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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2,017 miles in 2017

I set a personal goal for 2017 to run 35 miles in races. I could've started that goal in May when I turned 35, but I opted to just make it a goal for the calendar year. I actually ended up running 51.42 race miles which included many firsts for me. Though I did not start out the year planning to run a half-marathon, 2017 marked my first one. This year also marked my first mile long race, which I ran faster than I had ever imagined possible. 2017 earned me my first age group placing, too. Between training and racing, I ran a total of 288 miles. I walked about that many miles, too. I actually don't know how many miles I walked, because I was pretty terrible about logging them.  I hope to improve upon that in 2018.

I don't think that this year would've included so many firsts if it weren't for the inspiration I received from the folks participating in Run the Year 2017. I've mentioned Run the Year before, but I never actually wrote a post about it. I figured that now is as good a time as any, since the year is over.

I started running in 2016, and it all pretty much began with my first race. Although, it wasn't until my second race that I really fell in love with it. That year, I set a personal goal to run five 5ks. I trained semi-regularly, because I wanted to avoid injury and make running a regular part of my life.

That same year, one of my friends was posting pictures from races she had run. She had made a personal commitment to run 33 miles, since she celebrated her 33rd birthday that year. To the best of my knowledge, she didn't really train for the races, she just went out and ran them. At some point during the year, I commented on her goal and she mentioned to me that there were people in the world who actually "run the year." I hadn't heard of that concept before and the more I thought about it, the more intrigued I became.

At the end of 2016, I found myself on the Run the Year 2017 website. I knew that I'd never be able to run 2,017 miles in a year—having three kids and Minnesota's harsh winters would prevent me from meeting that goal. However, the website mentioned that one could count their daily steps. Run the Year had an online tracker that would sync automatically with Fitbit data. Suddenly, the idea of averaging roughly 5.5 miles a day didn't seem so impossible. I'm usually fairly active in the warmer months, but I did a lot of sitting in 2016, especially in the winter. Some days, I was lucky to hit 5,000 steps. It frustrated me because I was gaining weight. I decided to give myself some motivation to keep active, and I signed up for Run the Year on New Year's Eve.

The Run the Year challenge encouraged me to use Wii Fit to freestep while I was watching TV. The challenge helped motivate me to run a half-marathon. The Run the Year challenge helped me go 500 miles farther in 2017 than I did in 2016.

Some Run the Year participants only count dedicated exercise miles. Maybe I'll be able to do that someday. But, for me, counting my daily steps isn't cheating. Walking to my basement to get more paper towels might not be "exercise," but the Run the Year challenge helped encourage me to do things like that more often, instead of convincing my kids to do them for me. I worked for every mile of my 2,017 miles, whether I was completing a race, pacing around my kitchen, or even just putting laundry away. I am proud of my 2,017 miles.

I will be participating in Run the Year 2018. My goal is to complete the challenge before December 31. In fact, I'd love to get 2,100 miles. I'm hoping for a minimum of 300 running miles. Injuries prevented me from hitting 300 running miles this year. Thankfully, 2017 has taught me so much, and I'm looking forward to what 2018 has in store.

I'm Lazy And I Know It

In addition to participating in the Run the Year Challenge, in which I am counting all my daily steps, I’m also participating in my city’s fitness challenge. For that challenge, only walking, running, biking, and swimming miles count. Swimming miles are worth four times as much and biking miles are 1/4 as much. Walking and running miles are 1:1. 

July, when I trained for and ran a half-marathon, was a high mileage month. I got 110 miles in. That allowed me to join the city’s 100 Mile club, in which you have to complete 100 miles in six months. 

My mileage has steadily declined since then: 55 in August (I was in PT for my knees and wasn’t running as much), 39 in September, and 27 in October. I really didn’t do much of anything in October after I ran the Unleash the SHE 10k. I was making Halloween costumes and being lazy. 

Now that I’ve reassessed where I am at in the RTY challenge, I know I need to hit 5.76 miles or more a day to reach 2,017 miles by year’s end. 

I’m still not running at this time, because I need to see the doctor about some pain I’ve been having in my hip. But, I’ve committed to walking every day, as that is the only way I will hit my goals. 

As far as the city fitness challenge, I have until the end of June 2018 to hit 500 miles and until the end of 2018 to hit 1,000 miles. I’m already half way to 500 miles, and with my renewed commitment to exercising, I know I’ll hit 500 by the end of this year. 

I’m a person who needs motivation to get off my butt. If I don’t have a reason to walk or run, I would probably spend all day sitting, either snuggling with my toddler, watching TV, surfing the web, or even sleeping. That is why I joined the RTY challenge. Having more than one challenge that I’m participating in really helps me to stay motivated and committed to exercise, even if there may be some fantastic months and some not-so-fantastic months. 

My biggest personal challenge right now is my lack of strength training. I need to find the motivation to work strength training into my routine. I know it will only bring positive changes, so I’m not sure what my hang-up is other than I’m lazy.

There will always be room for improvement. Every year I get better. I can’t wait to see what next year will bring. 

Fit2Fight

In high school, I was on the track and field team, but I hated running. You can read why here. In college, I joined the military and was in the best shape of my life, but I still, maybe even more so, HATED running.

I hated running so much that when my neighbor moved in next door and mentioned that she needed a new running buddy, I just laughed and said, “I hate running.” She would still ask me to join her on a run every now and then. I joined her maybe once. It felt like torture. Why do people subject themselves to this? Who in their right mind would pay someone to be able to run? I would NEVER be a person who paid money to someone in order to run a race. People who do that are surely insane.

Fast forward two years.

My neighbor’s husband, in addition to being in the Air Force, is also a firefighter. When they moved in next door, he went through the necessary steps to be able to work with our local FD, which is largely volunteer based. In May 2016, the FD held a Fit2Fight 5K Fun Run. There was a competition between the different stations in the department to see which station could get the most racers signed up. My neighbor was running to support her husband, and I in turn decided pretty much out of the blue to sign up to support both of them. I was 7 months postpartum and ready to lose some weight. Training for a 5K seemed like a good place to start. Despite my distaste for running, there was a minuscule part of me that had always wanted to see if I could complete a 5K. If you hated running so much, why would you want to see if you could complete a 5k? I know. I’m a walking ball of contradiction.

I didn't do too much training for the race, as I only ran three times in the month leading up to it. I did my best to practice the route to ease some anxiety and just to see if I could run the entire distance before the actual race. I think the best I got was two miles without stopping to walk. But, I was proud of myself for that because the last time I had gone two miles without stopping was in the military eight years ago. I don't recall there ever being a moment that I actually enjoyed the running, but I did it because I had committed to the race, and I wanted to do my best.

Race day came and I felt sick to my stomach. Not from an illness but from nerves. Like, worse than stage fright – and I've performed in front of some large crowds. I had two goals for myself for the race: first, I wanted to run the entire distance and second, I wanted to not finish last. There were several walkers, so I figured I had a chance of finishing before them. But, I was unsure if I was capable of running the whole thing. At race check-in, we found out the course had changed slightly. So, I thought I might get mentally defeated like I used to with my military PT tests.

Once the race began, my neighbor and I stayed together for about a half mile, I think. After that, she slowly got farther and farther ahead of me. I wasn't trying to match her pace, though. I just did my best to keep putting one foot in front of the other. By the time I got toward the end of the race, there was a bit of an uphill. I wanted to walk so badly. There were some young girls in front of me that were walking, and every time I caught up to them, they sprinted ahead a bit and started walking again. It was frustrating that I wasn't passing them. They were walking!!! Aghhh!! However, I didn't feel like I had anything more to give. I tried to focus on myself and not worry about what those around me were doing.

As I rounded the last corner and saw the finish line, I was able to pick up my pace a tad. Adrenaline helped, I guess. My kids were standing along the course to cheer me on and give me high fives. My husband was off somewhere trying to take pictures. I pushed as hard as I could to the end. My finish time was 35:32, but due to the course change, the route was only three miles and not a full 5K. In any case, I was so ecstatic that the race was over and that I had completed it without walking. I enjoyed my post-race snacks and headed home with my family.

I just ran 3 miles without stopping!

I contemplated saving my race bib, but I ended up throwing it away because I didn't expect to run any more races. Racing was surely a one-time thing, though perhaps, I'd do the same race next year to support the FD. I briefly joked with my husband that I should commit to doing five 5K’s by my thirty-fifth birthday – slightly less than a year away. But, when those words came out of my mouth, I was certain it wouldn't happen. Because, if you recall, I would NEVER be a person who paid money to someone in order to enter a race. Doing it one time didn't count because I was supporting the FD.

The next month passed and I avoided running. I did some cycling and a lot of walking, but I didn't expect to run again. Then, on July 1st, I received an email that would change that.

The Recruiter That Recruited

To find out how my running journey started, we have to go back to high school when I was on the track and field team for 3 years. You can read about that here.

As I mentioned at the end of that post, I thought I was done with running when I graduated high school. But at the beginning of my third year in college, I brought my then boyfriend to an Army Reserve recruiter. Long story short, the recruiter was good enough at his job that he convinced me to join, too! All of that promised tuition reimbursement I thought I'd get – don't even get me started on that. I expressed some concern to my recruiter about my “exercise induced asthma,” and he said that if I didn't mention it at MEPS, then there wouldn't be a problem.

The first part of enlisting in the Army Reserve was a written test called the ASVAB. After I passed my ASVAB with flying colors, I had to have a physical. I'm not going to go into too much detail because this is about my running journey and not about my military career. Needless to say, I passed my physical, swore the oath, and about nine months later I shipped off to Basic Combat Training (BCT). I spent some of that nine months doing physical training (PT) with my recruiter to help ensure that I could pass the first PT test at BCT. The military uses A LOT of acronyms...I refuse to type the full words every time.

All of the training with the recruiter paid off because my incoming PT test was a cinch. If you don't pass the first test, you have to stay in “Reception” until you can pass. Reception is a sort of waiting room for BCT and it's a special kind of hell. Thankfully, I passed my PT test and I got to officially start my nine-week long BCT. We ran at least two miles every other weekday but that was my limit. Especially because we sang cadences while we ran. Don’t they know running makes it hard enough to breathe?

We usually ran the same route, but every so often the Drill Sergeants would throw an extra turn in and things like that defeated me. I was already in the slowest pace group, and running anything over two miles just messed with my body and mind. Even with all of the mental games, I managed to pass BCT and the rest of my military training without too much of a problem. I was the most physically fit I'd ever been. But, I still HATED running.

Once I was out of training and with my Reserve unit, I had to take a PT test at least once every year. I usually failed. For one, I wasn't doing anything to maintain my fitness level. For two, if we weren't running on a quarter-mile track, I couldn't get my pace down well enough to pass the run. It was completely a mental thing, of course, but I NEEDED a quarter-mile track to be able to finish in the allotted time.

After deploying to Iraq for a year, I came back to finish college, and I decided to try out the new ROTC program at my school (in addition to my Army Reserve obligations). I only did it for one semester, partially because I couldn't maintain the credit load, and partially because I hated having to get up and run with the other cadets. I hated it because I was the slowest person, and I couldn't breathe if I tried to run at the same pace as everyone else.  Eventually, I was discharged from the Army Reserve, in part because I couldn't pass a PT test. It brought me extreme relief to know I was finished with running. I honestly think I would have rather been tortured by Arvin Sloane than to have to run another mile.

So, what changed in the time since then? What possessed me to start running regularly and start paying people so that I could run races? You're dying from curiosity, aren't you? Okay, I'll tell you! Next time.

On Your Marks...

Have you ever sworn off something, just to come back to it later in life and think to yourself, "Look what I've been missing?!”

That's the way I was with running. It was something that I struggled with and never really enjoyed.  I was around smokers growing up, and at some point in time, running began to physically hurt me. It wasn't until college that I was diagnosed with "exercise induced asthma." I mean, I was an athletic kid: softball, basketball… I did plenty of running. I guess it was probably in high school when I noticed I had a decreased lung capacity when running.

My freshmen year, I joined the track team at the behest of my gym teacher (who also happened to be a track coach). You see, we had learned about some field events in gym class. We did a standing triple jump in the hallway one day, and the teacher looked at me like he'd just found a needle in a haystack. Of course, that made me feel pretty good about myself, so I took his recommendation and joined the team.

I foolishly thought that I could join track and field and get away with ONLY doing field events. I wanted nothing to do with the track part. But of course, being a part of track and field required me to run with the rest of the team during practice. I couldn't breathe. I felt like the slowest person, and I hated it. Exercise, especially running, was painful. Not only was I experiencing difficulty breathing, but those first few practices let me know how out of shape I was. I limped away from the first week of practice crying and ready to quit.

I ended up sticking it out and as a freshman I made it to number three on my school's "Top Ten" list for triple jump. That was a pretty huge accomplishment. I was the third best triple jumper my school had ever seen...WOW! Go me! In my freshman year, I also competed in the long jump, the 100 and 200 meter races, and the 4x100 and 4x200 meter relays. I refused to run any distance longer than 200 meters, because I was physically unable to sprint (or breathe) for more than that.  The coach actually tried to put me in a 4x400 meter relay at one meet. I called my dad, asked him to come get me, and I told the coach that I had to go home.

I was on the track team for three years. I opted to not be in track my senior year, because I wanted to be in the Spring musical, Hello, Dolly! It's hard to participate in multiple things when they conflict, and I disliked having to choose between sports and theater. In any case, I traded in my track uniform and running cleats for costumes and character shoes. I thought my running days were over. When I graduated high school, I was convinced I'd never be forced to run again. Boy, was I naive. Little did I know, two years later I would be volunteering to be yelled at to run.

Read the next part to my story here.