Diet, exercise, and fitness can have benefits that reach further than health and how you look in a bikini. Sometimes the trans-formative process reaches so deep that it changes you for life and makes you a better person inside and out. Just accomplishing one thing that you thought you couldn’t can spark a fire inside of you that leads to you fulfilling your true potential.
This is Lindsay’s story:
Growing up, I was always an athlete. I played basketball, volleyball, and ran hurtles. I however despised long distance running! I was never any good at it. Sprinting yes, running lines in practice yes, running more than a mile NO! I was always the last one to finish when they made us do “endurance runs” and I sometimes had to stop and walk. My competitive spirit made me hate it because long distance running was the one athletic thing I failed at.
Fast forward to my 27th birthday party where a friend brought up training for the White Rock Lake half marathon. She asked me if I wanted to join her.
At first I was like NO THANKS…but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to try to do it to prove to myself that I could do it.
I was already in decent shape from my daily kickboxing and elliptical workouts so I figured it couldn’t be that bad to start training….WRONG it was HARD!!! I started out running for two minutes, walking for two minutes, running for two minutes, walking for two minutes. I’d did this for an hour 4 days a week for two weeks. By the third week, I tried going to 3 minutes running and 2 minutes walking and did just fine. The fourth week I went to 4 minutes and 1 minutes, and by the fifth week, I ran for 45 minutes straight without stopping!
I will never forget the feeling of accomplishment I had that moment the watch hit 45 minutes and I hadn’t walked at all!!
I kept it up my training for 4 months and worked on things like speed intervals, running 6, 8, even 10 miles at a time and weight lifting too. I ran a few 5, 10, and 15k’s with my friend in preparation and on my 28th birthday, 4 weeks before the Half Marathon was to take place, I ran 12 miles straight without stopping! The feeling of “I can do anything I put my mind to” was amazing after that run. It really was much more of a mental battle than it was a physical one.
It was more often my mind telling me “come on stop, you are tired, you are bored, you could be watching TV eating ice cream right now…” than it was my body. I had to learn to take mental control of myself. I had to learn how to fight those inner “you can’t, you shouldn’t, you’ll never make it” voices inside my head with positive “you can do it, you’re amazing, look how far you’ve come, only 5 more minutes now…” pep talks.
My friend tore ligaments in her ankle a few weeks before the race so I ended up running it all by myself…but that was ok! It was actually even better because I started the race and finished it myself. No one ran with me, no one pushed me, I had to push myself and that was awesome! I crossed the 13.1 finish line at exactly 2 hours 2 minutes and 12 seconds.
It was such a rush to know I had finally conquered that thing I had mentally told myself I could not do. I have been running ever since!
I plan to run a full marathon (26.2 miles!) next spring at the age of 30!
Lindsay works in Accounting at RHP and is very enthusiastic about all things Health and Fitness. She’s also very active on our facebook page.
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