What Running a Half Marathon Taught me About Grit
When my good friend Allison asked me, back in May, if I wanted to head out to Oregon in September to run a half marathon, I just said “Sure.” I didn’t think about how much training I’d need to do between those two dates or how “peak week” of that training would overlap exactly with my upcoming wedding, requiring that I run 11 miles the morning I set out to get married.
I also didn’t imagine how floaty the end experience would make me feel or how much I, a deeply determined and “Gritty” person would learn about grit in the process.
The Journey to Marathon City
For those of you who don’t know, a half marathon is 13.1 miles. I can tell you that because I’ve now felt every step of those miles.
Half marathons are the fastest-growing standard distance races in the U.S. — with about 2 million people finishing the 13.1 miles each year. Check out the Runner’s World chart below for a more detailed breakdown:
Like most races, half marathons vary in location, difficulty, and attendance. The one I ran was relatively large, with more than 2,000 people attending. The participants hailed from 47 states and ten countries and included more than a few current and former Olympians, one of whom finished the race in a blazing 1:05.
After Allison asked me to run the race, we started training. Let me make something very clear here, though: I was not a runner.
While my high school track coach used to call me “legs” (odd in retrospect, I know) and my friends joke I’m built like a preying mantis, I’ve always harbored a deep and fiery hatred for running. I didn’t understand it, didn’t like it, and mostly refused to do it under any circumstance aside from fleeing imminent danger.
Thanks to this mindset, I melted a little internally when Allison told me our first weekly long run would start at 5 miles — which was hand-over-fist longer than anything I’d ever done before.
That fateful long-run Sunday came (the first of many), and we gutted out the five miles in something like an hour and a half. When it was done, I put on my compression socks, ate a bagel, laid on the couch, complained, and felt superior (and in pain) for the rest of the day.
Things were off to a swimming start.
Over the next eight weeks, though, I began to try. Eventually, I tried a little harder, and then I really tried. I picked up running at least four days a week — starting with modest distances like 2–3 miles, and working up to 4 or 5 mile tri-weekly runs, interspersed cross-training days, and a long run every Sunday, which worked up a mile a week from the starting distance of 5 miles, until it eventually topped out at 11 miles two weeks before the race.
Before I signed up for my half marathon, I had been a loyal member of our local gym, where I mainly lived on the elliptical and cycling bikes, and in the yoga and barre studios. The weight room, which resides on the lower floor of the shiny new building, was foreign to me, populated as it was by meatheads and grunting people.
As a part of my training, though, I ventured in there, flanked by Allison, who has perfected the art of the “do NOT talk to me” scowl to the point where the grunting, muscle-bound meatheads did not, indeed, speak to us.
At this point, I was lifting three times a week, running five times a week, and slowly watching my body change. I had muscles in places I’d never had muscles before, and the once-grueling long-run was beginning to feel manageable and even a little bit…fun.
Race Day in Portland
The race began at a sprawling vineyard in Dayton, Oregon, called Stoller Family Estates. As soon as we pulled up, we both began to regret our decision.
Streaming from the cars around us were highly athletic people clad in compression spandex and colorful shoes. People were jogging slowly everywhere. Men were wearing tiny shorts.
What had we done?
At one point, Allison said, “Why did we choose to do this in Portland?” Portland is, after all, one of the most athletic cities in the U.S., with many half and full marathons peppering its social calendar and a newly-introduced Boston Marathon qualifying race. These people were no joke.
We made our way to the start line, where we claimed some space just off the flank of the 2:15 pacer. My goal was to finish between 2:15–2:30. Allison’s goal was a sub-two hour race, or just over.
Once we arrived at the starting line, things happened quickly. We sang the National Anthem, the gun went off, and people started to stream, en masse, down the long driveway, and around the corner, up into the sprawling fields of Oregon’s wine country. We had been training at roughly 5,000 feet, and running at sea level made us both feel like super heroes. The first mile passed smoothly and easily. After that, Allison and I got jostled apart by the still-thinning crowd, and I silently bade her goodbye until the end of the race.
She did the same, and off we went.
The Race Unfolds
From the point, Allison disappeared in front of me to the point when I crossed the finish line, two hours and sixteen minutes later, I didn’t speak to anyone. Instead, I focused on the fall of my feet, the in and out of my breath, and the looseness of my body.
I focused on being tall, moving forward, staying loose, and running straight. I ate some energy gummies and drank some water before I hit my regular long-run walls, and the first ten miles passed, believe it or not, easily, and quickly — with my average pace sitting right around 10:20 per mile — faster than my training pace by far.
At about mile ten, though, things started to get hard. I was rapidly reaching the furthest distance I’d ever run (11 miles), we’d hit the portion of the race that took place on a long, gradual hill, and the sun was starting to get hot. My stomach felt odd, and I couldn’t decide if I needed to eat or drink more, or if doing so would make me sick. I decided to chance it and see what happened.
People were dropping off all around me. I passed some of the early pace-setters that had been around me at the start, and some of the people who had blazed past me out of the driveway. I passed some people gasping for breath on the late-race hills, and, fascinatingly, a side-of-the-road band the race organizers had hired to play running-focused covers of popular rock songs. “Keep on Running in the Free World” was my favorite.
My legs were tired. I tried to think about the cold beer and burger I’d promised myself afterward, but it wasn’t enough to turn my attitude around. I ate four more fruit smoothie-flavored energy chews and remembered that I hated running.
I kept running.
Eventually, I saw the 12-mile marker. It was positioned on a corner in a residential neighborhood, and people had come from their homes to the end of their driveways to cheer the runners on. As I passed, a little girl in a lawn chair shook her cowbell, looked directly at me and said: “you can do it!” I laughed and smiled at her. I’ve never been so grateful for someone’s encouragement.
As I rounded the curve, I saw that the last 1.1 miles didn’t end in a gradual downhill, as I had thought, but actually grew uphill once again, after passing through a momentary low spot. My heart sank, and I started to debate whether my legs could handle a late-race hill like that. I was trying to decide if I could justify walking across the finish when I saw a man materialize out of the growing crowd with a ribbon around his neck and a bag in his hand.
He had obviously already finished the race and had come back down to what was arguably the hardest part of the entire course to cheer runners on. He looked at me and yelled “Great pace! You’re almost there. Look at the red blinking light! It’s right under the red blinking light.”
I lifted my head and saw what he meant: the finish line had begun to materialize at the crest of the hill and it was positioned directly beneath a red traffic light, blinking like a beacon to the finishing runners. I took a deep breath, stared at that light, and kept pushing my legs up toward it while that Saint of a man continued to cheer for the runners just behind me.
A few minutes later, I crested the top of that hill, saw Allison mixed in with the group of people lining the finish, rounded the slight corner under the red blinking light, and crossed the finish line. I beelined through the post-race handouts (Apples, bottles of water, a heavy bronze medal on a red sash, and energy goos) and headed for the curb. I sat — my legs shaking.
I had done it.
What I Know Now That I Didn’t Know Then
When I was in college, I had a tenured professor who was reaching the end of his 55 years in academia. Exhausted as he was by the rigmarole of the university system, he all but shucked off standard assignments and final papers and, instead, would have us give a brief, end-of-the-semester speech on the topic of “what I know then that I didn’t know now” as it pertained to the class.
When I think about what I know then that I didn’t know now as it pertains to this race and the process of training for it, the answers are many. Here are a few that stand out:
I can run 13 miles (and probably even longer). The most obvious takeaway is that we’re capable of way more than we imagine ourselves to be. I hated running, and yet I ran 13.1 miles in a very respectable race time, and did the majority of it shockingly comfortably. When you set your sights on things, train for them, and make them happen, it’s easy to surprise yourself. Next stop, a full marathon.
Never underestimate the kindness of sweaty strangers. Throughout the whole race, two people stand out to me: that little girl with the cowbell and the early finisher who came back to cheer the rest of us on. I’m so grateful for them. While those are both immensely simple gestures, the inborn affection within them makes me a little weepy. It was hard, but it would have been much harder without the support of random, kind people.
You have to run your own race. I’ve always believed that it’s important to run your own race in life, and that trouble arises when you start to compare yourself to (or even think too much about) other people. Never has that been tested as accurately as it was, though, when it came time to run my own race literally. In those first few miles, people were passing me left and right, and I felt some pressure to put on the gas and keep up with them. I knew I didn’t train for that, though, and that I’d burn out after just a few fast miles, leaving myself nothing for that long, grueling finish. Instead, I kept my pace where I knew it worked. I didn’t look at anyone as they passed me, and I kept telling myself it was okay. It wasn’t for them to judge, nor was it for me to judge them. It felt a little odd, but it paid off in the end. When you know your own body and capabilities, or even your own business and direction that well, it pays to stick with it. Who cares what everyone else is doing?
The things you do for yourself are the best things. When Al asked me to run the race with her, she wanted some accountability to help her push herself. I wanted to prove to myself I could do it. For some reason, running a half marathon had been a goal of mine for as long as I could remember — hate of running notwithstanding. Doing it was exhausting, but also so incredibly exciting.
Post-Race Life
At the end of the day, I’m immensely thankful for the experience of running that race, and I look forward to continuing to nurture its impacts on my life. I’m considering signing up for another half in Tucson this fall, and am running a 5k — JUST FOR FUN — this weekend. The biggest lessons come from the most unexpected places — we just have to watch for them.
