Hi everyone!

When I turned 25 this spring, I knew what was inevitably coming my way—the urge to run a marathon.

I am a fairly fit and active person, but I cannot run more than 3km off the couch. You will find me wheezing and red if I do that. A marathon would be a massive lift for me. That being said, there was a phase of my life where I ran fairly consistently—still maxing at about 5km, so do with that what you will. In that phase I was a devout user of the Nike Run Club app and big fan of Coach Bennett.

One thing that I loved about the coached runs was that Coach Bennett would often go off on a spiel about life lessons through the lens of running. As he wrapped up these monologues he would say “This is about running and, this is not about running.” My desire to run a marathon is kind of like that.

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Okay — back to it.

One of the things that I learned from my stint as a runner was that in order to keep going, you need a purpose. Mine was to prove to myself that I could. It was my senior year of college, 2021-2022, and the pandemic had upended all of my plans. I was throwing my all into figuring out what my next steps would be and I felt so out of control of my life. Beyond that, I felt limited by myself and my skills. I am feeling like that again now.

Nearing the end of college is hard because it feels like every door is open, but you have to swim through a moat to reach them. You know that to get a job, you have to compete against all of the brilliant people you have grown up with and every brilliant person already in the working world. You have to chose a door to swim to and once you chose that direction, it is hard to change course. For me, the door that I thought I would swim towards (graduate school for international relations) disappeared after I had identified it from the shore—causing me to spin for another door. I am not disappointed at the door that I chose and it turns out that behind the first door is a hallway to other doors that you hadn’t chosen but still could. The thing keeping us from some of those doors is our skills, values, and identity. Those can feel really limiting. It is hard to see yourself changing those or overcoming the barriers that they present in order to access whatever wonders lay beyond that door (riches, fame, success, fulfillment, happiness, etc).

There might be a reason that it feels like every twenty-something gets the urge to run a marathon. There is an allure to being a “Marathon Runner”. It is a title that seems to declare that you are strong, persistent, and determined. It is proof that you can change your skillset and your identity.

My boyfriend’s dad is an Ultra runner and it is clear how much of distance running is training your mental fortitude and capacity for challenge. I have a low tolerance for challenge. Not that I can’t rise to it, but I will make a fuss about it. This is a major obstacle to my access to those doors of riches.

Running has a few key factors that feel alluring—the accessibility and goal orientation are what call to me these days. The twenties are a period of life that feel endlessly expansive, directionless, and expensive. I could go in any number of directions. I can stay in my current job until I retire. I could go back to school and get a Ph.D.—or an M.B.A. I could change course entirely to pursue a job that I don’t know exists at this point. A marathon will always be a marathon though. That is a goal that I can set for myself to chart a path into my future.

Here’s the thing that stops me: what if I fail?

What if my “why” for running is to prove that I can do it — and I just can’t? What if I put everything into it and I am never able to run more than 5km? What if I suck at it?

As an athlete, and as a human, I know that growth is hard. You are training your body to do something that it believes in this moment is absolutely impossible. You are training your mind the same thing. To make matters worse, growth is non-linear, and those plateaus are hell for our brains.

I wish that I could wrap this note up by saying that I am going to conquer this fear and keep you posted on my training journey—but I don’t feel ready to say that. I feel fragile and the threat of failure looms large. The possibility of success, though it feels remote, is so tantalizing though.

I know that many of you have been where I am—on a precipice of trying—whether that is running a marathon, starting grad school, or starting your dream job. How did you decide? How did you do it? Did you do it? I ask as someone scared but also excited.

I hope that whatever your marathon is, you take the leap to try. Though I would be a hypocrite to force that.

Best,
Zoe

Femme Futures Cooperative

The Femme Futures Cooperative is a community space for young professionals who identify as over-achievers and activists to generate collective success by providing resources and platforms to thrive in challenging workplaces.

By Zoe