Have you heard about it? The Boston Marathon has been canceled. For the first time in 124 years they will not have the Boston Marathon. There is hope. They are going to have a virtual marathon. Now that’s something I can get excited about.
Three years ago my son ran a marathon. I was proud of his accomplishment. Well, I got the crazy idea that I could do something like a marathon. A year of training and I walked a half marathon. It was a tough five hours and 20 minutes. That was two years ago. I haven’t made any attempt at doing that again.
Now this chance to do a virtual marathon has come up. That’s all I need.
Virtual exercise is the greatest. My wife and I used to do virtual yoga in the mornings. While we were getting dressed for work we would have the television turned on to the channel where the skinny little woman in the funky yoga suit would do all sorts of strange stretches.
We would watch her use her rubber limbs to do these impossible exercises. “Point your toe to the sky; inhale: exhale.” We did this for almost a year. We could watch for half an hour and head for work refreshed, relaxed and filled with positivity. We had plans to drink four gallons of water flavored with two drops of lemon juice. There were all sorts of vegetables that we planned to eat. I took this virtual yoga to all is making believe. It was wonderful.
I think this virtual marathon to be the same thing. Now don’t think I’m going to be greedy about this. I’m not planning to set some kind of record doing this marathon. I plan to do the marathon in five hours. That’s not a blistering pace. Since this is virtual I don’t plan to overexert myself.
My walking partners plan to get in on this too. Why wouldn’t you if you’re doing it virtually? Don’t worry that I’m only going to sit in the recliner and pretend. I plan to wear running shoes. For the sake of verisimilitude I will wear my usual attire of shorts and t-shirt. It will be just like the real thing.
Don’t think this is just tongue in cheek stuff. I still walk in the mornings. I’m just not planning to get into a yearlong training regimen. With all the virtual schooling, working and meetings this training for a virtual marathon will be a breeze. Thankfully, I won’t have to walk for five ours every Saturday for a month and then sweat out four gallons of water with two drops of lemon juice mixed in.
This sounds so easy I might try something different too. If I had some discipline I might have the discipline to start taking virtual classes and get an MBA or some other degree. That is a problem. With some discipline I could do a real marathon. Just like the problem of getting disciplined enough to read or study, I’m going to wait until the virtual marathon is over and then try to work on something for real.
