If you can breathe

You can run incredibly fast if you can still breathe.
That’s the main lesson I learned while attempting to ramp up my marathon pace repeatedly the past few years.

Each pace felt somewhat different. At first, marathoning felt like survival, something to make it through. Soon it was a calculated equation, a stride that I could sustain. But before I knew it, as I attempted for external standards, it began to feel more like I was skipping along, nearly taking flight, without an ounce of conservation. Despite all the new signals warning me to slow — a panicked feeling that I…