One of my daughter’s favourite songs is How Far I’ll Go from Disney’s Moana. This song describes the excitement I feel about my running journey ahead.

In elementary school, we had this 100km club where you would mark every km you ran on a bulletin board. The goal was to run 1km every day and see how many people get to 100km by the end of 100 days. I guess that was an early form of Strava, before social media was even a thing! I remember being impressed with my friends who were part of this club and wanting to be part of it but I never had the courage to join.

In junior high, I ran cross-country for a couple of years, mainly because we weren’t given a choice to opt-out. I was never very good and I remember the very last race I ran, by fluke, I edged out my friend who was a faster runner than me and overtook her at the very end of the race. After that, I didn’t want to run cross-country again because I wanted to be undefeated against her and there was no way I was going to be able to beat her another time.

I started running again in my 20’s and after I did a couple of half marathons, doing a marathon became a bucket list item. However, I had always lacked the courage to commit to a marathon, just like I didn’t have the courage to sign up for that 100km club.

The turning point came last year when I started running again after a 10-year hiatus and I was telling a friend of mine that doing a marathon has always been on my bucket list but I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it.

She simply said, “Why not? You should do it!”

I thought about it and thought about it some more. I gave myself all these excuses but deep down, I knew I wanted to do it. After joining the running club, I started to believe that I could do it. Initially, I had only signed up for the Toronto Women’s half marathon in May. But then I got convinced to sign up for the Chilly half in Mar. Then I signed up for the San Francisco Marathon in July. The rest, as they say, is history.

Leading up to The San Francisco Marathon, I’ve signed up for way too many races:

• Chilly Half – DONE!
• CN Tower Climb – Goal: sub 22 min
• Indoor Triathlon Relay – Goal: as close to 3km as I can get in 15min
• Sporting Life 10k – Goal: sub 1-hour
• Trimuskoka Relay (7.5k) – Goal: 43min
• Toronto Triathlon Festival (10k) – Goal: sub 1-hour
• The San Francisco Marathon – Goal: 4:30

Looking beyond TSFM, I have always wanted to do the Disney marathon so I’m going to go all out and do the Dopey Challenge in 2020.

If I really keep this up, another goal I have is to get a BQ by the time I’m 50 years old (sub 4-hours). We’ll see how that goes! 😅

As the Barkley Marathon is happening this weekend, I’m following the whole thing on social media. I’m amazed at the strength and dedication of these amazing (and crazy) athletes. I admire the journey that they are on and how far they have come.

I’m sure I’ll get other crazy ideas as I continue this journey. I think back to a year ago when I could barely around the block, I realize how far I’ve come and I am excited about how far I’ll go!

Here’s a photo from the 2017 Longboat Toronto Island 10k, right before I joined the North York RunNinjas.