Are you mad?

I’ve always had a suspicion that people who do long distance running are a little - how to say this politely? - maladjusted.

When I read of people like Dean Karnazes talking with a sort of hideous coolness of running recovery runs home from New York to San Francisco, I have to suspect we’re dealing with people whose minds are somewhere out where the trains don’t run.

Okay, that’s a fairly extreme example, but I suspect most runners have had little “what the hell am I doing this for” moments at some point in their careers.

I remember back at the start of the Melbourne Marathon in 2005, feeling a lot like King Lear venturing out into the storm. It probably didn’t help that I was too nervous to sleep the night before. Ditto, the rain and wind and crazy hair.

I’m not saying all marathoners howl at the moon, or if they do that there’s anything wrong with it. It’s a pretty harmless form of lunacy. No-one really gets hurt (last Sunday aside).