Nagy overcomes inner obstacles to complete Dallas Half Marathon

Running for the Oak Cliff Run Crew, Paul Nagy, originally of Hohenwald, completed his first Half Marathon Sunday, December 15th at the 2024 Dallas Marathon.

"Completing this has been quite an emotional experience for me," said Nagy. "Anyone close to me knows how bad I struggled to even make it to that starting line.

I pushed past months of training, self doubt, anxiety, and months of downtime due to injury. I even fell off my training a couple months before the race due to just life in general. But, grossly unprepared as I was, I made it, thanks to my relentless inability to quit or leave something 'good enough,' as well as my OCRC friends who pushed the boundaries and the limits of their own bodies right along side me."

Nagy goes on to describe his race, "Around mile six, the reality started to set in. My mind started to talk me out of it. You're not even half way. Look at what is already sore now. What's that going to feel like in another 6? I pushed past the intrusive thoughts. On mile 7, I heard shouting and a megaphone. I knew then that those were my people. My run crew was right around the corner keeping the energy, and I was halfway to the finish line. With a dry mouth full of even drier Oreo's, I picked up my pace, calves and quads screaming for more oxygen and glycogen.

By mile 9, my tank started running empty. Still another 5k to go. I had to dig real deep to make it another 3.1 miles. REAL deep. My knees revolted with every stride pounding the pavement. I could feel the blood running down my leg from my thighs chaffing. The blisters on the bottoms of both feet really started to tell me they'd had enough. I looked down at my new white Brooks Adrenalines, no blood stains. Okay, good. I still had all my toe nails, I thought.

In mile 11, I dug even deeper asking my muscles for more, even though they'd clearly almost gassed out. They screamed in protest, but I drove them harder. Further. In mile 12 came a long, steep hill, and the pacers started pulling away while my heart rate soared over 170 BPM. Zone 5 is not where I wanted to be that close to the finish, so I backed it down and let them just go.

My Garmin vibrated at mile 13. I had only two tenths of a mile to go. I could hear the end. The music. The cheering. I could smell the food, and after just an oatmeal for breakfast, at that point, I was running for tacos. I ran through the corals, back where I started. I made the sharp right and found myself running between 30,000 people on either side of me. It felt like a NASCAR foot race or an Olympic event. Cheering me on as if they knew me or my story. As if they were proud of me and didn't even know me. I saw the finish and the BMW with all our names on it. Everyone who ran. I pushed harder and sailed through the finish line where thousands had crossed before me throughout the day. The feeling is indescribable."

Nagy's 3.1 mile 5k run on Saturday, along with the Half Marathon on Sunday was run because he "had something to prove to myself." With a total of over 16 miles run, Nagy says, "I proved to myself that I can do the hard thing. No matter what setbacks life has in store or how much our minds may tell us no. You CAN do this. All of you can do the hard things in life, too. I'm proof of that. My hope is that I reach even just one person and inspire them to push through their own hard things in life, whether that's addiction, loss of a family member, divorce, or just trying to budget your paycheck to last until the next one. If my run can inspire them to set their feet on the starting line each day and push to the finish, then this marathon was worth every muscle strain, every blister, and every single sacrifice I made."

Nagy's accomplishment has encouraged him to keep trucking, err running along. "Eventually, I'll do a full marathon, but that is quite a beating on the body and will take more than a year to train for," he says with a laugh. "For now, my goal is to shave about 30 minutes off my time from this year."