A year and a half ago, my friend Lisa was driving with her husband and she saw a woman running alongside the road. She said "I'm going to become a runner." Her husband chuckled. Then she said "I'm going to run a marathon." Her husband guffawed. Okay, Lisa was overweight, considered french fries a vegetable and hadn't run for anything other than the elevator for over 25 years.

First she joined a weight loss group and then a running club. They started her off walking for five minutes, followed by running for one minute (at the end of which she thought her chest would explode). She also started going for short runs by herself in the evening, but always felt like someone "pretending" to be a runner. The months went by and her distances became longer. One night, while running in the pouring rain, runners across the street from her waved and for the first time she felt like one of them. She WAS a runner!

A year went by, Lisa had lost 50 lbs. and was training for her first marathon. She'd become a lean, mean, running machine and had inspired many of her weight loss group members to join running clubs. She'd gone from running for one minute to doing four hour Saturday runs. As marathon time drew closer, she went from "I'll never finish it, you know", to "I might come across that finish line last, but I'll cross it", to "I'm going to do it in five and a half hours!".

I drive from the 'burbs to my office in downtown Toronto all during the week and the last thing I want to do on a Sunday morning is drive downtown, but today I did with pleasure. I just HAD to see my 41 year old friend Lisa cross that finish line in 5 hours, 34 minutes and 15 seconds! WAY TO GO LISA!!

That's an awesome story. In a way, we'll all have stories like that some day. Thanks for the inspiration, really. I'm proud of Lisa too and I don't even know her!

oh jill!!!! what an inspiring story!!! i'm going to print this out and post it on my bulletin board!! [along with the limerick that the infamous chickadee wrote for me].

would you give her several major big huge hugs from me?? this is an awesome accomplishment!!!

That is a really inspiring story! It goes to show how we can all achieve things we set our minds to - even if others laugh at us and think we'll never do it.

A huge well done to Lisa!

Amanda xx

Wow, thanks so much for sharing this with us. I've been thinking about trying some runningand just haven't had the nerve to do it. Your friend Lisa may now be my inspiration to try it. Thank you to you and to her!!

Mthrgoos - DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!!!!! I know you can.

Thanks so much for posting this!!! I need to really keep this in mind. We really can do whatever we set our minds to!

I told Lisa about all the congrats she's getting here at the site and I could tell she was pleased. She asked if I'd told you that the fastest finisher female did it in under 3 hours. I told her we don't really care about a former olympic athlete doing her 50th marathon (well, we commend her of course) - we care about the middleaged formerly overweight couch potato who set out to prove something to her hubby and ended up proving to herself she was capable of the extraordinary.

After my regular workout today, I used the inspiration from Lisa and actually ran 1/6 of a mile. That was only twice around the track, and afterward I was kicking myself for not pushing myself to try and go around at least once more, but at the time it felt like I really couldn't go any further. I'm going to keep working at it to be able to run 12 times around that track and get a mile in of running. Maybe by the end of the year.

Great idea Mthergoos - go for it! I might join you in a little friendly competition. Here, 4 times around the highschool track is a mile, so tomorrow morning I'm going to go around once and see if I can possibly do two (a girl can dream, right?). Hopefully I'll be able to do a full mile before the snows come and the track disappears!

Okay, I'm up for a friendly competition. Let's see, if you go around once, that's 1/4 of a mile, so that means 3 times around for me, because it takes 12 laps to equal a mile. Does that sound right, or is my math off? So if the math is right, then tomorrow I need to do 3 laps to equal your 1/4 of a mile, and if you do 2 laps, then you'll definitely be kicking my butt because I know I can't go that far yet!!

I guess I'd better be up for the challenge mthrgoos because I need to be in training...I think I may have lost my mind, but Lisa has inspired me to sign up to "Climb the CN Tower For Charity". For those of you who don't know, the CN Tower in Toronto is the tallest free-standing structure in the entire world at a height of 1,815 feet (and 5 inches). EEK, have I gone insane?? Do you think they'll let me slide down the stairs on my butt instead of climbing up them??

The event takes place Sunday, Oct. 26 (starts at 6:00 a.m. - this gets worse and worse), so I have over 3 weeks to prepare. I've had no problems getting sponsors at work so far because everyone figures I won't make it and they won't have to pay up. But I'll show'em. I'll climb to the top of that Tower or expire in the attempt!

Gee, I hope they let us take the elevator back down....

No offense, but the people that you work with must not be very smart. They should be able to see, just by the amount of weight that you've lost, that when you set your mind to something, you CAN accomplish it.

I am so impressed because I would not have had the courage to sign up for something like that. I can't wait to read your post telling about how you did it!!!

Time to start training....

jill... of COURSE you'll make it!!!! but please watch your knees...

Yeah, I'll tell them that mthrgoos - after all, I walked down 45 flights during the blackout, they should know I'm perfectly capable of walking up a couple of hundred (gulp). Actually, to be fair, very few at work know about my weight loss, because I've only been there a few months. I'd been at my prior firm for over 20 years and although very unhappy at the end, didn't have the confidence to apply for dream jobs because I feared nobody would hire a middle-aged obsese woman who looked on the verge of a heart attack. So I lost the weight, became more confident and ambitious, then made a career change for the better (MUCH better). It's funny, there was a handout in my office a few weeks ago for "Weight Watchers at Work" and I was looking at it to see if it was any different from my regular Saturday morning meeting, when one of the senior partners dropped in and teasingly said "You think you could stand to lose a few?" and winked. I smiled and thought to myself "If you only knew sweetheart, if you only knew..."