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Your Slow, Fat Marathon

How to complete a marathon regardless of your size or speed

Ragen Chastain
Better Humans
Published in
20 min readMar 23, 2018

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Nearing the finish line!

I had always been an athlete, but I only participated in sports that I was good at right away, and running definitely was not in that category. I’m also a fan of setting big, nearly impossible goals. So when I decided that I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and try a sport that I wasn’t any good at, I skipped right to a marathon.

It was a tough challenge, and I dragged my extremely tolerant best friend along for the ride—but we got it done. After I finished the first marathon, I learned that I could have set a Guinness World Record for heaviest woman to complete a marathon.

Unfortunately you can’t set a record retroactively, so that set me on the path to my second marathon. I’m now a two-time marathoner and Guinness World Record Holder who is training for her first IRONMAN triathlon. Along the way I’ve learned many things that would have been helpful to know at the beginning of my journey.

Busting Myths About Slow, Fat Runners

First things first: slow and fat are not synonymous. I happen to be both a slow runner and a fat runner. But there are slow runners of all sizes, and fat runners of all speeds.

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Better Humans
Better Humans

Published in Better Humans

Better Humans is one of the largest and oldest Medium’s publications on self-improvement and personal development. Our goal is to bring you the world’s most helpful writing on human potential.

Ragen Chastain
Ragen Chastain

Written by Ragen Chastain

Speaker, writer, Certified Health Coach, marathoner, fathlete. Thought leader in body image, Health at Every Size, & corporate wellness www.danceswithfat.org

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