Believe to Achieve

The Believe to Achieve Race for beginning runners was held in Decorah Sunday, April 12. The 13.1 mile half marathon started as a brainstorm when Vicky Jaeger was watching one of her favorite TV shows “The Biggest Loser.” In the last five episodes of the show, the contestants ran a marathon. Jaeger has never considered herself a runner, but she wanted to see if she could do it.

“[I thought] these people are 300 lbs. and running a marathon, Vicky, you should be able to do that,” Jaeger said.

She wanted to create an opportunity for beginning runners like herself to work toward a goal that wasn’t overwhelming. According to Jaeger, a 5k is really easy and a marathon is really hard; everyone can do a half marathon if they just believe that they can do it.

Initially, the race was only meant for staff and students, but Jaeger decided to open it up to the entire Decorah community. The 30 participants consited of nine community members, nine staff and 12 students who ran from Regents Circle, winding through the campground all the way to the Fish Hatchery and ending at the Canoe Rental on Pole Line Rd.

For students like Makara Fairman (‘10), this was an opportunity for her to run without the pressure of a competitive environment.

“I love running and have always wanted to try a longer distance, but I feel too intimidated by avid runners,” she said.

While training, Fairman set goals for how many miles she wanted to run each week. Other than that, her only goal was to finish the race.

Fairman said if she could change one thing she would have eaten more before the race. She underestimated the amount of energy she would need and did not eat a lot before because of her nerves.

Jaeger began running toward the end of football season. She knew the training would not be easy.

“I think I started off being able to do 2 miles and about died, so that’s how it started,” she said.

Jaeger hoped the race would inspire beginning runners to believe in themselves, while trying something that might be a bit out of their comfort zone. This is how she thought of the name Believe to Achieve.

“You have to actually believe you will do it before you can do it,” she said. “The mental is the hardest part because I hear this one little voice saying ‘you’re tired, you can’t do it’ and another saying ‘yes, you can.’”

With all 30 participants crossing the finish line, they can now say they have successfully run a half marathon.

“There were people at the finish line cheering me on, and I felt a great sense of accomplishment,” Fairman said.

Fairman considers running to be more of a hobby but enjoys a good challenge once in a while, so she might consider running another half marathon sometime in the future.