015 - Live, Laugh, Love, Marathons
December 18, 2025
T+46 days since I ran the NYC Marathon and celebrated my 10-year marathon anniversary.
It’s always funny to say a particular day was “the best day of my life,” so I’m not going to—but the NYC Marathon is definitely going down in the books. For all the expected reasons: the crowds, the music, the energy. It’s unmatched to anything I’ve ever experienced. But the biggest takeaways were a bit more unexpected for me: having a goal brings more purpose and meaning than the constant search to be happy.
As a long-time athlete—competitive gymnast, tennis player, and cross-country runner—who has now run three marathons, I didn’t put a lot of emotional weight into training for the NYC Marathon. Since I ran my second marathon in 2017, I always knew the next one I wanted to run was NYC. So the biggest feeling going into training was overall excitement that I was finally getting to experience this iconic day as a runner. I wasn’t feeling any deeper purpose or meaning to running this particular marathon.
However, about six weeks ahead of the race, my right knee started giving out. Typical runner’s knee caused by tight and weak hips. My worst nightmare. I’ve been dealing with tight hips since I was a competitive gymnast—training 25+ hours per week and I still couldn’t do a left split (tight hips). My knees really started hurting in high school when I ran cross-country (tight hips). But like any teenager, I pushed through, ignored it and never stressed.
Ten years later, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. The dull pain would creep in around mile three or four on training runs and not go away. I pushed through as per usual, but the pain would linger into my day-to-day, which was—and is—a big red flag. I went straight to physical therapy to figure out how dangerous this pain was. Luckily, it wasn’t a stress fracture or anything close to it. It was basically a “pissed off” muscle that was mad at me for running too much without stretching my tight hips. If you didn’t know, most running pain can be traced back to the hips.
Now that there was an obstacle ahead that could stop me from running such an important race, I had to lock in. I had to create a running plan. I had to stretch. I had to sleep enough. I had to eat well. I had to drink enough fluids. I had to create a goal for myself, stick to it, and make compromises to accomplish it.
I went to physical therapy 2–3x per week. Stretched daily. Iced my knee every night. Said no to social gatherings. Stopped drinking coffee to help my sensitive stomach. Slept 8–9 hours every night (no looking at my phone). Drank enough water. And ate my calories.
Training for a marathon is not just about getting your miles in. It’s everything else in between.
I had to focus and make compromises to accomplish my goal—something I haven’t had to do in sports in a long time. Through this obstacle and committing myself to a goal, I managed to get to a point where I could run and eventually complete the race in my goal time. I was—and still am—proud of myself for the commitment I gave to this race and the accomplishment that came from it.
I read a quote recently: “Life isn’t about finding happiness, it’s about purpose.” This quote resonated after I trained for and ran the marathon. When I was younger, I was constantly looking to be happy. Often my decisions were made with this mindset: “Will this make me happy?” But happiness is a moment, a feeling. It’s fleeting. The act of “looking for happiness” is never-ending and often ends in feeling empty or lost because it’s unreliable. It unexpectedly comes and goes.
A goal brings us purpose, meaning, and consistency. It gives us a reason to wake up in the morning and a reason to make decisions. It fuels us to find community. The goal doesn’t have to be something grand like running a marathon, racing a four-minute mile or finding a cure for cancer. It can be walking one mile every day for a month, cooking through a cookbook over the course of a year, or going to every Starbucks in your city. At the end of the day—pick something, follow through with it and see what comes. :)