I’m not running the New York City Marathon this November.
I decided that this past weekend while away, and it took me the whole summer to get there. Before you reach for the word you’re thinking of — hold it. It’s the wrong word.
First you need to know how my brain works.
Junior year of college, US Swimming Nationals. I tore my rotator cuff at the meet. I swam the next day. I’m not telling you that as a toughness brag — I’m telling it to you as a diagnosis. My default setting is to decide, then refuse to renegotiate: with the calendar, with the competition, with my own body. So when I decided I was running New York, that was that. I got it in my head and knew I would complete it. The Achilles I hurt at the end of last summer was still healing, and I handled it the way I’ve handled every injury since that pool deck: put it out of my head, look ahead.
Here’s what the summer actually looked like.
Serious training was supposed to start in June. June became July. July became August. I wasn’t idle — I kept logging 3- to 5-mile runs, real runs, the same ones from the Monday check-ins (BPM-engineered playlists helped drive this 😉). But base miles aren’t marathon miles, and I knew the difference. So did my coach. So did the Runna app. Every data point said the same thing: not enough calendar left to build the mileage safely.
I didn’t want to hear it. I talked to my sons. I talked to my close friends. I talked to my ex. Everyone got some version of the same speech: I’m not giving up on something I know I can achieve. And I do know it. That was never the question.
This weekend, the question finally changed shape. It took a conversation with someone who was listening, and it stopped being “can I finish a marathon?” — I can — and became “what does catching up actually require?” The honest answer: jumping straight into much longer runs on a tendon that’s still finishing its repair job. And I know what sits on the other side of that bet. Push too hard, re-injure the Achilles — or worse — and it’s not a setback. It’s a 10-to-12-month ordeal. Not just no marathon this November. No marathon next November either. Maybe no real running for a year.
Write it down like that, and it isn’t close. Race undertrained and put two years on the table, or move the finish line twelve months and keep everything I’ve built. The will said go. The math said no. I’ve spent my whole life siding with the will — that’s the entire rotator cuff story. This time I’m siding with the math, because the will doesn’t heal tendons, and on the other side of fifty the downside stopped being theoretical.
Here’s the part that made this a post and not a diary entry. A few days before this decision, I put my restaurant verdicts on a Map and gave it a layer most lists won’t touch: MISSES — mine. The argument was simple: a verdict means nothing from someone who never admits a whiff. That’s easy to say about restaurants. This weekend I found out whether I meant it about myself. So consider this the newest entry on that layer: I called November. November was wrong. Filed, dated, public.
Now the word. ‘Quit’.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed, not really in myself, but more in the situation. I don’t quit, ever! Quitting is when the running stops. The running isn’t stopping. The 3-to-5s continue, and this Monday’s check-in will look like every other Monday’s. The Achilles finishes healing on its own schedule. The real build starts when the tendon and the calendar finally agree — and this time they’ll agree in writing, months of runway, no cramming. The race will still be 26.2 miles next November. The goal didn’t move an inch. The date did. There’s a word for that, and it isn’t quit. It’s logic.
Your turn. Hit reply and tell me YOUR thoughts. About the race, the deadline, the goal you moved — and what it cost you, or what it saved. Tell me what YOU think about this post! One line is plenty. I read every reply, and Monday’s check-in isn’t going anywhere.
On the Run → Experience and POV from a first-time marathoner, not medical or physical-therapy advice. If something hurts, see a pro, not a Substack.