Oh, The Places Running Has Taken Me

The feeling of crossing the finish line. I still feel this way.

I ran a marathon. I. Ran. A. Freaking. Marathon. Twenty-six point two miles. Even though half a year has passed, I’m still sort of in disbelief. If you had told me two years ago that I’d be able to call myself a marathoner, I wouldn’t have believed you. If you had told me fifteen years ago, I would’ve tried to have you committed. Sixteen years ago, 2003, I was in Basic Training. I was in really good shape, but I hated running. After I had been in the Army Reserves for a few years, after I had spent a year in Iraq, all of the running endurance I had gained in training had disappeared. The Reserves encourages soldiers to stay physically fit, but it can be difficult for someone who isn’t necessarily motivated to do so. I was a college student at the same time that I was in the Reserves. I was trying to graduate, and as a senior graphic design student I had gallery shows to prepare for. I also had choir concerts to perform in for my music minor. My marriage was falling apart, and I found out I was pregnant. My senior year in college was stressful to the max, but that’s a story for another time. The point is that during my senior year, fitness was anything but a priority. 

Now look at me. I’m still not in “basic training” shape, but I can run farther than I ever imagined. Just this month, I ran the TC One Mile. I took 21.1 seconds off of my time from 2017—I ALMOST broke an eight minute mile. My mind is still having a really hard time comprehending that. 

In November 2018, a little more than a month after the Twin Cities Marathon, I ran a Turkey Trot. It was a 10k. I was 45 seconds shy of running it in an hour. I blame the fact that I stopped less than a quarter mile in so I could tighten my shoelace. Were it not for that I'm sure that I would've broken a one hour time. 

The other thing that happened after TCM is that I started a run streak. My husband had been streaking for months, and I was looking for my next challenge. On October 22, 2018, I started running at least a mile a day. As of this writing, I am 214 days and 449 miles in. I am also "running the year" with my husband. We've teamed up to each run half of 2,019 miles. Our team is currently over 700 miles for the year. 

Running has given me so much since I found a passion for it. It has proven to me that I am so much stronger than I ever thought. It’s shown me that I’m capable of doing amazing things.  It’s also given me opportunities I wouldn’t have imagined. 

At the beginning of 2019, I learned that I was selected to be a Nuun Ambassador. Because of this, I’ve not only had a chance to try new products at a generous discount, but I also get to meet up with other ambassadors in the area for special events. I’ve met some incredible people. And, I’m so grateful to have been given the chance to represent Nuun alongside other Twin Cities Nuun ambassadors. Go to nuunlife.com/shop and use code hydratewithus25 for 25% off your purchase through May 29, 2019.

Another big change for me started around the beginning of April. It was prompted by my friend, who is a Zyia Active Independent Representative. She was in the process of trying to grow her team, and she reached out to me, as one of her Zyia Ambassadors, to ask me if I wanted to become a rep myself. My initial reaction was, “No way!” I’ve done direct sales, and I’ve failed miserably. As a stay-at-home mom, I just don’t have the reach I need to be successful at direct sales. I started talking to my husband about my friend asking me if I wanted to sell Zyia. I told him I knew the question was coming from her, but at that point, it just made me roll my eyes. As The Husband and I were talking, I mentioned that my friend has likely been successful at selling Zyia in part because she is also a group fitness instructor. Suddenly it hit me: Why couldn’t *I* become a group fitness instructor?  The conversation shifted. I decided to start asking my friend how she became an instructor. I told her I felt that being an instructor would be step one. 

I contacted my local YMCA and got a trial membership. I attended a few classes and asked the group fitness manager about the requirements for becoming an instructor. I learned everything I needed to know, and I started working on the steps I needed to take. 

I’m still working on my online classes. In fact, I really haven’t even started. The last month of school has been a busy time for my family, and I’ve had a lot of places to be. However, I did decide to become a Zyia rep myself because I got tired of referring people to my friend when they could be buying from me. My husband invested in my Zyia starter kit, which included a few new active wear items of my choice. Now I can share this clothing line that I love and also hopefully earn an income doing so. 

I just had my launch party, and the shopping link is still open. I still need a few orders to reach my goal for the party, and once that goal is reached, I will be drawing a name for one of my customers to get a free item! You can check out my page at
myzyia.com/runningonempty.

I'm not sure what my future has in store, but my goal is to become certified as a group fitness instructor and eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later, become a certified POUND instructor so that I can start teaching POUND classes at the YMCA. I never thought that this would be something I'd do with my life, and it all started with running.

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Coming Full Circle

It feels as though I have come full circle with my running journey. Before I explain why, though, I should really update you all on what has been happening with my running. 

I feel pretty lazy for not having written more posts since last December, but I don't feel like I need to beat myself up about it. Life happens, as they say. During the first six months of 2018 I kept busy with a variety of different things, not the least of which was running. 

Even in January, I knew that for Thanksgiving this year my family would not be going out of town. I decided that I wanted to run a Turkey Trot, as it was sort of on my wish list for last year, but my family went out of town, and I couldn't find a race local to where we were. The search for such a race this year in Minnesota led me to the Minnesota Run Series. The Minnesota Run Series is a group, or series, if you will, of races all throughout the year. The first race is Goldy's Run in April, and the last race is the Reindeer Run in December. The MN Run Series offers a 4+ challenge that gives any participants in 4 or more races of the 8 race series a special hoodie. Since I knew I was already planning on running the Turkey Trot, I convinced myself, and my husband, that I should run three more races to complete the 4+ challenge. The other races I chose were Goldy's Run, the Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon, and the Lake Waconia Half Marathon.

In addition to signing up for the above listed MN Run Series half marathons, I had also tentatively planned on running the Urban Wildland Half Marathon again this year, since it falls on a weekend that my husband already takes vacation from work. I felt that, in addition to a couple of 5k races, my running season would be challenging but not impossible. So early this year, my tentative race schedule was as follows:

April 8—Goldy's 10 mile 

May 6—Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon

May 21—SBMFD Fit2Fight 5k Fun Run

June 2—Lake Waconia Half Marathon 

July 28—Urban Wildland Half Marathon
September 29—Panther Foundation 5K
November 22—Turkey Trot: Saint Paul. 

It was definitely a well-rounded schedule that would hopefully keep my motivation and training on track.

While I did use the treadmill a small amount at the beginning of the year, once I signed up for Goldy's Run, I decided that I should train outside as much as possible, since I was well aware that an April race could bring any sort of weather.

I never ran in any extremely difficult conditions between January and April. Some runs were obviously colder than others. There was one particular run on April 3, during which it was snowing pretty heavily. As I ran throughout my neighborhood, I came across someone walking a dog. The man made a comment about my running in the snow, and I simply told him that weather didn't stop training. In my mind, for some reason, I had this vision of my training being for a marathon. I imagined what it would feel like to cross a finish line after 26.2 miles, and the thought honestly put a little more pep in my step.

A snowy run on April 3, 2018.

Now, I'm not saying that I was anxious to sign up for a marathon after that training run. I simply felt that, someday, likely years away, I would love to experience the feeling of completing 26.2 miles.

Fast forward to June. Folks in the running community likely know about Global Running Day. For those of you who may not have heard of it, it's pretty much exactly what the name implies. It's an annual event held on the first Wednesday of June that celebrates the sport of running. Every year, various running groups hold contests on Global Running Day. I like to enter contests. I tend to win things. This year a company called Motigo asked for runners to post a photo which answered a specific question that asked anything from "What's your favorite race?" to "Miles so far this year." I think I answered the "Miles so far this year" question and submitted it with a photo to their contest on June 6, 2018.

On June 10, I was sitting with my family waiting for fireworks to start for an annual local celebration. I checked my email. I was shocked when I read the following:

Hi there!
Congratulations!! You've won an entry to the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon

for participating and posting your picture for Global Running Day.

Say what?! I won an entry to a marathon?! An entry that normally costs $150.00?! I really wasn't sure how I felt about it at first. I asked my husband to check his vacation availability the next time he went in to work. When he told me that he had enough vacation, and the vacation calendar was open for October 7, I got really excited. Then I contacted my physical therapist to ask him if a marathon was something I could realistically complete. Once I got the okay from him, and once my husband put his name on the vacation calendar, I officially signed up for the marathon. I had 17 weeks to train. 

One of my biggest deciding factors for signing up, other than the free entry, was that I am currently in the best shape that I have been in since having kids. If there was going to be any year to commit to the time it takes to train for a marathon, this was it. And, my husband agreed. 

So, here we are 17 weeks of training later. I have one more training run before the marathon. I mentioned at the beginning of this post that I felt like I'd come full circle with my running. This is why: I really became hooked on running after I had won an entry to a local 5k.  Now here I am, preparing to run my first marathon on an entry that I won. Very few people can say they were fortunate enough to win a single race entry, let alone two. The only reason I am running the marathon this year is because of the free entry, and the free entry to that 5k in 2016 is one of the main reasons I started running. 

I don't necessarily plan on winning any more race entries in the future. I'm not even sure that I plan on running any more marathons. I guess I'll save that decision until after I finish on Sunday. Until then, I can say that the act of training for a marathon has shown me that I can do anything I set my mind to. And, honestly, I now understand why people pay $150.00 to run 26.2 miles. The experience of the training alone has been worth that price. 

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