My First Marathon

Chris Field spent high school playing football, where running was something he had to do rather than something he chose. That changed in 2024, when partway through a weight loss journey a friend of his talked him into running a 5K, and his wife took one look at his face at the finish line and told him it wouldn’t be his last race. Spoiler alert: she was right, and within six months he’d run his first half marathon. After six of them, he decided to stop waiting to feel ready and signed up for the Shamrock Marathon in Virginia Beach.

Training brought 4:30 a.m. midweek runs in the dark, a few lessons about easy pace that only made sense later, and a 22-mile long run that ended with the biggest sugary drink Starbucks would give him. Then a sinus infection hit during the final week of taper, but Chris still went into race day set on breaking five hours, right up until the sun came up over Virginia Beach and turned it into a day nothing like the cold winter miles he’d trained on. It ended up teaching him more about himself than any training run could, including just how stubborn he really is and why the way you get to the finish line doesn’t change the fact that you ran a marathon.

Follow along with Chris Field on TikTok: @fieldsy073

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I’m back with a Wednesday mini episode for the first time in a long time, and I’m catching up with you right after finishing my 20 miler for the Charlotte Marathon. I was supposed to be about eight months pregnant this November, but after a miscarriage in June and a second surgery in the middle of my training block, I spent most of this cycle with one foot in and one foot out, not trusting my body to do what it used to know how to do. In this episode I share how my husband’s “count to five” advice finally got me out of the car, why I’m using one mile run, one minute walk intervals on race day, and what happened when I stopped holding myself back halfway through. I also look back at the lesson each of my marathons has taught me and talk about what running has given me this year: a place to fall apart, rebuild, and feel proud of myself again. Now I’m officially in taper, and I’m so grateful you’ve stuck with me.

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Morgan Berry spent her high school track days saying yes to whatever event her coach needed filled, but the marathon didn’t feel like hers until she watched her husband chase a Boston qualifier and find his running community in Knoxville. After finishing her local half, with three young kids at home and a husband who travels for work, she decided there was no point waiting for a perfect season. She signed up for her hometown marathon and told everyone she knew so she couldn’t back out.

Training meant Friday long runs so her husband could take Saturdays, treadmill miles when he was on the road, and a new running friendship with someone she went to high school with who messaged her on Strava. Not every long run went to plan, but by race day she had a carb load plan she trusted, a family ready to cheer at six spots along a hot, hilly course, and three kids she knew were watching.

Follow along with Morgan Berry: Morgan Berry on Strava
Shop Bound Running Co

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Jess O’Brien became a mom at 18, and for years movement took a back seat to raising her son. Running didn’t stick the first time she tried it, but joining a CrossFit gym had built up her endurance, so when a Revel marathon popped up on her favorite New Hampshire highway, she signed up and figured she’d learn the rest along the way.

And of course as anyone does training for their first marathon, she learned plenty that winter. Fueling, learning how to push through the hard, you name it, she was learning it along the way throughout training. But the bigger surprise was what those miles gave back. Running was the first thing she’d ever done only for herself, and she found she showed up better as a mom, wife, and friend because of it.

Follow along with Jess: @Jessgets_fit33
Donate to Jess' London Fundraiser! https://secure.qgiv.com/event/20tclondonma/account/2403919/

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Casey’s running story starts with summer camping trips, where she raced anyone who would line up and tried her hardest to beat the boys. Thirty-plus marathons later, she’s a landscape architect and run coach who credits curiosity for just about everything.

We talk about how it took seven marathons to qualify for Boston, how canceled races during COVID nudged her toward her first 50K, and how ultras eventually led her to the CCC on the Mont Blanc trail. Casey also walks through her most recent block, training for a 100K and the Sydney Marathon at the same time with weeks topping 70 miles, and why she believes the marathon doesn’t owe you anything. With a 100-miler on the horizon and a sub-3 marathon still on her list, she shares what it looks like to keep showing up and play the long game.

Follow along with Casey Klein: @caseycline_

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When Sandy moved from Switzerland to Australia in 2020, she was quickly swept into the country's active, early-morning lifestyle, though running wasn't on her radar yet. That changed when the owner of her community gym dared her to try a 5K trial, and her competitive streak did the rest. A friend's nudge (and a little FOMO) got her signed up for the Cairns half marathon, which she ran alongside her run buddy Amy, catching the sunrise and realizing she was having a blast. By the celebration that evening, a full marathon was already on the table.

Sydney was the first city Sandy called home in Australia, so landing a spot through the ballot meant a lot. The road there included a Hyrox in Melbourne, time off for surgery, and shin splints that kept her from running for two months, which she got through with rehab, modified group classes, and a brand new road bike. Then a fresh foot pain showed up after her longest run, and she held off on booking flights until four weeks before race day.

Follow along with Sandy Engler: Sandy's Strava

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Steve Carrier spent decades lifting heavy and hated cardio for a long time. When COVID closed the gyms, he started hiking and kayaking with his wife, and after she mentioned a 5K she wanted to do, he decided to give running a try. That race never happened, but Steve fell in love with running anyway. A few months in, he found the Central Mass Striders through a Facebook group, and their Sunday long runs slowly built him from a 3.5-mile loop to a half marathon, a year full of halves, and eventually the Bay State Marathon in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Training with that group brought one new longest run after another, along with a miserable 13 miles in the rain and a nerve-wracking first 20-miler. But race day was a different story, and the trouble started early. Steve talks through what kept him moving, how he felt when it was over, and why one rough day didn't take away from everything it took to get to the start line.

Follow along with Steve Carrier: @scarrier1999

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Aimee spent over a decade running half marathons, one a year, showing up and enjoying the distance without chasing a specific time. It started with a charity flyer that landed in her parents' mailbox when she was twenty one, tied to a disease for a cause she cares a lot about, and that was enough to get her to sign up for her first half marathon. She kept coming back to the distance year after year, watching a coworker take on marathon training and deciding early on that the full distance wasn't for her.

Then her husband asked why she wasn't running a full, and a PR in Charlotte gave her the confidence to finally sign up for one. She picked her fortieth birthday as the day and chose Eugene as the race, training through the winter months to get there. Everyone warned her about the wall waiting at mile twenty, and she spent the back half of the race bracing for it to hit (spoiler! It never did)

Follow along with Aimee Jones: @ayogamama

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Martin Dugard has been running since the early 1970s, but it all traces back to one moment at eleven years old, watching Frank Shorter win the 1972 Olympic marathon and being so moved he ran straight outside in his jeans for four miles. From there it was 5Ks, 10Ks, and a half marathon at White Rock in Dallas, until a marathon started to feel like the obvious next step. Martin went on to become a longtime running coach and a bestselling author, though for years his book career had nothing to do with running at all. That changed with his new book, The Long Run, which traces the sport's history from ancient Greece all the way to today's running boom.

His first marathon came during his senior year of high school, squeezed into the gap between cross country and track season with barely any of the mileage a marathon really calls for. What he carried into that race, and what it left him with by the finish line, ended up shaping the way he thinks about running and coaching for decades afterward. We get into all of it, along with what pulled him back to writing about the sport after building a career writing about everything else.

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Get The Long Run! https://www.martindugard.com/
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Jay spent years playing soccer and dabbled in other sports, but running itself was never her thing until she signed up for a local 5K in her off season as another way to move. That race quickly turned into a half marathon in DC, and crossing that finish line left her with one very unexpected thought: she could probably go further. So she set her sights on the New York City Marathon, and started to poke around charities that she could apply for and along the way found an organization that would allow her to run for her uncle. He had always been active, and Jay saw a shot at running in his honor when she applied for a charity bib with ALS United's Greater New York chapter.

Training through a brutal, humid summer tested her in ways she didn't expect, and she leaned on a running buddy, a rewards system built around her favorite snacks, and a mantra she repeated when the miles got long. But nothing quite prepared her for what race day itself would throw at her. Between the nerves, the heat, and a curveball she never saw coming, Jay had to find a completely different way to get to that finish line than the one she'd trained for.

Follow along with Jay Wood: @fit.w.jayy

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Hunter didn't set out to become a runner. He joined his high school's cross country team on a whim (mostly because his friends were doing it) and discovered he loved being part of a group more than he loved the actual running. That pull toward community followed him through college, a couple years teaching in Korea, and eventually back to North Carolina, where a local run club led him to Ainsley's Angels. Pushing other runners through races so they could cross the finish line changed how he saw the sport entirely, and it planted the seed for chasing a marathon of his own.

Hunter went into the City of Oaks Marathon in Raleigh without a real time goal, just a plan to find the 4:30 pace group and stick with them for as long as he could. That plan hit a snag before he even reached the start line, but he pushed on regardless.. He leaned on that same pacer to get through the miles that followed, one mile at a time, and at the end of the day ended up a marathoner.

Follow along with Hunter Pardue: @runhuntrun

Learn more about Ainsley's Angels: https://ainsleysangels.org/
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Sierra grew up in a running family and found her own love for the sport through a middle school team in Georgia. She ran through high school and rediscovered it years later during a hard stretch in college, but just as she was building back toward a half marathon, her body threw her a curveball.

A case of long COVID sent her heart rate soaring to 175 just from walking, and running immediately had to take a back seat. It took her two years to feel like herself again, and by no means was that comeback easy. When she finally toed the line in Chicago, she went in with a mindset rooted in joy rather than performance, and it shaped everything about how her race day unfolded.

Follow along with Sierra: @sierra.von

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This one's for all my fall marathoners who are deep in training right now!! I'm pulling together my full survival guide for running your first marathon, five things I wish someone had told me before my own first one. We're talking fueling strategy (and why the back half of the race is where it really matters), why respecting your easy pace is about more than just your fitness, and why the bad runs in your training block might actually be the most useful ones you have. If you're in the thick of a block right now and need a little reset, this one's for you.

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Barry Scruggs came to running with his wife after some health struggles when they decided to make change happen together. It started with a Spartan race , and that single decision opened the door to a running life neither of them expected, eventually pulling them into Charlotte's trail and ultra running community and setting Barry on the path toward his first marathon.

By the time race day arrived, training wasn't the hard part. Days before the Charlotte Marathon, Barry was diagnosed with bronchitis that had turned into pneumonia, and both his doctor and his wife told him not to race. He toed the line anyway, and what followed became one of the hardest tests he's ever faced on a course. Somewhere in the miles that came next, Barry learned what his body could actually carry him through when his mind wanted to quit, a lesson he still leans on today.

Follow along with Barry Scruggs and his run club on Instagram:
@runbear_runnc
@locolocal.runclub

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Abia Mallick never planned to run a marathon herself until she volunteered at the finish zone of the New York City Marathon, where a woman stopped by the fence near her to catch her breath and ended up sharing her story, a story that stuck with Abia so much she threw her own name into the marathon lottery, assuming she'd never get in.

But spoiler alert: she did. Her training tested her more than she expected: her body kept finding new things to ache, and she leaned hard on her physical therapist and her community to get through it. Race day brought its own complications, and by the time she reached mile 26, what carried her through was the community of people that she's built around her.

Follow along with Abia on Instagram: @abiamallick

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I get this question all the time from my first-time marathoners: if I don't have a time goal, why do I need to do speed work? In this week's mini episode, I'm breaking down exactly why I still program speed work for athletes who aren't chasing a specific finish time, what it's actually teaching your body and mind, and how something as simple as picking up the pace at a colorful mailbox can prepare you for those brutal last six miles of your marathon.

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Sara played tennis all through high school, but running stayed casual for her, a mile here or there, until 2023, when she signed up for her first 5K and then got sidelined by a health complication for most of the year. By summer 2024 she was back on the trail outside Chicago, and after watching the para-athletes and half marathoners at a local race, she reached out to a charity for a Chicago Marathon bib almost on impulse. She texted her fiancé that she thought she'd just signed up for 26.2 miles. He wrote back, "You think?"

But by no means was training easy for her. A flooded house sent her and her husband to live with his in-laws for nine weeks that August, running took a back seat to insurance calls and contractors, and her peak mileage never got close to where it needed to be. She made it to the start line anyways, but a chaotic corral search, the Chicago heat, and something that happened to her knee around mile seventeen turned the back half of that race into a fight she wasn't sure she'd win. What got her from that curb to the finish line is a story you're going to want to hear.

Follow along with Sara on Instagram at @thatssosaaraa !

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Julie grew up in a sports-obsessed family, her dad a longtime Broad Street runner, her brother a former D1 lacrosse player turned distance runner. She played soccer growing up, but sports also came with real anxiety for her, and by college she thought that part of her life was over. It wasn't until her senior year of college that she started easing back into running, and she found herself thinking if her dad and brother could run a marathon, she could too.

Philly had already sold out by the time she looked into it, so Julie signed up through a Parkinson's fundraising team inspired by her grandfather and started an 18 week training block while in her second year of medical school.

Race day started strong, but somewhere around the halfway point, Julie hit a wall she wasn't expecting, and was forced to make a decision many of us make in a marathon: Do I keep going?

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Instagram: @juliemsatterthwaite
TikTok: @jms3400

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I took a two month break from running dealing with personal issues we'll get into in this episode. These personal issues forced me to take 2 full months off of running for the first time in my running journey, and today we're breaking down what it's actually looked like to come back from that, not just physically, but mentally too. I'm walking you through the exact plan I built for myself, the mindset shifts that made the biggest difference, and the practical stuff like how I'm structuring my weeks, my long runs, and my strength training as I work my way back up to running continuous miles again. If you've ever had to start over from scratch for any reason, I hope this gives you both a plan to follow and permission to go easy on yourself while you're doing it.

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Besides the dreaded mile in high school PE class, running was fairly casual for Rachel for a long time until the stress of working front lines at a hospital during COVID turned it into a huge stress reliever for her. A few years later she set her sights on a half marathon, and after three tries and a few injuries, she finally got there. Shortly after, she found BAR Run Club, and being surrounded by people just a little further down the road than her helped her believe a marathon was also for people like her.

Training meant fitting three hour long runs around a demanding hospital schedule, and by no means was training easy for her. A rough twenty mile run right before taper shook her confidence, but she showed up to race day anyways. Unseasonable heat, GI issues that hit mid race, and a stretch where she had every reason to stop all showed up before the finish line did. What got her through it, and what she carried into a second marathon just months later, are lessons you're going to want to hear.

Follow along with Rachel Howard: @rachelizhoward

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