The re-discovery was that I really, really can’t run in direct sunlight. It kills my energy. It was only 85°, but I started too early—while the sun was still high in the sky. That, and I tried a new route without realizing how much more exposed it is than my normal one. By the time I hit my 6-mile water stop, I was already flagging and having to work harder than I should have. I had applied sunscreen, so I wasn’t getting burned, but I could feel myself overheating.

At the 10-mile mark I had to stop for quite a bit longer than the 60 seconds I had planned. I doused my legs and neck with water from nearly every fountain I passed, but that only helped in half-mile increments. When the sun finally hit the treeline in the last 3 miles of my run I felt like a weight had been lifted, and I was able to crank it back up for a 9:00/mile finishing pace.

Long story short: I won’t be running before dusk again any time before October-ish. I’m just too much of a pansy when it comes to direct sunlight.

But! The corollary to all of this is that I really do think I’ve got my energy maintenance during a run down cold. For future reference, and those who care:

• Gel every 3½-4 miles. I prefer Hammer, as Gu gives me an instant headache, but whatever works for you. Carbs per gel: 23g.

• Take a 60-second break when you gel. Seriously. Not just slowing to a walk, but to a full stop. Keep moving a little so you don’t seize up, but keep in mind that the goal isn’t to make forward progress, but to let your legs breathe and clear out all of the toxic crap that has been building up in the last hour.

• For fluids, I mix one packet of Hammer Perpetuem and one packet of Hammer HEED and split it across however many water bottles I’m going to use. The Perpetuem is meant for activities longer than 2 hours, so it’s overkill for anything less. Carbs per packet: 54g for Perpetuem, 25g for HEED.

• If I go through 3 gels and all of my fluids, that’s a total of 148g of carbs. That’s probably more than I need for just 2½ hours, but I’d rather go too high than too low and crash.

The idea part relates back to the question I asked earlier in the week: how can I stay focused on endurance runs? The audiobooks are doing a pretty good job (this week was Steven Gould’s Jumper), but I am curious to see if foreign language instruction would work. I figure that I now spend 6 hours per week running, and while that takes a hefty chunk out of my audiobook pile, I feel that I could be putting that time to better use.

Of course, it might also be a horrible idea. Right now, my runs are clarifying and calming. If I am productive during my runs, will that take away from that effect? I’m not sure. But, I’ll give it a try one some of my shorter runs next week and see how it goes. Should I go for something useful, like Spanish or Japanese? Or maybe something interesting like Cherokee, Navajo, or Maori? (No, I’m not saying those aren’t useful languages, just that I can’t imagine I’d personally ever find myself using them.)

This week I cross a line: my long run next Saturday is 15 miles, which will take me more than 2½ hours to complete. I’ve noticed that line is more than just a test of endurance—it’s also a test of focus.

Simply: you have trouble staying focused for a movie that’s longer than 2½ hours, right? I’m having the same trouble with my long runs.

These days I run to audiobooks instead of music. I find that the audiobooks do a far better job of distracting me from the mechanics of running. It messes with my head when I think about the mechanics, tripping me up. If I lose focus, I get into this sort of wedged loop in my head where I can’t think about anything other than the mechanics. But even the most interesting audiobook, like an interesting film, is going to lose me at that 2½-hour mark.

I don’t think it’s an energy or blood sugar thing. I’ve been finishing the long runs with energy left—at least, not so dead that I want to vomit or pass out. But maybe it is? I don’t know.

Anyone have any ideas?

When I say that out loud, it sounds positively absurd.

How did I get here? How did I get to the point where running 14 miles at once sounds like a feasible idea? Since I started running just over two years ago I’ve never really thought of myself as a runner, just as a guy who happens to run. Runners are a different class of people, with their skinny legs and consistently wind-blown look, right?

And yet, here I am: running 4-5 days, and 30+ miles, per week. To deny that I have become a runner would be a delusion of the first order.

The funny thing is that it didn’t really take much to go from a guy that couldn’t do a single whole mile without slowing to a walk, to this guy. I remember the gap: when you’re working on your couch to 5K goals, the people like me seem crazy from lack of oxygen to the brain. But I was there once, too! I was! I didn’t spring out, like Athena, fully-formed and doing 10 miles at a time. I remember how devastatingly frustrating it was to finally be able to run an entire mile, only to be so wiped that I had to walk the next one or give up for the day.

I have good news: to get here, all it requires is that you don’t give up. You just keep doing what you’re doing. That’s it. You don’t have to be the fastest, or have the most endurance, or anything like that. You only need perseverance. The rest comes with time.

Two years later, you find yourself able to do half marathons. Somehow your short runs have stretched out to 10Ks, which you’re doing several times each week without thinking about it. You find that the nutrition planning that seemed so tedious two years before is now second nature. You know how many calories you burn per mile, and exactly when you need to pause for water and gels on long runs. You didn’t get here via rigorous scientific testing—it just crept up on you, making sense a little bit at a time.

Two years seems like an insane amount of time, right? Here’s the thing: I cheated. Out of those two years, I probably only ran for a total of 12 months. I live in Florida, and only crazy people run in the summer heat in Florida. So, at best, I ran 6 months at a time, with another 6 months break in between. See? I’m not so different than you—there are plenty of nights when I log off my computer, look at my shoes, and don’t go running. Hey, I did it for 6 months solid.

But each autumn I came back to it. I missed the calm of it. I missed the organization it induced in my head. Running is great for your headspace, and I probably wouldn’t be nearly as calm as I am today without it. It’s a great headspace to be in.

Like I did, all you have to do to get here is to keep putting on those shoes. Maybe not exactly on the schedule you’d like. Maybe you miss a day here and there—life happens. But you keep putting them on, and you just go with it. One day, you wake up, and you’re there.

Hey. Nice to meet you. I’m Rick. I’m a runner, and that’s okay.