I used to think training for a marathon was all about control. You hit your miles, you nail your splits, you stack perfect weeks on top of each other until race day finally arrives. A simple equation: discipline in, results out. But life has a way of rewriting the plan, and a few months into training for this race, my dad got sick.
My dad is quiet but determined, someone who has always measured his life in motion. Mountain biking along the rugged trails near his home in Vermont. Playing hockey three nights a week well into his late 60s. Hiking the Long Trail’s 272 miles from Massachusetts to Canada. Moving his body has always been his way of making himself known to others. So it feels like a particular kind of loss that cancer has taken that away.
Featured image from our interview with Sanne Vloet by Michelle Nash.
This summer, the one that’s seen him moving through rounds of radiation and chemo, has been heavy with guilt. A constant tug-of-war. When I’m training, I feel like I should be with him. When I’m with him, I feel like I should be training. I’m trapped in this exhausting narrative of shoulds—never fully where I am, never enough of anything. And sometimes, if I’m honest, I feel selfish. Chasing a finish time, a personal best, when his body is fighting for something far more essential.
Every missed run felt like a strike against me, each skipped workout a reminder that the neat, color-coded plan I’d taped to my fridge was unraveling. I told myself I’d lost my shot at a 3:30 marathon. But somewhere between the late nights at my dad’s house and the early mornings I ran anyway, something shifted. I started to see my training for the Chicago marathon less as a performance and more as a practice—a small act of steadiness I could return to, even when everything else was falling apart. The miles became less about proving myself and more about carrying myself through.
Letting Go of Perfect
When I first typed my marathon training plan in the Notes app of my phone, I believed in it like scripture. 16 weeks in neat little boxes, promising that if I showed up, I’d get what I wanted: 3 hours and 30 minutes. I loved the clarity. So much of life resists control, but here was something that said: if you just do A, you’ll get to B.
In the first weeks, I lived inside that plan. Early mornings, long runs that stretched into weekends, little victories when I nailed my paces. I felt like someone who could follow through, who could be counted on. Maybe the rest of my life could feel like that too—organized, predictable, clean.
Spoiler: nope. The body doesn’t always respond the way you want it to. Neither does life. I missed runs when my dad’s health needed me elsewhere, and when I came back, the training plan no longer looked like a map—it looked like a ledger of failure. I could feel the time slipping, that 3:30 finish pulling further out of reach.
But even in those messy, uneven weeks, I kept running. Not perfectly, and not according to plan. Just forward.
The Quiet Lessons Between the Miles
Some runs were little more than a shuffle. After nights in the hospital, my legs felt like lead, my chest tight with worry. Even then, there was relief in the rhythm. The stale hospital air would still cling to me, but the first gulp of fresh air outside felt like oxygen for both of us. I often thought my dad would give anything to trade places—out of the fluorescent rooms, into the cool morning, breathing alongside me.
Other mornings, the road surprised me with grace. The air cool before dawn, the sky breaking open in pink. Runs like that felt like gifts. My chest loosened, my thoughts slowed. For a little while, I could just breathe.
It was in those runs that I stopped measuring success by my watch. Pace mattered less than presence. What counted was showing up, even in the smallest way, and choosing consistency over perfection. Training wasn’t about shaving seconds anymore. It became about making peace with the truth that some days I’d have more to give, and others I wouldn’t. And both were enough.
Reframing Success Before Race Day
As race day approaches, the marathon feels less like a single date on the calendar and more like the culmination of small, imperfect choices. I won’t pretend my training has been flawless—there were weeks I skipped, mornings I ignored the alarm, long miles I couldn’t finish. But I’ve learned success isn’t about perfection. It’s about returning, again and again, even when it’s messy.
I’ve stopped seeing race day as the moment everything has to come together. It’s just another mile marker—one more chapter in a season that’s already taught me patience, steadiness, and the quiet satisfaction of showing up.
Whether I cross the finish line strong or stumble through the last stretch, I know the real victory happened long ago: in the dark mornings I ran when I didn’t want to, in the tired evenings I pushed through, and in the countless moments I chose not to quit.
What It Means to Finish
October 12 gets closer with every mile I log, every gel packet I stuff into my pocket, and every night I circle the date in my mind. A part of me still wants the 3:30 finish—still pictures crossing the line with a personal best. But the wiser part knows that isn’t the whole story anymore.
Because here’s the truth: I’ve already learned what I came here to learn. Training while helping care for my dad has taught me how to stay when things get hard. How to find beauty inside the mess. To measure strength not just in pace charts or split times, but in presence—day after day, no matter how tired, how uncertain, how undone I felt.
On race day, I’ll stand at the starting line not as the same runner who once thought success meant speed alone. I’ll stand there as someone who knows that finishing—simply finishing—can be the most beautiful thing. And when I cross that line, I’ll think of my dad. Of how he kept going when his body betrayed him. How he taught me endurance long before cancer slowed his skates, his bike. His stride.
