Lt. Cmdr. Gene Severtson, 33, was looking forward to his 10th marathon at the Marine Corps Marathon and hoping for a different result from what he experienced at Boston earlier this year. In his 18 years of competitive running, he had never experienced the "runner's high" that we often hear about. He would train hard and some excellent results were realized.

But, on Sunday, he experienced something completely different. After the race he felt pure exhilaration after finishing with a personal record time of 2:53:55. How did this come about? A number of things came together to put that smile on his face: a good year of...