My Story

Becoming a runner is by far the last thing I thought would happen to me. If we back up years ago, I was overweight and not interested in many sports or active activities. Watching a musical or finding new indie music were more up my alley. But, funny how just growing up makes you change in drastic ways.

In high school, I played tennis but loathed any running we had to do. I also distinctly remember failing my phys. ed. final of running the mile. I think it took 16 minutes or so. Things pretty much continued the same way in college. Despite my university having a huge recreation center that was for student use only (no classes), I never once stepped in it. Fear of not knowing the procedures and looking out of place kept me away. Instead, I stayed holed up in my dorm room. For a long, long time, I had about as low self-confidence/self-esteem anyone could have coupled with being very shy with social anxiety. It wasn't a good mix...

But, things started to change post-college. I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do with my life at this point, so I moved back to my hometown and started my first post-college job. It was going to be temporary until I figured out what to do with myself. There, I met my now husband. We were working together and he kept trying to break me out of my shell. Apparently, me constantly rejecting him made him try harder. Little did he know my rejecting him was more out of my own fear and had absolutely nothing to do with rejecting him as a person. Either way, it worked out!

About a year later, we were living together in a new town. By this point, although I started to have more confidence in myself, physically I was heavier than ever and not happy with myself. But then, I had my moment. I was shopping for new bras and becoming frustrated. At that moment, I decided it was time to lose weight and get healthy. Which, I did and haven't looked back. I lost 50+ pounds mostly by using workout videos and just eating better.

After we bought our first house, we got a treadmill and I used to continue to stay in shape but that was the only purpose. Just get my 30 minutes in a day, either by the treadmill or some other exercise. Every once in awhile, I'd run outside, but rarely.

But, then, last year my husband wanted a goal to get on his own healthy kick and somehow we decided to sign up for a 5K. That was on Thanksgiving 2009. I walked/ran it with him and something in me clicked. I knew I would have been able to run the whole thing and suddenly the idea of 'training' for something was totally appealing. So, since that first 5K, I've done another 5K, a 5 miler, 15K, 2 half marathons and another half and a full marathon scheduled...guess I got hooked. Seeing my progress has been extremely exciting for me!