Last night I was struggling through a 5-mile run when I came to understand something about both my marathon training and my career as a freelance copywriter.

At Mile 22 in a marathon, a lot of your physical conditioning is just plain gone. You’re tired. I mean insanely tired. And you still have FOUR POINT TWO miles to go. When I run on June 1, by Mile 22 I will have been running for just under four hours. And I will have about 45 more minutes to go.

At Mile 22, you can’t count on physical skills to make it. You need a mental commitment that propels you to run for another 45 minutes. Here’s where you ask yourself… why the hell am I working so hard? What the [really major curse word] am I doing out here?

But you try to remember why you’re here, why you worked so hard. You reach into your stubborn core and remember what the goal was: to come in under 5 hours, to take a full 1.5 hours off the previous year’s time, to DO it.

Last night on the treadmill, I wondered why the hell I was running 5 miles in order to get ready for a 20-mile practice run on Saturday. Why would someone run 20 miles? I’m tired. I want to hibernate in bed for a week or two. I don’t want to push anymore. I want to go visit my sister in the hospital and spend some quality time with a TV. I want to mourn the end of my relationship with D.J. and simply stop trying so hard. No one would care, right? I’m the only one who wants this, and maybe I don’t want it anymore.

I’m at the same place with my career. Some days I want to stop the marathon pace of keeping up with a small business. I’m busy enough now. I’m making a fairly good living. I don’t have to keep pushing. I could stop reaching for a bigger goal and simply keep up with the clients I have. I could remain comfortable and above water financially by simply settling down into a moderate work schedule, like a runner who puts in 3-4 miles a day and stays in shape.

Mile 22. You either make the commitment to keep going or you don’t. I either run the 5 miles to prep for the 20 or say it’s just not important and it’s just not worth it and I’m going home. I either settle for a comfortable life of press releases and postcard copy or I keep pushing to write books and become a speaker and grow this business into something that I can sell.

When I’m in the trenches, dreading the effort that it’s going to take to get to the bigger goal, I forget that I really, really want to finish. But last night on the treadmill as my knees ached and my attitude bombed and my inner voice whined for me to stop at 3 miles, I remembered that the ultimate goal was not about this one session. I remembered that I’m never content to settle. And I hunkered down and finished the 5 miles and started planning for the 20.

See you at the finish line, wherever that might be.