Backwards by Mike Kratzer
Sometimes you have to run backwards to remember why the hell you started running forward in the first place.
Not metaphorically — literally.
Mid-run, mid-hill, mid-existential crisis, you turn around and sprint in reverse like a lunatic dodging tree roots and bad decisions.
People think you’re injured, or insane.
Maybe both.
That’s fine.
Because backwards is rebellion. Against expectation, against the neat little arrow of progress everyone worships. You’re not chasing a finish line — you’re escaping linearity.
Running backwards is you flipping off the idea that success is always forward and uphill.
Sometimes, backwards is the way out of the loop.
It hurts in all the wrong places.
Quads light up like a bar fight.
Your calves curse your name.
Your sense of balance vanishes into thin mountain air.
But for a few precious seconds, you're not following the rules of the sport — or life.
You're unlearning.
Backwards is the glitch in the matrix.
The moment you break pace to find meaning.
It’s what happens when the usual direction fails to deliver the high.
When you turn and say, Screw it. I’ll run against the grain, even if I fall face-first into a bush.
