Her Campus Logo Her Campus Logo
placeholder article
placeholder article

Want to Run a Half Marathon?: Finding My Stride

Her Campus Placeholder Avatar
Sara Kaner Student Contributor, University of Florida
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UFL chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

            Sometimes running can, for lack of a better word, suck. Your legs ache, your side cramps and you just want to stop the minute you start going.

            But sometimes, running can be amazing.

            Your motions become automatic, your body puts one foot in front of the other without you having to think about it and best of all, it just feels right.

            An amazing run can make you never want to stop running. 

            This week, I never wanted to stop running.

            Every run that I went on just felt great – two, three, four or five miles, the distance didn’t matter, because I enjoyed every mile that I ran. For the first time in a very long time, my body feels strong and comfortable.
            And, I’m finally starting to believe that I can actually run this half marathon.

            I’ll be honest; I definitely had my reservations in the beginning as I started to train. I feared that that I wouldn’t be able to run the long distances. I worried that I would end up hate running in the process. Most importantly, I dreaded giving up, because I thought there was great potential for me to do so.

            But here I am, still alive and still training, and two weeks from now, I’ll (hopefully) be able to say that I’ve officially run my first half marathon.

            Of course I’m still nervous that I won’t make it all the way through on the day of the run. But I’m enjoying myself through the training process, and I’m motivated and determined to do this for myself.

            I want to run my first half marathon, and I know that I can do it.

Sara Kaner was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California and first fell in love with journalism as a freshman in high school thanks to her wonderful Intro to Journalism teacher. A family move brought her to Fort Myers, Florida the summer after her freshman year of high school, but she continued to pursue an interest in journalism. She is in her second year at the University of Florida and is pursuing a dual degree in Public Relations and Psychology. She is heavily involved on the UF campus and dedicates most of her time to her various organizations and to her friends. She loves people, magazines, sports and social media, and she hopes to combine all three in her job someday. For now, she aspires to attend Law School and specialize in Media Law. She secretly aspires to be Chelsea Handler, but she's happy being herself for the moment, just as long as she can lose the freshman 15 this semester.