I’ve joined a cult. That’s the only explanation for it. Someone, almost certainly an enemy of mine, decided some months ago that it would be a fun idea to sign up for a half-marathon.
I’ve joined a cult. That’s the only explanation for it. Thousands have gathered on the steps of the cathedral, in a heady mix of ecstasy and fear, stripping off their clothes to face the cold air of a Sunday morning that should be spent hiding under a quilt.
I quickly found my natural place within the horde, slotting nicely ahead of the people who run in costumes but behind the men who feel comfortable running shirtless, and began my usual form of motivation. I’ve never been one for positive visualisation because to me, it is ridiculous to think that a nice thing might happen. My preferred method is a pioneering form of negative-visualisation. At the start of the race, I tell myself that I owe the devil 21 kilometres.
Somewhere around the eighth kilometre, I start thinking about how the process of running a long distance like this takes a similar form to any creative endeavour. The hardest part is starting, the second-hardest part is to keep going, a process that is not a single decision but rather a constant battle against the knowledge that it would be easy to simply quit and walk away. To continue offers only more pain. Satisfaction arrives only upon completion.
Soon, I owed the devil only 10, or even five kilometres. These numbers felt possible. Perhaps I was an athletic Adonis after all. Never mind that I’d just been passed by a woman who was conservatively somewhere between 30 and 40 years older than me. She was probably a modern-day Hermes or something. Not my problem. Between moments of pain and regret, I began to feel this strange little thing I’ve coined “happiness”.
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