“In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be.”

— Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Not in a bad way. In the way of a season that was calling louder than my Garmin watch.

Last fall, I was deep in the Sober Sis community, in its connections and messages. The posts, Zoom calls, and video messages, the reflections, and the strange intimacy of women sending each other something real across a screen, all rooted in sober-minded living. I let the training schedule slip. Long runs gave way to long conversations. The 5 am alarms got quieter. The work of that community was doing something that the miles couldn’t, and I knew it, and I let it. Then, somehow, I laced up in November anyway and ran my eighth NYC Marathon, more meaningful than I could have predicted. The finish line last year was carrying a lot. One year of sober-minded living. My birthday. Twenty-six miles of proof that whatever the previous season was, it had gotten me there anyway.

I have been thinking about that ever since.

There is something the body knows before the brain registers it. Not motivation. Not resolve. Something else: a readiness that arrives without announcement and says the next season is here. My legs have been saying it for two weeks.

So, I signed up for NYRR group training. Tuesday mornings, 6:30 am, which in New York City in July and August means heat that arrives before you do and humidity that reminds you immediately why you chose this. There is something about showing up to a group session in conditions that no reasonable person would design that resets the whole relationship with the word accountability. These are not ideal miles; they are honest ones.

Late June in New York City is not a great time to remember you have a marathon in five months. The heat index rises at 7am. The park is thick by 8. There is no runner’s dream climate waiting out there. What there is: a Runna plan loaded on my phone, a Tuesday morning with my name on it, a date circled in November, and the low, persistent hum of the ninth marathon starting to make itself known.

Nine NYC Marathons. I want to sit with that number for a moment because I didn’t always believe I would make it to eight. Not from injury. Not from life getting in the way. From the quieter fear that the season would change and not change back. That my restlessness would stop arriving. That I would become someone for whom this was past tense.

It is not past tense.

November 1, 2026. That date is carrying more than a marathon this time. I am not ready to say everything it’s carrying yet. But the training has started, the Tuesday alarm is set, and the legs know why, even when the calendar looks daunting. That is enough for right now.

This is a field note from the beginning of something. The community work hasn’t gone anywhere. Neither has the Sober Sis connection. But the long run is back on the Saturday schedule, and 6:30 am on Tuesday is about to become a recurring character in this story, and I did not resist this morning, which is the start of my new season. I am in it.

Soundtrack: Tom Petty, Runnin’ Down a Dream, Full Moon Fever, 1989.

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This essay originally appeared in Camera Dark Notes on June 27, 2026. Read the original on Substack →