I’m going to come right out and say it: training for a marathon is hard.

It is highly demanding and requires strenuous discipline. Reality hit me like a truck when I decided to train for a spring marathon while taking 16 credits, working two jobs, and being apart of two on campus organizations. I had wanted to run a marathon for as long as I can remember so I jumped on my first opportunity, not thinking about what I was adding onto my already full plate. Little did I know it would not be smooth sailing from there on out.

Trying to find time to run with my crazy schedule is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Most days I play a dangerous balancing act, deciding what I can cut out and which things I need to focus on that week. A lot of the time running will take the back burner or I have to cut my runs shorter so I can fit everything into my schedule. It is extremely disheartening. I am constantly struggling with myself and trying to convince myself to run when I am completely exhausted or bogged down with projects left and right. I am someone who loves to run and not being able to do something I am passionate about whole heartedly, is crushing.

There is really one solution to the problem I am facing and that is to just keep moving forward and to do the best I can with what I’ve got. Life is not perfect and because I am not a professional and getting paid to run, I have to make due with whatever life throws at me. Although I am frustrated now and embarrassed with the amount of running I have done the past few months, I know that I will never regret signing up for the marathon. It is something that motivates me and continually pushes me to be a better person and to not give up when things are hard. Training for this marathon has taught me a lot about myself and how I work through adversity and stressful situations. It is not always pretty, but I do the best I can and keep moving forward.

In all honesty, marathon training is a painful metaphor for life. Things typically start out easy and slowly work their way up the ladder with increasing difficulty, complexity, and frustration. But, during the process you grow as a person and a runner while at the same time gaining fitness and confidence in yourself. Sometimes during a run life throws a curve ball and you have to adapt quickly, like an injury. You have to learn to adapt and find a way to keep going even though it may seem impossible at the moment. And then, finally, the day of the race hits and all of your training has epitomized into one final moment. Maybe the run doesn't go as well as you’d hoped or maybe it ended up alright, either way you made it through. You were able to accomplish something not many people can do and that it something to be proud of.

So when people ask me why I run or why in the world would I ever want to run 26.2 miles, I know exactly what to say. I run to grow as a person and to learn how to experience life. I run to gain confidence in myself and to prove that I am capable of anything I put my mind to. And lastly, I run to live. I believe running teaches you more about yourself than you could ever learn on your own; you become in-tune with ever fiber of your being. Running, in all honesty, is just the obsession with living life to its fullest in every possible way.