Six years ago tonight, I sat in this same hotel, in a bed just like this one. I ordered  spaghetti with grilled chicken, red pepper flakes and olive oil from room service, seeking to recreate the pre-run meal I’d grown accustomed to at home. It wasn’t on the menu, but the kitchen obliged. When it arrived, however, something in the chicken smelled like bleach. I ate cautiously, only until I felt like I had enough calories in me, and tossed the rest in the garbage. And, before bed, I successfully convinced the gentleman that delivered my room service to steal real half and half from the staff break room for me, lest I have to drink my coffee with the powdered cream offered in the room on race morning. I would not let anything, real or perceived, come between me and the personal record I’d spent 12 weeks training for.

Me and Runner’s World Editor and 1968 Boston Marathon winner, Amby Burfoot, after completing my first Runner’s World Half Marathon in 2012.

I crossed the finish line of the 2012 Runner’s World with a five-minute PR, and the 2013 Hat Trick — a 5k, 10k and Half Marathon over two days — in my sites. I would complete that too, along with the Half Marathon in 2014 (another PR), and the 10k and Half Marathon in 2015 and 2016.

Tonight, I sit in front of the television watching a movie. I went out earlier for a proper dinner. Tomorrow will be race #40 on the year. I am not the same person that I was in 2012, when a half marathon was a daunting endeavor. In the last six years, I’ve run days through the Rocky Mountains; I’ve run marathons on three continents; I’ve run 100 miles without sleep. But I’ve always come back to where I feel like it all began. I’ve always come back to Bethlehem.