The cross : Is the marathon an event accessible to all?
Helene Romano: Marathon runners often say that with good will and practice, we can all do it, but it’s more complex than that. In fact, you have people who cannot, for purely physical reasons. Beyond this problem related to the body which functions or not, it is necessary to understand that it is an extremely trying discipline. Not everyone has the physiological or psychological capacities to practice it. The level of pain and self-transcendence that it involves does not make it accessible to everyone. Therefore, the message that everyone can do it can be guilt-inducing.
Moreover, public health messages that call for healthy eating and the need to exercise can also have a guilt-inducing side. We have the impression that if we don’t follow these instructions, we are a bad student. These messages can sometimes have a detrimental effect, when you feel like you don’t fit into the frame. We have to relearn that we are all different.
Is addiction to sport, especially in the field of running, a new phenomenon?
H. R. : Addiction to sport has always existed because it is the result of a fact that is above all physiological: we secrete a certain number of hormones which give a feeling of well-being and the more we practice, the more we have this feeling. To find this feeling, we always do a little more. On the other hand, what is new is our relationship to screens and to this cult of performance.
We have a relationship with the image which, in certain contexts, can be devastating. We need to exist in the gaze of the other, rather than being satisfied with our own gaze. Sports performance, in this case a marathon or a daily race for training, is basically something personal. Now it’s on public display. We sometimes see it in the marathon but also in other sports, where we film ourselves, we apply filters… we seek the approval of our “followers”. Psychiatrist Serge Tisseron calls this “extimacy”, to the detriment of intimacy.
When does addiction occur?
H. R. : At some point in his life, sport will, for example, come to fill a void. It can also offer an opportunity to avoid something that bothers us in our lives. People can fall into sports addiction at the age of 20, following a breakup, or a disappointment or the loss of a job. It will depend on each person and on a life context.
Very often, sport becomes an addiction to compensate for a depressive fund that does not say its name. Among the patients who practice running in an unrestrained manner, many use the sport as a psychic crutch. Interestingly, of the many new amateur marathon runners, many have entered the sport to fulfill something and not because we are taught in school that sport is important.