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 in a very good way. 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 what this translates to is most my half marathons going something like this: 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 health and healing—through my own diagnoses and inner work—I’ve come to understand something simple but profound: health is when the mind and body are in alignment. But if you haven’t experienced this, it’s difficult to understand wtf that even means.

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. My body didn’t want to do the race. And for the first time, it clicked: these races had become a way for me to prove something, to be worthy. But a big part of health and healing is knowing you don’t have to prove anything to anyone. You are already worthy.

Once I had that realization, I felt so liberated. I decided that on race day I would only run as much as my body wanted to. If that meant stopping at the massive hill at mile 7.5 (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, from the lunch I treated myself to on my way to pick up my race number to the celebration I had with friends after the race and everything in between.

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 really was when I truly understood what it meant to get out of my head.

There was also a degree of presence that 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 up it. Instead, I took a doughnut from a woman who was handing them out and walked up the hill while eating it. 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. At one point, my knee started hurting with two miles to go, 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 even believe it. How is 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 when, in reality, we could get even better results if we just work with our bodies.

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

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

But I saw my pictures and they made me smile because they captured the joy and liberation I felt with the progress I had made with my relationship with myself and with running. I looked happy and healthy because I am. That’s what emerges when your mind and body are actually working together.

There are a lot of layers to this work—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.