essay about running a race

My Worst Best Marathon

Published on 10/12/2021 at 10:55 AM

When I arrived in Chicago for the 2021 marathon last week, I had every reason to believe I would beat my previous marathon time: a 3:29 at the 2020 Los Angeles Marathon that put me minutes under the Boston Marathon qualifying threshold. Qualifying for Boston is a big achievement for most runners, one I was proud of, and one I wanted to surpass. But it wasn't to be.

Eighteen months ago, I probably would have been too ashamed or embarrassed to write this story. But today, I'm surprised to find that not only do I want to, I feel proud to write it. The truth is, I've changed. I still want to chase big goals and push myself. But what happened Sunday during the 26.2 miles of the race made me better — even if it was my worst marathon time yet.

Running was not just a thing I did, it was a place I went. Somewhere I could be alone and let my thoughts unspool, or barely think at all.

When I started running more seriously five years ago, I instantly applied my Type A ambition to the endeavor. Running meant getting faster with every race. And for years, I did just that. Then, just a few short days after my running pinnacle at the LA Marathon, the city shut down. The pandemic took hold. I kept running, pulling up my mask whenever I came within 12 feet of my neighbors, but I was adrift. Like so many of us, I was full of grief for all we had lost, and a wave of depression left me feeling physically sick. It was hard to wake up in the mornings. My stomach always hurt. I cried when I listened to the news, then felt guilty for the crashing waves of my emotions, knowing how privileged I was and how much worse so many other people had it. But I still ran. I needed to. Running was not just a thing I did, it was a place I went. Somewhere I could be alone and let my thoughts unspool, or barely think at all. On my early-pandemic runs, I would ruminate on the beauty of the jacaranda trees in my neighborhood, leaving behind the stress that awaited me when I returned home to my computer and my phone, taking deep breaths and feeling how precarious and wonderful it was to be able to do just that. Then, in the summer of 2020, I sprained my ankle. Badly. Being injured is always hard. This time it was harder.

It was a long road back to recovery from me, both physically and when it came to mental wellness. But I dedicated myself to focusing on both. Not to, I felt, would be to disrespect everyone who wasn't able to do just that. I had to get better, I thought, simply because I had the opportunity to do it. I started back slow. In June of this year, when Nike asked me if I wanted to train for another marathon , I knew I was ready. I started working with running coach Rebeka Stowe to get race-ready for Chicago. It was a joyful training cycle. The world was cautiously reopening, and people were gathering together again. I ran with Koreatown Run Club and alongside my good friend Sheena as she prepared for the LA Marathon. I felt my speed returning, my belief in my running ability and my athletic determination trickling back into my body and brain.

Then it was race day. It wasn't long after I crossed the start line in Chicago that I realized I didn't feel right. I pride myself on my steel will, my ability to push through discomfort, and my dedication. I mean, marathons are supposed to be hard. But it also became clear that not only would reaching my goal time be nearly impossible after my rocky start, but to do it would require sacrificing something I didn't want to give: the joy of the run, the first of the American major marathons to take place since the pandemic began.

By mile eight, I knew that strange, elusive alchemy that creates the ideal race had not come together for me that day. And I changed my goal. As I looked around me at the tens of thousands of people running, I decided to let awe wash over me. All of us had survived, and here we were, back together, trying to do this impossible-seeming thing. Wow. How lucky was I to be sharing the asphalt with other runners again? To be able to be in my body, to smile, to laugh at the corny marathon signs people hoisted at us from the sidewalks? So lucky. My new focus was to lean into that feeling of elation, of gratitude, and turn my race into a fun run. To be honest, most of the miles were still not that fun. I've lucked out in my running career; even in my previous marathons, I didn't really struggle. Of course, those races were extremely hard, but I felt good — if challenged — throughout. This was different. My guts were twisted. My mouth felt made of cotton. It simply was not in me. Did I make some rookie mistakes that contributed to that? Yes. Did some things completely out of my control impact my performance? Yes. But do I feel the need to go into detail, make excuses, or offer to anyone an explanation? No.

The last year and a half has changed me. I'm still driven to push myself and accomplish more as an athlete, a writer, a person in the world. But as I gave myself the grace and understanding I needed during those long 26.2 miles in Chicago, I realized I'd grown. I'd come to learn that being kind to yourself doesn't always mean giving up on yourself. Being gentle with yourself doesn't always equal letting yourself off the hook. Sometimes it just means allowing yourself the grace you'd give anyone else in that moment. And that's hard. But I did it. And for that, I'm proud.

Don't doubt it: I'm still going to get that personal record. I know my Boston qualifying time was no fluke and I absolutely believe I can do it again. But I don't feel like I have to do it in order to prove something to myself or anyone else this time, to post my finish time on Strava and Instagram and impress some people, to feel like I've earned the label "fast." So, while my time in the Chicago Marathon wasn't an achievement for me, the race no doubt was. I've become a better athlete, a better person, and a better friend to myself. How could that not be a win?

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Descriptive Essay about Running a Marathon

Essays about sports are not that hard to write, especially when they are related to your personal experience. Or does it just look this way? The problem with personal experience based essays is that a student thinks that it is enough just to tell the story and completely forgets about the structure, logic of narration and, sometimes, even grammar. Help here can be found from term paper writers .

When choosing a sports major, many students mistakenly think they won’t have to write essays anymore. Though there are not too many of those, students still end asking themselves who can do my essay fast and cheap . But, essays about sports are not that hard to write, especially when they are related to your personal experience. Or does it just look this way? The problem with personal experience based essays is that a student thinks that it is enough just to tell the story and completely forgets about the structure, logic of narration and, sometimes, even grammar.

To get you closer to the idea of a successful sports essay, we’ve asked experts from a professional essay writing company Smart Writing Service to share a sample of a descriptive essay about running a marathon.

My first marathon: lessons, fails, a victory

The idea of running a marathon wasn’t too bold and unexpected for me. I’ve already finished two half-marathons the previous year, and though it was quite a challenge, I can’t say I didn’t struggle for more. I was planning to finish a marathon in less than 4 hours, which is a good time for someone like me. Those two half-marathons I ran almost without specific preparation—I run for fun, and I am active in the gym, but I didn’t use specific programs. This time I’ve decided that it is time to get closer to “professional amateur” runners.

Preparation phase

Though most of my friends use Nike or Strava apps to track running activity and create individual programs, I have chosen an application offered by Asics. Asics is not that fancy, but fully functional and free, which was a valuable factor me. I have created a four-month training plan with four running exercises each week. When I’ve seen a program, I have realized what I was doing wrong before. Running activity I had before was based on “pure running” — 5km, 10 km, the more, the better. Here I’ve realized that I need to have one long training week, with a moderate pace, one training to increase my speed, I test run, close by speed to what I want to achieve, and one “strength running workout.” And so I’ve started.

My training plan happened to be truly useful, though I should admit that I’ve not been diligent enough with what is called strength running workouts. They don’t feel like running, and it is rather irritating. It was a mistake, because, as practice proves, weak legs can’t run long enough. Looking ahead, I should admit that I’ve finished the marathon, but I will pay more attention to these apps in the future.

Starting shot. The first 10 km I run on the pulse up to 155, I am surprised to see that I run 5 min/km, which is pretty fast for me. I feel that I can add more, but I’m afraid of scary stories about hitting the wall. After 10km I eat a tube of gel. 10-20 km I’m just running in euphoria, the pulse is up to 155, the speed is still 5-5.30, nothing hurts. I eat two gels every 30 minutes. 20-30 km aching sensations in the legs begin to appear. I start being anxious. At the same time, I see that for the first 20 km, I created a normal reserve for myself in time, I ran about 5.30, although for some reason my heart rate drops to 150-152. I start adding gel every 20 min.

After 30 km, the legs become wooden. They begin to feel cracks and bumps on the pavement, which I had not noticed before. But it is at this moment that the strongest emotion comes—I’m sure that I will do a marathon! I will endure, no matter what! The only thing—I’m still afraid that my legs will fail after 35 km and follow the pace, although I try not to fall below 6 minutes. The pulse sometimes starts to go below 150. As planned, I plan to add speed after 35 km, then after 37, then after 40, but the closer the finish is, the less my desire to accelerate is.

Three hundred meters before the finish, I’m doing the finishing spurt! I probably could have done it earlier, but the finish itself was not visible, so I couldn’t plan it good enough. At the finish, I grab a medal and try to enjoy the sensation of a great deed. However, the delight at 30 km was still stronger, as it was not drowned out by the pain in my legs and an overwhelming terrible cold.

I’ve made a terrible mistake not paying enough attention to strength exercises, and if my finances allow it, I would like to work with a trainer for my next marathon. However, I can say that my decision to take part in this run made me feel very proud of myself, and now I can have bigger goals—both in sports, education, and my future career.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Running — Narrative Essay About Running

Narrative Essay About Running

Categories: Running

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Words: 889 |

Published: Mar 14, 2024

Words: 889 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

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Running events, running articles, triathlon events, cycling events, triathlon articles, cycling articles, fitness events, fitness articles, sports events, outdoor events, sports articles, nutrition articles, health & injury articles, why i run: an essay from a marathon maniac, ultramarathoner and 50 states club member.

"Why do I run?" I ask myself this same question repeatedly, especially when I am ready to give up while I am running a race. But upon crossing the finish line, my next question to myself is, "Where's my next race?"

I started running 25 years ago when I met my partner, who is an avid runner. But I didn't get serious about it at the time. First of all, I was not into sports in any sense of the word. Secondly, I disliked running because I could not catch up with my partner and I got tired easily. So why do I run? Being a long-distance runner, I will make my story long!

View the original piece as published on Racertrips.com .

The Journey From Grade School to 50th Birthday

I am an only child and was overly protected by my Catholic Mother and my Military Officer Father. I went to Catholic school, and even under the watchful eyes of the priests and nuns, I was bullied because I was short and skinny and was called a weakling. At the time, I detested every form of sports activities, and being in an all-boys school, there were plenty of sports. I could not throw a tennis ball or, what's more, a basketball. During those days, I would go home hurting from all the taunting and name calling, and I was so miserable.

Okay, let me fast forward now. I went to college and to medical school. I came to the United States, and while I was in practice as a Gastrointestinal Pathologist, I was challenged to run a 5K at the hospital where I was working. This was my turning point as a runner. In 2011, I turned 50 and decided to do something different to celebrate this milestone. I registered and trained for my first marathon, which was the Marathon du Medoc in Bordeaux, France, 400 miles south of Paris.

During the race, I cramped twice and was going to drop out. But a friend of mine reminded me that flying all the way from Chicago to Bordeaux and not even getting a medal was such a waste. That did it. I ran, and I beat the cut-off time of 5:30! I was so proud to earn my first medal. At that time I thought that was my first and last marathon.

One and Done? Not this Marathoner

But in 2013, I ran my first Chicago Marathon. I enjoyed the the race and decided to run it again in 2014. During the race, I met another runner, who later became my running buddy. We decided to run the Naperville Marathon the following weekend. The weekend after that, I ran in Middleton, WI. Then 2 weeks later, I ran my first ultra, a 50K (30 miles) race just outside of Chicago. This was the first ultra sponsored by Arctic Frog , with race director and soon-to-be-friend Rey Letada. I knew right there and then that I was hooked.

With all these races in such a short period of time, I qualified and earned my two stars with Marathon Maniacs . This is an international running group that one needs to qualify to become a member. Yes, three marathons and one ultramarathon in 5 weeks was more than enough to qualify!

To date, I have finished a total of 78 marathons/ultra marathons. As of April 15, 2019, I completed the Boston Marathon and earned my Sixth Star for the Abbott World Marathon Majors . Along the way, I also qualified to be a member of the 50 States Marathon Club . I am one state away from completing a marathon in all 50 states and am 10 states into my second round of 50 states.

What Does the Future Hold?

What else is in store for me? This year, I'm going to earn my medal for completing a marathon in all 50 states, and I have a very ambitious goal to complete 100 marathons by the end of the year. I also have four more continents to run in. Will that be it? Maybe. Maybe not. We will have to see...

So going back to the question, "Why do I run?" In my journey as a marathoner, it has been an adventure and a thrill to see our beautiful country in a different perspective. But the best part of running is the solitude of being alone while I am training and while I am racing. Running has become my "zen," my peaceful space and my form of meditation. In addition, being an avid cook and a foodie, running keeps me fit and healthy. Furthermore, I met some of my best friends through my races all over the country and the world. Now, you all know why I run.

Why Do You Run? If you would like to share your story with the Racertrips community, email [email protected] to find out how.

READ THIS NEXT: How This Runner Went From OCD to the BYC Marathon

Jose Maria H. Gabriel, MD Gaby ran his first marathon at age 50 in Bordeaux, France, and has since finished more than 78 marathons/ultra marathons. He's a qualifying member in both Marathon Maniacs and the 50 States Marathon Club . In 2019, he ran the Boston Marathon to earn his Sixth Star for the Abbott World Marathon Majors . He's also one state away from finishing a marathon in all 50 states and has set an ambitious goal to complete 100 marathons by the end of 2019. Gaby is a Brand Ambassador for Racertrips, Nuun Energy , Marathon Maniacs (Illinois and Chicago) and XOSKIN Running Apparel .

Essay on Running

Students are often asked to write an essay on Running in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Running

The joy of running.

Running is a simple yet powerful activity that can bring both physical and mental benefits. It’s a universal exercise that anyone can do, anywhere, anytime.

Physical Benefits

Running helps to strengthen muscles, improve cardiovascular fitness, and maintain a healthy weight. Regular running can also boost your immune system and increase longevity.

Mental Benefits

Running can help reduce stress and improve mood. It releases endorphins, often known as ‘happy hormones’, which can make you feel more positive and energetic.

Running and Friendship

Running can also be a social activity. Joining a running club or participating in races can help you make new friends.

250 Words Essay on Running

The essence of running.

Running, often regarded as a simple physical activity, is a complex interplay of mind, body, and spirit. It is a universal language that transcends cultural and geographical boundaries, serving as a metaphor for life’s journey, filled with challenges, victories, and personal growth.

Running is an excellent cardiovascular exercise that strengthens the heart, reduces the risk of heart disease and diabetes, and helps maintain a healthy weight. It also improves bone health, reducing the risk of osteoporosis, and enhances muscular strength and endurance.

Mental and Emotional Impact

Beyond the physical, running has profound mental and emotional implications. It is known to release endorphins, often referred to as ‘runner’s high’, leading to improved mood and reduced stress levels. It also fosters mental resilience as runners learn to push through discomfort and fatigue, skills transferable to other life challenges.

Social and Environmental Connection

Running fosters a sense of community, with runners often forming close-knit groups. These communities provide support, motivation, and camaraderie, enriching the running experience. Running also deepens our connection with the environment as it often takes place outdoors, providing an opportunity to appreciate nature’s beauty.

In essence, running is more than just a form of exercise; it is a holistic activity that promotes physical health, mental resilience, emotional wellbeing, and social connection. It encourages us to push beyond our limits, to explore our potential, and to appreciate the world around us. The beauty of running lies not in the finish line, but in the journey itself.

500 Words Essay on Running

Running, a fundamental human activity, is a complex interaction between the mind and body. It is an exercise that transcends the physical realm, providing mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits. It is not merely a form of physical exercise; it is a metaphor for life, embodying resilience, endurance, and the pursuit of goals.

Running and Physical Health

Running is a powerful tool for maintaining physical health. Engaging in regular running can help reduce the risk of chronic illnesses such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and stroke. It can also boost the immune system, lower blood pressure, improve cardiovascular health, and support weight control. The body’s metabolic efficiency increases, enhancing energy levels and promoting overall well-being.

Running and Mental Well-being

Beyond the physical benefits, running has profound effects on mental health. It acts as a stress reliever, providing an outlet for pent-up emotions and frustrations. The release of endorphins during running induces a sense of euphoria, often referred to as the “runner’s high.” This mental state can help combat depression and anxiety, promoting a sense of calm and well-being.

Running as a Social Activity

Running can also serve as a social activity. Joining running clubs or participating in marathons fosters a sense of community and camaraderie. It encourages teamwork and cooperation, promoting mutual support and shared achievement. This social aspect of running can help individuals feel more connected and less isolated, enhancing their sense of belonging and social well-being.

Running as a Life Metaphor

Running serves as a potent metaphor for life. Each stride symbolizes progress, each breath represents life, and each finish line embodies a goal achieved. The challenges faced during a run, such as fatigue or difficult terrains, mirror life’s obstacles. Overcoming these challenges instills resilience and determination, qualities that are transferable to other areas of life.

Running and Mindfulness

Running fosters mindfulness, a state of active, open attention to the present. The rhythmic pattern of footfalls, the sensation of the wind against the skin, the rhythmic breathing – all these elements bring the runner into the present moment, away from the worries of the past or the future. This mindful state can promote mental clarity, emotional balance, and a deeper understanding of oneself.

The Future of Running

The future of running is promising, with advances in technology providing new avenues for enhancing running experiences. Innovations like wearables and running apps provide runners with detailed feedback on their performance, helping them optimize their runs. Virtual races and augmented reality apps are transforming the running landscape, making it more engaging and accessible.

In conclusion, running is much more than a physical exercise. It is a holistic activity that benefits the body, mind, and spirit. It fosters community, instills resilience, promotes mindfulness, and serves as a metaphor for life. As we look to the future, the potential for running to enrich our lives in new and exciting ways is limitless.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Why You Should Write A Race Report—And How To Do it

The perfect way to reflect on your race experience is to write it all down..

New perk! Get after it with local recommendations just for you. Discover nearby events, routes out your door, and hidden gems when you >","name":"in-content-cta","type":"link"}}'>sign up for the Local Running Drop .

This past weekend, I ran (and hiked—a lot) the Naked Bavarian Marathon at Blue Marsh Lake in PA, a great event put on by the folks at Uber Endurance Sports. It was difficult and often painful. It was the kind of race in which I had employ all of my motivational mantras really early on in the first 10K. I finished the race with a time that was slow, even for this self-professed slow runner.

I’ve been processing this experience for all the good it brought me (gauging current fitness, seeing if my strength-training has had any effect on my hill running, and most importantly, getting out on the trail) and well, the bad (the low, LOW points I had, anger at myself for having signed up during an especially busy time of my life, and all of the hills). In the next few days I’ll probably sit down and write a long and descriptive race report.

Why write a race report, you ask?

There are so many good reasons to write anything that forces you to reflect on any experience and a race report is an excellent way to do so, even if you don’t consider yourself a writer. I typically write one after a big event (marathon or longer). It helps me figure out what the problem spots were and where, when, and why I felt amazing at other points. I also love to read old reports for races that I do often. I learn from what I’ve experienced in the past, and either try to approach the race in a similar way or in a radically different way.

Related: Why Recovering From A Race Is Harder Than Tapering

There is no specific formula for writing a race report, but they usually have some of this information.

The event itself: Where? How long? When? Weather?
Course description and evaluation of event logistics
How you trained for the event
Your gear and nutrition
Thoughts at every mile
Mantras you may have used
Falls (if any—always entertaining)
Conversations you’ve had with others
Conversations you’ve had with yourself
DNF experience (if applicable) OR
Your finish and associated emotions
Your overall evaluation of the event

The next time you do a particular event, consider writing a race report. This is a good practice both for you and for your friends and family. It is also an EXCELLENT way to share with folks who may be considering the event you just did. It will offer a unique perspective on the race, and just might persuade others to go off the deep end too.

Related: 3 Ways To Get Ready For Your Goal Race

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Running in the First 5k Race Essay

Introduction, preparation for the race, running the 5k race, after the race; lessons learnt, reference list.

Athletics is a very popular sport since it stands distinctly from other sports like football, basketball, table tennis, hockey, golf or even swimming. It involves aspects like, walking, jumping, and running in the form of cross country running, race walking, road running and track and field running. Athletics has become a resourceful sport in different countries due to the image it creates and the revenue earned from it. Many have taken it as a profession and earn their living primarily from athletics, for example, the athletes, the athletic director, and other staff concerned with the running of athletic programs at different levels while others take it as a form of relaxation and physical exercise that helps to keep the body fit and healthy. A 5k race is essential and gives runners especially those doing it for their first time a nice experience as it offers motivation and helps the runners enjoy all the aspects in the race and also enhance speed in future races. This paper discusses my experience in a 5k race from preparation, actual running and even after the race giving the practical significance of the experience in my life in general.

Just like any other aspect of life, running requires preparation so as to make the exercise a success. Being my first 5k race, I had a lot of anxiety and needed a lot of training and preparation to make sure that I gave it my best and win in the competition. It was a relay and I had to be cooperative with my team members who were my workmates. Running requires some inner motivation and training since not everyone can run. It may be very intimidating especially for a person who is doing it for the first time due to the challenges associated with it, for example, fatigue and injuries. Prior preparation is very essential to ensure that the body is used to the practice of running and one can therefore run comfortably. Two months prior to the actual exercise, I took the initiative of getting a medical clearance from my doctor to ensure that am fit to participate in the race without health complications since it is important to always maintain good health. I also had to identify the appropriate shoes for my foot type to ensure that I am comfortable when running and to avoid unnecessary injuries that could interfere with the process of running.

This is done by visiting experts in the running field who stock sports shoes, giving the right information after which the appropriate shoes are provided. Warm ups are very essential for example walking for some minutes prior to running. During my first week of practice, I had three sessions of walking for 6 minutes and jogging for 1 minute and three sessions of 5minutes walking and 2minutes jogging; week three involved four sessions of walking for 3 minutes and jogging for 4 minutes, and walking for 2 minutes and jogging for 5 minutes four times during the fourth week. During the fifth week, I had four sessions three times, 2 minutes walking and 5 minutes jogging while I walked for 2minutes and jogged for 9 minutes thrice on the sixth week. I had four sessions of walking for 1 minute and jogging for 11 minutes thrice during my seventh week. It was after the practice that I could now be able to run for twenty minutes at the beginning of the eighth week and thirty consecutive minutes towards the end of the week. I continued doing this four times a week and realized that things were becoming easier and that my endurance and fitness improved day after day making me more suited for the 5k race.

The training part of the running process helped me so much as my body was now used to and I had the stamina and fitness it takes to run the 5k race. I ran the 5k in a relay with other four workmates. Having done the training together although with some discrepancies in approaches due to our differences in strength and determination, we were able to take the third position and we were not happy about the results bearing in mind that we had the chance of becoming the winner. It was after the race that we learnt that we could have adhered to some of the tips that aid in proper running, for example, looking ahead while running to ensure safety, avoiding landing on the toes or heels but land on the mid foot, keeping hands at waist level and relaxing them, maintaining the right posture, avoiding too much bouncing that uses a lot of energy and keeping the shoulders in a relaxed state (Herreros, 2003).

After the race, there were different views on what happened and everyone tried to evaluate why we performed that way. At some point it was viewed as a good attempt as it was our first time but to some people being the first time did not justify the poor performance. I learnt that preparation especially for the first timers is the most crucial part of the running process and should therefore be taken very seriously as it determines the success or failure of the activity. It is not good to ignore the simple things involved in the preparation and training as it is their combination that brings the end result. Rest is essential since it enhances recovery and helps prevent injuries through muscle building and repair. A comfortable pace is also recommended as long as the targeted mileage is covered to avoid straining of the body muscles. Other exercises apart from running and jogging for instance swimming are vital to reduce monotony while at the same time relaxing the body.

It is also advisable to warm up before running and cool down after running. I also learnt that a run-walk method of preparation is good to start with as beginners usually do not have the stamina to run throughout without breaks and to increase running time gradually while reducing the walking time. Controlling the breathing while running is essential and one should make sure the breathing is not heavy and can allow talking while running. It is important to reduce the workload of training a week before the actual race so as to increase the peak by loosening the legs for the race day. Resting and stretching the body muscles the day before race is crucial and drinking plenty of water on the day before the race and after the race is good to avoid dehydration of the body. One should wear the appropriate shoes, pay attention to pains in the body to sense signs of adverse injury and wear right clothing, not too much or too little for the weather to ensure one is comfortable and not in danger of developing weather related illness. One should also train moderately and avoid being overconfidence and bear in mind that the competitors have also undergone some training (Earl, 2005).

In every aspect of life, it is important to pay attention to all issues however simple they may seem to be. Preparation is essential in any activity as the effort put in determines the result. Teamwork is a good skill to be adopted as it is through the combination of ideas and efforts that overall success is achieved, for instance, if all my team members had proper training, we would have been able to secure a second or even the first position.

It is evident that there has been an increased interest and participation in athletics and sports. Athletics has become the most attractive activity because of its simplicity nature and use of inexpensive equipment among other factors. The 5k offers a good chance for the beginners and tests the speed and strength of runners that have been in existence and so it should never be under emphasized. It has also proved to be essential in building the speed for long distance runners. It emphasizes on the need to balance mileage and speed in running and the importance of adequate training that ensures that the runners’ bodies adapt well to the strenuous exercise of running and in the long run perform well.

Earl, W.F. (2005). The Complete Guide to Running: How to Be a Champion from 9 to 90. New York: Meyer & Meyer Verlag.

Herreros, M. (2003). Running in Florida: A Practical Guide for Runners in the Sunshine State . New York: Pineapple Press Inc.

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IvyPanda. (2024, March 1). Running in the First 5k Race. https://ivypanda.com/essays/running-in-the-first-5k-race/

"Running in the First 5k Race." IvyPanda , 1 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/running-in-the-first-5k-race/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Running in the First 5k Race'. 1 March.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Running in the First 5k Race." March 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/running-in-the-first-5k-race/.

1. IvyPanda . "Running in the First 5k Race." March 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/running-in-the-first-5k-race/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Running in the First 5k Race." March 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/running-in-the-first-5k-race/.

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Blog > Common App , Essay Advice > How to Write a College Essay About Running

How to Write a College Essay About Running

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Kylie Kistner, MA Former Willamette University Admissions

Key Takeaway

If you love to run, you may be interested in writing your college essay about running. You’re not the only one.

Think about how many students are on a track or cross country team compared to, say, a basketball or volleyball team. A lot.

Since so many students find track or cross country to be a central part of their high school experiences, there is no shortage of running-related college essays.

Admissions officers read countless stories about make-or-break track meets, season-ending injuries, and thought-filled solo morning runs.

All this isn’t to say that you can’t write a standout college essay about running.

But the ones that are most effective come from students who find a genuine way to convey why they hold running so dearly.

We’ll lay out what specific topics you should avoid and give you a few questions to help you determine whether a college essay about running is the right choice for you.

Topics that college essays about running should avoid

Running for team captain.

Students who write essays about running for or being voted captain of their track or cross country teams are likely trying to show leadership and strong community involvement and support.

But the reality is that, unless done very tactfully, an essay about this topic isn’t likely to tell admissions officers any more than they already know from your activities section.

If you won the race, your leadership and excellence will be apparent just from the fact that you earned that position.

And if you lost, then chances are you have another story to tell that is more compelling.

Detailing the ins and outs of how you won or lost the captain position likely won’t add much more valuable information either.

Space in your application is precious. Use it wisely.

So unless you have an incredibly original or telling story about being captain, you’re probably better off using the story for a supplemental essay or choosing another topic altogether.

Overcoming an injury, losing a race, or wrestling with team dynamics

Students tend to choose these topics to discuss a pivotal moment in their lives. Their goal is often to show their admissions officers their work ethic, determination, or resilience.

While challenges like failure or team conflict seem like critical points in your life, the stakes usually aren’t that high or unique in the long run.

Your injury may have been devastating, but you’re hardly the first runner to be injured and unable to compete.

Plenty of other students have had to exhibit the same kind of character traits to overcome similar injuries.

While your college essay isn’t primarily about showing how unique you are, it is about showing your admissions officers something central to your background, values, or motivations.

Some students do have exceptional circumstances that can work with these topics, but essays on these typical kinds of setbacks tend to remain on the surface of who you are.

A college essay simply needs to do more than that.

Questions to ask yourself before writing a college essay about running

Now that the overused topics are out of the way, you may be left wondering whether you should still write your college essay about running.

The following questions should help you determine if this topic is the right choice for you.

They’ll also help you identify areas where running intersects with other important parts of your life, an approach that can be incredibly useful for writing a meaningful essay about running.

How has running shaped your sense of self or daily experience?

Thinking more specifically about the role running plays in your everyday life can sometimes be a helpful place to start.

After all, you run regularly because it serves a bigger purpose.

Since the most cliche essays about running tend to focus on participation in a track or cross country team, identifying how running impacts your life outside of your teams can encourage you to think about the deeper meaning it holds for you.

Example answer 1: My home life was chaotic. My daily run was my escape. With each mile I ran, I found more distance, literally and metaphorically, from the people who were holding me back.

Example answer 2: I have a condition that makes it hard for me to breathe. Running is a constant battle with my body, yet I do it anyway. Why?

How has running been part of your connection to a significant person or place?

Running can be a transformative individual and community sport as it gives you time and space to connect with the world around you.

For those who run with others, there can be intense camaraderie or emotions as you push yourselves side by side. And when you run outside, you’re also inherently connecting to place.

Think about how the relationships and values you hold closest developed from or are manifested through running.

Example answer 1: I’ve gone on nightly runs with my dad since I was ten. We’d talk as we ran. He’d tell me about the stars. I’d tell him what I learned in AP physics. We’d argue about the best way to get to Mars.

Example answer 2: My weekly run would take me through my local park. Over the years, I noticed the changes: increased litter, degrading play structures, fewer ducks. I used my story to advocate to city council for increased funding for park maintenance.

What meaning do you see in the details that make up the experience of running—your schedule, gear, bodily experience, etc.?

If most of your running experience has occurred as part of your school team, or if you still haven’t been able to find any significant connections to make, this final question may spark some new ideas.

Think specifically about the logistics of what it takes for you to run: when you go, where you go, who you go with, what you wear, how you feel, how long it takes, what parts you love and hate most.

By identifying salient details, you also begin to close in on what the actual experience of running looks like for you. Once you’ve got that figured out, you can begin to extrapolate deeper meaning.

Example answer 1: My track team got new uniforms that were supposed to make you faster, but I felt uncomfortable with how much of my body was exposed. I began researching and became fascinated with the differences between men’s and women’s athletic uniforms.

Example answer 2: I have nowhere in my neighborhood to run, so I decided to train for a marathon on a treadmill. Doing so taught me a lot about how to creatively confront obstacles.

The bottom line

Try this exercise. Excluding any tell-tale details, imagine that you hand your coach your essay to read. Now pretend that you ask them to guess which member of your team wrote it.

If your coach could read your essay and attribute your narrative and main takeaway to anybody else on your team, then your essay doesn’t tell admissions officers enough about you.

To write an effective college essay about running, you need to focus on the meaning you make through running rather than the running itself.

Concentrating on the meaning will encourage you to leave behind overused and cliche topics in favor of ones that communicate something that is authentically you.

Use caution when choosing running as your essay topic, and dig deep to find a theme that resonates with a core part of who you are or how you’ve experienced the world. It's all part of creating the perfect cohesive application narrative .

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Eight Short Stories for Long Distance Runners

Actually running is hard. read these stories about running instead..

One of my favorite poems by Emily Dickinson, “I like to see it lap the Miles,” captures what I feel about long-distance running as a dual means of grounding and detaching from our perceived limits of the body. Though Dickinson’s poem is about a train, the speaker circles the machine-like way in which a distance runner must also detach and steel herself against her unknowable destiny, as she “lick[s] the Valleys up / and Stop[s] to feed [herself] at Tanks… docile and omnipotent / At [her] own stable door.”

Like a moving train, a distance runner is made subservient and powerful by her own will, all those grueling miles she spends alone on the road, enduring her pain to the point of ecstasy. I think this is true of the best writing too, the kind that knows how to subsume and enthrall us at once, streaming with a language that feels as vivid and concrete as it does illusory and untouchable. Here are eight stories that defy time and distance as a concrete, measurable object; each story pushes the mind out of its imagined borders, testing its thresholds, asking us to love what we cannot place.

“Ladies and Gentleman of the Pavement” by Jamie Quatro ( I Want to Show You More , Grove Atlantic, 2013)

Though the opening feels familiar to any regular runner—“I’m in Start Corral Three”—Quatro’s story enacts the strange dreamscape of the Chickamouga Battlefield Marathon somewhere in Georgia. The unnamed narrator, like everyone else running, has been assigned a statue to carry into the finish, and the problem is not the weight or size of the statue, but each runner’s relationship to it. The statue represents the denial of pain, and the narrator tries to confront her pain to find some relief, that moment when her “senses open up and [everything can be taken in]—telephone wires silhouetted against blue sky, layered bark on the trunk of a tree…by mile ten I can no longer feel my feet touching the ground.” Quatro reminds us that the marathon is never about finishing so much as it is about being viscerally in our bodies, for as long as it takes to separate from our suffering.

“The Runner” by David Ryan ( Animals in Motion , Roundabout Press, 2014)

“The Runner” is a work of lyric brilliance as it circles a father’s love for his daughter as she learns to walk, and eventually run, surpassing him. But then he suddenly loses her. His ten-year-old daughter dies of an unknown cause, and we experience the reversal of nature as an ordered, measurable thing hurled onto his running body; he feels his legs “chopping off” like trees whose branches are like “capillaries” spreading through “the poison hard sun.” Yet the man still runs on for his daughter, chasing after his pain, circling it in his heart as the language circles and searches to overcome his grief. The story traces the shape of loss, almost like a spinning orbit beating past death and into the mythic depths of a father’s love for his child, becoming a map of their shared “constellated memory.”

“The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner” by Alan Sillitoe ( The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner , Vintage 1987)

A classic for every literary runner’s anthology, this story affirms distance running as a journey through which linear time and any outside measures of achievement cease to matter. The story’s hero, a reform-school cross country runner articulates the moment when time ceases to exist as “the most wonderful minute because there’s not one thought or word or picture of anything in my head…I’m empty, as empty as I was before I was born.” We watch the runner’s layered consciousness unfold through his morning runs, an act of resistance against being made an object for the masses, through the private experience of emptying his thoughts, and freeing himself from his past, certain of his running process as the “only honest and realness…in the world.”

“The Loveliness of the Long-Distance Runner” by Sarah Maitland ( Angel Maker , Henry Holt & Company, 1996)

A feminist spin off Sillitoe’s classic, Maitland’s story delights as often as it surprises. It is told from the points of view of two lesbian lovers—one takes the shape of the love letter, and the other occupies the duration of a marathon and runs stream-of consciousness. The runner’s thoughts embody the length of the marathon, as she searches for the “wise animal” state that will make her mind and body one. Meanwhile her distant lover grapples with her own jealousy over the other runners her lover is racing alongside; she fantasizes over her lover’s bod, her “yard of leg… miles and miles of tight, hard, thin muscle”—but at the same time, she wants the reason for her desire to be more than sex; she wants to love her lover for the reasons that she runs: “her endurance, perseverance, [and] acceptance” of extreme pain. The race ultimately paints love as immeasurable distance between the mind and the heart, and endless test of what it takes for two drifting souls to merge.

“Victory Lap” by George Saunders ( Tenth of December , Random House, 2013)

I adore everything about George Saunders and this collection, but the opening story, “Victory Lap,” is my favorite. While it isn’t packed with running scenes, the unlikely hero Kyle Boot is an endearingly awkward cross country runner… a skeleton with a mullet,” as described by Alison Pope, when she sees him running through the neighborhood. When the story takes a violent turn, we are saved by Kyle’s runner impulses, the moment he chooses not to heed his father’s authoritarian “directive” and charges across the lawn with a geode to save Alison. The narrative chases the victory lap around Kyle’s mound, this counter narrative that preserves our sense of humanity in spite of the story’s totalitarian stakes.

“Raymond’s Run” by Toni Cade Bambara ( Gorilla, My Love , Vintage Contemporaries, 1992)

Every time I read Toni Cade Bambara I am emboldened by the fearlessness of her voice, or the way in which she so fully and unapologetically enters each one of her characters. “Raymond’s Run” follows Hazel Parker in her quest to win first place in the fifty-yard dash on May Day. Just before the start gun goes off, she narrates the surreal beginnings of every race: “I always feel like I’m in a dream, the kind of dream you have when you’re sick with fever and feel all hot and weightless.” It is her form of escape from what she can’t control of her life, yet she learns that the point of the race is not to outrun her shame and her guilt, but rather to embrace that truth as honestly as she can, in running for her troubled brother, Raymond, and affirming the devotion of their shared love.

Poverty Creek Journal by Thomas Gardner (Tupelo Press, 2014)

This is one of the most beautifully rendered pieces about running I’ve encountered under fifty pages. On the surface, Poverty Creek Journal is a daily running log in lyric prose, but it soon offers a meditation on the articulable nature of the human experience. After the narrator suddenly loses his brother, we follow his thoughts through nature, his mind wandering to integrate the strength and frailty of the body as he runs. Gardner’s luminous insights on running are often breathtaking. He likens running to “half sleep, when you’re awake in a way, but aware of dreams passing in a kind of un-retraceable wandering….the turning colors passing through me… no real way to put any of this into numbers, mile after mile streaming through me.” We escape with Gardner away, from the finitude of miles and the illusion of stasis through his will to observe and gradually integrate loss into his body.

“Running Alone” by Halimah Marcus ( One Story , Vol. 10, Number 28, Issue 176, 2013)

“Running Alone” is a masterpiece of the short form; in less than twenty pages Marcus threads together three disparate perspectives across the Porter family. Hunter Porter must race for a national cross country title the same moment his mother Irene is undergoing a surgery to remove a malignant stage IV breast tumor while his father Albert runs around the hospital, trying to give his son all of the strength he will need to test his limits despite Irene’s uncertain future. The simultaneity of their experience is relayed through the duration of Hunter’s cross-country race, tested the instant he falls from a state of timeless euphoria and must come to terms with his suffering, digging to push every ounce of himself through the last three hundred yards; he hits the wall, as if he’s become “some hopeless mass of rock hurtling through space.” Though we never learn whether Hunter wins or loses the title, we witness his attempt to give everything he has for his mother: this act of love that can endure, and ultimately transcend, his family’s unknowable fate.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, need advice on writing a college essay about running.

Hey! I've been on my school's track and cross country team since freshman year, and it's really been a transformative experience for me. I want to share this journey in my college essay, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to make it relatable and memorable. Any fellow runners out there who have written about their running experiences in essays? I'd appreciate any help!

Hello! It's great to hear that your running journey has been so transformative. In order to make your essay relatable and memorable, you'll want to avoid focusing on the common aspects like training, getting faster, and winning races. Instead, try to find a unique angle or narrow in on a specific experience that conveys a larger truth about yourself.

One approach is to explore how running taught you a valuable life lesson, such as discipline, resilience, or self-motivation. You could use an anecdote about overcoming a challenge or achieving a personal goal that had a significant impact on you.

For example, maybe you set a goal to break a certain time in the mile and made a plan to reach it, despite numerous setbacks. What strategies did you employ to reach that goal? What did you learn from that process? How did it change your approach to other aspects of your life?

Another idea is to discuss a connection you made through running that had a significant impact on you, such as a special friendship with a teammate, a mentoring relationship with a coach, or a unique experience during a race that resonated with you on a personal level. Delve into the details of that connection, how it helped you grow, and how it reflects your values or character.

Lastly, consider discussing running as a part of a bigger personal narrative. For instance, maybe running helped you cope with stress or manage a difficult situation in your life. In this case, you could intertwine the story of your running journey with the story of overcoming personal adversity, thereby showing how the two aspects of your life influenced and supported one another.

In the end, what matters most is conveying your growth, self-awareness, and personal qualities through the lens of your running experiences. Make it unique to you, and it'll be both relatable and memorable. Good luck with your essay!

About CollegeVine’s Expert FAQ

CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

Race Entry Student Scholarship

Race Entry is an online race registration company that supports students of all disciplines who pursue self-improvement and enhanced health through race preparation and participation. Annually Race Entry is offering a $500 scholarship to the winner of our annual “Race to Inspire” essay contest. Many people have different reasons for running in a race. We want to hear & share your inspiring story.

Eligibility:

Participants must be able to verify enrollment for college at an accredited university inside the USA during the fall semester of the same year the essay is submitted.

How to Apply:

Whether you ran a 5K, 10K, half marathon, or marathon, write a short essay explaining what inspired you to run, what challenges you faced, and what you learned through the experience. Prepare an essay sharing your race story between 1,000 and 2,000 words in length. Send your essay to [email protected] with “Race to Inspire – Scholarship” in the subject line – All applications must be submitted between January 1 and August 15 to be included in the contest of the same year. The contest winner will be notified on or before October 1.

Scholarship Terms

Race Entry is committed to protecting the privacy of all our visitors. By using www.raceentry.com and submitting a scholarship application, you grant all rights and ownership of submitted content to Race Entry, regardless of whether your entry is selected as a winner. Race Entry reserves the right to publish submitted work at the conclusion of the entry period in any manner Race Entry sees fit. Selection of winning submissions is entirely at the discretion of Race Entry. Each scholarship winner will be contacted by Race Entry via the same email address that was used to submit the application. Winner(s) will be confirmed ONLY after providing proof of enrollment in the form of a copy of a tuition bill OR letter of proof from the accredited United States college or university at which the winner(s) is enrolled. Winners will be publicly announced on RaceEntry.com, and Race Entry will mail the winner(s) their check.

2023 Scholarship Winner

Our 2023 Scholarship goes to Antoine Caleb Lucas from Jonesboro, Georgia

Below is his submission:, discovering my stride: a journey of resilience and triumph.

In the urban sprawl of Atlanta, Georgia, where the rhythm of life can sometimes feel like a perpetual sprint, I found my stride. As a dedicated gym rat, a passionate baseball player, and an avid boxing enthusiast, the world of sports has always been my sanctuary. However, my journey as a runner was born from a desire to transcend my comfort zone and embrace challenges head-on. My name is A. Caleb Lucas, and my race story is not just about running; it's a testament to the power of determination and the pursuit of growth.

The seed of inspiration to run was planted in my mind after witnessing the euphoria that accompanies crossing a finish line. Whether it was a 5K, a 10K, or even a full marathon, the sight of runners pushing their limits, driven by their own goals, was awe-inspiring. But what truly kindled the spark within me was a desire to channel the same spirit into my own life.

However, the path to becoming a runner was not without its share of hurdles. Despite my affinity for various sports, running was an entirely different arena. I had to confront my own doubts and insecurities, especially as someone who had always considered himself a team player. The solitary nature of running posed an intimidating challenge, but I was determined to overcome it.

I embarked on my running journey as a proud resident of Atlanta, Georgia, a city pulsating with vibrant energy. Every stride through its streets, every early morning jog in its parks, brought me closer to a new facet of my city that I had never truly appreciated before. The camaraderie of the running community, the collective pursuit of personal records, and the unspoken encouragement exchanged in nods and waves added a layer of depth to my connection with my surroundings.

Living in a city known for its athletic prowess, I was no stranger to competitive sports. Baseball had honed my reflexes and strategic thinking, while boxing had sculpted my discipline and resilience. Yet, running introduced a different dimension to my understanding of athleticism—a mental and emotional challenge that went beyond physical prowess. The moments of doubt during training, the determination to push through the infamous "runner's wall," and the satisfaction of surpassing my own limits unveiled a level of self-discovery I hadn't anticipated.

The cityscape of Atlanta transformed into a personal playground, each corner and pavement holding memories of my struggles and triumphs. As the sun kissed the horizon during early morning runs, and the city lights painted a shimmering backdrop during late-night jogs, I realized that running was not just about physical exertion; it was a journey within, an exploration of my own capacity for growth.

Chasing personal records became my new source of motivation. I learned that, just like in baseball and boxing, consistent effort and perseverance yielded results. Whether it was pushing myself to shave a few seconds off my 5K time or conquering the grueling hills of the city during a half marathon, each achievement reaffirmed the importance of resilience, patience, and unwavering commitment.

The challenges I faced were not confined to the pavement. Balancing my dedication to running with my academic pursuits and work commitments demanded meticulous time management and discipline. Being a gym rat, a baseball player, and a boxer had already taught me about the delicate equilibrium between different facets of life, but running added another layer of complexity. Yet, paradoxically, running also became my anchor—a routine that provided clarity and structure amidst the chaos of daily life.

As I prepared to take on the biggest challenge of my running journey—a full marathon—I couldn't help but reflect on the parallels between running and the values instilled in me through my other sports. Just as I had learned to read an opponent's moves in boxing and anticipate a pitcher's strategy in baseball, I was now deciphering the language of my own body, understanding its cues, and strategizing to cross the 26.2-mile finish line.

The marathon day arrived, and the energy in the air was electrifying. My heart pounded with a mix of excitement and nervousness as I stood at the starting line, surrounded by fellow runners who had their own stories to tell. Each step, each mile, was a testament to the journey I had undertaken—from a gym rat with a love for team sports to a runner embracing the solitude of the road.

As the miles stretched on, I battled fatigue, doubts, and the temptation to slow down. But the unwavering support of the running community and the memory of every sunrise and cityscape I had conquered fueled my determination. The journey was a rollercoaster of emotions—moments of euphoria, moments of exhaustion, and moments of profound introspection.

When I crossed the finish line of that marathon, a rush of emotions flooded over me. It wasn't just about completing the race; it was about conquering the challenges, doubts, and uncertainties that had once held me back. I had transformed from a curious observer of running events to a participant who had embraced the grit, the heart, and the soul of the sport.

As I reflect on my evolution from a gym rat to a passionate runner, I am reminded that the essence of a race goes beyond the finish line—it's about the story that unfolds along the way. I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to embark on this journey of self-discovery, resilience, and personal growth. My race story is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and the boundless potential that lies within us all. And just as the city of Atlanta continues to inspire and challenge me, I am eager to explore new horizons, conquer new races, and discover new dimensions of myself through the rhythm of my strides.

2022 Scholarship Winner

Our 2022 Scholarship goes to Emily Kohnen from Creve Coeur, Missouri

Below is her submission:.

Running wasn’t a fundamental building block in my childhood. Quite the opposite was true. I played sports as a child but never took any too serious. I started playing ice hockey when I was in elementary school, close to the end of fourth grade. I was usually the only girl on my team and the boys had no issue letting me know they didn’t like that. After playing through middle school, it became clear that the male body was speeding up a lot faster than mine and I became discouraged. I turned down an offer to play for an all-girls team, and eventually I quit altogether. It was then that my sedentary lifestyle took over. Ironically enough, this is exactly when running became a part of my family.

This is around the time that my mom started to take running seriously. I had picked up my lifestyle tactics from my family and she felt we needed a change. She found some friends and they signed up for a half-marathon. The only thing is, the half was sold out! My mom decided the full didn’t look too daunting and signed up anyways. She had never run even a half, and she and her friends decided to run a full marathon.

I didn’t realize it then, but this was a pivotal moment for me too. Seeing my mom become so dedicated to running was inspiring. The even more inspiring aspect for me was her discipline day in and day out. I became proud to say, “my mom runs marathons!” My family began travelling for races and cheering my mom and her friends on along the different courses. She spoke to how much clarity she found while on her runs. She only worries about being better than the day before, not better than another runner. Running became a part of all of our lives that day.

I have come to value the ability for a child to observe their parent taking time each day to manage their health, both physical and mental. Knowing my mom had already went on a run and showered by the time she woke me up for school really impacted the way I view my health and aided in my understanding of discipline.

After a couple of years without playing hockey, I decided I needed to make a change for myself too. I was tired of coming home from school and watching reruns of Reba for hours. Don’t get me wrong - Reba was a great show, but it didn’t provide me with much of anything after some time. I decided to pick up soccer and began playing for my high school team. I was an average player. I didn’t make the most goals or play the best defense. I made two goals in the two years I played! I was just happy to be a part of a team and felt satisfied with my dedication to a sport. However, at the end of my second year I sustained a pretty massive injury.

In the first fifteen minutes of a soccer game two hours away from home, I broke my leg. It ended up being a compound fracture of my tibia and a complete break of my fibula. I will spare you some of the details, but short I thought the sound I heard was my shin guard against a girl’s shoe. I tried to stand but laid right back down after seeing my foot facing the wrong direction. A trip to a local emergency room, a medical transport back home, a night in another emergency room, and a surgery later, my leg was back in one piece (sort of). I had an internal fixator placed into my leg that is held in by five screws. I had never gone through a recovery for an injury before and really took a mental hit. I couldn’t do anything during the summer and relied on everyone for help, which I hated. In an attempt to give me something to look forward too, my mom convinced me to run a half marathon with her once I was recovered. And run we did.

I took to heart her training regimen. During the week, we ran before my first class started at 7:15 a.m. On the weekends we managed our longer runs through the Midwest winter. We trained and trained. Race day came around just two days shy of the one-year anniversary of my injury. In one year, I managed what is hopefully my biggest injury and turned it around to run my first half marathon!

I have run that same race every year since (excluding the peak COVID year) and have managed to beat my time each year. I have trained and travelled for races during the school year and summer. I have raced in Kentucky, South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. Trail running has become a favorite of mine and something I want to expand in my future. This upcoming school year I will be training for my first full marathon. My race is on October 2, in my hometown. I can’t wait to have my family and friends cheering me along the course.

Running, especially not on an organized team, is really challenging during the school year. I have classes at different times, work a part time job, and juggle other school related items such as the honors program. It some strange way, I feel that when I run, I become more organized in other areas of my life. Running is so much more of a mental game than a physical one usually. Making time to run forces me to start my day out strong, allows me time to think and reflection on the previous day or mentally plan out the coming days, and has connected me with so many people. I have been encouraged to work harder, go further, and be better because of my running and the community it has brought me. I am a better person for becoming a runner.

2021 Scholarship Winner

Our 2021 Scholarship goes to Devon Cobos Garcia from Jacksonville Beach, Florida

My father was an avid runner. Having grown up in Belchertown, Massachusetts, he had dreamed of running the Boston Marathon since he was a child. The Boston Marathon, said simply, is just one of those races; one of those races that runners put on their Bucket List; one of those races for which runners constantly strive to have qualifying times; one of those races that brings athletes and their families from all over the world together for a common goal. The Boston Marathon, for many runners, is the ultimate race. My dad talked about the Boston Marathon constantly, and worked hard towards qualification. He trained heavily by running, swimming, and biking to ensure he was physically well-rounded and ready for his moment on the starting line. He ran and biked and swam and ran some more, grinding away and staying true to his training; he was quite successful with this grind, a grind that many others had trouble keeping up with, a grind for which he was gratuitously praised.

The training was paying off; my dad was making good time with his workout runs, and he started signing up for qualifying races. He was finally going to do it, he would say; he was finally going to earn a spot in the Boston! Everything seemed fine on the surface, and he was on par with his goal; that is, until an unsettling decline in his mental health took over his life. He fell ill quickly, as well as quietly. The illness was something I barely noticed until it was too late; throughout my childhood my dad had always been keen on hiding any struggles he was dealing with, which made it difficult for me to pinpoint that something was incredibly wrong. On a dreadful night in August of 2017, I received a phone call that would forever change my life; my father was gone, from a swift and permanent decision he felt he had no choice but to make.

My father and I didn't run together, as we both felt and agreed it was more of a personal practice, but we would always talk about our runs, workouts, and races. He was my biggest cheerleader, and though I was never able to tell him, he ultimately inspired me to run my first marathon back in February of 2018, six months after his passing. Running a marathon was not something I ever thought I could accomplish, even having run multiple half marathons over the years, including my favorite and most challenging race, the Midnight Sun half marathon in Tromsø, Norway in the Arctic Circle. Losing one of my favorite people in such a traumatic way changed how I viewed many things in this life, including, and especially, fear; I felt I had lost everything when I lost him, so fear was no longer an emotion I genuinely acknowledged. I remember the night I made up my mind to commit to running 26.2 miles; in that moment, as I was jogging through the neighborhood where I grew up, my heart began to swell at the thought of running not only for myself, but for my dad. I vividly imagined him running by my side, something we never actually did together, but could now do, spiritually, any time I needed his encouragement. This image of us running a marathon together changed my entire perspective on my abilities to run such a distance, and I began to dream, just as my dad once did, about eventually qualifying for the Boston Marathon. I thought about how amazing it would be to cross that finish line, for the both of us, and how healing this would be for me and the grief that was holding me hostage.

My training was demanding, but successful, and the day came for me to stand at the starting line for my first marathon. It was The Donna, an annual run to end breast cancer and a huge race that was born and raised in my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. It was February and the weather was cool and crisp, the sun barely visible through the overcast; it was perfect running weather, especially for how unpredictable Florida's weather can be on any given day. I felt amazing, energized and prepared, and was ready for the strenuous hours ahead. "You trained for this," I told myself; "you're ready." As the gun went off and my wave started, I was giddy with excitement and riddled with nerves; I had to keep reminding myself to maintain a slow, steady pace for the first few miles, as to not let the excitement cause me to gas out later in the course. I held a pleasant, powerful tempo and felt strong and controlled. I smiled inside and out, silently extending my gratitude to the cheering crowds. Unfortunately, my strength and good fortune didn't last; what felt like out of nowhere, an unfamiliar sensation in the lateral side of my right knee began to form. By only Mile 7, a dull tension was fully present in my leg, and it slowly increased in intensity as I continued. Knowing I still had slightly less than 20 miles to run, I became aware that this wasn't going to go as well as I initially felt it would. By Mile 16, I was in agony.

None of this occurred in my training; I had easily run 20 miles alone, nonstop, without water, without electrolytes or protein or other replenishments, without the race environment, and still felt incredible (I do admit, however, that it wasn't smart of me to run in such conditions). With each painful step I felt a deep and intense sadness, accepting the fact that I was clearly injured, and most likely wouldn't finish the race in a decent enough time to qualify for the Boston. By Mile 21 I had to stop running completely, as the pain was too much to bear; determined to cross the finish line on my own two legs, because I’m stubborn just like my father, I walked the remaining 5.2 miles. As people ran, as well as walked, past me, and as people hollered from the streets and their houses to cheer us on with their signs, water stations, fruit stations, and small parties, tears streamed down my face for the devastation of having worked so hard for this and to not finish the way I had hoped. I did, in fact, walk across the finish line, with bystanders yelling at me and encouraging me to run; they meant well, as they had no idea how much I was suffering, both physically and emotionally, but it was a difficult moment to endure. I went straight to the First Aid tent for assistance and immediately started crying; not just from the pain, but from the feeling of complete and utter failure, which was all I could call it at the time (I now know it most definitely wasn’t a failure). I felt as though I had not only let myself down, but I wasn't able to run the way I wanted to for my dad, and I certainly wasn't going to be running in the Boston Marathon any time soon.

I allowed myself to feel the way I needed to feel during that time, especially the guilt, as well as in so many little moments that occurred after losing him. Thankfully grief, at least at that point in my life, wasn't something to which I was accustomed, at least not in such a piercing and personal way. Losing my father to suicide was truly was the most difficult and painful thing I have ever been through, but it was the one event in my life that set me free and gave me the grit to go after what I wanted from myself and my life. I eventually learned to forgive myself for missing the signs of him struggling, and for somehow injuring myself during the one goal I wanted to achieve back then; following that, I felt it was also time to let go of my being so hard on myself regarding my efforts, which is something I’ve always battled. I began to create a new life and pursue my goals with a healthier perspective, and have since given myself a little more grace, the kind of grace my father would've given me had he been there on the day I finished my first marathon.

Now, four years since his death, I have changed careers and currently practice as a Post Anesthesia Care Unit registered nurse; I moved to New York City for a couple of years and fought through the pandemic as a Covid ICU nurse; I was able to travel the world; I met the love of my life who is now my husband; and I’m starting my first semester in pursuit of my Ph.D. in Nursing this coming August. In keeping up with this busy schedule, I haven't run a single race since The Donna; and maybe a part of me also felt an essence of fear creeping in again after such a delicate event. But, my dad's spirit is still with me, each and every day, and I'm reminded of what he, and his passing, taught me. I knew my love for running wouldn't stay dormant for long, and I know how resilient and motivated we runners can be. It excites me to say that I've just signed up for my next half marathon, the first one in many years; I’m running the Urban Bourbon in Louisville, Kentucky this coming October. It feels like the perfect start to getting back in tune with my marathon training, as I know my heart is ready to try for another 26.2 in the future. Whether I happen to qualify for the Boston Marathon with my next full marathon or I simply make whichever one I choose my final one, I know my father will be by my side to cheer me on and send his encouragement, just as he always has and always will.

2020 Scholarship Winner

Our 2020 Scholarship goes to Alexandra “Aley” Schiessl from Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Everything hurt: my heart, my mind, my legs, my neck. It felt easier to lay in bed or stare blankly at the computer screen at work than exert any kind of effort into- well, anything. My only sister had died suddenly of an accidental overdose. Worse, a court case was becoming involved. I despaired, certain that the pain was going to be unending. Navigating grief while also living with bipolar II disorder made me into a ball of frayed nerves. I went to therapy. I was outspoken about my struggles and tried to reach out to others. Still, I felt incredibly alone, and nothing I did made me feel anything. I was unhappy in my relationship; my job felt like a dead end; I was slowly realizing, through the haze of grief, that my life felt despondent. For a long time in my life I felt like I deserved to be unhappy. But my sister’s death was what truly broke my back. I could no longer accept these horrible feelings as being a constant. As odd as it sounds, it took losing my only sister to realize that I only have one shot at life. And here I was, stuck in a cycle that was both comfortable and hurtful. Slowly, I felt like I was waking up and clearing my mind of what my depressed brain told me. I deserved to be happy. In February 2019, I finally found the strength to change. I broke off my engagement, moved back into my parents’ home, and applied to go back to college after a four-year hiatus.

After this complete change in my life, my father- who has been trail running since I was in middle school- signed me up for a race in Moab, Utah. This racewould be my first 5K in more than a decade. I was incredibly nervous. Besides walks and hikes, I didn’t exercise at all. Somehow I had convinced myself that Iwould never be an athlete- certainly not a runner. Not only would it be my first race, but it was going to be in a completely different environment thansoutheastern Wisconsin! But I wasn’t going to let my dad down, and I knew this race was presenting me with an incredible adventure. Determined, I took to runningthe streets around my parents’ house. I was too nervous to hit the trails. What if, somehow, I failed?

Here was my depression and grief roaring at me: you will fail, you don’t deserve any of this. A voice shouted back: I can do this, and I will. That voice wastiny and shook with each word, but it was there. I laced up my shoes and dug up a pair of shorts. I found some music and went outside into the bright springsunshine and ran. Whether it was a mile or three miles, I don’t recall. Regardless I felt triumphant. The little voice inside me was elated. I wondered what mysister would say if she saw me walk back in the house, soaked in sweat and smiling.

Sometime after her death, one of my sister’s friends shared something with me. It was an email my sister had written to herself when I was in middle school andshe was in third or fourth grade. The email was written in curly-cued font and every bit the voice of a nine-year old growing up in the early 2000s. She wasbored, she was going to find something to do. It must have been summer. “Aley n dad just got back from a race,” she noted. I was transported back to that timewhen my dad and I would wake up early in the morning to get to our races. My sister even did a few. Filled with nostalgia and sadness, I wept over that email. Iwas going to run for myself and for her.

After a couple weeks pounding the pavement I was getting bored. I had to eventually wander onto the dirt trails and through the prairies. Soon enough I waschallenging myself on an eight-mile trail full of challenging hills (with colorful names such as Asthma Hill and Gut Buster), creeping tree roots, and rockyterrain. Week after week I returned. Slowly, with nothing but the sound of my breathing, birdsong, and the wind, I found myself reflecting on the death of mysister and all the changes in my life. My sister is gone and I never had a chance to fully build our relationship. She won’t be physically present at my weddingor be an aunt to my children. Every time I realize this I feel a pain in my chest, a fresh wound, a sudden reminder that I’ll never see her face again. But in thewoods, slipping through mud and squinting in the sunshine, I felt her presence. I believed she was proud of me. We both struggled for so long with beingcomfortable in our own skin. Here I was, finally coming to terms with my body and the essence of myself.

I built up my confidence so much that I completed three 5Ks and a half marathon before I even flew out to Utah with my father. Those races raised my spirit and confidence to levels I’ve never known before. Finishing the half marathon was huge for someone who was once sure she could never accomplish such a feat. It was also at that half marathon that I became engaged to a man that shared my newfound zest for life and for trail running. I was coming to understand what it felt like to truly live and not simply to exist. The time spent in various terrains allowed me time to not only reflect, but to absorb the beauty of the land around me and my place in the world. Somehow, being surrounded by tall trees and imposing sandstone arches helps me remember how fragile and small I am- but also how incredibly capable and strong I am. I no longer run away from my feelings. Instead, I carry them with me, processing and feeling and healing amongst the natural earth that I too will one day return to. And through it all- the injuries, the sunburn, the frustration, the joy- my sister is with me, cheering me on.

2019 Scholarship Winner

Our 2019 Scholarship goes to William L. Williams from Fairfax, Virginia

To run is to feel. Or at least that was the reasoning I presented to my mother when she demanded to know why I kept skipping school to roam and wander the dilapidated corners of my hometown. Being that it was the middle of my junior year in high school and my family was already 4 months into homelessness, I found myself desperate to objectify the muddled feelings I had brewing and bubbling deep within me. Spending 4 months in a roach infested, trifling, and insufferable motel with bold pedophiles, domestic violence, blatant child abuse/neglect, and thieves was enough to make any sane individual want to scream or run as far away as possible no matter the consequences. However, there were strict policies in the motel against any “rambunctious or suspicious” behavior. This meant that you weren’t allowed to be loud with excitement or spend your time laughing into the night with your many brothers and sisters or yell out in pain from an injury. If you expressed yourself in any way someone would come pounding on your door with a solemn PROMISE they would have you kicked out by the morning. As if the pressures of being in the International Baccalaureate program weren’t enough, every day I was tormented by the fact that my family was one noise complaint away from quite literally living on the streets – no matter if we had been coughing up the $200 it took to stay in our cramped one room space (who knew how expensive it was to be homeless!).

Even though we slept with three people in each bed, my mom always told me, “be grateful we have somewhere warm to sleep this winter,”. Yet, I didn’t feel very grateful. I wanted to be free from the constant shushing and the clamoring quarter operated washing machines and being too scared to go to the bathroom barefoot, thus risking being greeted by your friendly neighborhood cockroach. I wanted to run away. So that’s exactly what I did. When my mom dropped me off for school one morning and I began the long journey towards my secondary personal prison, I felt myself being swallowed by all of the anxieties that the motel constantly caused me. I felt heavy and miserable. I let those dark thoughts corrupt the possibilities of better days and when I looked up, I realized that I was nowhere near my school. It was 12 pm and I had walked almost two miles just from allowing myself to mull in my own thoughts. Though it was deafeningly loud outside from the hustles and bustles of my city, it felt good to have a space to just think and reflect in peace. On my walk back home, I felt like I finally had a way I could remove the barriers that homelessness had placed around my true being. Within just a few hours, I found more peace than school could ever provide. This became a routine for me – an outlet for the constant depression and despair I had gotten used to feeling. This was until I was slammed with the worst news a person that had just tasted free will could hear. If I missed another day of school I would be failed automatically. That meant no more playing hooky for my morning jogs. I was shattered. My teachers noticed. My parents noticed. I had lost all motivation and my grades paid the price.

That was until my Spanish teacher slapped a registration form for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5k on my desk one tiring Tuesday morning. She was a 2-time breast cancer survivor and fighting her 3rd battle. “I want all of my little chickees to be there cheering me on. That includes you William. No excuses!” I’m not sure how she knew how much I needed that push, but to this day I thank God for instilling her with such faith and love in me. My teacher wrote a countdown on the board every day as we were all gearing up for the big day. Seeing her come to class Monday through Friday with a giant smile on her face despite how weak her chemo treatments made her was the motivation I needed to get back to what I loved – running.

I knew that it would be a challenge to break the crippling habits of sloth and dread I had taken on; but when I felt like my body was too sore to train anymore, I would just think about how strong my teacher had to be everyday to give her students the best pieces of her no matter how much she was hurting. When I felt like the pressures and stressors that came from living in a hotel were controlling my thoughts again, I’d run. I’d dig deep within myself and borrow the strength of my teacher to push myself to run. Though I didn’t have access to a Planet Fitness like my peers, all I really needed was my shoes and my headphones. That was the least I could do for my own sanity and to give my teacher the support she deserved. I knew that my family certainly couldn’t afford to pay the $30 it took to participate in the race, so I did odd jobs for people in the motel and foraged the laundry room for spare quarters on wash days. I wasn’t going to let a small thing like money be the hurdle that stopped me from achieving my goal.

When the day of the race finally arrived, I walked up to my school beaming with excitement. On the bus ride to the site of the race, everyone was buzzing happily as they painted each other’s faces with pink stripes and pink ribbons. We laughed, we sang, and we talked about how hard we had trained. Everyone glared in awe at how big my calves had gotten over the weeks. It was strange to allow myself to feel joy and genuine support after months of forced silence and discouragement at the motel. I enjoyed warming up my muscles with my peers at the start line. There were women, men, and children of all ages lined up alongside us. No one thought of any limitations that could hold them back from finishing or the troubles that waited for them at home. We all understood that the goal was to keep pushing forward as we raced for the cure together. With a loud BOOM! everyone took off laughing and smiling. Once I took off, I felt like I was running with purpose. For once, I was running toward something instead of running away from everything. When I felt tired or defeated, there was a volunteer dressed head to toe in pink ready to give me a cup of water or a high five. Some of the cheerleaders at the local high schools volunteered to be cheer squads with their bright pink pom poms. I knew I’d be sore and sweaty at the end, but it felt good to run while fueled with determination. I could feel myself sweating away my miseries and fears. I finished the race at about the same time as my teacher and we gave each other scarily tight hugs as we celebrated our victories. I truly felt that moment was a metaphor for the support and motivation that we gave each other as we fought our personal battles every day.

Not long after, my family was fortunate enough to move out of that motel and into a home of our own. Even though my environment no longer oppresses me, I still make sure that I get my daily run in. Now I run for a different reason. I run because I know that I have beautiful opportunities that I must run towards. I no longer run as a way to escape because I know that there are people who support me no matter how big my battles may be. Though I am not a fan of the circumstances, I am so thankful that I was introduced to the joy of running and I will continue to use it as a tool for my healing.

2018 Scholarship Winner

Our 2018 Scholarship goes to Carissa McAfee from Kansas City, Missouri

Running was an activity I did not enjoy. It took a long time, it was hot and sweaty, and I was miserable. My eighth-grade year, to my horror and dismay, my coach placed me in the two miles purely to torture me (actually, she thought I would be good at it, but oh! The horror!). I did a decent job, but I was miserable! I vowed to never run more than four-hundred meters every again.

Meanwhile, I was working with a student I have always been close with, who I will call William. William has severe cerebral palsy to the degree where he is quadriplegic and mute. For the longest time, he could only converse through yes-or-no questions, and never had the chance to express himself. However, his sixth-grade year, he received a computerized device that had an eye-gaze. What did this device do? Well, it allowed him to leaf through a system and ‘select’ words so he could speak. While socializing with William one day, I waited patiently while he typed out a five-word sentence on his device; Carissa, I really missed you. Upon the completion of the sentence, he began sweating profusely and seemed tired. That’s when I learned that the amount of effort it takes for him to type one sentence is equal to the amount of effort it would take me to run one mile.

I was absolutely floored. How could something like talking, something I absolutely took for granted, be so difficult? I truly struggled with this information. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. I had to do something. One day I even tried to not talk at all – to the utter frustration of my teachers. I socialized more and more with William, learning that we could work on his ‘endurance’. One day, in the middle of summer, it hit me. Maybe I could run for William. If it took us the same amount of effort, surely there was something I could do to level with him, to make the universe seem fairer. So, I signed up for cross country. Every time I would talk with William, I would count the number of sentences he had made and would run that distance in miles after practices and on weekends. When I started to win races, I would give the medals to William. But as hard as I worked to level myself with him, I realized there wasn’t a good way to. People don’t tend to realize how lucky they are to be able to achieve something as seemingly simple as breathing and speaking, and I didn’t know how to spread that message.

It wasn’t until I was a junior in high school that I came up with a better idea. My business club decided to host a color-run-fundraiser to raise money for the March of Dimes foundation. I was planning on running the race in William’s name, just as I had always done, but then it hit me; William was affected by cerebral palsy, a condition caused by a premature birth (the focal point of March of Dimes). Why not celebrate the individuals cherished by March of Dimes during the race? I called up every child in the school district affected by cerebral palsy (there were four!) and asked their parents for permission to take them through the fun run. Then, I gathered volunteers willing to help me in the journey. We agreed to help get the kiddos to the starting line, push them through the 5K, earn them a medal, and clean the wheelchairs afterwards. Finally, the day of the race came upon us.

It was a chilly September morning, and William was very nervous. He had never gone very fast in his wheelchair, in fact he had never run before at all. To go faster than one mile an hour would be totally new to him. When the race started, he was very nervous – his whole body was clenched in fear. So, while the other wheelchair racers sped ahead, William and I pulled off and had a heart-to-heart. If he wanted to race, then we would. We would go as fast or slow as he wanted, and we could stop whenever. We could do the race out of order, we could only go through one color, or we could stop right then and there. Together, we decided to keep going. We made it through the first color – green. Smiles were wide on the color-thrower’s faces as they carefully sprinkled green all around William, being careful to avoid his face. I asked William if we were good to go and he nodded – off we went, up a huge hill! My calved burned the entire time, but I knew I had to get this kid up the hill for the both of us. As we went through the race, we went faster and faster, getting doused in every color of the rainbow, and William’s smile grew bigger and bigger. At the last hundred yards, he was finally squealing with excitement – as we passed other runners, and as we went through the very last color. We finally cross the finish line, and William was absolutely elated.

This time, it was different from me running a race and giving him the medal. This time, his courage to pursue something he never experienced before earned him that medal – it was all him. His bravery was stupendous, and I finally realized how much I truly asked of him. I was so proud of him, and absolutely nothing can take that feeling away.

It’s been three years since that race, and I still think it was the most important race I’ve ever run. I know the wheelchair-race has continued at my high school and become a tradition for all the kids affected by paralysis of any kind, and that makes my heart truly smile. I still run for William, only now I determine my mileage by email. William has been working hard on being able to send entire emails while I’m away at college. Sometimes it takes him a few days, but all things considered I don’t mind. I still count up the sentences and use them to determine how much I run every week.

William really taught me how much we take for granted, and I wish more people would learn that same lesson I did. William’s wheelchair tends to scare people away, so socialization is very difficult for him, even with his ever-improving endurance. My career goal is to work with special-needs kids now. I think that if I’m able to teach others about how special these kiddos truly are, and if I can give them more chances to show the world what they can do, maybe people will stop focusing so much on what they can’t do. After all, like Dr. Seuss said, if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid. Nobody deserves to think that they are stupid, or not worth an experience because it’s too difficult to deliver to them. It’s time the rest of the world learned that too.

2017 Scholarship Winner

Our 2017 Scholarship goes to Erin Stenzel from Washington, DC

“If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.” Those are the words that continue to inspire and motivate me as I complete my lofty goal of running a half marathon in every state and Washington, DC. Over the past five years, I have run 15 half marathons, as well as numerous 5Ks and 10Ks. From the Golden State of California, to the peachy-keen state of Georgia, I have seen some truly amazing places. With 36 half marathons left, and an average of 3 half marathons per year, I am well on track to finishing my goal by 2029.

When people ask why I chose this ambitious endeavor, I often give lackluster responses, such as “It’s a great way to see the United States!” or “I love running half marathons!” While those statements may be true, I use them as a defense mechanism to avoid the harsh criticism and judgement that I am afraid I would face if I were to share the real reasons. The truth is, I embarked on this journey to pull myself out of a deep-rooted depression that I found myself in after spending a restless night on a cold hard jail cell floor. After hitting rock-bottom that night, I had a choice – either continue down a path of self-destruction or forge a new path of reflection and self-discovery. I ultimately chose the latter and developed a passion for running along the way. As I continue my journey running across the United States, I want to use my story to show that your mistakes do not define you as a person.

So how did a former straight-A student, goody two-shoes end up in jail? The short run-of-the-mill story is a DUI. However, my situation was far worse than having one drink too many and teetering on the edge of the legal limit. I was highly intoxicated and crashed into a construction zone while merging onto the highway. I blacked out right before the crash, and did not even grasp the gravity of the situation until a construction worker was banging on my window asking if I was ok. Although I totaled my car, I walked away without a single scratch on me and was fortunate enough to not have injured anyone else. Police eventually arrived at the scene, and gave me a series of sobriety tests that I was destined to fail. I was hauled off to jail in handcuffs, and my life was changed forever as I knew it.

I spent the night in jail internalizing what had led me to rock bottom. The most obvious, was drinking and driving. But why did I drink so much that night? Why did I choose to drive? And why was I so careless with my life? The answer to those questions was depression. The debilitating effects of depression and mental illness permeate my family, and unfortunately, I was not spared those genetic traits. In the months leading up to the crash in the summer of 2010, I was going through an extremely difficult time, mourning the loss of a friend. At that time in my life, I had not come to terms or understood the symptoms of my recurring depression and turned to alcohol to cope and self-medicate. The more I drank, the further I fell deeper into my depression, until I eventually hit rock bottom with the DUI.

The consequences of a DUI were extremely costly. I depleted my savings, lost my driver’s license for a year, and had to attend a series of AA meetings and alcohol education classes. In addition, I lost my freedom, independence, and the self-reliance that I prided myself on. While receiving the DUI would end up being a blessing in disguise, I spent the first few months of my probation hating myself. I moved in with my dad to save money, and had to rely on family and friends to be my chauffer.

I started to see light at the end of the tunnel with the help of my mother. Two days a week, she selflessly drove 30 minutes to pick me up and take me to the gym. She let me spend hours there, as I worked out my stress and anxiety exploring different weight and cardio machines. In the beginning of our gym excursions, I despised running and avoided the treadmill at all costs. However, after a particularly hard day at work, I decided to challenge myself and was surprised that I could run a mile without stopping. From that day on, I kept pushing myself to run faster and farther. As my mileage and speed increased, so did my confidence. Six months into my probation, I decided it was time to move out.

My roommate and I found an apartment close to a metro station outside of Washington, DC so that I could regain my independence. One day when walking to the metro station, I discovered a running trail called 4 Mile Run. At the time, I had only run on a treadmill but decided it would be a good way to explore my new neighborhood. The next day after work, I put on my running shoes and ventured out for what I thought was an out-and-back four-mile run. Unfortunately, I was sorely mistaken and found myself on an 8-mile run, where I was racing against nightfall in the woods. I joked with my friends that it was a 6-mile run and 2-mile walk of shame. Although I was being modest, I knew I had accomplished something to be proud of.

From that day forward, I was on the road to recovery. Running became my outlet for managing my depression and feeling good about myself again. Growing up, I dreaded running the mile in P.E., and here I was running several miles a day. While I still felt the stigma of having a DUI, each month I was getting better as I got closer to getting my driver’s license back. By the time the big day came, I had successfully turned my life around, living on my own and pursuing a new career path in graphic design.

After spending a year focused on putting the DUI behind me, I needed something else to focus my efforts on – and that became running a half marathon. After some research, I decided to run the Marine Corps Historic Half Marathon, which was held in Fredericksburg, Virginia in May 2012. Growing up near Fredericksburg, I often visited scenic areas of the course and was looking forward to participating in an event associated with “The People’s Marathon.” I spent the winter of 2012 researching different training plans and tips for novice runners. I eventually stumbled across Hal Higdon’s Novice 1 Training Plan and thought it was a perfect match for newbie runners like myself.

During the 12 weeks of training, I was committed to not missing a day. This was especially challenging while training during the tail end of winter. Finding the time to run five days a week was also a struggle. There were many early morning and late-night runs that left me feeling tired, exhausted, and cranky. When I was training, I also had to focus on fueling my body for long runs. I learned a few lessons the hard way, including my body cannot handle Mexican food or a large bag of kale before a long run. But I will keep the details of those disturbing incidents to myself. Although I was not the fastest runner, by the end of my training program, I was ready for the big day.

The night before my race, I was very anxious wondering what the hell I got myself into. I carefully laid out my new neon yellow running gear and bib to ease my nerves and settled in for a restless night sleep. I had come a long way since my last extremely restless night, which was spent on the cold hard floor of a prison cell. I knew that no matter what, the next morning would be better than waking up in a lonely jail cell having to face the disappointed look on my parents’ faces.

On race day, I woke up at 5:00 am, while most of my family and support crew slept. My mom once again was my selfless chauffer and drove me downtown to the starting line. I anxiously waited for the race start, and was energized by all the adrenaline and nervous energy in the air. I had only one goal that day, to finish the race. Once my coral started, much of the race was a blur. The first eight miles, I remember feeling nostalgic as I passed by the streets and shops I visited while growing up. I also recall a group of spectators handing out tequila shots, and holding back vomit at the shear thought of drinking alcohol. I started struggling at mile nine, when I reached the infamous “Hospital Hill.” I debated taking a detour and checking myself into the hospital, but was motivated to continue by all the service men and women cheering us on. Although I spent the remaining 4 miles alternating between walking and running, I did not beat myself up – all I wanted to do was finish the race. The last half mile, I spotted my dad at a street corner eagerly waiting for me. This would be my favorite part of the race. My dad spent the remaining portion of the race running along beside me through the crowds, cheering and encouraging me to finish the race. Once I crossed the finish line, I was overcome with emotion and shed a few tears. The grueling 12 weeks of training had paid off, I had successfully run my first half marathon.

In the weeks that followed, I became eager to run another half marathon. My aunt, who ran a full marathon in every state, introduced me to the 50 States Half Marathon Club. After reading some inspiring stories, I decided to make it a personal goal to run a half marathon in every state as well as DC. Five years later, I have 15 races under my belt with two more scheduled in the coming months. I have come a long way in the past five years, from starting my own freelance business to pursuing a Master’s degree. After each race I complete, I push the shame of the DUI further behind me and become more comfortable in my own skin. I can confidently say that running saved my life and helped me see that my mistakes do not define me as a person. Although I made a terrible mistake the night, my DUI does not define me.

Race Entry 2017 Scholarship Winner Erin Stenzel at Finish Line

2016 Scholarship Winner

Our 2016 Scholarship goes to William Whalen from Manhattan, Kansas

The outdoors has always played a large role in my life, whether in Webelos Scouts, on my own, or with the US Navy for ten years. Thus far, I have used my military training to educate myself, make myself healthy, and make myself strong. However, there is an outdoor experience of mine that did involve being in good shape, overcome hardship, and adapt to obstacles. I also did not get any award for this experience as I did in the military, yet it has had a more profound impact on who I am than any other single event in my life. It’s the 2nd Annual Wildcat Warrior 5k in the nice little town of Manhattan Kansas from Kansas State University which includes a tour past the war memorials all the way through campus.

The campus is a beautiful, historic place where I walk through and still visit on a weekly bases. I started my training weeks before while I was working full time at my present job. Three weeks before I educated myself with running techniques and ate healthy. It took me just over three months to complete my training. In those three months I learned more about myself than in the previous years or in the five years since. I trained on my own and got advice from the Manhattan Running Company on running techniques and healthy food to eat before the big day. There is nothing which can compare. I knew the route before the actual day of the race, I wanted to be prepared. I needed to work hard but smart, luckily I was given a raise at work during my training.

I financed the training with extra money that I saved during about six months of my decision to run in the 5k. My last six months before the actual day, working 40 hours per week on top of my full-time training schedule, I was determined to reach my goal. Run the 5k for the first time in Manhattan, Kansas, a town I live in and love. This was the first real goal that I ever made for myself, and reached it alone on a warm April morning. Before that April morning, I read books on running and the techniques of running they all helped me tremendously.

The lessons from the training are ones that have affected me in everything I have done since. Because of those three months, I see training and scheduling differently, in a way they are sometimes impossible to explain to someone else, though I will try. Planning an event with help of a group of people is one thing but scheduling my own training time was just as detailed in my opinion. I succeeded and trusted my training when race day finally came. Working, training, reading, eating, thinking, and stretching on a daily bases were all very difficult.

My training was very challenging when I had to work all day, but I found a need to put myself through the difficulties of training life. Just like any professional athlete the proper training can make you a success or break you. From this time, I gained an appreciation for the little things, like energy water to drink, a balanced diet full of carbohydrates and plenty of rest (all of which were sometimes lacking). I met people from all around town and some from nearby towns like Junction City, Wamego, and Fort Riley, as I crossed paths with those whose backgrounds did not resemble mine, a skill I have used often in the military. I have found talking to people, like minded strangers, really improves on who you are and all those you meet.

While I was running all of the training came together in one instant. My breathing was in step with my strides, and my energy was focused on my goal, just to finish. I realize I am not a marathon runner but my will to overcome my agony will give me the will to fight for my next goal, whatever that may be. I was breathing clean country air and using that to gain energy with every stride I made. Everyone around me seemed to be a serious runner but this was my first 5k so I was running against myself not everyone else. I thought to myself many times through the entire run, “Just keep going one more stride the goal is yours just finish, I can’t fail if I attempt to finish, I see the finish line I am almost there”, I thought to myself.

Now I have improved on every aspect of my life. I no longer have to worry about health and well-being now I worry about my next 5k. I have traded my flight deck boots for running shoes and haven’t looked back. My military training has improved my responsibility my running has improved my overall outlook of life and health. Yet, somehow, everything I did before the 5k run applies to what I have done since. Whether it’s working at my job, meeting new interesting people, or sitting down with a good book, the lessons are not all that different. I learned how to better schedule my time, my health, and my own everyday life.

Though my two tours in the Navy, I wandered back into the real world and again onto the training path that will lead me to my next adventure. I know that if I can prepare better my need to train for my next 5k or even a 10k, will be a little easier. If I train one person to run better because of my experience, then I have accomplished an adequate goal, I have my previous experience to draw from. Because I have been there, I have a common bond with other runners and training for something that changed me forever. Throughout the world and the special bond to all of my Navy shipmates, that bond is over but never forgotten. I am still amazed at how my former life as an employee with no education turned into a world traveler has better prepared me for life as a disciplined runner.

2015 Scholarship Winner

Our 2015 Scholarship goes to Jonathan Blue from Columbus, Ohio

“Fight! No matter what happens in the next 24 hours I want you to fight and never give up. You hear me?” Those were the words whispered to me on November 4, 2013, and they have forever shaped the last year of my life. You see, that was the day I was rolled back into an operating room for a gastric bypass surgery. Everyone was scared of what would happen once I came out of surgery. The doctor was preparing everyone for the possibility I would wind up in the ICU for a couple days or longer. It was a surgery that, not only saved my life, but gave me a new body and a new lease on life. I never went to the ICU. Though I had no major complications from the surgery and my recovery was a breeze, that comment about fighting has stuck with me this last year. It has become my motivation and my credo. No matter what happens, each and every day I need to fight. I need to fight to get my body back.

One year ago, my life was miserable. I weight over 512lbs and everything hurt. I can remember not being able to fit into chairs and the constant worry that one would break as soon as I sat down. I can remember working my night shift Pharmacy job and practically crying and crawling through the front door of my home eight hours later after only having worked one night. I can remember being miserable and depressed. Something needed to change. I was finally sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Then something truly amazing happened to me. My mom sat me down one day and said she was so concerned for my health and safety that if I chose to have weight loss surgery she would pay for whatever my insurance didn’t cover. That shocked me for some reason. My mother was willing to pay thousands of dollars just to get her son back. It floored me. In another instance I had one of my best friends sit me down and tell me how concerned he was for me. He explained how, when I was in high school and we had first met, I was full of life. I could make anyone believe I could do whatever I set my mind to, no matter how crazy. “You were magnetic. People were attracted to you because they just wanted to be around your energy,” He said. He spoke with me candidly saying that he had slowly watched his best friend die a little inside each time my weight increased until he honestly didn’t even recognize me as the same person he become friends with 17 years earlier. At this point, I hadn’t fully realized I was a shell of the person I once was. I was capable of so much more and I had let it all slip away.

Those conversations started me on the leg of my journey that would lead me to surgery. I went through months of researching the pros and cons. I researched the procedures and agonized over which one would be right for me. I researched the doctors and who would take my insurance. Who was the best? But mostly I researched the process beginning to end, front and back. I wanted to know everything.

The biggest thing I was concerned about, and probably spent even more time studying than anything, was the diet and exercise requirements post-surgery. I knew my life would be changing, but I had no clue even then just how drastic. The typical weight loss surgery patient will be on less than 600 to 800 calories a day to start and over time work it up to about 1200. You need to realize that after surgery my stomach was the size of a shot glass. It was tiny. With so few calories going in, I was also required to do some physical exercise for an hour every day. This poses a very special problem in that I can only take in so many calories in a day due to the size of my stomach and a most all of those calories plus some are being burned through exercise. I needed a way to track every bit of food and exercise I was doing every day, if I wasn’t careful with that fine balance of calories in verses calories out, I would get light headed, dizzy, and feel really sick because I had pushed too far without proper nutrition. On the reverse side of things, I needed to keep my calorie deficit as high as possible so I would be able to lose the weight rapidly. This has been my dance every day for the last year.

The other great key to my journey was goal setting. During the weeks leading up to surgery, especially the two weeks prior where I was only allowed liquid, I immersed myself in what could be. I began to think of goals from the mundane to the insane. A mundane goals for me was simply being able to walk down a flight of stairs like a normal person instead of one at a time while holding tight to the rail for fear of falling or hurting myself due to the pressure on my joints. Insane for me was the simple one. I wanted to be an Ironman. I wanted to be one of those guys I saw on TV crossing the finish line and doing what very few people could because I had mastered my body. I decided on pursuing all the things I never thought I could, but wanted to try as a way to show myself what I was truly capable of. I spent hours upon hours watching every Ironman race that I could get my hands on. I watched recordings of the Boston Marathon and cycling events. When I wasn’t watching people achieving the dreams I wanted to pursue and reveling in the emotions of their victories, I was researching equipment and training techniques. As I lay at home recovering from my surgery this was my routine as well, but here I began peppering in planning. I had my mundane goal which I reached about two months out from surgery and when I did, I sat at the bottom of the stairwell and cried. Going down a flight of stairs may not be much to some, but to me it was everything. I also had my insane goal. Now the key was to plan all the baby steps in between.

Since I started this amazing journey, I have lost almost 210 lbs. In the last year and a half I have gone from couch potato to athlete. I have walked a 5K and a 10K, got my first road bike and my longest race to date has been 38 miles, and I have done a ¾ mile swim in the Ohio River and placed 6th in my age group. I have run my first 5K and 10K ever and even participated in the half marathon at the Flying Pig in 2015. I have said many times now looking back, I feel as though I was in a bad dream and am just now waking up. I want to run my first full marathon at the Walt Disney World Marathon in 2016, to finish my first Olympic triathlon later this year, to finish my first half Ironman race in 2016, and my first full Ironman race in 2017. I also want to document a trip bikepacking the Colorado Trail in Denver. It is a 585 mile single-track mountain bike trail that I want to ride before the end of 2017.

The reason I want to do these things is to prove to myself that my body is amazing and is capable of so much more than I ever thought possible. Every time I finish a race and feel as though I have pushed my body to its limit, I realize that I am not dead. I am still alive and could probably push a little more next time. I spent so much time neglecting it that I now want to see what it is truly capable of. I also want to do this to prove that anyone out there can take back their lives, it just takes a choice. I am no one special. I am just some regular guy that made the choice to get healthy and if I can do it, then anyone can. I want to motivate others to greatness. The running has been an amazing tool that has helped me on my journey and I know it can help you no matter where you find yourself.

2014 Scholarship Winner

Our 2014 Scholarship goes to Tiffany Chu from Warren, New Jersey

Movement is naturally essential to life, especially in health. My family likes to explore movement by playing sports and participating in charity walks together. I have been running and walking in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, De-FEET Breast Cancer 5K Run/Walk, JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes, and the American Diabetes Association’s STEP OUT Walk to Stop Diabetes since before I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and Graves’ Disease at the age of 13. Movement is not just important to life in general, but it is also important to my life and well-being, and I intend to share that with the world through my art.

Growing up, I was a very active child who played different sports like basketball and badminton with my family in the driveway every night. When we traveled, I sand-surfed down the sand dunes of the great Sahara Desert, and chased after small fish in Zanzibar. I was absolutely in love with movement! Unfortunately, my sports hobbies came to an abrupt halt at the age of 13 in 2007 when I discovered that I had Type 1 Diabetes and Graves’ Disease. My world came tumbling down. From monthly blood tests to daily finger pricks, I did not understand why I suddenly had so many medical responsibilities that nobody else I knew had, and I felt burdened that my single mother had to take care of me by herself, while still supporting two other children with medical disabilities. I blamed myself for all of these ailments, and I trapped myself in a bubble of confusion and immobility until I entered high school. In high school, movement was encouraged because it felt good to be part of a high school sports team. I joined my school’s volleyball, bowling, fencing, and ultimate Frisbee teams, and I fell back in love with movement again! I even joined a dance team and got the amazing opportunity to perform on the USS Intrepid in New York City!

The following year, I traveled to Nairobi and Malindi in Kenya to work with Touch Africa International to help the children benefit from their education and medical resources. At the Lea Mwana Orphanage where I helped out, the children showed me that it is important for everyone to come together and help one another because although everyone feels lonely, no one is alone. That really struck me because when I was first diagnosed, I felt like I was the only one who had Diabetes and thyroid problems. Turns out that as I started maturing and realizing that I could not blame these things on myself because I had no control over them, there was a huge number of people my age who were also suffering from similar medical problems. We would bond through online forums and help each other out whenever any of us had a problem because we all felt like we had experienced similar situations. Only this time, there were others behind you who had gone through and felt what you were feeling, to support you through those tough times. I do not think it was a mere coincidence that while I was working at Lea Mwana, I found out that a few of the organization directors were also suffering from diabetes, and did not hesitate to share their stories with me. The children at the orphanage also showed me that even when you do not have much, it is essential to appreciate what you have and always be happy living in the present moment. It was truly the most rewarding and life-changing experience I had ever had!

By the time I entered college, I was swamped with work and found little time to relish in movement. Although exercise is important to my health, the most I could do during the school year was bustle back and forth between my dorm and the campus building. I was always sitting in front of the computer and could only find time to exercise my mind and fingers on the keyboard. My love for movement is the reason why I chose to study motion media design. I transferred the movement that my body constantly yearned for, into my animations and motion designs. In the future, I hope to make interactive motion graphic animations for the people who have had their livelihood robbed from them, especially the children who have lost their families. I hope the joy that these energetic animations have brought back into my life, will reignite in their hearts and inspire them as much as my experiences have led me to be the type of person I am today.

I run and walk in charity marathons not just because it is good for my well-being, but also because I have never wanted anything more than to stop suffering for all people. The pain that I felt when I was first diagnosed was unimaginable, and I do not wish for anyone to have to go through that. The history of my diseases has been trailing along my family line from my grandparents to my great-grandparents, and I cannot imagine what they had to go through back then. The fact that they were diagnosed at a much later age than my early adolescence only worries me more! The charity runs that my family and I participate in help to raise funds towards research for a cure, but it also benefits those who just show up and walk along with the groups who do it for the cause. The cause does not just target a specific audience, but it supports the well-being of everyone because these diseases have the potential of hitting just about everyone. These walks/runs encourage families to come out and defeat and prevent disease together as one, and there is nothing more important than working through a difficult time with people by your side.

Through my experiences, running and enjoying movement has not just been a hobby, but it has become a lifelong necessity that I enjoy with the people around me. It has shown not only through my health, but through my potential career path of working in the amazing motion graphics industry. I am so happy that movement has grown into such a big part of my life!

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Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of the so-called 'God particle,' has died

The Associated Press

The University of Edinburgh says Nobel prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of the Higgs boson particle, has died at 94. Sean Dempsey/AP hide caption

The University of Edinburgh says Nobel prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of the Higgs boson particle, has died at 94.

LONDON — Nobel prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of the so-called "God particle" that helped explain how matter formed after the Big Bang, has died at age 94, the University of Edinburgh said Tuesday.

The university, where Higgs was emeritus professor, said he died Monday "peacefully at home following a short illness."

Higgs predicted the existence of a new particle — the so-called Higgs boson — in 1964. But it would be almost 50 years before the particle's existence could be confirmed at the Large Hadron Collider.

Higgs' theory related to how subatomic particles that are the building blocks of matter get their mass. This theoretical understanding is a central part of the so-called Standard Model, which describes the physics of how the world is constructed.

The Large Hadron Collider will embark on a third run to uncover more cosmic secrets

Edinburgh University said his groundbreaking 1964 paper demonstrated how "elemental particles achieved mass through the existence of a new sub-atomic particle″ which became known as the Higgs boson.

In 2012, in one of the biggest breakthroughs in physics in decades, scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, announced that they had finally found a Higgs boson using the $10 billion particle collider built in a 17-mile (27-kilometer) tunnel under the Swiss-French border.

Higgs won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work, alongside Francois Englert of Belgium, who independently came up with the same theory.

Edinburgh University Vice Chancellor Peter Mathieson said Higgs, who was born in Newcastle, was "a remarkable individual – a truly gifted scientist whose vision and imagination have enriched our knowledge of the world that surrounds us."

13.7: Cosmos And Culture

At cern, hunting for invisible worlds.

"His pioneering work has motivated thousands of scientists, and his legacy will continue to inspire many more for generations to come."

Higgs' work helps solve one of the most fundamental riddles of the universe: how the Big Bang created something out of nothing 13.7 billion years ago.

Finding corroboration wasn't easy. It took more than two decades, thousands of scientists and mountains of data from trillions of colliding protons.

And it needed the world's biggest atom smasher CERN's Large Hadron Collider to produce the extreme surge of energies simulating those 1 trillionth to 2 trillionths of a second after the Big Bang.

The Two-Way

Weasel apparently shuts down world's most powerful particle collider.

One highlight of Higgs' illustrious career came during the 2013 presentation at CERN in Geneva where scientists presented in complex terms — unfathomable to most laypeople and based on statistical analysis — that the boson has been confirmed. He broke into tears, wiping down his glasses in the stands of the lecture hall.

Born in Newcastle, northeast England on May 29, 1929, Higgs studied at King's College, University of London, and was awarded a PhD in 1954. He spent much of his career at Edinburgh, becoming the Personal Chair of Theoretical Physics at the Scottish university in 1980. He retired in 1996.

Higgs received honorary degrees from more than a dozen universities, including Edinburgh (1998), Swansea (2008) Cambridge (2012), St Andrews and Manchester (2013).

In 2013 he was appointed a Companion of Honor by Queen Elizabeth II.

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Guest Essay

J.D. Vance: The Math on Ukraine Doesn’t Add Up

A photograph of a large stack of tube-shaped artillery shells, stretching out of the frame in every direction.

By J. D. Vance

Mr. Vance, a Republican, is the junior senator from Ohio.

President Biden wants the world to believe that the biggest obstacle facing Ukraine is Republicans and our lack of commitment to the global community. This is wrong.

Ukraine’s challenge is not the G.O.P.; it’s math. Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies. And it needs more matériel than the United States can provide. This reality must inform any future Ukraine policy, from further congressional aid to the diplomatic course set by the president.

The Biden administration has applied increasing pressure on Republicans to pass a supplemental aid package of more than $60 billion to Ukraine. I voted against this package in the Senate and remain opposed to virtually any proposal for the United States to continue funding this war. Mr. Biden has failed to articulate even basic facts about what Ukraine needs and how this aid will change the reality on the ground.

The most fundamental question: How much does Ukraine need and how much can we actually provide? Mr. Biden suggests that a $60 billion supplemental means the difference between victory and defeat in a major war between Russia and Ukraine. That is also wrong. This $60 billion is a fraction of what it would take to turn the tide in Ukraine’s favor. But this is not just a matter of dollars. Fundamentally, we lack the capacity to manufacture the amount of weapons Ukraine needs us to supply to win the war.

Consider our ability to produce 155-millimeter artillery shells. Last year, Ukraine’s defense minister estimated that the country’s base-line requirement for these shells was over four million per year but that it could fire up to seven million if that many were available. Since the start of the conflict, the United States has gone to great lengths to ramp up production of 155-millimeter shells. We’ve roughly doubled our capacity and can now produce 360,000 per year — less than a tenth of what Ukraine says it needs. The administration’s goal is to get this to 1.2 million — 30 percent of what’s needed — by the end of 2025. This would cost the American taxpayers dearly while yielding an unpleasantly familiar result: failure abroad.

Just this week, the top American military commander in Europe argued that absent further security assistance, Russia could soon have a 10-to-1 artillery advantage over Ukraine. What didn’t gather as many headlines is that Russia’s current advantage is at least 5 to 1, even after all the money we have poured into the conflict. Neither of these ratios plausibly leads to Ukrainian victory.

Proponents of American aid to Ukraine have argued that our approach has been a boon to our own economy, creating jobs here in the factories that manufacture weapons. But our national security interests can be — and often are — separate from our economic interests. The notion that we should prolong a bloody and gruesome war because it’s been good for American business is grotesque. We can and should rebuild our industrial base without shipping its products to a foreign conflict.

The story is the same when we look at other munitions. Take the Patriot missile system — our premier air defense weapon. It’s of such importance in this war that Ukraine’s foreign minister has specifically demanded them. That’s because in March alone, Russia reportedly launched over 3,000 guided aerial bombs, 600 drones and 400 missiles at Ukraine. To fend off these attacks, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and others have indicated they need thousands of Patriot interceptors per year. The problem is this: The United States only manufactures 550 per year. If we pass the supplemental aid package currently being considered in Congress, we could potentially increase annual production to 650, but that’s still less than a third of what Ukraine requires.

These weapons are not only needed by Ukraine. If China were to set its sights on Taiwan, the Patriot missile system would be critical to its defense. In fact, the United States has promised to send Taiwan nearly $900 million worth of Patriot missiles, but delivery of those weapons and other essential resources has been severely delayed, partly because of shortages caused by the war in Ukraine.

If that sounds bad, Ukraine’s manpower situation is even worse. Here are the basics: Russia has nearly four times the population of Ukraine. Ukraine needs upward of half a million new recruits, but hundreds of thousands of fighting-age men have already fled the country. The average Ukrainian soldier is roughly 43 years old , and many soldiers have already served two years at the front with few, if any, opportunities to stop fighting. After two years of conflict, there are some villages with almost no men left. The Ukrainian military has resorted to coercing men into service, and women have staged protests to demand the return of their husbands and fathers after long years of service at the front. This newspaper reported one instance in which the Ukrainian military attempted to conscript a man with a diagnosed mental disability.

Many in Washington seem to think that hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainians have gone to war with a song in their heart and are happy to label any thought to the contrary Russian propaganda. But major newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic are reporting that the situation on the ground in Ukraine is grim.

These basic mathematical realities were true, but contestable, at the outset of the war. They were obvious and incontestable a year ago, when American leadership worked closely with Mr. Zelensky to undertake a disastrous counteroffensive. The bad news is that accepting brute reality would have been most useful last spring, before the Ukrainians launched that extremely costly and unsuccessful military campaign. The good news is that even now, a defensive strategy can work. Digging in with old-fashioned ditches, cement and land mines are what enabled Russia to weather Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive. Our allies in Europe could better support such a strategy, as well. While some European countries have provided considerable resources, the burden of military support has thus far fallen heaviest on the United States.

By committing to a defensive strategy, Ukraine can preserve its precious military manpower, stop the bleeding and provide time for negotiations to commence. But this would require both the American and Ukrainian leadership to accept that Mr. Zelensky’s stated goal for the war — a return to 1991 boundaries — is fantastical.

The White House has said time and again that it can’t negotiate with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. This is absurd. The Biden administration has no viable plan for the Ukrainians to win this war. The sooner Americans confront this truth, the sooner we can fix this mess and broker for peace.

J.D. Vance ( @JDVance1 ), a Republican, is the junior senator from Ohio.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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