Brittany Runs A Marathon
Reflections on training, the realities of race day, and gratitude — lots and lots of gratitude.
On October 13, 2019, I ran the Bank of America Chicago Marathon and joined the marathoner club.
Those 5 hours, 43 minutes, and 51 seconds felt like they lasted forever while they simultaneously went by in the blink of an eye.
There’s something so gratifying, yet saddening, about accomplishing a goal you’ve been working towards for an extended period of time.
On one hand, you did it!
On another, it’s over and you’re left to decide what’s next.
I entered the lottery for the Chicago Marathon in late November and was notified of my admission in mid-December. This goal has been almost a year in the making. From December through May, it was a vision. In June, my formal training with Gilbert’s Gazelles kicked off.
But before I could clock my first mile with the team, I was t-boned on the driver’s side of my car by a teenager who wasn’t paying attention. Things could have turned out a hell of a lot worse, but my car was totaled and the left side of my body was damaged. As I began training with the Gazelles, I also started a 3-month long physical therapy process to prevent any permanent damage and to regain my strength on the injured side of my body.
I know myself well enough to know that if I hadn’t made that commitment to join the Gazelles before my accident, I would’ve felt even more lost and damaged than I already did.
I’ve trained myself for 5K, 10K, and half marathon races. But this? This was different. It was daunting in a way that the other distances were not. I didn’t just need the physical coaching — I needed the mental coaching too. I needed to believe I could become a marathoner and that I would heal and be okay.
Marathon training became my constant from June through October. It gave me a schedule, it forced me to be disciplined, and it showed me how to chip away at a goal to make it manageable. Most importantly, it taught me how to always find a way to move forward even when everything seemed too hard or too painful.
I knew I’d be at The Loop every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. I knew I’d be completely distracted from whatever was eating away at me for anywhere from 1.5 to 4 hours while I trained and spent time learning from my team and my coach.
There were good runs, and there were bad runs. There were PRs, and there were runs I wish I could erase any documentation of. Each step I took was a lesson. Even when I wanted to be upset or disheartened, my teammates wouldn’t let me. Their positivity made a huge difference in my running and in my life too.
After I finished physical therapy for my car accident injuries, my body decided it wasn’t done breaking down on me. Due to the strength imbalance from the accident, I strained my left IT band and a portion of the muscle above my knee. My doctor put me on a no exercise order for the second time that summer (first was when he first started treating my injuries from the accident).
Getting sidelined 2 months before the race was terrifying. I wondered if I’d recover.
If I’d be able to run pain-free again.
If I’d be able to run.
Around this time, I was also able to start lifting again normally for the first time since the accident. As I began to rebuild the strength I had lost in the left side of my body, my IT band and knee issues began to disappear.
I told myself that if I could just stay healthy from here on out and make it to the start line, that’s all that matters. I regularly got adjustments. I got a cortisol shot in my inflamed bunion. I cut out alcohol and cleaned up my diet. I took an obscene amount of Airborne and vitamins daily.
All of September, I was riding the runner’s high. I felt good. I felt strong. I felt fast. I felt ready. After I completed my 20 mile run (my longest run ever), a switch flipped inside of me. For the first time during training, I finally knew I could run a marathon. And from there? It was smooth sailing.
Until race weekend.
The Friday I left for Chicago, I woke up with a sore throat. I chalked it up to the weather change in Austin. I got to Chicago and my symptoms got worse. By Saturday night, I was running a fever.
(I saw a doctor as soon as I got back to Austin, and it turns out I ran the race with bronchitis and an ear infection.)
But I had a marathon to run. So I did.
That decision to run in the face of an obstacle? That was the mental coaching being put into action. My coach had taught me to believe in myself, always. To find the joy in any situation. To always keep going.
On Sunday, I laced up my shoes, took 4 different medications, and I toed the start.
The marathon I ran was not the race I envisioned. I had 5 bathroom stops because I thought I’d be sick on the course. I added 25 minutes of stops to my course time. I walked more of the last 10 miles than I’d like to admit.
But you know what? That’s okay. There are always going to be things in our lives that we can’t control. What we can control is how we react to them. Instead of knocking on myself for being sick or slower than I’d like, I focused on how strong I was, how happy I was to be running, and how lucky I was to have been given the opportunity to run Chicago.
And at the end? That I finished a goddamn marathon.
I made friends on the course. I laughed at spectators’ signs. I sang Fall Out Boy to myself. I kept moving forward, and I did so with joy — just like my coach taught me.
The lessons you learn during training aren’t just applicable on runs. They’ll propel you forward in life too. As I became a stronger runner, I became a better person. This summer tested me — in training, in my personal life, and in my professional life — but I made it through even stronger than when I started.
If you’re interested in what my training journey looked like and my honest, unfiltered thoughts on it, I documented my progress and experiences daily on a dedicated Instagram account: www.instagram.com/bdoes26.2
Even as I write this, I’m still processing what running my first marathon means to me. I know that I feel proud and accomplished, but I also feel eager and antsy. It all still feels like a fever dream. Who knows? It might’ve been. (Kidding. I have the sore quads and chafing to prove it was real.)
The only thing I know for certain right now is that I’m grateful — for this experience, for my coach, for my team, for the supportive people in my life, for my body’s resilience, and for my health.
October 13, 2019 is a day I will never forget, and my journey to becoming a marathoner will always be something I’m proud of — imperfections and all.
