This badass runner is using her body to crush weight stigma and shut down fat shamers. [View all]

http://www.upworthy.com/this-badass-runner-is-using-her-body-to-crush-weight-stigma-and-shut-down-fat-shamers

Runner Mirna Valerio is no stranger to people who stop and stare at her.

Passersby often do a double-take when they see Valerio, a fat, African-American woman, running around the small, mostly white and very rural Rabun County, Georgia.

But the stares don't faze her; Valerio is too focused on her goals, which she documents on her blog, Fat Girl Running, to care about haters.

"People do look, and they say things," Valerio told Upworthy. "But I know what I have to do, and whatever my goal is for the day, I know I need to get it done, and so I go do it."

In a foot race, Valerio could probably outrun most of us. Easily.

She's been running consistently since 2008 — completing multiple 5ks, 10ks, half marathons, marathons, ultramarathons — and is currently training for the pièce de résistance of her running career thus far: the Javelina Jundred, a 100k race (that's just over 62 miles, people! SIXTY! TWO! MILES!).

She also happens to be "clinically obese" at 240 pounds. But that label means nothing because whatever, it takes serious physical and mental strength to run 62 freaking miles. Sixty! Two! Miles! To put that in perspective, 62 miles is the same distance you'd have to travel up from Earth if you wanted to go to outer space. Valerio does not mess around.