Joan Nesbit Mabe asked an elite athlete who wants her to coach him to write an essay on why he runs. Jason Jabaut spent a few weeks thinking about that, and after countless drafts wrote a bit over 400 words trying to explain it. In his essay (which you can read in full over at Songs of experience), he writes:
Thinking about why I run has directed me to realize many reasons why I do NOT run. I do not run for fun. I don’t run for fame. I’m definitely not doing it for fortune. There is a primal necessity that competing in this sport has wrought in me. I need to be satisfied. I haven’t felt it yet. I need to compete until I feel that satisfaction. I know it’s out there. It might not come after the perfect race, but it come after a race that I’ve spent thousands of hours preparing for and feel contentment directly upon crossing the finish line. I need to work harder than everyone else out there in order to achieve this. I need to work harder than everyone else simply in order to sleep at night.
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