Marathon Running

I have zero desire to run a marathon. I'm always surprised and impressed whenever I hear of someone who is training for a marathon or who has run a marathon. But I don't "get" it. I understand if you are a runner and especially someone who just runs marathons. Fine, it's an activity like anything else. They run marathons like I play soccer or basketball. What I don't understand is the desire for non-runners to run marathons. The attitude - I want to do it, so I can say I did it. Or, I want to do it to set a goal and train towards and accomplish. This has zero appeal to me. It seems similar to all the folks who go on Everest expeditions these days. Okay, you're going to climb the highest mountain it the world. I get the desire to reach for high human accomplishment. But the thing about Everest and marathons - TONS of people do these things all the time. Frankly, it isn't much of an accomplishment. If lots of regular, average people are able to accomplish it, is it really much of an achievement?

I suppose I was doing something similar earlier this year with my mile runs. And I didn't enjoy doing them. I'm surmising, however, I'd enjoy training and doing a marathon a whole lot less than doing the mile. In any case, I'll have no regrets on my death bed about not running a marathon. Believe me.