So, I was in the military at one point in my life (Army Infantry, 2-9 infantry stationed in South Korea, and 1-64 Armor stationed in Georgia where I deployed to northern Iraq out of). While I was in the Army one of my most favorite of training and exercise was road marching. You load up with all your gear, food, water, and munitions and walk for miles and miles and miles. When I first joined back in 2007 road marching was foreign to me and it was one of the hardest obstacles I faced. One day on my first 6 mile road march in basic, I was beat about 4 miles in. I felt I was on robot mode and I was only going to stop if I passed out or until I was told to stop, at that point it seemed I was going to pass out first. of the drill instructors walked over to me and said " whats your fucking problem? You're only walking." At that point I was like, what is my problem, I am only walking. See, it was in my head, all the pain I thought I couldn't handle, all the exhaustion I was allowing to bring me down was in my head, I learned that day that if you allow yourself to stop at pain, thats giving up, giving up on yourself of all things. You learn you can operate so much further if you break that mentality. Now my creed of stopping only if I pass out or was told to, was still there but I had a new mentality about the pain I was in and I completed the march, no problem all because my mindset. When I was stationed in Korea we did a 25 mile march (the Manchu mile) and I had so much fun doing it. I learned to love something that had almost defeated me. Now days I still do a march, 30 lb backpack and 8 miles. 4 miles from my place to a coffee shop I loiter at, I hang out for a few hours, and then back to my place. I enjoy it. It keeps me connected to the idea that you can conquer most anything with willpower and a positive mindset. I just got to the shop and I have 4 miles left, im excited.