‘Marathon’ (c) 2008 Jan Willem Van Wessel. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Hello dears!

This is turning out to be an excellent month for posts! After we had a very fun (but also very serious) reader interaction and a wild (but somehow also sensible) reader theory, this week we have an inspiring story from a reader, whose self-employed courier jobs helped her run a marathon!

Jessie is from Dorset and recently competed in a charity run. For her training, she took a lot of cues from her daily life carrying out self-employed courier jobs - and it worked wonders! She writes:

“Hello Gertie!

I’m Jessie, one of your rare (but real!) girl readers. I wanted to write in because I saw that post last week with that lad writing about how self-employed courier jobs could help you against zombies, and it inspired it to write my own (TRUE) story. (No, I didn’t get attacked by zombies at any point!)

See, the thing is, that guy is right, but he’s not seeing the whole picture. It’s not only in times of crisis that self-employed courier jobs can help you. They helped me in a very real situation – a charity marathon last year!

That’s right, not only did I run a marathon – I finished it, too! And all because of my job as a bike courier. See, when I signed up, I was determined to take it seriously – I didn’t just want to turn up in a goofy costume and walk for a few miles. I go to the gym and jog in my spare time, so I knew I could do it. But it was my experience working self-employed courier jobs that clinched it for me, because once I began applying what I learned from my job to my training, it all began to go much more smoothly.

See, self-employed courier jobs can help athletes both physically and mentally. Physically, of course, because you have to have endurance – although running isn’t the same as cycling, I still felt like all that pedalling helped me on the day of the race. For triathletes, this works even better, as THEY have to cycle as part of the competition anyway. But the most important gain is probably mental. See, whenever I started to feel tired, I would give myself a boost with, ‘c’mon Jess! You’ve dealt with angry people and nearly been run over; this is cake compared to THAT!” It may sound silly, but it worked – I pushed myself harder, and eventually managed to finish the race. And I didn’t just power-walk the whole way either.

So in a nutshell, what I’m trying to say is that more athletes should try getting self-employed courier jobs. It could massively help their performance!”

You know, that makes even more sense than the zombie thing. For the second week in a row, I’m dumbfounded. Carry on, my dears, carry on *Waves hand confusedly*.

- Gertie
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