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" By Dean Karnazes, 42, health-food entrepreneur MILE 0 (October 12, 2005, 2:00 P.M., San Francisco): A couple of years ago, I ran 262 miles--ten marathons back-to-back. So the first fifty miles isn&amp;#039;t a big deal. I run marathons for warm-up.  Mile 100: Starting to feel the pain.  Mile 140: I burn through my first pair of custom-made shoes. The soreness starts in the quads, the calves, the torso. It&amp;#039;s a dull pain, but it can erupt into a cramp without warning. Especially the calves, which feel like they&amp;#039;re being beaten with a mallet.  Mile 200: By now it&amp;#039;s been two nights without sleep. I&amp;#039;m pretty strung out. But when you run all night, at sunup you regroup.  Mile 210: My second pair of shoes--toast. My ability to reason is impaired. I start detaching from my physical body.  Mile 300: Third night without sleep. Really delirious, swerving into the road, people honking. At 2:00 A.M., I fell asleep for thirty, forty-five seconds, but I didn&amp;#039;t stop. Have you ever read Where the Wild Things Are? Well, I started hallucinating that the possums and raccoons on the roadside were morphing into those creatures. My crew poured ice over my head.  Mile 305: The pain is so intense, I start yelling out loud. I&amp;#039;m running down this deserted road, screaming. Then the comedy of it strikes me and I start laughing uncontrollably. When I stop laughing, I start screaming again. Which would make me laugh. I must have looked like a madman.  Mile 310: It&amp;#039;s just a death march. I tune out the mileage and focus on putting one foot in front of the other. I&amp;#039;m not running; I&amp;#039;m shuffling. On to my fourth pair of shoes.  Mile 340: Something kicks in. I start running a six-minute pace. I am possessed. I&amp;#039;m not even there; I am hovering above. I don&amp;#039;t feel anything. I&amp;#039;m literally floating.  Mile 350 (October 15, 10:44 P.M., Stanford, California): Total elation. Body weight down six pounds. Calories burned: forty thousand. Within minutes, I go into hypothermia. They put me in a mummy bag. All I remember is someone shoveling spoonfuls of hummus in my mouth. The next recollection I have is waking up the next morning. --AS TOLD TO CHRISTIAN DEBENEDETTI "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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