According to Arianna Huffington, you have to build up your "fearlessness muscle." She insists, "the more you use yours, the stronger it becomes."
In one of the most stunning upsets in Marathon history, yesterday, a 29-year-old unknown Brazilian astonished an elite pack of hobbled marathon heavyweights by not being afraid. You would think that, of all sports, winning marathons is a relatively straightforward test of physical abilities: that head-games wouldn't have anything to do with it. The person who can run the fastest, and who is in the best shape, wins. Simple. Not quite. Any one of 15 runners could have won (they all had run faster times) but Marilson Gomes dos Santos (who had never won a marathon) took the chance and ran away with the victory, while the other "champions" were left cursing themselves for being such chickens. The elite pack of 8 world championship marathon winners was a victim of Groupthink. "There was a big blanket: people were sleeping," said Paul Tergat, last year's winner and the favorite. "Nobody wanted to react," he told reporters. "I thought somebody was going to push a little and narrow the gap. We were lulled into false security."
"This shows how the chronic refusal to acknowledge reality perverts one's judgment," Arianna writes in another post today referring to the Bush administration.
When Gomes took the lead in mile 19 just off the Queensboro Bridge, the favorites looked around and saw that none of the other Big Boys wanted to go with him, even though the pace was relatively slow - two minutes off the course record on an ideal day for running. Many predicted the record would be broken because conditions were so favorable. "I'll be honest: I didn't know who he was," said Tergat. The Big Boys figured Gomes couldn't win. And they were paralyzed with the fear that if they joined him in the surge - leaving the pack - they would tire themselves out and wouldn't have enough for the finish. Tergat, who had sprinted to win a close finish last year, decided to stay with the Pack and start his finishing kick at around mile 23. But by the time Tergat and the elite, favorite runners realized their mistake and went after him, Gomes was too far ahead, and had the stamina and adrenaline rush to hold off the challenge.
While the others were hobbled by fears and doubts and didn't want to leave the "safety and wisdom" of the pack, Gomes was in a zone that elite athletes achieve. "To win the marathon you have to have courage," Gomes said after the race. "And today I had courage."