An illustration depicting a crowd of runners going through the stages of a marathon. From left to right, the runners go from nervous and prepared to exhausted and relieved.

Running a marathon can take the mind on its own strange and sometimes unpredictable journey.

Jeré Longman and Talya Minsberg

Illustrations by Ping Zhu

Jere Longman and Talya Minsberg have run a collective 23 marathons, so they have had their fair share of rambling midrace thoughts.

  • Oct. 31, 2024

A marathon covers 26.2 miles, but the most important distance is “the nine inches above the shoulders,” according to a saying by Joe Vigil, a renowned American coach.

In his widely held view, the head as much as the legs often determines the outcome of the race.

“No elite runner goes into it unprepared for the distance,” said Dakotah Lindwurm, 29, who finished 12th in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics and will run the New York City Marathon on Sunday. “I think the limiting factor is often our brain.”

So, what do marathoners — elite and everyday — think about as they run 26.2 miles?

The answer is: remarkably little and, somehow simultaneously, absolutely everything.

Brendan Leonard, 45, a writer and illustrator, described his thoughts as bouncing “from my legs and feet, to the person or people in front of me maybe running just a tiny bit slower and should I pass them or not, to the port-a-potty situation.”

He said he thinks of all the “grand things” he will do when he gets home, such as painting the living room ceiling, taking Spanish lessons or writing the rest of a book.

Indeed, the mind can go in some interesting directions.

Here’s what some 50,000 runners may be thinking when they take to the New York City Marathon on Sunday.

The mental race begins far before the physical one. Nervous energy springs most runners out of bed, if they got much sleep at all.

When Clayton Young, 31, who finished ninth in the men’s marathon at the Paris Games, lines up at the start on Sunday, he said he most likely will be repeating the mantra: “You belong. You have a shot.”

In the first half of the race, runners start distracting themselves.

Ms. Lindwurm might concentrate on the pendulum swing of the ponytail of a runner in front of her. Mr. Young will try to keep his eyelids half-shut, an effort to zone out while tucking in behind other runners.

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An illustration of five runners with different running styles. One runner runs barefoot, one juggles as they jog and another has tied extra layers around their waist. In the front, a nervous runner with AirPods runs next to an older participant with glasses.

Sashea Lawson, 43, of Brooklyn, recalls from marathons past taking note of interesting architecture and the shoeless guy next to her. What’s that building called, she remembers wondering, and what does it feel like to run barefoot when streets are soaked with Gatorade?

Deena Kastor, 51, who was coached by Mr. Vigil to a bronze medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, has been known to picture her dog, a 140-pound English mastiff named Duke, sleeping at home and “totally clueless to what I am putting myself through.”

Dan Ubilla, a 39-year-old software engineer, calls these miles the “happy phase of the marathon.”

He starts thinking about food. “I know there’s a bag of potato chips that my kid saved for me that’s waiting,” he said. “I know there’s a beer waiting at the finish line.”

The bargaining, if not panic, can begin after 13.1 miles. Sure, runners are halfway done, but that’s something of a mirage.

“At its worst, the marathon is a negotiation not to listen to the devil on your left shoulder but the cheerleader on your right,” Ms. Kastor said.

As the race progresses, Mr. Ubilla said, he tries to keep himself occupied with math. When he passes a mile marker, he’ll multiple the mile number by his goal pace: 6 minutes and 20 seconds per mile. But, he said, it gets harder with each added mile “not just because the math is harder, but also because it’s hard to do math after running for a couple hours.”

To help himself stay alert in the second half of Sunday’s race, Mr. Young may look for an opportunity to tuck in behind Conner Mantz and stare at the back of his head. Mr. Mantz, 27, is his longtime training partner who finished eighth at the Paris Olympics.

Mr. Young laughed. “I know every tuft of hair, every cowlick, the moles on one side of his shoulder blade,” he said.

This is also the point of the race where it can be especially important to keep hydrated and to keep downing calories to get you across the finish line.

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An illustration of a sweaty and exhausted marathon runner holding an energy gel packet. The runner is drooling and looks longingly at a potato chip a child is taking out of a bag.

When Amby Burfoot won the Boston Marathon in 1968, he said there were no fluid stations on the course and, feeling increasingly dehydrated, he fantasized about root beer floats. Now 78, he still runs Boston, repeating the mantra, “Every mile is a gift.”

Amanda Stumpf, 35, a college adviser at New York University, said she tried to take an energy gel at Mile 17 at the Chicago Marathon this year and immediately threw it back up. She recalled thinking, “Well, don’t love this for me,” before giving herself permission to walk. “Just keep going,” she told herself. “Just don’t stop moving.”

When Keira D’Amato, 40, set a since-broken American record in the women’s marathon in 2022, she kept hearing the Taio Cruz song “Dynamite” playing in her head. Sometimes in a race, she thinks about how aliens would find it odd to see people running in circles. Or she tells herself a corny joke (e.g. There are two words that have opened a lot of doors for me: Push and Pull).

“You’re doing anything to distract your mind from your body,” Ms. D’Amato said. “I never ask my body how it’s doing. Because the answer is going to be, ‘Terrible.’”

When Bethany Ulrich was running her first marathon, a bad night of sleep caught up with her around Mile 20.

“At one point, I closed my eyes because my eyes were so tired from not sleeping, so that felt good,” Ms. Ulrich, a 32-year-old graphic designer, said, laughing. “Then I was wondering, ‘Can I run and sleep at the same time?’”

Now is a good time to break out mantras.

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An illustration of a marathon runner hallucinating that two rats have joined the race. The runner splashes water in their face from a cup as the rats run by.

Kristina Centenari, a runner and coach, reminds herself that “your mind is the captain and will be the one thing that sinks the ship if it steers the wrong way.”

A surge of energy in these miles can prove invaluable. Some runners try to have their family and friends in position to cheer in these trying miles, and some runners find themselves feeding off the crowds.

At the Paris Olympics, Ms. Lindwurm got a boost when an 11-year-old boy ran near her on the side of the course at the 22-mile mark, calling her name. Such encouragement from spectators, Ms. Lindwurm said, feels “almost like a quick burst of Advil. Nothing hurts. You feel fresh again.”

For many runners, Mile 24 is when they realize they may survive after all.

At Mile 25 of her last marathon, Ms. Stumpf said, she told herself: “You can do anything for a mile.”

At the end of her last, Ms. Lawson started thinking about how she might be chilly at the finish line and wondering whether there would be long lines at nearby restaurants.

With 1.2 miles to go in his last marathon, Mr. Ubilla reminded himself that “running is a gift, as painful as it felt at the time” and to smile when he crossed the finish line.

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An illustration of a group of runners looking happy and relieved at the finish line of a marathon. One runner who uses a prosthetic leg checks their time on a watch. A group of runners in the front have their fists in the air and one wipes sweat from their face.

Mr. Mantz said he had sometimes panicked in the final two miles of earlier races and, in a tactic familiar among elite marathoners, counted every right foot stride to 40 or 60 or 100.

“Anything to take my mind off how much pain I was in,” he said.

But he closed strong in Paris and, as a contender in New York, he plans to follow this mantra: “Run your own race. Don’t worry about anybody else.”

Produced by Eden Weingart