But back at school, games occupied a much higher place on my list of priorities. Space Quest 3 and Commander Keen and Doom were far more important than the dreariness of homework and chores. There were vital skills to be learnt in the fantasy realms of platform games and shoot-’em-ups, and I took to acquiring them with great enthusiasm.

In the classrooms of Civilization and Simcity I learned the virtues of patience and resource management. Lemmings taught me to solve problems against the pressure of a ticking clock. But the most frequent lesson I had drummed into me was timing.

Every game, from Arkanoid to California Games to Wolfenstein 3D, presented its own challenges and tactics to overcome them. But total mastery – the ability to finish levels in mere seconds and set stupendous high scores – could not be achieved without a fine-tuned sense of timing. If you could just synchronise your mind’s beats to those of the game – feel the ticks of the computer’s clock – dominion was yours. It was something akin to the moment Neo realises he can transcend the rules of the Matrix.

Of course the real world is far more complex than the pixels and sprites of the game world. It’s not a closed system, for one. Nothing is perfect or symmetrical, making that magical metronome rhythm exceedingly difficult to master with any consistency. But with practice, persistence and luck, we can have glimpses of that beautiful synchronicity, when the world’s heart beats in harmony with ours.

I’m wary of calling this experience inspiration, because that burdens it with having to seek us out. Fun as it is to sit patiently with an open mind and a vacant grin, it’s never taken me beyond the heights of my beanbag. If I want to find inspiration I have to go out and find it myself. Even at the peak of my sedentary childhood, I knew I had to work to conquer a game.

If the greatest achievement was to crack the code of a game’s timing, it came through the lessons of persistence and patience. That sense of the computer’s pulse came only after many hours of gameplay, figuring out tactics and refining techniques.

Today I’ve left my games behind. Apart from the occasional fling with World of Goo or bout of Wii Boxing, I have a Grown-up Real Life to live. But those lessons haven’t left me. I dabble with various diversions and sidelines, but my proficiency, and my interest, in most of them remain superficial. The skills in which I can see my ability growing and flourishing are those I give the most time over an extended period. Amazingly enough, the harder I work at my writing and my illustration and my running, the more often I find that inspiration.

Malcolm Gladwell has it right. Whether 10 000 hours or a little less, there’s no getting around the perspiration that precedes inspiration. It’s a long, hard slog, grounded in the labourer’s qualities of consistency and endurance. Eventually, and with increasing regularity, the toiling is punctuated with moments of mastery.

And when those moments come, they are truly sublime. Ideas gush from your mind, perfectly formed before pen hits paper. You run without effort, feet barely touching the ground, the world standing still around you. Every word you speak and every move you make hits its target with exactly the right impact.

And that is why we do it. It’s the dream of god-mode that keeps us playing.

This is why running is so addictive: physical fitness aside, it’s the mental battles of self-discovery that keep us coming back for more, pushing our limits further than we knew we could.

The old way: alls and nothings

I’ve always been naturally lazy. In school I pushed the limits of handing work in late (my record: 13 months) and I crammed for exams the night before. In my working life this has also been my biggest challenge. Big projects invariably see me plumb the depths of procrastination before pulling an all-nighter or two as the deadline stomps closer.

I’m right in the middle of my busiest two months since I started this business. It’s exciting stuff, but there’s no margin for error. Sloth beckons to one side; on the other lurks the urge to sit up all night and plough through the to-do list. The former is plainly wrong, and the latter, while tempting, means I’ll lose too much productive time recovering from my exertions.

A better way: comfortably hard

One of the first, and toughest, lessons I learned from running was to slow down, to pace myself. At full speed I couldn’t last more than a minute or two, and it took a full five minutes to catch my breath again. Stiffness and fatigue lasted well into the next day, hampering my efforts to maintain a good fitness schedule.

As I grew in fitness I learned to run at around 70–80% of my maximum capacity. Dropping the pace to ‘comfortably hard’ made all the difference. Not only was I able to complete much longer runs without walking breaks, but I could get up the next morning and do it all again.

Working like running

I realised last week this approach has begun to creep into my workflow. I’m tending away from the long nights and chugging happily along during regular waking hours. At this comfortably hard rate I can get through the workload for the day and get up the next day fresh enough to keep going.

Bear with my hubris, but I think I’m onto something: we weren’t made to run at 100% effort. That’s our emergency reserve; our secret weapon. We’ll bring it out on race day, rely on it to outrun unruly canines, let it pull us through a big launch. But for maximum efficiency we have to pull back to 80%. That’s what’ll get us from the starting line within sight of the finish, from brief to deadline, only to do it again as many times as we have to.

Measured progress

Between frequent interruptions and the regular afternoon slump, it’s hard to push through a full day’s work. I recently happened upon the Pomodoro technique for time management. Silly name aside, it’s easy to understand, easier to implement and is proving surprisingly effective in helping me manage both concentration and energy levels.

The Pomodoro technique emphasises simple consistency — in timekeeping, in focus, and in brief regular breaks. It’s reminiscent of the disciplined pacing that running demands. The enforced breaks help me catch my breath in time to tackle the next chunk of work and work comfortably hard throughout the day. There’s a sense of progress too, that comes with noting the number of Pomodoros (or 25-minute units of work-time) completed in a day, just as I’ll memorise my kilometre splits on a run.

Things are building up to a final sprint in two weeks’ time. I’ve been pushing through the days and weeks, checking off tasks and getting things done, but four big deadlines in the same week mean I’ll have to fire up the 100% secret weapon. But without puffing along at 80% for the past six weeks that final push would have already been uncomfortably impossible.