, Boston... any marathon. He held the record for his age group in the St. Louis marathon. Yes, he was good. All of this I already knew though but tonight I found out really, just how crazy-awesome my grandfather was (and probably still is). He has ran a total of 115 miles at one time! Obviously it wasn't non stop but it just so happens that there is an event held in Cape Girardeau of all places that is a 24 hour run/walk. Apparently crazies come out and see how far they can run in 24 hours! He ate dinner and would walk a little bit and even changed shoes at one point, how amazing. And get this, it was around a track! He circled a track for 24 hours! Now I can't help but wonder who the hell counted these peoples laps because if they had to do it themselves that would be awful. I can barely keep count past one thousand yards when I'm swimming let alone 115 miles of running! Now that is an achievement. My grandfather has also made me question the integrity of the sport itself, long distance running, such as a marathon. Now a days people only do it for completion and I have upmost respect for that. My two my swim was for completion but what about time? Pushing your self to be the best? Making a commitment to the sport and the culture that comes with it. It's almost become a trend to finish a marathon. Apparently back in the day it was for time and the times to qualify were harder then than they are now! Now, in 2009, with all the people just completing a marathon it's going to become a norm. It could be seen as artwork. Printmaking for instance, you have 100 prints of an image as opposed to five prints of another, which will be worth more, more meaningful? The one that doesn't have as many made, it brings the value up. So if most people complete a marathon, where is the meaning? I would hope that it is internal because to the outer world now a days it's not as big of a deal. Or is it? Who knows. I know one thing though, swimming is for me and i like watching running from the sidelines!