ParkTalk Podcast: Naperville Runs: Lace Up and Go!

Tuesday, May 7, 2024

Episode Description:

Marissa Hird from the Naperville Running Company, a partner of the Naperville Park District, talks about the partnership between the organizations, the health benefits of running, and gives tips for beginner runners.

For a complete list of ParkTalk Podcast episodes, visit www.soundcloud.com/naperparks/tracks

Quotes from the Episode:

How our partnership is beneficial to runners:

We both have the same common mission: we want to help support activity and help support people being active. For us being able to clear the trail, we always have customers coming in and thanking us for supporting that, but it really is sharing that same mission of promoting a healthy lifestyle.

Health benefits specific to running:

Movement is so crucial to our health. Anything to get your heart rate up, any sort of cardio activity, especially running. It's incredible for your mental health. It creates those chemicals in your brain like serotonin to hopefully make you feel better throughout your day. It really helps your overall health: cardio vascularly, cholesterol, weight, all of that.

Advice to beginning runners:

Some might say "The hardest thing is to get started." To me, the hardest thing is to stay consistent, because you might get really excited about a program you found, like a Couch to 5K program, and you have that initial excitement. But then you get out for your first couple runs and you realize, "Hey this is really hard," or "My body is sore and I'm really tired." It might be hard to continue to push through that. To me, consistency is the hardest part. So, for any beginner runner, I always say just be consistent.