what’s wrong with endurance sports? Well…

…they’re like postage stamp collectors; a sense of gruelling yet mundane insanity hangs around them. Maybe, as a kudos-loving, Hoka-donning, Strava addict, I am biassed, but I believe that long-distance events are mis-charactered. They deserve more.

By most people, endurance events are ignored. Cricket, to some people, is a boring sport; snooker, to others, is worse; endurance events, however, aren’t deemed worthy of the debate. The idea that these events aren’t for spectators is so widely held that to make such a statement would be considered a waste of time. Even at the Olympics, an event where the most obscure sporting events are given their time in the sun, endurance events lack oomph. When the athletes hit the bell, a feint heartbeat of attention jolts the public from their slumber, a murmur of attention stirs to life for a dash to the line, only be discarded again before the arrival of 4th. Once every 4 years , these historic engaging sports garner true public attention for just sixty seconds.

I refute this apathy. In a world of eternal stimulation and waning attention spans, it is the simplicity of long-distance events which make them beautiful.