Name three things about the physical act of traveling that you enjoy. Go ahead; take all the time you need. Maybe it would be easier to adopt the opposite approach? I'll start you off: Delays. Security lines so infinitely long that they belong at Disneyland. All those new charges for blankets, snacks, and checked luggage. Airplane food. Did I mention delays?

I get a headache as soon as I step into the airport terminal and bump into my first oncoming, overloaded luggage cart. I suffer through the process, because traveling is the great love of my life: I've visited five different continents and almost half the United States. But anyone who enjoys the act of traveling in our post 9-11, perpetually Code Orange world must be a masochist. A masochist-or a mileage runner.

What is a mileage run? According to Flyertalk.com, the online frequent flyer community and mileage-runner Mecca, "A true mileage run is a trip that's sole purpose is to earn miles or points in a particular travel industry loyalty program." That definition barely scratches the surface of a practice that is also a celebration of the mechanics of traveling, a sort of videogame turned reality, and the opportunity to live the high life without paying the price. In order to be a mileage runner, you must embrace the attributes of modern travel that most people despise. Interestingly, this doesn't seem to be a problem for most mileage runners, but rather an incentive.

Meet Gray Roberge. A typical recent college graduate, he prefers drinking beer and sleeping in to logging hours for his job as a legal assistant. The only difference is that the brew he's drinking might be poured out of the Narita Airport's robot beer machine-in the Tokyo airport's exclusive lounge only accessible to priority fliers-and he catches up on his sleep during flight routings that, on average, take him from San Francisco to Los Angeles to Boston to Pennslyvania to Washington, D.C. to Tampa to Chicago, and back again, in a matter of hours.

"Mileage running is a pastime I both enjoy and am ashamed of," Gray told me when we first met, his nervous laughter soon replaced by genuine, fervent passion as he explained the psychology behind his hobby. According to Gray, there are two basic reasons why people go on mileage runs: to accrue frequent flier miles or priority status. Gray personally focuses on the status aspect, almost always flying via United Airlines so he can rack up miles. This is how he achieved the exalted 1K® status, the award a United Airlines frequent flyer is granted once he or she accumulates 100,000 "elite qualifying miles" (EQMs) in a single year.

Gray reached1K® us near the end of 2008, and reckons he has flown about 60,000 more miles this year alone (only 40,000 Butt in Seat-or "BIS," as mileage runners say-but his full total is boosted by Double Elite Qualifying Miles, a promo which doubles every mile you actually fly and which Gray refers to as "every mileage runner's spoonful of heroin/sack full of cocaine/pint of cheap whiskey").

"Once you have 1K® status, you get more perks and better treatment from the airline," he explained. "Priority boarding, priority upgrades, priority baggage check-supposedly it's really worth it. I'll be treated like one of the airline's best customers, but I definitely don't pay like a best customer."

Listening to Gray talk about 1K® status is like hearing a devoted gamer describe the act of unlocking the last level in a video game: Since the prize is so rewarding, Gray enjoys the trials and tribulations it takes to get to the top.

"Most people don't understand mileage running because they hate flying-for them, getting to their destination is the worst part of the journey," he told me. "I enjoy it-going to the airport, checking through security, the take-off, the landing. I like the most brutal trips possible. I enjoy when things go wrong. Those are the memorable moments, the ones that make for the best stories."

I asked Gray to tell me a story, so he described a recent trip to London. Through Flyertalk, Gray found an extremely rare international deal for $253 roundtrip. The itinerary entailed flying from San Francisco to Chicago, where he would stay the night with a friend before catching a flight to D.C. early the next morning, then traveling on to London. Fifteen hours later, he would be back in San Francisco. Sounds like a (relatively) smooth plan-of course, that's not how it really went down. Due to a succession of delays, Gray arrived in Chicago long after the last airport shuttle had departed. He had to take three night buses in order to make it into the city by sunrise.

Once again, Gray recounted his experience with such glee that I almost felt like I was listening to a sports play-by-play rather than my own personal version of hell. But when Gray described his last few hours in London, which he spent strolling by the Thames River and watching the sun rise up over Buckingham Palace before taking the tube back to Heathrow, I stopped thinking about delayed flights and felt some of his exhilaration. There's definitely something magical about flying across the world and back in under 48 hours.

Gray doesn't crave the hallowed 1K® status solely for status' sake; once achieved, it'll be easier for him to go on real trips, journeys that last longer than a weekend and encompass far more ground than an airport. A few months ago, Gray cashed in some of his miles and took a ten day vacation to China and Japan, a trip that cost him around $80 dollars in airfare instead of thousands. "It's an equalizing process," Gray explained with the devilish smirk of a schoolboy who has fooled his teacher. "How else can you experience these traveling highs as a college student? You can't."

Still, he definitely doesn't blow off his mileage runs as perfunctory. "It's just all memorable to me," he told me. "Mileage running may not seem like the most culturally enriching experience, but for me it's the best part about traveling." He described an argument he had with a skeptical friend who asked why he didn't put the $3000 he spent this year on traveling in a savings account. "That sounds so entirely boring and simple and easy and basic. If I had done that I wouldn't have had any of the memories, any of these great experiences-I told her that-and she said, 'But, you don't have any experiences.' I disagree. I've been around the world, and it's not so much the touristy sites, the sight-seeing, but the basic things that excite me most about traveling. Where do you get your office supplies? Where do you go food shopping? It's like Sigmund Freud's idea of 'The Uncanny'-everything about traveling is the same essentially, but at the same time a little bit different."