Brooke Bates: Hello. My name is Brooke Bates. I'm a nurse here at San Juan Regional Medical Center. I work here on the Acute Wound Care team. I specialize in wound care and I've been doing wound care for about five years. And I truly love wound care. It's one of my passions as a nurse and taking care of patients.

And also, some things to know about me is I've been living here in the Farmington area for about nine years. I've got two kids and I'm married. And I just really thoroughly enjoy working here at San Juan Regional Medical Center. And then, I also have lots of hobbies and interests. And one of the main ones that I'm pretty passionate about is my running. I have a huge passion for running. I've been running since 2019 and I wanted to kind of talk about how much running has changed my life and how much it has helped me mentally and physically. So, talking about my journey and hoping that this may inspire others to get out there and get moving and taking care of themself, because as a healthcare worker and as nurses and doctors and whatnot out there, we should be setting good examples of taking care of ourselves and we should be portraying that and letting our patients know that health and wellness is super important to take care of your bodies and it'll help you in healing and getting better.

And so, I like to use my running to help my patients so that they can get through some of the things that they're dealing with. When they're here at the hospital, when they're dealing with any type of illness that they can get through it too. And so, when I tell them about my running, it correlates with the fact that they're down, they're out, and feel like they're not getting better. And I tell them stories of how I've struggled to make those long distant runs and saying, "Hey, I've struggled too, I've hit a wall in my life when I'm running, and I need to get past that 15, 16-mile run to hit that 26.2-mile marker to finish a marathon, because we all hit walls. We all hit bumps and roadways our life that stop us in our tracks and we have to mentally tell ourselves that we can get through this. You can keep going. You can do it. And so, I like to kind of use my running to help patients and to help others in their lives to inspire them that you can do this. You can get through anything that's hard and that's tough.

And so, with my running, back in 2019, I did a half marathon. And once I did that half marathon, I just wanted more. My body was yearning to go further, to go harder. And so, I started training and I started training every day, running every day. And when COVID hit, it almost like was going to stop me in my tracks saying, "Oh, you can't run anymore. We have to stay indoors." But I didn't want to stop there. I wanted to keep running. I wanted to not get sick. And I wanted to boost my immune system by keeping myself healthy and running and eating the right foods and fueling my body with the things that it needs. Because when COVID hit, that's kind of when my running skyrocketed. That's when I started consistently running like every single day, right? And I noticed a change in my attitude. I noticed a change in myself mentally and physically. There was a lot of sad things going on, taking care of patients when COVID happened. Patients were dying and families were grieving. And there was just a lot of, I would say, sadness going on and negativity, it felt like, because of COVID. And running kind of saved me from that. It helped me stay out of that depressive mode and it helped me mentally clear my head every day after a shift so that I could get all that stress out and take it out on my run. And I would feel so much better after that.

And during that COVID time, I ended up doing my first marathon, which was through Shiprock. And of course, it was a virtual. Everything was a virtual, because of COVID. And I had to train myself to make my own route. So, I set up a route leaving from my house and ran all the way up to Kinsley Trail and turned around from up there and ran all the way back down. And my finish line was actually at San Juan Regional Medical Center at the hospital in the parking lot, and that was quite the accomplishment to train myself, dedicate myself to complete 26.2 miles through a virtual marathon that I made my own route. And it was a good feeling. It was a good feeling that I was able to discipline myself to do something that I thought was impossible. I would never have thought in a million years that I'd be running a marathon.

And once I completed it on my own, I could feel that fire again inside my heart and in my body. I just wanted to keep running more races and I wanted to continue to do more marathons and increase my physical ability to be stronger and to feel my body with the things that it needed, knowing that I had to have good nutrition when you're running so many miles. You have to feel your body with the right things. And I think I ran a few more marathons after that, like three or four. And then, I ended up signing up for my first 50K. And I signed up for the Dead Horse Ultra 50K in Moab. And that was an accomplishment and that was going to be something that would test my strength. And it's something that would test me mentally. And I set forth. And when race day came, the big thing is making sure you're there to tow the line. Tow the line so that you can get and start the race. That's like the first step. And I was there, ready to tow the line and headed off on that 50K in Moab. And those were definitely some hard miles in certain areas and some areas were pretty relaxed and easygoing, and taking the time to see my surroundings when I'm running is probably the best part about trail running and being out there and on these trails and seeing the beauty around me also helped me realize how grateful I am to be able to run on such beautiful terrain, and grateful that my body is able to do these things and to keep going.

And so for me, it was a sense of gratitude. And I felt at peace knowing that I could finish this first ultra run of 50K and hitting those walls too during this race. I knew that I was going to Have to dig deep to tell myself you can keep going even though things were starting to hurt. My feet were aching, my legs were starting to get sore. And so, you just kind of have to mentally tell yourself you're stronger than that. "You've done this many miles before. You trained hard. We came this far. You got to keep going." And I think it's the mental aspect when you're doing these ultra runs that you have to really dig deep to tell yourself to keep going. And that's kind of what inspires me to keep going on these ultra runs and trails just to not stop and not think about what's hurting, just kind of distract myself and saying, "No, we can do this."

And next thing you know, I'm passing the finish line, and I completed my first ultra. And from then on, I wanted to do more. And I was very intrigued with all the social media stuff on Instagram with a running group that is called Native Women Running. And they inspire other Native women out there to be represented and to show that they are still here and that we should be known to be out there and we belong at these types of races in the ultra running community and at marathons, and just to kind of show our strength that Native women are very strong and very resilient.

And a lot of these lands that we run on and trails are some things that our ancestors ran on years ago. And so, that was something that intrigued me and caught my eye, and I ended up running my longest race, being part of Native Women Running. And I'm part of the team, and I was able to run the Antelope Canyon 50-miler, and that was amazing. It was such a wonderful experience to be a part of such unity with other Native American women running this race. And the teamwork and the connections you make. You just really felt the compassion and the strength from all these wonderful Native women who run long distances. All the many reasons of why we run, and why we do it. Sometimes it's for healing, sometimes it's for prayer, sometimes it's because we've lost a loved one and running for them. And it's just also representing indigenous people all over who love to run. And culturally as a Navajo woman, we have a special ceremony called the Kinaaldá, and that is a ceremony that brings us into womanhood and you have to run in the morning. And your running signifies you to be a strong woman as you grow up in your life and maybe bless you to be kind and giving to others as you grow.

And so, you can find really good connections with running, being Navajo. I've felt that I can feel those connections when I ran the Antelope Canyon 50-miler, and being out there when I was out on the trail, I could feel the sense of power it was. I don't know if it was power or if it was just a spiritual connection, but I felt super grateful knowing that I was running on my native lands. I was running on the land for the Navajos. And it was just beautiful and it was just very good connection to the land I was running on and grateful and thankful to our ancestors who have lived on before us that we were able to give thanks to be able to run on that land and be respectful and to be able to give thanks to keep going. And the connection for that race was just so overwhelming. So when I finished, it was just a sense of gratitude and tears of joy, knowing that I could go that far. And it just made me realize things about myself as a runner that I have determination, I have the strength, and I have the ability do hard things, things that are hard and strong. And even when things get difficult, you just look past that because you know you can get through it. There's always a way to get through it. And running has just given me that ability to keep going, and I'm planning and hoping for longer miles and distances with 100K in the future. And I plan on doing 100-miler at some point over the next few years, but training for it and dedicating myself to it is definitely something that I know that needs to be done in order to complete such long distance. And if you have something in your life that inspires you to help you get through the things that you do, Go for it, and be passionate about it because it's going to bring happiness, it's going to bring gratitude to your life, and it's going to make you overall a better person inside and out, emotionally, physically, and mentally. And some people always ask, "How did you get into running and this and that?" I always tell them, you know, I think a lot of it was just health and wellness. It was just seeing so many people getting sick from COVID and that I didn't want to get sick from it. And so, I just dedicated myself to stay healthy and be healthy. And, as we get older, our bodies change, we're not getting any younger. So, we definitely need to keep our health and our wellness intact and making sure you're on the right track. People also ask, "How did you start out running? What was like your training? What did it entail?" And I just let people know if you want to start out running, start out slow. Start out with short miles and work your way up to it. And find running groups in the local area.

I found a wonderful running group here in Farmington locally, Southwest Runners. They have a community run every Tuesday and Thursday. And you can go on to their social media page and they give you time somewhere to meet. And that's a good way to get started if you're wanting to learn to start running long distance or don't want to run alone or want to meet other people who run. And it's just a good connection, and it's for all types of ages, different types of runners, from fast to slow. It doesn't really matter, it's just those who want to get out and start to run. They have just a really great connection and community for the running community to get out there and run together. So, that's also something to look into when you're starting out running. But definitely, start out slow so you don't get injured and kind of work your way up and look for running groups and keep yourself focused and dedicated, because it does take a lot of consistency and dedication.

But I just find that my ultra running journey is just starting to get started. I just recently ran an ultra, it was a Bryce Canyon Ultra, and I did a 60K, and I've got a 50K coming up in September, which is Mount Taylor. And recently ran a marathon over the past weekend and that was to test my strength in higher elevation areas running the Silverton Alpine Marathon. And that was completed and was able to see that I can be able to tolerate high elevation runs, which is going to be needed for the next 50K ultra down in Mount Taylor. So, more ultra races are in my future to get to the goals of completing 100K and hopefully 100-miler.

I'm happy to have this opportunity to be able to share my story. And hopefully, it inspires others to get out there and run and just show your abilities to do things that are hard, because you can. Anything's possible. If you train hard and put the work in, things can happen. But thank you for having me on here and letting me share my story.