You already know everything about last Sunday’s champions’ marathon in New York, thanks to the complete coverage provided by our colleagues in the Podisti.net editorial team. What perhaps you missed, however, were the attempts of some characters to leap into the limelight at all costs. Here are three examples, strictly without providing their names, as we do not want to contribute to making them “famous”.
The first case concerns a guy who ran up to Central Park wearing special shoes and we are not talking about some very modern model with a carbon core, but rather about slippers from a famous brand. These are Crocs. For those who don’t know them, you can find a photo on the cover. It took him 2h51′. I read some media that talk about a “world record” with these shoes. I say, but record of what? Just a practical way to damage muscles and skeleton, as for the brain, we may be wrong, but it already seems damaged to us. On the other hand, if he had run with normal shoes, having a personal best of over 2h30, good weather, for goodness sake, but who would have run away? Nobody.
Another “phenomenon” was the boy who showed up at the start on the Verrazzano Bridge shirtless. And the bib? How did he attack him? Simple, like all runners he used safety pins, only instead of pinning them to the shirt you stick them under the skin, as you can always see in the photo above. Andy Warhol said that “In the future everyone will be famous in the world for 15 minutes” and he, impatient to wait his turn, forced the timing. Not happy, he ran the first half in 1h11′, trying to stay in the chasing group, to get some television shots, only to then miserably explode in the second half, covered in 1h17′. So much for the positive split. On the other hand, with 2h38 you arrive in three hundredth place and remain in the shadow.
We close with the last classified, also celebrated by various media outlets, because he has been participating in the 42 kilometers of the Big Apple consecutively for many years. Final time? Over ten hours, equal to an average of approximately 4 km per hour. 14 minutes per thousand. In short, a long and also slow walk, as you know well that without involving professional walkers, you can travel much faster, even if you walk. If he had been in Philippides’ place, he would have arrived in Athens after the outbreak of another war… But was this one the case? No. Is it healthy? No. Did it take you so long because you were injured? But then, wasn’t it worth going back to the hotel since you were far from the finish line? Did you miss the “?record?” Certainly the arrival staff would have been happy to unpack earlier.
Rodolfo Lollini – Podisti.net editorial team
