#fat runner

[alistinaisrunning]

[diaryofthereddress]

First run outside... People like to think Canadians are winter people, but dear god running in the cold burns your lungs.

Also running outside is v. different than treadmill running. It was short, with a worse pace but it's done.

[biggirlshortruns]

My very first 5k. I finished a solid 10-15 minutes slower than the next person in my group (who isn’t actually in this group picture) I think, but I’m so glad I did it. As I said before, my final time was 43:49.83. The couple on the far right finished 2nd and 4th in their divisions (he qualified for and is running the Boston Marathon this year and only took 4th in his div because he ran with his girl) so I knew out of this group I would be doing nothing impressive, but guess what? I still got it done in my goal time (45 minutes or less) and it was my idea to run this damn race anyway so I will still think of it as a 2018 win. 

It doesn’t matter what I look like in these photos; I spent a Saturday morning in October running in the cold when I could have been sleeping and that’s an accomplishment. Super visible cellulite and my angry looking, no makeup wearing face don’t matter as much as the happiness that I felt when it was all done does.  I’m probably never going to take a super flattering race photo because I will be too busy trying not to lay down on the ground and die. 

I did spend the rest of the day with my friends drinking great Milwaukee craft beer and nothing gives you a better excuse to have a beer at 11 am than having run a 5k :)

[jess-lives]

I almost didn’t do this run today but I talked myself into it because who the fuck skips day two of a mile-a-day challenge? Fuck that. Anyway, I ate wings almost directly before this “run” (if you could call it that 😂). It was not good. I started out ok, like hey this is great! I’ve been stressed and here I go for a nice jog to relieve stress. And then I started tasting garlic Parmesan and nope nope nope it was downhill from there. But I did it! 2 days, 2 miles down.

[alistinaisrunning]

Ran my 9th 5k 🥳🥳

[alistinaisrunning]

I am finally working on moving more and moving even when I have the option of not moving. 

If there is a day where I have my car and I work a 20 minute walk from home, I normally just drive. Or I have my partner drive me. Lat Thursday, I walked to and from work AND I ran after work!

My partner told me that he wants to start running for 30 minutes every day after work. I decided that every day that he runs, I am going to do a mile. I will do a mile until I can run one fully and then I will start pushing for 1.5 miles and then my goal at the moment is 2 miles.

I also want to try to track how long I can run once my mind starts saying that I need to stop. I had a stopwatch on and as soon as I started saying “I need to stop” I started the stopwatch. I ran for a 48s and I feel a little proud for that. I am going to try to focus on how much I can push myself once my mind wants to stop.

I really want to try to do the run 1 mile a day challenge but I also want to do something sustainable that I can incorporate into my day. I definitely have the time in my day to do a mile and shower and everything but I think that I am just hesitant to put that much effort in. I think I am just going to have to push myself to go out for a run right around when I wake up. 

In 2022, I am going to put more effort into myself. More effort into my diet and more effort into my passions. 

[alistinaisrunning]

6/12/2020

I just wanted to write something about me and my journey of running, gaining weight, and trying to lose weight. (Beware! It’s long lol)

Ever since I was a kid I have been overweight/obese. Even though I played soccer from age 3 to 17 and I did cross country for a year, I was still quite obese.

When I in elementary school, I remember thinking I was an amazing runner. I was fast but I couldn’t run for that long lol I remember surprising everyone by how fast I was because I really was just the fat kid growing up. Then I stopped running and I focused on soccer more as I grew.

When I got to middle school, I decided to join cross country and I really loved it. I was definitely the slowest and I remember one time they sent my teammates out to look for me because I was taking so long. That was pretty embarrassing but I kept with it. I only remember going to like 2 races and I’m not sure why it was only 2... I also tried out the Insanity workout videos which were really intense but I was starting to lose weight. I did it for a month and then I just lost interest.

When I got to high school, I was doing great. I walked 30 minutes to and from school everyday, every Monday my PE class had a mile run test, every Friday we had a 25 minute run, and I had soccer practice after school almost everyday. I was really losing weight and I got my mile time under 10 minutes!

After not even a full year in high school I moved out of state and everything was completely flipped. School was only a 10 minute walk, the PE classes were only small game with hardly any real activity, and I still had soccer practice but my heart wasn’t in it anymore.

I also started having a terrible diet. My brother would buy chips every day for me and my sister and we all ballooned up. I have gained almost 100 lbs in 6 years! I did soccer all 4 years of high school but I did not have a good time. I also tried losing weight tons of times and asked for weight for my birthday and I was doing pretty well but then I just stopped for some reason. I have never lost a significant amount of weight in all of the times I’ve tried. Maybe the max was 10 lbs.

My senior year of high school I did soccer for the last time and then I joined a running club through my school where we train for 4 months to run a half marathon. I did it with 2 of my friends and I took it a bit more seriously than them and I was really loving it. I ended up being the only one of my friends to actually run the half marathon and I was so happy.

Running that half marathon made me feel like even though I’ve always been the fat friend, I can still be active. Sometimes I feel like I run out of spite. I think that people think I can’t run and I never run because of how fat I am but every single time I get outside to run I prove them wrong. Even if I’m not consistently losing weight by running I can still do it and no, my joints don’t hurt and they haven’t hurt in the past couple of years of me running.

As a fat person, I feel powerful when I run. I feel like I am doing something against all odds and I feel like I needed someone like me growing up so I hope I can be that person for others.

[biggirlshortruns]

About This Blog

Hello all,

I’m Jackie (you’ll learn more about me later) and I’m a fat girl who runs.

There are actually plenty of fat and/or bigger women who run on the internet and that’s fucking amazing! Mirna Valerio is a fucking icon; Jill Angie is absolutely spectacular; Julie Creffield is super great. There are so many more women (and men!) out there showing that fat people can and do run and doing it unashamedly. What a time to be alive, right?

But in my quest to find blogs and podcasts and the like to get me through my first 5k (more on that later too), I was confronted with this: so many of these people are running long distances. They talk about training for marathons, or ultra-marathons, or 50, 100ks. Which is great and amazing! 

But I’m not trying to do that. I’m not sure I’m ever even trying to run a 10k, to be honest. And hearing about “recovery runs” that are longer than I’m running ever was a little disheartening. 

So, this blog was born.  

What I want this blog to be is a space of encouragement. If you’re struggling to run a mile, or two miles, or some distance that feels like a “short” one to anyone who is a “real runner,” I want this blog to be here to tell you it’s okay: you’re a real runner too!  

Now, to get this out of the way: I WILL NEVER GIVE A FUCK ABOUT WEIGHT LOSS.

That is not what this blog is about. I am not running to lose weight. I’m not. I’m running because as it turns out, it’s LIFE CHANGING in terms of my mental health. I never thought I would be that girl, but here we are: I feel better on days I run. But I have not lost weight since I’ve been running, and I don’t care if I ever do. I care about feeling better, no matter what the scale says. I’m a big believer in fat positivity and body positivity. I’m not running to be “healthier” in the physical sense, (though I’m sure it is making me healthier by some standards,) because I don’t owe health to anyone for existing in this world; I’m running because it gives me a sense of accomplishment and combats the intrusive “what’s the point of anything” thoughts that can try to invade my brain. 

I’m probably always going to be that big, red-faced bitch trucking along slowly getting passed by the “typical” runner. But that’s okay, because I’m still doing it. And if you’re doing it too, then no matter how fast or how far you’re going, as long as you’re feeling good, you’re killing it.