When you hang out with inspiring people on a day-to-day basis, you can’t help but do inspiring things. And when you do inspiring things, you inspire others. It is a great circle that has to be nourished and protected though, because if you surround yourself with doubt and negativity, that can be the circle you live in. We at Running Wild focus on the positive inspirational circle, starting with our staff. We challenged the Running Wild staff with walking and/or running 1000 miles for the year in 2022. We feel like we need to exemplify what we share with others in our community: regular exercise can fix (almost) anything. Ten members of the team completed the goal: Mike, Dom, Candi, Ann, Leah, Bill, Mary, Jenae, Cherie and Paul. They each have amazing stories of overcoming adversity to accomplish the goal, but first we will start with Jenae:
Running Wild’s Staff 1000 Miles in one Year Challenge! (While Pregnant!)
1000 miles in one year! Sounds like a lot at first. You tell yourself you could never do that, but what if you told yourself you could? And you keep telling yourself that. All you have to do is take it one day and one mile at a time.
I started this challenge at 2 months pregnant. There was a part of me that said “This will be fun and keep me in shape, I can totally do this!” and another part that said, “No way, I can’t do this! Especially being pregnant and due in August!” During the first few months of this challenge, I was doing great. I wasn’t running but I was walking. A lot! I was averaging what I needed, to complete the challenge. Some months I even went over my goal. When it got closer to August, it was definitely getting harder. But I told myself, “I have a goal and I can do this!” I wanted to at least try and stay on target until my due date. My mileage per walk dropped down. I was only walking around one mile at a time most days. I would walk one mile in the morning, one mile in the afternoon, and sometimes one mile in the evening. In July I walked 50 times and only averaged 1.28 miles for each walk. By the time I had my son in August, I was on track. I told myself to try and make it until August and I did it! It just took one mile at a time but I was at 600 miles!
I knew it wasn’t going to be easy finishing out the year. When I came home from the hospital I wanted to keep the streak going. I felt good. I would do a mile here and there. Unfortunately, as most moms know, I lost a lot of energy. I was caring for a baby so there was very little sleep and eating extra calories just to keep my body functioning for my little human. There were even days I didn’t get outside. For a brief time, I thought I wouldn’t get this challenge completed. I made the excuse “I just had a baby.”
Still not confident I would complete this challenge, I kept walking when I could. I started walking with the Wild Cheetah Girlz on Wednesday mornings. I brought my son and would push him in the stroller. Slowly I got my strength back and eventually started running. It felt so amazing. By the time December rolled around I was 200 miles shy of my 1000 mile goal. I told myself I can’t give up on this challenge that I worked so hard and so long for and was so close! While pushing my little one I also pushed myself into high gear. I ran almost every day averaging 6 miles and you better believe it, I did it! I completed 1000 miles in 2022 starting the year 2 months pregnant and ending it 5 months postpartum. I couldn’t be happier with myself and am so happy I told myself “I can do this!” Thank you Running Wild for giving me this goal. You helped me stay healthy and moving during a physically and mentally hard year and am looking forward to doing this challenge again.
If you are pregnant or a new mom and need help staying active or getting back into walking/running please reach out. You can email me any time at jenae@werunwild.com or find me at Wild Cheetah Girlz Run/Walk club on Wednesday mornings pushing my little one!