
Kyle Kalbus started running about a decade ago, looking to change his health for the better.
“I was about 310 pounds,” he said.
Kristen Weitz started running in high school.
“I didn't make the cheerleading team,” she said. “My parents told me I had to join a sport to be a part of something bigger than myself, a team, and I just fell in love with it.”
Amelia Lane took up running about a year ago, searching for her purpose in life.
“I graduated high school when COVID was happening,” she said. So, it was a weird time. And then I went off to college, things happened, and I came home. And it's like, I didn't have anything to define myself by anymore.”
What all three found was a community at Parity Path Endurance, a village of like-minded people, mentoring others to live a balanced lifestyle.
Amanda Lane and her husband David founded Parity Path Endurance and Lane also runs a brick-and-mortar store called Parity Path. The store is a family metaphysical shop that encompasses an educated lifestyle of physical, spiritual and mental balance.
“Parity means balance and equality at every single level,” she said. “It means with gender, and spiritual beliefs everything is equal across the board. This is what I'm very deep-rooted in. It’s basically like the scales of justice. My background is psychology and criminal justice, double honors in both, and then I have advanced higher training. So, that kind of fuels the need of having balance.”
Lane is also an intuitive clairvoyant and is certified by the National Academy of Sports Medicine in nutrition. She said she; her husband and her family have always embraced a balanced lifestyle. Her goal is to support and teach people how to find personal comfort in all aspects of their lives – mind, body and spirit.
“Physically means within your space,” she said. “Things that you can touch, feel, and smell. It's things that are tangible. How do you manipulate your physical space to bring you calm and peace and security and comfort? It's all those little things at every level. Spiritually is finding what brings you peace, security and comfort and that is highly individualized and extremely private and personal to everybody. And to me it's about equality.”
The key, Lane said, is treating everyone with respect regarding their individuality and needs.
“I really support people that are getting left out or not getting an option to speak their voices and their truth even within their families or in community,” she said. “Here it is neutral, and it is acceptance and it's okay, so it's a safe zone. I share that across the board at every single level.”
The Team at Parity Path has long been involved with the Chattanooga running community. It started when Lane’s oldest daughter took up running and her husband soon followed.
Lane immediately got involved behind the scenes and not just with runners.
“I just started doing everything for the local sport teams around here,” she said. “It didn't matter what sport it was. I was the mom that would support everybody. I would fix meals, I would do all those types of things for nutrition and just support everybody, not just our kids, but other people too. Here at the store, I provide the services at every level with coaching, and nutrition. Parity Path Endurance athletes are not just athletes, they are individuals that represent a balanced lifestyle.”
Lane said they come from all walks of life, and each had their own journey to follow.
Kalbus is currently a running coach for Parity Path Endurance. His road to wellness started when he still lived in Wisconsin. He said there were times we he just wanted to give up.
“I think you go full force on day one and then you just get burned out,” Kalbus said. “I think the struggle is that we all want to do better but, how do we do it every day.”
He said he started exercising and training on his own figuring out what worked and what didn’t, trading bad habits for good ones. About six weeks into his new routine, he began to struggle. One day, he managed to turn an unfortunate situation into a way of keeping his routine moving forward.
“It was winter in Wisconsin,” he said. “My car broke down and I lived two miles from work.” Kalbus said he had no choice but walk to work.
“And then I realized it wasn't too bad,” he said. “I learned how to deal with the situation, and it turned into a habit. After getting his car repaired Kalbus devoted those 30-35 minutes he spent walking each day towards exercise time.
“It was something I could maintain,” he said. “When you ease into it, it's a lot easier to maintain and build into a lifestyle.”
Kalbus said being a part of Parity Path Endurance and the local running community has helped him forge new friendships and deepen his love of running. Now he looks forward to helping others achieve the same feeling.
“Instead of trying to measure myself by what I achieve or what I accomplish, I’d like to spend more time focusing on the presence I leave behind and amongst the people in the community and the effect that I have on my surroundings and environment and try to be more conscious about it,” he said.
These days Weitz is comfortable calling herself an ultra-runner.
“I've really developed my distance running during COVID,” she said. “I deal with a lot of anxiety and depression, and I use that as my coping mechanism, especially with stress management. I just fell in love with it because I feel like you control the pace, you control how much you want to do it, how little you want to do it and the great people you get to meet along the way. I'm the type of person that likes to lean on my mentors and finding Parity Path Endurance has been a special thing for me.”
Amelia is one of Lane’s daughters. She said running allows her to focus and find her inner peace.
“While you're running it's a completely different community,” she said. “Everyone is doing their own thing and worried about their own pace. It’s really nice to just be able to focus on the same thing but for ourselves. Watching people here in this community grow has been wonderful.”
“I think it's important to know that everyone's going through something,” Weitz added. “And when you can find a group of people like this niche who understand that and allow a space to be vulnerable, you can grow so much as a person if you allow it.”
On January 17, the Chattanooga Track Club hosted the MAD Backyard Ultra at Camp Jordan in East Ridge. Runners had to run a 4.1667-mile loop every hour until only one person was standing. Kalbus was the last man standing after running 141.6 miles across 34 hours. Weitz reached a personal record finishing a 100K.
Lane said being empathetic to people’s needs and helping people improve their lives is something she finds comfort in doing.
“What I have noticed, and the whole reason why I opened up the store is that it needs to be shared,” she said about mentoring and helping people achieve a balanced lifestyle. “If you have that skill and if you have the capabilities to do that, you need to share that because the world is hurting and individuals are hurting,” she said.
Lane offers nutritional and spiritual consultations. She hosts a variety of educational programs at her store and is available for private readings with her or her daughter. To book a consultation message her on their Facebook Page at: facebook.com/paritypath
Parity Path
- 2819 Lafayette Road
- Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. 30742
- www.paritypath.com