"Have you ever run 100 kilometres in a single day?" (An excerpt from Haruki Murakami's new novel)
From What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami, to be published by Harvill Secker on 7 August 2008):
Have you ever run 100 kilometres in a single day? The vast majority of people in the world (those who are sane, I should say) have never had that experience. No normal person would ever do something so foolhardy. But I did, once. I completed a race that went from morning till evening, and covered 100 kilometres. It was draining physically, as you can imagine, and for a while afterward I swore I'd never run again. I doubt I'll try it again, but who knows what the future may hold. Maybe someday, having forgotten my lesson, I'll take up the challenge of an ultramarathon again. You have to wait until tomorrow to find out what tomorrow will bring.
Either way, when I look back on that race now I can see that it had a lot of meaning for me as a runner. I don't know what sort of general significance running 100 kilometres by yourself has, but, as an action that deviates from the ordinary yet doesn't violate basic values, you'd expect it to afford you a special sort of self-awareness. It should add a few new elements to your inventory in understanding who you are. And as a result, your view of your life, its colours and shape, should be transformed. More or less, for better or for worse, this happened to me, and I was transformed.
Continue reading the rest of this quite long extract here on The Observer
Have you ever run 100 kilometres in a single day? The vast majority of people in the world (those who are sane, I should say) have never had that experience. No normal person would ever do something so foolhardy. But I did, once. I completed a race that went from morning till evening, and covered 100 kilometres. It was draining physically, as you can imagine, and for a while afterward I swore I'd never run again. I doubt I'll try it again, but who knows what the future may hold. Maybe someday, having forgotten my lesson, I'll take up the challenge of an ultramarathon again. You have to wait until tomorrow to find out what tomorrow will bring.
Either way, when I look back on that race now I can see that it had a lot of meaning for me as a runner. I don't know what sort of general significance running 100 kilometres by yourself has, but, as an action that deviates from the ordinary yet doesn't violate basic values, you'd expect it to afford you a special sort of self-awareness. It should add a few new elements to your inventory in understanding who you are. And as a result, your view of your life, its colours and shape, should be transformed. More or less, for better or for worse, this happened to me, and I was transformed.
Continue reading the rest of this quite long extract here on The Observer