Meghan Douris ROCKS

HAPPY MONDAY! How did we already get here…AGAIN? HA! After a beautiful weekend, let’s start the week off on a positive note and spotlight one of my clients! Meghan is a ROCK STAR and has been working with me through my on-line program. She has been through a lot during our training together, but has accomplished so much and I’m so proud of how much stronger she has gotten, but most importantly how she has learned to LISTEN TO HER BODY! Thank you Meghan for taking the time out of your insanely busy schedule to write this post! I love it and it makes me smile every time I read it. I hope you enjoy it as well! Have a wonderful start to the new week!

“I know Katie from our years together at W&M. I lost touch with Katie after college, but about a year and a half ago, I saw something on facebook about She Rocks Fitness and I started secretly following her blog.  Then in December 2011, I reached out to Katie via email and asked for help.   Hi, my name is Meghan, and I have a running problem.  I’ve been running since I was 11.  Long ago, it started as something I was naturally good at and my well meaning high school coaches took advantage of it.  By the time I was 13 I was training roughly 60 miles a week and running a 5:03 mile.   For the most part I loved it – I loved the high, I loved the speed, I loved the freedom to do it anywhere.  I loved it, until the injuries started at the age of 15.  Stress fractures and shin splints and knee pain became my running life.  Long gone was the runner’s high and the joy.  It was replaced with fear and dread.  Thus became my association with “exercise”.

In college, I knew that people went to the gym to “work out”.  But unless it was related to a sport and I had a coach telling me what to do and when, I didn’t know anything about the gym.   So I stayed fit by running, no matter how much it hurt.  After college I moved to NYC and eventually went to law school.  To alleviate the stress of school – I ran.  Only now, I no longer ran fast.  I was running many (many) minutes a mile slower than I had.  So what did I think was the problem? That I wasn’t running enough! Two knee surgeries in nine months resulted.  My first month back from the second surgery, and I started to train for a marathon.  This time, I irritated my hip so badly by favoring my knee that I ended up with 4 cortisone shots in my hip, a few weeks shy of the marathon.  That made three failed marathon training attempts.  I wish I could say I learned my lesson – but I didn’t. I kept running.  I just got new and different injuries. For the record, this behavior continued until October 2011. I’m actually pretty embarrassed as I see this all in print.

In October 2011, I decided that I was trying again for the marathon.  Only this time I enlisted Katie.  I finally realized that if I had any chance of doing it, it was going to take a ton of strength training and core work for me to get there.  I emailed Katie and begged for help.   Katie spent 2-3 emails trying to tell me to listen to my body and run the half marathon instead of the full.   J  She’s a wise woman.  But, she said she’d work with me.   The workouts came and holy cow.  My body was in shock.  What was this core stuff?  Free weights?  It was awesome. I loved it.  I was amazed how terrible I was at some of it (side planks will be the death of me).  It took me a little while to get over the fear of looking a bit foolish trying stuff out and squinting at my iphone for youtube videos and the circuit plan – but I stopped caring and really began to notice a change.  I’ve always been thin – but now I was leaner, stronger and standing up taller.  My runs felt less tiring – I wasn’t relying on my knees and legs to do all the work and began engaging my core. My IT band hurt about ¼ as much as it used to.   By January I was fully hooked.  Sadly, some serious health issues (unrelated to running) sidelined me for a few weeks In February – but Katie worked with me and gave me workouts that I could do post-surgery.

Then in March, I stress fractured my foot.  Six weeks in “the boot” was the punishment.  But Katie didn’t give up on me.  She gave me upper body and core workouts that I could do in the boot.  I gimped around the gym in the boot, rode the bike and did Katie’s workouts.  When I got out of the boot it was 6 weeks before the marathon.   BK (Before Katie) – I would have ignored my body (and my brain) and jumped right back in.  Instead, I thought about how far I had come.  I really liked working out and liked running again.  I didn’t want to lose how far I’d come since October and risk another injury by jumping into the full marathon.   I thought about the fact that if I got reinjured, I’d lose all the strength I gained from Katie’s workouts and realized it wasn’t worth it.

On June 3^rd I ran the San Diego Half Marathon.  It wasn’t fast. In fact, it was slow as molasses.  But I did it.  And I did it with no new injuries.  That’s a success to me and that’s thanks to Katie and She Rocks Fitness.  She’s wholly changed my approach to exercise physically and mentally. 
a. What is your favorite inspirational quote?

Is it sad that it’s my own?  It’s very personal, but it’s the mantra that’s gotten me through the last few months.

“I have zero control over the rare tumors, about 30% control over my crazy job (that I love), only 50% control over my marriage, but I have 100% of the control over my workouts and fueling my body with good foods. And those latter two things put me in the best physical and mental position to battle all the other nonsense!”
b. What is your favorite pre-workout meal?

I’m bad at pre-work out meals during the week because I’m always squeezing them in where I can.  At best I’ll squeeze in a skim milk mozzarella cheese stick.   But for weekend long runs, it’s a breakfast of quinoa oatmeal (1 cup of cooked quinoa, ½ cup of milk microwaved, with 1 cup of berries, ½ a banana and cinnamon.)

c. Favorite cheat meal:

Wine and cheese.  I’d show a picture of a cheese plate — but I always eat it before I remember to take the photo.”

If you are interested in working with me through my on-line personal training program, feel free to e-mail me at: sherocksfitness@gmail.com! THANKS!