Marathon Mentality: Life Lessons Learned From My First Marathon

This past Sunday I completed my first-ever marathon. Running has always been a huge part of my life - I played soccer and ran track in high school, continued to run leisurely all throughout college, and even became a member of the New York Road Runners organization. But not until now have I run even close to 26.2 miles.

When you’re running for an extended period of time, you have a lot of time to clear your mind and think. During my training runs, I thought a lot about the life lessons that long distance running can teach you. I am a huge lover and proponent of sports because most of what you learn from them can be applied to the real world. Sports aren’t just about physical strength and technique - the mental aspect is what can make or break you. This couldn’t be truer when preparing for and running a marathon.

After one of my runs, I decided to start writing down a list of items I think matter the most for long distance running, and for life in general. Now that I’ve finally accomplished my goal of surviving my first marathon (+ beating my own expectations on my finish time), I thought it would be beneficial to share it with others through my personal blog.

Consistency is key

Putting too much pressure on yourself to achieve a certain time can prevent you from making any progress at all. The anxiety created through unrealistic expectations can remove the excitement you have about working toward your goal, making it harder to be consistent in your training. Going slow is better than not going at all.

The same can be applied to any other aspect of life. They say the hardest part of getting anything done is getting started, so you have to remove any barriers to entry that may come about. When you are working toward a difficult goal, sometimes you have to remove all expectations for perfection. Ask yourself: what is the least you’re willing to do for that given day?

This is something I’ve been trying to put into practice, even with things as little as getting motivated to go to the gym. Sometimes I am tired after a long day of work, but I tell myself to get up and at least do a few core workouts in my room. Often times, that’s all I need to give myself the momentum to get an even more productive workout in.

Take time to create conditions that will set you up for success.

Despite my lack of proper training, one of the things I made sure to do before race day was to research how to best prepare for the race. There are many things that go into preparing for a marathon - proper stretching, eating clean and hydrating the week before the race, getting your race bib, making a plan for transportation to and from the race, bringing snacks for fuel during the race, and even setting up/downloading your music playlist to listen to while you run. Running a marathon is hard enough - the last thing you want to do is make things even harder by not planning ahead.

When you’re working toward a significant (and likely difficult) goal, think about what you need to bring out the best version of yourself. Self awareness is critical to growth. Maybe it’s setting up time for self-care. Maybe it’s surrounding yourself with people who inspire and motivate you. Whatever it is, it’s worth putting in the effort to create an environment where you have no reason not to be successful.

You’ll be surprised how far you can go when you set higher expectations for yourself

I never thought I would have run a marathon at this point in my life. Truth be told, I had only been consistently running two and four mile distances before I signed up. Thankfully, my friend Lindsey was the one who motivated me to sign up and give myself the confidence that I had what it takes to do it. That push was all I needed to start running 8 miles, then 10 miles, then 14 miles, and then a whole marathon. Looking back, two miles seems pretty short to me. That’s all because I placed myself in an environment that forced me to keep pushing my limits beyond my typical routine. Moral of the story: never stop raising the bar for what you hope to accomplish.

Find a hero to look up to

About a month ago when I was at home in Florida, I had the Today show on in the background as I was working from home. One of the stories that was being shared was about a father who set a world record time for running a half marathon - all while pushing his quintuplet children in a stroller. He had also previously completed a marathon, also with his five children in tow.

It truly is amazing what some humans are capable of. All throughout the race, I kept thinking that if this father could complete a marathon while pushing 240 pounds, I could do it without pushing anything at all. That mindset helped me to stay positive throughout the race and attain an even better outcome than I expected. Inspiration is everywhere; once you find it, you will be unstoppable.

Sprinting through tasks can diminish their value

Think about some of your greatest life achievements. How long did it take for you to accomplish them? If I had to guess, it probably did not happen overnight. That’s because the bigger a goal is, the more time and effort it takes to accomplish it. If it were easy, anyone would do it, which is what adds to the value of the action. Wouldn’t you rather take the time to accomplish one worthwhile thing than to finish multiple less significant achievements?

Another thing to add is that you are less able to appreciate the journey if you are solely focused on the end result and getting through things as quickly as possible. What I like about longer distances is I feel less pressured to run quickly, and more able to focus on my surroundings and enjoying the process. It’s a long time to be running, so you might as well enjoy it, right?

Focus on yourself and your journey

Everyone has different end goals and are on different stages of their journey. Comparing yourself to others is unproductive and will only worsen your state of mind.

Take me for example. During the marathon, I noticed a lot of people were passing ahead of me at a certain point. I had to remind myself to ignore the people around me on focus on my own race. I had barely run more than ten miles before embarking on my marathon journey; meanwhile, I was running with people who had completed multiple marathons during their lifetime. There were also people with different end goals than me, as a good portion of those running were only completing the half marathon. Struggling to keep up with those people would have caused me to burn out and diminish my chance of completing the full marathon at a good pace. Never let comparison get in the way of doing the best you can in your own personal journey.