May 2, 2024

It’s wild that we’re already in May. This year is whipping by. 

Last weekend I ran the Belgrade Marathon! It was challenging and fulfilling and exhausting in many ways, but I finished and I am really proud. Official time: 4:21:50. I woke up around 4 am on the actual day (I’d been practicing waking up early for the whole week before), had a light snack, did some stretching, and did my other prep. I walked to the start line, where I met Mirko, a Serbian guy who lives in LA and was a great buddy for the beginning of the race. Before I could believe it, the huge pack of runners was making our way through the streets of Belgrade at 8am. Over the next handful of miles, the crowd thinned out a good bit as everyone found their pace. As the day went on, the sun got higher and hotter, and more people came out to the sidewalks to cheer us on with a “Bravo!”, always a great feeling. I realized that I was low on fuel pretty early, around mile 14, and made more stops at the refreshment stations in increasingly delirious states. I was able to keep a pretty good pace until mile 19 or so, where I hit a bit of a wall and spent a the next couple miles alternating between jogging and walking. Around mile 21 I got my head back on my shoulders and just kept a steady marching jog through the finish. My roommate Sarah came out to support and got some awesome photo and video of me, including right at the finish! I was hoping to debut a signature celebration where I lick my lips as hard as humanly possible, but I forgot to because I was crying so hard at the finish line (from joy). 

It’s still hard to process that I actually freaking ran a marathon! Most of the challenges I faced were from a lack of experience in preparation and fueling, and I think that with some big lessons learned, I can hope to improve my time a lot for the next marathon I do. However, I also want to slow down and celebrate that I did do a really hard thing in this one, which is awesome!

The few days since the marathon have been a little bit of a drag. My left foot is a bit hurt from overuse and walking has been slightly uncomfortable. I would love to get out for a run, but I’ve been a bit cooped up. Tonight I have a 1am flight to Bucharest, which will be very interesting! I’m not looking forward to a terrible night of sleep, but I am very much looking forward to having a calm, slow, savor of Romania’s capitol. Edit: I decided that I do this trip to Romania! Booking it was not the wisest move, and continuing to recover in Belgrade and get good sleep made way more sense to me.!