P-U-S-H Yourself Past The Comfort Zone

Participants pose for a photo before the PUSH 5K on Saturday.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The new shelter house east of the Lacey Complex Stadium was the spot to meet on Saturday morning, as well over 50 people came out to celebrate their friends, family, and their accomplishments.

Persist Until Something Happens or P-U-S-H, is a group focused on encouraging others wanting to make positive changes in their lives.

For the past four years, the group has continuously added more people. “It just gives people a chance to know what their worth is by having other people help them along the journey,” said Angie Noel of the P-U-S-H group.

Noel said the group started with a friend of hers and herself who went out for a walk. Noel was determined to make her life healthier after both of her parents had suffered heart attacks.

Noel’s son had watched his grandfather “code in the driveway. After that, it was kind of a wake-up call for me, and I said I need to change my ways or else he was going to be seeing me next, and I didn’t want that.”

Noel’s father survived his heart attack thanks to the quick actions of neighbors and first responders.

Noel and her friend started walking, and those two people “and four years later here we have almost 400 on our Facebook page. It’s been a very good thing. I think people are really surprised with what they can accomplish, that they never thought in a million years they could.”

There were 131 motivational signs along the 5k route on Saturday to help those individuals who say, “‘I can’t go anymore’, so that they’re going to be driven to go to that next sign and see what is there, because that sign could pertain to something in their life,” added Noel.

For some, Saturday’s 5k was their first ever 5k. Others are enjoying the benefits of losing weight, like one participant who had recently lost 57 pounds. “It’s so satisfying to watch somebody cross that finish line that didn’t think they could do it,” added Noel.

“The first step is the hardest,” says Noel. “I’d say the most important thing that I would tell people is to not give up. We’re going to have bad days, and we’re going to have worse days than that. Just keep pushing yourself.”

You can find the P-U-S-H group at – https://www.facebook.com/groups/329554900532662/