My Circuitous Path to Running (and Actually Enjoying) Marathons
Elle Evans writes about the delicate balance of career pursuits and physical wellness
By Elle Evans
Elle is running in the NYC Marathon on Nov. 5th in support of local nonprofit Atalanta NYC, and she welcomes donations here.
On any given day, my legs take on the shape and feel of al dente spaghetti; calluses larger than some Scandinavian countries appear on both of my feet; the nail on my left pinky toe is considering secession. Why, you ask? Four months ago, I foolishly signed up for the New York City Marathon, and now I’m deep into the training cycle and have the scars to show for it.
This happens every few years. I’ll fall into a fugue state of marathon mania, typically accompanied by lofty fundraising goals. After resurfacing, I’ll spend four months atoning for this by lacing up my running shoes and pounding the pavement. The more marathons I tuck under my belt (three so far, with four and five approaching this fall), the more introspective I become about my motivations for hours-long runs. And I’ve discovered that my perspective on athleticism has shifted broadly over time.
I’d always considered myself an “athlete.” In my freshman year of high school, I was a three-sport varsity athlete. By senior year I captained all my teams (soccer, basketball, and lacrosse). Lest you find yourself overly impressed, allow me to offer some context. My high school only had 300 students, and we were barely able to field both junior varsity and varsity squads. If you could make an unguarded layup, you were qualified to be the sixth man off the bench for our varsity basketball team. If you could tie your shoes without falling over, you’d have a shot at swinging from JV up to varsity lacrosse. Pardon the brag, but my freshman soccer team accomplished the tremendous feat of scoring more “own goals” (where we kick the ball into our own net, scoring for the other team) than actual goals (4-3). Such was the level of athletic prowess exhibited at my school.
Still, we did occasionally succeed; my basketball team won our league and made the state tournament while competing against much larger schools. But throughout four years of three-season sports, teenage me viewed running as a means to an end. Conditioning was a necessary evil which transported me from one end of the field to the other. The track kids at our school wore shirts that said, “My sport is your sport’s punishment.” Although technically true, this mostly invoked jokes at their expense about how our sport required us to run and kick, catch, throw.
Growing up, being athletic was a strong part of my identity, and something I clung to harder than shin guards stuck to legs after a hot August soccer practice. The reality is that I was a nerd above everything else. The term student-athlete could have been applied, but heavy on the “student” and light on the “athlete.” I grew up with my nose stuck in books, never earned less than an A-, and eventually graduated as valedictorian. My high school wasn’t Rydell High; smart kids weren’t sneered at openly. But while most of the “cooler” kids took few or no honors classes, many of them played sports. Friendships were born out of time together, which inevitably sparked inside jokes and hangout plans. What I missed in the classroom, I made up for on the field.
My senior year, I was teary-eyed each time a season drew to a close, which also ended my time playing each sport. I had no illusions about my abilities; I was athletic in the world of small Catholic schools, but not at the university level. At college, I attended a handful of club soccer practices, but was surprised at how quickly the world of team sports fell away without my noticing. My world had expanded. There was so much more to explore: friends, classes, parties.
Still, I missed the “athletic” part of my identity.
Growing up, being athletic was a strong part of my identity, and something I clung to harder than shin guards stuck to legs after a hot August soccer practice.
Every stage of life comes with a new swirl of competing priorities. In high school, I was an ambitious kid, with my eye on medical school. I knew that my grades and test-taking abilities would serve me well in the long run. But I also wanted to be invited to the cool kids’ hangouts, and to have a date for school dances. In high school, sports helped me bridge that gap. In college, I began taking pre-med classes at an elite university. Being smart and accomplished wasn’t uncool, but it was stressful, and doubt-inducing, and sedentary. I began searching for something to fill the hole that team sports had left behind, both in my life and in my identity. Something that could offer that flushed cheek, glistening brow, trembling legs feeling, but also fit within the restrictions of my abilities (I was no varsity athlete, even at a D3 school) and my limited time (pre-med coursework was no joke).
So I started going for runs. By sophomore year, I’d browbeaten a couple of friends into training for a half-marathon together, and I ran several more over the next few years. The structure of distance running (each half-marathon was preceded by a strict twelve-week training plan) along with relative flexibility (those runs could occur whenever convenient in a seven-day period) was exactly what I needed as my coursework became more challenging. In college, I faced my first great academic stressors; thus, running became my outlet. Physical exhaustion gifted a deep, restorative sleep when anxieties about med school applications would otherwise have kept me tossing and turning.
When I matriculated into medical school, the academic stressors ricocheted upward. So I raised the stakes. After coercing new friends into joining me, I ran the 2017 Chicago Marathon. It was a sweltering 82 degrees by the time I crossed the finish line in four hours and seven minutes, and as I called my boyfriend to celebrate, I insisted that I was done. “One and done,” I told him confidently. “Never again.”
Reader, I was not done.
In the intervening six years, I’ve run the Paris and Boston marathons, and I’m currently training for the New York and Philadelphia marathons later this fall. I now work as a resident physician— the culmination of many years of nerdiness. My job is intellectually demanding. Residency is an apprenticeship model, so even though I have my MD degree and receive a (modest) paycheck, I’m constantly learning from more senior physicians. Instead of filling a social need for me, as in high school, or a stress relief, as in college and med school, athleticism has evolved into a celebration of all my body can do.
Every day, I take care of patients who are deprived of the joy of physical exertion, whether from age, illness, or injury. Sure, physical fitness still offers the same stress relief and endorphin high it did when I was 15 and sprinting across a soccer field. But more than a decade later, I see distance running as a celebration of all my body’s capabilities. In my profession, it's impossible to ignore the reality that health isn’t guaranteed. One day, I won’t be able to run for four hours. If I’m lucky, that’ll be when I reach an esteemed age, but I also recognize that day may come sooner than expected.
Until then, I will run for the social camaraderie. I will run for the endorphin-fueled runner’s high and the blissful post-run stress vacuum. But above all else, I will run with gratitude, and I will run for my patients who no longer can. I will run with pride for the charities I have the privilege of supporting.
On November 5th, I’ll run the NYC marathon for Atalanta NYC, a young nonprofit focused on supporting women and girls in all stages of running, from community programming to elite athletes. I chose Atalanta because I feel passionately about the work they do—from narrowing the salary gap between elite male and female athletes, to helping young girls and boys fall in love with fitness and running. I’m proud and grateful to be running for Atalanta, and I’m proud and grateful, calluses be damned, to be running in marathons at all.
Elle Evans is a former Bostonian now living in Nashville. After studying economics at Tufts University, she transitioned to Vanderbilt University to pursue a joint MD/MBA degree. She lives with her rescue pup Calypso, the first of many future dogs to be named for Greek mythology characters, and with her fiancé. Her first novel, Wedding Issues, is forthcoming from Zibby Books.