Zeno thought of the Achilles paradox. If a faster runner is trying to overtake a slower runner in front of him, he will first have to move to the midpoint between his position and the slower runner’s position. From there he has to reach the new midpoint between him and the one in front. And so on. He will never reach the slower runner in front. Or it can be explained like this:
“There are a series of philosophical problems known as Zeno’s paradoxes. One of them says that as you attempt to leave a room, you must first reach the midpoint between you and the exit. As you continue toward the doorway, you will again reach the new midpoint, with each successive attempt to exit the room requiring you to reach the next midpoint. The paradox is that you should be unable to leave a room because you can infinitely halve the distance to the exit without ever getting out of the room.”
― J. Russell Ramsay, The Adult ADHD Tool Kit: Using CBT to Facilitate Coping Inside and Out
No matter how non-competitive we purport to be, a running group attracts a fair amount of crazies who take running seriously and they end up running in official street races.
As a group we want to support even these deviant individuals. However, being the audience in a street race is almost as boring as being the audience in a bicycle race (basically the same, only faster). You stand at the curb, you wait a long time until the front runners run past, you clap and cheer, and then you wait an inordinate amount of time until your friends run, walk or limp past. You clap and cheer and possibly jeer. And the excitement is over in less than two minutes. Then you either go home or you move towards the finish where you find your friends, console them and take them home. As I said: boring.
We decided that was just not us. We formed a PuB team (that’s “Pompom & Beer” although we are not adverse to any associations with literal pubs), dressed up, armed ourselves with lots of noise makers and nutritional supplements (i.e. beer) and devised a cunning plan so that we could see our friends at least three times on the road of the Frankfurt Halfmarathon by cleverly navigating between various locations.
And then we decided not to stand around being bored and freezing while waiting for our friends – we started to cheer everybody. The runners carried their first names on their numbers and how we cheered for Rebecca and Beate and Gert and Ingo and all those other runners we didn’t know! And they loved it! Particularly the slower runners for whom it was all about participating smiled back, they clapped for us, some even did little capers. After the race we were approached by a couple of runners who thanked us and told us that our support had nudged them on.
And we enjoyed ourselves so much that we have since cheered at the Frankfurt Marathon and the Frankfurt Iron Man. The latter was particularly fun because many competitors displayed their nationality and we became truly international. To this day I can cheer in Hebrew!
The photos are all from our first outing at the Frankfurt Halfmarathon in 2017.
The front runners are approaching.
They were so fast the picture is blurred.
And we never even got their names
We got a smile for “only 20 k to go”!
Those were the more serious runners.
Concentrated on their time rather than the experience.
The slower ones took notice. The lion even lost traction!
Fortune (or luck) is with the brave. Make your own connection with that beaming, strong, brave mother taking part in the Frankfurt Half-marathon event and the motto of a traditional student’s fraternity.
Linked to One Word Sunday: luck. More lucky pictures, can be found here.
pictures imperfect blog 