In July 2021 I was making my way home through Victoria Park in East London during a summer downpour. The sun was beaming across from the horizon, backlighting the torrential rain. There was a marathon in progress, and the runners pushed on through gritted teeth in the epic light. Their expressions were beautifully raw and unfiltered - a dream for any portrait photographer - and very suddenly the idea for this project presented itself. Some very passionate and or privileged individuals choose to leave their families, comforts and responsibilities behind to take on perilous challenges for no other reason than the challenge itself, such as climbing Mount Everest. Is this justifiable? The answer is subjective, but most will agree that the compulsion to set-and-overcome challenges is a uniquely human trait, which for better or worse, has greatly accelerated our advancement on this earth. Marathon running is a great example of this condition on a smaller, more relatable scale. Setting a goal, and pushing through physical pain to achieve it. Receiving dopamine, confidence and long term physical and mental health benefits as a reward. “Of course it was painful, and there were times when, emotionally, I just wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren't involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the triathlon or the marathon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It's precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive--or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself.” - Haruki Murukami, What I talk about when I talk about running.