This one is in three parts: how one friend mentally sherpa-ed me through my first 20-miler, then I repaid the favor a few months later by pacing him at his first attempt at a hundred-miler. From that experience, I applied what I'd learned to help pace another friend through her first hundred.

This is a tale paved with success and failure -- but in the end, it's all about life: eat, drink, put one foot in front of the other and you'll have a great story to tell when it's over.