Why Do People Run Marathons?

Why do people run marathons? As someone who runs, I never actually sat down and thought about why people would put themselves through the grind of running 26.2 miles. That was until Nike invited me to run the Chicago Marathon. 

Since I’ve never run a full marathon before, I kept a log of my training. This following isn’t meant to evangelize people into a life of personal fitness and wellness. Writing down my thoughts was my way of keeping track of progress during training as well as to keep from going crazy throughout physically and mentally grueling process. This is a journal of my experience and if you want the TL;DR version, just go all the way to the end.

I’m fucking shook.

Got an email from a contact at Nike asking if I’d be interested in running the Chicago Marathon. I enjoy running, but I’ve never really thought of tackling 26.2 miles before. The reason I run is more for stress relief and so I can eat pizza without guilt. It’s less about setting personal records or collecting medals.

I did do a half marathon before and it was the most physically painful thing I’ve ever had to endure. My mind still has flashbacks of my muscles cramping and my heart pounding during the last leg of that race, and here I am considering putting myself through that pain again—times two.

All things considered, putting my body on the line may not be the worst thing. It’s terrifying to think about, but the best things in life are usually on the other side of things that terrify us. It might force me to stop eating, drinking, and smoking certain things that haven’t always been the best choices for me. 

So, what do I have to lose? If I die trying to run 26.2 miles, at least I know I had a good life and I’ll be going out in the most glorious way possible.

When I first decided to do this, the goal was just to finish. But the more I thought of it, I should put something measurable on it.

I go down a rabbit hole of Google searches and come across the time Puff Daddy ran a marathon in 2003. Puffy ran the NYC marathon with an official time of 4 hours 14 minutes and 54 seconds and he only trained eight weeks for it. We were also about the same age when he ran his first and only marathon, which MTV made a documentary about. I was reading how Puffy’s goal was to beat Oprah’s marathon time, which was around 4 hours and 40 minutes (he also raised over $2 million for charity.) 

I’m not a fast runner, but I know I could run faster than Oprah. I may not be able to finish as fast as Puffy either, but I could get close, so if there was any place to set a goal, I guess that would be as good a place as any: 4:40.

My ankle has been feeling sore after long runs, so I went to the doctor to have it checked it out. The doctor gave me a steroid shot for the pain and sets me up for an X-Ray and MRI. The MRI results were not good. The doctor says I have some damage because of overuse and I have to stop running or do any type of workout on my feet for at least two weeks to let it heal. I also have to wear a lace-up brace around my ankle until I see her again.

Just a few days ago I was starting to finally feel confident about being able to do this. Now I just want to be alone in the dark and sit with the fact that I might not even be able to try. 

I have to tell my coach and friends about the bad news. It’s a little embarrassing. I hope they don’t think I’m trying to back out or make excuses. Every human being has their share of disappointments in life, but this was something different that I’ve never felt before. I’d describe it as a mix of the rejection you feel from a sudden breakup mixed with the regret of finding out you’ve been doing something wrong for years without knowing it. 

Maybe this was a higher power’s way of telling me I was too focused on this single event. I have a tendency to push myself to extremes and I’ve been really obsessive over the past few weeks.

I’ve always looked at running as an escape valve of sorts—an outlet for me to relieve my frustrations in my life. Perhaps I’ve been trying to exhaust myself to the point where I don’t even care about my problems anymore instead of sitting down and actually dealing with them. Now I’m at a place where I literally can’t run away from my problems. 

It’s been a full seven days without running and I’m getting anxious. After each day that passes that I can’t run, I feel myself less and less prepared for the marathon. The pain in my ankle seems to have subsided, so I consider breaking the doctor’s orders and testing it out on the treadmill. I ask my friend, who happens to be a Nike master trainer, Joe Holder, to get his thoughts first.

“It’s a real Sophie’s choice,” Holder texts me after I ask what kind of risk I’ll put myself in if I start running now. “If you wait, you might not be able to run the marathon well. If you run now, you might not be able to run at all.”

After weighing the worst of two bad options, I choose to keep myself sidelined for another week. During this time I find myself spiraling downwards into old habits. With the uncertainty about whether or not I can continue with my training, I help myself to a little vodka. A little vodka turns into a few vodkas. A few vodkas turn into a lot of vodkas. A lot of vodkas turn into four consecutive late nights doing things while drinking a lot of vodka. I’m not proud, but the lesson is learned: it is a lot easier to coast downhill than it is to climb uphill. One small bad decision always has the potential to kickstart a series of bad decisions.

There's an African proverb that goes: “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

I’ll admit that I’m not much of a social runner. I prefer short distances alone on a treadmill versus weekly run clubs. The reason I think I picked up running is because it’s fairly solitary. I don’t need to join a league or find a partner, but it turns out that running can be very social.

A friend of mine who was also training for a marathon hit me up and asked if I wanted to do a long run with him. I didn’t realize how helpful it is to have a partner to run with you when you’ve got a long distance ahead. I also didn’t realize how much more enjoyable running could be when you’re with someone else. Sometimes it’s easy to think we’re the only people going through what we’re going through when we choose to be by ourselves all the time. It’s just not true.

Fourteen miles done without a lot of pain. It's a good sign and I’m confident about being able to go up to 16 miles next week.

I went for my 16-mile long run yesterday and it wasn’t pretty. During the last six miles, it felt like my right foot was stepping on broken glass. I could barely walk toward the end of it. If that happens to me during the marathon, I’m not going to be able to finish.

I had to put my ankle brace back on and limp my way to the office. I made an emergency appointment with the doctor again today and she officially gave me the bad news I was already expecting: “Take a week off of running.” 

My plan for 18 miles this weekend isn’t going to happen. Being able to do actually do the marathon is still up in the air too. Despite the disappointment, at least I know for certain where my body is: not where I want it to be, but it’s the only one I got.

I woke up out of bed this morning with this heavy feeling of panic. It was almost like when you have a science project due in school the next day and you haven’t started it yet. That’s what I feel like going into this marathon. I wasn’t able to get through the 10 miles I ran yesterday without some significant pain and most marathon plans suggest you get to at least get to 20 during your training.

When I see Holder, I tell him about my last workout like I was a disgruntled Starbucks customer complaining about the free Wi-Fi not loading fast enough to the manager.

“It’s supposed to hurt,” he told me quite frankly. “What we’re trying to do is increase your threshold of pain.”

I finally realized that if I stopped expecting the whole process to be pain free, I could be better prepared to manage the pain when it comes. There really is no avoiding the hurt during 26.2 miles, or life in general. It's more about when it's going to hurt. What's more important is the kind of attitude you're going to have when you go through it.

I made it to Chicago. It’s less than 48 hours away from the marathon and at this point, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. 

Is it possible to feel every emotion at once? That's the only way I can describe what this lead up is like. I feel unprepared, but primed to go. There are nerves, but I'm calm. I keep myself centered by telling myself: "Let's just see what happens."

At the hotel, I bump into Fred who’s a Nike photographer and marathoner. He told me the story of how he ran his first half marathon to now doing about six half marathons a year. On average, he runs about 90 miles a week. “From that first one, I was addicted,” he said about his hitting his first major PR while making a gesture like someone shooting heroin into their arm. It was fascinating to see to how running marathons could be this infinite challenge where you’re constantly trying to better your last time, and in turn, yourself.

Speaking of vices, if I had felt this escalating and deescalating range of emotions three months ago, I probably would've found myself hitting the bar or reaching for a joint. I have no urge to at this moment. The only intoxication I'm interested in right now is this high Fred was talking about.