My husband, me, my daughter, and son-in-law at a local race in July
Welcome to my new blog. Well, its not completely new as this is my 7th post! One of those early posts explains the blog title, but doesn’t really let you know who I am or why I’m here. If you’d like to learn a bit about why I chose this name you can look here: http://girlrevrunning.com/2015/08/25/why-girlrevrunning
My name is Nancy Switzler and I live in Oxnard, CA. I’ve been the pastor of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Oxnard for more five and a half years. I am also a second career pastor, and so even though this is my first Call (technical word for appointment) I am now 52 years old. I’ve been thinking about writing a blog the entire time I’ve been at Our Redeemer. I’m happy to be finally doing it!
One of my not so favorite “before” photos.
Another (new) passion of mine is running, an activity that I’ve been doing for about four years. I started running because after starting my position as a pastor I focussed so much on starting this new (and rewarding) vocation, I had become pretty inactive physically. This resulted in awful weight gain! I’ve always struggled with weight, even as most of my life I’ve been fairly active with some sort of exercise. But four years ago my lack of activity combined with not too healthy eating, my weight ballooned to 243. I’m 5’7″ so this was in no way good.
So I started running…slowly! Over the course of four years I’ve lost 51 pounds. These are actually among topics that I plan to write about. I’ve also successfully run 3 half marathons and struggled through 1 full marathon. I will be running my second marathon September 13.
As my running distances have increased over the years I’ve realized that for me running is one of my favorite spiritual practices.I pray, meditate, and reflect on my work as a pastor. Sometimes I’ll have my whole Sunday sermon in my head after a run. This has been a wonderful discovery and I plan to write about the beneficial nature of exercise to our spiritual lives.
I guess that’s enough of an introduction for today!
