84. Mastering the Marathon

**Calvin Rosser** (0:03)
You ran your first half marathon about a year ago. It went exceedingly well, and we thought this was the beginning of your career as an Olympian.

**Steph Smith** (0:12)
As of today, less than 1% of the global population has completed a marathon.

**Calvin Rosser** (0:17)
Why is it 26.2 miles?

**Steph Smith** (0:19)
It really does introduce all of these different variables that make mastering it much, much harder.

**Calvin Rosser** (0:26)
When I hear you tell this story to people, I think they're amazed that you even finished.

**Steph Smith** (0:31)
I had some sort of like nutrition or electrolyte or hydration, something was a problem.

**Calvin Rosser** (0:38)
A week from now, on your birthday, you are going to run your second marathon.

**Steph Smith** (0:44)
I put in a bunch of work and I didn't meet my potential.

**Calvin Rosser** (0:47)
I'm nervous.

**Steph Smith** (0:48)
I'm super nervous. See you in Sacramento.

**Calvin Rosser** (0:51)
We're at the 10 mile mark, Steph just crossed 15k. Welcome back to the Shit You Don't Learn in School podcast. This is Calvin Rosser.

**Steph Smith** (1:00)
And this is Steph Smith. And today we are going to be talking about my first and my second marathon.

**Calvin Rosser** (1:14)
All right, Steph, this is your dream. We're gonna be talking about running for a full podcast episode.

**Steph Smith** (1:18)
Woohoo!

**Calvin Rosser** (1:20)
And just to tee it up for listeners, you ran your first half marathon about a year ago. It went exceedingly well. You crushed your time expectations. You crushed my time expectations. The weather was perfect, and we thought this was beginning of your career as an Olympian.

**Steph Smith** (1:37)
Not an Olympian, but it did get me on my high horse. I was very excited about my performance. Also, thanks to you, because you were the one who thought I could run as fast as I did. But then that got me into wanting to run a marathon, and it was downhill from there.

**Calvin Rosser** (1:56)
Downhill is probably not the right way to phrase it. I think it was the beginning of a new beginning, which maybe you didn't know at the time. And then five months after that, you ran your first marathon in LA. And a week from now, on your birthday, you are actually going to run your second marathon. And so the premise of this episode is to talk about what it was like to transition from the half to the first marathon, maybe some of the things that didn't go so well, the training you've done since then, and to talk about how you're feeling about this next marathon. And then I think we're going to also add in some content from that marathon and a little post recap. So it'll be an interesting, stitched together episode.

**Steph Smith** (2:37)
Yeah, but part of this is not just about my story, but really this idea that marathons are, for whatever reason, this bucketless item that a lot of people have. But as of today, less than 1% of the global population has completed a marathon. And it's the kind of thing that I think a lot more people are going to be doing over the next few years. The running boom, all these running clubs have all taken off. And I think it's a really fascinating journey to go from hating running to then starting running to then wanting to do a marathon. And then there's this other piece that I never expected, which is really mastering a marathon. Because the half was very rewarding, but it didn't feel like it was the end. And now that I'm doing marathons, my first one, which we'll talk about, I totally bonked and it was the opposite of the feeling of the half marathon. And now I have this desire to really master the marathon and whatever that means for me. So the next one, like you said, which happens to be on my birthday, is my next attempt.

**Calvin Rosser** (3:45)
You just had me thinking, all these people running marathons like you, I think it's crazy. Definitely cool in some ways. But why is it 26.2 miles?

**Steph Smith** (3:55)
So I think one of the reasons that people want to run a marathon and this quite frankly, arbitrary distance of 26.2 miles is because of all the lore around it. I don't know all the details, but it dates back all the way to Greek times where there was this messenger. His name was Pheidippides, probably pronouncing that wrong. But he had to run 25 miles to Athens, and he had to announce news about some war or some battle. And he announced it, he said they won, and then he immediately collapsed and died from exhaustion. And so again, there's this kind of idea that the marathon is this impossible, even though it's not impossible, feet for the human body. And a lot of people even cite like, the marathon wouldn't be as epic if it was, let's say, 16 miles, because somewhere between 16 to 20 miles, most bodies run out of their glycogen stores and all this stuff. So that was the kind of like ancient lore, and then the marathon was one of these big epic events from the modern Olympic Games. And now there's all these people that do it, they walk it, they run it, but it does feel like to anyone, including myself, probably a year or two ago, it feels just like this crazy distance, because if three miles feels like a lot, think of 10Xing that and doing it all in one go. You're on your feet for hours.