I did not run the Paris marathon
Last Saturday morning, 45 thousand runners hit the streets of the capital of France to run the Paris Marathon. I was not among them. (lifetothemax #34)
Last Saturday morning, 45 thousand runners hit the streets of the capital of France to run the Paris Marathon. I was not among them.
Instead, I woke up 3,625 miles away in New York, slightly hungover, and I checked Instagram. Some of my friends from back home were running the race. (One of them is subscribed to this newsletter! He also has a Substack dedicated to surfing, so shout out to him, and congrats on finishing the race!) I hadn’t made the decision last minute since I hadn’t even purchased flights to France, but this still came as a bit of a surprise and a punch in the gut. I was pretty sad that I had missed the race I'd been planning to run for months.
If you remember, I planned on running this marathon a few months back after starting my running journey. Starting to run pretty consistently last summer to fulfill my working out once a week goal for 2021, I decided, “Let's set an even more ambitious goal for 2022: running a marathon!” And so, when it came time to pick a race, the Paris one seemed perfect. I could go back home, visit family, see friends, and run through the beautiful city I was lucky to call home for the first 18 years of my life.
So what happened? Why didn't I run it?
The main reason was that I was not ready.
Although I never ended up writing about it (since I haven’t written a newsletter since then), I ran a half marathon back in January. It went pretty well, other than the fact that I was running on an already injured knee and that I stupidly chose not to use the bathroom before the race, which meant I had to stop about a mile in to pee. Waiting in line at a porta-potty while all the people you’ve just passed run by is pretty demoralizing, I can assure you. Still, with all this going against me, I finished the race in two hours and thirteen minutes.
Unfortunately, after the race, my leg was basically out of service. I could hardly walk for many days, and it took a few weeks to get back to 100%. By the time I got better, I had completely broken my running routine, all while the marathon date kept getting closer and closer. Every day made me feel less and less prepared and, therefore, less motivated to run.
Another issue had become evident even before I got injured: I was out of my depth with training. The training plan I had been following had me running a half marathon or more every weekend (with a peak of 18 miles a few weeks before the marathon). This makes sense, of course — if I’m going to be running 26 miles, it’s probably a good thing to make sure I can run such long distances in the first place. But since my very first half marathon prevented me from running for three weeks afterward, how was I supposed to run that again (and more) every weekend, all while having smaller runs scattered throughout the rest of the week? It was simply not possible.
I needed more training, but more importantly, I needed more time. Thinking I could go from running my first continuous 10K last summer (painfully, I might add) to running a marathon within a year came from a mixture of arrogance and naïveté on my part. I needed more time, and I wasn’t buying any by not running.
So why does it matter that I missed the race? Running the marathon was one of my goals for the year, but it was more than that. After a year of crushing goals that I previously thought were unreachable (at least by my standards), this was the most ambitious goal I had ever set myself. “If I can do this, I can do anything,” I thought. Well, I couldn’t do it, so where does that leave me? In a way, 2021 was the year of breaking down self-imposed barriers I had set for myself. Maybe in doing so, I forgot that there still are some natural barriers, such as physical ability, which I can’t take down through sheer willpower.
The idea here is not to beat myself up over this. I do enough of that on my own without having to do it publicly in the form of a newsletter. After all, the goal was to run a marathon, not specifically the Paris one, and last I checked, we’re only 26% of the way through 2022. I still have time, but I need to maximize my efforts to get ready for actually running a marathon at some point this year.
The question is, where do I go from here? The answer is quite obvious; it’s time to get back to running!
After a two-month dry spell of not running at all, I am happy to say that I have now run four days in a row this week (which you might've seen if you follow me on Strava). I’m starting slow, trying to set a good habit by running a short distance (almost) every day, whatever feels comfortable. For example, since I was still quite sore from yesterday, I decided only to run one mile today.
By the end of the week, I want to tally up my total mileage for the week, and then, following the golden rule of running (I have no idea where I heard about this, but I will follow it blindly), I’ll increase my running distance by 10% each week. In theory, this 10% increase each week maximizes progress while minimizing the risk of injuries. Eventually, I want to get to a point where I can comfortably run around 45 minutes a day. This should allow me to smoothly transition into any marathon training plan of my choosing without a crazy ramp up at the start. (Last time, I went from running five kilometers a week to 30 in a month!)
During my two months off, I was worried that my six months of progress leading up to the half marathon would be wholly lost, and I’d be starting again from zero. Luckily, my Apple Watch (which I use to track my runs) has a bunch of nifty health measurements. A specific value that I’ve found particularly interesting, as well as reassuring, is VO2 max. My watch defines this as “the maximum amount of oxygen your body can consume. Most people can improve their VO2 max with more intense and frequent cardiovascular exercise.” When I purchased my watch back in July, my VO2 max at the time was 37.7 mL/kg/min. In February, after running my half marathon, this had gone up to 46.5 ml/kg/min! That’s a pretty insane jump. Other than the miles I put in, this is a clear indicator that my body was getting better at running and consuming oxygen. Cool!
So what’s my VO2 max now, after two months off? I only have three days of data (I also stopped wearing my watch during this time off), but my average VO2 max across those three readings is 44.1 ml/kg/min. So I lost a bit of fitness, but I’m still leagues ahead of where I started last July. So not starting from zero, yay! If this is interesting to you, the reader, I’ll post an update about my VO2 max now and then on my newsletter, so subscribe if you haven’t already.
I also have to find another marathon to run. The year is not over, and I still intend to run a marathon. If need be, I will run through a blizzard on December 31st. Ideally, I would run in an organized race in a somewhat nicer setting. Maybe this time, I can also plan on registering for a race that isn’t an ocean’s distance away, so I don’t have any reason to be lazy and not go. A cursory search on Saturday afternoon yielded the Cape Cod Marathon as an attractive option, but I will not sign up just yet. I’ll wait until I’ve rebuilt my habit of running and can keep up a reasonable distance without injuring myself.
Part of me is still weary that I am not capable of achieving such a feat. It is a pretty insane distance, a fact that becomes more and more apparent every time I run. But in these moments of insecurity, I have to remind myself that ten kilometers seemed like a lot just six months ago. Since then, I have run four races, each time exceeding my best pace and longest distance. I was able to run a half marathon on an injured knee with little hassle, and I ran a 10K through freezing temps in under an hour! The key, as always, is just to keep going. And so I shall.
Sorry I haven’t written a newsletter in a while. Running was not the only thing that I have been slacking on these past few months, and I have had a lot of work which made taking the time to get back into writing almost as hard as getting back into running.
I’ll try and fully get back to writing in the coming weeks, so if you haven’t yet subscribed, you can do so below to be sure not to miss a post:
As always, thanks for reading. I’ll be writing you soon ❤️