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Why (I think) I ran a marathon

June 5th, 2025

20 years ago, I ran a half-marathon and on finishing thought;

‘If I was running a marathon, I’d only be halfway. Ooft. That would be brutal.’

So why was it that last Friday, I decided to run a marathon?

Well, there are several reasons and the first starts with the pictured pot of jellybeans.

A year ago, I picked up the jellybeans at a conference. It was the usual Pavlovian response;

‘They’re free! Get some!’

However, soon I was reminded of my recent commitment to eat more healthily. I distinctly remember thinking;

‘The only instance when these would be useful is if I were to run a marathon.’

But I didn’t want to run a marathon, so the jellybeans went on a kitchen shelf; and they stayed there because I didn’t want to throw them away (I can’t bear waste). The almost daily glance at the jellybeans brought about a shift though and soon my inner voice was saying;

‘You’re going to have to run a marathon if you want to get rid of these jellybeans’*

In addition to my ‘free stuff vs no waste’ conundrum, I think there were other reasons:

(1) Since I’m known for being a ‘runner’, having run several times a week since I was a child, I’m often asked; “Have you ever run a marathon?”. I think part of me was simply bored of saying; “No.”

(2) I’ll be 50 this year, and despite suffering from ‘Peter Pan Syndrome’, even I am having to acknowledge the ageing process. Running a marathon is unlikely to get any easier.

These are all conscious (if quirky) rationalisations, but I think there was more to it. Something personal and subconscious. Prior to completing it, I only told two people I was going to run a marathon. Also, I did not take part in an organised race. Instead, I measured my own course which started from my house, incorporated local landmarks that were meaningful to me and ended at my partner’s house.

So what have I learnt from this (that’s hopefully useful):

1. People are Complex

The reasons people do things can be varied and may not make much sense to you or indeed them. The brain is often considered the ‘Executive Centre’, but in reality, it is more akin to the press office: producing narratives that make sense of how the body perceives and responds to its environment (for more insight into how the brain constructs its reality, I strongly recommend the work of Lisa Feldman Barrett).

1. Changing One Thing Can Change Everything

Until I started training for the marathon, I found running easy, enjoyable and was objectively quite good at it. Although training for the marathon was still ‘running’, I found it hard, often unpleasant and I was nowhere near as good at it relative to training for a 5km distance. So much so, that despite it being accepted wisdom that (a minimum of) 12 weeks is required to prepare for a marathon, I did my marathon after only 8/9 weeks of training, primarily because I just wanted to get it done and the training to stop! Changing a single variable, the distance, changed almost everything.

1. Very Little is Truly Done Alone and You May Never Know Your Impact

Despite the reputation of the ‘loneliness of the long-distance runner’, I proactively engaged the services of a dietician and a cranial osteopath/massage therapist. Both were incredibly helpful in getting me to both the start and the finish. Yet until now, only one of the aforementioned ‘support crew’ explicitly knew I planned to run a marathon. Furthermore, other sources of support can be unexpected and unplanned. To give just two examples, keeping ‘fluid’ as events unfold, which I gained from a guided walk in the woods and the breath work during an introduction to taking ice-baths, were not preplanned into my preparation, but were incredibly useful none the less.

*Days before the marathon my cranial osteopath/sports massage therapist pointed out that I could have just given the jellybeans away. Strangely this had not really occurred to me! I think because I’d already labelled them as ‘unhealthy, unless used in a marathon’, and didn’t know any other marathon runners living locally.