When running, you will sometimes come to a path that, for whatever reason, is difficult to read. While the incline may go up, your eye and, subsequently your mind, says it’s going down. Such visual tricks are called trompe l’oeils, literally “trick of the eye” in French.
Personally, these tricks often have the effect of letting me run harder uphill than I otherwise would, revealing the incredible amount of mental power that goes into distance running. If my mind does not believe I’m going uphill, I run faster, even if I am in fact going uphill. Most people would consider this a cool trick to get you to run faster. Unless you didn’t want to run faster.
[Read More]