Before my current day job at a family sports bar, I worked 7 days a week as either a tutor or cashiering at a fast-food restaurant. Kind of an odd development at my age, but I needed the pay and nobody else was hiring with my crazy work history (worked part time in education-related & customer service jobs to care for my dad when he was alive).

I avoided fast food jobs until then because I’d been a junk food binger & fast food addict, terrified it would make me crave unhealthy foods while I was already at my heaviest (225 lbs.). I’d gotten a FitBit and started planning exercise in the mornings to counteract the dreadful feelings I had.

I did not anticipate all the walking involved and how all that movement (when I generally had sitting jobs before that) was going to help me so much. And I didn’t want that fast food nearly as much as I had before.

Makes me wonder how much better my weight-loss efforts would have gone had I taken a job like that sooner! I lost almost 20 lbs. in the 8 months I had that job because I was eating less (smelling food all day made me not want any, go figure), and I easily got 5K steps in a 6 hour shift. When I got better shoes for my fallen arches, my feet stopped hurting and my desire to walk (and rate) increased. 10K steps a day became easy, and I eventually pushed the goal to 12K.

Well, now I work at a much larger venue as a server, cashier, or key manager. I have anemia and HATE sitting down too long at work, because it makes me sleepy; I’d rather be moving around helping folks or cleaning (makes the time go faster, too). Now, 20K steps a day is easy after a shift there (16K on days I don’t do the elliptical).

But all this movement I’m already getting has made me wonder: what can I do to build a running program when I already get THIS many steps a day? Am I at risk for overtraining and hurting my feet thanks to overuse?

I can walk all day, and sometimes have to for 10 hour shifts. But can all that walking translate into an effective running program?

According to others around the internet, as long as I listen to my body and pay attention to the signs that could signal overtraining, I should be good. I know I can walk for hours without many (if any) problems. I have the foundations for a great walk/run program already. I just didn’t know it. Running has always intimidated me because I know I didn’t have the stamina for it. I can walk for hours without losing breath.

My mindset around running was crippling me & I didn’t know it til I decided to sign up for the Houston Marathon without much if any running under my belt. I have tried hard to get over my worry that I would tire too much, I’d get injured, pretty much anything that was too hard. But I had to face something: walking had become too easy for me.

Maybe some hill walks or stair walks get a bit tiring, but otherwise I can do them for quite some time. Running, even a short distance, made me work hard. BUT THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT!!! What good is exercise if you don’t push yourself once in a while? Some just want to maintain, but at some point, even those who want that HAVE to push themselves a bit or they lose what stamina they had. Not much, but enough to be noticeable. Routine numbs the body to the effects you’re going for, and I had to remember that.

I knew that was true for strength training; why didn’t I recognize it when it came to walking cardio?

Granted, with my weight, I was VERY afraid of injury and believed I couldn’t run until I lost the weight. I’m currently 80+ pounds over what BMI suggests for my height and middle frame (I’ve been overweight since I was 10 years old, so I have no idea what my “frame” is, so I’ve given my weight-loss goal a cushion and chosen the middle range to aim for). But walk/run beginning programs can give that edge I need.

Yes, my muscles need extra training and strengthening. That’s where some walks can come in handy (recovery days) and some total body strength training or yoga in between runs. I just had to clear that last hurdle in my mind saying “you can’t be a runner because you’re too fat.” Well, if I don’t try, that fat’s not going anywhere, anyway… nor will my heart get healthier, my mind get sharper, my muscles get stronger…

So I had a good start already without knowing it. That makes me feel a bit dumb AND pretty good all at the same time. The first step to solving a problem is acknowledging there is one. I just didn’t realize until today that my mind still had the strongest blocks up, even while my dreams and ambitions tried to push it over with images of me succeeding and getting so healthy.

This is where I will focus my journaling this week: getting through those mental blocks. I need to build my strength and stamina over the next 233 days (and onward). It’s more than the marathon, it’s my life from now on. Got a late start, perhaps, but it’s a start… and time to stop being afraid of failure.