Mile twenty is where the crowd noise falls away and it is just you and a question you have been asking since before sunrise — the one only your own legs can answer.
This is one of the kinder places in California to go looking for that answer. Flat, fast, certified for Boston, running past the Queen Mary, along the shoreline, out through Belmont Shore, with the ocean air doing its best to carry you home. The field is the full spectrum: first-timers chasing a finish, veterans chasing a number, and a companion race that sends kids and families running past the sharks inside the Aquarium of the Pacific.
The gun goes before dawn from Marina Green in downtown Long Beach, in October.
Whatever distance you pick, the medal is not really the point. You learn something about yourself out there that does not come up any other way.