At mile 20, I thought I was dead. At mile 22, I wished I was dead. At mile 24, I knew I was dead. At mile 26.2, I realized I had become too tough to kill.

This is a modern piece of endurance-sport humor that circulates widely among marathon runners, typically shared informally (on running forums, social media, and motivational posters) rather than traceable to a single speech, book, or identifiable first publication. Its structure references the marathon’s notorious late-race “wall,” often felt around mile 18–20 when glycogen depletion and cumulative muscle damage make continuing feel impossible. By naming specific mile markers—20, 22, 24, and the full marathon distance of 26.2—the quote evokes the escalating physical and psychological crisis of the final 10K, a common topic in marathon lore and post-race storytelling.

The quote dramatizes the marathon as a staged confrontation with one’s limits: first the fear of collapse, then the desire to stop, then a sense of total defeat—followed by a reversal at the finish. The punchline (“too tough to kill”) reframes suffering as proof of resilience, suggesting that endurance is not the absence of breakdown but the ability to continue through it. The escalating repetition mimics the runner’s narrowing mental focus late in a race, while the final line converts an experience of near-failure into a narrative of toughness and transformation. It functions as gallows humor and as a motivational myth about persistence.