Finishing a marathon: the most highly overrated experience in the world

Have you noticed how fruit candy doesn't taste like fruit at all?  I have.  Just recently, and I can't say I'm enthused by this development.  It's weird, right?  Cherry candy doesn't taste like real cherries, but if that was it I wouldn't be so bothered, it's the fact that it really tastes like red should.  The color.  Or as the stupid British say: the colour.  I discovered this when I bought a big bag of gorgeous cherries yesterday, and I mean these things were fucking beautiful.  Like stop the car pretty.  I seriously considered rubbing my junk on them, and that was before I left the shopping mart.  Seriously.  Considered.  If fruit were people this bag would be Shyla Stylez is basically what I'm saying, but the real problem lay in the fact that when I got it home I ate the first one and was shocked by the taste.  I mean I instantly stopped trusting the fruit entirely, it was like finding granny porn on your roommate's hard drive.  "Who are you?" I would have asked the bag if I was insane.  But the bag just sat there, like I was the asshole.  And this is true about grapes and apples and all kinds of shit that is in the medium of gummy.  I tried different fruits and not one of them matched the actual thing that it came from, and I also noticed that when I think of how these fruits are supposed to taste I imagine the candy flavor, and not the fruit flavor.  Finishing a marathon is a strikingly similar experience.  Everyone says that when you finish a marathon it's exhausting and painful, but you cross the finish line and you feel amazing, like refreshed and reborn and nothing will stop you from racing right home and hopping on the internet to sign up for the next one.  Friends of yours who run these abusive foot races, these self destructive acts of pure sadomasicism, may have told you this already, but I'm here to let you know: NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH.  That is all.  There is no epiphany, no golden moment of bliss as you cross the finish line with the light of heaven itself beaming down upon you from up on high like the purest forgiveness of a loving God.  There couldn't be, it's impossible.  Not after running for around 5 hours and wondering with each step 'what the fuck was I thinking?'  Now me, I know what I was thinking, and that's why I can't wait until someone creates a time machine so I can travel to where my past self signed up for this deep muscle beating and smash him in the head with a bat.  Past me is a total dick.  The shit he gets me into is the stuff of legend, and he is by far the worst procrastinator in the world.  Now it's true that I pass most of the shit he puts on my plate to future me (that guy is also kind of dick), but things like marathons aren't one of them.  I can just see dickish past me drunk, on the internet, bored of porn, stumbling onto the marathon web page and despite the fact he hasn't the intellectual prowess to piss anyplace besides my closet (another gift, thanks past me!) somehow he has the acumen to find our credit card and purchase a place in the marathon.  And I'm supposed to be happy that he saved 10 bucks by registering early, but I don't see why I should have to pay for the physical discomfort in the first place, and saving the tenner is hardly a consolation.  But my point of this rambling thought process is that finishing a marathon is just like fruit candy, it's nothing like you think it is, it sucks worse than you expect, and past me is responsible for both.  Dick.