There are many reasons to take up running. Some people are running away from something. But for Shari Aldrich, running is taking her toward something.
She’s part of a team running in the Boston Marathon to benefit the Massage Therapy Foundation (MTF).
Her road to the Boston Marathon has been paved with personal challenges. She began running in 2004. Before that, she only had been involved in ball sports but had always been an athlete.
“I just woke up one day (after a challenging time) in 2004 and decided to train for and run the Seattle Marathon,” she says. This decision, seemingly out of the blue, was actually a response to what would have brought down a person of lesser strength.
“I call the Boston Marathon the intersection of running and massage. Running saved my life.”
“I had three deaths between 1997 and 2004,” says Shari. “My brother had a stroke at age 37, my mother died of lung cancer at age 59 and then my sister was killed in a head-on collision at age 39.”
At the same time, Shari was working as an IT director dealing with 150 computers in 10 offices spread between two states, all by herself. The stress was terrible. That stress, combined with the young ages of her family when they died, served as a wake-up call.
“I wondered just what I was doing to myself,” Shari says. “I have kids. I want to see them grow up. I was taking 10 to 12 ibuprofen a day because of stress headaches. I was afraid I would die before I reached 40.”
She vowed to take better care of herself. Part of her Seattle Marathon training included massage.
“It was what I was looking for to improve my health, ” Shari says. “My massage therapist thought I would be great at it because of my athletic background and understanding of the human body and how it works and moves.”
That marathon was in 2004; in February 2005, she enrolled in massage school and received her license in 2006. In 2010, she bought the massage school she had attended.
The Seattle Marathon wasn’t her last, and she tries to improve her time in each one, but things didn’t always work out that way. In 2014, she ran in the Las Vegas Marathon, where her goal was to finish an hour faster than Seattle. But she ran into Charlie, who was struggling to finish. Her potent desire to help people overcame her quest for personal success. Helping Charlie meant she didn’t make her goal time.
In 2016, she left one marathon, in St. George, Utah, vowing that she never would run another one.
“It was one of the hardest physical challenges I’ve ever faced. The elevation started at 6,000 feet and dropped to 3,000. For someone who lives basically at sea level, that made breathing difficult.”
The physical conditions also were detrimental—it was hilly, dark, rainy and cold, and she started pursuing other avenues.
During the great recession of 2008-2009, times were tough for mom-and-pop massage schools, and many were closing or bought out by large chain schools.
“I love teaching injury treatment; that’s really my passion. You can’t do that with large facilities. The education is cookie-cutter. In a small school, you can tailor your programs and have much smaller classes,” says Shari.
“My average class size is 16, and we generally graduate about 100 students per year between my two campuses in Tumwater, Wash., and Vancouver, Wash.”
Shari has a personal goal to relieve pain in one million people before 2025.
In 2013, while participating in an extreme mud run, Shari suffered a hand injury that ended her career as a practicing massage therapist. But being very much a person who sees the glass as half full, rather than looking at this as an obstacle, Shari found an opportunity: She would run her massage school and help educate and heal others in any way she could.
Enter AFMTE—Alliance For Massage Therapy Education. Shari is on the AFMTE marketing committee.
“I got involved with the AFMTE because of their mission to elevate standards in massage education,” she says. “The marketing committee fits in with my passion for marketing. I feel like it’s time for me to get my mission out there while supporting AFMTE’s educational endeavors.”
AFMTE is an independent voice, advocate and resource for massage therapy and the bodywork education community. It helps members with developing core competencies, assembles teacher education resources, develops a teacher training curriculum outline, offers a teacher certification program and encourages the bodywork industries to adopt consistent education standards. It also holds an annual education congress.
Massage education calls to Shari, and she’s really enthusiastic about the research MTF is doing.
From the MTF website: “Rigorous research about massage can challenge tradition, but it strengthens our profession and provides guidance for massage therapists to be as effective as possible. Since its inception over 25 years ago, the Massage Therapy Foundation has funded many research projects on topics such as massage for peripheral neuropathy related to chemotherapy, postural control of elders, migraines, cancer and spinal cord injury. ”
“In addition, MTF has consulted on numerous large-scale studies, funded five systematic reviews (one on stress and one on sports massage), founded and published the International Journal of Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork (IJTMB), and hosted four international science conferences on massage therapy research.”
Shari adds that scientific research related to massage helps educate massage therapists and build their private practices. It also gives validity to the work they do.
The MTF’s running team includes Shari, Oliver Layco, Kelly Kartus and Monika Hill. In order to enter, you have to commit to raising $12,000 and finish the marathon in a maximum of six hours. And of course train, train, train.
The runners don’t run together but meet monthly to discuss fundraising. Shari is raising funds through her massage school, offering massages for donations to the MTF runners.
Training can be grueling. Shari runs four to five miles four days a week, and on weekends, she tries to get in a longer run. Just this past weekend, she ran nine miles. Not bad for a mother of two with six grandchildren!
The team will be wearing MTF t-shirts, so if you attend the marathon or watch it on TV, keep an eye out! The team decided against wacky costumes. “You would have to train wearing a tutu or something. Not for us,” says Shari.
This ambitious, care-driven entrepreneur is also a standup comic, which gives her an edge in educational presentations—and after all, some say laughter is the best medicine. And Shari has a personal goal to relieve pain in one million people before 2025. You can catch her act in New York at Caroline’s on Broadway.
You can learn about Shari’s mission on YouTube, and read more about Shari’s life experience on her website.
To support this healing team, visit the MTF page about the marathon and click on Shari’s name or one of the other team members, and make your contribution today!
Learn About Shari’s Inspirational Mission:
A Million People Out Of Pain
About Shari Aldrich
Shari Aldrich, LMT, is the President and owner of the Bodymechanics School of Myotherapy & Massage and the Bodymechanics Institute.
A graduate herself of the Bodymechanics School of Myotherapy & Massage in 2006, Shari became the owner in 2010. Today, Bodymechanics School serves Olympia and Vancouver, Washington with massage and certified personal training programs.
In 2018, Shari launched the Bodymechanics Institute which serves to help massage therapists around the country open their own massage school with a done-for-you system.
Shari can be reached at Bodymechanics School at 360-350-0015 or email shari@bodymechanics-school.com
MAKE A DIFFERENCE! Join an AFMTE Committee!
