Running is the biggest commitment I've made to myself. At mile 20 of a marathon, your body wants to stop and your mind will urge you to quit. What brings the race back into focus is the record of what I've already done: 2 a.m. runs before flights. Twenty-milers in ninety-degree heat because I overslept. Hours of rehab research when my knees wouldn't let me jog. Running always asks for receipts. It doesn't care if the logic to its asks "makes sense." It cares if you showed up.
Three years in, I have proof I do. I ran a 3:09 marathon, placing third overall female two weeks ago. However, my result came only after setbacks. This time last year, I trained through nearly a thousand miles and still fell short, hobbling to the finish dependent on cortisone shots. Many runners would have quit. I signed up for another marathon sixteen weeks later: six weeks to heal, ten to train. My "redemption" race became one of my proudest moments. I didn't just finish; I set a personal best and placed third overall female then too.
Before my most recent race, my mentor wrote me: "Using only your heart, mind, and soul, you are responsible for seeing how fast you can get your body to travel 26.2." His words named why running is meaningful to me. When you hold a commitment past comfort—choosing it again and again beyond the threshold—the result, whatever it is, is wholly yours.
I grew up in instability. Poverty, periods of homelessness, addiction at home, an abusive father. My mom has lived with immigration fear for 35 years. I see echoes of an absent father in my half-sister's life. When it feels like my family is stuck in a loop, running gives me control. It lets me design a path to my own achievement. I think about my mom at the end of races. She worked nights and raised three kids in a language she didn't speak. Compared to that, my tired legs feel light.
I support this commitment with concrete action. I ensure there's always a next race to keep me honest. I build training cycles and strategize adjustments when life shifts. I run sixty-mile weeks with intent. I train my mind as much as my body, talking to the part of me that once learned to survive by shrinking away. I remind her that we don't need to choose the path of least resistance. We can choose hard things on purpose.
Each time I think I'm too broken, whether by family, injury, or doubt, I turn to running. It has given me the discipline to believe in possibility and shown me that effort compounds, setbacks aren't permanent, and legacies are built a mile at a time. The commitment that has claimed many, many of my toenails is the same one that taught me to choose hard things on purpose in every area of my life. I run, and I live, knowing that with only my heart, mind, and soul, I am responsible for how far I go.