Hilary Topper, once a couch potato, is now veteran triathlete

When she turned 48, Hilary Topper decided to change her life. Now 60 and in better shape than ever as a triathlete, she’s encouraging others to step out of their comfort zone and make their own life changes.

In her new novel, “From Couch Potato to Endurance Athlete,” Topper tells her story of going from overweight workaholic to gym nut training for marathons. She’ll share her story and how others can be just like her at the Island Park Public Library, 176 Long Beach Road, on Saturday, Jan. 21 at 2 p.m.

Waking up each morning at 4:30, Topper begins her day with a brisk workout. But it wasn’t always like that.

“I was packing on weight, and I wasn’t doing anything for myself,” Topper said. “As soon as I came home, I took care of the kids. I never took that time out for myself, and one day I woke up. I was 48 years old. And I said, ‘You know what? I need to make a change.”

So, Topper joined her first gym, New York Sports Club, and even hired a personal trainer who motivated her through the initial growing pains of beginning her new lifestyle. Like her first time on the treadmill.

“He said to me, ‘Go warm up on the treadmill,’” she recalls. “I go to the treadmill, and I don’t know how to turn this thing on. I had no idea. And I was asking somebody who was like running, asking ‘excuse me?’ It was like that, like really pathetic.”

But then Topper started to gain more confidence in herself and her abilities, shedding some weight along the way. When another runner she met while on the Long Beach boardwalk suggested they take on a half-marathon together, Topper was stunned, In high school, she had never been chosen to be on any sort of team, let alone run a marathon.

But they trained together week in and week out. By the time she turned 53, she ran her first race and was hooked. Since then, Topper has done dozens, and now even leads a runners group of her own each week.

Besides the obvious health benefits, Topper has found it therapeutic to keep her legs moving, working through and coming to terms with her past personal issues while alone on a run. One of those moments is from the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy a decade ago coupled with the loss of her mother.

In fact, she was in Florida when the “superstorm” hit, learning from her husband they lost everything — their house, their cars, even her mother’s comfiest lounge chair. That was especially difficult for Topper since her mother had died a few months before, and losing the chair her mother would sit in felt like “the end of an era.”

No stranger to sharing her personal life, the idea for the book was born out of Topper’s online blog, A Runner’s Diary. Her site manager told Topper she had way too many entries on the webpage, and as she started taking some of them offline, Topper realized there could very well be a much different home for these words among 300 pages of novel content.

Topper talks about her fitness journey in her book, as well as how she learned how to swim, the ups and downs of her public relations business, and how she remained resilient through it all. She also brings humor to the pages, telling funny anecdotes about all of it.

On one occasion Topper is trying on her first wetsuit at the Runner’s Edge in Farmingdale and is struggling to get it on. She likens it to getting her overweight grandmother’s girdle on as a child with the help of her family all tugging in unison.

Even now, Topper still thinks about her weight, but she doesn’t obsess. Instead, she’s more focused on trying new things.

“What matters is that you get out of your comfort zone, no matter what it is,” she said, “It doesn’t have to be a triathlon. It doesn’t have to be the CrossFit swim. It doesn’t have to be an Ironman, but just trying to get out of your comfort zone and do something that will help improve your life.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do and trying to share with people.”

Looking back on the first 48 years of her life, Topper believes she had some missed opportunities in changing her life. But she’s happy she even started making those changes at all.

And with a new year comes new goals. For Topper, that includes accomplishing what’s still left on her bucket list, like completing the Chicago triathlon in August, and joining in with Shark Fest, where she’ll join a group of athletes jumping off a ferry and swimming back to shore.

“If I listened and ran track or went swimming or did the stuff that I should have done in high school, I probably would have been a much better athlete,” Topper said, “But, you know, I do what I can. And I’m happy with where I’m at.

“And you know what? It doesn’t matter. If you’re at the back of the pack, (or) you’re in the middle of the pack — at least you’re doing it.”