I'm so excited to welcome Aaronica from The Crunchy Mommy!
Some days, this is exactly what my exercise regime has consisted of.
After I had my oldest daughter, like most women, I wanted to lose weight. Instead of having a weight goal, I decided I wanted to become a runner. I grew up as a competitive swimmer and running was the one thing that I couldn’t do.
We would have to run prior to our first practice of the day and I would always be the last one to get to practice because I just couldn’t run. I always felt defeated even before I got to practice, which naturally didn’t make for an awesome practice.
As an unexpected single mother, I was already feeling defeated and couldn’t afford to delve any deeper into the feelings of defeat so I set out to conquer one of the things that had been hardest for me.
I Started Out With Walking
My roommate, who was also a single mother, and I would walk to the park to take our girls to play. The walk was 1.5 miles there, so it totalled 3 miles. One day, she suggested that we jog a little bit. And we did. This is what started it for me.
During this time I was going through a lot. Being a single mother raising a little girl on one income while trying to figure out how to function in the world was hard. I was sad and overwhelmed a lot. But I couldn’t afford to breakdown because I had my baby.
Every morning I would wake up and I would do a walk/jog to the park. During this time I would turn my music on loudly and sweat out my fears, my stress, my doubts. It felt like I was crying but I wasn’t.
I was making my fat cry while I dealt with my stresses in a healthy way. My daughter’s God-mother’s husband became my running husband. He held me accountable to my morning runs. We would do races together.
…Then I did A Half-Marathon
My running husband called me and said we were registering for a half-marathon. Up until that moment when I googled how many miles it was, I had no clue how many miles that was.
13.1.
Thirteen point one miles.
I thought he was insane but I registered for it and got my older brother to register too. And then I trained. I was a running fool.
I would use one of the many apps to plan out my runs and then I would do them. It was like clockwork. I would eat, sleep, run. I would bring my baby with me. I did 9 miles with her in the jogging stroller.
I loved that I was showing her what consistency and discipline looked like.
It was during this time that I began to cross-train with poling.
Ring Around the Pole
After taking my first pole fitness class, I had a new respect for women who do this every day! The next day I woke up with parts of my body that I didn’t know existed sore and bruises all up and over my legs. I took a total of 3 12-week pole series classes.
I learned how to climb the pole and do multiple tricks. My back, chest, and shoulders had never looked better. I was consistently surprised at the different things that my body was capable of doing. I gained more strength in my pole classes than I could have in a gym. AND I did it while feeling sexy!
Sooner or later I looked down at the scale and it read that I was 60lbs lighter. Now a husband and another baby later I need to get the discipline I had before.
I miss running and poling. The best thing about being able to do both of those things is that in the highly unlikely event of a zombie apocalypse, I would have been in a good position!
Aaronica Cole (aka The Crunchy Mommy) is a mom of 2 little girls and wife to the most amazing husband in the world. Once addicted to fitness, she’s learning to find her way back balancing a new baby and responsibilities as a mompreneur. You can catch her daily at www.thecrunchymommy.com.
Well done! I was a competitive swimmer through high school and still swim as my exercise – that and yoga 🙂 Wish I could run without getting a migraine.
Swimming is a great workout!
i really need to get some yoga back into my routine too…
migraines are the absolute worst!!!
This is great, I have started walking/jogging and I love it…need to get the discipline for consistency though!
You can do it!! Schedule it into your week!
i really need to get my discipline back too. what’s funny is that i would just get up and do it. no thinking about it. no snoozing. nothing. my clothes would be laid out the night before and i would just get up and go.
sometimes we overthink things and just need to get moving!
I’m SO inspired by your story! A half marathon has been my lifelong goal! I’ve always been a runner, but I injured my ankle earlier this year and I’m afraid that I won’t be able to run long distances the way I used to. Thanks for sharing your journey!
Alessandra | The PumpUp Blog
Make sure that you let it heal fully before you try running again! If it still hurts, you may want to ask your doc for a referral to physical therapy, too. Hugs!
like brea said, make sure it heals fully.
i’ve chronically sprained both of my ankles and did it. i’m sure you can too! swimming is really great for strengthening your ankles.
I love this! Thank you so much for sharing Aaronica’s story with us, so inspiring. I, also, have never been a great runnner, although I do enjoy escaping for jogs with my music. 🙂 I would love to run a half someday!
What’s your favorite jogging music?
justine you can do it!!!!
i honestly never thought that i could but i figured that if i just registered for it, that would be enough motivation to get me training and it was. that and my big brother told me he would run it with me too.
Inspirational! I LOVE seeing personal stories like this! It motivates me to start working out again (ever since having a baby, I’ve lost my mojo). I like how she said she just started walking, then agreed to start jogging with her roommate. It’s kinda like the snowball effect.
Yes!
ha i totally understand!!!!
but you know what they say, a body in motion stays in motion so once you get moving you’ll be able to keep moving!
I love Aaronica’s story. I will be doing a Transformation Tuesday series on my blog and am looking for success stories like this! I know it’s such a challenge for fitness, but so important!
How awesome! I love sharing success and motivational stories!
I somehow missed this on my feed last Friday and meant to read it, as I started taking pole classes 5 weeks ago and I’m going to take another 6 week’er. It’s just not enough. I love the sore muscle feeling!! 🙂
Really nice meeting you Aaronica 🙂
[…] And I did. I ran numerous 5K’s, 10k’s, half marathon and even a triathlon. I was doing pole fitness and in my head, I was an overall bad […]