Folks have asked me why I've been running marathons, and since tomorrow I will be running the Toronto Waterfront Marathon course for the first time, I thought I'd write it out here to remind myself.

• I'm not a natural runner. I grew up playing football¹ and shorter sprints were alright (with heaving between them), but I was never good at running anything more than 200 meters. I simply don't have the natural talent or endurance compared to other folks that I've run with who seem to have good form without trying, so it's something that I have to work hard at to succeed. I guess that strikes a cord with me somehow.

• It helps me think: as part of your typical training, you have to do a "long run" which has a longer distance than the other runs during the week. This run gets incrementally longer every week until you reach a 30-34K point. They aren't the type where you are sprinting, instead it's one where you run at a pace that lets you carry out a casual conversation with someone next to you. During my long runs, I try to focus on my breathing and running form so that I can zone out on everything else. At the end of it I feel physically drained, but my mind seems clearer and quieter in some ways.

• During the race, you are running at your "race pace" - faster than what you would do during your long runs where you are pushing yourself to work on the limit of what you can sustain for the distance. Around the 30-32K is when the inner demons/voices come out and tell you to stop. You are tired and the mind starts to play tricks on you. It lies to you, telling you the distance is too far, or to just take a break and you can start again² , or worse it starts telling you that you can't do hard things. So the mental game of fighting them is a therapeutic one for me where it's more a battle of the mind than body.

• Training takes months and if you're determined, it forces you to follow a routine which I don't typically have. Making time for your weekly runs amongst your social or work life means evaluating where you can find that time. I hate waking up early in the morning, but that's the best time to get a run in to finish it off before I need to really start my day, and this helps me avoid being lazy and doom-scrolling on my phone in bed.

• I am healthier and mentally more refreshed after having gone out for even a short run. Getting myself out the door for a procrastinator like myself is a lot, but once I'm done I realize that I wasn't that hard.

• Typically, once a week you would do a hard session where you repeat intervals at fast paces, the kind you can keep up for a few hundred meters. These are obviously draining, but I feel stronger at the end of an interval session even though it's brutal during it.

• I didn't know I could enjoy it. I always had various aches and pains after football games or random runs when growing up. Now, I no longer recall how I got into this state, but around years ago standing on my feet for too long would cause me knee pains on my left leg. A 3K run would leave me bedridden for the next day.

  I was referred to a physio who told me that I was walking with a limp without realizing it, so before I could run I had to learn to walk (ha!). I followed their advice for many weeks and after growing muscles that I wasn't properly using before, I started to go on incrementally longer runs in my neighbourhood and realized that my body didn't hurt at the end of them.

  I was still bad at nutrition mind you, forgetting to eat and hydrate before, but I felt good after it, which was new to me.

• When I train, motivation during the intervals or the long runs are hard to come by for me. After every run, I keep notes about how the run went, what I learnt along the way and what I did to prepare in advance for it. I keep these notes public within my small social circle to try to social engineer myself to believing people are reading it (like this blog!) and expect to see it. Additionally, I like to write down what does or doesn't work because maybe someone else might want to read and learn from it. Everyone's running journey is different, but little hints along the way could help. I also want to show that there aren't only good (run) days - I get frustrated and upset at myself because I didn't eat well the night before, stretch before the run, or even forget to take enough water for the distance. It should be normal to see failure along the way, and not just share only the victories in public. It's the bad days that make the good ones matter.

• Finally, it gives me a sense of accomplishment with an achievable goal that comes with a deadline. It takes months to train for the race where you have a 3-4 month period where you need to run about 4-5 times a week and try to get in 60+km in there. The race ends up feeling like a victory lap of all that effort.