Simultaneously your saving grace, and your damndest enemy.

One day, your breath of fresh air. The next, the vaccuum stealing the wind from your lungs and the oxygen from your legs.

Loneliness. For miles. Upon miles.

There are days when you seek solace in the silence created by one pair of legs pounding the earth. Then there are days the silence steals your soul… leaving you questioning your athleticism in the void of morale. Yet you are driven towards the task at hand… without it your legs would be flimsy; your mind, dull; your identity of runner, false.

You must become a well of strength, drawing upon it stride after stride, shunning the screams resonating in your legs and head that demand you to quit.

You must love the silence that overpowers the music in your headphones.

You must meet exhaustion, pain and boredom head on.

You must be willing to admit that mileage is merely a petty measurement, because sometimes 4 is as hard as 24.

You must push for one more lap… despite the number of happy hour possibilities.

But more importantly… you will exalt in self-awareness.

You will breathe in a strength different from any other.

You will miss your training partner, but with the knowledge they would want you no where but where you currently are.

You will find loneliness makes you a better training partner.

You will put one foot in front of the other.

You will know the beauty of silence broken only by your own breath, your own feet.

You will cross the finish line – whether it be loudly amidst throngs of peers with a medal slung ’round your neck; or quietly, at a trail head, drenched in the sweat of a summer evening.

You will thrive.

And you will continue on – as a long distance runner – as naturally as when you first, accidentally, became one.