Couch to ATHLETE!

Again, you would have to be living in a cave to NOT know about the weather situation across the US. My mom and I have talked about it at great length and it does seem that people are starting to get used to it, maybe not enjoying it, but are at least used to it. The weather is making the run difficult. Now, I do have a gym membership, but it has been so cold, I haven't wanted to leave my house after getting home from work. I feel really bad for people who have Seasonal Affective Disorder because this winter is probably producing even more profound impacts on those folks. Anyway, all week, I made the choice to curl up in front of my fireplace rather than brave the bone chilling cold. Saturday morning was a different story, I woke up, looked at the several inches of fresh snow and knew I had to take on this 5 mile run. Plus I had plans after the run and needed to get myself moving and motivated to leave my house. Off to Westerville, Ohio I went. The usual 20 minute drive, took a...

This girl did some Oly and Half Iron Tris. OK, so I totally outed myself this week. If you have had a secret, you probably know what it feels like to finally let it off your chest. At first it is almost exhilarating and then you go into that whole 'What the heck did I just do' mode; and then back to relief. You see, you feel relief because once you tell that secret, you notice nothing really changes. Sure, people may look at you differently, but they look at you differently after you run your first half or full marathon too. Who cares, right? Well just to clarify, I'm in relief mode. You likely won't see me post about MS on my blog because it is such a personal disease, and I can't offer any medical or health advice because I am not a health professional. Plus, I have those poor friends who 'love'?, ok so they get to hear my stories, in some cases daily. Trust me, you don't want me to take all that to my blog, plus I don't want to. Instead,...

One of my favorite bike rides ever! I have debated whether I was going to make this public for quite some time, however there really aren't any significant reasons why I wouldn't share. It hasn't impacted my life dramatically, and if I'm lucky, it never will. I also don't want to be a poster child, nor do I require or want any special treatment simply because I have MS. The thing is, I know more and more people who are impacted significantly by this disease and I feel compelled to help the cause. So for one purpose only, I am outing myself. Here's the brief story. Two years ago my tongue went numb, my arm went numb and I though I slept funny or had a mini stroke. I brushed it off as sleeping funny day after day, after day. Then my eye started twitching, among other symptoms. I decided I was simply crazy... After a while all of these symptoms became so infuriating so I went to the doctor. While at the doctor, he chalked it up to stress, but after a closer ...

So, if you are a living and breathing being, you know that this week has been quite the week. The snow and cold, and rain and ice, and mishaps that so many people encountered. People I know have been dealing with flooding, broken pipes, car accidents, broken vacuums, busted faucets, illness, sick animals, and the list could probably continue. To put it simply, this week sucked!!! I am not a doomsayer so for me to say that is fairly extreme. I can typically find the awesome in a week, and I have had some awesome this week thanks to my friends, I even kind of enjoyed refrigerator shopping if you can believe that, although I still haven't made the purchase. Anyway, this polar vortex that took over the United States trampled on so many people's spirits, not to mention it made running, for this outside only runner, virtually impossible. Even if I wanted to go and work out at the gym early this week, the frigid air kept me curled up in a ball next to my fireplace. I watched silent...

I know I mentioned in my New Year's post that I am going to be taking a class, and it starts tonight. I'm not very excited about this class but am doing it as it was recommended by my doctor; a prescription of sorts. Of course I have a companion for this adventure and that takes the edge off BIG time. My goal is to stick with it for the first four weeks and then see what happens. Why am I so nervous though? Seriously, it isn't that big of a deal... It is simply exercise to strengthen my body but it puts me on edge. I think the true barrier is not knowing what to expect and wanting it to come naturally to me, however NOTHING athletic comes naturally to people who come from my parent's gene pool (sorry siblings but you know it is true). So here is the commitment I am making to myself: I am going to show up and do what I can and have fun with my friend (which is the easiest part of the night). I am going to take it seriously and learn something new. I will recognize...

Not quite! I love my life, I love my friends, I love who I am... but there can always be improvement. I saw this picture on Facebook that said it all: The reason I like this poster? Because it acknowledges that our lives are books and we break up the chapters how we choose. For some, each chapter might be about an individual person, for others it might be broken up by years. Because I believe every person impacts our lives, I prefer to philosophize about this and I would break up by book by a year or years because we everything we do carries into the next 'whatever' and we need to keep building on what we have learned and go from there. I was having a conversation with someone recently who threw out a hypothetical question about life and self discovery based on a conversation about people being closed up. Basically, the question was, what if you weren't ready to accept yourself until an older age? What I would say to that? Well, aren't you luck to have don...