What 42.2 Kilometres Does to Your Mind

There is a line from The Alchemist that has stayed with me for years: when you really want something, the universe seems to conspire to help you achieve it.

I don't know if the universe literally conspires.

But I know there are moments in life that make you wonder.

A few years ago, I was diagnosed with high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

It forced me to start thinking differently about my health. I began making healthier decisions. I started working out. I became more conscious of what I ate and what I did with my body.

And somewhere along the way, something unexpected happened.

I started discovering what my body could do.

The healthier I became, the more I began to question some of the limits I had quietly accepted for myself.

Things that once seemed impossible started looking difficult instead.

There is a difference.

Impossible tells you not to try.

Difficult asks how badly you want it.

At some point during that journey, I decided that I wanted to run a marathon.

Not a 5K.

Not a 10K.

A marathon.

42.2 kilometres.

I wanted to know if I could take my body that far.

The place where it started

There is something almost absurd about where the story eventually took me.

When I was first trying to change my health, I went to buy my first proper running shoes and workout clothes at Okpara Square. If you go to the Square any other day, you would see people jogging, taking walks or doing both. And sure, you would see people selling sports kits like running shoes, gym wears, etc.

Years later, I found myself back at that same Square, named after one of the finest politicians Nigeria has ever witnessed in the person of Mazi Michael Okpara.

Except this time, it was the finish line of the 2026 Enugu City International Marathon.

I couldn't have planned that symmetry.

The place where I had gone to prepare myself to start running became the place I was now trying desperately to reach after running 42.2 kilometres.

Sometimes life writes better metaphors than we do.

I wanted to finish

There is a point in a marathon when the excitement disappears.

The crowd doesn't matter as much.

The adrenaline that carried you through the early kilometres is gone.

Your body begins negotiating with you.

Mine had a particularly persuasive argument.

My knee hurt.

I was exhausted.

And there were still kilometres between me and the thing I had wanted for so long.

Before the marathon, 42.2 kilometres was an ambition.

Inside the marathon, it became something completely different.

It became the next kilometre.

Then the next one.

Then another.

Eventually, the question wasn't whether I could run a marathon.

The question was whether I could keep moving now.

I could.

So I did.

Then the universe sent people

This is the part I keep thinking about.

When my knee was hurting and fatigue had taken over, I didn't finish those final kilometres alone.

There was Victoria.

She had come all the way from Lagos State for the marathon.

And there was Harrison, who lives in Enugu.

Harrison hadn't even registered for the race.

Yet somehow, at the point where I needed people beside me, there they were.

We kept moving.

The finish line was getting closer.

My body was tired. My knee hurt. Whatever version of me had imagined triumphantly running across the finish line probably hadn't imagined this version of the story.

But maybe that's another thing 42.2 kilometres teaches you.

The thing you want doesn't always arrive in the form you imagined.

Sometimes achievement looks less like conquering something and more like refusing to stop.

Sometimes strength looks like allowing other people to walk or run beside you.

And sometimes, when you have gone as far as you think you can go, life sends you Victoria and Harrison.

Together, we crossed the finish line.

Maybe this is what conspiracy looks like

I don't know whether the universe conspires to give us what we want.

Maybe we notice coincidences more when something matters deeply to us.

Maybe wanting something changes what we see.

Maybe commitment puts us in places where the right people can find us.

Or maybe there really are moments when life quietly rearranges itself around a sufficiently stubborn desire.

I don't know.

I only know what happened to me.

I wanted to become healthier.

That decision led me to buy running shoes.

I wanted to discover what my body could become.

That led me to running.

I wanted to complete a marathon.

That desire eventually brought me back to the same place where I had bought those first running shoes.

Only now there was a finish line there.

And when my body began struggling to carry the desire any further, two people appeared and helped me carry it home.

42.2 kilometres

I eventually learned that a marathon isn't really 42.2 kilometres.

Not while you're running it.

At the starting line, it is 42.2.

Later, it becomes 20 kilometres remaining.

Then ten.

Then five.

And when things become really difficult, even five is too much to think about.

So you stop running the marathon.

You run the kilometre you're in.

Then you run the next one.

I think many of the things we desperately want from life work this way.

Better health.

A company.

A different life.

A difficult dream.

From the beginning, the full distance can look ridiculous.

So perhaps we aren't supposed to carry the entire distance at once.

Perhaps our responsibility is simply to keep moving toward it.

And maybe that is where the universe comes in.

Not necessarily by removing the difficult kilometres.

Not by making your knees stop hurting.

Not by ensuring everything happens according to plan.

Sometimes it conspires through a coincidence.

Sometimes through a place.

Sometimes through a person who travelled from Lagos.

Sometimes through someone who didn't even register for the race.

Sometimes the universe doesn't carry you to the finish line.

It sends you people who help you keep moving until you can see it.

And then, together, you cross it.