ComTeam Consultants Personally: Ludovica Brachinger-Franke

A long run

“It was on February the 9th in 2000 ” quite surprised I ask why she remembers the date so exactly even after seven years. My colleague Ludovica Brachinger-Franke just tells me about the day she pulled out her old running shoes and starts running – the first time. “This day was quite a turning point in my life”, she points out.

An illness was causing her to look at her body and health more closely. Two of her colleagues encouraged her to try running. Pretty soon she discovered a positive change. She felt fit, had more energy, her pains decreased and stress did not bother her so much anymore.

But actually it was more than this: she became aware that she had been driving to work each day and had been sitting there most of the day without feeling what the weather was like and how the sky looked that day. When she is running now 3 to 5 times a week for 30 to 45 minutes before going to work, it isn’t just the health aspect that is important for her, it is also being out in nature, getting some fresh air and enjoying the change of the seasons.

Of course she did a lot of sports before. Playing tennis, riding, badminton ( here she even played in the Bavaria League), but with a family and a challenging job this became less over the years.

Now, what was a necessity in the beginning became a passion. Ludovica Brachinger-Franke started to visit seminars on health issues, talked to physicians and physiotherapists and specifically inquired into the subject how executives could do more for supporting health in their companies (Leadership for Health). It was also during this time, the ComTeam Seminar Work-Lauf-Balance was created. Many of her experiences and the results of her research left its mark in this seminar.

Of course it is quite clear that not everybody can take the time to run so often, but “to stay fit does not have to be time craving”, she insists. It is enough to take ten minutes at your work place and to do some exercises with specific rubber bands or small dumbbells, and of course you don’t have to change clothes for that. She knows and uses already many of these devices and recommends finding one you really like and enjoys using. Of course it might be a bit difficult to start the whole project and here she even offers work-life-coaching.

At the end of our interview she looks quite content while I am remembering the start of our interview again: seven years ago Ludovica Brachinger-Franke started running, and seen as a metaphor, this run isn’t over yet