The Marathon I Never Ran

How one song pulled me back to an unfinished dream—and a new beginning.

A couple of weeks ago, on the drive home from work, "Good Feeling" came on the radio. My running song. My finish-line anthem. In an instant, I was back in 2012: dragging myself across the half marathon finish line, lungs on fire, legs barely moving, but heart wide open.

I had lost over a hundred pounds that year. I had taken up running, of all things. I was never fast nor was I ever athletic. But I told everyone I was going to run a half marathon, and so I did. One of the last to finish, but I finished. And in the stubborn glow of that moment, I set my next dream: a full marathon.

But then life reshaped itself around me. Children. A full-time job. The kind of exhaustion no training plan prepares you for. Running slipped quietly out of my life. The shoes gathered dust, and that finish line I imagined drifted farther and farther away.

And then came the bigger changes. Divorce. Selling the house I had curated into a home. A new job. A season of survival where I lost myself completely, piece by piece, just trying to keep moving.

But the song reminded me. The pulse of that beat carried me straight back to the woman who believed she could do impossible things. The one who wasn’t afraid to set outrageous goals and crawl across the line if that’s what it took.

I never ran that marathon. I never became the athlete I once pictured. But it’s never too late to begin again.

My life looks nothing like it did 13 years ago, and neither do I. But maybe that’s the point. Some songs remind you who you used to be. Some dreams wait quietly for you to find them again. And some stories aren’t finished yet. There’s still time to keep writing.

Sometimes all it takes is a spark. A single reminder, one fleeting moment, to remember who you used to be — and to believe in who you might still become.