heavy

In August of 2008 I was the heaviest and unhealthiest I had ever been.

I had had six babies in nine years and six days' time, but I hadn't done what I needed to do to recover from those pregnancies. My eating habits were horrible. My weakness was found in a bag of Lindt Lindor Truffles - an entire bag. I was hiding treats in my room and eating in solitude (I don't say secret because it was certainly evident that I indulged in treats). I wasn't sleeping as I should (which is hard to do as a mom anyway), and I would be out of breath from carrying a basket of laundry up my stairs.

Then, something happened which made me really, really take a look at my life; evaluate where I was, how I had gotten to where I was, as well as where I wanted to go and how I was going to get there. I realized that I wanted a healthy life. I wanted to have the ability to be physically active with my kids, I wanted to be active and be able to participate, not just stand back, out of breath, watching the rest of my family have fun hiking, playing, running. I wanted to treat my body as the gift that it is, to be healthy, to live a life worthy of my kids' emulation.

In October of that year I bought some new running shoes, joined a gym, and hired a personal trainer.

I was committed. I bought the membership which included the child care and made my trainer appointments for mid-morning. My kids had a really difficult time being in the daycare room; I was being paged 3 or 4 times during a 30-minute workout session. (My trainer would say, "Do they really need you? Can't you just wait and finish your workout?" and roll her eyes each time my name was paged. This, combined with her lying to me about an emergency trip out of the country resulted in my requesting a new trainer, who was a complete tool. My third trainer? I still train with him, it's been almost a year and half. He's excellent.) I soon moved to a very early workout time, as in, at the gym by 6, so as to be done with the workout and home before everyone else in my family had to leave for the day. This schedule works for me, and I like having my workout done early.

In early February of 2009, my friend Kerri came to visit and I asked her to tell me about the triathlons in which she had competed. She told me about how fun, how addicting racing can be. For whatever reason, triathlons were something I had always considered because of how much I love to swim and to bike. (Running -- not so much. Or at all.) I caught her excitement, and before I knew it, we were both planning on participating in the Salem Sprint Tri, to be held in May, '09.

I was so nervous, but I liked incorporating this goal into my workout. The time for my race came, and, as you may remember, I placed dead last. But Kerri was right: the racing scene is addicting, and I immediately signed up for a second triathlon, to be held three weeks later.

It was while training for the running portion of that second triathlon that I had an experience which would ultimately result in a huge change my body, and therefore my life.

(see you tomorrow!)