Meet Jamie, Number 3153

This woman is the reason you are not allowed to tell me you “can’t” do something. Meet Jamie (runner 3153, left). She once told me she couldn’t run. Then she tried something crazy. She ran a lap at the BSC Newton indoor track. That’s about 1/17th of a mile. That was all it took, she caught the running bug. She asked me if I thought she could run a 5k. If I remember correctly, I said yes before she even finished the question. She registered for the Massachusetts Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure and I armed her with a 9 week training plan and updated her cross training (resistance training) program.

The plan was designed for people who can only run 5 minutes without rest. It combines bouts of walking with jogging, slowly increasing the ratio of work (jogging) to rest (walking). By the 9th week she was jogging 30 minutes straight.

On September 26th she ran her first 5k in less than 32 minutes! Let me put that into perspective for you. The top female runner in her age group ran it in just under 23 minutes! A women who 9 weeks earlier was not a runner, was only off the winning pace by 9 minutes. Imagine what she would have done with more time to train!!!

Try telling me you can’t do something and Jamie and I will tell you that you can, and tell you how you can.

Happy running.
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Today's Workout: Took the weekend off - injured knee! Does two rounds of golf count?
Today's Confession: Too depressed from lack of exercise to misbehave