Thinking about my fitness journey, I remember activity in my life growing up on Spring Street in Southern Illinois. My neighborhood was filled with kickball, bike rides, hide and seek, tag, and sports. Swimming was especially important to me. I grew up in a small town; we didn’t have an indoor pool, but from the age of 9 I was involved in our summer league swim team. I absolutely loved it and was committed to it from the beginning. I would wake up early and ride my bike to the pool by a cool 7 a.m. and swim for 2 hours. It taught me what discipline, hard work, and accomplishment felt like.
I added other sports as I got older which continued to teach me and mold me, but after high school was over, the options were few. College was about studying and friends. Walking to class and working out every once in awhile just didn’t cut it. Then I was teaching, and that took up most of my energy and time. After giving so much of myself during the day and grading at night, I didn’t want to work out (or it just wasn’t a priority).
Somewhere between school and marriage I think I forgot about myself; the journey got a little more complicated; life was full. Fast forward 2 degrees, 3 moves, and 5 children later, and I wasn’t really my physical self anymore. My fitness level and my weight had been on somewhat of a roller coaster ride! Up and down; working out, not working out; gaining, losing. I know that you can probably relate. Life gets fast and full, and somehow you look up and you don’t recognize yourself anymore. You wonder where the time has gone! On January 4, 2011, that’s where I was: What happened?
There are several factors that collided on that day (or that were brewing for awhile), and over the next few posts, I hope that I can share those with you. Maybe we’ll have some things in common and maybe we won’t, but it’s good to know that we can learn from each other and be on this journey together.
