Grumpy Bastard hates marathons

It’s exam season again. I hope you’re all excited for the downs that accompany it. At the moment, the main stress for me does not come from exams, but from the fact that as of Monday we have welcomed a new scaly skinned overlord into our midst. Nearly 1500 years after a lizard was slain on the 23rd of April by St. George Michael, the scaly bastards have been waiting to reclaim the date for their own kind. As soon as the human baby was plucked from Kate Middleton’s uterus, the newly formed foetus was devoured and its skin used for the latest addition to the Royal Brood.

In a lighter vein, this week around 30,000 idiots decided to test their physical endurance - and the NHS - by running the London Marathon.

I’m unsure if you’re aware of the original fable that spawned the sporting event known as the marathon, but it involved a lot of Persians being slaughtered on a beach by significantly fewer Greeks. and then some Athenian runner named Pheidippides jogged back to Athens to proclaim victory. Unfortunately for this particular herald, he was so overcome on arrival that his heart burst in his chest, dying just after climatically delivering his message.

A part of me wished he never ran the 26 miles to so the marathon didn’t exist. A larger part of me wishes that all those that ran the London Marathon actually have a similarly-important task, rather than simply wanting to brag about their achievements to the rest of us.

If I’m perfectly honest, I don’t understand the point of the exercise. People that run purport to do it for two reasons, the first being fitness, and the second being the moralistic goal of raising money for charity. I resent the first reason mostly because I believe it contributes to the superficial nature of our society, but also because running is so fucking boring. At least do a sport that you can do with other people and involves more than meaninglessly putting one foot in front of the other like a toddler learning to walk. As for the second excuse, I’m just as likely to donate to charity for someone running 26+ miles as I am to someone not doing any running at all – just ask the shits in the RSPCA. Essentially, it’s just yet another way of people proving their innate superiority over the rest of us mere mortals incapable of performing the same feat without mechanical assistance, or severe alcoholism.

I wish that they would go the extra mile and remove this irritating hobby from my sight.