It was not love at first run for Dr. Tania Booker. But she found her pace and her Instagram following. – Houston Chronicle

The first time Dr. Tania Booker ran a mile, she puked.

It happened when she was a cheerleader in college, she said. Her coach told her team to run a mile before each practice. The first two times, Booker was at the back of the pack — it was “miserable and painful,” she remembers.

But she got better and started running outside of cheerleading practice to relieve stress and anxiety as she prepared for the University of Texas Medical Branch. She would hit the road and find her pace as she listened to recorded lectures and study guides. When her residency started, her running ended.

“I gained all this weight during residency. You’re on call, you don’t sleep, you’re on for 30 hours, you binge on sugar and coffee,” said Booker, 37.

When her residency ended, she decided to do something about it.

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She started by reprioritizing running and paying attention to her diet as she settled into her career as a hospitalist and internal medicine doctor at the Texas Medical Center. After 12 years as a working physician, her Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday 12-hour shifts are finally at a point where she can schedule a life outside the hospital — and that includes time for training.

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In 2017, her husband suggested they run a marathon.

Booker thought the concept of a marathon was ridiculous at first. “No one needs to run that distance,” she said. But she registered with her husband and admits to becoming a little obsessed with running. But the shoes she ran in were a problem: they had no support for her flat feet, which led to her walking most of her first Chevron Houston Marathon.

“It felt like I had torn my Achilles (tendon),” she said.

That was in 2018. Since then, Booker has run the Houston Aramco Half Marathon, The Woodlands Half Marathon, the Chicago Half Marathon and the Santa Hustle Half Marathon in Galveston. Her next stab at a full will be the Chevron Houston Marathon on Jan. 19.

Instagram has been part of her running journey for a little more than a year. It started as a way to promote health and wellness, but she realized that people responded more to her personal running posts. The positive feedback she received made her want to share more.

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“People would say ‘Oh, you motivated me to run,’ ‘I signed up for this race because of you,’” she said. “Then I was selected as a Chevron Houston Marathon Ambassador, and that’s when things really took off.”

Through the ambassador program, she connected with local and out-of-area runners. She used her newfound platform as a social-media influencer as fuel for her workouts.

“It’s forced me to stay consistent, and in the interim, I lost 10 pounds, I’ve gotten a lot faster, run more races and connected with wonderful people who keep me motivated and help encourage me,” she said. “I use running to help manage stress and anxiety, but it’s also just turned into my happy place.”

Oh, and she found the right shoe for her foot, the Brooks Adrenaline, and buys a new pair every six months no matter what.

“When my shoes start to expire, I notice my knees shake a little bit,” she said.

julie.garcia@chron.com

twitter.com/reporterjulie

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