In high school, while all my friends laced up for track practice, I parked on the sidelines with a snack, counting down the minutes until we could head back to my parent’s basement and lose an hour to YouTube. Running felt like something other people did—the naturally athletic, the overly disciplined. Not me. So when I picked running up in 2024, when I was in my late 20s, it wasn’t part of some lifelong dream or well-thought-out plan. It was more of a last-ditch attempt to find a workout that stuck. And, unexpectedly, it did. What began as a casual 5K at a Long Island winery quickly snowballed. Less than a year later, on a whim, I entered the New York City Marathon lottery—and somehow got in. It set something bigger in motion. I wasn’t just running for fun anymore; I was training. At first, marathon training felt easy to romanticize. Early mornings, new gear, the quiet satisfaction of watching mileage tick up week over week… but then, about a month in, the reality set in. And it hit hard.…