I don’t know about you but when I plan international travel, one thought that definitely does not cross my mind is, “…and while I’m there I think I’ll run a marathon.”
I do have an acquaintance who travels internationally to run marathons for fame and fortune but his agent makes sure the package he is offered includes first class airfare, five star hotels and the wife and kids. But then of course he still has to run the better part of 27 miles.
Washington-based Cami Ostman author of Second Wind subtitles her book, One Woman’s Midlife Quest to Run Seven Marathons on Seven Continents, which instantly made me head-snap a picture of super-jock. She’s not. Ostman might more accurately have added a little visual appeal to we of more modest enthusiasms — One Woman’s Midlife Quest to Run Seven Marathons on Seven Continents –Very Slowly, Often Last and Usually Staying in Hostels.
Ostman never considered herself a runner until her friend and future spouse Bill nagged her to give it a try as midlife therapy to ease the segue from a bad marriage and not coincidentally, exodus from eleven years of life in an intensely male -dominant religious community. He enthusiastically exhorts her on what is really a prelude to a first date, that running, “…really helped me clear my mind and get in touch with my feelings during a difficult time…I ran until it hurt more on the outside than on the inside. You should try it. It works.” Here’s where I started to really like Ostman. She thinks about this for a minute, decides she is actually looking for less pain not more pain, and answers, “ How about getting together sometime for a movie instead?”
Ostman doesn’t stand a chance as a non-runner if she hangs around with Bill and predictably gets caught up in the zen of setting a challenge that will represent her freedom from the past and her strength for the future. For some reason, despite her Not-A-Winner racing pace, she chooses to run a marathon. Soon after that, she insanely agrees (Bill again) to run one on each of the seven continents. Apparently this is a surprisingly common goal for traveling marathoners many of whom sign up with specialist Marathon Tours (who figure as protagonists in Ostman’s story) and others like Ostman and Bill who just launch out on their own.
The rules are no duh simple—complete a marathon on each continent. Ostman decides that can be at a jog, a run, a walk or a crawl in an organized race in the US, Canada, South Africa, Australia, Panama City, Rio, Chile, Japan, Prague, or back and forth between huts over ice in Antartica and doesn’t require a finisher’s medal but it’s especially sweet when one appears . She graphically details her personal challenges while running (blood, sweat, tears and Tampax) although her aim is only to finish, and her competition just herself as she starts at the back of the pack and stays at the back of the pack. When you think about it, her marathon at a slow five plus hours may be far more taxing than those who confidently zoom home in under three. She often finds herself running with her loudly vocal Inner Bitch and Inner Wisdom who duel it out as the kilometers roll on. Once or twice God handily shows up to holler “Turn left!”.
So how is this a travel book? Curiously it is in an almost genre-free category. Second Wind takes us (very, very slowly) through the back roads and main streets of towns and cities around the world. We don’t “see” the guidebook sites but we certainly “feel” the iconic culture sometimes through the palsy lens of ‘sister cities’, we get an insider’s view at marathoning across the globe. We walk away actually wondering if we too could just gently jog our way through not quite 27 miles of eye-catching scenery in choose-your-own –adventure sites in every continent on planet earth.
Wandering Bookluster–Meg Robbins 4/2011