In 1980, Rosie Ruiz won the female division of the Boston Marathon -- the most prestigious marathon race in America, with a time of 2:31:56 -- the third fastest time by any female contestant in any marathon. Unfortunately, no one recalled seeing her during the race, and she appeared in none of the photos or films taken of the race. Her resting heart rate was measured at 76, rather than in the 50s as with most marathon runners.
She was disqualified. She's perhaps the most famous of marathon cheaters, but by far not the only one. According to a trainer, Jonathon Cane, the New York Marathon probably has "a couple dozen cheaters" every year.
Why do they do it? Who knows. Amateur foot racing isn't really a money sport. You run for your self-satisfaction. Although, especially among the top contenders, a spirit of competition exists, most runners are competing against themselves -- measuring their own improvement in speed and stamina over their efforts in prior runs.
It's like climbing mountains. The rewards are very personal, and are independent of what others do or don't do. As the famous climber and author Jon Krakauer describes the experience of risking one's life on a mountain slope:
Hours slide by like minutes. The accumulated clutter of day-to-day existence — the lapses of conscience, the unpaid bills, the bungled opportunities, the dust under the couch, the inescapable prison of your genes — all of it is temporarily forgotten, crowded from your thoughts by an overpowering clarity of purpose and by the seriousness of the task at hand.
Climbing and running both have a certain purity -- in my mind, at least -- not shared by many other sports. And that's why I was disturbed this morning to read about two Indian climbers who claimed to summit Mount Everest in 2016 -- even presenting doctored photographic evidence of themselves at the top -- when they had not. Local sherpas and other climbers had questioned the claim at the time, and a Nepalese government investigation has now found that the climbers had climbed to about 27,000 feet, some 2,000 feet short of the summit. They were in the "death zone" and in bad shape, and had actually been rescued with depleted supplies of oxygen.
Their summiting certificates should not have been granted.
The two climbers were found out when they tried to claim valuable awards from the Indian government given to Indians who summit Everest, but their initial motivation for climbing Everest seems not to have been financial. And, according to the New York Times story describing the matter, "the number of people faking Everest climbs has sharply increased, from a few a decade ago to dozens every year." Why would a climber, a climber good enough to reach 27,000 feet on Everest, fake the climb? How has the climber's competition against himself, his testing of his own daring and strength, become a search instead for celebrity, for self-promotion? How has the humility of the original Everest summit climber, Sir Edmund Hillary, been transformed into a glorified exaggeration of the average tourist's quest for the perfect selfie for his Instagram account?
Jon Krakauer, together with many other climbers, has decried the growing demand by unqualified or marginally qualified climbers -- with plenty of money -- for permits to climb Everest. Climbing Everest under any circumstances is an heroic struggle, but these trophy climbers, the ones who "succeed," are often virtually dragged to the top by their Sherpa guides, guides who have already set fixed ropes and made the path upward as manageable as possible. As Krakauer remarks:
The way Everest is guided is very different from the way other mountains are guided, and it flies in the face of values I hold dear: self-reliance, taking responsibility for what you do, making your own decisions, trusting your judgment - the kind of judgment that comes only through paying your dues, through experience.
Marginally qualified climbers who desperately want to summit Everest, without the bother of gaining the necessary years of experience on lower mountains, seek the rewards of the summit without first "paying your dues." It's not "cheating" in the same sense as the two Indian climbers were cheaters. But they similarly ignore the values and ideals of climbing, as Krakauer describes them, in exchange for rewards. Whether those rewards are financial -- as with the Indian climbers -- or for bragging rights back home, as with many well-to-do Americans.
Such climbers aren't much different from the runner who "runs" much of a marathon on the subway.
PS-- No, I've personally never dreamed of climbing Everest.
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