Lose a Marathon?

I’ve seen this floating around on twitter in the past couple of days: Jess has initiated a pretty ingenious weight loss challenge: Lose a Marathon.

There are actually two challenges: lose a marathon or lose a half marathon. Jess created a closed facebook group, and encourages participants to tag their progress on twitter with #LoseaMarathon

From Jess’s blog:

“What is the Challenge?
The Marathon Weight Loss Challenge runs 13 weeks over the course of the summer. This time frame is simply MY goal, averaging 2 pounds a week in weight loss.  During this time frame, I will track participants’ weight loss, offer tips, recipes, a weekly newsletter, mini challenges, success stories and prize giveaways!  You may have a goal larger or smaller than 26.2 pounds… and you may not even run. That’s okay – you can still join for the motivation and prizes. The whole point of this challenge is to encourage one another and hold ourselves responsible in summer workouts and food choices.”

I signed up to participate. I had to enter my starting weight in order to fill out the registration for the challenge. But honestly, it’s been a year since I stepped on the scale. Well, until today. What I found was shocking: I don’t have a marathon to lose.


Well, if I did lose a marathon (26.2 pounds), I’d enter what I would consider an unhealthy-for-me area. So, I’m going to play along with the “lose a half marathon (13.1 pounds)” group, but realistically, I’m aiming for 10 pounds total.


Stepping on that scale today, I had a thought about the association between weight loss with getting healthy. When I first wanted to get healthy, I equated “healthy” with losing weight. Surely, if I lost weight, I’d be healthy. Or so I thought.


In just a few short years at college, I’d packed 40+ pounds on my 5’2″ frame. Beyond the additional weight, I was miserable, tired all the time, and even mean. 


But even within that year, I learned that getting healthy was more than just losing the extra pounds. {I’ve also learned since then that getting healthy for some people means gaining weight.} It felt good at first, knowing my number on the scale was decreasing, and my dress size was going with it, but I longed to feel healthy and strong–I wanted to have the endurance and stamina to rock tough workouts. 


So, I worked and trained harder. I started teaching fitness classes, strength training, started running, practicing Yoga, and now I’m teaching PiYo Strength and will start teaching Turbo Kick. What I eat has completely changed, too: way less takeout and more greens, in short.

And you know what? I feel strong. I know I can run a 10 mile race safely and then kayak for three hours the next day. I’m in a good place.

I’ll still join the challenge, if nothing else to motivate me to keep it up, keep reaching higher. I think this next chapter will continue to include running and teaching my classes, but also more kayak trips, hiking, push-ups, and more PiYo Strength. {And who knows…maybe even racing a half marathon in there somewhere…}

I’m excited to keep going!