What I Should Have Already Known

(Annual Reflections From A Marathoner)

As I try to express relatively clearly & oftenly on all of my various forays into the internet, when I share things, it’s typically because I happen to be interested in them… full stop. I’m convinced this is likely to be a strong reason why my social media influence will remain somewhat static. Clarity is king in building audiences. I’m not terribly interested in building an audience at the cost of shoehorning my interests. So, here we are.

I say this because most of my posts are about biblical studies, or Christian worship, or something sociological, or sometimes something paranormal, or even arts-based. And then, about once a year, I get into something related to running. I started running very lightly 6 or 7 years ago, amped it up (like so many did) during the pandemic, and ran my first marathon in 2022, running one marathon per year since then. As such, just a couple weeks ago was my 4th annual attempt to convince myself this is a good idea.

I know people who run marathons so regularly that reflecting upon them in depth would be unfeasible. At my current rhythm, there tends to be plenty of time to allow for it. That said, though I’ll keep this brief, no hard feelings if you skip this one ‘cause it just ain’t for you. I could prattle on about all kinds of things I learned this year, but I think I’ll just stick to three short lessons:

The first lesson I learned this year was to ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK THE RACE’S START TIME.

My family tends to make a weekend out of these events. This year we were not far away in Fredericton, New Brunswick, but nonetheless we got a hotel with a pool for the kids and a continental breakfast (which almost always pleases them more than my own Saturday morning pancakes tend to). I rarely sleep well in hotels, especially not when something important is coming up the next day. So, I was up with plenty of time in the morning for my 8 o’clock race time. Got out of bed, stretched, had a light breakfast, got suited up, got the fam up, and headed down to the car for the short drive towards the starting line. We pulled into our parking spot around 7:30, which would ideally have left me just enough time to lightly jog the 600-800 metres towards the starting line as a warm up, maybe use the bathroom one more time, and get my running paraphernalia (watch, phone, headphone, sweatbands, etc) all tuned up. As I get out of the car, in the distance, I hear the loudspeaker announce that the race was gonna get started “in a few minutes”. I assumed that was a colloquialism for “in a half hour”, but started my light jog in that direction anyway. Then, out of nowhere, I hear the starting horn accompanied by loud cheering and my heart rate spikes as my light warmup jog evolves into a full-out sprint towards the starting line! Obviously, I had gotten the start time wrong, though I still have no idea how. I got towards the starting line almost 2 minutes after the gun had fired, swooped my way across it as the last of the nearly 3,000 runners were starting (to ensure that my tracking chip was picked up), and then proceeded to spend the first several kilometres getting myself set up for the long haul ahead while bobbing & weaving my way ahead of the crowds who were either running different distances or different paces than I was, all the while trying to calm myself down from my scheduling blunder that could have potentially cost me the opportunity to fully participate in the race that I’d spent the better part of the last year preparing for!

So: always double check the race’s start time.

The second lesson is this: WE ARE ONLY AS STRONG AS OUR WEAKEST LINK. Not a terribly revolutionary lesson, I know. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve learned this lesson before. Maybe you’re wiser than I am, but I tend to need to learn lessons multiple times before they’re truly internalized.

As I mentioned, I’ve been training for this marathon in one way or another since last year, but more concertedly since January. I can’t say how many dark & cold miles I logged to be able to feel as confident as I did rolling into this marathon, but it was a lot. All indications are that I would significantly trim down my time from last year. I did trim my time… but not significantly. Why? Why did I “hit the wall” the way I did around the 32km mark? My pace started to crumble, adding some necessary walking along with my hampered jogging, dragging my 5:00 pace all the way down to closer to 7:00 by the end. My heart rate was fine (actually better than fine), and I’d done all the right things as far as my nutrition was concerned, so why? Why?!?!?!

My legs were weeeeeeeak.

In the mid-winter I started to notice a little swelling in my right knee, so I booked an appointment with a physiotherapist. After some inspection, he said that I had meniscus strain. I didn’t (and still don’t fully) understand what that meant, but the bottomline was that as long as I stretched better and used ice on it after running, it wouldn’t develop into an injury. But why did this happen? He said it was in large part due to the overall weakness of my leg muscles, leading to too much load on my knees. That hurt. I didn’t think my legs were weak, but it didn’t take him long to prove the point. He provided me with some exercises to help build my leg strength at home, and they were actually pretty easy. Did I do them? Infrequently & half-heartedly, at best. Did I reap what I sowed? I did.

For me, there must be no more “skipping leg day”. If I want to improve my overall performance, I can’t ignore any portion of the process. The analogies between this and any other area of life are so obvious that I won’t even bother trying to draw out a few examples. It’s just the way it is. You can’t thrive overall if you’re not thriving over all.

Last lesson: IT’S MORE FUN TOGETHER

You can run 42.2km any time of day and in any location you want to, but part of the reason there are organized marathons (beyond the ability & desire to responsibly validate completion times) is that most things are way more fun when there’s a crowd around. It’s more fun together.

However, being alone in a crowd is not the same thing as being a part of a community. The way that my life & schedule are lined up means that I’m very rarely able to run “in a pack” (as part of a running crew of any sort). But the weekend before this marathon, I joined with a small handful of people from my church to join in with hundreds of others to do a fundraising fun-run called the Run For Women. According to my training schedule I wasn’t even supposed to run that day, but it was just a 5k, and one of the members of our crew is an absolutely phenomenal women who is handily into her 8th decade of life, so we took it pretty slow. Quite slow. In fact, I’m honestly not sure if I’ve ever run a 5k that slow (though I’m sure I will again someday). Often I associate a “good run” with a difficult trail or a fast time. On that cool Sunday morning in early May 2025, my “good run” was measured by sticking together with a crew. And you know what? It was a super good run, and I could almost say I had more “fun” that morning than the Sunday morning that followed it.

So:

-Always double check the race’s start time.

-We’re only as strong as our weakest link.

-It’s more fun together.

Or (as a preacher might say):

Caution

Consistency

Community