Episode 2: From Walking to Running: Building Hope (and Miles) in a Hard Season

In episode two of The Jamerrill Show, Jamerrill talks through how her movement journey shifted from walking to running—right in the middle of a hard season—without it ever being about performance or running culture. Walking was the lifeline first: the safe, steady, doable thing that helped her regulate, process, and connect with hope when everything else felt like it was burning. She shares how tracking her steps helped her see progress over time, how her body eventually told her it was ready to try running, and how she gave herself permission to begin, no external approval required. She walks through practical tools that helped (apps, local races, RunSignup, community events), what she learned from injury and getting coaching support, and why the real goal isn’t perfection but consistency. Over and over, the message is simple and powerful: walking counts, you don’t have to rush, movement gives you agency, and even 15–20 minutes can bring your brain back online and help you breathe again.

Listen on your favorite platform

You can watch the full video episodes on my second YouTube channel, and the audio is available on Spotify, Amazon, and other podcast platforms. Apple Podcasts is pending and will be added as soon as it’s approved.

Key Takeaways

Walking is the foundation, not a “less than.”
She’s clear: walking is the core of her movement story. It’s steady, safe, powerful, and it built everything that came after. Running doesn’t make the journey “real.” Walking already is real.

Running didn’t start as a goal. It evolved with the body.
She didn’t force it. After 10–12 weeks of consistent walking and increased steps, she hit a point where her legs basically said, “We could run this lap.” That’s the model: build capacity, listen to your body, move forward when it makes sense.

You don’t need permission. You decide.
One of the biggest mindset shifts: “I became a runner because I decided to be one.” No gatekeeping. No “since when are you allowed?” Energy. If you want it, you can begin. Slow and steady still counts.

Consistency beats the perfect plan, especially for busy moms.
Her schedule is a moving target. Some weeks she runs, some weeks she just walks, some weeks she rests more. The win is continuing to show up in whatever way you can, and letting it add up like a patchwork quilt over time.

Movement supports mental health in real time.
She describes it like lived evidence: when anxiety, stress, or “biggest bummer news” hits, she moves, often a simple 15–20 minute walk, and her brain comes back online. Hope returns, problem-solving returns, and she can breathe again. It doesn’t erase the problem, but it changes her ability to approach it.

Transcript

Welcome back to episode two of The Jamerrill Show, where today we’re going to talk about going from walking to running in the middle of a hard season. No surprise to you, I share a lot about my journey of walking, of finding a lot of joy, and connecting with a lot of hope through my walking journey and becoming a runner. This is a topic I get a lot of questions about, and I love sharing about. So, definitely that is going to come out in these Jamerrill Show podcast episodes, too. As I hear from more and more women who want to get started intentionally walking, they want to increase their steps. They have dreams of one day becoming a runner also. And they reach out to me with so many questions. And my hope is that in these episodes you will find encouragement and the answers to your movement questions as well.

And that’s one of the main focuses of my journey; it’s not so much about walking and running and running in particular, it’s really about movement. And so, people hear running or see running and they think that’s what most of my movement is and where most of my movement has come from. And really, looking at the data, because I love data, the core part of my movement journey has been based on walking, steady, consistent walking, and movement through walking. And yes, that journey led me to running along the way. So, I did not set out in the fall of 2023 to become a runner and go on this journey doing runs. I could not imagine in the fall of 2023 even doing a 5K; that was not on my radar. Now, once I unlocked the vision of being a runner, I was like, “Oh, wow, I’m going to do 5Ks”. And then, of course, in 2025, I did three half marathons. And I will definitely go through reminiscing with you about what I have been able to accomplish and what’s on my upcoming movement goal list in an upcoming episode, too.

This episode is for women who are curious about running, also women who walk, busy moms, and also women who may feel intimidated about the running culture in general. And me in my journey, walking came first; it was a necessity. I quickly tapped into the fact that running felt good. Nothing else in my life felt good. Everything in my life felt like it was on fire and it was burning. Walking connected me with hope. It gave me something to look forward to. And I did walk several hours every day. When I started to intentionally walk, it was three to four hours a day consistently.

And when I talk about looking at the data, that is where if you have a watch of some sort, some sort of fitness tracker that can track your movements. I know there’s also fitness rings out there available. What is so precious to me is I have an iPhone. Okay, probably half of you have an iPhone and the other half of you have Androids, right? I have data on my iPhone, my steps going back to when I got my first Apple Watch in 2016. And I can see in 2016 I averaged 1,600 steps a day. In 2016 we had a big move. I was pregnant with my eighth baby. I see in 2017 my steps picked up a little bit. I mean they doubled basically. They went to about 3,200 to 3,500 steps a day. That was 2017, 2018, 2019. I think by the time I moved here in 2020, my steps were averaging in the 5,000 a day range. And then from 2020, of course, I was farming then some. From 2020 up until my life imploded, the fall of 2023, my steps were just in that 3,500 to maybe a little over 5,000 step range a day.

And in the fall of 2023, again, when I had nothing left to hold on to, all the framework of my entire life that I held on to on so many levels was gone and falling apart. That steady daily movement gave me something to help hold on to. And I’m learning now about the muscular system. And I’ll say very plainly, very layman’s journey explanation, because again, I’m not an expert. I am just a woman actually living this and feeling it and getting the good benefits of it. I felt so good in my body. Whatever natural chemicals and hormones that were being released in my body was helping me process and make it through. And I have since run into data and heard research about how walking reduces anxiety, reduces stress, reduces depression. And there is some talk of “hope molecules”. I cannot tell you the scientific name for them, but there are these hope molecules that are expressed in our bodies. And I think it is fascinating. And I have somehow, as a woman knowing nothing, I was able to walk into something and I was able to hook on to some hope and help myself make it through. So, in rebuilding my life and rebuilding myself, walking is the very first thing I hooked on to.

And if I did not know what else to do the next day, when I made it through that day and I slept because I walked and I was able to get a hot bath, I could build a little routine. The next day I knew, “Okay, if I don’t know what else to do today, I know I can at least go for a walk”. Walking to my body made movement feel safe at my highest weight and at my sickest for my body when I was hospitalized with my kidney infection multiple times and needed a kidney surgery. And this is just part of my journey. I was on the verge of fatty liver disease. My A1C was pre-diabetic. At one point my vitamin D was seven. When I started walking, I was not in any kind of fit shape. I was not confident. I definitely had no vision to run up and down a mountain and do multiple half marathons and do ultramarathons in the future. None of that was on my radar. But my goodness, my basic walking journey was something I could do. And through that, I connected with a whole other world of opportunity through my movement journey.

So, walking is not any lesser than running. You don’t ever have to become a runner. Being a runner does not have to be your goal. And again, being a runner was not on my radar either. Other than maybe 2017-ish, I remember at the Forest House feeling like I wanted to be a runner and I downloaded the Couch to 5K app, which just seemed like an impossible goal. And I’d always enjoyed hiking up and down the road and doing laps around our field and doing basic walking movement with my children. So, I did have a seed of that dream planted. But when the heavy movement started for me, it was just more how to get through this day. And an added bonus was it actually made me feel pretty good. And it actually gave me some hope and it gave me some structure.

But I very quickly could tell that my body felt different. My body began to feel stronger. And I can go look at the step data from my phone. I was wearing an Apple Watch at the time. And I can see in September 2023 my walking going from 3,500 to 5,000 or so steps a day to 8,500, and then I would get like 9,700. And I see where my first day was that I got 15,000 and it just continued to build over the next eight to twelve weeks. And through that consistent daily walking around the ten-ish week mark for me, I remember my legs actually feeling like they wanted to run, like my body was telling me it was ready to run. And I thought, “I’m getting a lot of steps in and a lot of movement, and I feel good, and I think running would feel good as well”. And within that time, we were having the darkness come in. We were having the time change seasonally here in Virginia. And I was also wondering if I started to run, if I would then get more steps in less time. So, running was not forced in any way. It just showed up in my body, and it was the next thing that made sense that I could do for myself.

And I will also say I understand that not everyone on purpose can take 10 to 12 weeks to walk three to four hours a day. That was just my story, that’s my journey in my place of traumatized desperation. That was the thing that really saved me in so many ways. And so, walking for you might look like walking for 30 minutes in the morning while your kids play. It might mean doing another 30 minutes in the afternoon. That’s an hour a day of on-purpose, additional movement. And so, for me, in November 2023, when I decided I think I could start running now, I didn’t ask permission. I feel like that’s something that can be put on us, as if there’s some magical source that gives us permission and says, “Yes, you may get extra movement in,” or, “Yes, you may become a runner now”. And really, that permission, that source, comes from within ourselves.

I do think, again, I only have my own experience. And so, I do think starting walking consistently and building those steps up and getting to a point where your body tells you, “I think I’d like to try this,” that’s some of the tips that I offer women who are looking to get a consistent walking journey with a dream of, “Could I be a runner one day, too?”. And I remember when I started sharing on my Instagram, sharing a little more about the steps I was getting, and then whenever I added the layer of running in, some of the comments or some of the messages I got very much were, “Are you allowed to do this? Since when did you become a runner?”. And I became a runner because I decided to be one.

I did not have as much knowledge and information as I have on running now. I am not a running coach, and I’m not an expert. Sorry, this is my list, and in the podcast, if you’re just listening to the audio, I am holding out an air scroll. But I do have more information, and I’ve been involved in the running community now for over two years from where I started in November 2023 with the running. But I can say to encourage you, when I started in November 2023, I just said, “I’m a runner now”. And that’s how I got started. And I’ve learned a lot along the way.

My very first 5K in my driveway was a 48-minute 5K. I downloaded the free Nike running app. And on there, I was able to click a button for it to track the 5K for me. That was also synced with my Apple Watch at the time. And there’s a coach on the running app called Coach Bennett. And if you want Coach Bennett to talk to you and encourage you as you’re running, you can do that. I listen to that sometimes. If I wanted to sync it with my own music, I could do that and have the running app in the background. And that’s how I started. And I loved that 5K so much because I had built up to that movement. I then did a 5K every day for nine days. And they weren’t fast, and they didn’t have to be. It was the next level of movement for me. And for me, this gave me a sense of personal agency and of confidence. It was also another lesson to myself that, “Wait a minute, my body could do hard things”. And it gave me hope. And so then running gave me something that I could be in control of as I move forward when everything else in life felt out of my control.

And one of the questions I have received from women is, “How do I find these local races and events to be a part of?”. And Google, Google is my friend, Facebook is my friend. And so, I just started searching for 5Ks in my area of Virginia. And I know if my area has so many events, I’m sure that your area or in your general vicinity does as well, because I’m in rural Virginia. And within 30 minutes to an hour radius, there’s at least two dozen 5K events a year. Not that I do two dozen 5K group events a year, and not that you have to. I’m saying there’s a lot of opportunities out there.

And over time, I have learned many different running organizations and clubs in my area as well. I didn’t know this then, but there’s a great site called Run Signup. And you can put your zip code and how many miles you’re willing to travel, and it’ll run a search and tell you all the runs in your area that way as well. So, for me now, going into 2026, I’m signed up for probably 90% of the events that I’m going to do this year. And I have down a few that might be a backup or another option just depending on how my calendar is looking at that time. And I had most of that squared away by the end of 2025, my plan for 2026. But again, I’m building out what will be my third year now.

And if you didn’t know this, I love it so much. So, in December 2023, after running nine 5Ks in a row in my driveway and having a few weeks of running, I thought, “Okay, I’m running slow and steady 5Ks in my driveway. What would this be like to do with a group of people?”. And again, doing actual group 5Ks was just mind-blowing. I never thought that would be anything in my universe I would ever have the opportunity to do. When I signed up for the Couch to 5k App years before, doing a 5K was the equivalent in my mind now of what doing a 100-miler would be. It just seemed a wild, far stretch.

So, in December 2023, I signed up for the Shenandoah Valley Runners Winter Series. They do a winter series that goes December, January, February through March every year, and it’s about six to eight winter 5K races. And that was my introduction into doing group events. And I remember that first group 5K with hundreds of people. I cried at parts of that while I did it. And it was more like a grit your teeth overcoming, overcoming with hope and victory, and “I’m going to make it” type excitement. I wasn’t crying because I was sad. I was crying because I was alive and I was making it and I wasn’t going to quit.

And I do not have all my sources ready to cite for you, but I have read a little bit about trauma survivors clicking into also becoming endurance athletes because it gives you personal agency that you are able to control what your body is doing. You have this goal and this obstacle in front of you that you can focus on and you can accomplish this. And this is me, if you can’t see me in the audio, you see me in the video, I’m doing my little finger puppet, right, staring at my eyes, pointing to the future, and we’re doing it. And I have definitely clicked into that inspiration during big events as well. And having those events for me in 2023 going into 2024 gave me something to look forward to. And it also helped me hook into some forward momentum and some positive goals.

And then in 2024, I did, without looking at my numbers, somewhere between 10 to 12 big group 5Ks. I didn’t hit all of the winter 5Ks, but I hit several of those. And then I clicked in with another organization in my area. So, if you’re in the Shenandoah Valley, it’s called VA Momentum. And they have some fantastic 5Ks. They do an annual half marathon. They do a 50K endurance event, and all of that is local to me. And so, once getting to know people and doing events in my area, then that was a second organization that’s even closer to the center of my universe here, and I was able to start signing up and doing 5K events with them. So, that was a really good experience for me for 2024.

And I continued, besides the events, I was running at home and I was walking at home. No matter what, walking is what I do pretty much every day. I have a routine that I have worked out that I can verbalize better now going into 2026. But very much even 2024 I was running two to four times a week, and I was also getting in good steps on the other days.

Now, something I did, part of my running journey, something that did happen to me is by March 2024, I did have shin splints. And that really, it scared me, made me cry of sadness because of that. Because if I did end up with a hairline fracture, I would have to be in a boot and probably take 12 weeks or so off of running and rebuild. I did go to have an X-ray. That nurse practitioner was very, very kind to me. And I did click in with a local running coach at that time as an investment for myself and my health because I needed the running, the goals, and the movement for my own healing. And so she worked with me on how to gently heal my shin splints. And since that time, as an investment in myself and in my own running journey, I have continued to work with her. And she schedules a running training plan for me. There’s an app called V2. And the runs that she has scheduled for me are linked within my watch.

What many of you ask what watch I wear, and it’s a Choros 2. And I’ll have that linked down below as well. And so, like, I’m going to run this evening, and I will be able to just pull up on my watch the run she has scheduled, and I’ll click it and I’ll do what my watch says. And her coaching services—not sponsored, not sponsored—but it’s Magnum Opus Coaching. I will also link that below. She works with people virtually as well. And I think even sharing that I have worked with a running coach, some women will feel like, “Oh, I can’t afford a running coach,” or, “I can’t work with someone else,” or, “I can’t add in that layer”. It’s absolutely not a requirement. Again, in my season of devastation, I have needed to grab onto whatever I could to help me on many different levels. And more often than not, there have been times where she will have my four runs scheduled, and that week maybe I’m dealing with this other great big thing, and the only thing I have the capacity to do that week is to walk 15,000 steps for five days and I don’t even run. But no matter what, I can get my walking done.

And my hope for you in sharing that is, wherever you may end up finding yourself on your journey, there are a lot of wonderful resources out there, again like the free Nike running app. There’s a lot of great running groups on Facebook and local running organizations. And then there are trainers and experts that you can connect with at different points of your journey if you need that extra support. Like for me, it was important to have an expert that I could work with to teach me how to do my proper stretches and how to heal my shin splints. And so, from March 2024 through January 2026, I haven’t had shin splints or that level of injury.

And for me on my journey from walking to running, I want to continue to do more endurance events. I fell in love with trail running in 2025. I have so many fun things on my calendar for 2026. And she has helped me look at all the things I’m signed up for and I want to do. And very much the goal, my goal, is to do those events, to complete them within the time that is allotted, and to look at those events as part of my training.

And so, in going to 2025 in my running journey with then a little more than a full year of doing several 5K events and continuing with running two to four times a week in my driveway no matter what, having the foundation of walking. And in the weeks where if I was dealing with too much, too much going on in so many areas, if all I could do was walk and connect with feeling good, even in 2024, even in 2025, I’m sure, no doubt, in 2026, I still have weeks. Like last week alone, I got two decent runs in. I got one day of 15,000 steps. I think I got a day of 28,000 steps, which I know is a lot. And then I had some days of like 8 to 12,000. And I also had rest days where, you know, a rest day would be average steps like 3,500. I’ll even have rest days with like 1,800 steps. So, I definitely get rest days in too.

For me, this journey has been more about consistency, not so much following the exact perfect rigid plan and not getting off of it. It is still very much working with my life, my schedule. I am a large family single mom with a household of 10. I do run a business. I do have a lot of humans and a lot of demands, and I have days where things can change rapidly. I will tell myself I’m going to get my runs done in the morning for this week, and then on my schedule, okay, runs are going to go in the evenings. And I deal with a lot of life and a lot of accommodating. I have to be very, very flexible, and my schedule is a moving target. But I have shown myself about continuing to show up for myself in whatever way I can, taking it one day at a time, and that can add up big time over many days.

So even though for 2025, I ended up getting in well over 1,000 miles. And I had over 750 miles of walking and over 250 miles of running. That does not make me an elite endurance athlete. But my goodness, 2023 Jamerrill, 2022 Jamerrill didn’t even know there was a world where I would get in over a thousand miles on my feet in one year. And that was built and put together just like a patchwork quilt. The scraps of many, many days, and it’s consistency over time. And yes, I think my 2025 movement year, it is beautiful just like a quilt, it tells a story. And your movement journey very much can be pieced together every day and build something beautiful over time.

So, increasing my distances for 2025, I did four 5K events. I did one four-miler. I did my first ever trail event. I’ve done a decent amount of hiking in the mountains here in the Shenandoah Valley, but a 10-miler trail running event, which was so good. It was all my hopes and dreams. I did three half marathon events and I did a full marathon event. So, I traded some of the spots where I did big group 5Ks in 2024 for some of these bigger, like 10-miler, half marathon, full marathon type events in 2025.

And after learning more about my local running community and knowing what’s accessible even closer to home, I was able to make decision calls. Like, “Okay, the winter series is phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. However, many of those 5Ks are an hour each way from me. And now I know some other races that are less than 30 minutes away from me.” So, I can make my energy swaps. And now going into 2026, I know I’m only going to drive an hour or more if it’s a half marathon or beyond and it’s on my goal list.

Now, in my next episode of The Jamerrill Show, I’m going to give you all of my best tips and encouragement and resources for busy moms who are trying to get movement in with a bunch of kids and or life configurations, and just women in general who don’t know how to get movement in. But the question I get most is, “How do I do this with kids?”.

I did a few of the running Q&As; just honestly, these are a few I’ve gotten just in like the last two or three days. One mom contacted me, and she’s been getting in 5,000 steps a day fairly consistently now, and some days she gets up to 7,500. And she has a dream to one day be a runner. “How does she break into running?” But she said she’s tried to run some short distances, and running to her still feels hard. And so I just encouraged her. Again, none of this is expert fitness advice. None of this is medical advice. It’s hard to know all the details and the configurations. This is mom chat. This is me thinking through, “Okay, I’m walking 5,000 to 7,500 steps a day, but not hitting 7,500 consistently, and one day I dream of being a runner. Running feels hard. What do I do?”.

So, my thoughts to her are, “Why don’t you see how many days you can start hitting 7,500 consistently?”. That’s the first thing that I would do. I did not start walking 8,000 or 9,000 steps a day and then go to running. I had 12 weeks of getting my steps way up there, having a lot of time on my feet, having a lot of miles. And then my body and then my legs were like, “We could run this next lap,” you know. And so, with the amount of hours and time on my feet that I had for those 10 to 12 weeks before I did my free 5K app, that might take a busy mom in another season of life 6 months to get that many hours on her feet, or 8 months. Maybe it’s a whole year just focused on getting in 7,500 steps a day and see what that feels like over a year.

“I bet you’ll have a lot of data on how your body feels, how your leg feels, how your feet feel, any other support that you might need. I bet you’ll get feedback from your body on how you operate and how your brain feels.” So many, so many good things. I just cannot express enough how good walking has made me feel. It has totally changed my life. And so, my encouragement to her was to let it feel good. Collect her data on her body and her unique needs. And running can still come for her, but it doesn’t have to be yet if she doesn’t feel ready. Walking is valid, and walking builds strength, and you do not need to rush.

Another question I received recently is, “What if I try running and it just feels awful? Does that mean that running’s not for me?”. And this was from someone who, she’s got a little sparky dream. She’d like to be a runner one day. And so there’s totally awkward beginnings and breathing discomfort and slow pacing, and running may not feel good at first. One method that you can look into, which I think is phenomenal and I used it in my full marathon as well, there’s the Jeff Galloway method called “Jeffing It”. And there’s some great Facebook groups on it. And it can be as simple as running for 2 minutes, walking for 1 minute. You can even set a fitness watch if you want to do a timed run. Where I can set my watch—that was one of my methods I was utilizing with my full marathon. And so it would buzz and for 2 minutes I would run, and it would buzz and for 1 minute I would walk. And you can just continue doing that for miles.

And so Jeff Galloway is a phenomenal expert who developed a walk-run method to help prevent injury. And so you can also do it: run 30 seconds, walk 30 seconds. He also has an app you can download. And it’s based on your fitness level, your comfort, and also for you to see how your body responds. And it’s a great way to make running feel doable.

Now, I’ll say, after many runs and my two-year anniversary of running, that third half marathon that I did in Richmond, that was again just such a great experience. I keep singing the praises of that event because the event itself was so well done, and it was such a good experience for me, even on barely over four hours sleep. I’ll link that video down for you below. It was a whole hotel mess-up fiasco that caused the lack of sleep there. But I ran 13 miles in a row. And my pace was 12 minutes, 22 seconds. I’m proud of that; that’s phenomenal. And my body felt good. And I didn’t walk. The only time that I walked barely was if I was going to get a cup of electrolytes or if they were handing me a running gel or a clementine orange and I had to slow down a little bit. But I ran that whole thing. That was two years into running. And that was after a lot of time on my feet and walking as my base for my movement.

Again, most of three-quarters of my miles for 2025 came from walking. And my body had the fitness level to be able to do a half marathon, run the whole thing, have a nice steady pace. And also, when I run, like when I do my weekly runs, if I get running and I’m not feeling fantastic, I have times where I’m like, “Okay, the goal, the goal is not the pace”. Even if I have a 14-minute, 36-second pace on my watch, or sometimes I’ll look down it might be 16 minutes or 17 minutes, it’s okay. “I am running. I am moving. I am getting my run in”. And I have more and more times now, again, at the beginning of building out my third year, where I can look at my watch and I can have a 9-minute, 30-second pace. I can have a steady 11-minute, 30-second pace. And longtime runners and endurance athletes, and those who can do a 25K in 24 minutes, that’s not me. The times that I’m saying may not be phenomenal for some. But for me, my first 5K in my driveway was 48 minutes. To now look at my watch and have a 9-minute, 30-second pace to an 11-something minute pace, that’s all great movement. And that’s slow and steady progress over time.

And I will say personally for me, I have experienced having a lot of anxiety and pressure and stress. And I can say as far as the benefits of walking and movement being a mood booster, because of my life circumstances and the chronic stress I have been under for the last several years paralleling this journey. I can have a day where I get the biggest bummer news. Just insert biggest bummer here. And I can feel the anxiety and the stress and the worry and the compounding of those and the effects of those long term over years. I can feel that come up inside. And I can feel like, “Okay, I’m not denying those feelings because that’s our body saying, ‘Danger, danger. Wait a minute. We need to pay some attention to this'”.

So, here’s how I pay attention to it. I get on, if it’s three seasons out of the year, I get on a pair of Tevas. Those are my favorite walking sandals. I bet my 750 miles of walking in 2025 were in those. I had the tan lines to prove it. I get on my Tevas, or this time of year it might be my Columbia boots from the Goodwill, or my running shoes. I know when I have things coming up that are causing the anxiousness, the stress, the worry, the anxiety, I got to get moving. And I just have a slow, steady pace up and down my driveway. And usually within about 15 to 20 minutes, I have, my brain has had the ability, the cognitive ability comes back online, where I’m able to do some good problem solving. I’m able to click into some hope. I’m able many times to release the stress, the worry, the anxiety that came up in me. And again, they’re there for very valid reasons. And like a lot of people and a lot of women, there’s a lot of details and circumstances I don’t have a lot of control over. I don’t have my full autonomy in life. But what do I have? I can move my body. I can use my brain. I can have some good forward movement to feel good and problem-solve. And it doesn’t mean all my problems will be solved. But if I can get out there and walk 30 minutes or an hour, I will feel so much better by the time that hour is done. Of course, if all you could do is 15 minutes, do the 15 minutes. But I’m saying time and time again, 15 to 20 minutes in, I feel good. My brain has hope. And many times my brain, the things I can have answers on or the fragments of hope I need to be reminded of, as I move my body, those reminders come up in me. And that is based on the movement and the healing work that I have done.

So let that be an encouragement to you. If you are dealing with stress and anxiety and worry and fear, go for a walk. Try to go walk for 20 minutes and collect the data on yourself. Assess how you feel. “I felt this way at the beginning of the walk. At the end of the walk, I feel this way”. Maybe you could try that three or four times that week and see how much it helps improve your mental health for the situations you’re facing. See what creative ideas come your way. See how you connect to hope. And overall, see how you can make life improvements based on getting out and having a good strong walk.

So I want you to take away that movement can support your life. You are in control of your movement. You don’t need to prove anything, and walking totally counts. If you have a dream to be a runner, you can wave the wand and say that you’re a runner, and you can start slow and steady. And if you don’t want to run yet, or if your body doesn’t feel ready to run yet, build your excellent base through walking because you will be learning how to listen to your body, to check in with how you feel, to check in with the information that your brain gives you through your good movement. And your progress can be slow but still be real.

So, come back for my next episode. I’m going to give you so many strategies and encouragement for movement for busy moms and real life women who are trying to figure out how to get this in their day. Because yes, as my story goes, I began with 10 to 12 weeks of desperation. I had to get out and walk three to four hours a day. That was just a survival priority. But since then, I have continued and built out my movement journey consistently, doing longer miles over time while being a busy mom and not having three to four hours a day in an emergency situation at the beginning to get started. That is just part of the reality of my story. And our stories don’t have to match, but I still hope you find a lot of encouragement here for what you’re building, too.

Resources Mentioned

• Running a Half Marathon on 4 Hours of Sleep
• Couch to 5k App
• Jeff Galloway Method
• Coach Bennett
• Run Signup
• VA Momentum
• Magnum Opus Coaching
• Free Nike Running App
• Apple Watch
• Choros 2
• Tevas
• Columbia Boots