For about a year and a half now I have been running 5 to 6 times a week pretty consistently. When I first started in November 2022 I could barely go to 2 miles because I would get so tired. In December 2022 I went to watch the Honolulu Marathon with one of my close friends named Zen. We both decided that we were going to register for the 2023 Honolulu Marathon because were pretty inspired and driven by the challenge. Fast Forward to the 2023 Honolulu Marathon I had trained for a year to get to that point and I had pushed myself both mentally and physically. I ended up finishing the race in 3 hours and 32 minutes. The thing I love about running is that your body is your biggest enemy and biggest teammate at the same time. I was happy with my Honolulu Marathon time but I knew that I could do better. When I arrived in Florence at the end of January I started to increase my training a little bit more every week. About 3 weeks before the Marathon I was talking to someone that I had met at a Cafe and they told me they were running the Rome Marathon on March 17th (St. Patrick's Day). I knew that I had to sign up for this race given how much work I had been putting in and that this race was in one of the most historical cities in the world.
When race day came I was a little nervous, getting to the starting line was very hectic and chaotic but I knew I couldn't control everything so I just had to focus on the task I could control and that was my race. My initial target time for this race was to get in the 3 hour and 20-minute range but I ended up finishing with an official time of 3 hours and 12 minutes, which I was happy about. During the race, I was just focusing on myself while also trying to soak in the beauty of Rome. At mile 18, my body still felt great and I knew that I could finish faster than I initially anticipated. The final 8 miles were some of the best miles I have ever run, from the atmosphere to how my body felt it was truly a surreal moment. At mile 25 I saw that a lot of people were starting to walk and I knew that I didn't want to be one of those people, I just thought of how much work I had done to get to that point and it helped a lot. A little bit past mile 25 my body still felt good but I was starting to feel a blister on my left foot which was uncomfortable, I ended up seeing my Friend Nick cheering who had just run the 5k and that gave me a little extra boost. When I got to the finish line my body still felt pretty good so I decided to do a heel because I was pretty fired up. If you're on the fence about signing uo for a marathon, sign up. You don't need to run the whole time and you really learn a lot about yourself over the course of a race and leading up to a race.
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