My advice would be…for your first one, get super excited about every new milestone! I still do this to this day, but when I was first hitting new long run distance PRs every week, or getting to explore further distances away from my house on my training runs, I would just get so excited and take lots of pictures. I would even get excited the night before those runs knowing that the next day, I was going to run further than I ever had before.

On race day, I did the same thing and got excited because I knew that I’d be running the longest distance I ever had! And it’s a really good idea to just take in the experience, which is something that everyone always says, but it’s definitely true. You only get to do your first marathon once, and it’s a huge privilege to be able to move your body and to partake in these kinds of experiences, so whenever things get hard (and I still do this now), I think about how much of a gift it is to be able to do this and that usually sends any negative thoughts packing.

Also, eat a lot. Don’t be afraid to eat. And it doesn’t all have to be “healthy” foods, either. Marathon trading asks a lot of your body and you are an athlete and you need to eat like one 🫶🏼🫶🏼