When a marathon feels like 68 miles

I have run five marathons in my life, all of them between 2008 and 2015. We’re coming up on a decade, then, since the most recent one.

From time to time, I wonder if I might have it in me to get trained up again for another one — to trade in running a few miles three or four times a week for a rigorous program to get my body ready for 26.2 miles.

The more years that pass, the less sure I am that such a thing is going to happen. But I do know this: I will never run another marathon in Canada.

This has nothing to do with the quality of the once race I did there 12 years ago or my fondness for our friendly neighbors to the north. It has everything to do with human psychology, as I talked about on a meandering Friday edition of the Daily Delivery podcast.

As if I hadn’t taken guest Jon Marthaler far enough off course by talking about the 2012 World Cup qualifier between Canada and Cuba that happened to be taking place the same weekend as the Toronto Waterfront Marathon, the topic then turned to running.

Marathons are never easy, which one would expect given that the legend of its origin comes from a Greek messenger who collapsed after running what is now the approximate marathon distance in order to quickly bring news of victory in a battle.

But while they are all the same distance, the race in Toronto felt longer for one simple reason: it was measured in both kilometers and miles.

When you run a marathon (or at least when I do), there is something beautiful about passing each mile marker along the way, particularly when you get into the teens and past 20.

In Toronto, there were 26 mile markers and 42 kilometer markers since 26.2 miles is also 42.2K. Every time I passed one of those markers felt like a mile, but instead of there being 26 of them there were 68 of them.

I of course knew the distance was the same, but I could not let go of how the markers were messing with my head any more than a batter in a slump or a golfer with a sudden case of the yips on the green.

At least I wasn’t trying to set some sort of personal record (as evidenced by the fact that my friend and running partner that day, Tom, stopped at a McDonald’s on the course for a burger around mile 20/kilometer 32.

It was not a quarter pounder/one-tenth kilogrammer.

Here are four more things to know today:

*Jon and I did talk about more relevant things like the process of building up a slumping Minnesota United squad and the search for a new coach to lead the U.S. Men’s National Team.

*I wrote last week about Willi Castro being the leading unsung hero for the Twins. Can he still fit that classification now that he’s an All-Star?

*Wolves back! OK, in Summer League action at 4 p.m. today vs. the Pelicans on ESPN2.

*Read this piece by Sarah McLellan on Charlie Stramel, the Wild’s first round pick in 2023 who is trying to get his career back on track.