It was a gloomy March morning when I closed my eyes and signed up for my seventh marathon alone, this one in Montreal.

Like many others, I started running in 2020, when the pandemic shut down my gym and I needed a safe outlet for my restless energy. I’d never considered myself a runner, and it certainly did not come naturally to me. Back in middle school, when I joined the track team purely for social reasons, I couldn’t even finish a 400-meter race.

Since signing up for the New York City Marathon in 2021, I’ve trained in groups of all sizes, doing intimate runs with two or three friends and large, corporate-led programs with hundreds of other marathon hopefuls. But this summer, I decided to train solo for the first time.

My decision to train solo came down to a few things. After years

See Full Page