My Half Marathon Running Journey 👟

I don't remember the exact moment I decided to run the half marathon. It just sort of coalesced in my mind and the next thing I knew, I had decided to train for it. It's probably because I wanted an annual physical challenge, and I failed at my twirling competition last year¹. I also recalled how fun it was running my first 5k in the Presidio, and I also remember my old roommate, Ashni, training for the half back in 2023. Once the idea popped into my head though, it stuck around and I bought running gear when I was back in Florida for the holidays. Around this time, I also re-read Murakami's book What I Talk About When I Talk about Running, and I was struck by how similar and familiar he seemed. For example, I'm also not overly competitive, I don't mind being alone and I'm a writer. I saw aspects of myself in Murakami and relished my internal comparison to this solitary creative genius (even though I'm nowhere near as great as him).

My mom and I went to the running store in St. Pete, and I bought my first pair of running shoes, some type of On Clouds. I went for a run in them and immediately, there was stabbing pain in my heel. My right sole had been hurting since Japan, when I aggravated it and likely developed plantar fasciitis with all the walking around Kyoto and Tokyo. The running in the On Clouds didn't help, so I did two things:

• Returned the On Clouds and bought a pair of sherbet orange Brooks Glycerin shoes
• Also got a pair of Saucony Triumphs, which Perplexity said was the best for plantar pain

My first runs were around my parent's neighborhood in the sweltering December heat and humidity. I think I barely scraped out a 5k and was totally dead afterwards. 🙃

Back in San Francisco, I started running more regularly, but I was still hitting the 3-4 mile ceiling. Looking at the Nike Run Club data, it took me 15 runs and almost 3 months until I could hit a 5 mile run. My preferred running course was Golden Gate Park, specifically JFK Drive and the panhandle. I'd also run at the gym on a treadmill to give my feet a break. I listened to a few running podcasts as well and learned a huge pro tip: breathing through your nose is critical for long-distance running. According to Perplexity,

"Breathing through your nose matters for long-distance running because it can help you pace effort, improve breathing efficiency at easier intensities, and reduce how "strained" your breathing feels…nasal breathing can lower ventilation and respiratory rate, help humidify/filter/warm incoming air, and may support better diaphragm engagement and running economy at submaximal paces."

My first big setback came in early February - the plantar fasciitis in my right foot was really flaring up, and I would feel pain when running and also when walking. As I mentioned before, this pain first appeared in Japan. A few months after the honeymoon, I remember being at Vipassana, rolling an exercise ball under my foot during a meditation and experiencing a dull ache in the arch of my foot. The running exacerbated the pain that was already present and no amount of Vipassana technique made the pain disappear. So I took a two week break from running (from Feb 3 to Feb 18). During this time, I did other cardio like elliptical, but I went overboard and strained some thigh muscles (because I can't do anything casually). I also started a regime of physical therapy exercises to strengthen the muscles in my feet:

• Towel scrunches

• Plantar ball rolls

• Single-Leg Heel Raises on a Step

• Toe Lifts

• Calf and Soleus Stretch

I also was more intentional about my diet and supplements. I don't track my food or calorie intake but I know I was more conscious about home-cooking, eating more lean meats like chicken and turkey (especially since I know how to carve a raw chicken), and also taking supplements. My main supplements included:

• Protein powder

• Collagen

• Magnesium glycinate

• Oral BPC-157 (yes, the peptide)

• LMNT electrolytes

I began wearing foot and ankle compression socks, which helped quell the inflammation and pain a lot. After wearing the socks, I’d ice the sole of my right foot, especially after running. I basically inundated my right foot with exercises, supplements and rest…and it actually worked! My plantar pain is gone and my right foot feels even stronger and healthier than before my training started. I'm not sure if it was a combination of these solutions or maybe just the peptides, but whatever it was worked.

I did my first outdoor 5 mile run on March 29 in Golden Gate Park. I ran down to Ocean Beach, and it was the best feeling - running towards the salty, seafoam-green abyss and knowing I can run five miles made me feel unstoppable. I was totally gassed but proud and I ubered home, self-conscious that my sweat would stick to the faux-leather carseat (it did).

A few notes on my gear - I started running with a vest back in January because I can't stand holding my phone and running. I love my little lavender vest because it can hold everything: water, keys, phone, chapstick, snacks, etc. Sure, it feels a little heavy and bulky at first, but once I drink the water, I barely notice it anymore. I just hate having something around my waist, like a running belt or fanny pack. My running fuel also switched to dates halfway through training. I tried eating the gatorade chews for energy, but they gave me the runners trots as soon as I stopped running (not fun). The last piece of my gear was sunglasses. I was raw-dogging it before and not wearing any eye-protection besides a flimsy baseball cap. However, the glare from the road and sidewalks on my eyes was intense and I would often run with my eyes closed to avoid the powerful rays. My husband solved this problem by buying me a pair of Roka sunglasses for my 29th birthday. I adore them; the small frames fit my face perfectly and the nose bridge never slips, even when my face is sweating out a waterfall.

I hit eight miles on May 8, and I remember running it after work on a Friday. It was gloomy and cold, and I didn't really want to be running that day - but I had a goal and I had to achieve it. As a side note, I feel like most of my training happened when the weather was shit in San Francisco. It was always so gray, cold and windy, but looking back, I think it was for the best. I never got too overheated and when it was sunny, I appreciated the beauty all the more.

My next big pause in training came during my family vacation to Virginia and Washington D.C. I wanted to continue training at the hotel gyms, but I got sick and my recovery was terrible, mostly because I wasn't getting great sleep or nutrition. So I had to take another week off and picked up running the week of June 9th. It's alright though because cutback weeks are part of the training; they allow my muscles to relax, rest and regrow (or whatever they do to become stronger).

From mid June onwards, I was in peak training. It helped that we were dogsitting Cece (our friends’ dog) so my routine was predictable, especially my sleep (which apparently is my superpower, according to Whoop data). My first 10 mile run, which I completed on June 28, was perfect. It was a beautiful, golden day and my pacing was great. I ran without pain and with joy. The high was short lived though because a week later, I ran 12 miles and injured my knee.

This injury wasn't catastrophic but it was annoying enough to be concerned about. On Mile 11 out of 12, my left knee started experiencing unusual pain, not just the normal aching. It felt like my knee cap was sliding out of place and I could barely get through the run. I iced it with a bag of frozen strawberries when I got home and elevated it on my desk, naively believing the pain would dissipate the following day. It didn't. The pain wasn't so terrible that I thought I tore or dislocated something, but it was a dull annoyance on the front of my knee that didn't go away. After researching it on Perplexity, I realized I had runners knee or patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS). It's an overuse injury and it makes sense why I got it. I ran 10 miles the weekend before and increased my mileage too much because I was trying to squeeze in peak training before my husband’s birthday party festivities started.

I didn't run for a week after that (minus a six-hour tennis session during Nikhil’s party, oops) and even post-party, I kept my exercise to short runs (3 miles, longest 6 miles) because I didn't want to further injure myself before race day. So like I did with my plantar injury, I nuked my knee with a cocktail of solutions:

• Fancy knee brace (the expensive German kind)

• KT Tape

• Ice (with real ice packs this time, courtesy of my mom. Goodbye frozen strawberries and edamame)

• Physical therapy exercises, including wall sits, clamshells, straight leg raises, and single leg glute bridges

• Lots of backwards walking up the hills around my house; my neighbors thought I was crazy 😵‍💫

When it came to race day, my knee was still not 100% but it was manageable. I think a lot of the discomfort was in my head as well. I had anxiety leading up to the race, which manifested as getting terrible sleep two nights before (I got up in the middle of the night to pee and couldn't fall asleep for two hours, blaming Nikhil and his floppiness in bed. I ended up meditating outside and trying to sleep on the couch, but I eventually slunk back into bed, defeated). Karma came back around though; the night before the race, I got decent sleep and had my best recovery since I started recording it on Whoop - a stunning 98%.

The actual half marathon couldn't have gone better. I started at the end of the pack because I was late (stupid port-a-potty bathroom lines!) but it ended up being a blessing because I warmed up with 12/13 minute miles with all the slowpokes. The time melted by as I ran through Golden Gate Park, through to Haight Street, down SoMa and Mission streets and finally to Embarcadero. The adrenaline and rush from being around so many other runners was electrifying. I only needed to eat two dates the entire race, and I didn't hit a wall at all - in fact, my splits for the race were negative, meaning I was faster in the second half than in the first half. My knee whispered discomfort around mile 5, but then it magically went away and I kept going. During miles 12 and 13, I booked it and ran insanely fast miles (for me anyway) at 9:57 and 9:26, respectively. My legs were tired but still fresh enough to sprint and fly by hundreds of other runners leading up the finish line. The feeling of sprinting and beating others - outcompeting them - was intoxicating. I was so happy to see mom and Nikhil cheering for me at the finish line. These were my stats for the race:

2:17!! My loose goal was 2:30 and I breezed past that. I'm truly proud of myself and all the hard work, determination and rigor that I found within my body. Besides feeling healthy and strong, I feel empowered, like I could do anything with enough training and grit. I'm also glad that I had my various setbacks like injuries and illness. I now have the experience of getting through difficulties and have faith that things will work out if I have enough patience and again, determination. I had to be so regimented for so many months, but I enjoyed it. I loved eating healthy, not drinking and getting ample sleep. In fact, I think I was meant to be an athlete, I'm just a late bloomer, as I am with nearly everything in life. 🌺

A Brief Section on my Whoop Data

(Results and writing compiled by Perplexity Computer)

After the race, I pulled my Whoop export and my Nike Run Club (NRC)² log into one dataset to see whether the story my body told me matched the numbers. Mostly, it did.

Race morning was one of the best physiological days of my entire dataset:

• Recovery 98% (top 3% of my green days)
• HRV 61ms (top 5%, and +33% above my 8-week average of 39ms)
• Resting HR 64 bpm against a 70 bpm average
• Sleep performance 90%

That 98% recovery wasn't luck - it was a result of 7.7 hours of sleep at 95% efficiency, no alcohol, and a resting HR that drifted down all week. It also explains the negative splits: I had reserves left, which is why miles 12 and 13 were my fastest.

I actually got fitter, measurably. My resting heart rate fell from 74 to 65 bpm over twelve weeks, and my HRV baseline climbed from around 32ms to 45ms. That combination is the textbook signature of a cardiovascular system adapting to training. My best HRV weeks were in late June, right in the volume-build phase — my body was thriving on the load. The early-July dip to 34–36ms lines up exactly with the back-to-back long runs (10 miles on 6/28, 12 on 7/6) that ended in my knee injury.

I was shocked and thrilled to discover that sleep really is my superpower. 8.1 hours a night on average, 93.7% efficiency, 82.5% consistency, 2.6 hours of REM and 1.6 hours of deep sleep - all in endurance-athlete territory, with zero days of 60+ minute sleep debt. Funnily enough, the correlation between sleep hours and next-day recovery was only r = +0.05, which sounds like bad news but isn't: once you're past about 7.5 hours, more sleep doesn't move the needle. I'd already cleared that hurdle. Reading in bed (logged on 44 of 79 days) is probably doing a lot of the work.

I also recovered better from long runs than I expected. Three of my four 8+ mile runs happened on green recovery days: 95% for the 8-miler on June 21, 99% for the 10-miler on June 28, 98% on race day. The exception was the 12-miler on July 6 at 73% recovery — and I instinctively ran it slower and still ended up injuring myself. 🙃

The one thing I'm doing wrong: I train too hard. 66% of my training run time was in Zone 4 or Zone 5. Elite marathoners spend about 80% of their time in Zone 1 and Zone 2 — I'm running the polarized model in reverse. Higher zone running feels productive but builds neither a real aerobic base nor real speed, and it's where injuries live. My runner's knee was very likely fed by too much moderate-hard running. For my next training cycle, I’m going to keep this in mind and make my “easy” runs truly easy. It’s just hard when you see other runners, presumably more fit than you with bulging calves and abs, flying past you on the Panhandle. But who cares about them, I’m going to focus on my own health and ignore the superficial noise.

Breaking Down My Running Costs

Running is supposedly a cheap sport (at least that’s what I told my parents and friends), but I was curious to tally up the costs to see if I was being truthful. Here is the itemized proof of what I spent on running between December 2025 - July 2026.

Item	Cost	Category	Notes
Brooks Glycerin, sherbet orange	$42.79	Shoes	I got a screaming deal at the local running store
Saucony Triumph	$169.95	Shoes
Lavender running vest	$36.99	Clothes and Gear
Lululemon Hotty Hot 2.5" running shorts × 3 pairs	$0	Clothes and Gear	My Amex credit covered all three pairs of shorts
Roka sunglasses	$168.37	Clothes and Gear
Vacation Sunscreen	$47.99	Clothes and Gear
Bauerfeind GenuTrain knee brace	$99.90	Injury
KT Tape Pro	$12.46	Injury
Foot and Ankle compression socks	$9.95	Injury
Ice packs	$0	Injury	Courtesy of my mom
Physical therapy	$0	Injury	I did it all myself off YouTube and Perplexity (my compute credits were negligible)
LMNT electrolytes	$45	Fuel and Supplements
Protein powder	$44.99	Fuel and Supplements
Collagen	$41.99	Fuel and Supplements
Magnesium Glycinate	$27	Fuel and Supplements
BPC-157	$184.94	Fuel and Supplements
Medjool dates (race fuel)	$10	Fuel and Supplements
Gatorade chews	$16.99	Fuel and Supplements
Half marathon registration	$242.14	The Race
Total	$1,201.45

Honestly, not terrible. I’ve spent way more on skiing and snowboarding over the years and had no fun doing those sports, whereas the highs from running are inimitable. It’s similar to backpacking - now that I’ve got my gear, I can amortize the cost over 2-3 years (a much shorter useful life than camping gear but still not bad).

Other Random Running Things

• My gym routine throughout training fluctuated. In the beginning, I was doing two strength training days (upper body, lower body), 2-3 runs, a plyometrics day, a yoga day and rest day every week. I would also sauna at least 3 times a week at the gym. However, this proved to be unsustainable so I eventually cut out leg day and plyometrics day and replaced them with more running and rest. My runner's yoga routine is pretty awesome too; it's based on this video from Yoga with Adriene. I really do miss deadlifts and squats though 🥲
• I started out listening to classical music while I ran (which was peaceful) but once I discovered running EDM music, I swiftly abandoned Tchaikovsky and Mozart. Spotify had this awesome playlist called 170 BPM Running EDM Mix, but they recently switched up the songs so I had to create my own playlist. Nothing gets me going like Fred Again or a Disclosure remix.
• I'm obsessed with these Lululemon running shorts: Hotty Hot High-Rise Lined Short 2.5. Because of my AMEX credit card benefit, I've already purchased three pairs of these. They're made of a high quality dryfit material and don't bunch or cause chafing when I run - they're way better than the skintight leggings I was wearing before. As for the top, I've tried running in pastel sports bras or tank tops, but the San Francisco wind is too chilly to look cute and my midriff gets chafed by my running vest. So I'm resigned to running in my old ratty Florida Gators shirts with holes in the armpits.

What's Next

I can understand how running is like an addiction…after the half marathon, I immediately found the next race I want to do: the original marathon from Marathon, Greece down to Athens. It happens in November every year, and I'll already be living in Europe then so I guess I'll commit to another year of training. 🙃

It's funny because after I accomplished something this huge and difficult, I'm already peering around, looking for the next mountain to climb and challenge to overcome. Because that's how humans are; we're never satisfied. My body bent to my will so now I'm raising the bar again. There's no telling how far I'll take my legs now.

Footnotes

1. I wanted to compete in the annual USTA (United States Twirling Association) competition in July 2025 in Daytona Beach - but unfortunately, I couldn’t find a coach in San Francisco so I abandoned the goal. ↩

2. I started recording my runs on Nike Run Club when I began training in December 2025. I only got my Whoop in May 2026 though, so there was only a few months of data overlap. Still, I was surprised by the findings! ↩