On July 23rd 2022, I completed my first marathon. Honestly, I have no idea what past Weibin was thinking when he signed up for the San Francisco marathon as the very first one… 26.2 miles is hard enough, then you add 1,859ft of elevation gain across the course.
Thinking of running your first endurance run? I detail my experiences below in hopes that you can learn from some of my mistakes.
Background in running
I never associated myself as a runner, especially not an endurance runner. Throughout high school, my sport of choice was swimming and I would gas out in any event over 100 yards. In 2017, I signed up for my first half marathon, and to be completely honest, I had no idea how to properly train. I barely finished my half, walking through the finish line with swollen toes because I gassed out too quickly on the hills.
So when I signed up for the marathon, I knew it would be one of the toughest physical and mental challenges I’d be facing.
Why did I decide to do it?
I promised myself that I would constantly take myself out of the comfort zone in all aspects of life. When you challenge yourself to tough tasks that you once thought were impossible, but take it one step at a time, there's no better feeling than looking back on the struggles that make you the person you are today.
Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins was one of the inspirations to continue doing these “impossible goals”. In the book, David talks about the hard challenges that you face throughout life. Health challenges, family troubles, and many roadblocks that you can’t control. Constantly doing hard things keeps you ready for those tough challenges that come ahead. When your mind is so used to pushing the limit, you eventually become desensitized.
Training Process
With such poor results on my half marathon and missing my goal time by almost 10 minutes, I had to change up my plan for the full. Here are the key decisions that helped me through the finish line:
I’m an engineer by nature so I logically think through problems to break them down. From physics, I knew the energy required to go long distances depended heavily on mass. Excuse me for being a nerd, but here’s the formula breakdown.
Force = Mass * Acceleration, Work = Force * Distance
So I knew that if I dropped weight (mass), I could run the marathon easier.
Staying accountable. I moved to LA in Feb 2022 and was fortunate to find the Koreatown Run Club. 4 times a week, the club would meet up to run together. I was able to meet some good friends that I still hang out with outside of run club. If you’re in LA, I highly recommend KRC.
Learning how to carbo load properly. The only thing I did for my carbo load before my half was drinking cranberry juice. I still don’t know if that was effective. For the full, I loaded up on 400g of carbs each day for 3 days leading up to the race. I walked onto that finish line looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy, but that was enough energy to keep me sprinting through the finish.
Get a theragun!!
Tip: Plan Ahead
When you’re training for 6 months, it’s hard to avoid getting sick. It’s also hard to avoid social life when you’ve recently moved to LA. Since the marathon training program was actually 18 weeks, I started early so that I could take some weekends off in case I got sick or needed to go to Coachella.
Would I do it again?
Of course I would! Is that even a question? My ultimate goal is to one day complete an Iron Man.
Marathon training is half physical and half mental. It was very tiring waking up every Saturday morning to run 3-4 hours nonstop. When you’re running for that long, you eventually start trying to tell yourself it's okay to give up and just do a short run because you aren’t feeling it. 18 weeks of fighting through those thoughts really trains you mentally and I truthfully believe I passed the finish line a different person. On to the next challenge!!
A reminder to myself: Consistency breeds success. You take everything one step at a time, and over a long period of time, you’ll see exponential growth.