expanding outdoors: an interview with Jared

I'm really excited to share Jared’s story with you guys today. His story is one a lot of us are familiar with. He doesn’t love running. He’s got unpleasant and awkward memories of running as a child. He never thought of himself as “a runner.”

Yet when he turned 33 this past spring, with two small children at home, looking to make a lifestyle change, he signed up for The Bolder Boulder, a local 10K race that over 50,000 others run every Memorial Day.

This past June I sat down* with Jared to talk about running, living healthy, and what motivates and inspires him.

I am honored and excited to introduce you all to Jared: a husband, dad, man, founder of Pro Photo Rental, and (dare I say it?), a runner. He’s found inspiration and wisdom throughout his experiences and well, I’ll stop there and let him tell you the rest.

running

How did you get into running?

Jared Kohlmann

It started more as a general fitness goal last fall (2009). I decided with my wife to be healthier and started a P90X program we’d read about. It came as a DVD and really worked for us because time was an issue (we have two young kids).

It was during the holidays when most people are putting on weight. It felt good that we were losing weight during this time.

Just after my 33rd birthday (early April), I was talking with a neighbor that was a runner and telling her how great I felt. She told me, “you should come running.”

My first reaction was “no.” I’d never been good at it and felt awkward. But after a week, I’d decided to sign up. I had exactly eight weeks to train.

What was your training routine like?

I had a base that I’d built up with general fitness, but hadn’t been jogging or running. I started a program my neighbor found online that was built around steady, slow workouts throughout the week.

The biggest things that I found helped me was having it written down. It was concrete. I have to know what I’m doing today and tomorrow and it has to be exact. That’s how it works for me.

Tell me about your first run.

My first run was two and a half miles. The longest I’d ever run to date had been one and a half. I didn’t feel that bad afterwards, but I felt like a fish trying to ride a bike. I got through it. I didn’t have to walk, and realized, “this isn’t bad.” I kept doing the program.

Around this time I also found Chi Running and it really made sense to me. It really helped improve my efficiency and gave me something to think about while running. Focusing on my form was helpful and it gave me something to concentrate on, and in the end, made it possible to run longer and further because I was doing it more efficiently.

Tell me about running The Bolder Boulder.

2010 Bolder Boulder

I had planned on running the race with my neighbor and a couple of other friends, and we had done a few training runs together. I began to realize that I was actually starting to run faster than they were going.

It was strange because here we were, having agreed to run together, but the pace was strange for me and actually hurt my knees. We talked about it and they were totally fine with me just going, so on race day we ran together for the first mile and then I just started going after that.

I wasn’t as fast as I’d wanted. My first goal was to finish in under an hour, but during my training, I realized I was running faster and adjusted my goal to under 50 minutes.

2010 Bolder Boulder

My final time ended up being 56:00:00 on the nose. Overall, I’m pretty happy, but I see room for improvement. At the same time, running is a chore to me. It takes effort and isn’t the first thing I would choose to do as active activity.

But it was a goal and it was important for me to be working toward an end result.

I haven’t run since the race, but am doing other things to stay active. And that’s really the big thing for me. I’m exercise agnostic and there’s no one thing I subscribe to.

beginning a healthy lifestyle

Tell me about the condition you were in back in October, and what led to your decision to be healthier?

I didn’t have any major health issues, and I wouldn’t characterize myself as obese. But definitely overweight and a higher percentage of body fat than I wanted. It’s something that has been that way all my life.

I was the fat kid in school. I’ve never been great at sports. I participated, but was part of the team, not a star. And not that great athletically.

After our second child was born, we found that a lot more of our time was taken up. We realized that unless you make it an absolute priority, exercise and things like that will fall to the wayside.

You’re not getting enough sleep and your time is taking up with so many other things, you just don’t have time for the things you want to do for yourself.

My wife was really frustrated with how her body had reacted to her second pregnancy. She’d put on a lot of weight and wanted to get rid of it. We knew that working together would be motivational. It was time. I’ve done these shorter things throughout life like, “oh I’m going to exercise now,” but it generally corresponded to the traditional times, like New Years, or summer. “Ah, it’s warm so I’m going to go exercise and be healthy again.”

But I knew this needed to be a lifestyle change and not a short term thing.

Looking back over your progress, from October, to running, and now to this time where you’re saying, “Okay, running’s not for me but I can do it, I know I can do it and there are other things out there,” what have you learned, what are the insights you’ve gained over the months through this process?

I think the biggest would be the fact that I never thought I was “a runner.” I thought that there were these people who were runners and people who weren’t. And that understanding that with a little bit of effort and teaching, you really can do it. You may not race a Kenyan, but you’re going to do it. That you have the tools to do it and do it reasonable well.

There are so many ways to say, “I can’t” and you just gotta shut up and do it. You know, you can do it. You really can. At some level. That was a big thing.

Tied into that was this thought that if I’m going to exercise, I can only pick from these things, and I realized that really, once you get a decent base of fitness going, you really can do a lot.

I’ve also learned how hard I can push myself. When I’m lying on the floor panting from a hard workout, thinking, “did I really just do that?”

I would track things on a heart rate monitor and realize how many calories I’d burned in a relatively short amount of time and it’s like, that’s pretty amazing when you see that. And it’s really motivational for the next time around.

Learning that you’re not tied to any particular type of sport or activity and that learning you can push yourself a lot harder than you think you can.

motivation and inspiration

What motivates you?

Certainly the tangible things are huge. The scale, the mirror, the body fat calipers. All of those things are concrete numbers that you can really say, this helps motivationally.

But also the non-quantifiable things. How you feel. How you carry yourself.

My wife and I were talking one time when we were walking through Target about how we could feel the change in our posture. It felt like we were stronger just standing there. There was no feats of strength or anything, but a natural ability to feel good.

I suppose some of it is endorphin based, but there really is a “feel-good” portion of it that you can’t put your finger on. And that you can’t really explain to somebody until they feel it themselves, but just, I think exercise makes you happy.

The chemicals in your body that want you to be healthy. So that sort of feeling is awesome.

What inspires you?

Hmmm... for me, concrete goals. Having something to work toward is the most inspirational. I think that when I’m just maintaining, I’m not really inspired. The inspiration comes from, “Hey, I’ve got this race in x number of days or weeks, and I want to do this well at that activity.”

I’m kind of a numbers guy, so for me, having something to work toward, a hard goal is inspirational for me.

With two small children, your own company, your wife works full time... how do you guys do it? How do you find time to workout?

For her, she does it before she goes to work in the morning. And she’s more of a morning person anyway. And I do everything at night after the kids are in bed. Actually after she’s in bed, too. After the kids are in bed (by eight), we hang out for an hour, hour and a half just the two of us and then, yeah, I’ll put a DVD on or go for a run at night.

So which has led to some issues, especially when it was colder out or raining, no one wants to run by themselves in the dark, cold night. But if you don’t, you’re going to fall behind. You gotta keep going. And at the end, some of those, strangely enough, are some of my best memories.

And at the end of it, going, “Yeah, this is awesome. This is something I never thought I’d be able to do.” And to just say that I’ve done it now and realize that it’s not that bad. It’s kinda neat.

You know, we create such huge barriers in our heads about why we can’t do things. I don’t know why the psychology is like that, but getting around those was one of the biggest things for me.

Do you mind sharing what some of your blocks are?

I don’t know if there were any in particular, but it’s all mental. A lot of history and childhood memories of being “that kid” and not being good at things and carrying that forward and thinking that was my lot in life.

And then realizing there were things I could do to change that. That I needed to shut up that inner voice and say, “you know what? I am going to do this. And it’s not going to kill me.” I’m gonna push myself as hard as I can and keep going.

What’s next?

competing in the Warrior Dash | Copper Mtn, CO

I’ve actually been talking with my neighbor about this. She said trail running can be fun, and there’s a series of runs coming up, so we’re looking into that.

Anytime you can do something fun with the activity, man, that’s where it’s at, because then it’s no longer work. It’s so important to incorporate fun into it.

Author’s note: Between the interview and posting, Jared participated in the Warrior Dash in Copper Mountain, reporting back that it was "incredibly fun." Sounds like he's dialed in the fun factor.

words of wisdom

What advice would you give to others just starting out?

the aftermath of the Warrior Dash

Just do it. You just take the first step and just get moving. Get going. You don’t have to run a marathon tomorrow. Take the first step and believe that you can do this. Yes, it’s going to be hard and yes, it’ll probably hurt, but you can do it.

So many things out there that talk about how quickly you can get in shape, and easily all this stuff. And it’s total bullshit.

There is no easy, quick way to do this. It takes effort. It takes time. But—you can do it.

For me, and it can differ, genetics can play a part and it might be easier for one person to get in shape over another, but anybody can do it. You just make those initial steps and realize it’s going to take effort, and don’t be scared of the effort.

Because, you know, inertia works both ways. It’s hard to get moving, but once you are moving, it’s easier to keep moving.

what’s your story?

If you, or someone you know has a story, please contact me. I’m always looking for folks to interview and feature.

If you’re new here, welcome. You might want to subscribe to my RSS feed to stay up to date on the latest posts. And as always, I love to hear from you. Please leave a comment, connect via twitter or facebook, or contact me directly.

*I recorded our conversation and where applicable, paraphrased for clarity. Jared has read and blessed this post.

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• Expanding Outdoors: Climbing in Three Dimensions with Anne Hughes