EVERYDAY MAN

When one man decided to run every day for a year, covering 4026km in 365 days, he defined reason and common logic –only to stumble upon epiphanies, life lessons, and the only real way to love someone.

- ANDY ELLIS

IT'S NOT SUCH A BIG DEAL. HELLAH SIDIBE HAS RUN EVERY SINGLE DAY SINCE 15 MAY 2017. He's still going. Nedd Brockmann ran across Australia in 46 days. That's an average of 85km per day, over 3 900km. Here's another beast - James Laurence. They call him The Iron Cowboy. He completed 101 consecutive Ironman-distance triathlons. That's a 3.8km swim, 180km bike and a 42km run, every day, for 101 days - pure mettle. Former Navy SEAL David Goggins is a self-proclaimed savage. He shrugged out 4 030 pull-ups in 17 hours an aside to his countless back-to-back 100-miler trail races. And what about this guy: Joey Chestnut. He's a champion in major-league eating. On 4 July 2021, Chestnut devoured 76 hotdogs in 10 minutes to set the world record. He eats other things in record quantities. Go Joey. Okay, me. I ran every single day for 365 days, and covered 4 026km. All things considered, no big deal.

I get this one a lot: "What made you decide to do it?" I didn't start out wanting to run for 365 straight days. I woke up to the voice one morning. You know the voice, the inner one. The one that tells you it's scared or offended, happy or sad. It decides what's a good idea and what isn't. It also prescribes my exercise for the day. I listen to it. On that particular morning, the voice suggested that running a sub-20-minute 5km would be a good way to round off the year, and that I should lace up right away.

It's not the first time the voice has invoked an activity of maddening futility. And no, I don't have to do everything it says. But mood follows action, and the mood is always good. So I ran 5km in under 20 minutes. Was it fun? Head-splitting, snot-gobbling, lung-sucking, mind-f*****g kind of fun? Yes.