The 2008 Summer Olympics are winding down today. Last night we saw the men’s marathon and a week before the women’s. Both marathons were examples of individuals being willing to risk everything to achieve their ultimate goal.
In the women’s race, Romania’s Constantina Tomescu surged near the half-way point and opened a significant lead. The chase group, including many of the pre-race favorites let her go thinking that she would blow up and they would reel her in before the finish. That didn’t happen. By the final 2 miles the lead was still 58 seconds and the chase pack had fallen apart. Constantina struggled in the final mile, but was able to hold the lead and win the gold. Zhou and Ndereba left it till too late as they made up a staggering 34 seconds in the final 1.2 miles. If the race was 27 miles, there likely would have been a different winner.
In the men’s race, Sammy Wanjiru won Kenya’s first gold medal in the men’s Olympic marathon in record time. Early in the race (in fact, in the first mile) the Kenyans and the Ethiopians pushed the pace. The commentators spent the next 20 miles of coverage telling us how it was unlikely they could hold that pace in the warming and humid Beijing morning. Many other race favorites chose to run a more conservative pace and were certainly hoping to run the lead group down as they faltered in the final miles. That didn’t happen. In fact, Wanjiru pulled away from Moroccan contender Jaouad Gharib with 15 minutes remaining, and entered the National Stadium unchallenged and to a standing ovation. The jubiliant Kenyan raised his arms in triumph, and, with the crowd cheering him on, proceeded to sprint around the track and break the tape in record time (2:06:32). While several of the more conservative runners did move up considerably as the race progressed and they passed fading front runners, no one could keep up with or catch Wanjiru.
Some times it pays to go farther, faster, harder, stronger than you can or should be able to. Sometimes you have to risk everything to win big. Conservative is fine if you are investing your retirement account, but not if you are racing. It doesn’t matter if it is the Olympics or your personal “A” race for the season, you have to push past reasonable and controlled and into the realm of miracles if you want to find out what you are made of.