It’s 2013. I’m sitting in the driveway of our suburban New Jersey home, head in my hands, staring at the basketball on the ground.
Why won’t it just go in the hoop?
For as long as I can remember, basketball has been my lifeline. From local rec leagues to varsity and AAU, it’s the thing outside of school that I’ve poured the most time into. Painstakingly perfecting my shooting form, taking 100s of shots every day - becoming the knock-down shooting guard, even if I was too scrawny to drive to the basket.
But now, I had lost it all.
At least, that’s how I felt at the time. Out of nowhere, I had developed a hitch in my shot that meant my shots all banked off to the right - and I couldn’t get rid of it.
I spent a month going from the starting five to the bench, my confidence slipping alongside the number of points I was scoring.
A few years earlier, I had gotten a similar punch in the face as a soccer goalie. On the JV team, I was picked for goalie because of my athleticism and quick feet. I wasn’t particularly good at dribbling or scoring (or really any part of the sport) - but because of all my time practicing basketball, my baseline athleticism made me a good goalie.
Varsity gave me a rude awakening. The first game, I let in 9 goals. My confidence waned, and I started to miss blocks I’d normally have no problem with. The scoreboard reflected how much of a failure I felt.
Sports have defined much of my life. From delusions of being able to play basketball at the college level to giving me my closest friend group in high school, they’ve been at the core of my identity.
When our first baby was born in 2023, everything changed. How I looked at the world, what was important, and how I thought about my future - but also my relationship to sports.
After high school, I spent college and my early adult years in a casual mix of pick-up basketball, lifting weights, and running - trying to do something daily, even if I was never particularly good at any of them.
But as two working parents, exercise quickly gave way to trying to stay afloat and keep a tiny human alive.
Now, two kids and three years later, life has started to even out. The kids are both walking and I no longer feel like I have at least one child attached to my hip at all times. And with that balance, my personal goals have started to come back into focus.
And one of those is running.
I started running more consistently when our daughter was about 6 months old. Without the childcare to consistently go to the gym or basketball court, running on a treadmill at home while she slept and, a few months later, with her in the jogging stroller was a good compromise.
I’ve logged about 4,500 miles over the past two years - most of those pushing a jogging stroller.
Since the start, the goal has been the daily practice. Carving out about an hour a day that’s just for me, between all of the working and parenting that are all about providing for others. But now, as my mile times decrease and my physical fitness increases, I’ve started to think about other goals - and one of those is to run a 100+ mile ultramarathon.
More than maybe anything else in life, sports taught me to pick myself back up. Looking at the basketball hoop in front of me or the goalie gloves on my hands in frustration, missing the varsity team my first year of trying out, getting benched - all of those experiences taught me that only I could control my inputs, my practice, my work ethic, to set me up for success.
In each of those instances, I had to start from what felt like the beginning, re-learning the basics to rebuild my confidence. Eventually, I got both my goalie abilities and my shooting percentage back - along with some important lessons about progress.
Maybe it’s because of growing up playing team sports or maybe it’s just intrinsic to my nature, but working toward something is an important part of giving my life meaning. And now, as an adult, setting goals for myself in running is a key part of that.
So that’s why, starting at the beginning of 2026, I committed to running at least miles every week - no matter how busy, stressed, or tired I am. And that’s why I’m committing to running an ultramarathon at some point in the next few years.
And maybe, when I do those, I can continue to prove to myself that I can get up when I fail - and that my goals are worth fighting for.
