Prior to this year’s Olympics Paula Radcliffe had won every marathon she has ever finished… but she did not finish 4 years ago in the Olympics. This year she had a stress fracture 3-4 months ago and it did not appear she would even be able to run in the Olympics. She did everything she could to train… without running. Then after only about 6 runs… she ran in the Olympic marathon.
I don’t know what to feel about that. She is almost super-human enough to pull it off… she DID finish… albeit a few minutes off the winning time, but I would have thought she would have known that it would not end well. Perhaps she felt pressure to finish because she dropped out in the preceding Olympics… I don’t know… but I do know that what she tried was a bit beyond human limits. Heck… she did finish!!! And that alone is amazing. Finished well in fact… but not ‘Paula’ well. There is no doubt that with any type of training and injury free she would have won.
Part of me feels that was amazingly gutsy to try. Part of me feels she didn’t have as much respect for the marathon as she should have… but she is after all… the greatest marathoner on the planet… so I guess she has earned the right to make that call. It still boggles my mind how well she did with so little training. AMAZING. As if popping out a baby and winning a marathon shortly thereafter wasn’t enough. =)
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