As I am preparing to run the LA Marathon, I was trying to find out which rock stars have run marathons. I was aware that Flea had run a few – I don’t know if he is running this year again – in order to raise money for his music school, the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, which costs him about a million dollars a year!
Flea is a natural, he said he had never been a runner before his first Marathon in 2011, it's amazing, he had never run more than a mile in his whole life, but it took him only six months of training to achieve this 3:52 marathon in 2011!
Death Cab For Cuties’ Ben Gibbard is another awesome example, he began to run just to ‘shed some unhealthy habits’, and he ran the LA Marathon too, in the hope to beat Flea! ‘He got me by about four minutes’…, Gibbard said in 2012, ‘I don't think we should underestimate what good shape Flea is in’. Actually Ben is beating Flea, as he just tweeted this Saturday:
‘Just completed the Chuckanut 50k, my first ultramarathon. Anything is possible, y'all. pic.twitter.com/bK4X74mGA0’
What, an ultramarathon? Jeeezzz a thousand times congrats, Ben Gibbard, it’s so hard, I can’t imagine making one more step after 42K!
Amazingly, 311’s Nick Hexum and The Offspring’s Dexter Holland have run the LA Marathon too, Alanis Morissette did another one in California, Sean Cooms/P. Diddy, Van Halen’s David Lee Roth ran the New York Marathon, and ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus did the Sockholm marathon,… with an amazing time (3:23!)
Who would have thought that rock’n’roll life style was totally compatible with long distance running? I actually think there is nothing more punk rock than running a marathon! And I am such in good company when I know that Joe Strummer ran three of them, among them, the 1982 Paris marathon, during the 3-week period he had disappeared with his girlfriend, without telling anybody where he was! He did it in less than 3:30, which is such an amazing time,… for a smoker and a drinker? When he was asked about his training technique by US magazine in the 90s, he explained with humor:
‘Drink 10 pints of beer the night before the race and don’t run a single step at least four weeks before the race. I mean it works for me and Hunter Thompson but it might not work for others. I can only tell you what I do’… oh in this case, I am totally screwed!