Sunday, October 18th

Biggest Loser Half Marathon Finishers 2015

Welcome to my Eau Claire Running blog! Now that I’ve just completed the Eau Claire Biggest Loser Half Marathon I want to share in my adventures and show you some great running spots around Eau Claire as I train to race the Eau Claire marathon come Spring 2K16, but for this first post, I’d simply like to introduce myself. So, here we go and I hope you enjoy!

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Everyone has a story and everyone’s story has value. This is a core belief of mine and because of this, I’d like to share my story with you. Not because I think you all need to know me, or because I want to share everything about my life to the world, but because I believe that the more stories we share in life, the more perspectives we learn about, which makes us all better people.

My name is John and this is my running story ~

It starts in the 2nd semester of my freshman year of college at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. After reading the book Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, I made the choice to change my lifestyle and become more health conscious and active along with eating a plant based diet. On top of that, I made a goal to run for 60 minutes straight. Wow! That would be a challenge. Especially since I hadn’t done that since freshman year of high school when I dabbled in cross country and the unlimited college cafeteria food wasn’t helping my fitness in the slightest.

2014 Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon Finisher

I was overweight and out of shape so the goal to run for 60 minutes without stopping was a long shot. This took a lot of focus, just like any well thought out training plan should. So, I started on the indoor track where I would run for 1 minute and walk for 5 minutes. I would do this until I reached an hour of exercise. Each day, I increased the amount of time running and decrease the amount of time walking. This was a great way to ease into running, and after a few months, I had completed my goal and healthily lost about fifty pounds.

2015 EC Half Marathon Finishers

Of course this is a very simplified version of my story since it was much more involved than running for 60 minutes a few times a week and eating lots of salads. It also included detailed food journals, exercise logs, and early bedtimes where I would regularly skip out late night trips to the cafeteria with friends in order to get the sleep that I needed to live a healthier life. It did not come easily for me and was (and still is) a lot of work to lose maintain weight and keep practicing healthy habits. For a while, it felt like I was running against current, but it was so worth it because I knew that your 20’s are the time to start developing lifelong habits and I wanted to make my habits healthy.

Out for a scenic run in Eau Claire, WI

In the springtime of that year, I had the chance to cheer on a friend who was running the Eau Claire Half Marathon. I was so inspired by all of the runners and the amazing community of people gathered for the event that I made it my goal to run the Eau Claire Half Marathon the following year. The rest, is history. At this moment, I have completed two half marathons (EC Half Marathon & EC Biggest Loser Half Marathon), one full marathon (Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon 2014), some 5k runs here or there and multiple sprint and olympic distance triathlons which I have had the privilege of competing in with my amazing teammates on the UW-Eau Claire Triathlon Team. I am looking forward to hearing people’s stories and sharing in the laughs and smiles with the Eau Claire community leading up to race day!