Running Over Hours

If there is one consistent theme in my life, it is intense enthusiasm followed by a dramatic loss of interest. I am hyper-focused and exceptionally good at starting ambitious projects. Finishing them is another matter.

Over the years, I have moved through photography, gardening, bodybuilding, art, music, business ownership, dance, and even flower pressing. I tend to go all in, buy the equipment, rearrange my life around it like this is it, this will finally define the “me”, and then wake up one day completely unmoved by the whole thing.

For a long time, I thought this meant I lacked discipline. In hindsight, I was simply looking for something that would last. Of all the possibilities, I never expected that thing to be running.

I genuinely hated it. Running was a punishment and only something you did if you particularly disliked yourself that day. I was convinced runners were a separate species, born with the correct lungs and legs, into the right family and environment. They started early in life, peaked in their twenties, and then transitioned into hobby runners. That was the rite of passage. You did not make the track as a teenager? Well, that ship had sailed. Move along and pick another hobby. The idea that someone would choose to run for fun seemed deeply suspicious to me.

My first run, on the last day of summer in 2024, was not a noble beginning. I had spent months unsuccessfully trying to lose the weight I gained after my second child and finally gave up on diets altogether. Spoiler alert, I weigh exactly the same today as I did on that long summer day months ago, so that failed.

In a moment of frustration, I put on a pair of trainers and shuffled through a truly miserable 3 km run. It was awful. I decided that if it felt that bad, I must be even more unfit than I had thought. That scared me. I swore to myself then and there that I would keep running until 3 km no longer felt like a near-death experience.

Fast forward to today, 31 December 2025, and I am averaging around 70 km per week and quietly, almost obsessively, thinking about and researching 24-hour races. This is not a progression I saw coming.

For the first time in my life, running was something that stayed. My interest did not deflate like a forgotten balloon at the end of a party. Instead, it soared. It moved from something I resisted, to something I tolerated, to something I now organise my whole existence around.

What do you mean, hang out on a Saturday? That is long-run day. Of course I cannot. I run, then I lie on the sofa, proud, in a recovery trance, eating everything in sight, like most endurance runners.

Since my closest friend took part in the October 2025 Albi 24-hour World Championships, which at the time made me question her sanity and consider referring her to my psychologist, the 24-hour format has become an obsession. For reasons probably best discussed with the same psychologist. But here we are.

I left Lithuania when I was nine and spent most of my life moving between countries, adapting quickly to new places and to whatever version of myself was most useful for surviving in them. I got very good at fitting in. So good, in fact, that I was almost diagnosed with a personality disorder. False alarm, as it turns out. It was postpartum depression. Talk about dodging a bullet.

Right now, I am training for my 24-hour debut on 7 June 2026 in Estonia.

In my early 30s, I began shedding the fake skins I had grown in each country and slowly figuring out who I actually was underneath it all, without the constant need to adapt or people-please. Twenty-four hours feels like a direct way to continue that process. To see who I am when I am tired, uncomfortable, stripped of performance and pretending. To meet myself somewhere around hour eight, twelve, or twenty and see what is left. If I can understand myself there, the rest of life should be easier to navigate.

I am not starting from nothing. I have spent most of my adult life weightlifting, on and off through pregnancies and different life phases, but enough to build a solid base. I am strong and reasonably durable, even if most of that fitness used to be more muscular than cardiovascular. That background helps, even if running insists on being its own particular kind of humbling.

I train around a full-time job, two children, a marriage, a house with some land, and three cats. It is everything but glamorous.

Life is unexpected and strange. Working with my coach, and the current world record holder for the 24-hour distance, Aleksandr Sorokin happened just as unexpectedly, but that is a story for another time. He took over my training on 1 November 2025, which is part of why this blog exists. That was the moment this stopped feeling like a slightly embarrassing, childlike fantasy I was waiting to wake up from and started feeling like something I could commit to fully. He handles the structure. I show up and do the work.

The one principle I trust more than motivation is discipline. I am not a naturally gifted runner. I am not built like one. I am heavier than most, and I did not grow up running. I only started when I was 33 years old. What I do have is a willingness to be consistent, to train when it is boring, and to take a long-term view when progress is slow.

This blog exists to keep me honest while I do that. It is a record of committing to the long game, of seeing what happens when I stay long enough to find out who I actually am and who I can become.

My most powerful dream is to qualify for the 24-hour World Championships. Whether that happens in 2027 or 2029 remains to be seen, and this blog will be used to track my progress as I move towards this goal. Qualification requires running 210 km in 24 hours, no small feat if you ask me. Time will tell if I am capable.

I do not expect to ever stop looking for a better understanding of myself. Whether through 24-hour racing or whatever comes next, I plan to keep showing up and seeing what happens.