My first marathon was Spacecoast 2024. I finished in 4:20.

The training block was a mess. We took a trip to Japan and Thailand right in the middle of it — personal trip, the kind you remember for reasons that have nothing to do with running — and when I came back I had calf injuries on and off. So I went in undertrained. My friend Jason was running it and a coworker too, so I lined up anyway and figured I'd see what I had.

On the course at Spacecoast 2024 with Jason. Clock behind us reads 4:15.

Around mile 18 I cramped really bad and had to stop. I was walking on the side of the road trying to shake it out when some random guy a little ahead of me started going down. Dehydrated. I caught him before he hit the pavement. Sat with him until someone with a radio came over. Then I started walking again, because that was the only option left.

I crossed the line at 4:20. The clock above me said 4:27. I took a photo with Jason flashing peace signs at the camera. I was happy. It was my first marathon and I had finished it. I didn't know yet that it was supposed to bother me.

Post-race with medals — Jason on the right, a fellow runner in the middle.

Roman was born after that.

I'm not gonna pretend fatherhood gave me some big revelation about discipline. It didn't. What it did was take away every excuse I used to lean on. I couldn't run at lunch anymore. I couldn't run after work. The only window left was the one before he was up, and if I missed it, that was the day. So I started waking up earlier. Not every day — I'm not gonna lie about that part — but most days. The alarm goes off and I get up because if I don't, I don't run.

The honest version of it is this: I should've worked harder sooner. Roman didn't teach me how to train. He just made it expensive to skip.

Spacecoast 2025 was the same course. Same heat. Same finish-line arch in Cocoa Village.

The last mile was rough. It got hot, my quads were cramped, and I really just wanted to stop. I didn't have some big mental trick to push through — I just accepted it was gonna go down hill from there and kept going.

I crossed the line at 3:40.

With Roman in the park after a run. The reason the second number is smaller than the first.

My wife was there with Roman. Forty minutes faster than the year before on the same course, and that year I didn't have a kid to run home to.

People want this story to be about discipline or sacrifice or 5am or whatever. It isn't really. It's about the fact that I had a year, and I used it, and the only reason I used it is because someone smaller than me needed me to.

Running is still just a hobby. In the grand scheme of things nobody cares about my marathon time. But I care, and the people who came out to the finish line care, and that's enough reason to keep showing up.

Next one's Indianapolis. 3:15 on paper. We'll see.

everything I’ve written

The Year and the Run

Forty Minutes