rossana martinez

…a marathon, not a sprint.

We’ve heard that so many times and it’s so true. It doesn’t matter how much we try to rush things, the result is always the same: everything takes time.

I’ve never ran a marathon. But in the races I’ve ran, I have learned how every single step and breath we take is important to get to the next mile. So when we set our minds to develop a healthy and active lifestyle, work in the studio or simply find what fulfill us — the answer is time, time, time. Learning how to be patient and let life guide us makes us the winners and best runners of life!

With the marathon in mind, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Looking at art is a fantastic way of seeing and learning the history of the world. And one of the best places to find that is at the Met. I learn something new every time I visit the museum.

I visited the Greek and Roman Art galleries to find how artists interpreted running at the time. As all runners probably know, the idea of the marathon began after the legend of the Greek soldier Pheidippides. He ran from the city of Marathon to Athens to bring news of the Greek victory over the Persians. When he arrived in Athens, he said: Rejoice, we conquer!, and then collapsed and died.

As I browsed the galleries, I found a wonderful amphora by the potter Nikias from the Panathenaic games in the sixth century B.C. I don’t know if it depicts a long distance race, but I loved everything about it: the colors and the beautiful figures of fit runners. And I especially enjoyed that the amphora was originally filled with olive oil and given as a winning prize. How delicious!

I left the museum thinking about the healthy things I would run a race for…

I will definitely keep the olive oil for first prize. The amphora was large (about 10 gallons of olive oil), but I’m flexible and would run for a 34 oz bottle of olive oil. The second prize would have to be honey. I’m like a bear — I can’t have enough of it and put it on everything possible. And the third prize I would run for is a reasonable amount of fresh fruits and vegetables — can’t have enough of them either.

Life is…pretty sweet!