Runner’s Monologue

Adapted from Hamlet's soliloquy by Moshe Sipper

​To run, or not to run — that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The boils and carbuncles of outrageous shoes
Or to take arms against a sea of shoe manufacturers
And by opposing run barefoot. To lie down, to sleep — 
No more — and by a sleep to say we end
The heart’s race, and the thousand unnatural shocks
That running flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To lie down, to sleep — 
To sleep — perchance to scream ENOUGH: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of dearth what screams may come
When we have shuffled off this morbid soil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long distances.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of much time per furlong,
Th' oppressor's rhythm, the proud man's sweat
The pangs of despised joggers, the loo's delay,
The insole of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare foot? Who would nip guards wear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary coach,
But that the dread of something after finish line,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No runner returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather swear those spills we have
Than jog to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of new year’s resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great niche and showmen
With this regard their steps turn awry
And lose the name of action. — Soft you now,
The fair Marathon! — Lymph, in thy orisons
Be all my wins remembered.