I said, “Most days I didn’t think about the marathon. I just think about a cool, fall day.”

Her eyes kind of glazed over so I went on.

I said, “If you’re a runner, then every once in a while you’re blessed with one of THOSE runs–the one that brings you back. For me it’s a cool fall day when I’m super fit and just out for a nice easy 10 miler and somewhere along the road as I’m gliding along it comes over me…that thing, that zone, that…moment. When you realize that for a while now you haven’t even been running, you’ve been floating and that you’re absolutely flying. And you’ve been completely in your own world, your own universe. And as you cruise effortlessly over the top of a small hill, the sound of your feet crunching leaves the only evidence that you’re actually touching planet earth with each stride, and as you crest that hill and the wind hits you in the face and almost takes your breath away and makes your eyes water you realize suddenly that there is a God and that this is exactly what he wants you to be doing, right at this very moment, and right on this very stretch of road.”

“Wow,” Mary said.