So here I am again. On the eve of my first 20 miler for my next big race.

I am always a raving lunatic before these grand adventures. Twenty miles is a place beyond hydration capability, but before the last 10 kilometers of the marathon.

It is a place that requires work. There is no finish line. It is merely an objective to conquer. You quite simply have to work like a dog.

The last time I started doing twenty-milers, I was largely successful. But then before that, I injured myself more than I can adequately compare with any other injury.

The twenty miler is just something that needs to be done. There is no excuse, no substitute, no parallel workout. The body needs to learn how to deal with fatigue, with glycogen depletion, and agony. And it needs to learn to cast away its preconceived notions of difficulty.

There comes a point, near the end of every twenty miler, right around the 18 mile mark, where two miles is an eternity. It can’t go faster, no matter how faster you try to run. It just needs to be grinded out. Something special happens at this juncture, with me personally.

Presuming I’m still moving, I can still run, yet make my mind stop. I can begin to take great joy in my suffering. I know how hard I’ve worked to get this far, and whatever I look like, no matter what is failing to fire, or whatever I have done wrong earlier, cannot take away from me my labors for the past two and three quarter hours. For I am about to conquer the single hardest event in training for the single hardest distance as sanctioned by the United States Track and Field Association.

I wait for mile 18 tomorrow, and I want it.