Fresh Start Fitness

In 2008, I was interested in a guy who was running a marathon and he asked me if I wanted to come and watch. This was before smart phones so I asked another spectator, “How far is a marathon?” (It’s 26.2 miles.) I watched in amazement as the wheelchair racers finished, the elite men, the elite women, and then the rest of them. All genders, age, shape, and size. I cried when they hugged their families at the end or hugged the volunteer who was giving them their finishing medal. I was inspired. Oh, and I married the guy I was there to watch.

Fast forward 15 years: I had run 3 half-marathons and a handful of 5ks. I had lost ninety pounds and was running regularly. I started wondering, should I run a marathon? On the one hand, I am in peak physical fitness just running half marathons. It’s a perfectly reasonable distance to train, unlike a marathon which has 18 and 20-mile training runs. But just those little seeds of wondering had taken root and grown, and soon enough I was training for a marathon.

A quote I remember reading: “If you want to change your health, start running. If you want to change your life, run a marathon.” I wanted it. I wanted to challenge myself and teach myself a lesson: that I can do hard things. I can persevere. I can work hard and work through the temptation to quit.

While I was training, I ran with friends and family members who kept me motivated. I watched “Brittany Runs a Marathon”, a fun movie that shows one woman’s journey to the New York City marathon. I also watched “Spirit of the Marathon”, a documentary sharing five runners’ journeys to the Chicago marathon. I read Katherine Switzer’s book, “Marathon Woman”, which became one of the books that further inspired my desire to become a personal trainer. I loved reading about the progression of women in sports, including running. Katherine Switzer used to run marathons with a little bit of lipstick because she wanted people to know that she was an athlete and a woman. Now I always run with earrings.

Marathon training was hard, no doubt about it. But I trained well and the event itself was more or less what I expected. I feel so proud to tell people that I accomplished such a goal: less than 1% of the global population has completed a marathon! I proved to myself what I set out to prove: I am strong, determined, capable, hardworking.

My favorite thing about running is that it provides a venue for practicing and growing those traits that then carry over into the real world. Now that I know and believe those things about myself, I know I can do other hard things. I can work through pain when the outcome is worth it. I can be committed to tasks and see them through to completion. I can take on challenges and be victorious.