This past weekend was one of the most memorable I’ve had my entire life.
For the time being, my Chicago White Sox own the city of Chicago. I was in attendance for an unforgettable Saturday night baseball game that had the atmosphere of a playoff game on the South Side.
While I joked on Twitter that Sunday’s walkoff winner from Edgar Quero was the best thing that happened to me that weekend, it is just that: a joke.
The best thing I did this weekend was compete in Life Time’s Spring Half Marathon in Chicago. I crossed the finish line in 2 hours and 22 minutes and couldn’t be more elated because of all it took to get there.
I don’t like celebrating my achievements loudly because I have a sick, competitive instinct to not live in the moment sometimes. I’m always looking forward to what’s next.
But I did just want to write about the journey and why the closing of this chapter isn’t the end of the book.
This is what I learned about myself in training for and running this half marathon.
The Note
On October 13th of last year, I wrote on a sticky note, “Danny to Run a Half Marathon in 2026. (Or lunch for the Ninjas).”
The Ninjas are my teammates at work, and while I’d love to say my motivation for running a half marathon was purely about personal growth and discipline, avoiding the cost of buying all of them lunch certainly didn’t hurt.
Anyway, the day prior to writing the note, one of my best friends ran the full Chicago Marathon. Seeing everything she went through to achieve that goal was one of the most inspiring things I’ve seen. She had to end nights early to start even earlier mornings for months to climb that mountain. Once she did, she gave me her free beer at the end.
Working that hard for something isn’t something I’m unfamiliar with, but it’s just something I feel like I hadn’t truly done in a long time.
That night, I thought about everything in my life. The great, the good, the bad, and everything in between.
I have amazing friends and family. I have a job I love. I have a college degree. I’m in good health (despite carrying a few pounds more than I’d like). But there’s just this competitiveness and this will to win that lays dormant.
Having successful relationships and being great at my job are things I do not take for granted. As I referenced in my last blog, I feel like I have the responsibility to keep my head up and keep fighting because people count on me. I don’t carry that lightly.
The successes from work and from relationships are great, but they don’t wake up the same feeling that I felt like I used to have when I was an athlete. So, I told myself the next morning when I woke up, “I’m going to challenge myself to do something I never thought I’d do.”
So I wrote the note.
Changing the Mechanism
I knew I didn’t need to begin my training right away, but once I had written it out, it became even more real. My friend that ran the marathon vowed to do it with me and all of a sudden, my goal became our goal.
Shortly after that, we circled the event we wanted to race and had to settle into beginning our real training until around the start of February.
I had started to tell family, friends, and acquaintances that I was training to do it. A few people were really surprised that I said I was going to do it. While I don’t think any of these people meant to cast shades of doubt on me, it was still something that pissed me off a little bit.
I wasn’t so much pissed at them, but I was upset with myself for getting to a point in life where people would be shocked that I was going to run a half marathon.
So with that fuel added to the fire, I now knew I needed to get in running shape. But the only way I’d ever learned how to workout was just how I did it as a former football player.
Lift heavy stuff, put it back down. Stretch a little bit so you don’t get hurt and then eat some protein and drink some chocolate milk. Repeat.
I’d never trained to be a runner before and I knew it took a lot more than just playing the Rocky soundtrack and running a little bit more every day.
So I learned how to work my body differently, addressing the areas that still don’t work 100% because of previous athletic injuries, and learning how to breathe better when I’m working on my cardio.
I’m never not learning something. I like to read, ask questions, and improve just about any which way I can in all of the other facets of my life. But this was the first time I’d truly changed my workout regiment since I was 17 years old and I noticed a difference almost immediately.
My workouts were now at least 30 minutes of cardio and 30-minute core lifts around my key muscle groups with a mandatory 15-minute stretching session in between to ensure proper recovery.
I woke up at 5:15 AM each day to get to the gym early before work and the last thing I thought about before each session was the note and the shades of doubt.
The Racing Program
Once the new year rolled through and it was time to begin Hal Higdon’s 12-week training program, the time had finally arrived to start the real training.
With the mental aspect already down between my note and internal motivations, I just needed to maintain discipline, add in a few miles every week, and start that climb.
For the first time since I was a training athlete, I was religiously hitting the gym, eating the right way for recovery, and pushing myself on runs every Saturday morning.
By this point, we had picked up a couple other friends that wanted to run with us and we all had the goal in mind. May 17th was circled on the calendar and it was a 12-week grind to get there. Here are a few of my favorite moments from training:
Each week, I was setting new records for my longest runs ever.
Mind you, normal life is still happening around all of this. Any ups and downs, any fun events, nights out, etc. All things I previously did without second thoughts, began to change. I still needed to get out of bed the next morning and go to the gym or go for my run. There were no days off, regardless of how I felt.
That competitive fire that had lain dormant for over a decade truly was back. Every sore hip, every groggy morning, I stayed consistent for months with the same routine to get to race day.
Then, just like that, it was.
Race Day
When I woke up the morning of the race at 4:25AM, I wasn’t tired or groggy. I was calm and ready.
I had lain out what I wanted to wear the night before, bought myself a Gatorade to have with a very light breakfast, and showered without any of my usual music in the morning.
My wardrobe featured one of my old football dri-fit long sleeved shirts, LuLu Lemon joggers that featured all of the pockets I’d need for my things, and a White Sox hat. Fashion with function.
It was going to be in the 80s weather-wise that day, but I still wanted to wear what felt like a uniform to me. Every Saturday long run I had, I wore those joggers and a long-sleeved shirt of some kind because a lot of those days were cold. But, there’s pride in a uniform and since I had trained in long sleeves and pants, I needed to run in them on Race Day.
I met up with my friends on the train, walked into Grant Park, and started to stretch. It wasn’t lost on me that I was about to start a race in the place where Michael Jordan and the Bulls celebrated all six of their NBA Championships in the ’90s. I told myself then that once I crossed that finish line, I can’t wait to celebrate the same way.
We began to head toward our corral and I started to get into the zone. I haven’t felt this same kind of excitement in a long time. We even got a rendition of the National Anthem before we began. It truly felt like game day all over again.
Once each corral letter before us started to move, we had been at the very front of the group. We got to lead our group out of the tunnel and into the rest of the race. I started jumping up and down and dancing out some excitement just like I would’ve as an athlete.
All of a sudden, a shot went off and our race began. The starting line was lined with tunnels of people on both sides. At the very end of the first tunnel was my mom and dad. The reason I’m on this planet and why I’ve gotten to do everything is because of them. I already had a jolt of energy to do it for them.
Shortly after that, a large group of our college friends were standing there cheering with ringing cow bells and signs for each of us. All I could do was just smile and clap because some of my favorite people on the planet to start the race made the day feel already like a great day. I was running for them too.
1 Mile Down. 12.1 to Go.
Along the way, we asked each other a few questions like “If you were an inanimate object, what would you be?” or “What is your desert island album?” to help pass the time. At each mile, we’d rotate who asked the question and each of us had fun in hearing the others’ answers.
While this was happening, we were running around Chicago’s museum campus featuring Soldier Field, McCormick Place, and the Adler Planetarium. It was around then where I realized “Oh shit, this is real. We’re doing this. All this work was for right now.” That energized me a little bit but that’s when I first thought about how much more we had left to go.
5 Miles Down. 8.1 to Go.
The groups of spectators started to disperse a little bit. The lakefront trail started to tighten up and the bobbing and weaving began.
To this point, I’d trained on the northern half of the lakefront trail, doing a decent amount of bobbing and weaving around folks, but with how many runners there were during the race, there were a plethora of different paces surrounding us at once.
In all of my training, I hadn’t done this much slowing down and speeding up. Some folks were already burning themselves out and stopping to walk in the middle of the trail. I almost barreled over a small girl as she stopped for a moment of reprieve.
I said out loud for the first time “I’m getting fucking tired from avoiding collisions and speeding up to bypass people.”
My friend said “This is just normal for big races. It’s the same during a marathon, just have to keep pushing through it.”
Along the way, we were seeing signs and spectators. There was a full-on live jazz band playing some funky music that was an awesome sight.
But by now, the sun was fully out and it started to get really warm. I felt myself getting a little overheated.
8 Miles Down. 5.1 to Go.
I was a lot overheated as we crossed the halfway point of the race and did the turnaround.
While respecting my uniform, I will admit that my long-sleeved shirt decision did hinder me. I had bypassed a couple of hydration stations in the first half of the race. During the second half, I stopped at each one to grab a little bit of water just to dump on my head. I barely even drank any of it, I just needed to cool down.
I didn’t want to take off my shirt because I didn’t want to fuck up my official race time that was being recorded at checkpoints from the tech in my bib that was fastened to my shirt, so I just had to keep going.
Our group started to play some music out loud and my friends started to push their pace. As I was overheating, I was maintaining the same 10 minute, 45ish second pace for the whole race. This was a moment where I accepted that I might have to cross the finish line alone.
I didn’t want my friends to slow up for me and I didn’t want to burn myself out trying to catch up to them about 15 feet ahead of me. I kept pace alongside a few people that had been near us most of the race and just started to talk to myself in my head.
Just keep going. You’re hot, but you’re not dying. You trained hard for this. You’re going to finish. Just keep going.
10 Miles Down. 3.1 to Go.
I had caught up to my friends shortly after a huge gust of wind off the lake literally gave me a second wind. The sun went behind the clouds briefly and that wind felt like a huge pat on the back to just keep going.
My friends were talking about pushing the pace again and I just said out loud “I’m going to put on my music. You guys just do your thing.”
I unzipped my ass pocket, grabbed my headphones, put them on, and immediately hit shuffle on my running playlist.
It’s now your choice of music. You have to just keep going. Just keep going. It’s still fucking hot, but you have to keep going.
Songs from the Rocky series helped push me for another mile. First it was the iconic Gonna Fly Now before transitioning to Runnin’ from Creed II which gave me a little bit of extra juice to get to Mile 11.
I had the song I wanted to play as I crossed the finish line picked out for a few months. But with a shuffling playlist, I’d have to navigate to it and find it if I wanted it to guarantee my finishing moment. But I still needed to get there. I just let my music shuffle and had to skip a few songs to get to some that allowed me to keep stepping on a beat. I was almost there.
12 Miles Down. 1.1 Miles to Go.
As we made it to the home stretch, we were running along a long stretch of Lake Shore Drive’s sidewalk, lined with just about every spectator. The energy of all the people helped will a little bit more energy into me.
Just keep going. Are my friends here? Are my parents here or by the finish line? Don’t worry about that, just keep going.
All of a sudden, I saw my friends to the left. Gave them a quick Rock On symbol and kept running. Shortly after that, I saw my parents with my youngest brother who now lives in Atlanta. I had no idea he was even in town, let alone coming to see me run this race. I got emotional seeing him cheer me on.
His football career ended due to injury. I had stopped being consistent with my workouts in my post-athletic career and it was always my injuries that stopped me from pushing myself to a better place. He played against SEC opponents with all the aches and pains and still dominated. I had another mile to go. I had to do it for him too.
12.5 Miles Down. 0.6 Miles to Go.
To this point, the most I ran in my training was a little over 12 miles. I had done it twice in the last few weeks leading up to the race, so I’d known for a couple of weeks that I would be able to crush this last mile.
I’m not sure if it was the heat from my uniform, the overwhelming emotions from seeing my friends and family, or something else, but this last little bit of a mile before the finish line was the hardest part of the race.
I was overheated. My hip was really bugging me despite all the stretching and caring I had done for it the last few months. Also, my music playlist started to put on songs that I loved in my training, but absolutely hated in the moment. They didn’t feel like the right fit.
I was furiously talking to myself in my own head at this moment:
Dig fucking deep. Are you serious? All this training and for what? For you to slow down now? Do you want to walk across the finish line? You haven’t stopped once and now you want to with less than a mile to go. JUST KEEP GOING. LET’S FINISH THIS FUCKING THING!
We turned from the lakefront onto Randolph Street and into the lower part of that street in Chicago’s tunnels:
With the sun now gone and the cool wind in the tunnel surrounding me, I finally had another wind to push me through the end. I saw my friends ahead of me and I sped up to them. They definitely slowed down a bit to get to me as well. I love them for that.
I just put on the song that I knew I wanted to finish with and then it was a fight to the end. I needed to drown my own thoughts out of my head and just run.
With Bored to Death by my favorite band of all-time, blink-182, scoring this moment. I finally started to feel the relief:
We left the tunnel and I could see the finish line. We sped up. The cheers grew louder. And then…
“…Life Is Too Short To Last Long…”
Elation. I crossed the finish line with the line of the song that helped kickstart this journey in the first place. Life is too short to last long. You have to keep going and do something with the time you’re given and I did it.
I screamed with all of the passion I had left and just like that, I felt like this kid again:
Victory Lane and What’s Next
Once I had that medal around my neck, I knew this was one of the greatest days of my life. I never slowed down to walk. I ran a half marathon. The amount of work I put in to get to that level was some of the hardest, if not, the hardest work I’d ever put toward something in my life.
While celebrating afterwards with my family and friends, I said “I’m going to run a full. I want to run a full.”
With my hip hurting, my body overheating and running on fumes, I said out loud “I’m going to run a full.”
The elation was short-winded. The next goal is already on the mind. While my body wound down from the experience, I got more exhausted thinking about not just the 13.1 miles, but all the miles that led to this moment.
I started to think about how many miles I’ll need to run to be able to double up that performance and do it again for a full marathon within the next year. I don’t even know which I want to do, but I know that I’ll be wearing short sleeves for it.
But for now, all I know is that I fucking did something that I said I was going to do. Celebrating in Grant Park was the culmination of months of work, a mindset and body shift, and a competitiveness that I needed to crawl into a deep place to bring out again to finish this race.
To wrap this up with a quote from my favorite athlete of all-time who also celebrated in Grant Park, I say:
“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.” – Michael Jordan
For years, the only thing that was keeping me from achieving a goal like this was me. Despite all of the internal pep-talking I needed to tell myself as I finished the race, it took me saying out loud and writing down on a piece of paper months ago “Danny to Run a Half Marathon in 2026.”
After that, those thoughts and words led to small changes that eventually led to big changes.
That fire never left me. I let it dim just a bit and I’m never going to let that happen again. I know I can do anything now. I’ve proven it to myself once and I’m already excited to do it again.
It’s never too late to start, but it’s better to start sooner rather than later. It’s easier to make excuses if you don’t truly believe in it.
For anyone that thinks that fire within them is gone, take a deep look inside yourself and ask yourself one thing: “Did you give it your very best? Did you do everything you could to make it happen?”
If the answer is no, then you still have gas in the tank. Go after it. You can do it too.
Just keep going.
~DS
The Danny Diaries 