What I learned from running 26 miles
Introduction#
I sent out an open request a few weeks ago for potential blog post topics. I expected a lot of requests for technical or sports stuff, but I also got some requests about stuff I did in my personal life—specifically, An Nguyen requested to hear about my experience training for a marathon!
After writing a bunch of heavily technical posts about the Advent of Code in December , I thought it would be a good idea to tackle something less technical to balance out my blog’s tone.
So this post is about my experiences training for and running the 2023 Seattle Marathon! There are some lessons I have learned from this experience that I will share, but this post is not “how to run a marathon.” There are experts who you should listen to if you are interested in running a marathon, and I am not one of those experts. I did not listen enough to these experts in the course of training and running, and it made my experience much worse! So, please look elsewhere if you want advice about how to train for long-distance running.
Getting Started#
Training for a marathon typically takes several months. Getting in good enough shape to train for a marathon… that depends. I see TikTok influencers who claim that they were able to run a marathon with no prior training . But training is not a binary “I trained” versus “I didn’t train”—every minute you spend being up and active will help you.
For me, what I would define the start of my training for the marathon—whether I knew that I was training for it not—began around rock-bottom for me, mid-2020. I was living in a tiny apartment in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle. There was a Whole Foods with an abundance of Ben & Jerry’s around the corner from me (Rocky-Road-bottom?). Working remotely, stressed about the state of the world, and uncertain of whether or not it was safe to go outside, I ended up at around 200-210 lbs, overeating ice cream, drinking too much beer, and engaging in very little physical activity. Miserable and frustrated, I realized I needed to switch things up.
So started my first real bit of training. I would go for walks around South Lake Union. First, a mile, then two, then three, just taking progressively longer walks on my lunch breaks. When it was raining (which is often, as is the Seattle stereotype), I would run up and down the stairs of my seven-floor apartment building until I was exhausted or do HIIT (high-intensity interval training) by following along with videos I found online. Gradually and reluctantly, I gave up the Ben & Jerry’s habit.
These walks I took progressed into full-blown hikes. I would explore all of shut-down Seattle, wandering without purpose through the empty streets. I checked out Lake Union, Elliot Bay, downtown, and at one point I walked all the way to Discovery Park and back—nearly 15 miles! That figure would have sounded crazy to me a few months before.
At one point, I noticed that all of my socks had started to develop some holes in them, all of them in the same spot. Checking my lone pair of walking shoes, I realized that I had worn a half-dollar-sized hole clean through the bottom of the shoe with how much I had walked. I decided that rather than keep tearing apart my socks, I would order a new pair of shoes!
This whole time, I was gradually losing some weight and building up my aerobic capacity. A lifelong asthma sufferer, progress felt slow at times, and I had to be careful when Seattle got smoked out by the typical late-summer wildfires. But I eventually started jogging up and down Queen Anne, buzzing the Space Needle on my evening runs.
Beginning to race#
In 2021, I moved from my South Lake Union apartment to a place downtown. Of note was that this apartment had an open, functioning gym with a treadmill, and I forced myself to become a treadmill addict. I picked up where I had left off in 2020, slow jogging and not for terribly long, but gradually built up more capacity to actually run. When the weather turned nice, I would go for runs up and down Alaskan Way, dodging tourist traffic, hurdling suitcases at the cruise ship terminal, spraying myself down with the cool Sound breeze.
Eventually, I did my “first” “race.” Note the double quotations. I had both done this race before (the Refuse to Abuse 5k, sponsored by my employer), and this was decidedly not a race—rather, a fun run. I had very, very slowly jogged this run in 2020, doing 5k in roughly 45 minutes. But just a year later, doing the 5k again, I managed to shave almost 15 minutes off my old time. It felt like my first true race. I was finally seeing some momentum in getting into shape.
In 2022, I continued to grind out on my apartment treadmills. I had the appetite for much more than a 5k—I decided to sign up for a 10k in Atlanta over Thanksgiving, where I would be spending time with my family. Nobody else in my family really had as much motivation to venture out into the shivering cold on a November morning, but I was able to convince my dad to sign up for the 5k portion of the race, so I’d at least have a ride home.
As I started training for the 10k, I realized that the increase in training from running 5k to 10k was really not much of a challenge at all—I was going to be in 10k shape well before November. I spent a lot of time asking myself, “Should I try to raise the difficulty”? Squeezing out some additional free time, I decided to commit and changed my registration to do the half marathon.
Over my head#
It was at this point that my mistakes as a novice runner started to compound. I had trained using the same pair of sneakers that I ordered after wearing a hole in the previous pair. I was blissfully ignorant of the mileage I had been putting on them in that time—not only was I rocking these sneakers for every treadmill run, every outdoor jog, and every hike I did, but I was also wearing these sneakers to work, for groceries, and even just around the house. These were not even dedicated running shoes! It was a miracle they lasted as long as they did.
Unfortunately, they picked the wrong moment to give out. The day of the half-marathon, things began smoothly enough—it was an out-and-back down a closed interstate lane, fairly straightforward. As I plodded down the first few miles, I noticed my sneaker was starting to fall apart—the insole was not staying put, and with each step I took, it was pressing into my instep, causing a large hot spot that could eventually turn into a catastrophic blister. At the turnaround point, I couldn’t take the pain any longer and took off both my sneakers. Running in just my socks, dodging broken taillight glass by the side of the road, I tried not to focus on the asphalt and loose gravel tearing my socks and soles apart. I crossed the finish line with my sneakers in both hands, one of the last people to actually finish the race.
The full twenty-six#
Emboldened by finishing my first half-marathon, I thought I was ready for a full.
I was definitely wrong!
I failed to learn the lesson from my half that I was not using the right equipment. I started ramping up and training again the following spring, only to quickly (and quite seriously) hurt myself with a poor choice of footwear. It was only thanks to the Mariners' awesome training staff I was able to get back on my feet with some proper footwear and some inserts for my shoes. I ramped back up with the intent of doing the Whidbey Island Marathon, only to injure myself again later the summer. Not the easiest of training schedules for me!
The only thing I will give in this post that qualifies as advice of what to do, as opposed to what not to do, is to follow Hal Higdon’s guide for mileage when training. I set up a calendar with my training schedule to ensure I hit my mileage each week, which helped keep me healthy in advance of my run.
My legs finally good to go, I signed up for the Seattle Marathon and trained running laps around Lake Union, powering through cramps, rain, and getting shit on by birds (I have a vendetta against Seattle seagulls given that they seem to have one against me.) I came through my full training regime and found myself shivering in the Seattle cold on a November Sunday at 5:30 AM, listening for the starting gun.
With a pop, I was off. I tried to settle into as comfortable a pace as possible, not interested in running for a time, merely looking to finish. I powered through highway tunnels and bridges, wound my way through the University of Washington’s campus, and sliced through the fog coming off Lake Union. Crossing the halfway mark, I reached up and felt my hair—the moisture had frozen on my scalp, and it crunched under my fingers.
Climbing Aurora Avenue, I felt myself gradually losing energy. In my training, I had pushed myself comfortably to 20 miles, but never beyond. Your body can typically hold 18-20 miles worth of energy at a given time , but you can go beyond this limit by fueling as you run. Being the bastion of intelligence that I was, I had received some complimentary gels for energy in my goodie bag for the run and promptly discarded them, thinking I did not need them. As a result, I was fiercely lacking energy as I reached the peak elevation of the race at Green Lake, still six miles to go.
I slowed to an awkward alternation of walking and jogging, trying to push myself with the sheer force of will. With three miles to go, I received a congratulatory round of texts from my immediate family, who were checking a race tracker that erroneously reported that I had already finished the run. The sheer force of will was quickly replaced by the overwhelming desire to avoid being embarrassed by the race tracker, and I powered downhill to the finish line.
At last, I crossed the finish line, 5+ hours later after starting out in the freezing dark. I was fortunate enough to have some friends in town who picked me up and dropped me off at my apartment. I was exhausted but felt fulfilled. Sure, “training” was several weeks, but getting to this point from where I was back in 2020 had been a several-year-long-journey. I plopped down on my couch and opened a pint of Ben & Jerry’s to celebrate.