Kilometre 35

Kilometre 35 arrives the way bad news does: politely at first, then all at once. One moment I am a runner moving through the Nilgiris in the early light, and the next I am a passenger inside a body that has stopped taking my calls. The quadriceps go first. Then the arithmetic — I try to compute the kilometres remaining and the numbers swim away from me like fish in a bucket.

Everyone tells you about the wall. What nobody…