Many people are familiar with the proverbial quote, “Life is a marathon, not a sprint.” What many people don’t know, including myself, is who gets credit for this quote. After a quick google search, this quote supposedly belongs to Dr. Phil. While Dr. Phil and his afternoon talk show were a hit throughout the 2000’s, I sort of disagree with him coining this quote. I am 50% sure I saw this quote first on one of those motivational posters in my elementary school library in the late 90’s.

I used chat GPT to make the example poster above this paragraph, but I did not use it for grammar checks on this blog - apologies in advance. I studied biology and math before PT school, not English.

Now that I have completed the Rocket City Marathon (and mainly all the training for it) I can say with certainty that the simple quote provides a profound life truth. Leave it to me to dissect a Dr. Phil quote on a blog update, I promise I will come full circle with this.

First, I want to talk about the definition of the word marathon.

When you look “marathon” up on Merriam-Webster you’ll see the most obvious definition first, “A footrace run on an open course usually of 26 miles 385 yards (42.2 kilometers) broadly : a long-distance race.”

My favorite part about this deep dive was looking at the synonyms and antonyms of “marathon.”

• Marathon Synonyms:Long, lengthy, far, endless, great, extended, longdrawn-out, long-term, prolonged, long-lived, interminable, persistent, everlasting
• Marathon Antonyms:Short, mini, brief, little, shortterm, sudden, curtailed, abbreviated, abrupt, short-lived, condensed, fleeting, transient, momentary, impermanent

Now, let’s talk about the training for a marathon.

Prior to running the Rocket City Marathon I was a hard “no” on running a marathon. I had this vision of finishing a half marathon and seeing one finish line that said, “FINISH” and another that said, “START OVER.” Why would anyone want to take a half marathon and double it?

Andrew Carnegie said it best, "Anything in life worth having is worth working for." Running 26.2 miles doesn’t sound super inviting, but when I considered a marathon as “great” and not a “fleeting” experience, it made me look at 26.2 miles a little different.

By no means am I suggesting that a half marathon or even a 1-mile fun run is a “fleeting” experience. If I’ve learned anything about running, it’s that one man’s mile is another man’s marathon. Or let’s reframe it for you David Goggins enthusiasts, one man’s marathon is another man’s warm-up!

My decision to run a marathon was deeply rooted in challenging myself to something new and unknown amidst the beautiful chaos of balancing motherhood and I career that I love. I chose running Rocket City because the race was in my hometown and the route would pass by my dear fourth grade teacher’s house. I talked about her life and legacy in the first update of my marathon training.

I felt a bigger nudge and support to run the race when I found out another member of Team Physiolete would be running it, and my brother also agreed to run it with me without any hesitations. The best encouragement came from my colleague, Claire Golding, who wrote all our marathon programs and coached us through several months of training.

Despite my request to only run 3 days a week, Claire prepped my training schedule to include 4 days because she believed it would prepare me the best. 2-3 of my runs were on a treadmill and I did my long runs mostly outside. For all my runs I used the Run Walk Run Method. At first, I ran a mile run and walked a tenth of a mile. Then by month 3-4, I swapped to a 3-mile run/.1 mile walk for my long runs – I did this in attempt to shave some of my walking time down and to help me get into a better rhythm with running. Looking back, it didn’t necessarily reduce my average split time – my splits during the Tuscaloosa Half Marathon were a good bit faster using a 2-mile run/20-30 second walk. That was also half the mileage so ponder that a little more if you are interested in run walking. Who would have known that there was so much strategy in running?

I hit a huge slump about 6 weeks from race day – my weekly mileage was higher than it had ever been in my life, and I was having to get up at 4:30 am to squeeze some weekly runs in before all the day’s dumpster fires started. The first dumpster fire usually being me trying to get my 5-year-old dressed, fed, and on her way to school on time so that I wouldn’t be late to see my 8 am client. While I joke about my littlest nugget being a wild animal, she is usually my easier morning child. Thankfully, my husband is great about prepping lunches, back packs, and cooking breakfast for all of us – including the two breakfasts I required during training.

I have said this before, and I’ll say it again. It really is a blessing to be able to train for a marathon. If you are a parent with small children, training for a marathon is a privilege. I would not have been able to train for this marathon without Elliott’s support -  even though he reminded me too often that it was my decision to run Rocket City when I complained.

Claire encouraged me big around this time in my training. What started as a, “Are you good?” text in my mid-training update, quickly turned into me word vomiting my disdain for training and the strange fantasy I was having about sleeping in until 5:30 am. It included vegging out in cozy, Christmas, Old Navy pajama pants under a warm blanket by a bright Christmas tree - instead of running.

I traveled to New York City the week of my first run in the “20’s.” Prior to our departure, I had decided that I did not want to compromise any family time with a desire to check boxes – aka doing my runs exactly as written that week. After being in therapy for over a year, I have come a long way from the perfectionist tendencies that used to create a lot of anxiety in my life.

Side story – my favorite handmade sign at the marathon read, “Therapy was an option.” I used to believe that therapy was for the weak minded and now I know that’s far from the truth. IYKYK.

I talked to Claire about my options and chose to partition my miles over 6 days, instead of 4, so that I didn’t get stuck with 1 long run in the Big Apple. This worked great for a first-time marathoner and mom who wanted to put family first and training second (or third - let’s be honest good food was second) on a family trip. I was able to push both of my daughters in the double Bob Stroller around a 6-mile loop in central park and it was glorious! Rory DJ’d and got to sightsee while Brady mainly napped - it was the perfect integration of all our afternoon plans.

4 weeks from the race, I was still incredibly grumpy and irritable about my weekly mileage. My next long run that would fall on another family travel day. I spent Sunday morning 4 weeks from the race contemplating how I could make the week easier for myself. Encouragement didn’t come through a text this time, it came through an injury.

After I put Brady now for her Sunday nap, I fell down my steps at home and thought I broke my tailbone. I stayed on the ground for about 5 minutes writhing in pain and believing that everything I had worked for had been flushed down the toilet. Honestly, I would have cried longer and had a bigger pity party, but I still had a car full of groceries, kids to take care of, and some work to wrap up before the next week. Thankfully a visit to Sports Med confirmed that there was not a fracture, only a sacral contusion. Dr. Bentley told me I could keep running, albeit there would be some pain and discomfort.

I crossed trained that week as the acute pain with training wore off. If I was not applying direct pressure to my sacrum or coccyx bone, the pain was mostly just achy – thankfully I was training for a marathon not doing jiu jitsu. By the end of the week, I was able to run walk a slow 10 miles. As crazy as it sounds, when I finished that 10 miler, I found myself a thankful for my fall. It restored my gratitude for training and the pain in my butt was a constant reminder of that.

For 6 months, my long runs were 70+ degrees outside. For 6 months I completed all runs in shorts and a tank top. 6 days before the race I get a screenshot of the weather predictions for race day from my mom.

Coldest DAY of the year predicted to fall on the day of the Rocket City Marathon. The Saturday BEFORE the race would be excellent running conditions and the day AFTER the race would also be considerably better than race day, as in, above freezing. When I was receiving the weather texts from my mom, because I am almost 35 years old and she still tells me the weather, I committed to controlling what I could control: my attitude and my effort.

My final preparations consisted of turning my cute race day outfit plan into whatever would help prevent hypothermia. I sought out clothing advice from all my marathon friends and my “OOTD” consisted of:

• Wool socks
• Thermal Leggings
• Thermal Under Shirt
• DriFit Shirt over Thermal Under Shirt
• Rain and Wind Resistant Jacket
• Running Mittens (with disposable hand warmers, this was the best hack)
• A Ski Mask
• A Toboggan

They said wear layers…
They said you’ll warm up…
They said you’ll shed your layers along the way…

I didn’t shed a single item of clothing on race day.

I also took time to refine my mental approach during the last week of training. I listened to Jocko Willink, Coach Saban, and reached out to my friends who I believe have the most mental toughness for situations like running a marathon in freezing weather with windchills <10 degrees. I compiled some mental notes to mediate on during my run:

• From Jocko Willink: Respond with “good” when news about a potential challenge arises. My brother shared this one with me. I love it for training, working, and even parenting! Here's a quick video.
• From Coach Saban:I reflected on his speech about being uncomfortable, what does it take to break you? Trust the process and stay disciplined despite surrounding circumstances.
• From my former patient Vaughan who chose serving and protecting the community as a police officer over his seat in medical school: Focus on your next 10 feet and something to the effect of telling yourself, “don’t be a little quitter” – I made that quote PG for the blog.

This update from my mom was on Tuesday before the marathon, by Saturday the high was never above freezing BTW....

Last, I want to draw a metaphor between life and running a marathon – because if you’ve kept up with these blogs you know I always stray away from the main point but eventually come full circle.

One thing I noticed during my marathon, as I clearly had a lot of time to think – was that while everyone was running to ultimately cross the finish line, we all had different reasons for running 26.2 and different strategies for completing it. This simple epiphany gave me a deeper understanding to the age-old idiom, “try walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.”

You may think you know what the person running next to you is going through because you all are running the same race, but the truth is you don’t.

• We may look at the runners in the bottom 10% and wonder why they signed up, but what we don’t know is the battle they overcame to cross the finish line.
• We may laugh about getting passed by an older adult with a shuffling running pattern or a mom with a stroller, but what we don’t think about is how hard they have worked (in their training and in their lives in general) to zoom by us.  
• We may look at the runners in the top 10% and think that it could never be us, but maybe we’ve never pushed ourselves to the lengths that those runners have? I think about Amanda Cuomo who won the Tuscaloosa Half Marathon in 2024 – she didn’t have the “running resume” that some of your typical first place finishers have AND she won the half while she was in med school!

The list goes on and on, but the point I am trying to make is: our paces, our strategies, and our performances may all be drastically different, but I would argue that we are all trying to fight the good fight and finish the dang race. We should support and encourage one another in that, shouldn’t we?

Such is life.

Claire Golding mentioned that one of her goals for her marathon in Tulsa was to glorify God during the race. I contemplated how it’s possible to glorify God during a race with headphones in and thousands of strangers around you. Honestly, I loved that her goal was Christ-centered, but even leading into my race I wasn’t sure if this was something that I could accomplish during my 26.2 miles. How can I glorify God in running a marathon that I paid to do? I stumbled across some notes in my journal from April of 2025.

How can I bring glory to God?

• Worship Him
• Love others
• Seek God in everything I do
• Serve others with my gifts
• Tell others about God

Claire certainly glorified God by inspiring me to run and write with her personal gifts and her running expertise. I believe her passion for running has also stirred the hearts of many around her.

Not only that, but Claire is the friend who recommended I read the book, “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” by John Mark Comer. When I realized I was “sprinting” around with everything in my life, I scheduled my first therapy appointment. LOL – I thought I would learn some time management strategies and quick fixes for feeling overwhelmed and be done after a few visits.

Here we are now! Who would have thought that my original goal to Run Walk the  Tuscaloosa Half Marathon (aka – literally half-ass my 12 weeks of training) would turn into what it has today. Not this girl! A marathon, a journey of self-transformation and sanctification, and an opportunity to glorify God. None of this happened quickly and I think that’s the beauty of it – remember the synonyms and antonyms?

Sprints are momentary, marathons are everlasting.
Life is a marathon, not a sprint.

2 Timothy 4:7 ESV

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 ESV

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So, I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Acts 20:24 ESV

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.