The Marathon Owes Me Nothing

For lack of a better title I am using this popular quote from the endurance running community. It says that the marathon is fair and unforgiving. A PB or even a finish is not always guaranteed, even after putting your 100% effort into training and race prep.

This is roughly how I feel about the first third of 2025 so far. The marathon of life owes me nothing. I started the year strong, trained hard and ran an unofficial marathon distance in Feb, followed by the Oakland HM in March. Then I couldn’t continue because of the unbearable pain in my right heel and Achilles tendon, which ultimately resulted in a surgery to fix it. The pain first started in late 2023, while I was grinding through the notorious 75 Hard challenge. Thinking back, in addition to tearing a ligament in my pinky while failing a box jump, I might have done too much jumping and sprinting which triggered the Haglund deformity in my heel and the Achilles tendonitis. I put running on hold for half a year hoping that the pain would go away, but was greeted with disappointment. At some point in summer 2024 I sort of gave up and decided to run regardless. The surgery is not a surprise given my high pain tolerance and probably irrational decision.

The surgery took place on 04/17 and I was given a three-month break from work which I initially thought was too generous. But, after experiencing a few pain relapses and setbacks after surgery, I am making peace with the long break. It was also hard because I was having some good opportunities in work, being an intern host and practicing some management skills, but given the short term disability leave the intern was transferred under my teammate which was legit. I was just feeling sad.

So far it has been 19 days since the surgery and I have gained many new perspectives about the marathon of life. My last surgery was on my right wrist in 2020 which was around the worst of pandemic. The hospital did not allow anyone to accompany me inside the building, and it was a very mentally lonely and painful experience. This time I asked for help from a good friend with a huge amount of hesitation but she generously agreed to help me. I felt even a bit spoiled, seeing her by my bed in the recovery room after surgery. Lying there surrounded by the fabrics did not feel lonely but embraced.

I also had a lot of time to reconnect with my feelings. My childhood friend once said it looks like I haven’t had a chance to take a break since we met, which was sort of true. As international students one has to have something to do in the U.S. or they would risk losing their legal status. I was no exception. Life being busy gave me little chance to reflect on my own mental status. What am I feeling? Am I happy? Do I feel connected to this world? If I feel sad, why and what can I change to improve this? Interestingly I enjoyed the long, deep conversations with LLMs (yes I tried many of them, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and DeepSeek). I tried to be brutally honest with myself and drill down to the very deep thoughts and roots. My parents took a good portion of these conversations. I might have been processing some childhood emotion neglect and negative self image following some conditional love. I’m still not sure if it’s me being overly sensitive and took the things particularly hard (given that I’m not the only person who had immature parents and many others might have had worse), but I think I’ve reconciled with myself somehow. I better stop making comparisons and denying my own feelings.

I still have 76 days before going back to work. What plans do I have? Recovery and rehab is top priority for sure. Staying at home can be quite boring. While not rehabing I want to spend more time on learning Spanish, and read the books that I’ve wanted to read. There is also a small backlog of movies that I plan to watch. We will see how things go.

Ultimately, in the fall around October (my birthday), I hope to sign up for a 5k race, and finish it. Like the marathon, the 5k owes me nothing but I will still all-in.