It All Started on the Basketball Court

Reflections on My First Marathon

Ben B.
Ben B.
Jul 10, 2017 · 4 min read
Mad Marathon’s finish line.

Great speeches often start with a quote. Customarily, those quotes are taken from a famous book, a culture-shocking song, or a poem. I wanted to approach this text in the same way — starting it with a memorable, inspiring phrase. But all I could think of were the following three words: Just do it.

Of course, anyone in North America would connect those words with Nike’s infamous slogan. To me, however, those three words mean much more than corporate slang. They embody the discipline and approach two of my mentors taught me when I was younger. These mentors of mine were my basketball coaches in high school. One of them coached me during my first and fourth year of high school and the other during my second, third, and fifth year.

I was (and still am) an athlete inhibited by overwhelming questions. Whenever I made a mistake, I always wanted to know the whys, ifs, and buts. Intellectualization became my weapon of choice. Instead of learning from my mistakes, I hid behind questions without, well, just doing it.

Me saying hi to the camera.

Yesterday, I ran and completed my first marathon. I’ve been writing about the training process for weeks, now. Running started as a hobby and transformed itself into a project. The difference between both concepts may seem blurry. But the former embodies something from which one can derive pleasure. Like with reading, meditating, climbing, or playing chess, a hobby transmits pleasure into the hobbyist without asking anything in return.

A project, on the other hand, is far more encompassing. Through training for a marathon, I was sucking my close entourage into my endeavor. It wasn’t merely something I was doing for pleasure. It became a way of life. My family and friends could attest to this — if I didn’t run for two days in a row, my mind couldn’t focus. I needed my fix.

More than ten years ago, when I joined my high school basketball team, I was first introduced to this interesting distinction between hobby and project. My coaches instilled in my teammates and I a series of timeless principles and teachings that could never fully be applied to a mere hobby. We learned that laziness is not only damaging to others, but is also to our own selves. We understood the differences between collegiality and friendship. We appreciated that winning is so much less satisfying than the process of winning; and yet, if one was not met with the other, dissatisfaction surely ensued.

In short, basketball slowly became a life project upon which my development depended. Embedded in this relationship was a subtle quid pro quo. In other words, “I got what I put into it.”

What I experienced yesterday was exactly that. It was a fight between my impulses and my environment. Yes, the mountains of Vermont are beautiful and the air is crisp. Birds were singing throughout the course. My fellow runners and I couldn’t have asked for a nicer day. But the pain was, at times, excruciating. The endurance it requires is achievable and, yet, so demanding.

The dynamic between pain and pleasure, beauty and disgust, fear and focus was alive. It echoed throughout the experience, like the slow beat of a drum. I can recall my twenty-fifth mile vividly. I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. But I had to keep on going. So my mind commanded, and my body obeyed.

Insofar as I can draw a beginning and an end to my marathon training, I need acknowledge that it actually started a very long time ago. The seeds of this process were planted when I was eleven years old. I was, then, rather chubby and out of shape. The only things I had going for myself were my height, decent athleticism, and a passion for sports. Slowly but surely, my head got into the game of basketball, and my development started.

By running a marathon, I learned that life cannot be fragmented into discrete moments, independent from one another. It’s a long stroke of different colors and forms controlled by our minds and influenced by our environment. To understand and, most importantly, experience it, all one needs to do it to just do it.

Ben B.

Written by

Ben B.

Fier d'être québécois. Committed to making the world a healthier place. Family and friends first. Love, freedom, and progress, in that order.

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