New Chapter --> New Challenge!

To my loyal readers, welcome back.  To my new friends and readers, welcome for the first time.  I blog because it's one way I can write which I love to do and a way in which I can give back to the world what I've learned so far on this transformation journey, called life.  Thank you for reading and mostly, thank you for being you!  Know that you are an inspiration to me and likely, many others!

Those of you who know me and those of you I hope to get to know will soon learn that my soul thrives by challenge.  For the past nearly 2.5 years, my goal has been to lose and to build; lose pounds and build strength and endurance.  And so I devoted a good chunk of my life to transforming my body.  Last summer after I completed a 20 mile training run and finally took that prize adventure trip to Hawaii for losing the extra person I had been carrying around, I fell into that funk that I imagine all athletes fear - kinda burned out, kinda bored, kinda tired, and not really sure what they want to do next.  And no matter how hard I tried, motivation and momentum would not stick.

Instead of taking time off, I kept trying and trying to find the next best, exciting and harder thing to focus on.  I would set goals to increase my bench press or squats, swing heavier kettlebells, or run faster miles.  Oh, and I tried half-heartedly to drop that last 20-30 pounds.  For months, I have just kinda floundered and yo-yo'd between weeks of awesome and weeks of carelessness.

Finally, this week I have accepted my new challenge and I am so excited!!!  Although it had come to me a few months ago at the suggestion of a friend, it wasn't until I bought my new road bike on Sunday and jumped into the pool at practice that I owned it.  Sure, I thought it was cool that my friends thought I was awesome for trying triathlon.  But to be successful, I needed to really own that I wanted to become a triathlete and was ready to make the effort and dedicate myself to the challenges of learning a new sport (or two!) and supporting my new teammates.  I gotta say, this whole process has made me think a lot about who I am and the journey I've been on the past 2.5 years and it also forced me to consider who I might yet become.  When I stopped worrying about keeping up with my tri teammates at track practice and focusing so much on races, I was able to give myself permission to "dream" about Ironman and set shorter term, realistic goals of learning how to road bike and swim competitively.  What I've been missing, which I have once again found, is the feeling of being on a journey with purpose.  This new challenge is not just a challenge of pushing the physical limits of my body; it is also a challenge of accepting this new identity I have as an athlete and continuing to live into this call God has blessed me with to share love, inspiration, and knowledge with others.  Thanks to you, to my coaches and mentors, my friends, my family, and my new teammates, this is the beginning of a new chapter.  You are all awesome and I look forward to sharing more stories and adventures on this road to Ironman!

So, stay tuned, and as always, be well!