![]() I was 5' tall and weight in at a whopping 275 lbs. Short and round was how I described myself. I had been diagnosed with a chronic illness and at the age of 48 found myself dependent on oxygen 24/7. This was not good and my husband did not expect me to live another 5 years. We decided to move from our home in Colorado where we were at 8,000 feet altitude to the low lands of Mississippi where the altitude was 215 ft. We did not choose Mississippi out of a hat, we did have family living there and it would be fun to be close them again. Upon arrival in Mississippi, I had to find new physicians. I found an aggressive Dr. who decided to give me a second lease on life. He worked very hard to get me off some of my medications and I am grateful to him for that. While he was whittling away at my medications, I accidentally went toxic on one of my other meds (NOT my fault!) and almost died. During this time, I forgot how to eat and immediately lost 30 pounds! Most excellent! When I came around, I decided to really put forth an effort to losing weight and being active. This is where my sister comes into the story. She works at Mississippi State University and they were offering the C25K program. She wanted to do it and wanted me to participate. I said, sure! Little did I know that 2 yrs ago this coming Labor Day would be a life changing day for me. That is the day we began C25K. That was the most difficult thing I have ever done and if it had not been the promise I made to my sister, there is no way I would have completed to program. A strange thing happened during that program~I got hooked on running! The 5K at the completion of the program took me 48 minutes. I was so proud! My husband ran it with me~stuck by my side step by step and then we cried at the finish line. This was a major accomplishment. Not was I off oxygen and the majority of my medications, I had lost 148 pounds! Totally excellent! I am now 51 and running now is a major part of my life. My husband and I are running partners and have completed many 5K's, 2 10K's, a 12K, 2 half marathons and are presently training for my first full marathon and his 3rd full marathon! Who would have thought that running could have changed my life and the life of my family so dramatically!?! Our marathon is on Oct. 20. Wish us luck!!!
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![]() Hi All...I would like to give my little story. I started out about a year ago. (this is not an advertisement..) I bought Insanity to do at home. I was 225lbs and 28 yrs old. The heaviest of my life. I used to run in school and played ball all the time and was in decent shape until I got married and my wife had kids. I kinda just gave on me and started taking care of them. Always putting them ahead of my health, or that was my excuse anyways...lol...well long story short. I started Insanity and ran my first 5k in October.(not running any before this point, just trying to push myself a little)..36 mins and stopped a bunch. little Did I know I would fall in love with it. I made a goal with my wife that we would start running seriously in January 2013....We put together a group of about 15 runners in town and all ran on the 1st. since then we've logged around 400 miles each on this journey. And loved every minute of it. My 5k time is down to around 21 mins and 10k around 48 mins.I'm looking to do a half and possibly a full marathon before this year is out. Not only have my wife and I did this as a team but my kids are beginning to get on board. my son 4yo, won his first mile race with a time of 11 mins...my daughter 7yrs old, just ran a 5k with me and we made it in 45 mins. Seeing them begin to run and finishing these races has to be one of my top 3 "proud Daddy" memories...I love it....Oh btw..With my routine of running and working out at the house using Insanity, P90X, and some crossfit workouts I found online, I've lost a total of 76lbs and continue to run and honestly feel better and healthier than I've ever felt in my life...Its weird cause before I couldn't run around the softball bases, now if I don't get in about 3 to 4 miles a night, I'm going crazy..lol...I LOVE IT!!!. Look forward to the inspiration and being around like minded people. Here's a picture of my before and after. And our little family award shelf... ![]() My running story begins in February 2012. I was at my heaviest weight of 235 lbs. I had just joined Fitness World Gyms in Hartsville, SC the month prior & started making smarter choices about my food at that time as well. Although I had started to drop weight by using the elliptical, going to fitness classes, and by monitoring my caloric intake, I wanted to try something I had never done before. I wanted to challenge myself....I wanted to compete in a 5K race. I downloaded the Couch To 5K app so I could run the April 28, 2012 Carver C.A.P. 5K in Florence, SC. Starting out proved to be extremely difficult. I was obese even after having lost about 20 pounds at that point. I remember trying to run for 90 seconds was nearly impossible for me. I had aches and pains, but I persevered. Eventually I was able to run for those 90 seconds and even worked my way up to running for 5 minutes straight!! I was able to complete the Carver C.A.P. 5K with a time of 43 minutes, 34 seconds. I was not able to run the entire 3.1 miles, but that didn't bother me. Something happened to me that day; I realized that I COULD do something that I set my mind to IF I was willing to put in the hard work that it required. I didn't know that completing that 5K race would cause me to get bitten by the run bug :) It wasn't long after that race that I found out that Fitness World Gyms decided to start a run club. I signed up and made many new friends. By the end of 2012, I had completed 14 - 5K races and earned a PR of 36 minutes, 50 seconds at the Charlotte Turkey Trot 5K in Charlotte, NC on Thanksgiving Day. I also estimated that I ran/walked approximately 200 miles in 2012. So far the year 2013 has been very eventful for me. I have a new PR 35 minutes, 39 seconds for a 5K. I completed my first 10K at the Cooper River Bridge Run in Charleston, SC with a chip time of 1 hour, 29 minutes, 38 seconds. I have also completed my first half marathon at the Run Like A Diva Half in Mrytle Beach, SC on April 28, 2013, one year to the day that I completed my very first 5K!!! My chip time for the half marathon was 3 hours, 14 minutes, 21 seconds. As of today, I am over halfway to completing my goal of running 400 miles this year. I am currently training for the inaugural Darlington Marathon that will take place in September in Darlington, SC. During the course of my journey I have lost 67 pounds, but in losing those 67 pounds I gained so much. I gained lots of friends, self-confidence, and a sense of pride in myself that I never though I would have. And that is my story......to be continued ;) ![]() My love of running came out of finding a way to survive. I was raised in total chaos and sickness, full of alcoholism, abuse and pain. I found running (innocently enough) while running away from my dad...and it worked. Running became my very own escape and I used it any chance I got. I started running track and cross country in the 6th grade and it carried me through highschool. I ran in college; but fell prey to my own addictions and waged a nasty battle trying to do everything in my power to outrun myself. I ended up in the hospital due to alcohol and eating disorders and very slowly began re-building my life. I was able to get healthy mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually by using my running as a healthy way to deal with life. I have now raised two beautiful children who are on their own and thriving and am re-married to an amazing man (who does not begin to understand my running...but loves me and supports me in it) Running is so personal to me. I run for me and for me alone. I am free when I run and I never feel more alive than when I am running. I am grateful every day that I can run because I tried so hard to destroy myself...it is an absolute miracle that I have no lasting health problems due to my past. My hope for every runner is that you run for you...and only you. Enjoy it, celebrate it, nuture it. It is yours and your alone. Thanks so much for letting me be a part of this wonderful community. I appreciate each and every one of you and every experience you have had. Richelle ![]() Flipping through my mental rolodex to the afternoon of February 24th 2012 standing on a scale in my doctors office watching in horror while the nurse continue to slide the weight on the scale higher and higher. The weight kept climbing like the thermometer on a summer afternoon. Two hundred pounds, two hundred and fifty, finally the mercury stopped at three hundred and eight pounds. I was mortified! Later that afternoon sitting on our couch depressed I made a life altering decision, I was not only going to lose weight but I would get myself into shape at age forty. The very next day I made a drastic change to my diet. I began to walk six miles a day five days a week and slowly things began to change for me. My body started feeling better. The digestive issues I had been having were suddenly gone. I began to have more energy and my walking began to speed up. Fast forward to an afternoon in late April as I returned from the local store where I had bought some fertilizer for our lawn. After lifting these extremely heavy bags from the car I happened to notice each bag weighed forty five pounds. Stepping back for a moment and standing there in amazement realizing I had lost forty five pounds at this point and lifting those bags of fertilizer really put what had happened to me in perspective. ![]() A week later several friends had begun to push me to run a 5K race. Now I had not run since playing high school lacrosse twenty two years prior. I was resisting all I could but my curiosity would eventually get to me. However we signed up as a family and had planned to walk it. Race day finally arrived and as we got there the half marathoners had begun to come in. The atmosphere was electrifying. I was so excited to be a part of what was going on but really having no clue what was going on. All I knew is that it felt good. As we stood waiting for the gun my wife looks at me and says “You know you want to run”. I politely replied no I’m going to walk, BANG, the gun goes off and the tightly packed crowd of runners begin to take off. My wife looks at me and says again “You know you want to run” and I looked back with a huge smile and I was off. About a mile into it I am feeling great as a gentle pat on my back gets my attention and woooosh, my thirteen year old son goes flying on by. With the finish line in sight and my adrenaline pumping I noticed all those half marathoners clapping and cheering as we crossed the finish line. Wow, what a sense of community I thought. Runners of all skill levels cheering and supporting one another. I was hooked! My first ever 5K race was now complete, finishing in 35:19. ![]() It all started in 2010 when I got laid off. My job was extremely stressful and I put in very long days which lead to unhealthy habits and massive weight gain. I was around 180 pounds when I started that job and around 260 when I left 3 years later. While being laid off I decided to join a gym. I spent a couple hours a day walking on the treadmill and gradually added some short runs interspersed in there. My goal was to run a 1/2 marathon and signed up for one in August. I started loving running so much that I signed up for an earlier one and ran my first 1/2 marathon (Red, White and Boom) on July 4, 2010 in 2:36. By the end of the summer I had lost over 60 pounds. In the meantime, I found a job and started nursing school. Working full-time and going to school full-time made it incredibly difficult for me to continue working out and I fell back into a sedentary lifestyle and gained all my weight back. I was very stressed out being in school and was very unhappy with my life. In 2012, I made a choice that I needed to take better care of myself if I was going to take care of patients so I started running again, but did so over my lunch break at work since this was the only free time I had. My bucket list always included a marathon but it seemed so out of reach for me. This time around I decided that I needed to set my sights on one and signed up for Grandma's marathon in Duluth MN. I continued running, going to school and working. I found that adding the running to my life reduced my stress so significantly that school was no longer something I loathed going to and actually found I was learning more and more easily. I was happier in life, wasn't as tired all the time, was getting sick less often and was losing the weight that had been holding me back. ![]() On June 22nd, 2013, I ran my first full marathon. I ran it in 5 hours, 8 minutes and 32 seconds. A time I will never forget. I won't lie, it hurt like hell but it's not a bucket list item for me anymore, it's a personal goal for me to improve upon. I've already signed up for 2 more full-marathons because I know I can only improve from here. I've continued going to the Red, White and Boom 1/2 marathon every year. It was my first 1/2 marathon and it was their inaugural 1/2 marathon so it's something special to me. Last year it was reduced to a 5-miler because of extreme heat and humidity so I don't have a time comparison but I completed it this year with a PR of 2:20. Running for me is something that has kept me whole and sane. I didn't have any support when I first decided to run a marathon but when the people around me saw what a positive change it was having on me, they rallied around me. now I have people asking me how to start running, and I help them understand how to continue running. |
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