The oldest runner competing in the London marathon, 93-year-old Fauja Singh, passes the Houses of Parliament, on April 18, 2004. Photo: Paul Hackett/Reuters

Would you rather sit on the sofa and sip a glass of wine or would you rather slog and sweat at the gym for an hour? I thought so.

But this morning I bring good news: from now on we don’t need to feel guilty anymore for choosing the sofa option. One genius Canadian scientist has given us the greatest theory since Einstein’s relativity: after much research he concluded that wine glass = gym class.

They trick is in this compound found in red wine called resveratrol, which is also found in peanut butter (so you can sit on sofa and nibble crackers with peanut butter if you don’t fancy much your red). In any case researcher Jason Dyck from the University of Alberta in Canada has discovered that this resveratrol was seen to improve physical performance, heart function and muscle strength in the same way as they are improved after a gym session. It’s a bit of news which sits right up there with studies which insist that a glass of red a day keeps cancer and dementia away.

Does this mean that instead of taking part in the Malta marathon today, and walk for three hours, I can sit and have three glasses of wine? Sadly no, because there is the small-print Bad News: it only works with one glass a day – three glasses count only as a gym session if they make you dance the night away.

I am here trying to justify my not taking part in the half marathon today. However, there is no proper reason I’m afraid, except for the fact that my knee bones have gone all rickety this winter and I couldn’t possibly face a 21k walk. I blame it on humidity. That dratted riħ isfel strikes again. Every morning the weather app tells me that humidity levels are at 90 per cent or over, and there and then I feel my bones groaning. The higher the humidity, the more I feel like I’ve just been run over by a giant rolling pin. Is it just me? Over four thousand walkers and runners have applied for todays’ marathon, so, um, it probably is.

I was made to feel worse when this week I chanced upon an article about the oldest marathon runner in the world, British centenarian Fauja Singh, who at 104 still keeps going. He began long-distance running at 81 and shot to fame at 89 when he completed a 42k marathon in six hours and 54 minutes. Then at 93, Singh, a grandfather of 13, was signed up by sports major Adidas for its ‘Nothing Is Impossible’ advertising campaign.

Good luck to all the brave marathoners today – it doesn’t matter what your timing is – what matters is that you finish it

That led me to another marathoner: Canadian Ed Whitlock, 87. Last year he raced Toronto Marathon in 15-year-old shoes and a T-shirt that was 20 years old. He has no coach, follows no special diet, does not chart his mileage and wears no heart-rate monitor. He shovels snow in the winter and gardens in the summer but lifts no weights, does no sit-ups or push-ups. He avoids stretching, except on the day of a race.

Then there’s 92-year-old Harriet Thompson who ran the San Diego Marathon in 2015 in seven hours, 24 minutes and 36 seconds, marking her as the oldest woman to finish a marathon. Thompson didn’t run with earphones and iPhones. She played music in her head, she said: Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in D Major. She’s a classical pianist and playing in a concert, she said, is harder than long-distance running – it takes more discipline. There you go.

Long-distance running has forever been a fascination for us human breed. The Greek writer Plutarch writes the account of a certain Pheidippides, who in the sweltering heat of August of 490 BC, was sent from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been defeated. It is said that he ran (barefoot – no Adidas back then) the entire distance without stopping and burst into the Athens assembly, where everyone was pacing up and down with anxiety, exclaiming nenikekamen, “We have won!” …before collapsing and dying. He had run for approximately 42k – which is why to this day it’s the distance used for marathon races.

You might want to google the impressive1869 painting  Luc-Olivier Merson Pheidippides giving word of victory which captures the cruelty and yet the beauty of this moment. It is best appreciated when seen alongside a fiery poem 1879 by the great Robert Browning:

So, when Persia was dust, all cried, “To Acropolis!

Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!

Athens is saved, thank Pan, go shout!” He flung down his shield

Ran like fire once more: and the space ‘twixt the fennel-field

And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through,

Till in he broke: “Rejoice, we conquer!” Like wine through clay,

Joy in his blood bursting his heart, – the bliss!

Good luck to all the brave marathoners today – it doesn’t matter what your timing is – what matters is that you finish it. Then head for that glass of wine.

krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @KrisChetcuti