My Fitness Journey...My Why | Moms Little Running Buddy

If you’re fairly new around here, you might want to get to know me a little better and how and why fitness is such a huge part of my life. So here it goes…

My “Why”…

I wish I could give you a sappy answer about it being for my kids but that would be untrue.

The short answer is…why not? My life and who I am will always include fitness.

Here’s the longer answer…

I’ve had the opportunity, thanks to my parents, to play organized sports. I loved the feel of working as a team. I loved the feel of working hard and seeing the results of my work. I loved the feeling getting the save, making the catch and helping the team win.

When college ended and along with it, sports, I felt like it was time for a break but it was soon obvious to me that my DNA had been forever changed and that staying sweaty was always going to be part of who I am.

My challenge was learning to do it myself. So I joined a gym and fell in love with lifting and getting stronger. I also happened to meet my husband there. 🙂 I competed in a few fitness competitions and then pivoted to endurance sports.

Learning to overcome the challenge of seeing what I can achieve there was exhilarating.

Then my dad suddenly passed away trying to improve himself and I had a choice….to turn my back on fitness or run towards. My choice was obvious.

Then kids came along and I realized my life was about to change. My time was about to not be my own. It took all of the 9 months to come to terms with it but it took all of 30 seconds after Ian was born to realize, it will all workout.

Yes, it was different but doable. Learning to balance the demands of parenthood while trying to keep an eye on my own goals was so challenging.

But I had a small epiphany the other day, I went out for a run and told Ian that I was going and to make sure dad knew I was headed out. He said “ok, have a good run” and I was out the door. I had a flashback to the days where I couldn’t just go. I had to make sure the plan was laid out…Scott loves to workout too so we would have to negotiate when we were doing our workouts. Now, I can just go.

SO if you’re in the early stages of parenthood, it does go by so fast. Enjoy it while you can and soon enough you’ll have the flexibility you might have temporarily given up.

In my early and mid 30’s I lived for the finish lines. I lived for the community and the races that brought us together. And while I love them still, my priorities have shifted and I’m comfortable with the notion that I’m training for life right now.

The kids are older and their schedules are more demanding and I’m finding that fitting workouts in revolves around their practices and games and I’m ok with it.

Yes, I do have goals of completing another 70.3 and hopefully when COVID becomes less of a concern, we can reinstate our goals but for now, this is where I am.

This is who I am.