Dick’s Sporting Goods has declared May “National Running Month,” and who am I to object? 
To do my part, I won’t tell you to go for a run, or to start running, or to get back into running. You know you should.
Instead, I’m going to let one of my favorite client stories from 2009 do the honors. Here we go:
Jayme’s Journey
On one of the coldest winter days of 2009, one of those wrestle-with-yourself-to-get-your-run-done grey mornings when even the guaranteed reprieve of the treadmill doesn’t do much for your motivation, I met Jayme Patterson. She’d just joined a gym, wanted to get healthy for good, get back her energy, and most of all – lose about 20 lbs. of literal baggage.
The young, single, working mom stood in front of me in a grey t-shirt and sweats, tentative, yet excited, unsure of herself, yet decisive about what she wanted fitness (and, I guess ME) to help her do: move on.
On September 10, 2007, Jayme’s husband – Sargeant Nicholas Patterson of the U.S. Army – was killed in action in Iraq, along with six of his fellow men, leaving Jayme and their then-four year-old son, Reilley, a fractured family.
She looked like a ghost standing in front of me, almost meek as she asked if I could help her. She seemed lost, but I didn’t yet know why. She has since told me that she still was at times then, and the almost- 1.5 years that had passed since Nick’s death hadn’t healed much of anything. She still had to be Mom to their four year-old son Reilley, perform in her nursing job and meet the demands of daily life as the world zoomed on around her.
And now, she carried around too much weight on her tiny, cheerleader-nimble frame – a constant reminder of what she’d been through, was still going through. She’d finally hit the wall and turned adamant: she wanted the weight off her body and off her mind. It was time to get things moving forward again.
And so, we began at the beginning. A cheerleader growing up, J had been a mom most of her adult life, and had never really had a chance to establish what I call her “fitness career” on her own terms. So, our initial goal was to get fitness-literate, establish a consistent workout routine, learn to work with weights and cardio and flexibility, visualization and self-motivation, and stir it all up into an aggressive training plan to progress through safely to move some weight as summer dangled out there like a huge, juicy carrot.
I guessed early on – and I had no idea how RIGHT I would become – that Jayme had grit. She could pull through a set or an interval when it hurt, when the panic instinct rose up in her brain. She liked numbers, and she liked achievement.
Jayme stands in the pre-race drizzle under the start/finish of the Fort 4 Fitness half-marathon in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on Sept. 26th.
She was tough on herself. Any little success spurred more effort, more desire to progress. I tried to ignore my gut, because she had said she hated running and wanted no part of it as a regular part of her life, and would only tolerate it in doses on the treadmill as part of higher intensity effort during our sessions. I am all about my clients, I listen. But this client was a runner.
She just didn’t know it yet.
Go Big, or Go Home
Luckily, I didn’t have to do much nudging. That first continuous mile was like finding gold, then one became two with minimal walking, more eleation, and two became 2.5 pretty quickly, with no walking. That’s a big deal, and we celebrated some more.
All this took place in just a few weeks, as it often does.
One day while warming up, she says, “so, there’s a half-marathon in Fort Wayne in September. I was thinking of doing it to honor Nick, since he died in September.”
Ah-hah. Always trust your gut!
“Do you think I can do this? Can you help me do this?” Her eyes were huge, unwaivering.
So were mine, I suspect. “Yes, you can,” I replied immediately, without a big show. “But you are going to have to work all summer to build up your running, and then you’ll train like a runner specifically for this event. It’s tough, I won’t lie to you.”
And so it was GAME ON.
We hit the roads, we endured the summer heat, we ran hills and fartlek workouts and long runs – some in the double-digits. Oh, my. We encountered aches and pains and a few unintended breaks, but we kept training. We raced a 5K, and another.
It seemed like one day, Jayme Patterson, the young widow who told me she could never run more than a mile, had morphed into a distance runner. A tough one.
As summer progressed, frankly, it became tough to get in a workout on the roads without some male driver rubbernecking my client. She never noticed, but I did, and it puffed me up. Coworkers, family and friends started telling her how great, and most of all, healthy, she looked, and our on-the-run conversations started to include laments about too-big running shorts and jeans.
Then, the text of the year, one late -July day:
“I just bought size 2 skinny jeans!”
I still have that text.
With her weight loss goal met and exceeded, a more daunting task faced her by August – that pesky little thing called the Fort for Fitness Half-Marathon.
Can 13.1 really be fun?? Image: Action Sports Images, LLC.
Long story not much shorter, on September 26th, 2009, Jayme Patterson completed her half-marathon, with me in tow, and her family on the sidelines supporting her. We wrote rememberances of Nick on our arms with black eyeliner, strapped on our timing chips, tucked energy chews into our shorts and lined up with 5,000 other runners to take to the streets of Fort Wayne, Indiana as TEAM WHITE.
It wasn’t easy, but J refused to give in when it got rough. And she will tell you, it did. But that last turn into Tin-Caps stadium led the way to one of the greatest gifts she could give herself, and after she had honored her late husband and dedicated each of the 13(.1) miles of her race to a special person in her life, Jayme kicked across the finish line…
a runner.
I love when I’m right.
Out of the Mouths of Babes
I interviewed Jayme, for posterity, about a month before her half-marathon. Here’s her take on what it’s like to go from couch-bound, weight-loss hopeful to half-marathoner in seven months:
-How did you feel about running and a regular fitness program in general when you started on this adventure? Were you afraid at all?
I know I wanted to “workout” and be healthier. I also remember telling you that whatever we did, I DID NOT WANT TO RUN! I thought it was too hard and I would never be able to do it, let along be good at running.
-What’s your toughest challenge with your program?
Just getting out there. There are many distractions through out my day that could make it more than easy to say “Oh, I will just skip this run.” Once I got started, it is much easier to stick to. (I’m not saying it is easy though.)
-What does running bring to your life?
A sense of accomplishment. It feels great to just get out there and put all those miles behind you. It is also very cathartic.
- Jayme kicks it in for a medal and the right to call herself a half-marathoner. Image: Action Sports Images, LLC.
-Did you know you could do this? Conversely, did you think you could never do this, or were you somewhere in between the two?
I definitely did not think I was capable of doing this. Mostly the long runs. It was something I never even considered before. I thought, yeah I could run a mile….but my thinking never really went beyond that.
-What do you think is one (or two or three) of your personal strengths that help you in pursuing these goals you’re accomplishing and striving for, and keeps you on track?
HAHA! I am very Type A. I have been through a lot of (personal) trials over the last 2 years. I am very strong willed. With mental strength, comes physical.
-What motivates you to keep reaching and progressing?
Just looking back on the transformation I have made over the last several months. I feel great. It also helps having a fantastic support system. My friends and family are behind every bit of the way. I also have the BEST coach EVER! [Ed: I did NOT pay her to say that!]
-What did running your first 5K with such a great effort feel like?
It felt GREAT! I suprised myself at the time in which I ran it.
-What advice would you whisper in a beginning runner’s ear?
Hmmmm….I guess my advice would be to just keep going. Always look ahead and remind yourself that Yes, you can do this. It might seem impossible now, but it definitely is not. You can do anything if you really want to!
In a culinary rut?
You wouldn’t go hog-wild writing checks without jotting each one in your register. Nor would you try to tote your busy family’s schedule or your mile-long to-do list around solely in your head. Same should go for your fitness routine: if you’re going to change your life by eating well and working out, make keeping track of it part of the new lifestyle you’re creating for yourself. My clients already know this activity is nonnegotiable, and a key part of our working relationship – and their success. Translation: just do it – you’ll thank yourself some day. 
need at least five servings each day, preferably between five and nine servings. Why? Truth is, our bodies really need the antioxidants fruits and veggies pack to combat those darned free radicals that are ever-present in the environment – even in our bodies – that destroy cell walls and even our DNA. Increased risk of cancer, higher cholesterol and damage to joint cartilage are just a few nasty manfestations of free radical damage to our bodies.
