If I can run a marathon, anyone can. Dead serious. All my life I hated running, especially when you were in middle school and high school and were forced to. Now as an adult, I can’t believe we make kids work out in the middle of the day and they just go about the rest of their day all sweaty and gross?! Plus I have short legs, so I figured I can’t be a good runner anyway, that is until I learned that Sha’Carri Richardson is 5’ 1”…#noexcuses

I do like to exercise for health reasons; as a petite Asian, I learned about osteoporosis in college so I started weight lifting on my own in my 20’s. Cardio usually consisted of the stationary bike, the elliptical or a fast walk on the treadmill. 

A huge milestone in ACL rehab (see my ACL accident post here) is running, and they start you on an anti-gravity treadmill. The first day I was at 50% weight and you feel like you’re floating off the belt. Running takes a lot of leg strength, as it’s essentially alternating between single leg squats plus absorbing impact.

When I was cleared from rehab in January 2023, I decided to run a half-marathon, as a way to celebrate my body and to not take it for granted. I would give myself a year to train, so therefore let’s find a half-marathon race for January 2024. I decided on the Rose Bowl Half Marathon, which is organized by The McCourt Foundation, who also put together the Santa Monica Classic (5k/10k) and the Los Angeles Marathon (LAM).

Even though I had been cleared from rehab, intense activity was still tough and I had to strengthen for sport. It was all about baby steps! In February I started building on the treadmill. 2 mins, then 3, then 5 mins of continual running. The knee that was operated on felt stiff, but I just waited until I felt comfortable before adding on time. Once I got to a base of 10 mins, the days were getting longer and I decided to shift to running outside. Also the thought of running 20 mins straight on a treadmill was uninspiring. 

Running outside is a whole different beast given all the natural elements, mainly sun and wind, and once again I started really slow, with a target of one mile and then adding on. My mile time at this point was probably around 13-14 minutes, so I was definitely not fast.  

By early August 2023, I was up to a little over 2 miles of road running and in order to get a feel of what a race day would be like before the half-marathon, I signed up for the Santa Monica Classic 10K in early September. As mentioned the goal was a half-marathon BUT I ended up talking myself into the full because of the Conquer LA challenge. The McCourt Foundation gives out another medal if you complete all 3 races in the same season. I don’t really care about medals but I was already 2/3 of the way there, when would this ever happen again?! And that’s how a full marathon came to be.

In prep for the 10k, in mid-August I joined Adidas Runners to start getting serious about training. They had a track night on Monday, which was a supportive and safe environment, and that snowballed into joining a few other clubs based on my schedule. Side bar: I love track night! I can see how it can be boring running around in a circle, but I like that there are people around, it’s well-lit and you can’t get left behind no matter how slow you are. By the end of December I was using the LA Marathon’s beginner training program as a guide (especially to plan out mileage for long runs/endurance training) and not going to lie, it’s a lot. You’re running 4-5 days a week with 1 day of strength training. From September 2023 through March 2024 my schedule looked something like this: