Elevate Your Health Colorado Crazy…

Yesterday, for the first time, I ran 15 miles.

I’m training for a marathon—my first one—and the mileage is starting to get up there.

If you had told me 5 years ago that someday I would run 15 miles and enjoy it, I would have laughed myself silly. But I did run 15 miles yesterday, and (as I told my running partner at mile 14) it did not feel horrible. In fact, and this was definitely those runner’s endorphins kicking in, I was doing a Rocky-type victory dance as we turned the corner back into my neighborhood.

It was only 8 a.m. I had 15 miles under my belt… crazy.

It started about 3 years ago, after one of my “friends” told me how she had just completed the Danskin women’s sprint triathlon, and it wasn’t that hard, and how empowering it was, and that I should do it the next year. (I put friends in quotations because: who puts these crazy ideas into someone’s head?)

I thought about it for a while, and the idea took hold. This was something I wanted to do. I was a postpartum marshmallow, and literally would not have been able to run to save my own life, but suddenly a triathlon seemed like a good idea.

I was always someone who enjoyed going on walks, so I started to add in short runs to my walks. I would turn on Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” on my iPod and bring my walk to a run for 15 steps. At the time, those 15 steps were probably more painful than yesterday’s 15 miles. The next time I went for a walk, I did that twice. Then I ran for a whole block. Then 2 whole blocks. After about 4 months I was up to 3 miles and that was enough to complete the last leg of the triathlon—victory!

I have a lot of patients who struggle with their weight, and struggle with staying active. Some have been overweight their whole lives. Some have had a slow creep, as life gets busy and fast food seems easier and exercise time is harder to come by. They feel more and more fatigued. Eventually though, being overweight can cause a myriad of health issues.

When I talk to my patients about weight loss and exercise, I talk about small, incremental lifestyle changes that are sustainable. I give my patients this advice because this was how I started, and it worked. I truly believe if I can do this, anyone can.

I talked to one my patients just last week about adding a little run in with her walking. She looked at me like I was crazy, but I told her honestly that that was how I started running, and it is totally doable. You don’t need to run a marathon. (That would be really crazy.) But you do want to feel good and be healthy so you have the energy and health to do all the things in life you want to do. And sometimes, those little changes take you to places you never, ever, in a million years thought you could go.