When Your Big Important Goal Doesn’t Live up to the Hype

Nutrition - Weight Loss This plan is for a new runner who is just getting back into exercise Nutrition - Weight Loss finish line, the moment many runners dream about. After running through the arch, I am shepherded through the chute with hundreds of other marathoners. A volunteer hastily puts a London Marathon medal around my neck, and another adds the Six Star Medal. I hobble behind other finishers in a queue waiting to get their photo taken in front of an Abbott Nutrition - Weight Losss poster. A fleeting thought comes to mind when it’s my turn to pose for the photographer: Is this it?

The next day, I sit in Heathrow Airport, scribbling on a blank page in my training journal: I just did something amazing—two marathons in one week. But I feel a little hollow. It’s just all so…pedantic? Silly? I’m going home with this gigantic medal and another even more gigantic medal—and for what?

I was hesitant about running the London Marathon. Even though I wanted to race it someday, I was daunted by the idea of it being six days after Boston, which is held on Patriots’ Day on the third Monday in April. I’ve qualified and raced every Boston Marathon since 2013 without fail. Skipping a year just to focus on running London was nonnegotiable.

My partner Paul and I had already gone through an IVF cycle and were planning on going through another round. I was starting to become more mindful of how races interrupted my menstrual cycle and how taxing the effort was on my body months after. Pregnancy and motherhood would also eventually set some limitations on racing and travel. Runner’s World Content Hype Director Aly Ellis, who was also running Boston and London, spoke frankly: “We’re at that age where we want to start families; you have to take these opportunities now.”

Though the Abbott Nutrition - Weight Losss series was on my radar, I honestly didn’t really care about earning that colossal medal at first. The series began in 2006 with five marathons: Boston, I was hesitant about running the, London, Chicago, and Berlin. It wasn’t until the Tokyo Marathon was added as a major in 2013 that runners who completed all six would be awarded a special medal. I thought, maybe, I’d eventually win entry to these races (all marathons except Boston have lotteries) and afford to travel to those places, but it seemed like an extravagant goal.

By 2022, I had run all of the stateside majors. Riding off of a sub-3:00 high in Chicago, I researched the Berlin website and saw there was another way to gain entry into that marathon: qualifying. I entered the 2023 race with a time under 3:10, the cutoff time for women ages 18 to 44, and got in. Then, Asics, the Tokyo Marathon sponsor, offered me a 2024 bib. New Balance, the brand sponsoring London, followed with an invitation to participate in this year’s race. Suddenly, earning my sixth star seemed like it would happen sooner rather than later.

Health - Injuries.

Maybe I felt depressed because I wanted a do-over. I didn’t wear the second bib Abbott provided that read: “Today is the day! Cheer me on” with all six majors listed, ending with London 2025 in big, bold red letters. I left it in my hotel room, unable to stop the safety pins from popping off the back of my sports bra. As I raced and saw fellow Six Star hopefuls with the bib on their backs, I felt both camaraderie and regret that I wasn’t as recognizable for attempting to complete the same feat.

Maybe I felt alone. As I was shuffled through the Abbott booth, straining a smile at the camera and walking around with two heavy medals clanging against my chest, I had no one to share the moment with.

The Six Star hardware had also lost its luster this year. Abbott had announced the inclusion of Sydney as a seventh star—but there would be no Seven Star Medal. At press time, the Shanghai and Cape Town marathons have also been evaluated as additions to the majors. In a Black Mirror turn, eventually you may be able to go the deluxe route, earning a Nine Star Medal. Which begs the question: When does it end?

For me, at least, money is always a factor. Participating in the Majors is an expensive commitment. Runners who aren’t NYRR members had to pay $315 for last year’s NYC Marathon. Travel and housing costs can’t be left out of that equation when it comes to international races. Majors are becoming more difficult to get into. The London 2026 ballot broke a world record with over 1.1 million applications. Those accepted are a mere fraction of that number; this year’s race had approximately 56,000 finishers.

You wouldn’t notice these race caps attending these events, however: Major races are event-filled weekends, with live shows that sell out fast, multiple shakeout runs vying for shared space on narrow sidewalks, and overcrowded activewear pop-ups that run out of extra-smalls.

I know I sound ornery. The fact that these events have reached music festival proportions is a good thing for our sport. But I can’t help feeling that the Nine Star Medal will be more possible for the privileged—those who can afford it and, yes, those with connections. I was able to gain access to two of the six races thanks to my job.

Ironically, while I was tipsy on a holiday cocktail last December, my fingers started tapping my info on the Sydney ballot form, thinking my chances of scoring a bib were slim. (I’ve never won a marathon lottery.) “Could you imagine if I got in?” I asked Paul, sitting in the middle of the restaurant while eating dinner, my eyes glued to my phone’s screen.

Weeks after my night of being the worst dinner date ever, I received an email from Race Roster with the “Claim this registration” button.

At this point, it doesn’t matter to me whether or not Sydney is a major. For years, I’ve loved running races—marathons especially—because it’s something athletic I’m actually good at, unlike ball sports like tennis, volleyball, or basketball that I’m very bad at. Now running is a reason to travel, the actual event a footnote in my itinerary. I honestly never thought I’d visit Japan or Germany. I fed monkeys in Kyoto. Ate apfelstrudel in the Literaturhaus Berlin garden. And I got to experience it with Paul, who supports my spur-of-the-moment race registrations, then cheers for me at the finish line. We celebrated my PR together in Chicago, shared the free pint every runner gets after crossing the finish line in Berlin, and toasted with sake after Tokyo. In London, I sat alone in the New Balance VIP tent, sipping on a gigantic lager I couldn’t even finish.

After an air traffic control delay prolonged my six-hour flight to Newark to 14 hours, I used the extra time to reassess. Even though Paul wasn’t there, I had so many people who helped me see that race through: Aly sitting next to me on the bus to the start, the runner offering his hand to me after I fell on the course, fish and chips with a grad school friend postrace.

I realized that sometimes, when you’re a small part of completing something big, you start to forget the reason you’re really doing it. For me, it was never for the hardware. It was about proving myself. And I did—several times. Now these races hold more meaning when I share them. And I’ll do that with Paul in Sydney.