Since the vast majority of us aren’t professional runners, we have to make time in our work schedules to get in our mileage. For some, A closer look at Matarazzos Converse shoes Flip flop TOMMY JEANS Webbing Mid Beach Sandal EN0EN01819 Twilight Navy C87 Sarah Sellers, Saint Laurent Court Classic SL 06 embroidered sneakers Taylor Ward, who finished second for American women in this year’s Chicago Marathon and works as a radiology professor. Both start their runs between 5 and 6 a.m.
Then there are people who have to set their alarms even earlier. Take Kelly Orzechowski, M.D., a maternal fetal medicine physician in D.C., who sometimes gets up as early as 3:30 a.m. to finish her workout before starting her shift.
“Running gives me energy and makes me feel good,” Orzechowski, who works upwards of 80-hour weeks at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Virginia, told Runner’s World. “I’d rather sacrifice a little sleep to get my run in. Sometimes I’m tired, but I know if I decide to skip it, I’ll feel sluggish and gross.”
Orzechowski first started running in high school, where she competed on the cross- country team. Though she was always a “recreational runner” rather than a competitive athlete, she said, she kept up her daily runs while attending the University of Maryland. In 2000, when she was 21, she Rick Owens Suede High Sneaker for the Philadelphia Marathon.
“The marathon beat me up, but I loved it,” she said.
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The next year, she came back to run the Marine Corps Marathon. But then she entered grad school for public health at George Washington University, and as her studies ramped up, her mileage slackened. After graduating, she headed straight for medical school at St. George’s University in Grenada, West Indies, followed by residency in New Jersey, all during which she didn’t have much time to run at all.
“I was so stressed and busy that I just let it slide,” Orzechowski said. In her second year of residency, however, she noticed that she had gained weight, était ma sneaker favorite de la collection.
“As a doctor, you’re not used to putting yourself first,” she said. “It’s easy to give to others, but it’s a lot harder to show up for yourself. I had to commit to running again.”
Getting back into running shape after a long break is no easy task. For Orzechowski, the process took about a year.
“I had to be honest about my weaknesses, then put tools in place to get over them,” she said. Since she knew her evenings were unpredictable with work, she slated in time every morning to get a run in. She also found runners in her area to train with, so she’d have someone holding her accountable to show each day.
The physician gradually worked back into marathon shape, then eased back into the race circuit. She finished seven more marathons around the country, including the Boston Marathon—her favorite race, “since I had to qualify for it!” she said—and set a personal best time of 3:35:15 at the 2015 Adebe Bikila Marathon in D.C. Then, ready for a new challenge in 2017, she completed an Ironman triathlon in Louisville last October.
To prepare for all of these races—especially the Ironman, which Orzechowski said “completely took up six months of my year”—the physician’s routine is a well-oiled machine.
During her highest weeks of marathon training, Orzechowski runs about 52 to 60 miles. In an off-season, she’ll go between 30 and 35, doing almost all of her mileage in the mornings before work. She goes to bed around 10 p.m., then wakes up at 4 a.m. to run before making her hospital rounds. To make her mornings as seamless as possible, the doctor sometimes sleeps in her running clothes, Mackintosh Abington short wellington boots.
“I pack my bag the night before, so I don’t have to worry about it,” she said. Orzechowski laces up, goes to the kitchen, then starts her coffee OVS NEWBALANCE Sneakers 237 con lacci work bag, and heads out the door. “Altogether, it takes about 15 minutes.” Then, she’s ready to run.
Fortunately, Orzechowski is lucky to always have someone to run with in the dark mornings. She’ll drive about 20 minutes from home to meet up with a friend or a group of women to do anywhere from four to 14 miles along the paved, well-lit trails in Arlington, Virginia, close to where she works. After running, she heads to the hospital around 6:45 a.m., and showers in the doctor’s lounge.
“There are a lot of crazy people like me,” she said. Her routes are surprisingly well-trafficked in the pre-dawn witching hour, she noted, with other runners, commuters, and dog-walkers making their way through town.
“We’re all sacrificing something to be out there each morning,” Orzechowski said. “Sometimes, people tell me that I have more time than others, since I don’t have a husband or kids. But I have a really stressful job. And I run with women who are mothers, but maybe have less stressful jobs. It all balances out.”
Vans Japanese Type Era sneakers in black checkerboard pregnancy specialist, Orzechowski doesn’t get called in to too many deliveries, but she does wear an Apple Watch in case she has to take a call about a patient. “I’ve answered questions on the run, but thankfully haven’t been called into the hospital when I’m ten miles out,” she said.
There are also busy days in the hospital that require her to stay until 11 p.m. or later to finish up forms, which cut into her already minimal sleep (six hours of shut-eye is her average). Rather than sleeping in after these late nights, Orzechowski still wakes up to run, but abalienation shorten her mileage depending on how zapped she’s feeling.
“Whether I run or not, I know I’ll be tired,” she said. “I’ll take sleep deprivation over missing my run. Running is my stress reduction.”
Unfortunately, while her running routes tend to be populated, she doesn’t have many fellow runners in her workplace. “One of my biggest pet peeves working in medicine is that we tend to be really unhealthy,” she said. “We’re so busy taking care of others that we don’t take care of ourselves.
“Running doesn’t require a huge commitment,” she continued. “You don’t have to be a marathoner. You just have to make a promise to yourself to do a little bit every day, and you’ll be healthier and happier for it.”
Hailey first got hooked on running news as an intern with Running Times, Treadmill running can be a Runner's World and Bicycling magazines.
