When Physical Health Meets Visibility: Why I traded in my heels for runners

Written by Danielle Joworski

At the start of 2023, if you had told me one of my goals would be related to running, I would not have believed you.

But here we are, three-quarters (3/4) of the way through the year and I’ve done things I said I didn’t like to do and created a goal that was beyond my almost 40+ year-old reality.

It was needed though because it was impacting my ability to truly show up in ways that support others, and #visibilitytruth: makes me feel alive.

After leading my first VisibelleCEO event in May, I was down and out for 3 days afterwards. With the exception of a few client calls, it was sleep, rest and recharging time. As much as I loved organizing and hosting the event, all that energy expended caused a precedent-setting crash.

I vowed to myself never again. This could not happen as it physically felt awful, and with dreams of hosting more in-person events and conversations, I could not afford this kind of recovery time.

So, I made a commitment to myself. To my physical health to improve my visibility health. What I had envisioned for myself when I started this health journey and what happened though turned out to be 2 very different things.

What I envisioned:

• I would join a gym and would strengthen and tone while increasing my cardio and any undesired inches would melt away like they did in my 30’s.
• I wanted to combine classes like yoga and low-impact exercise with weights.
• I detested sweating when exercising (I know … doesn’t make sense).
• I did not like running.
• I would use working out as a motivator to get up early and get a workout in before starting my day.

The reality:

I did a 30-day trial at a gym literally a 2-minute drive from my house. I tried 6:30 a.m. classes.

Nope. Didn’t work with my more natural, night-hawk rhythm. So I switched to a gym that offered those yoga classes I thought I wanted. And was open 24 hours. I consistently go to workout after 9 p.m. After 4 months, I have yet to attend a class. Instead, I started … wait for it … running. I even set a goal for myself to run 400m in less than 60 seconds. Something I could do 30 years ago in high school. And I sweat.

When I started at the gym, I bought a simple pair of running shoes thinking I wouldn’t need anything fancy as low-impact exercise didn’t need special shoes. Well, like I prefer to wear solid heels, when I started running I realized I needed a solid pair of runners.

The outcomes:

The benefits of focusing on my physical health have included:

•  not being winded walking up flights of stairs
• taking my puppy for runs
• overall feeling better
• and because I need to hydrate more, it’s a benefit of greater skin tone in pictures and on the camera.

The biggest benefit has been seen over the last month when having to lead online conversations without experiencing post-speaking fatigue. Or being able to load my day up with Zooms and conversations and not feel utterly exhausted by the end of it.

Most importantly, a benefit has been that I feel better about myself. Mid-life made itself known this year and I wasn’t feeling so great about how it was impacting me physically and mentally. I was starting to hide and not like what I looked like. I feel great that I’ve stayed committed to something and pushed myself to achieve a big goal outside of my comfort zone.

Today, when I don’t hit the gym at least 3X a week, I feel it. I don’t like it. It’s still odd that I want to do something that’s going to make me sweat. I didn’t achieve my goal of 400m in less than 60 seconds but working my way from 3 minutes to 1 minute 34 seconds is something I’m proud of.

With how I feel, I look forward to planning and hosting my next in-person event to really see how far I’ve come – in both my physical and visibility journeys.

Make no mistake though, even though I’ve turned to wearing running shoes it doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on my heels. Another reason why I’m working out is so that I can continue to wear them for as long as possible as they make me feel confident and elegant when showing up and being visible in person.