Couch to ATHLETE!

An old friend lived by the quote: 'Try again, fail again, fail better.' I like it! My sister and I were working on my nephew's tree house this morning, before I made the trek back to Ohio. She got to experience with me, what my friend Sue puts up with when I help her with house projects, failure the first time, success the third time... The beauty of the process is, once you figure out your mistake the first time, the second time it is much easier. Unfortunately, I had to leave before the second time. I got home to Ohio, and was smacked in the face with incompetence and a bored cat. My cat is currently laying across my back, holding me down, so I have to lay here while typing. I'm OK with that... But I am practicing extreme patience at this fine hour of 10:44 pm, Sunday evening. I've never been so glad that I have the day after vacation off from work. Tomorrow, I plan to try again. Many things went wrong today, but many things went right too. For instance...

With my awesome MS supporters at Pedal to the Point, a ride of BikeMS.  I am an eternal optimist, and 90% happy. We all have moments of sadness, and some of us even bouts of depression; how you deal with your situation defines you as a person, in my opinion. One of the saddest things I have seen over the past year, since I have been diagnosed with MS is how people deal with this disease. I by no means have any right to judge another person's journey, but I can reflect on other peoples' journey and decide whether I want to apply some of their lessons, wisdom, statements, etc. to me. One of my friends listened to me cry for about two hours last night. You see, I am a runner and it was too hot to run. What I didn't tell my friend is that I had significant physical challenges throughout the day, and didn't have any business running last night anyway. But the tears were all influenced by things that really don't matter when all is said and done! Or do they? I mean I crie...

These moments, make every journey worth it! Have you ever had a moment in which you overreacted, and when you reflect on it, you realize it is triggered by something that happened years ago, but in the moment of your overreaction you take it out on the WRONG person? Yeah, I had one of those moments today, and man did it drive me all sorts of crazy. When I start reflecting on my new goal events, right now it is Glass City Half Marathon, I wonder how in god's name am I going to be able to run 13.1 miles again? It is interesting that, right now, my mind reverts to those runs that have challenged my core recently, but not to the finish line of the marathon I ran, or the half iron man I participated in. This is something I need to work on. The reality is, every time you create a goal for yourself, there are different factors that will likely influence the outcome, whether you want to admit it or not. Reflecting on the fact that I completed a full marathon may not even be appr...

I'm still processing the Pedal 2 the Point ride. I honestly still can't believe we did that ride. It is surreal that so many people came together to ride with me. All of my siblings, two of their spouses, one of their uncles and two friends made the trek to Ohio. I have story after story from the weekend, but I have no way to adequately share the stories... Quite honestly, I lived in fear of doing a big bike ride like this. I've always wanted to do a ride like this, but never had the right motivation. Overnight rides take so much training and willingness to sleep in an odd place between days. Also, the people you spend the days with is extremely important. It is like traveling. There are VERY few people who I would travel with, and this crowd is certainly on my travel list forever now. Rather than tell the stories that I hold so dear, I have put together one memory that I want to keep with me, along with a picture of two of each person I rode with. These brief notes fr...

Paleton: The main body of riders in a bicycle race. My Paleton OK, OK, so this wasn't a race, but a ride, and we weren't the main riders, but my team were MY main riders for the weekend... So you have been reading about it for months now... That is right, Pedal to the Point finally happened this weekend. I was a little nervous and wondered if I would be able to finish 175 miles... I trained, and trained some more, and made plans, and trained again, and slept, and worked, and trained, and emailed my team mates about the weekend, and then continued training. I had big expectations for the weekend which can be tremendously dangerous, but you know what? All expectations were enormously exceeded. I'm sure you want to hear about my weekend, but I'm afraid this will not even come close to a good reflection of our adventure but hopefully you get the idea. The weekend started on Wednesday for some, Thursday for others and Friday for the remainder of the team. We ...