Featured Runner-Angela Peck

My oldest son's senior night in 2012 (he had knee surgery a week prior)

My name is Angela Peck. I am 43 years old and my husband is 46. We both served four years in the army, but after we got out, life got in the way and we got lazy. We began running a little over two years ago because we were both very over weight. I was close to 180 pounds at only 5' 1" tall. He was almost 280 at only 6' tall. We knew we needed to lose weight if we wanted to enjoy life after our kids were grown. You see, my mother had passed away from cancer in 2005 at age 56, and my husband's dad passed away from cancer in 2012 at age 64. My husband's grandfather wasn't much older than that when he passed away. We wanted to get healthy so we could enjoy what years we have left, how ever few or many that may be.

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Pittsburgh Marathon this past May

We decided that dieting alone wasn't going to do it. We needed to make a complete lifestyle change. We changed how we eat--more lean meats such as ground turkey and fish, fewer potatoes more rice and whole grains, lots and lots more vegetables, even a meatless meal or two each week. And we started running.

We started going to the high school track in the evenings, a couple of weeks before Memorial Day 2013. One lap about killed us. But after some time, it didn't anymore. One lap became two, then three, then four. When running a mile on the track wasn't so hard, we began running on the road. We slowly worked up to two miles, then three. We ran our first 5K race that June. I remember at the end of the summer when we ran four miles for the first time. What a rush! I could not believe we had run so far.

As the weather turned, we didn't run quite as much through the late fall and early winter. We were frustrated, so we joined a gym. We ran on the treadmill four or five days a week. At this point, we had been up to six or seven miles regularly.

Not long after our 1 year anniversary of running, we began running more 5K races. We were up to running 10+ miles. We decided that running an official half marathon was our next step. We ran our first in October of 2014, and knew a full marathon was in our future.

In November of 2014, we started training for the Pittsburgh Marathon. This past May, we became part of the 1%.  We have now run three half marathons, multiple 5K's, 2 10-milers, and a 6.6K. This past month, we did our first obstacle course race, the Battlefrog 8K. We are looking to do a Spartan race in October this year, as well as another half. We have started trail running too. It seemed the next logical step. This past weekend, we ran our longest trail yet, 12 miles. Our next goal is a trail marathon in August of 2016. We are even looking into triathlons.

At the beginning of this year, we made a resolution to run at least 100 miles every month and run at least one race a month. So far, we have met the first resolution. Because of our son's track schedule and training for the marathon, we didn't run a race in April. That's ok. I can live with that. In just over two years, I have run 2,025 miles. My husband has run even more than that. I have lost fifty pounds and he has lost over 80 pounds. I could not be more proud of the changes we have made to our bodies, to our lives, to our minds. We have also used this as a lesson for our sons. They watched us go from couch potatoes to marathoners in two years. The journey isn't easy. If it was, everyone would be doing it. But, it is worth it. Every step.
 

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