42.2 km. That’s a lot. The length of a marathon to be exact.  

For whatever reason, a marathon has always held such high prestige in my brain. The people who can run a marathon are superhumans. And therefore, it’s always been an overall bucket list item of mine to run a whole marathon. 

But, let’s not get too ambitious yet. You have to walk before you run so they say. Or in this case, run 21.1 km before you run the whole 42.2 km.  

I knew I wanted to run the Banff Marathon, or well half of it at least. I had seen it about a year ago and had the costs not been so high to spontaneously trek out to Banff for a weekend, I would have run the 10k. Nevertheless, with ‘Run a half marathon’ on my 27 x 28 list, I knew this year was the year. There’s just something about running the mountains that made the attempt even more bearable.

I roped my most amazing sister into running with me and, unfortunately for both of us, we suck at preparing and tend to leave things until the last minute. My saving grace was the fact I’ve been playing soccer twice a week for the last year. 

Our goal was not to finish in a specific time, but rather, just to finish! With this in mind, we embarked on the challenge, taking photos every 5 kilometres, trying to take in the views, and play the mental game of running a really long distance with very little training. 

In the end, we finished in just over three hours and my sister still likes me! We even had enough energy left in us for a friendly competitive sprint at the end.

There’s something to be said about a sister who will literally follow you to the end of the earth all because your ambition sets crazy goals.

At the end of the weekend, not only had I checked another thing off the list, I realized my sister is by far my biggest cheerleader and I had a newfound appreciation for the lengths she goes to to support me.  

Thanks J! I love you more than words could ever say.  

Have you ever run a marathon? What are some tips and tricks you would pass along? If you haven’t, do you want to?