Welcome to a journey of one. One mom, me. One Everymom who became an Ironmom. This blog is about a journey to ultimate health and fitness – a goal that encompasses not just fitting into a certain dress size, but total body, mind, emotional, community, environmental, and spiritual health. And it’s not just my journey, I think it’s one that many of us are on, except that there are no roadmaps to get there. There are some glossy brochures you might’ve picked up while looking for that map. Maybe they’re called “Bikini Body in 14 Days” or “How to Get Fit in 5 Minutes a Day or Less”. But we all know that these really won’t get us where we want to go. When I started my journey in 1999, I had a baby who was a few months old. I weighed 216 pounds. I knew I wanted to get back in shape and I knew I needed a goal to get me there. A big goal. A really big goal. So I decided I’d do the Ironman. Not that year or the year after or the year after (for pete’s sake, I couldn’t even run a mile right then without feeling like my knees were going to collapse from the strain), but I knew I could do one if I just steadily increased my fitness and my mileage, and gradually took off the excess pounds.
That next year I did a sprint triathlon, and the year after I did an Olympic distance (twice as far). In the following five years I completed a half-marathon, a half-Ironman, and a full marathon. Finally, I knew I was ready. In 2006, I crossed the finish line of Ironman Florida with my husband and both of my kids beside me. I had made it, but my journey is far from over. I came to realize that triathlons really only prepared me for one aspect of fitness: endurance. So my ongoing journey is to look at my weaknesses and turn them into strengths: flexibility, strength, power, speed, agility, dexterity, and more.So here I am, trying to forge a path and welcoming you along on the journey. I want to hear what it takes for you to get out the door for a run at six a.m., or how you motivate your kids to eat healthily, how you connect with your neighbors or your environment, or what it takes to keep a marriage working with all this on our plates. We can encourage each other on this adventure and together we can create a new definition for fitness and health.
