The Cult of Running: A Story of Love and Endurance

I've fallen in love with the person I've become thanks to you, "running."

I've sweated for you, I've cried for you, you've hurt me. Even so, I won't leave you. But I won't do it just out of loyalty, but because you've helped me become a new person.

Running is a ritual of destruction that builds character. It forces you to understand who you are and confront your humanity. It's like becoming a child again, allowing the unconscious to surface and remembering those laughs shared with friends while playing tag.

Running is feeling like a personal hero, a deity, and at the same time, a vulnerable and mortal being.

I started running as a celebration of life, dedicating my first races to someone who passed away before her time, someone who didn't get to live the life she wanted. Today, what I'm doing is a tribute to her and to all the people who can't.

It's a personal challenge. It's about feeling alive. It's a self-imposed penance that purifies the mind, cleanses the most intimate particles of the being, and makes you powerful. It's a worship of the deities of athletics, of the everyday legends who go out and give it their all. But, above all, it's the greatest gift I can give myself.

Because running is learning to love inner silence. It's reconciling yourself with what you are and what you aren't.

As Haruki Murakami said:

“When I run, I just run. I don't think about anything. What it leaves me with is a kind of emptiness. And in that emptiness, perhaps I'll find myself.”

And there, in that emptiness, without judgment, without masks, without titles, there is only you, facing your limits, your shadows, and your lights. Every kilometer is a confession. Every stride, a renewed promise that you will keep going, even when there is no applause, even when only your labored breathing and the echo of your footsteps accompany you.

Running is an intimate conversation with yourself. It's looking in the mirror while moving.

As Christopher McDougall wrote in Born to Run :

“Running isn’t about winning or losing, it’s about loving the movement.”

And that love is profound. It's not just physical, it's spiritual. It's an act of gratitude toward the body, toward life itself.

It teaches you that true strength isn't found in the goal, but in getting up every day, tying your shoelaces, and going out, even if it hurts, even if you don't feel like it, even if you feel like you can't go on.

Ultramarathoner Scott Jurek said it best:

“Long distance running is a metaphor for life: you have to do things not because they're easy, but because they're important.”

Because running is choosing yourself. It's resisting. It's healing.

It helps you release the weight of what you can't control, to break through the fears that accumulate like knots on your back.

Running is crying without anyone noticing. It's releasing everything you've kept quiet. It's remembering that you're alive, that you can move, that there's still something inside you that wants to keep going.

Sometimes you run out of rage, other times out of sadness, and still others out of hope. And in each of these emotions, a new, more solid, more honest self-love is woven. It's not the superficial love of social media or the perfect mirror. It's the raw love of seeing yourself sweaty, tired, exhausted... but proud. It's the love that is born after pain, after having broken and rebuilt yourself.

Running is a way of praying with your feet. It's an " I love you " repeated with every ragged breath. It's a " thank you " written with sweat on hot asphalt. It's the most intimate act of self-care I've ever encountered.

That's why I identify with this cult. Because while others look for love in someone else, I found it in myself, through you.