You get cut and you bleed. The blood runs down your leg and mixes with the sweat and disappears into your sock. Someone is stabbing you in the hip with a knife 90 times per minute, even turning it when you climb hills. You're guts want to spill out and your knees gradually get closer to being just bones rubbing together.
You have been battling your mind for miles. You want to go home and be showered already, without the work of the water. You could eat and drink and sleep for hours smiling. But you don't do those things yet. Their going to get done, just not until you pass under that inflated sign that says you can breathe and collapse now.
It's not about notoriety, acknowledgement, or showing off. It's about changing your life. I think people run because they have this innate desire to give all that they have in their bodies and souls and minds and be left still standing. People weep at the finish line not because of pain, well that too, but because they gave every ounce of life into that race and are now able to rest. They can now let the demons go. Whatever they are chasing or running from has been defeated and has drawn back, for now, and it's time to breathe and laugh and weep. You took on the hardest battle and gave it hell enough for it to retreat and now you stand at the finish line in victory.
This is the feeling that runners covet.
Sing.
Migrate.
