Mari Souza was not a runner. For most of her life she had no interest in becoming one. She did two races in 2016, mostly for fun with work colleagues, and thought nothing more of it.
Then the pandemic arrived, and like many people, she found herself searching for air, movement and somewhere else to put her mind.
The First Time
It was 2020. The anxiety was building in a way she had never quite felt before. One day she simply could not stay inside any longer.
She laced up her shoes and walked out.
“I started more walking than running," she says. "I couldn't handle much. But it was doing my mind so much good that before I knew it I was enjoying it. I felt that running had healed me of that anxiety I was feeling.”
She kept going — not for races, not for times, not for anyone watching. Simply because it made her feel better.
Then life intervened. Work. Personal struggles. Between 2023 and 2024 the running faded. She didn't notice how much she had needed it until it was gone.
The Second Time
2025 arrived harder than expected.
“I almost fell into a deep depression," Mari says. "I was in a very bad place. No desire to do anything. No spark for anything.”
At some point, she remembered what running had done for her before.
So she came back. She signed up for a 10K and downloaded a training plan from the internet. Nothing elaborate. Just a structure. A reason not to stop.
“That process helped me get out of that darkness much faster," she says. "It was so good that I decided right there, after the 10K, to run my first half marathon.”
If I Can Do This, I Can Do Anything
The half marathon cycle changed everything.
With her coaching team beside her, Mari discovered something she had never given herself credit for. Strength. Discipline. The ability to endure.
“I was always someone who didn't believe in myself much," she says. "I missed many opportunities in life because of that. The fear of trying and failing terrified me — sometimes it paralyzed me.”
“With every training session I thought — if I'm capable of doing this, I'm capable of anything.”
“When I saw what I was capable of in running — distances I never imagined I would cover in my life — that naturally reflected into everything else.”
She crossed that first finish line knowing she wanted more. Today she is preparing for her third half marathon. Next year she plans her first full 42 kilometres.
But she is careful. Performance, she insists, can never become a burden.
The Mind Is Always the Distance
Ask Mari about the hardest part of running and she doesn't mention hills or heat or kilometres.
“The biggest challenge is always mental. The mind can make you lose everything if you don't strengthen it alongside the body.”
She always works on her mental strength alongside her physical training — so that her mind learns it can handle much more than it thinks it can.
She has a philosophy about the process that runs through everything she does.
“For any goal you have in life, the process to get there is never linear. It has its highs and lows. There will be days that feel like you have stagnated or even regressed — but that is also part of evolving. Trusting the process means knowing that even on those bad days you are still growing.”
“In the end it always works out.”
Solo and Together
Some Saturdays begin before sunrise at USP, the University of São Paulo campus, where the city's running culture quietly assembles in the dark. GPS watches beep near the curb. Headlamps flicker past the trees. Groups form naturally along the wide campus roads before dissolving again into their own paces and marathon cycles.
The routes are long, open and built for distance — nearly six kilometres around the main perimeter loop, with shaded stretches, rolling hills and dirt side paths cutting beside the asphalt.
This is where many of São Paulo's runners do their long runs.
Mari is one of them.
During the week, she usually runs somewhere quieter: Parque Villa-Lobos, on the western side of the city near the Pinheiros River. The park feels unusually open for São Paulo — long cycling paths, wide running tracks, thousands of trees and enough green space to briefly forget the scale of the city surrounding it.
“My favourite park is Villa-Lobos," she says. "Sometimes it doesn't even feel like São Paulo.”
There, running becomes more personal.
Not performance. Not splits. Not race preparation.
Just movement, rhythm and the mental quiet she first discovered back in 2020.
The Cities She Has Yet to Run
Mari has been to New York. She has been to Los Angeles. She saw those cities as a visitor — on foot, at tourist pace, from the outside.
She was not a runner then.
“I would love to go back and run those cities," she says. "When I visited I wasn't running yet. I would like to return and experience them that way.”
She would go alone. The solitude is part of it.
She wants to see those cities differently this time. Not through taxis or hotel windows, but from inside a long run.
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"Eu corro pra viver."
I run to live.
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Mari Souza — Instagram @bymari.as — São Paulo, Brazil
Runner • Half Marathoner • São Paulo Running Community
