Running overtook my body,

Forcing its way into my mind,

Drilling into me a routine and work ethic,

That set me apart from others around me.

On a thousand courses, it seared pain into my legs,

Which I can still feel as I sit here.

Of horrid mud and freezing snow,

Never relenting to my pleas for salvation.

In drenched daybreaks and blistering middays,

I was forged into something I was not before.

Alone within my thoughts,

As meter after meter dragged by.

Fighting, against the man to my front,

and to my rear;

Struggling, as if life itself,

Depended on the outcome that waited ahead.

Not even a loved soul could comfort,

What some describe as useless pain.

For I was ever alone in my thoughts,

During those three mile battles.

     And who could understand,

If they had known no pain of comparison,

What we endured? Giving every essence of exertion

And pure life left in your body,

For a case so seemingly futile.

     Fear, anxiousness; the starting line

Was, in itself, a dreadful place to be.

Fear of what lie ahead of you.

Of what you would fight through.

Of what what required to be endured.

But the man to your left,

And the man to your right,

In the same colors as you,

Offered the comfort that you thought abandoned you.

They suffered equal to you.

Man against man, nothing more,

Nothing less.

Nothing, but pain and your thoughts.

Then, from the torture arose acheivment.

The reward of suffering.

Not a man more proud in the world than a Champion.

High above the world on a pedestal.

So high that it breaks through the clouds,

And into the Heavens. A mighty crowd,

Applauding at his feet. As though a hero,

Fresh from victory at war.

     A War with the mind.

That's all it truly is. How much,

Are you ready to take?

Are the rewards worth reaping?

I fall victim to the answer of yes.

The bond between sufferers of pain is inseperable.

The final sensation is impossible to replicate.

The sheer nature of combating competition

Is as old as the mountains I run on,

And as enthralling as the wind, and just as merciless.

     Now, those days are gone.

Never to be returned to my occasionally aching heart.

Memories of what was, worth holding onto,

Worth knowing happened.

Knowing for certain. Like the certainty,

Of a finish line. Ending, like everything else,

In this world so mortal, so fragile,

That we fail to recognize the good times,

Which cloak themselves in the bad.