Thanks to New Balance, a group of Charm City Run team members will be training and running the New York City Marathon together on November 6, 2022. Leading up to the race, each member will share a blog post describing why they are running, how training is going, and what it means to run a marathon as a Charm City Run team. Bobby McCarthy, Charm City Run Gaithersburg Store Lead, shares his perspective on preparing for the New York City Marathon.
I never considered myself to be a runner until high school. I joined my cross country team simply to make friends since I was the new kid on the block. I was lucky enough to have my first spike night at the old Charm City Run in Clarksville. It was a great experience, and I learned immediately that running was more than just quickly putting one foot in front of the other. I developed a passion for the sport thanks to my team and coaches, and realized that I could be a runner if I just took the chance.
Fast forward to my college days, running wasn’t one of my main focuses. It took one bad race to throw me off of my running groove, and that’s something that I know many other runners can understand. I’ll admit that I fell out of the sport for some time. My passion certainly wasn’t gone, but my head was elsewhere.
I started to pick up running again back in November. Once I graduated in December, I came back to work at Charm City Run and almost immediately joined Dawn’s half marathon training group in Timonium. I can’t lie, running with this group revitalized my focus on the sport. The coaching and support of the group got me back to where I wanted to be as a runner. Now, I did experience some injuries that I certainly didn’t expect, including a stress fracture in my tibia. However, this did nothing more than add fuel to the fire that I need to get back on track and become competitive once again.
Despite being involved in the running world for so long, I’ve never done a full marathon. The idea of running one has always been intimidating, but when this opportunity presented itself I knew I had to take advantage. I have also always heard amazing things about the New York City marathon, so I figured why not go all in for the first one! Not to mention the idea of running it with the Charm City Run team is absolutely incredible, and I can’t think of a better group of people to share this experience with. Who knows, I might even win this thing!
