Maybe you’re reading this on a couch. Or an office chair. Or maybe lying supine in your bed with a laptop on your chest.
It can be filed under: “Don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” Or, more specifically, “You might not realize how much you like running until your body won’t let you do it anymore.”
The guy in the neck brace is Casey Neistat, a guerilla video director whose made ads for Nike, J.Crew and Mercedes Benz. In the video above, he details his relationship with running: he clocks upwards of 60 miles a week, he ‘s completed 24 marathons and four full-distance Ironmans, he often runs 12+ miles a day for as many consecutive days as possible, etc. “There’s one thing that makes me sane,” he says. “And that one thing is running.”
Ten years ago, Neistat broke his leg in 27 places. A doctor told him he’d never run again. The doctor was gloriously wrong. But now Neistat faces a similar proposition: a chronic cartilage issue that has cut short the career of many runners, including Neistat’s own sister.
If you love running, if you like running, if you hate it (but secretly love it), if you’ve always wanted to start but think it might be too late — watch. The video, like most of Neistat’s, is a stream-of-consciousness testament to the power of proactivity, of submitting yourself to a thing and letting it consume you. The power — in a word — of addiction, and how we can choose our addictions, for better as for worse.
The video never gets around to his prognosis. But this one does …
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