Shownotes:

Patty Post is the founder and CEO of Checkable Medical. On episode 1 of a four part series, she shares personal experiences where she faced challenges where she reached a point and had to make the choice to preserver through reach her goal.

On this episode she shares her experience running a marathon in a mustard costume. Whether it be rain or shine or any other obstacles she faced, she shares how she kept her head in the game, trained her body and her mind, and ran the race.

Go to checkablehealth.com for more great content!

Transcript:

0:00:00.0 S1: Hi, it’s Patty Post, the host of The Persevere Podcast. And today, and for the next few episodes, I'm going to share some stuff about myself. And, these things are things that I have accomplished, challenges that I've gone through, and I'm gonna do it in an interview style, so they're gonna be our little minisodes, and I hope you get to know me a little bit more. And really the goal of it is, I wanna share some things that I've worked through professionally and personally, and how it's helped me achieve and become a better version of myself, and I hope that it helps you as well. So it's super easy, digestible, nothing is like rocket science here, and a lot of you will probably think they're great reminders, that's what I'm hopeful of. And I hope you think of this as, “Okay, I can do that too. If she did it, I can totally do it.” That's what I want to inspire you, to have a mindset that anything is achievable if you put hard work, dedication and consistency to it. 

0:01:16.3 S2: Welcome to The Persevere Podcast, powered by Checkable Medical, and hosted by Patty Post, a female founder, entrepreneur, wife and mother of three, doing all of the things. The strength to persevere in business is powered by passion, grit and hard work. The Persevere Podcast is for entrepreneurs and business leaders who set out to innovate and change the world with their ideas, whether it's fund­raising your start-up, product development, marketing, branding, or scaling your existing business, this podcast is for you. We'll discuss everything it takes to persevere and build the business you've always dreamed of. Let's make it happen. 

0:02:07 S1: So with that, let's get into my first topic, which is the time I ran a marathon in a mustard costume, and yes, I did say that, a mustard costume. I was compelled to sign up for a marathon because it was the first of the year, and I had just lost a bunch of baby weight, and I was already gotten through some yoga certifications and had great work with business and I felt like personally, I was in a good spot, but I needed to push myself. And so, why wouldn't I sign up for a marathon on January 3rd in Minnesota when the marathon was in June? And that made it a challenge in and of itself, because I knew I'd have to train in the winter months, and it was far enough away where I didn't think of, “Oh, this is gonna be a marathon. This is gonna be a lot of work.” So that crazy, super optimistic part of me came in there as well. Going through a marathon was impactful on my mental toughness in a variety of ways. One, having to wake up in the morning and get my training done so then I could get to work via mom, especially on the weekends, having my kid’s sporting events to go to, and then a social life and be a wife during the week, having to travel for work and be sure to get my runs in, I just really had to remind myself that I had something that I wanted to achieve, and I let those feelings of excuses of giving myself permission to not do it, I wouldn't let myself give myself permission not to do it.

0:04:03.5 S1: My training runs specifically. So how did I keep myself accountable? I kept myself accountable for not giving in and not choosing to go with what my feelings were… two different ways. One, I would write it down and say to myself, “You are going to do this, you are running”. I put my calendar together of what I was running for the six months and I wouldn't let myself waiver on that. And then the other thing that was even more impactful is I had a running coach who is my friend, and she is the one that I signed up for the races with and she had no problem saying, “Oh, it's raining? That doesn't matter. Your hair’s gonna get wet. Oh, your shoes are waterproof.” Or, “Oh, you have your period? Yeah, that means that you still can run,” and she was unwavering in letting you make excuses, and so she is a track coach, she had run, I wanna say over 100 races in general, and over 50 marathons, and so she knows what it's like on the other side, of like, “Yeah, you're gonna, it's gonna suck, but you're gonna have to do it.” There were so many different challenges

that came up along the way, and one of them that I remember right now, the biggest challenge when it came to the training was just being consistent. And especially when I traveled, I had an interview that took me to Las Vegas and it was the day that I had to do a half marathon, and there was no way I could do it the day before.

0:05:55.9 S1: There was no way I could do it the day after, and so I had to do it when I was in Vegas. And so I got up early, I went on the run, and one, I wasn't used to that dry heat, and two, I wasn't used to all of the stairs in Vegas, 'cause you know how you have to run up and down over the main strip and, so after flying, I had gotten really dehydrated. My calves were cramping up like crazy, and I was wearing these heels for my interview and I had to stand for a couple, almost a couple of hours waiting for this interview to happen in a hotel, and I ended up having just bad cramps and it kinda wrecked my body. So after that, to continue training when the marathon was only two weeks away, took tons of time, and I had to foam roll and go to the physical therapist, and I knew that I needed to do that race though. So it was always just thinking about, “Okay, what is it that I want to accomplish and always being super vigilant to that.” So one of the things to overcome when you live in a Midwest climate is the climate itself, and if you have to do your trainings outside. And, you just have to get over it by being prepared.

0:07:26.9 S1: So I hear a lot of people be like, “Oh, I could never do that. I could never live in the Midwest.” Well, you can do anything that you put your mind to, and you definitely can do it if you are geared up. And so it's almost like doing a podcast. Well, yes, anyone can do a podcast, grab a mic, grab some headphones, there you go. You can do a podcast. Same with the marathon and running in the climate of the Midwest, so Minnesota, it was 20 below literally when I did some of my first runs in January and February and... Did I do them? Absolutely, but I had to wear mittens instead of gloves. I had to wear, sometimes six layers. I had to wear a jacket that would not take in snow, and so it was almost like a rain coat. I had to wear multiple leggings. you have to get shoes that are for snow. You have to have Yaktax that are, make it so, you put them on the bottom of your shoes and then you don't end up slipping. So anything that we do, I really like to go back to that scenario of gearing up for my training in the winter time, because I geared up and then I could do it.

0:08:47.8 S1: And if we are armored up, if we’re geared up in anything in life, I think we can totally accomplish it, and I didn't let those... I didn't let the cold be my excuse. So, you don't prepare for marathon day to be icky weather, and we wake up on marathon day and it's raining, and it's cold, and it's supposed to be the middle of June. What the heck? Why is it 40 degrees? So we have our costumes on and all we did was take some garbage bags, put some holes in them, and we ended up running the first few miles in torrential rain, it was crazy. Like, think thousands of people starting, you're all one before you start. You're waiting to go to the bathroom. I've never seen so many porta-potties lined up at this race, and then the line standing in the rain, it just is like thinking back, we all were crazy. So that in and of itself, even before the race started, there was a setback, and then we got through the rain, and then the sun broke the clouds, and we come over by Lake Superior, so this is Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, and suddenly it was super hot and it was like, “Okay, now we gotta take off the layers”, while you're still running, and that was mentally the hardest thing for me to get through the ups and downs. 

0:10:23 S1: I just want, like can you please just give me some consistency here, like I just wanna run my race. But, I think it's a great analogy of life of, no, there's not gonna be consistency. Nothing is like the

1­, 2, 3 or X, Y, Z, how it's supposed to go. You're gonna get stuff thrown at you and have the mental toughness and the positive attitude to keep going. I really, really wanted to quit at the end, because Grandma's Marathon is really known for an area where there's tons of fans, and it is so fun and amped up when you are running down that main Lake Avenue, and there are so many fans and they're partying and there's music, there's kegs of beer. The best thing that I had was I had a piece of bacon and then a half a glass of ginger beer, and I distinctly remember that tasting amazing. Well, you go past Lake Avenue and then there's a couple more miles where it's pretty industrial, you go through downtown. And there are no fans. And I was waiting for my husband, and I'm like, “Where is he? Why, I thought he was gonna come cheer me on here, he was supposed to be at mile 21”. Didn't end up being there or maybe it was like mile 23, and he couldn't get a parking spot.

0:11:47.0 S1: So, I was feeling like I wanted to stop, and this is where I was so glad that I was with this group of ladies, there was four of us together, and having them... “Don't stop, keep going.” It's sore. Your muscles literally start cramping up, right, and your feet, you're like, “Am I even wearing any shoes anymore?”, and I wanted to stop so bad, but then when it got to that last mile marker, just something changed in me, and I saw my husband and then my cousin's husband, I'm like, “Okay, yeah, we gotta do this for them,” and they kind of ran through the end with us. And I must say, so we all wore costumes and that definitely helped with the excitement and amping the whole thing up for us. So as a group, we decided to dress up in costumes, and our friend who is that experienced marathon runner, her experience is, if you are wearing a costume, you're gonna get people cheering for you, it's gonna get you excited. So, she already had a hot dog costume. I happened to have a mustard costume, and then my other friend had a relish costume. Our fourth partner, she was unwilling to wear a costume, it was her first marathon and she's like, “I'm not gonna wear a costume”, and it was so fun.

0:13:08.6 S1: Every half marathon that we did, every race leading up to Grandmas, we all had that costume, so people just love it when you're wearing, and I think the tu-tus are fun, I think having shirts are fun, but this is just like a next level where the people really hadn't seen it. And it's great to get encouragement from others, and I highly recommend going in with your running group and doing something crazy like that, to stand out a little bit. The biggest take away is if you desire to do something and you tell yourself that you are going to do it, do not let yourself talk yourself out of accomplishing it. It's going to be hard. You are going to want to make excuses, you're going to tell yourself, give yourself permission not to. But everything that you do every day when you put out your energy to the world or your prayer, pray for that accomplishment and to have strength to do it, because since then I have really been able to tighten up my goals and tighten up my self speak to myself as well, and be more hard on ourselves. There's nothing wrong with being hard on yourself, and there is nothing wrong than reaching for the stars, and for me, maybe someone else it's a 200 mile race or 300 mile race.

0:14:42.6 S1: For me, it was that Grandma's Marathon, and from there, I just feel like, “Well, I did that. Why can't I do this now?” So for anyone listening that, if I said that and something comes to mind for you, write it down, give yourself a date and do it. And don't let yourself make excuses for not doing it because you are a strong person, you are beautiful. Whether that's writing a book or maybe a certification, doing a business, I say, go after it because it is worth it and you are worth it, and you will never regret it. So if there's anything that comes to your mind that you want to accomplish, if it's writing a book, if it's going after a business opportunity, maybe a certification or

even traveling somewhere and climbing a mountain, write it down and give yourself a date and don't let yourself not do it. Even if you have to push that date out, that happens, but don't give yourself permission to not do things. Give yourself permission to do it and be your best coach because you know yourself better than anyone else. 100% believe in yourself. That's what I want is the takeaway of this whole podcast today. If you got anything, believe in yourself 100%.

0:16:15.0 S1: So that's my story of running Grandma's Marathon in a mustard costume, and I hope that you were able to get a couple of nuggets that inspired you, and if you have any questions for me, you can always send me a DM on Instagram or TikTok at Checkable Health. I also am on LinkedIn and you can send me a message and follow me, and I'd love to see your pictures, tag me in your pictures of when you finish a marathon or when you accomplish something awesome. Even if you have something in mind that it's something you wanna go after, put it in your story, and then tag me, @pattypostceo, and that's a way to tell the world that you're gonna go after something. And I would love that. I'm even gonna start doing that, so with that said, go out and set big goals, 'cause I know that you can do it. And give this episode five stars 'cause we wanna catch that algorithm on Spotify and Apple Podcast. Write a review, I'd love to hear what you think. Thank you so much for listening.

0:17:25.6 S2: Thank you for listening to The Persevere Podcast, powered by Checkable Medical. Head over to perseverepodcast.com for notes, links and additional resources from today's show. To continue hearing insights and gaining knowledge from those persevering, succeeding and making their dream a reality, be sure to subscribe through your favorite podcast app. Now go make it happen.