Running my first ever half marathon
and what it means for me.
Last weekend, I ran my first ever half marathon. And I really ran. I am still a little bit in disbelief. I have come a long long long way from not being able to run even a km without stopping to running 21k with just 3-4 breaks. Given and take a few; 4 months of training, 3 runs a week, closing in on 300 kms of running culminated into a crazy 2 hours 40 minutes of 21.1 kms.
A little background would help into knowing why this is a big deal for someone like me. I have never been a sporty kid. In school, my few attempts at sports and athletics didn’t succeed. And I think it didn’t interest me enough to try harder. I enjoyed being outdoors and playing every evening for hours but I just didn’t have the motivation to get better at any of the sports I tried or try new sports. Fast forward into late teens, I developed an unhealthy relationship with physical activity. It was about purely about losing weight and in my limited understanding, that meant intense cardio. I also did yoga occasionally and enjoyed it but I was doing everything with the sole aim of losing weight.
Body positivity wasn’t a familiar term. We live in a society that’s ridiculously insensitive to women when it comes to body image. I had attached my self-worth to my weight and how I looked. Every third person felt like they had the free right to comment on whether I looked thinner or fatter than the last time they saw me. Every aunty had unsolicited advice on losing weight. Even today, if someone comments on my weight, it stings a little. And trust me, enough people do. Ask any woman. Throughout my 20s up until early last year, my bodyweight went through several ups and downs but I was never content, not even when I was the skinniest I had ever been. I went through phases of extreme exercise and extreme fasting. I didn’t enjoy working out and would find any excuse to not exercise. I wasn’t kind to myself and that wasn’t great for my mental health.
Moving to Uganda, new country, new job, new life, something in the air made me want to change my approach to fitness. I had recently learnt about the importance of strength training and wanted to get into it. Enter CrossFit. I can’t quite explain what it was exactly that made me enjoy CrossFit from Day 1 and want to come back for more. It was a sweet combination of supportive coaches who understood my level and encouraged me to push my limits, a format that allowed for scaled movements and weights, a group of people that was diverse in terms of strengths and abilities, and a non-judgmental and positive atmosphere. It was genuinely the first time in my life that I was excited to go to the gym and sweat my butt off. It was purely for the endorphins. It didn’t matter how tired I was. I was starting to see changes in my strength and endurance and amazed at what my body could do.
Enter Running. I like to joke that running was my response to the quarter life crisis. But in all fairness, I wanted to start running to get better at the CrossFit workouts that involved running and I was also motivated by friends who were training for a half marathon. Every time I had tried running before this, alone or by myself, I wouldn’t be able to keep up, couldn’t manage my breathing, and would eventually get side stitches. It wasn’t great. I didn’t know what I was doing wrong and got discouraged too quickly. Then a friend advised me to forget about running fast. “Just run.” And that’s what I started doing. I starting running slowly without caring for speed, just trying to run at a consistent pace and continuously. I learnt how to regulate my breathing, how to use my arms, how to get into the right posture, how to listen to my body, how to tap into my mental strength on tough hills, and so on. I realized not all my runs will be the same. I started to enjoy running and looked forward to my post-work evening runs. I stopped looking at my watch after every mile and started “being in the moment”. I made a running playlist, I planned my runs, I increased distances slowly. I ran my first 5k in August 2023, first 8k in September 2023, first 10k in October 2023, first 11k in December 2023, and eventually started my half marathon training in April 2024.
While the training plan was designed for 12 weeks, I gave myself a few buffer weeks to account for travel, sickness, and the mighty wrath of period cramps. I also knew I was pushing my body to where it had never been before and didn’t know what to expect. Looking back at my training, I realized that I went through three phases. The first phase was getting used to running distances (3-6 miles) I had run before at a higher frequency. I could feel my quads getting stronger. I found myself putting more power in uphill runs. I enjoyed most of my runs in this period. The second phase was combining these familiar distances with a new record distance at the end of every week. This was quite challenging and my legs responded with a newbie runners worst nightmare a.k.a. shin splints. The term didn’t even exist in my dictionary before this moment. I took more rest days, repeated a couple of weeks of training, and put a little more effort in stretching and mobility. I slowly got used to pre-fueling and post-fueling. The last phase was not just physically but mentally challenging as well. The long runs lasted for more than 2 hours. The hills seemed steeper. My legs were in shock and responding with cramps during the runs.
At the end of 11th week of training and the final long run of 16k, the anxiety hit me. Everyone tells you that your body is ready and the last 5k is mental strength. I didn’t feel like my body was entirely ready with all the cramps and shin splints. I felt like I hadn’t done enough hill training. I was low key panicking and naturally overthinking. But I decided to manifest my way out of this and repeated to myself “I think I am ready” and “I can do this” up until the last second. I got my gear sorted with my nice and sturdy hydration pack, energy gels, my favourite running shorts, and my running playlist filled with mostly energetic bollywood songs. I was pumped up and loaded with all the motivation I needed from my personal cheerleaders.
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It was D-Day. 5 am wake up call. 6:30 am start. It’s an out and back route with a fairly decent elevation gain (730 ft). The first 10k was fairly manageable non-stop and then the Rwenzori hills revealed their true colors. The next few kilometers were the toughest part of the run. My legs were getting exhausted, my breathing was becoming heavy, and I wasn’t sure how much more of uphill there was to go so I didn’t want to go all out. I had to stop a couple times and walk a few steps and eventually resumed my pace. Finally, I saw the turning point. I can’t describe the rush of energy that hit me. I zoomed around and the adrenaline rush on the way back was out of this world. I was buzzing down the hill. The cheers from bystanders felt like they were just for me. The hills looked more beautiful. The weather felt perfect and it was much kinder than it usually is in this part of the country. The finish line truly felt closer and closer with every step. With less than a km to the finish line, I increased my pace even more and foolishly didn’t realize that a cramp was building in my calves. I was imagining a heroic finish with my open arms and a wide smile. I finished the race but wobbled for the last 20 meters with a lovely cramp. Nevertheless, I had done it. The blood was still rushing back to my brain so I was going around in circles, trying to catch my breath, talk to my friends, hydrate, and stabilize my breathing. And then it finally hit me. I had done it. I had run my first ever half marathon. And that was that.
P.S. I didn’t get my big flying moment across the finish line so obviously I am definitely doing at least one more half marathon to reclaim it.