OMG I Ran a Half Marathon!

Last month, I ran the Rock n Roll DC Half Marathon. If you know me, you know that’s NBD…I’ve run many in my life. But this one was different. There was a major theme about this race that aligns with a lot of the work I do with my clients, so I wanted to share about the experience.

My relationship with running has certainly evolved over the last 20+ years. It started as a high school sport that I fell into because I didn’t make the volleyball team. At my school you didn’t have to try out for cross country, so it became my fallback sport. I ended up having a natural gift for distance running and was able to run at a varsity level my first year. Running became something I was good at.

From age 15, distance running became a constant in my life. I ran cross-country in the fall and track in the spring, and of course continued running between seasons to stay in shape. After graduating high school I continued running recreationally, and to this day, I have run at least one half-marathon a year.

There has also been a dark side to my running; a “healthy” habit but not always for healthy reasons. It became a way to control my body—if I ran more, I could “get skinnier.” I’ve also been through challenging phases of life where running was an escape. There was something comforting about having a “healthy” outlet when life felt painful or messy, and also being able to literally run away from it.

Layer onto that my psychology: a (recovering) people pleaser and perfectionist, there was a right and a wrong way to run: fast or slow, good or bad, winning or losing. No in-between.

Then there is the intellectual side of me. I’ve lived much of my life in my head, focused on facts, logic, and reason. If there was ever friction between my mind and body, my mind would always win (or so I thought).

So this is what most of my half marathons looked like: I’d sign up for a race, train, and when race day approached, I’d get mad at myself for not training “enough” (what was ever enough!?). I’d go into a race saying “I didn’t train enough, I’m just gonna chill for this one” and then proceed to push myself the entire 13.1 miles. I’d always be jamming to a bomb @$$ playlist but the internal dialogue was something like this: “ok I’m at 50 minutes and just crossed the 10k mark…what pace do I need to run the rest of the race and still make it in under 1:50?” And I’d literally do the mental gymnastics to figure out that that number was ~8:40–8:45/mile. I’ve even finished several half marathons without shoes on because my feet were getting blistered. NOTHING was going to come between me and a “good time.” Literally no chill.

And based on the bar I set for myself, I always crushed it. My first ever half-marathon at age 15 was 1:54. My fastest has been 1:43. I’ve never run one above 2 hours. That’s pretty freaking good. But it came at a cost. During most of the races I’ve run, I’ve almost always been in my head thinking about what I have to make my body do to run in some arbitrary time that would be satisfactory to me. It was like I was the intense jockey and my body was the horse that didn’t really want to be pushed that hard, but with enough whipping, the horse does what it’s told.

As I’ve gone deeper into my own health journey—through diagnosis, healing, and the kind of inner work that forces you to confront yourself—I’ve come to understand something both simple and profound: true health becomes accessible when the mind and body are in alignment.

I signed up for this half-marathon in November of 2025, forgetting that that would mean training over the winter. And this winter was particularly brutal in DC. There was a stretch of several weeks where my running routes were not clear of snow. Temperatures were consistently below freezing. Needless to say, training did not go so well.

At the same time, I was deep in my holistic health coaching certification, thinking a lot about mind-body alignment—not just intellectually, but in practice and what that has looked like for me. And I had this realization: why do I even run half marathons? I can love running and not run 13 miles. The reality was my body didn’t want to do this race. So why was I feeling so much pressure to do it? And for the first time, it clicked: these races had become a way for me to prove something, to be worthy.

Once I had that realization, I felt so liberated. Having this awareness brought consciousness to a deeply entrenched narrative that was simply not true. I didn’t have to prove anything to anyone to be worthy—not even myself.

With that, I decided that on race day I would only run as much as my body wanted to. If that meant stopping halfway through (or earlier), that was completely okay. It felt almost absurd that I had to give myself permission to listen to my body, but things shifted after that.

Have you ever had one of those experiences where everything felt like it was working in your favor? That is exactly what this race was like. I woke up to perfect running weather: blue skies, sunshine, low 50s. Even the metro ride to the start line, the people I met—it all flowed. I teared up during the national anthem at how peaceful I felt and also kind of sad for the 50+ half marathons before this where I put so much pressure on myself to perform.

My internal dialogue before the race was totally different and super cute:

Mind: Training wasn’t ideal. If you finish all 13 miles, great. If you don’t, that’s fine too. There’s nothing to prove.
Body: I’m capable. I’ll let you know what I need—just PLEASE listen.
Mind & Body: GO TEAM!

The race began and I couldn’t stop smiling. I was almost giggling to myself at how stressful I had made these races out to be over the years, and how simple it felt was when I truly understood what it meant to get out of my head.

There was also a degree of presence I experienced that was different than other races I’ve done. I noticed all of the people who were out there cheering, the other runners, and the energy. I felt so relaxed and so present. And I was cruising.

I was also well aware of the massive hill from Rock Creek Parkway up to Calvert Street at around mile 7.5 and was saving some energy for that. But when I got to that hill, my body was like nope so I didn’t even try to run it. Instead, I snagged a doughnut from a woman who was handing them out and walked up the hill. I struck up a convo with a guy named Kenny who was also walking up the hill. We exchanged some words of encouragement and once I was up the hill and finished my doughnut, I started running again.

I wasn’t paying any attention to my mile splits. I was just moving at a pace that felt right. With two miles to go, my knee started hurting with so I slowed down a bit. Coincidentally, a woman was handing out cookies around this time, so I snagged one and it was the best chocolate chip cookie I’ve had in a long time…so good that I spent the next two miles savoring it. And then once I turned the corner and saw the finish line, my body said go for it! so I finished strong.

I ran across the finish line with an official race time of 1:57.

I couldn’t believe it. How was that even possible?! I walked, I ate, I did literally the opposite of every race I had done before. But not only did I have an absolute blast, I still finished in under two hours.

Isn’t it interesting what we think we have to do to get the results we are looking for? Sometimes we put an insane amount of pressure on ourselves to get a desired outcome, but what if we could get better results than we even thought possible if we just learned how work with our bodies?

The whole thing honestly felt like a psychedelic experience—like I was given this opportunity to master an important life lesson in a way that was unique to me.

During every half-marathon there is usually a photographer taking pictures of all the runners. They email you photos of the race pictures and try to sell them to you. I always thought this was hysterical because my pictures we always awful. The intensity, determination, and pain were very clear and very unflattering. Why would anyone want to pay money for that?

But I saw my pictures from this race and they made me smile because I saw pure joy. Just like those photos from races past showed intensity and pain (because that’s what I was experiencing), in these pictures I looked happy and healthy…because I am. That’s the power of your mind and body working together.

There are a lot of layers to this work and it’s much easier said than done. But if you’re doing all the right things and still don’t feel healthy, I’d love to help you get back into alignment.