There’s a particular kind of honesty that comes from mile eighteen of a long run. Your body has used up its easy fuel. Your form has degraded. The part of your brain that generates excuses is running at full capacity.

And you keep going anyway.

Marathon training isn’t really about the marathon. It’s about the two hundred days before it — the early mornings, the tempo runs in rain, the long runs that consume your Saturday. The race is just the receipt.

I’m training for Chicago in October. The real goal is Boston, eventually. That means hitting a qualifying time, which means the training has to be honest. No junk miles. No skipped workouts disguised as “rest days.”

The body doesn’t lie. The watch doesn’t lie. The only person who lies is you, and running has a way of making that very obvious.