If you would have told me during my senior year of high school that in about five years I would run and FINISH a marathon, I would have laughed at you. I was the kid who joined the high school cross country team because I was burnt out with soccer, and wanted to see if I could actually run decently. I'll be honest, I wasn't fast. Pretty sure my fastest 5k was just over 26 minutes, and our top female runner consistently finished at least eight minutes faster than I did. I wasn't exactly varsity cross country material, but I learned that year that I really enjoyed running. I may not have won any awards, but I found my happy place. And thus began my love affair with running.
During that season of cross country, I learned my first nugget of wisdom about running.
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1. Buy good running shoes
Two words. Shin splints. If you've had them, you're probably cringing right now because you remember the pain. If you are blissfully unaware and have never experienced the bane of every runner's existence, count your blessings (and pray you'll never know the pain). I learned pretty early into the cross country season that my super cute Nikes were NOT ideal for the mileage we put in. The first and only time I ran varsity was during an invitational 3k...and I had to walk part of it because my shin splints were so bad. Needless to say, I said adios to my Nikes and started running in Asics. Since then, I've re-learned this lesson many times. Nike, Asics, Brooks, Saucony, Hoka, Altra...all of them have gotten my money as I've attempted to learn what shoes work best for me and my feet. When I was training for my marathon, I bought a new pair of Hokas, because my other ones were starting to hurt my feet, and I couldn't run super long distances in my beloved Sauconys. Which brings me to nuggets 2 and 3.
2. Don't buy a completely new type of running shoes three weeks before a race
3. If you don't follow #2 and start having persistent knee pain...it might be the shoes
Switching between different styles of Hokas and then running 10 miles on the new shoes right after I got them was probably the stupidest thing I could have done. Not only did I jack up my IT band, but I pushed aside the nagging thought "maybe it's the shoes" and kept trying to run in them a few times after. The most I made it each time was a mile. Regardless, they were the shoes I wore down to Disney for the marathon, and the shoes I wore all day as we picked up packets and walked around the race expo. I didn't realize how much my knee was killing me until we went to Walmart to buy groceries. I headed straight to the athletic brace section, took off my shoes, and discovered that I could actually walk normally if I didn't have them on. Amazing. Ended up putting on my old Altras (that I'd been wearing for tempo runs and brought with me on a whim), realized I could run in them without pain, and then promptly ended up buying a newer pair (plus an IT band specific brace) to wear during the marathon. If I'd worn the Hokas, I wouldn't have made it to the first aid station. If I'd figured out it was the Hokas causing my IT band issues two weeks previously, I probably could have saved myself a lot of pain. Don't make my mistakes. Have a pair of solid running shoes that you have been running in for at least two months that you can race in without pain.
4. You always have more juice left than you think
This was a quote one of my good friends told me while we were running one night. During my first year of undergrad, as I was attempting to get into nursing school, I used running as a stress reliever. And thankfully, one of my good friends did as well. We would run around campus at night (when there were less people to dodge) and talk about classes, life, God, and everything in between. One time, I was struggling to keep running, I was exhausted, and didn't feel like I could run much more. And then my friend said, "hey, just remember that you always have more juice left than you think." The thing was, he was right. And that quote has stuck with me ever since. Whenever I feel exhausted, beat, worn out, just done...I think of that quote, because it's true. You never really know what you're capable of, until you push yourself and keep going. When you hit that wall, just bust your way through it. You never know how far you can go unless you keep running.
For me, this hit home the most during the marathon. Past 14-15 miles, I didn't know what my body would do, because I simply had never run that far at once. The farthest I'd ever run was a trail "half marathon" in October 2015 that ended up being closer to 15 miles, and took me about 2:45 due to all the hills. Since then, I'd run a road half marathon in June, and that ended up being my longest run before the marathon in January. I could have trained better, but due to work, grad school, competing in collegiate triathlon, I never made the time. Once I hit mile 17 in the marathon, I knew my body was starting to take a bit of a beating. But I also knew that I was perfectly capable of running the last nine miles, because I had more juice left than I thought. And I did. When I crossed the finish line, I didn't really have the energy left to cry, but I wanted to. Because if 17 year old me could have seen herself five years later, finishing a marathon, she would have been amazed.
