A matter of will

Caught a few highlights from the Boston Marathon yesterday, and, like most of you, a couple of thoughts immediately popped into my head.

The first thought was "What's wrong with these people?"

The second thought was "Why don't they quit? 'Cause I'd quit."

Which is another way of saying marathon runners are different from the rest of us, in the sense that they are superior human beings. First of all, they don't even blink at the idea of running 26 miles, 385 yards, up hills and down dales, without stopping. Second of all, they will do it even in less than optimum conditions, which is what happened in Boston yesterday.

What happened was temperatures in the mid-30s, a muscular headwind and icy rain blowing sideways in their faces. This sounded like so much fun it made me immediately want to run right out and start training.

OK. So it didn't.

What it did, or should have, is make us marvel again at the limitless reserves of will human beings can summon when they're properly motivated. This includes the women's winner, Desiree Linden, who not only conquered the appalling conditions but actually went to the lead on the most infamous part of the course, the appropriately named Heartbreak Hill. And it includes the women's runnerup, Sarah Sellers, a nurse-anesthetist from Tucson of whom hardly anyone had heard.

This is because Boston was only her second marathon. Like, ever.

And remember: She's from Tucson. So she probably didn't train a whole lot in 36-degree rain with windchills that must have hovered somewhere between Damn! and I Can't Feel My Face.

Of course, there is a possibility that might have been as much a motivator as a deterrent. Like, maybe Sellers just wanted to get the damn thing over with.

I say this because, back when I was a kid who could chew gum and walk at the same time only sporadically, I, too, was a runner. OK, so I was a "runner" only in the loosest definition of the term. But I did run cross country as a high school freshman, albeit very slowly.  And I distinctly remember the last meet I ever ran, because the conditions were not great.

Mind you, they weren't as miserable as Boston yesterday. But it was 39 degrees and spitting snow, so it wasn't springtime in Aruba, either.

In any event, I've always felt that was why I ran the fastest time of my life that day -- "fastest," of course, being a relative term. Because all I remember now about that meet was being chilled to the bone, and wanting desperately to get it over with so I could crawl back in my sweats and get out of the wind.

So, yeah. Maybe that element was at work for Sarah Sellers yesterday.

On the other hand ...  Second place in the Boston? In only her second marathon? In what amounted to the April version of a nor'easter?

Superior human beings. Superior, I tell you.