‘This Isn’t So Bad,’ Says Runner Who Has Taken Self-Deception to a Magical New Place
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A local man running in empirically awful conditions has convinced himself that everything is going pretty well, Dumb Runner has learned, ignoring clear signals from his mind and body suggesting otherwise.
Fletcher Reede, 42, an avid runner and father of two, made that demonstrably false assessment less than halfway through an 11-mile run on a snow-covered trail, sources said, as wind-chill-adjusted temperatures fell to 2 degrees Fahrenheit.
“OK!” Reede said, rounding a curve in the trail and finding himself running into a stiff headwind. “Wow, all right, yes. This is great.”
That was a lie, the sources said. Reede was not doing great.
“Fletcher is actually a pretty fast runner,” said one witness, a friend of Reede’s who requested anonymity. “But at that point in his run he was barely plodding along, because of the snow and wind and stuff.”
Reede’s thick beard was a mass of ice, the source said, and his fingers appeared to be numb.
“At one point he tried to take a drink from his water bottle but couldn’t manage to open it,” they said. “Which was just as well, I guess, because that water had to be frozen solid by then.”
Despite the weather, and his body’s natural response to it, Reede kept a brave face, the source said—and even seemed to have convinced himself that he was having a good time.
“Could be worse,” he muttered. “Could be worse, could be worse.”
“I’m not gonna lie, it was impressive,” the source said. “Dude was actually smiling.”
“I mean, all of us are capable of self-deception, but this guy has taken it to a whole new level.”
Reached for comment via text message, Reede managed to type out with his still-frozen fingers, “tkhjAKJG.”
