Yesterday afternoon I received the most amazing text from my friend Karl Johnson. The message read:

“40 miles, 8 hours and 16 minutes. Time to taper and binge drink for a month . . . just not in that order. Work is going to be awesome in the morning.”

What is amazing about this message is not the distance or the time; it’s not the content itself. It’s the subtle message that he did this alone and that no one was there to see him finish.

He ran more than a marathon – almost double the distance of a marathon – but not one person was there to clap for him or give him a high-five.

He earned neither a medal nor a belt-buckle. He gets no “credit” for this enormous effort from those around him. The run becomes simply the subject of a text message and an entry into his training journal.

But just because no one saw it and his friends and co-workers won’t understand what it means, he does get credit from some: me and all the other runners out there that understand that training for marathons and ultras is about more than medals and crowds and rock bands and cheerleaders.

Someone I know didn’t get this recently. She didn’t understand that the training is THE experience. Race day is just the moment in time that puts finality to it. The training is the part that makes us grow as people. The race is simply the moment when the external world puts a check mark in its book and marks us off for having completed another event.

Without fanfare Karl checks off another marathon in his book: a quiet, solitary trek through the woods that only he can fully understand. No one will ever experience his journey in the same way that he did yesterday. No one will ever experience that day in just the way that he did. And that’s what makes it special.

The next time that you’re running 18 miles in the dark or running by yourself in rain so hard that you can’t see, I want you to remember that the training is what it is all about.

Your friends won’t understand these moments, and you may not either. But these are the times that make finishing races worthwhile. They are the moments that give the fanfare meaning.

So even though there was no fanfare for Karl yesterday when he finished his run, when he crosses the finish-line later this month in his next big race, he will know that he earned it. No matter what happens that day, he will have a rich, deep victory, knowing that he did what he needed to do to prepare. And he can enjoy the adulation that will come from checking that race off in the books.

But we will all know that the race was more than just one day. The race is the end of a series of chapters that led up to that day; chapters rich with stories and meaning of their own.

Way to go Karl. You’ve earned your taper (and your Bud Light) now.

Coach Joe

Running Wild with Coach Joe – a blog focused on marathon racing, training and motivation. Bookmark us at http://coachjoeenglish.wordpress.com or use your favorite RSS feed reader to get the latest news and articles. Running Wild is also available on Yahoo! 360 and My Space.