HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Happy Turkey Day!!
I hope you all enjoyed your holiday this year! I am so very thankful for the many blessings in my life and this holiday season I find myself overwhelmed with emotion. I am just so amazed at what can be accomplished when you commit to achieving your goals. I am officially living my "after"! this was me last Thanksgiving:

It is hard to believe that was 1 yr ago! I spent that Thanksgiving like so many before, consumed with food! My husband prepared a TURDUCKEN and man did I eat. Then after eating we rested and then ate again. That was my only thanksgiving tradition and I know it is the tradition of many others. This year I was feeling a bit lonesome thinking about how much I missed my family back in Boston and feeling very disconnected from the holiday season. My bestie Alli suggested I start a new tradition and find a Turkey Trot.... I initially had no idea what that was. I pulled out my droid and googled and found that there is a huge event in Downtown Orlando every Thanksgiving run by trackshack and benefitting seniors first. This was my opportunity to start a new tradition. I wrestled with some resentments the week leading up to the big day, I was filled with self doubt and was mentally sabotaging myself. The night before I was surfing facebook and I saw a post that Chalene Johnson had posted, I am paraphrasing here but the message was basically that "the mind leads and the body follows, getting up at 5 am to hit the gym is more about the mind then the body" It just struck me and I knew I was making a decision to get up that morning and running that 5K. I made a playlist for my phone and found my headphones and headed to bed!

Six am came quickly and I got up and had some cereal and a banana. Adam and Kramer came to cheer me on and we headed downtown. I headed to registration and I felt a little lonely this was truly gut check time. I almost felt bad when the volunteer behind the registration table ask if I was meeting anyone when I heard someone behind me! It was Jackie from TURBO, she works for news 13 and was covering  the event. She took a quick pic of me with my race number and tweeted it out to the world. I knew this was a sign I was where I was supposed to be! I pinned on my first official race number!


As it got closer to race time I was amazed by how many runners there were. Track shack reported over 5,000 showed that morning!!

The gobble call rang out and the athletes prepared themselves. I thought the crowd would bother me but I was just excited! I started to think about how far my journey had taken over this past year and how very proud I was to be in the company of all these athletes and preparing to do something great for my body, health and mind. 

If you had talked to that sad girl last Thanksgiving and told her she would be running a 5K at 8 am on thanksgiving morning she would have laughed in your face. Today this girl was just bursting with pride!


I put on my headphones and got in the zone with my tunes! Adam and Kramer found a spot by the finish line to wait and I got ready to run!!!

The first mile was easy, and when I reached the 2 marker I shouted out YES!! When I got to the water station I stopped to take a drink and then threw my cup down! It was so exciting my first water station!! I just kept running before I knew it I could see the banner at the finish and I started sprinting it out! I finished in 31 minutes, and I ran the whole time! I was so proud of myself, my legs felt like jelly but it felt great! I was sweaty and happy I was a runner and an athlete!  I officially have the runners bug and I can't wait to find my next race! Alli always says finish what you started and I am choosing to live my life sprinting to the finish line. The journey never ends and as we grow and learn we find we can reach farther and farther. This Thanksgiving I am thankful to be me living this life right now with excitement for the future!