I realised the reason that I was having that feeling. I realised that my mind had given up. That is the worst feeling, when you know that your mind has given up. I knew that I would never do drugs again. I knew I had more to give, and I had something to prove to myself and the world. And so I started walking. I set out to walk 10 kilometres (6.2 miles), which is just over half a marathon. I walked around my neighbourhood every single day, for nearly three months, clocking up about 45km (28 miles). I was very consistent with my walking, because consistency and monotony is boring, and I didn’t want to bore myself to death. In this time, I discovered the joy of walking. And the miracle of walking. You can achieve so much more by walking than you think you can. It’s also very difficult to not think about running when you do a lot of walking. And so I think it’s really important to realise that I walked this incredible distance – and I’m not going to be doing anything else! My running is actually going to come back as a by-product of walking, not as something I do every day, which is how it should be. I remember so many of the times I thought I couldn’t go any further on my long walks. I would have a lot of times where I’d get a bit annoyed with myself, because I’d be tired, or I’d be hot, or I’d get a headache, and I thought to myself, “This is pathetic.” But you know what? It didn’t matter. I just started walking again and I did it. I don’t think it’s a big deal to walk for 30 minutes if you’re exhausted and your legs are hurting. If I needed to stop, then that’s what I did. But I always continued again. On some days, I thought that I should have walked further, but I realised that it didn’t really matter. It was the journey that counted. Most of my friends didn’t understand why I was walking, but they appreciated my dedication to the project. They were so jealous of me. They would get sick on the weekend and would lie in bed for 12 hours, but I would be out for 8 hours doing something that I knew was important. They would say, “Man, this walking thing must be easy for you.” But it wasn’t, and it still isn’t. But I appreciate the way it feels now. I didn’t think it was possible to feel so happy. And I still don’t feel tired. I still feel energised, even after walking several hours. If I didn’t go to a gym, I would be able to walk my way through life. I would run everywhere – at work, in the park, and everywhere. My life would be much healthier if I didn’t go to a gym. I could just go for walks instead, and live a much healthier life. The way I see it, running is a sport, not a way of life. You might be living a very active life, but if you don’t exercise, you’re probably not going to have the cardiovascular and muscular endurance you need to be healthy. What’s worse than doing nothing? That’s exercising too much, and putting on more fat! Why does running make you so sick, if exercise is supposed to make you feel better and live a better life? The only reason that running makes you feel good is because you’re pushing yourself to your limit and you’re getting so overheated and exhausted, that it makes you feel great. I think a lot of people are running more than they actually need to. As I talked to more people, I realized that running is a way of doing nothing, while feeling amazing. For a lot of people, it is one of the only physical activities that they’re comfortable with. People get a lot of benefits from running, and I think the benefits they’re getting are actually related to the process of getting over running-related injuries. Running is a good way to de-stress after a tough week, or a bad day at work, or on a diet. People use running to escape reality, to not deal with the world, to not acknowledge what they are actually feeling. What people need to understand is that the more stress you add to your life, the more you need to run. You can’t feel great after doing a lot of running, because it’s going to hurt your body and make you feel worse. Running is something that should be done when it feels natural to do so. If you do it too often, it’s going to negatively affect your body and lead to injuries, in order to force it to be better. Running should not be your way of life. It’s just not worth the sacrifice of your health. But at the same time, for some people, running is a good way to start life. I can tell you now that when I get back to Australia, I am going to start running. I have been running on the treadmill in Australia when I am on holidays, but I will start running outside. When you’re running outside, it feels like the real deal, where you can go further and further and get more and more enjoyment from the movement. Running is the most enjoyable movement in the world! What I think is important is that when you are running, it doesn’t matter how many miles you’re running. Just running for 30 minutes, at a comfortable pace, gives you much more benefits than people realize. You’ll see the real benefit of running when you start pushing yourself beyond your limits and getting out of breath. There is nothing that will make you run faster, for longer, and enjoy it more than actually being there, in the moment, and getting out of breath. This is how you should really be enjoying your running. I started looking at running like this: Why do we run? To avoid being tired or having problems with our bodies. Why do we run faster or longer than we need to? Because we’re scared of getting tired. Why are we scared of getting tired? Because we don’t understand how our bodies work. But you know what? If you understood how your body works, it would make no sense to run at all. Running is like walking backwards in the rain. You’re only pushing yourself because you don’t know any better. To do any sport you have to understand how your body works. If you don’t understand how your body works, you’re going to feel miserable, you’re going to end up injured, and you’re going to be frustrated with yourself. What do I mean by feeling your body? Feeling your body is a feeling that is not defined by feelings of comfort. Feeling your body is feeling when something is wrong in your body. You’re experiencing what it’s like when your brain doesn’t know what the body needs. When you stop feeling your body, you will start feeling how the mind controls the body. Because if you stop feeling your body, you’ll know how to control the body and how to let it do whatever you need to do, for your body to be healthy. The way that you do this is by taking charge of what you are doing and stopping pushing yourself until your brain signals you that you have reached the limit. If you don’t know how to do this, I can tell you that you will eventually have a feeling in your body that is beyond the point of what you think you can feel. If you don’t know how to feel this, you are going to have a big problem with your running. You have to be able to stop yourself and say “No, this is going too far.” If you have a mental disorder, and you don’t know your body, I can assure you that you are going to make bad choices. If you don’t know how to stop, you will probably injure yourself – in other words, by running, you will injure yourself. You’re going to injure yourself because you don’t know what you’re doing. I want to be very clear that when I say this, I don’t mean that you have to have a mental disorder to injure yourself. I just want people to realize that they are making poor choices, because they don’t know how their body works. My advice to people is that if you do not know what your body feels like, it is better to read about it than just trying it out