It has officially been 17 days, 23 hours, and 4 minutes since I finished the Los Angeles Marathon. I wish I could say that I was kidding about having kept track this closely.

Finishing a marathon brings with it a strange compilation of feelings. Although I have been working out consistently for the past two weeks, I’m fully aware that my long-distance running shape has deteriorated or disappeared completely. This is something I know I have to be okay with, for the time being.

After I finished my first marathon in 2022, I experienced some pretty severe sadness. It felt like I had just lost my best friend! However, when I got over those emotions, I found that I wasn’t ready to run again until 2-3 months after I crossed that finish line. This year, I was motivated to be in tune with my body to listen to when would be best to pick up training again.

I have missed running, and I’ve even participated in a good amount of Peloton on-demand running classes, but most of them were completed for speed, an increased heart rate, or nostalgia, not training. And although I miss it more now than I did at this time last year, I’m not ready yet. I want to wait until I truly miss it, knowing that I’ll need every ounce of the love and passion I have for running to hold onto as I attempt another mileage heavy training plan.

It feels like I have trust issues, though. It’s hard for me to trust that I’ll be able to do another marathon, even though I hit a huge PR and achieved more physical fitness than I ever have in my life throughout these past few months. If you’re a runner, I’m sure you understand that sinking feeling of dread, thinking “what if I am never able to run 26 consecutive miles again?”

I know deep down, however, that I have to trust that slow and steady wins the race. For right now, “slow” looks like 30-minute runs instead of 3 hour runs. And “steady” looks like showing up to the gym consistently to work out and refusing to believe the narrative that I will regress from giving my body the time off it needs.

Some of these thoughts may sound crazy or foreign, but I want this to be a place where I can be honest about my running journey and the things I’m feeling as I try to achieve a goal that I myself am still not sure I can conquer. Any movement forward is progress, and I am reminding myself every day that there will come a day very soon that I will wish that I’d taken advantage of this “casual working out”.

Thanks for reading and have a great workout (or don’t 🙂

Alexis