Fresh off her Boston Marathon finish, professional distance runner Sara Hall came to San Francisco to celebrate the release of her memoir.
Promoting “For the Love of the Grind” (St. Martin’s Press, 288 pages, April 21, 2026), Hall appeared at Book Passage on Monday — just a week after winning the women’s Masters (40+) division — for a meet-and-greet, book signing and photo opportunity.
For Hall, who turned 43 five days before running Boston, it felt like the right time to write a book about her life and decades-long career full of standout race performances.
“A lot of people that have followed my career over the years were reaching out and just being like, ‘We want to know how you’re still physically doing this, how you’re still loving the sport, and what’s led to your longevity,’” she says.
The book’s title nods to Hall’s persistence and dedication to training and racing, and the hard work and discipline that go into both.
“Even though my career is still unfolding, I’m definitively in the second half right now, and I feel like the grind really never ends. My professional career will transition, but I’ll still be grinding — still hopefully loving the grind — for many more years,” she adds.
A Stanford University alum who grew up in Santa Rosa, Hall lives in Flagstaff, Arizona with her husband Ryan Hall, a retired professional long-distance runner. In the book she describes their adopted four daughters, sisters from Ethiopia, as “the greatest gift in my life.”
Hall also shares a detail that may surprise to readers familiar with her Christian faith: her dabbling into “magic mushrooms.”
“Everyone’s told me that I was on the lowest list of who they thought would do that,” she says.
But she says the spiritual experience had a profound impact on her performance at the 2022 Houston Half Marathon, where she crossed the finish line in 1:07:15.
“It was a really pivotal before-and-after moment in my life that led to me setting the American record in the half marathon, so it was an important thing to talk about,” she says.
Another significant race was the 2020 London Marathon. During the pandemic, Hall had faith that there would be a race opportunity and continued to train — if only for the love of it. She was able to put that self-discipline and effort to the test on Oct. 4, when she toed the line in London and placed second woman, finishing in 2:22:01.
“I almost dropped out in the middle of it, but it ended up being the defining moment of my career. It really sums up the love of the grind and who I am as a runner and a person,” she says.
The Boston Marathon, which she finished in 2:31:55, did not come easily, she says: “My quads were really wrecked, and I was really struggling to run race pace near the end.
“Honestly, out there, I was like, ‘Maybe I don’t love the grind. This is the most painful race of my life,’ which was kind of funny and ironic,” she adds, with a laugh.
Boston was Hall’s fifth marathon in recent months. Others were the Tokyo Marathon on March 1, the Houston Marathon on Jan. 11, and, last year, the California International Marathon on Dec. 7 and the New York City Marathon on Nov 2.
Race performance fluctuation — how one feels on the course and one’s finish time — is normal, she notes. Not every race is going to be a personal record or feel close to effortless. Hall is aware of and comfortable with that, saying that some races “have gone well, some haven’t gone well. I think that kind of sums up my career in general.”
“I’m still loving the process, competing and being able to be resilient and move forward quickly onto the next goal. I think that’s what I’ve learned throughout the highs and lows of a 30-year-long career,” she adds.
In the book, she shares how she cares for her body as she reaches middle age and continues to run strongly and consistently, including ways she has adjusted her training.
“I know so many other ‘age groupers’ here in Boston want to keep doing this sport, but it’s hard on the body, so you have to figure out how to do it differently,” she says.
The mentality surrounding aging matters, too. Hall forgoes jokes about being old, doesn’t use the “grandma” emoji or make self-deprecating remarks.
“I’m trying to find the tension of being kind to myself and giving myself grace when my body doesn’t do what it used to be able to do — recovering the same way it did or something like that. I’m trying to work out that tension right now,” she says.
Hall wants her readers to be inspired to embrace the process and let go of factors holding them back, whether race results, a focus on splits, fear of failing, or external and internal pressures and expectations. Her book describes how her perspective and approach to running have changed for the better, how she has dealt with losing the joy of competing and performance anxiety.
“I really hope other people can get freed up to be able to approach competition like I do now,” she says. “There’s nothing to lose and nothing to prove.”
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