Dear Reader,

I’m attempting to run a marathon in two weeks.

Five months ago when training first began, running 26.2 miles seemed a distant aspiration, if not an impossibility. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do – I grew up passing photos on the mantel of my Uncle John and Aunt Erika in race-day garb; over and over again, I’d watch IG stories of cousin Jackie crossing the finish line – As far as I was concerned, running a marathon was the ultimate achievement, the ultimate indicator of strength and dedication. But where would I start? And when would be the right time? It’s easy to add a line to the list of things you say you’ll do, but much harder to cross it off.

When the world came to a pause in 2020, I, like many others, faced a reckoning – what would my life hold? What would I tick off my list? Be remembered for? If we have no control over the amount of time we have, what was I waiting for? It was then that I decided I’d run a marathon when I turned 26 – 26 miles for 26 years.

So, in January of this year, I started training. I knew it would be one of the hardest things I’d ever attempted to do, but still, I was woefully unprepared for the amount of unwavering determination it would require. I know now that the real achievement is not crossing the finish line, but showing up to the start.

The real achievement is committing to five months of grueling, rigorous training – before work and before the sun has risen, or long after hours when all you want to do is lie down; when it’s pouring down rain and your shoes are angrily squelching, your clothes plastered to pink flesh; when it’s so cold it bites, or ‘uncharacteristically hot for Springtime’ (an all-too-common statement nowadays); when you’ve got a sore throat, blocked sinuses, cramps, a headache – the real achievement is pushing yourself, making time, and choosing every day not to give up.

And boy oh boy, did I want to give up. When shin splints struck not once, but twice, when new running shoes caused the skin on my soles to blister and peel off, when I threw out my back, when my calves became so tight and brittle that I had to have them manually unwound by an acupuncturist, when my feet became so swollen I couldn’t walk, when my sports bra chafed my skin so raw it left a ring of blood, when I so severely dehydrated myself that my urine ran brown for days, when I was blessed with a month-long lung infection that caused nightly coughing fits and asthma attacks, when my grandmother Elise passed away… So. Many. Times. I was ready to call it quits, to throw the towel in and try again another time when, surely, it would be easier, when I’d have more time, when life wouldn’t get in the way.

But life always gets in the way. And, really, no achievement would feel well-won if it were easy. It’s finding a way to summon strength and keep moving forward that is the test, and, ultimately, the reward. Running a marathon is not about a medal around your neck or life-long bragging rights, it’s about proving to yourself that you are stronger than you think, and that you are capable of doing hard things – things that, at one point, seemed impossible.

Yesterday, after completing a 20-mile run (the longest distance on my training plan), I felt a sense of pride that is unlike anything I’ve experienced before. Who knew that this horrible, grueling process would turn out to be the single most rewarding experience of my life? Race day is still to come, but for the first time since I began this journey, I know I can do it.

Dear Reader,

I’m running a marathon in two weeks.

On the 26th May, I will run alongside 35,000 others in the Edinburgh marathon. I’ve chosen to raise money for the British Heart Foundation because of my father, a cardiologist who spent his career saving lives, and showing me and my brother true perseverance and resilience. (I can still hear the sound of his beeper going off in the wee hours of the night, his bed creaking as he rose, the keys in the lock, the garage door shuttering open and closed…) I will also be running for my Nana, Sheena Dadourian, whose heart keeps beating at 94 years of age.

Donations of any amount would be greatly appreciated.

***

SPECIAL THANKS to Erika de Papp, Jackie Kazarian, Anne de Papp, Graham Broadbent, Zac Peel, Katy Chambers, and, of course, Henry Brounger – all of whom I could not have done this without.