There is a proverb that says that a true gentleman does not talk about parted women and taxes already paid.This statement is actually a lie, I made it up just now, I sincerely apologize.If such a motto really exists in the world, then "not talking about health methods" may also become one of the conditions for a true gentleman.A real gentleman probably won't chatter about his health methods in public, I think. As everyone knows, I am not really a gentleman, and I don't have to worry about such trivialities one by one, but now I feel a little embarrassed to write such a book.It's more of a quibble than a frightening statement: Although this is a book about running, it's not a book about fitness.I'm not here to say, "Come on! Let's run every day and stay healthy!" At the end of the day, these are just thought pieces, or self-answers—

For me personally.What it means to keep running.That's all. Somerset Maugham wrote: "Any razor has its own philosophy."No matter how trivial it is.As long as you persist every day.There will always be something like an idea out of it.I also sincerely want to agree with Maugham's point of view.So as a writer.Or as a long-distance runner, it is not too deviant to write some personal and bit by bit words by running, and publish them in the form of public publication.This is probably a character that takes a lot of work: a person cannot succeed without writing. Thinking people, who want to find the meaning of running, have to write such articles word by word.

Once, I was lying in a hotel room in Paris, reading a copy of the International Herald Tribune.It so happened that the paper had a feature on the marathon runners.I interviewed several well-known marathon runners and asked them one by one: What kind of mantra do you recite in your heart to motivate yourself during the race? This plan is quite interesting.After reading it, I suddenly realized that they were really thinking about all kinds of things in their hearts before they ran the 42.195 kilometers.A full marathon is such a harsh competition that you cannot make it to the end without reciting mantras.

One of the runners has been running marathons since.Every time I compete, I have to recall in my mind the two sentences my brother (who is also a long-distance runner) taught him: Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.This is his mantra.Its subtle meaning is difficult to translate correctly. Knowing that it is untranslatable and hard-translating, it may be translated into the simplest: "Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional." The key word is this optional.Let’s say, while running, you suddenly feel: “Oh, it’s so tiring, I can’t do it anymore.” This “ "It's so tiring" is an unavoidable fact, but whether it is really "no" is up to one's own discretion. I think these two sentences succinctly summarize the most important part of the marathon.

It was more than ten years ago that I decided to write a book about running.Since then, I have been thinking hard, thinking that this will not work and that will not work, and I have never started to write, letting the fireworks go by and the years go by.Although it is just about "running", this topic is too at a loss. What to write and how to write it, the thoughts are really chaotic and chaotic. However, once, I suddenly thought that I could write what I felt and thought into an article in such a simple and natural way.I'm afraid there is no shortcut.So, starting from the summer of 2005, I began to write sporadically, and finished it in the autumn of 2006.Although there are some references to old articles written in the past, it is basically a record of my "mood at this moment" without pretense.To write honestly about running is to write honestly about who I am in a way.Halfway through writing, I suddenly realized this.

Therefore, it is not a big deal to read this book as a kind of "memoir" based on running. Even if it is not enough to be called "philosophy", I think there is something like a rule of thumb in it.Some insignificant stuff, but something that I feel very personally through the actual movement of my body, through the suffering of choice.Maybe it's not worth generalizing, but anyway, this is who I am.