Celebrities, including Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart, have gone the distance and completed 26.2-mile races. After witnessing the New York City Marathon as a spectator, Reynolds decided to give it a go in 2008. Ahead of his first big race, he penned an essay for the Huffington Post, using humor to explain why he chose to run. "Every other day I train. I run like a bastard all morning. Not since the discovery of Junior High School has a torture been so effective," he wrote in November 2008. "Why on earth would I willfully do this? Let it be known at the outset, I am not a runner.