Hunter didn't set out to become a runner. He joined his high school's cross country team on a whim (mostly because his friends were doing it) and discovered he loved being part of a group more than he loved the actual running. That pull toward community followed him through college, a couple years teaching in Korea, and eventually back to North Carolina, where a local run club led him to Ainsley's Angels. Pushing other runners through races so they could cross the finish line changed how he saw the sport entirely, and it planted the seed for chasing a marathon of his own.Hunter went into the City of Oaks Marathon in Raleigh without a real time goal, just a plan to find the 4:30 pace group and stick with them for as long as he could. That plan hit a snag before he even reached the start line, but he pushed on regardless.. He leaned on that same pacer to get through the miles that followed, one mile at a time, and at the end of the day ended up a marathoner. Follow along with Hunter Pardue: @runhuntrunLearn more about Ainsley's Angels: https://ainsleysangels.org/Follow along with the show: 👣 Personal IG/TikTok: @tay.says / @taysays 🎙️ Podcast IG/TikTok: @myfirstmarathonpod 📺 YouTube: @MyFirstMarathonPodcast 🌐 Website & extras: myfirstmarathon.co & myfirstmarathon.co/resources Book a free 1:1 Coaching Call with me! - https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=37408473&appointmentType=85354440 Join the First Marathoner Community! - skool.com/myfirstmarathon

Sierra grew up in a running family and found her own love for the sport through a middle school team in Georgia. She ran through high school and rediscovered it years later during a hard stretch in college, but just as she was building back toward a half marathon, her body threw her a curveball.A case of long COVID sent her heart rate soaring to 175 just from walking, and running immediately had to take a back seat. It took her two years to feel like herself again, and by no means was that comeback easy. When she finally toed the line in Chicago, she went in with a mindset rooted in joy rather than performance, and it shaped everything about how her race day unfolded.Follow along with Sierra: @sierra.vonFollow along with the show: 👣 Personal IG/TikTok: @tay.says / @taysays 🎙️ Podcast IG/TikTok: @myfirstmarathonpod 📺 YouTube: @MyFirstMarathonPodcast 🌐 Website & extras: myfirstmarathon.co & myfirstmarathon.co/resources Book a free 1:1 Coaching Call with me! - https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=37408473&appointmentType=85354440 Join the First Marathoner Community! - https://www.skool.com/myfirstmarathon/about

This one's for all my fall marathoners who are deep in training right now!! I'm pulling together my full survival guide for running your first marathon, five things I wish someone had told me before my own first one. We're talking fueling strategy (and why the back half of the race is where it really matters), why respecting your easy pace is about more than just your fitness, and why the bad runs in your training block might actually be the most useful ones you have. If you're in the thick of a block right now and need a little reset, this one's for you.Follow along with the show: 👣 Personal IG/TikTok: @tay.says / @taysays 🎙️ Podcast IG/TikTok: @myfirstmarathonpod 📺 YouTube: @MyFirstMarathonPodcast 🌐 Website & extras: myfirstmarathon.co & myfirstmarathon.co/resources Book a free 1:1 Coaching Call with me! - https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=37408473&appointmentType=85354440 Join the First Marathoner Community! - https://www.skool.com/myfirstmarathon/about

Barry Scruggs came to running with his wife after some health struggles when they decided to make change happen together. It started with a Spartan race , and that single decision opened the door to a running life neither of them expected, eventually pulling them into Charlotte's trail and ultra running community and setting Barry on the path toward his first marathon.By the time race day arrived, training wasn't the hard part. Days before the Charlotte Marathon, Barry was diagnosed with bronchitis that had turned into pneumonia, and both his doctor and his wife told him not to race. He toed the line anyway, and what followed became one of the hardest tests he's ever faced on a course. Somewhere in the miles that came next, Barry learned what his body could actually carry him through when his mind wanted to quit, a lesson he still leans on today.Follow along with Barry Scruggs and his run club on Instagram: @[email protected] along with the show: 👣 Personal IG/TikTok: @tay.says / @taysays 🎙️ Podcast IG/TikTok: @myfirstmarathonpod 📺 YouTube: @MyFirstMarathonPodcast 🌐 Website & extras: myfirstmarathon.co & myfirstmarathon.co/resources Book a free 1:1 Coaching Call with me! - https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=37408473&appointmentType=85354440 Join the First Marathoner Community! - https://www.skool.com/myfirstmarathon/about

Abia Mallick never planned to run a marathon herself until she volunteered at the finish zone of the New York City Marathon, where a woman stopped by the fence near her to catch her breath and ended up sharing her story, a story that stuck with Abia so much she threw her own name into the marathon lottery, assuming she'd never get in.But spoiler alert: she did. Her training tested her more than she expected: her body kept finding new things to ache, and she leaned hard on her physical therapist and her community to get through it. Race day brought its own complications, and by the time she reached mile 26, what carried her through was the community of people that she's built around her. Follow along with Abia on Instagram: @abiamallickFollow along with the show: 👣 Personal IG/TikTok: @tay.says / @taysays 🎙️ Podcast IG/TikTok: @myfirstmarathonpod 📺 YouTube: @MyFirstMarathonPodcast 🌐 Website & extras: myfirstmarathon.co & myfirstmarathon.co/resources Book a free 1:1 Coaching Call with me! - https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=37408473&appointmentType=85354440 Join the First Marathoner Community! - https://www.skool.com/myfirstmarathon/about

I get this question all the time from my first-time marathoners: if I don't have a time goal, why do I need to do speed work? In this week's mini episode, I'm breaking down exactly why I still program speed work for athletes who aren't chasing a specific finish time, what it's actually teaching your body and mind, and how something as simple as picking up the pace at a colorful mailbox can prepare you for those brutal last six miles of your marathon.Follow along with the show: 👣 Personal IG/TikTok: @tay.says / @taysays 🎙️ Podcast IG/TikTok: @myfirstmarathonpod 📺 YouTube: @MyFirstMarathonPodcast 🌐 Website & extras: myfirstmarathon.co & myfirstmarathon.co/resources Book a free 1:1 Coaching Call with me! - https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=37408473&appointmentType=85354440 Join the First Marathoner Community! - https://www.skool.com/myfirstmarathon/about

Sara played tennis all through high school, but running stayed casual for her, a mile here or there, until 2023, when she signed up for her first 5K and then got sidelined by a health complication for most of the year. By summer 2024 she was back on the trail outside Chicago, and after watching the para-athletes and half marathoners at a local race, she reached out to a charity for a Chicago Marathon bib almost on impulse. She texted her fiancé that she thought she'd just signed up for 26.2 miles. He wrote back, "You think?"But by no means was training easy for her. A flooded house sent her and her husband to live with his in-laws for nine weeks that August, running took a back seat to insurance calls and contractors, and her peak mileage never got close to where it needed to be. She made it to the start line anyways, but a chaotic corral search, the Chicago heat, and something that happened to her knee around mile seventeen turned the back half of that race into a fight she wasn't sure she'd win. What got her from that curb to the finish line is a story you're going to want to hear.Follow along with Sara on Instagram at @thatssosaaraa !Follow along with the show: 👣 Personal IG/TikTok: @tay.says / @taysays 🎙️ Podcast IG/TikTok: @myfirstmarathonpod 📺 YouTube: @MyFirstMarathonPodcast 🌐 Website & extras: myfirstmarathon.co & myfirstmarathon.co/resources Book a free 1:1 Coaching Call with me! - https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=37408473&appointmentType=85354440 Join the First Marathoner Community! - skool.com/myfirstmarathon

Julie grew up in a sports-obsessed family, her dad a longtime Broad Street runner, her brother a former D1 lacrosse player turned distance runner. She played soccer growing up, but sports also came with real anxiety for her, and by college she thought that part of her life was over. It wasn't until her senior year of college that she started easing back into running, and she found herself thinking if her dad and brother could run a marathon, she could too.Philly had already sold out by the time she looked into it, so Julie signed up through a Parkinson's fundraising team inspired by her grandfather and started an 18 week training block while in her second year of medical school. Race day started strong, but somewhere around the halfway point, Julie hit a wall she wasn't expecting, and was forced to make a decision many of us make in a marathon: Do I keep going? Follow along with Julie:Instagram: @juliemsatterthwaite TikTok: @jms3400 Follow along with the show: 👣 Personal IG/TikTok: @tay.says / @taysays 🎙️ Podcast IG/TikTok: @myfirstmarathonpod 📺 YouTube: @MyFirstMarathonPodcast 🌐 Website & extras: myfirstmarathon.co & myfirstmarathon.co/resources Book a free 1:1 Coaching Call with me! - https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=37408473&appointmentType=85354440 Join the First Marathoner Community! - https://www.skool.com/myfirstmarathon/about

I took a two month break from running dealing with personal issues we'll get into in this episode. These personal issues forced me to take 2 full months off of running for the first time in my running journey, and today we're breaking down what it's actually looked like to come back from that, not just physically, but mentally too. I'm walking you through the exact plan I built for myself, the mindset shifts that made the biggest difference, and the practical stuff like how I'm structuring my weeks, my long runs, and my strength training as I work my way back up to running continuous miles again. If you've ever had to start over from scratch for any reason, I hope this gives you both a plan to follow and permission to go easy on yourself while you're doing it.Follow along with the show: 👣 Personal IG/TikTok: @tay.says / @taysays 🎙️ Podcast IG/TikTok: @myfirstmarathonpod 📺 YouTube: @MyFirstMarathonPodcast 🌐 Website & extras: myfirstmarathon.co & myfirstmarathon.co/resources Book a free 1:1 Coaching Call with me! - https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=37408473&appointmentType=85354440 Join the First Marathoner Community! - https://www.skool.com/myfirstmarathon/about

Besides the dreaded mile in high school PE class, running was fairly casual for Rachel for a long time until the stress of working front lines at a hospital during COVID turned it into a huge stress reliever for her. A few years later she set her sights on a half marathon, and after three tries and a few injuries, she finally got there. Shortly after, she found BAR Run Club, and being surrounded by people just a little further down the road than her helped her believe a marathon was also for people like her.Training meant fitting three hour long runs around a demanding hospital schedule, and by no means was training easy for her. A rough twenty mile run right before taper shook her confidence, but she showed up to race day anyways. Unseasonable heat, GI issues that hit mid race, and a stretch where she had every reason to stop all showed up before the finish line did. What got her through it, and what she carried into a second marathon just months later, are lessons you're going to want to hear.Follow along with Rachel Howard: @rachelizhowardFollow along with the show: 👣 Personal IG/TikTok: @tay.says / @taysays 🎙️ Podcast IG/TikTok: @myfirstmarathonpod 📺 YouTube: @MyFirstMarathonPodcast 🌐 Website & extras: myfirstmarathon.co & myfirstmarathon.co/resources Book a free 1:1 Coaching Call with me! - https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=37408473&appointmentType=85354440 Join the First Marathoner Community! - skool.com/myfirstmarathon