CIM Marathon Recap

[Listen to an audio version of this blog here.]

I signed up for the California International Marathon in the summertime, months before the race was set to happen. After running almost exclusively on trails and mountains for years, I felt a certain pull to go back to the road. The last time I ran a road marathon was in 2018, when I ran the Chicago marathon on a charity bib for the American Red Cross.

My training leading up to Chicago was half-hearted at best, and I showed up on the starting line feeling unprepared. There is no worse feeling than to start anything unprepared; a race, a presentation, a relationship, etc. And, starting unprepared is not how I like to do anything. I spent 2017 figuring out if I even wanted to run anymore, or if I could continue running in a healthy way. In 2018, I ran whenever I wanted to, however much I wanted to, and the marathon loomed in my mind as impossibly daunting. It was the longest I’d run up until then, and I made all the rookie mistakes; starting too fast, not eating or drinking enough, not doing enough long runs. I bonked at mile 16 and shuffled my way to the finish line, clocking a 3:35 and feeling terrible doing it.

After 2018, I started running trail races, working my way up to a 50 miler, then a 100k, and eventually a 100 miler. I not only fell back in love with running, but I became incredibly fit in an entirely…