Your Fitness is a Cult, Bro!

Is it just me or has everyone got a Garmin watch these days? No, like seriously. I think everyone is running.

Asics running shoes, I am told, are the bee’s knees. Mizunos are decent workhorses. I have never heard of these brands. Or maybe I have but never really thought of them for real. It is what happens when all you wear are boots, basketball shoes and hi-tops.

And everyone is trying to get everyone else involved. It is like a fitness pyramid scheme where everyone has to get as many people involved so that their lap times look better. It has reached the stage where I watch out for the charismatic preachers, Tupperware aunties, stokvel cousins, CultFit – I mean CrossFit – bros, and the running enthusiasts at dinner parties, lest I get roped into something foolish like doing a fun run at half-past nonsense in the morning on a Saturday.

I call foul, though. I sense a cult.

Bear with me. Running has all the definitive features of a cult.

Do people meet at odd hours to take part in it? Do people try to rope other people into it on the regular? Is there some guru who enraptures them completely? Does the activity seem to be benign until you are told about the extremes to which people go to just to better themselves? If one tries to quit, does everyone else rally to keep them in the group? Is death a possibility while engaging in the activity? Do they spend money on it?

Cult!

I have been telling people about CultFit for years now. Running is just the newest kid on the block.

The Windhoek pavements are full of people running at all hours of the day. Jokes. Just in the early morning and the late evening. This is Windhoek. Nobody runs after the sun is up.

Nonetheless, they are, labouring up hills, taking downhills at steady trots, sweating and clocking up mileage and clapping friends across finish lines.

It is heartening to see so many people take their fitness by the shoelaces and run it into shape. I would probably join in all the sweaty, hash-tagging madness if it was not a cult.

You can gauge what I think of an idea by how I respond to it. Eagerness means I will consider trying it out and, eventually, not do it. Silence means I am counting the number of lashes one will get in hell for even thinking about taking part in such foolishness.

I have been invited to take part in runs countless times now, but given what I know about cults and running, my silence could still a thunderstorm.

Maybe that is why we are not getting any rain. I should just join the cult.

Silence.

Rémy Ngamije is the author of ‘The Eternal Audience Of One’ (Blackbird/Jacana, 2019).

– @remythequill on Twitter; @remythequill

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