The thoughts that come from the mind of a lonely Division 3 distance runner

They come to him after the workout
As He begins to cool down, alone,
Either dropped by his teammates or he has dropped them, 
Or Better yet, he ran as a lone wolf the whole way. 

They come to him in the 6am Tempo run before double shifting at work
They come to him at the 4:45 am 14 mile run in the pouring rain and pitch black darkness. 
They come to him at 5:45 Am in the Middle of NYC to tackle a 10 mile run on only 4 uneven and broken hours of sleep and an exhausting day of mission work. 
And after day 100 of summer training, they still linger right before his normal 7 am run even when most "normal" teenagers and college students are enjoying their sleep. 

What are such thoughts?
Are they philosophical, self observant, painful ones, or happy ones? 
The thoughts that linger before, during, and after his run are all of these. 

Some toy with his Brain as he awakes at 6:15 am mostly daily for "a stupid, insensible, unreachable goal" 
"You'll never come close to breaking 4 minutes" 
"You're a D3 athlete, you don't have to give much effort-Go back to dream world and rest." 
His legs scream, as he awakes, "Oh yeah we aren't hitting that pace today-let's go back to bed."

Some come during his run at the most convenient times for him. 
"Ah, this is a big hill, let's stop and wait to cross the street before we get to the summit" says his mind at the bottom of the hill.
*Watch buzzes and displays 5:25 First mile* As He looks with a small grimace, he thinks to himself, "Agh, I've got 9 and a half more of these." 
"Ah, frick, can we just stop here and call it a day? You've done a lot already," says his mind As he crests a hill and stops as He waits to cross traffic at an intersection at the 2.0 mile mark of his run. 
At these occurrences, he will spit, give let out a nice "Ah, try me" and continues to grind out those miles. 

The ones after his workouts and his everyday runs are more sporadic and deeper. 
They sometimes come in the forms of questions, old thoughts from 6 months to 3 years ago and beyond. 
Most of the time they are reflections of his past workout. 
"Why the hell did a just do 14 miles..... 14x400 with like no rest..... 1k at race pace ..... 6xMile with barely any rest.... sub-5:30 pace for an 11 mile run on about 5 hours of sleep?"
He stares up at the sky and looks around to the places his ventures take him and observes the beautiful creation God has given the world.
He continues to think, "Why am I doing this again?" 
He clears the thoughts of lactic acid, in his legs, and out of his Brain, he comes up with two answers, First "Thank you Lord for giving me the gift of running and sustaining me throughout every run." 
The second, by the great runner himself, Steve Prefontaine, "You have to wonder at times what you’re doing out there. Over the years, I’ve given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement." -Pre

These answers tell him a part of why he is out there at outrageous times of day, doing outrageous workouts, going to bed at unheard of early times of day, and so forth. 
He may never figure out the question until his final day of running, which can be any day. 

However the ones after his less than par races, especially the ones that are very poor, he can never allow to leave his brain until his next run or even race. 
They say, "You stupid idiot why did you go out so fast with D1 guys, who you don't even deserve to be in contention with?.... Ha you thought the last race would land you in great ground... look at you now you freaking weak runner that you always are." They once again make him question why he gets up so early and so on. 

But he is only moved to write down this observation as he boards a bus at 6:15 am after residing to sleeping at 8pm for a cross country race 6 hours away, still thinking these same thoughts; but that's beside the point. The race moves him to edit this later that night, while his teammates are enjoying themselves, after failing to reach his goal and he focusing on fixing the mistakes he has just made. 

The only thing that matters now is the race and completing the goal. Maybe the insanity will pay off or not... Either way he will go back to the training and keep striving. If the goal isn't made, back to the drawing board and back to 2x the work to become unbeatable. If it is completed, time to work 2x harder to become unbeatable. Either way, he must constantly learn to NEVER EVER EVER BE SATISFIED BUT RATHER BE HUNGRIER AND HUNGRIER FOR THE SAME GOAL EVERYDAY. 

...And the Thoughts will still be there... Only at his end will he conquer them, he will find the point to the insanity.

- Liam Galligan