The doctor, writer and columnist of this Sheet Drauzio Varella recently experienced his first withdrawal from a marathon. At 82, he chose Berlin as the race of the year, his 26th marathon. He felt joint pain at km 25, he ran another five kilometers and, fearing that his condition would worsen and that it would “end his running career”, he stopped.
His report in Folha was objective, as usual, and readers congratulated him on his decision. João Lourenço dos Anjos, for example, said that “in any sport or age it is important to know and respect your own limits”.
In a video posted on social media, Drauzio was more eloquent. “It’s too bad of you to make this decision. I didn’t come here [a Berlim] to run 30 km, I came to run 42. In a marathon, if you stop at 30 or 5 it’s the same.”
Even for a doctor, and even for someone who already saw himself having a “femoral head prosthesis”, it was not an easy decision, as it never is when you are in one of those races that coaches call “target”, it is preceded by weeks of training and, as in Drauzio’s case, it also involved the on-site presence of granddaughters and a small entourage of content producers.
There is an imaginary in amateur running, perhaps imported from high-performance sport, that makes this decision similar to a confession of complete failure. Loser, mongrel, loser thing.
In contrast, coach Ademir Paulino, who maintains a racing consultancy in São Paulo, sees “maturity” in Drauzio’s decision.
Ademir, former world champion in aquathlon (biathlon with swimming and running), aborted an already financed trip to Auckland, New Zealand, to compete in another world championship after suffering an ankle injury that could possibly worsen.
As a teacher he is not always able to transfer this prudence. In disagreement with his guidance, one of his students even ran a marathon with a recently fractured foot.
“There is a lot of pressure on social media, she wanted to call herself a marathon runner, she took the robofoot on the trip, she walked atrociously in the race, finished in more than six hours, but she did it.” The cost of the adventure was staying away from gravel for a whole year.
Ademir, who spoke to the column from Chicago, where he took 25 students for the marathon held this Sunday (12), says that the Brazilians lack the consistency that he saw in many amateur runners in the race, who had times worthy of professionals. “We can’t deliver this. When we need to intensify training, people miss a week, travel, prefer to attend social events.”
Marathon man Nilson Lima, 72 years old and with 416 marathons and ultras under his belt – the last one done eight days ago in Skopje, North Macedonia –, has never abandoned a race that has already started. But he’s stopped running.
In Boston, in 2021, he says he experienced his biggest nightmare in the Charles River Marathon, also run by this columnist, making his debut there as a pacer.
“I ran and walked for 4 hours and 45 minutes with my thigh completely bandaged due to a contracture in the posterior region. My biggest fear was that in a week I would run the New York Marathon, and I wouldn’t miss that one. My physiotherapist says that I am the best person to recover from an injury actively.”
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