"Why walk when you can run?"
They're the words Angela Nuss, 60, lives by. One foot in front of the other, building pace and working through the pain.
It's a long way from the day in 2015 when she was told by doctors she would never walk, talk or run again.
The Leitchville single mother of two children had a car accident as she was driving home from Geelong where she worked as a nurse.
At 52 years of age, the accident left her with spinal and pelvic injuries.
On Saturday, she completed a 14 kilometre run in 1 hour 12 minutes and 35 seconds, knocking two minutes off last year's time.
Beating pain threshold
Several of her vertebrae were fractured and others had to be fused after she was flown from Echuca Regional Hospital to The Alfred hospital in Melbourne.
"It was touch and go there for a while and I was in intensive care for a good week and then half a week on the ward," she told ABC Central Victoria.
"My angel work colleagues at Geelong Private Hospital nursed me back to health."
She spent four months in hospital including three months with a head halo pinned to her skull.
"I had to learn how to turn my neck and the exercises were unbelievable, the pain. I had to work through the pain barrier.
"That's why my threshold is so high and that's why I just love running, to put myself under the pressure is nothing compared to the pain of my recovery."
'If I can walk, I am going to run'
A year after the accident, Ms Nuss began taking part in the Cohuna Park Run and after a year her 5-kilometre run was down to 24 minutes and 13 seconds.
Running gave her a second lease on life. She began to run to beat the pain, improved her running style and fought the stigma that being past 50 meant she couldn't keep pace with the younger generations.
"When I was told that I may never walk, I swore to myself that if I can walk, I am going to run," she said.
From walking 24km through the hospital corridors every day with her walking frame, she now runs 180km a week.
Her first marathon was in Shepparton on September 6, 2019.
"I was so excited; the power of the mind is just incredible," she said.
"Normally a person in a motor vehicle accident would feel sorry for themselves and cry and carry on but I come from a family that [thinks] you must get up and get going."
She wakes at 4:45am and runs 30km on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
Festival of running
This weekend Angela competed in the 14km Paradise Run at the Great Ocean Road Running Festival.
The run took her from the main street of Apollo Bay and through the forests, climbing to the Barham Paradise Scenic Reserve before returning.
"Because where I live in Leitchville there are no hills, it's flat; so, I run up and down the weir 20 times," she said.
"Don't ever give up on yourself, the positive benefits of your mind. You really have to focus on the health benefits of your mind and how far you can go."
