Picture this: I am fifteen years old, huffing and panting on the green lawn of a South Miami park. I have just run the standard American P.E. one-mile test. These symptoms of dry heaving and a tight chest will soon become a part of my weekly high school routine.
My freshman year gym teacher was an intense person to say the least. He was a military man who wore cargo shorts every day without fail, and followed the strict set of rules for peak physical fitness in the Miami Dade County Public School Handbook. This meant that he took our one-credit, required physical fitness class very seriously. Maybe this weekly one-mile fitness test was routine, and I was simply an out of shape high schooler, but none of my other friends ran “the mile” weekly, so I felt singled out and punished by this requirement mandated by my school. When you’re fifteen years old, everything is a matter of life or death and the world seems unfair in all aspects. You can imagine how this mentality coupled with these gym class circumstances truly made me feel like my life was over.
Fast forward to now: I’m twenty-two years old, a senior on the brink of graduating college, and I’ve run a half marathon. Oh, also, I run for fun and genuinely enjoy the way I feel when I do. Alright, pause. A lot had to happen between my freshman year of high school and my senior year of college for me to even be able to utter those words without them being a lie. Over the course of my schooling in Miami, working out and being more active slowly crept its way into my life, embedding itself into my weekly routine.
It could be the fact that living in a tropical climate means short shorts and bikinis all year long, but my mom was truly the person who inspired me to get my body moving. She was a fitness trainer in the 80’s and 90’s— think Jane Fonda workout videos, leg warmers and neon-colored leotards. She went on to dabble in powerlifting and switched gears from aerobics and scrunchies to weight belts and training gloves. She always seemed to be glowing after the gym, and she went almost every day without question. For her, it was not even an option to consider NOT going to the gym. What I appreciated about her commitment the most was the fact that she didn’t go to the gym to look a certain way or to stair-step off her lunch from the day before — she spent her life in the gym because she genuinely enjoyed it and craved those post-workout endorphins. Not only that but she truly built a community at her gym, making friends with the front desk attendants and bringing birthday gifts to her buddies at the bench presses. I felt inspired by her! I wanted cool gym friends and a rush of endorphins after sweating a whole bunch. It seemed easy enough from afar.
I started going to my local gym and hiding in the back corners to do my YouTube ab workouts (which, by the way, do not work if you want to get defined abs, but they will definitely improve your posture). Timidly working my way to the more crowded areas of the space: the barbells, the cable row machine and the pull-up bar. By my junior year of high school, I made sure to go to the gym three times a week. Going regularly offset my otherwise sedentary lifestyle, made me feel good and get my blood pumping, and I hung out with my own gym buddies — which happened to be a few moms and the fellow teenagers who occupied the front desk.
All of this became a new way for me to feel confident in my abilities and get stronger and stronger, both physically and mentally. With that being said, I was never much of a cardio junkie, and I would opt for a walk on the treadmill if I decided I was going to do any cardio at all. This all changed for me when I began my first year at NYU Florence.
By the time I got to college, I had felt pretty good about my gym routine, which rotated between a few key workouts and parts of the body, but I felt a little bored of how easy some moves had gotten. I was ready for a challenge. My roommate, who I met while abroad in Florence, knew subconsciously that I needed this challenge and put me to the test the day she asked me: “Do you wanna go on a run with me?”
One part of me thought: A run? Are you kidding me? I haven’t run intentionally since P.E. and that sucked. The other part of me thought: C’mon.You guys just met. You can’t reject her first attempt at doing something together if you want to stay friends! Combine that with enough guilt for leaving her to run on her own and there I was, on a run on the treadmill of the dorm’s basement gym, huffing and puffing just like it was my freshman year of high school all over again. My friend made sure not to comment on the fact that I was not a good runner, but she assured me that anyone who runs, no matter how many breaks, will still be considered a runner. So there I was, a runner. And it was all uphill from there.
I started joining her on her runs in the gym, taking long breaks to walk and turning red in the face. I joined her for lonely, icy runs in New York City when we lived together during COVID, and before I knew it, I was lacing up my Hokas in our shared apartment in the Lower East Side, getting ready to go for a morning two-mile run before our classes. After having incorporated running into my workout routine, I felt more capable than ever to commit to something athletic and physically demanding, more than I ever had before in my life. I won’t act like every run was a breeze and that I truly did it every time because I wanted to. There were times when I knew I’d be sitting at my desk all day so I would squeeze in a run at 7 a.m. in the freezing cold, which was less than enjoyable, or times when I’d just join my roommate because she wanted someone to run with. But with time, I found runs becoming more enjoyable and something that I genuinely wanted to implement into my life no matter how far or long I ran, no matter how many walking breaks I took, no matter how fast I ran a mile, or if I ran a mile at all.
In 2022, my roommate encouraged me to sign up for a half-marathon with her after she had recently run the New York City Marathon. She must have been high on endorphins when she suggested the idea. The half-marathon in question was six months away, so I thought: sure, if I want to back out, I have a whole six months to think about it. Slowly, the half-marathon date kept inching closer, and I thought back to little fifteen-year-old Kat, who was petrified of the one-mile test and I decided: let’s start training.
I Googled a basic half marathon training plan and got to running, working my way up to ten miles, which would be the longest distance I’d run before race day. My roommate and I would run multiple times a week while training and on Wednesdays, our long run days of six miles and up, we would travel all the way from Downtown up to Central Park, taking us roughly an hour to complete the journey. We would not stop for water or snacks to save time, making our hydroflasks taste all the more delicious once we made it back home. I would even drag my boyfriend along for our long runs so I wouldn’t waste time running instead of hanging out with him for the limited periods he was able to visit me on the weekends as my long distance partner. He obliged, making us a party of three at times. Quickly into my training, I was itching to run only four miles, which came to feel like a short distance to me compared to the eight mile runs I was working up towards, and felt better and better about putting on a race bib and running a half marathon.
The 2023 Brooklyn Half-Marathon was full of electricity and happy faces of people who were stretching their calves and munching on protein balls. I felt nervous sitting on a bench in the 40-degree chill of March, but was excited to have my mom cheering me on for my first and only athletic event. Unluckily for her, I chose one of the most boring sports to participate in for spectators, but she was supportive just the same. After a lot of monotonous city runs on streets I knew like the back of my hand, I was excited to do a few loops around Prospect Park and get a change of scenery. I did some hamstring stretches, ate a banana, plugged in my headphones and with the blare of an airhorn, I was off. My roommate stayed by my side for the whole race, pushing me to keep going and definitely keeping a slower pace so as to keep up with me, but she’d never admit that. The first five miles, I felt strong, with only a momentary shoelace malfunction. I felt ready for the last two and a half loops around the park. It was by miles nine and ten that I could feel blisters forming and my favorite song stopped sounding enjoyable after I had played it nine times in a row. I felt myself trail off and lose sight of the finish line, but I kept pushing. I knew I had to finish what I had started.
At two hours and fifteen minutes, I’d finished my first ever half-marathon, the longest distance I’d ever run in my life — and at a decent time, too, finishing quicker than I had anticipated! I celebrated with bagels and pad thai, and I let myself rest for as long as I wanted that weekend, feeling accomplished and sore. As soon as I got home after the race, participation medal in hand, I started researching full marathon training plans, a whole 26.2 miles, which was double what I had just run. I made sure that I made my search specified for people who had never run that distance before to give myself an accurate portrayal of how I could achieve this. I had never felt more inspired to put my mind and my body to the test.
I have yet to sign up for my first ever marathon, but I can say with confidence that pushing my self-doubt and past resentment for running aside was one of the most rewarding things I could have done for myself, and I only feel empowered to continue on my journey towards becoming a better runner. It is truly me, myself and I when I am out running, and I couldn’t be happier with the fact that I can be one of those people who runs! I’m one of those! I am a runner! I’m certain that my freshman year P.E. coach would be especially pleased with this news.