【一起听英语】马拉松比赛

 马拉松是一场长跑运动....全民参与，积极性高....

Dan: Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I’m Dan

Walker Smith and in today’s programme I’m joined by Nuala O’Sullivan.

Nuala: Hi Dan.

Dan: Now in today’s programme Nuala and I are talking about marathons. These

are the very long runs covering 26 miles or around 42 kilometres. Now Nuala

you’re a very experienced runner, so how many marathons have you run?

Nuala: Well I’ve actually run four Dan. I’ve run them in The Netherlands, Ireland,

Germany and France.

Dan: OK, which was the best out of the four you did?

Nuala: Oh definitely France. I was running through the vineyards and you got little

drinks of wine all the way along and there was steak and oysters 1 to eat as well.

I mean it was just…it was a gourmet 2 marathon; it was just fabulous 3.

Dan: That’s quite different from the normal marathons. You’re not going for a

certain time; you’re going for an enjoyable experience.

Nuala: Well I would say I was going for a good time because I wanted to enjoy

myself, not a good time as in getting a fast time.

Dan: Ah very good, very good indeed. OK well I’m running my first ever marathon

in just under a month’s time. I’m running the Brighton marathon on the south 

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coast of England, so maybe you can give me some advice on that. But right

now, I have this week’s question for you:

Marathons recreate a legendary 4 ancient run from Marathon to Athens in

Greece. But which country hosted the first modern marathon in 1896? Was it:

a) Greece

b) Britain

c) France

Nuala: I’m going for France.

Dan: OK, well we’ll see if you’re right at the end of the programme.

Now before we play a clip, Nuala, I want to talk to you about nutrition and

hydration. Everyone tells me that these are really important for long-distance

running, so could you tell me a bit about them?

Nuala: Sure. Well nutrition is a technical word for the process of absorbing food. If

food is nutritious 5, it’s good for your health.

Dan: OK, and what about hydration?

Nuala: Well, to hydrate something means to add water to it. So when you’re running,

you have to consider hydration or how much water you’re taking in, because

you’re going to lose a lot through sweat. So if you’re doing a lot of exercise,

you can become dehydrated; that means becoming ill from not having enough

water.

Dan: OK, well let’s have a listen to the British novelist and marathon runner

Bidisha. Here she is comparing the repetitive movement of running to a kind of

meditation 6. Could you explain what meditation means here Nuala? 

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Nuala: Well meditation can mean either deep thought or a period of calm relaxation 7

on an almost religious level, which is quite different to what you imagine

running to be.

Dan: Yeah very much so, that’s not my experience of running. Well, let’s listen to

Bidisha talking about running. What religion does she compare it to?

Extract 1

You see those athletes in the park, and you think ‘my God they must be in pain’, but

actually what they’re doing is a sort of Zen exercise of relaxing into the movement.

Dan: Well she describes their running as a sort of Zen exercise. Zen is a form of

Buddhism 8 that focuses on meditation. But I think she was closer to my

experience when she says ‘my God they must be in pain’, because I’ve been

training since Christmas more or less, about four months now, and I’m

definitely getting some pains when I’m doing my long runs.

Nuala: Oh what sort of pains do you get Dan, blisters 9? Blisters are the painful

pockets of fluid on your skin. They’re usually caused from rubbing or if you

burn yourself. They’re very common in runners because your shoe might be

rubbing against your foot and then that way you’d get a blister 10.

Dan: No it’s not really blisters I suffer from; it’s more a muscular pain.

Nuala: Ah OK, muscular means involving or affecting the muscles. So you probably

need to stretch your legs more.

Dan: Well there are some of the physical problems for runners. But Nuala, how

important is your mental attitude for running marathons? 

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Nuala: Oh I think it’s really important. And I think if you’re doing yours in a big city

like Brighton, there’ll be lots of people out encouraging you. It’s always nice

to have a big crowd; it makes it a kind of party atmosphere. But the other thing

to bear in mind is that 26 miles is a very long distance, so you might want to

break it down into bite-sized pieces.

Bite-sized literally 11 means something that’s small enough to be eaten in one

bite. But usually when people say something is in bite-sized pieces, they mean

it is in small pieces that are easy to manage or understand. So my advice would

be: don’t think about running the whole 26 miles, just think of the next three

miles in front of you.

Dan: OK well that sounds like great advice to me. But we’re almost out of time

now, so let’s go over some of the vocabulary we’ve come across today.

marathon

nutrition

nutritious

to hydrate

dehydrated

meditation

Zen

blisters

muscular

bite-sized pieces

Dan: And let's go back to today's question. I asked you Nuala in which country the

first modern was marathon run?

Nuala: And I guessed France. Was I right? 

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Dan: No you weren’t. It was actually in Greece. It was in 1896 and they created the

modern marathon to essentially 12 recreate the ancient run. There were only 17

runners, so very different from today’s marathons when we have thousands of

runners. And of the 17, nine of them were Greek, and only nine people actually

finished the race.

But from all of us here at BBC Learning English, thanks so much indeed for

listening, and goodbye!

Nuala: Goodbye!