Drinking With My Family While Running – Runner’s World

“They serve goblets of Bordeaux at the water stops,” I open, as my disbelieving audience looks down or away.

“It’s in France,” I continue, which helps, but compels some do-gooders to list other, less strenuous methods: “if what you really want is to kill yourself.”

“It’s called The Marathon des Châteaux du Médoc. They served a Bordeaux back in 1152 when Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henry, before he became the King of England.”

Impervious to my polite onlookers’ increasingly obvious social cues, I press on. I cannot help it; I’m a marathon bore.

I ran my first-ever marathon in far less glamorous Yonkers, New York, back in 1978 and liked it (if “like” is the word) so much that I’ve spent the rest of my life training for one or another re-enactment of the ordeal that’s said to have killed its first-ever participant.

For those unimpressed or actively displeased by my survival, I drop race names, mentioning Athens or Boston. But I like talking Médoc because it strikes at the odious belief held by many civilians: that running—all running—is done to improve one’s health, a more vigorous expression of the impulse that leads to kale salads, seat belts, and dental floss.

I’m 71 now, and within the Cheever family my enthusiasm for running has been infectious. My wife has run eight marathons, and both my sons have run several. My sister runs, while my niece, Sarah, is a regular marathoner. My daughter-in-law, Jen, had planned on Philadelphia two years ago, but dropped out for the best possible reason: She was pregnant.

Then the mother of the most gorgeous grandchild ever born decided that if she was going to run a marathon, she wanted it to be Médoc. My sons, Andrew and John, also signed on. The sentimentality of it shames me, but there is nothing—with the possible exception of sudden death—that I am not happy to do with my grown children. Reportedly more than 40,000 (mostly French) apply annually for a race designed for 8,500, so the four of us booked a hotel that provided guests with bibs.

The theme for 2019 was superheroes, which was enthusiastically, though loosely, adhered to. Andrew, who adores Godzilla, wore a spiked tail and reptilian mask. The tail had a tendency to stick forward between Andrew’s legs. Considering an upholstered manhood improper, he ran holding his tail in his hand until he saw another competitor who had an actual fake phallus of legendary proportions swinging between his legs. Jen was Catwoman; John, Batman. I was Superman, complete with a full-length cape.

In the enthusiasm of their costumes, the French outdid us at every turn. Many Supermen were far from super-fit, while an astonishing number of Wonder Women were men in wigs and bustiers. Several men dressed as Thor were complete with hammers, and one runner had an inflated barbell strapped to his middle. Another, more committed racer wore a heavy wooden contraption that held a bottle of wine out in front of his face, but just beyond his reach. If I had to surmise his superpower, I’d guess some combination of grit, back strength, and poor short-term memory.

The start in Pauillac was so joyous that I forgot that this degustation was going to go on for more than 26 miles.

Justly modest about our training, we gathered toward the back of the pack. Ethically, this was exactly right. Strategically, it was exactly wrong. We hadn’t gone two miles when we were stopped by the crowd that had slowed to scarf down croissants at Le Château Lynch-Bages. Extracting ourselves from this first party we were alarmed to find that we had fallen behind a truck full of clowns with brooms. Labeled sweepers, they bore placards indicating that if we didn’t finish in six hours and 30 minutes, we wouldn’t get our medals, T-shirts, commemorative backpacks, or boasting rights.

Somehow we passed the tumbril of clowns and trotted out into the vineyards, great fields of green intricately etched with grapevines. The pathways that cut this expanse were crammed with colorful competitors singing and yelling with joy.

The vineyards themselves were speckled with men and women whose super abilities didn’t include bladders of steel. Zorro rushed off into the grapes in haste. The Three Musketeers stood shoulder to shoulder, one for all and all for number one.

Less than four miles in, we were lining up for our first libation. There must have been some serious runners, but everybody around me stopped and had a drink. And then another, despite the 20 remaining wine stations.

There was a good deal of singing, which impressed me since those who wish to breathe and those who wish to sing must use the same set of lungs, and mine were fully engaged.

One group had blue capes as voluminous as their brightly colored codpieces were not. Their shared song came to me in fragments:

We are the champions

We are the champions

We are the champions of the world.

Shortly after the last chorus, the champions doffed their capes and leapt into a nearby reflecting pool.

Yves Mainguy

After we’d hit 20 miles, my daughter-in-law ran with me for support, “because this is the first time I’ve gone this distance,” she said.

“First of many,” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she told me. “How can any other race compare?”

She was right.

Even at this point we were sufficiently energetic to backtrack when we realized that we’d missed the wine ice cream. But between 21 and 22 miles I met the legendary wall. I began to dislike the race and so—naturally—I began to dislike the French. What were they so happy about?

But we owe the French a lot. There is no question that America was a significant ally in two World Wars, but what about the Marquis de Lafayette, who sailed from Pauillac itself to help the Continental Army win their revolution?

And without the French, marathon bores like myself wouldn’t even have a race to turn off would-be acquaintances. The ancient Olympics didn’t include a long footrace. It was a Frenchman, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who introduced the first-ever competitive marathon when he restarted the Olympic games in the 1890s.

All of which I had forgotten until a French runner saved my race with an impassioned warning. “Merde! Merde! Les Sweepers.”

Superhuman and subhuman, we were all in it together, shuffling furiously while wine sloshed within for a finish line that seemed impossibly to move away.

We made it. We all crossed the finish holding hands. French or American, fast or slow, we were all heading for the same finish.

Benjamin Cheever is the author of Strides: Running Through History With an Unlikely Athlete