The research is in. Running marathons could be bad for your marriage. Having run several, I can see why. The marathon requires hours on the road — lots of them. So much preparation, so many early mornings and weekends spent getting time on your legs. And then there’s the nutrition, the research, the consultations with the running coach, and the mind numbing conversation dissecting all the dull minutiae of your running with your hapless partner.
I would venture that the training for any endurance event is probably proportional to the state of the marriage. You could be running for a very long time, but the reason your marriage might suffer isn’t necessarily because of your time spent training. The study from the Bioengineering department at Trinity College Dublin showed that contrary to expectations of a so-called “runner’s high”, endurance athletes are more at risk of depression and anxiety than the base line in the population.
This also makes sense — the endurance athlete is basically an addict. You’re mostly grumpy and in constant thrall to the next high. But the thing any athlete will confirm is that running, cycling and swimming (often all three because the marathon is like a gateway drug to ever greater feats of physical endurance) is a great big virtue signal.
The more you run the better: across deserts, up mountains, in the snow, in the heat, overnight while hallucinating on a hundred miler — the possibilities are endless and endlessly expensive. You can ratchet up from running at dawn with a couple of thousand punters around Benoni lake to crossing Antarctica in the blink of an eye.
And throughout it all, your long-suffering spouse is compelled to cheer you on, because how wonderful are you? Yes, you’re technically absent from the joint project of your marriage, and pretty bleak when forced to stop running and be ‘present’. But, my God, you’re out there fighting demons, proving your grit, testing your metal and the fragile boundaries of your temporal body. You have the moral high ground because you’re pursuing health, mental wellbeing, and you’re totally defying mortality.
What can your lonely partner, who’s left holding the domestic bliss like a damp nappy, really complain about? What can they really hold against you, other than your chiselled abs and your personal best (PB)?
Still, these hard done spouses — who are competing with ephemeral gold medals for the attentions of their absentee athletes — should consider the alternatives before pulling the trigger because tucked away into the recesses of the perfectly normal and very nice marriage (at least according to the neighbours, children and, indeed, his wife), could be the Frenchman, Mr Dominique Pelicot, and his 50 accomplices who engaged in marathons of their own.
He is now behind bars for a long time (not long enough)m along with all the journalists, truck drivers, postmen, and electricians who also got their rocks off when raping the drugged out, snoring, and drooling Mrs Pelicot in her sleep. Mr Pelicot liked her submissive.
All I can say is, you truly have no idea what’s going on in your marriage. One day you think you’re happily retired in the South of France, looking forward to visits from your grandchildren, while your attentive husband explores his new found talents in the kitchen. Next, you realise he was lacing your supper with industrial strength sedatives and compiling a catalogue of video content not suitable for work.
Giselle Pelicot thought she was dying because she was so muddle-headed after 10 years of this. And no, it transpires it was not the menopause.
One of the rapists challenged his guilty verdict, and last week was given an extra year for his troubles. Consent, it seems, really does need to be given by the actual person being subjected to your ministrations, even if they have a husband who incited you to partake in a little (in bed) marathon session.
Mr Pelicot was also a committed long distance cyclist, a sporting endeavour Mrs Pelicot was proud of. He really did have incredible endurance and stamina for a dirty old codger. It’s a pity about his dark side.
I suppose none of us are the wiser when it comes to the strangers we’re married to. How well can you know anybody? You sign up for a lifetime of commitment to this joint project and bring yourself to it in the hope that what you see is what you get. But as with any endeavour involving the deeper reaches of the human heart, some of it remains bewilderingly opaque — even, I suspect, to the bearer of the heart.
If a marathon is the only thing that comes between you and full disclosure, I’d take it. Consider what the person is running away from — and you can be sure it’s not you. I’d argue though, that in the case of the Pelicots it would have been preferable if he’d ratcheted up his cycling and taken to the Trans Alps or any other multistage cycling challenge to work through his demons.
I’m sure he’d have been too exhausted and depressed then, to indulge all the rest of his kinks.
This article was first published in Sunday Times Lifestyle.
