2. The desire to achieve the unexpected.

I want to run a marathon.

It’s a pretty common aspiration for people to have, perhaps because it satisfies the very human desire to achieve something worthy of appreciation. Most people, once they’ve achieved a marathon, will often take every opportunity to declare this accomplishment- “I RAN A MARATHON!”. And those bragging rights are totally justified.

But that’s not my goal here. I want to run a marathon because I’m not a ‘sporty’ person, and certainly not a runner. Running has always felt to me to be an entirely uncomfortable experience. However, I’m learning to recognise the importance of discomfort: without discomfort and without change, my perspective of the world, my ‘comfort-zone’ will never expand and I shall never fulfil the potential that this lifetime offers.

Therefore, I have entertained this idea as a means of challenging my sense of comfort. I’m not running a marathon because I want to run a marathon. I’m running a marathon because I want to challenge my sense-of-self. I honestly don’t think I can run a marathon. I’m not the type of person who’d even want to run a marathon. I’m certainly not someone who would dedicate any time to train to run a marathon when it’s something I’m not even interested in. Which are all the reasons that I AM going to run a marathon.

Achieving something that is challenging when there are no expectations to do so, and nothing at stake if I don’t do so, is something I have never experienced before. Yet it’s something so desirable, so exciting for me to contemplate. I am giving myself the power to defy and reconstruct everything that I believe about myself. And I think.. that’s what freedom is.

I am running a marathon because I will then know that I can achieve everything that I believe I can’t.

Perhaps I am just a little bit mad though.

(Note: I’m publishing this now (23/04), several weeks after originally writing it, having ran my first 10km today! The goal is starting to seem more.. possible. I am SO excited for what’s to come.)

by Ruben Goodfellow