Lovely Frans

Spät aber doch. Beim Wien Marathon, war ich als Pacemaker tätig. Ich durfte u.a. Aspasia, Herausgeberin, eines Journals, aus Südafrika, begleiten.
So kam ich zu der Ehre, dass ich in einem südafrikanischen Modejounrnal, erwähnt wurde (als "lovely Frans") ;-)
Hier der Bericht:

There’s always one. The person in the race who humbles you. Sometimes it is the obvious candidate. Like the fellow everyone calls ‘Tsutsumani’. It is the name of his running club, but failing any other name on his shirt, everyone needing to say something to him on the race calls him Tsutsumani. And you really do need to say something to him, if only to acknowledge the way he makes you feel, as he stumbles along with his peculiar lopsided gait, compensating for the fact that everything on the right side of his body is clearly not functioning at full capacity. He uses his withered arm like an oar and passes you in a flash, barely acknowledging the many cries of ‘Go Tsutsumani’ that accompany him on his proud way. Last year at the Rotterdam Marathon it was a 75-year-old gentleman who runs a marathon a week every summer. He said, ‘Marathons are about patience, discipline and not too much chatting, my dear,’ and then proceeded to chat. He told me that three years ago he had finished the Rotterdam Marathon a week after completing his prostate cancer treatment. It had taken him eight-and-a-half hours, three hours past the cut-off, but it was really important to him to finish.
Sometimes it is all about simple acts of gentle camaraderie forged over a shared path. Like the lovely Frans, a social worker in a cancer ward, who kept the 4h30 pace at this year’s Vienna Marathon. I stuck to him and his flag like glue (despite his Teutonic brand of humour of the ‘only 41km to go’ variety). We bustled along for the many long hours of the marathon, until the last 2km where I realized he would lose his bet that involved making it over the line in 4,29 minutes and 42 seconds precisely. I was holding him up. ‘Go,’ I said. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Go, please, think of your bet!’ I found him waiting for me with his flag on the other side wanting to make sure I made it.
There is nothing special about running a marathon, any human being can do it. I promise you. When I look out at the huge crowds of runners before we start I see every varietal of human: old, young, athletic, not so much (like me), blind, deaf, wheelchair-bound, religious Jewish ladies in long skirts and headscarves, beturbanned Sikhs, long-bearded Muslims, everyone mysteriously hell-bent on completing a feat whose invention was equally grounded in humanity. The first bloke to run one was a simple soldier. I’m afraid it killed him but we all studiously ignore that fact.
I am always profoundly moved by this great equalizer. I know of no other mass communal event that represents the better instincts of humanity and the perfectibility of the human spirit. Everyone gets tested by the last 10km, even the gazelles out front, but hundreds of thousands of people around the world find the resilience in their minds and their bodies to complete the task. When you cross the finish line you are closer to yourself and your fellow human beings. You find strength and fortitude in the crowds who line the roads, the bands who play cheerful music, your family and friends who cheer for you along the way. You fall into their waiting arms at the end and really feel it.
To bomb a marathon at the finish line is to fundamentally reject all of this. I feel deeply saddened that those young men who are accused of bombing the Boston Marathon could see all this and would want to destroy it. It baffles me. But next Sunday somewhere in the world there will be another marathon, and running among them will be all those humbling human beings demonstrating their supreme humanity.