That’s it, it finally happened… 6 months, 15kilos, and a few kilometers later, I finished my first ultra-marathon.
To give you a bit of context on how my journey started, when I decided to run the Surf Coast Century, I was over a bit overweight. I have always been a bit fat, close to obese as a kid, but at that point, I was far from being obese. A couple of my friends kindly nicknamed me Pumba and were partly disappointed to see me losing weight.Before taking that decision I smoked 4 packs of cigarettes a week, got drunk a few times a week, I wasn’t too careful about nutrition, and most importantly I was extremely lazy.
In other words, I a life of moderate excesses, and I am not the kind of person who is looking back thinking “how could I live like that?”. I was extremely happy I was living in a form of hedonism which additional small pleasures here and there. Now I guess my life is more epicurean, in that I am more in the quest of simple pleasures. But I didn’t end up here, because of a sudden philosophical schism. Necessity drove me here.
To those who don’t know, about 9 months ago I co-founded a company with two friends. This means no more time and no more money. I didn’t really have resources to go out with my friends and socialize, and as I started getting more ad more inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit I felt like I needed to use my leisure time to something more productive. At the time, I thought doing a sport might be what I needed to be satisfied and have a sense of achievements. I thought it would allow me to find an escape from my worries to reach a certain psychological (spiritual?) balance. I specifically running because it was also a great way to socialize and most importantly: it doesn’t cost a dime. At least I thought it didn’t, some unexpected cost came along the way.
If there is a lesson to be drawn from this is that maybe the saying “necessity is the mother of all inventions” is true. I personally prefer the older proverb ‘need taught him wit’ because it doesn’t have the arrogance to set itself as an absolute truth. As a new entrepreneur, I was completely out of my comfort zone, my scope of action limited so I had to find ways to reinvent my daily life. I know I’ll sound a bit overdramatic, but I had to reinvent also my persona, who I am on the outside.
I couldn’t be the happy drinker, who always is amongst the last to leave a party, searching for lighters. The people who didn’t know me before, see me as a determined health freak. They often don’t believe that I smoked or was overweight, and my old friends don’t believe I’m healthy now. I don’t know if I am better for it or that I feel better, sometimes quite the opposite, I feel like lost more than I gained.
I lost time I’m spending on the tracks, I lost the pleasures that come along with excess, I lost some of the social skills that come from being relatable. I also won, and we’ll see what in the next post.
