By Chelsea Royer
I have never been a runner. The gym mostly disgusts me and my favorite food group is pizza. My mother-in-law eats, sleeps, breathes, and lives to exercise. At fifty, she is in better shape than I ever anticipate being in my twenties. Perhaps this would incite some to competition, but it mostly makes me want to sit on the couch with a bottle of wine while watching “Once Upon a Time” for six hours.
Despite my hatred for physical activity and affinity for foods that are bad for me, I have recently become painfully educated as to the dangers of a modern American diet. With a family history of back problems and heart failure, I have been doing my best to change my habits over the last year of my life. And to be honest, I’ve mostly failed. Its been a battle back and forth between the girl who longs to be healthy, skinny, and in shape and the girl who loves wine, pizza, and drooling over Captain Hook in the aforementioned television series.
But when I heard of an opportunity to join the Run-With-It program at the YMCA of Grays Harbor, I decided it was long past time for me to meet some of my fitness goals. The end result would be running a 5k – I thought it should be easy enough. In my head I was already sprinting past the finish line of our 5k with ease. My first night in the program gave me a reality check, complete with muscle soreness.
Lisa Kless, the Y’s Fitness Director and instigator of the Run-With-It program, had a goal of getting people off the couch and learning to run safely while developing muscles throughout the entire body. Her rationale was that if you were strengthening the entire body, you were much less likely to injure it while running. The end goal: be able to run 3.1 miles without stopping.
My first night in the program (I unfortunately came in a week late), involved doing old-school lines in the Y gym. Over, and over again. My only joy as I gasped for air, was that the other women in my class were complaining out loud as much as I was complaining in my head. New friends perhaps?
On my second week, Lisa decided an outdoor run was in order. Of course it was on a day the sky spat snow and one of the coldest nights in February. But about halfway into the challenge, I started to get to know my running buddies. We started to warm up and – wonder of wonders – we began to have fun.
The weeks passed and I began to feel discouraged. Nearly every run ended with me feeling like I’d made little to no progress and left me feeling sore at the end. (Of course if I’d religiously done my home-workouts I wouldn’t have had that issue.) But about three or so weeks before the upcoming 5k, we returned to the YMCA after a grueling run to hear someone pipe-up, “That was 3.2 miles we just ran!”
3.2 miles? My mind took a moment to process. The girl who could barely run one mile had just run three? Me? It was at this moment I could finally see the progress, feel the difference, and experience the pride for which I had been waiting. All the sweat, the pain, and healthy eating suddenly became worth it in that moment. Lisa cheered us on and I think we all felt elated. As a group, we had gone from running two minutes at a time to running for nearly an hour with one minute of walking.
The next few weeks were still difficult, but for me, the sense of accomplishment carried me through to keep running even when I wanted to stop. The week of the race was when I began to feel dread coupled with excitement. Decked out in green and brightly colored St. Patricks Day themed tube socks, I met my group to warm up for the race. Looking at the map, I inwardly groaned, confident I would have to walk part of it.
“Ready, set, go!” We were off. Down the street, up and across the Hoquiam bridge, back around. It began to feel like I’d been running for ages as I neared the end. Lisa and I ran together during the last stretch where she became the hard-nosed instructor I suddenly didn’t like. “When you can see the finish line, run as fast as you possibly can!” Stinking Lisa. Didn’t she know I already wanted to pass out on the concrete?
As we approached the corner to the finish line, Lisa yelled at me to go and I did. It was a climactic experience for me. I had just finished my first 5k, a goal I had wanted to meet for the last two years. My husband, mother-in-law, and sister were waiting for me at the end like I was some kind of celebrity. I certainly didn’t finish first, but I was far from last and had shaved seven minutes off my personal run time. Lisa gave me a hug and I suddenly liked her again and realized I was going to miss this fabulous group of ladies who had encouraged me and taught me to persevere.
Running a 5k isn’t an enormous feat. Despite my dramatic claims, several weeks really isn’t long to train. But it was a huge personal victory…which I promptly celebrated with pizza.
Here it is one day after my race and the girl who hates running is already thinking about which 5k to tackle next and going back to her healthy eating habits. Because of the YMCA and Lisa Kless, I had the boost I needed to start good habits that will benefit me the rest of my life. Maybe I’ll even give my mother-in-law permission to hold me accountable if I start to slack.
Ultimately, I’ve found making healthy choices is as simple as signing up for a 5k program. Two days a week training plus healthy choices at home can get you much farther than you ever anticipated…maybe even across a finish line.
