What is wrong with me?
Every time I gear up for a long run, I replay the video of Sifan Hassan, 2024 Olympic marathon champion, in my head. “Why did I say I was going to run a marathon? What is wrong with me?”
Marathon training is as rewarding as it is grueling. There’s something deeply satisfying about completing a 16-mile run on a Saturday morning while your friends are sipping bottomless mimosas on a patio. And majority of the time, I would much rather be on that patio. Spending hours on your feet, alone with your thoughts, spiraling through every perceived shortcoming - I didn’t do enough speed work, I can’t find a hill anywhere in Chicago, I’m so slow, I’m so ugly - it all certainly builds some character.
The love-hate relationship with marathon training is universal. So why do I keep doing it?
I run to honor my mom. She was an incredible athlete—amateur by label, but certainly not by output. When she lived in Boston, she completed 150+ mile charity bike rides to benefit the American Lung Association. She once told me about a race where she was so spent at the finish line, she forgot to unclip from her pedals and toppled over. When she moved to New York, her love of cycling turned into a love of running. She ran her hometown race in Boston and the New York City marathon in her adopted one, a total of five races. I’m coming up on five myself now. My original goal was simply to match her and follow in her footsteps. But somewhere along the way, the bug bit me. I know I’ll keep racing long after that monumental fifth marathon. (This may or may not be a hint about my next race.)
I’m amazed my body can do this. Growing up, running a mile in PE was my personal nightmare. It was part of the arbitrary fitness tests the state required, right up there with rope climbing, push-ups, and stretching over a box to test flexibility. Even now, after years of strength training, I still can’t do a full push-up. As a kid, I thought running was something people did to lose weight. It was a tool of diet culture, not a celebration of movement. But over the years, through the ups and downs of my own weight - gaining 40 pounds in a year due to an undiagnosed autoimmune disease, then losing 50 in six months after getting the right treatment - one thing remained consistent: my running. No matter my weight, I never obsessed over calories burned. My mindset shifted from “How can I use this to change my body?” to “Isn’t it amazing what my body can do?”
Just because I can. It’s a wild, foreign feeling to realize I can get up and run long distances almost without thinking. I catch myself saying things like, “It’s only 10 miles,” a distance that once felt unthinkable. When I started running in 2020, I just wanted to see how far I could go without stopping, starting with a quarter mile. Now, a half marathon doesn’t intimidate me. And while I don’t know how long my body will keep up with 26.2-mile races, I’m going to milk this ability for as long as I can.
I’m writing this as I prepare for yet another official half marathon. If I’ve counted correctly, this will be my sixth. As I’m packing up clothing options for race day, I fill with a palpable excitement and a looming dread. I love race day: the cheering, the energy, the shared commitment to a sport we all love. Still, the uncertainty of your own performance always looms. Maybe it’s that thrill of the unknown that compels me to sign up for race after race. More than anything, it’s knowing how proud mom would be.