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First Marathon Story: From Ballet to the Marathon: Reclaiming Movement at 42 w/ Kristine Owen Wood

  • Writer: Taylor Sayles
    Taylor Sayles
  • Mar 2
  • 4 min read
Taylor interviews Kristine Owen Woods about her first marathon. White text with Kristine Owen Woods appears over the photo of the interview.

Movement was always a part of Kristine's life. She started dancing at age three, and by age 10 or 11, she had decided that classical ballet would be her specialty. She was encouraged by her coaches that she could go professional, and trained at an elite level before joining a ballet company in her home of Alberta, Canada. While she was dancing, running was not expressly forbidden, but it was discouraged - the injury risk just wasn't worth it.


At 19, after struggling with her body image and extreme diet culture, she left ballet, and started rebelling against every rule she had to follow as a dancer. She cut her hair, she got more piercings - and, she started running.


Keep Coming Back

Running was awkward at first. She didn't know why people did this to themselves. But she kept coming back to running, savoring the alone time and allowing her mind to wander. Reclaiming movement in a space that was all her own. She had no distance goals, no time goals, she just loved the process. Running got her through university, and working in a foreign country after she graduated. Running was just for her - she was no longer on display like she had been during her dancing career.


Gradually, she branched out into yoga, and got away from running for a few years. But just like before, she kept coming back to it. When a hip injury impacted her ability to teach yoga, a friend suggested she get on the treadmill and try running to strengthen her hip in a different way from yoga and dance. She loved the program aspect of a training plan, and once she joined Starva and started getting kudos and words of encouragement, she was hooked.


From Half Marathon to Her First Full Marathon

Kristine started focusing on speed, running 5Ks before fixing her eye on the half marathon distance. She'll never forget the first half she ran - not a race, but a training run. She returned to her house in tears, in disbelief that she had just done that.


It wasn't long however, before injury crept up on her once again. She wasn't wearing the proper shoes or properly fueling, and she ended up with a calf injury that took two long years of recovery. It wasn't until 2022 that she was properly training, learning all of the terms, pacing, and really, how to run.


Her first race day felt like preparing for a dance competition. With the outfit, the makeup - she was performance ready. And although she fell one kilometer into her first half marathon, she realized it wasn't that serious, and she loved the raise, the adrenaline and the crowds. After two more half marathons (including a unicorn race where she broke her PR by more than expected), she felt confident enough to start thinking about the full marathon. She was turning 42 in 2025, and she thought it was time to run 42 kilometers.


Loving the Process

Kristine truly loved the process of training for her first marathon. She loved the three hour long runs. Coaching herself, she tried to keep her goals realistic.


On race morning, she was more unsettled than she thought she would be. But she took a deep breath, and remembered she was doing this for herself, and she wasn't out there that day to impress anyone. She went out slow and conservative, after receiving advice that she shouldn't let her emotions into the race until later.


The first half was great. As she pushed through the halfway point, she saw her friends on a slight downhill, and running through mile 15, she thought about what it would mean to keep up her steady eight-minute mile and cross the finish line. And after that, of course, things started to fall apart a little. Kristine got complacent with her fueling, and after missing one of her gels, she noticed her paces were starting to slip. Then she started not feeling well, and truly hit the wall at mile 20. She told herself three things: 1) don't walk; 2) stay gracious and positive; and 3) fight to hang on to her sub-four marathon goal.


By the time she got to the finish line, she was mentally and physically depleted, but she was a marathoner - and got her sub-four hour time!


Lessons Learned

  • Control what you can control, but accept that things might go wrong on race day.

  • Breathe!

  • Don't let your emotions get the best of you on race day.

  • It's never too late to start something new.


Want to hear Kristine tell the story herself? Listen to the full episode now: From Ballet to the Marathon: Reclaiming Movement at 42 w/ Kristine Owen Wood — available wherever you get your podcasts.


Listen to my most recent mini episode: How To Nail Weeks 10-15 Of Marathon Training



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Follow along with the show:

👣 Personal IG/TikTok: @tay.says / @taysays

🎙️ Podcast IG/TikTok: @myfirstmarathonpod

📺 YouTube: @MyFirstMarathonPodcast


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