On Tuesday John Mccain continued to pull away from our marathon man, Mike Huckabee. Huckabee who has previously run New York marathon and Little Rock Marathon and now training for Bostone marathon, must surely be familiar with the agony of trying to catch up with a runner who is fast ahead of you.
At last year’s Nairobi marathon, there was this unorthodox runner ahead of me, everytime he got at a hilly section, he would run up in a zig zag manner. I tried to catch up with him to ask him why the zig zag but everytime I got up the hill he disappeared ahead. I never caught up with the runner and at the finish, its never easy to find one soul in a mass of 15,000 +. I still dont know whether running zig zag saves energy.
Deena Kastor Lesson on how to run from behind
If Huckabee needs a lesson on how to run from behind he needs to look at inspiring performance of American, Deena Kastor, the marathon bronze winner at 2004 Athen Olympics games.
I remember watching the event live on TV as the quartet of Japan’s Mizuki Noguchi, Kenya’s Catherine Ndereba and Ethiopia’s Elfenesh Atemu lead for most of the distance. Only a brave man would have bet against this three running away with the three medals.
But as the runners neared the finish it was obvious Ethiopia’s Atemu was falling a victim of the humidity that had earlier forced the race favourite Paula Radcliffe to retire.
After Atemu ran out of gas, Deena couldnt believe her luck as she zoomed past Atemu to snatch the bronze medal.
The moral of the story for Huckabee, Luck favours the prepared. Keep marching, you never know your rival might trip.
For a bio on Deena Kastor visit her official site www.deenakastor.com
Filed under: inspiring stories
