I remember attempting, in my early 40s, to run a mile in eight minutes. Which doesn’t sound special until you actually try to do it … without a runner’s bodytype or lifestyle, diet or ability to withstand pain.

My younger daughter was at soccer practice nearby, and for 10 or 11 weeks that fall I would spend the hour going around the quartermile track at the former Highland Junior High. Mostly, I was just getting in some jogging or walking. But at what I felt was a propitious moment, usually in the first 20 minutes, I would take a whack at the “magical” eight-minute barrier. Which to me was what four minutes was to Alan Bannister. Except, oh yeah, Bannister actually DID crack four minutes.

I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t manage even one mile in eight minutes (and I imagine I’d have trouble doing it in 10 minutes, today). I could do Lap 1 in 1:50, and Lap 4 in maybe 1:55, but the two laps in between … I couldn’t get under 2:10. Not if I wanted to start fast or finish fast. “Fast” being entirely relative here, of course.

So I am, again, amazed at what elite marathoners can put themselves through. For 26-plus miles at a pop.

Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya won the Boston Marathon today in 2 hours, 7 minutes and 46 seconds.

How fast is that?

Crazy fast, for 99.9999 percent of the planet’s humans.

That’s 26 consecutive sub-five-minute miles. And remember, most of us can’t run ONE in eight minutes.

Dude went out and did 26 five-minute miles. In succession.

Amazing.

I can’t say I actually watch marathons on TV much. If ever. Maybe an Olympics marathon, if I’m covering it. And it tends to make for dull viewing. Because it’s two hours, and it’s the same 3-4 guys after the first 50 minutes, and they seem to be doing nothing but churning along, grabbing the occasional cup of water and splashing it on themselves. Zzzzz …

We probably would be more interested if we retained the capacity to empathize with athletes … but very few of us do. We can’t feel anyone else’s pain. To us, it seems like those marathoners are moving along at a nice pace, but not exactly burning it up.

Oh, but they are. They are.

Another way to think of this, if you have ever run around a quartermile track:

Consider running a 75-second lap (something else I’ve never done) … and doing it 104 consecutive times. Well, actually closer to 105 consecutive times, when you add in the 385 stray yards after the 26 miles.

A dude went 26 miles in 128 minutes today. Without a car. That impresses me way more than a 9.8-second 100-meter dash.