What’s your story?
Maybe you came to sport late.
You found it in the gym or the studio.
Maybe you discovered it early, on a court or a course.
Maybe it’s walking, maybe it’s running, maybe it’s dance or yoga or swimming or hiking. Maybe you found your sport when you saw your daughter transformed by that first athletic success and knew that your own transformation was out there waiting for you. Maybe you found it on your way to something else—a kid’s practice, a healthier life, a friend’s race. But no matter where each of our sports stories begins, we all end up at the same place, a place where we are becoming our own best selves.
Tell us your story!
Founder, Missy Park
I’m 43 years old and ran my first marathon at the age of 40. It was one of the best experiences of my life and very difficult. My son Ethan was diagnosed will Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia at the age of 3, he is now 6 yrs old and is in remission. Through The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society I got involved in Team In Training, a non-profit organization that raises money for research to find a cure. I followed the training schedule as close as possible and met with the team to run every Saturday. I met alot of wonderful people, all who ran for someone they new who had some kind of cancer, or to do a great service to the community. I never thought I could complete a 26.2 mile marathon, but with the support of everyone on the team and running for my son, my little hero, I accomplished it. His support was life changing for me, he would put coins in my shoes before I trained, what a little guy.
Today I still try and run whenever I can and keep fit. I am planning on getting back on the road again to celebrate and raise more money for research.
I’ve always been active and everyone considered me an athlete, but a few years ago I met a professional boxing coach who kept telling me he had to train me. I had been in martial arts for years and thought I knew how to fight and box–isn’t it the same? NOT! Well about three years ago I started training with him, but could only work with him a day a week AND THEN a boxing and MMA club opened near me and I signed up. I told my coach I would probably only come in 2-3 days a week—and now I go 4-5 days a week and have helped a fighter train for a MMA fight. It is truly my passion and keeps me going. After a really hard work out I know I did it and I own it!
I have always had a love of the water. It has continued to this day as I swim six miles a week. It is one of the most enjoyable sports that I do and I do many of them including running, hiking, ballet, played lacrosse in college and skiing, ski patrol and teaching adaptive sports to children, adults and wounded soldiers. Swimming is my way to have some time to myself and tune out the rest of the world. It is my saving grace as my husband is away on deployment with the Army. It gives me a way to leave behind all the stress and just enjoy the moment.
Why is it I assumed, for so so many years, that loving to ride horses was something I did in my youth – but not as an adult. Then I had a health crisis and that threw so many assumptions about how I was ‘supposed’ to live into question. I found a horse to ride, just as an experiment. Then I was riding regularly. Then I leased a horse, and now I am on my second horse! How many people challenged me that taking up equestrian sport after 40 was so impractical. It has been the most practical thing I have ever done. I get energy, exercise, fitness, focus.. I have learned that the bottom line for ‘practical’ is not financial, it is ENERGY! Now I am over 50 and on my second horse and learning a new discipline (dressage). Dont’ let any voice dappen a yearning and a spirit because you are too old.
(And, by the way, Title Nine bras truly make the riding way more comfortable 🙂
I was born to a mother who thought of exercise only as an occasional necessary attempt at a healthy lifestyle and a father who had been on a swim team in high school and absolutely hated it. My sister was more of the bookworm / pianist type. Needless to say, as the most kinesthetically inclined member of the family, it was yet another reason to suspect I was adopted (though I’m not). For three magical years in grade school, I got to take dance, then we moved. I had a rarely beatable serve in volleyball in high school, but when I asked my Mom if I could try out for the team, I was told I wouldn’t stick with it and that was the end of the conversation ( I think my sister’s activities were keeping her busier than she wanted to be already). So, I rode my bike as far as I could in a half an hour, so I could check in after an hour, and roller-skated miles over the extra-wide and reasonably smooth sidewalks of a nearby university campus. When I gained access to the university’s rec center, I was in heaven. There was an abundance of exercise classes and a weight room (although there weren’t many women in there yet in the early 80’s). Through my mid-thirty’s, I almost always had a gym membership. Then I met the man that would become my husband. He lived in the mountains of Colorado. My first visit, we went on a snow shoe, and although I did pretty well for a low elevation dweller, I didn’t do as well as I thought I would. After moving to Colorado, he bought a road bike for me, my first new bike in nearly 20 years. Over the last eight summers, we’ve logged thousands of miles, climbed a number of different passes and had a great time flying down hill. Not only does cycling keep me in shape, give me play time with my husband, and gets me outside, it motivates me to stay in shape over the winters. Yoga and Active-Isolated stretching keep me reasonably flexible and relatively injury free. Snowboarding and snowshoeing keep me active outside in the winter and my elliptical keeps me in shape when the weather is more harsh than I care to go out in. And I’m hopeful that in addition to the joy and feelings of freedom that physical activity has always given me, it will keep me from the same fate of my mother and hers of needing a cane or walker by my mid-seventies. Genetics and accidents can’t be avoided, but at least I feel I’ve broken out of their patterns.
In September of 2009 I will have had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for four years. Before that though, I was one of those swim, bike, run people and I had completed two marathons. Those were my sports and I loved them for the challenges I would face in each event. I used to wait anxiously for my Title Nine catalog to arrive in the mail and see what new cute outfits they had that would fit my active lifestyle. And I loved to read about about their “models” who were everyday women just like me. I found inspiration in these women and so enjoyed learning about their age, occupations, and sports. I even emailed Title Nine about seven years ago to see how they went about picking their models!
And then, after training all summer long for the one and only triathlon that I would complete in that year just two weeks away, I came down with mono. From that point on my life has not been the same. These four years have been very tough on so many levels. At first it was tough just to not be my active self. And then as the months and then years stretched on it became harder and harder to watch my body as it went from muscle to fat, especially since I had placed such a high priority on how my body looked. It was so difficult to watch my body changes that at times I would foolishly try to workout, even though I knew my body wasn’t ready, only to have to take two to three hour naps later in the day to just make it to evening!
After beginning some new treatments, I am now on my 7th consecutive week of working out for about 15-20 minutes a day. Woo hoo! It’s not like the old days, but its a wonderful start! And I am loving the changes I can already see with my muscles! But more importantly, I love the changes I have seen within myself. I may never be that swim, bike, run person again and I am finally at a point where I can accept that and accept the newest label I have given my sport: Life! The challenges this part of I my life have presented me with have been great, but I’ve learned some very valuable lessons along the way that I believe are great lessons for all women: learning to truly love my body no matter my size and striving for good health no matter the circumstances, this includes not overdoing it too! I share my story with you in hopes of inspiring you to love your bodies too as seems to be such an universal struggle for all of us women!
These days I still look forward to my Title Nine catalog arriving in the mail, but it’s to see what I can look cute in no matter what I’m doing that day! God bless!
I was not involved in organized sports as a teenager, but was always out on bikes or walks through the neighborhood and parks. After I was married and my daughter was born, I started working in the child care room at a fitness center. A free membership motivated me to use the resistance machines and take classes. Soon after, I became a group fitness instructor, personal trainer and then yoga instructor. Working out in the gym gives me the affirmation I sometime need, but am also happy to lift weights and do conditioning work at home. A steady, sweaty yoga flow is my current exercise of choice as I am working on my RYT (Registered Yoga Teacher). I am proud of my shoulders, arms, abs and backside.
My story is simple. I have been active all my life with horseback riding and all the barn chores. Six years ago my youngest sister had gastric bypass surgery. She had struggled (and still struggles) with her weight all of her life. Several months later, my office was participating in a local corporate challenge which included a 5K run/walk. I asked both sisters if they wanted to walk with me – for fun and exercise. The three of us completed the 5K walk in a little over one hour and we were hooked. We registered for other local 5K’s. We started training. Our times began to fall. We started to win walker age group awards. The next Spring we decided to train for a 10K together. That 10K finish line photo is my favorite to this day – the three of us arm in arm smiling. That fall we tackled a half marathon. The following Spring we completed our first marathon. For all of the firsts we trained together as part of a group from the local running specialty store. Now we train separately. I am still a walker with 3 marathons, 7 half marathons (including one Goofy Challenge) and many 5K’s, 10K’s and 15K’s under my belt. My sisters have moved to on run/walk programs. There are a couple of events every year that bring us together. It is one more thing that we can share together and bring others into our group. I honestly believe that anyone who puts their mind to it can complete a 5K and see where it leads. I’m looking forward to completing many more half marathons, 5 and 10K’s with my sisters cheering each other on.
Today, I walked. It’s true that in orientation for the marathon training club I joined, the keynote speaker stated that, “the only difference between a runner and a walker is that the walker knows before hand when he is going to walk”. I figured it would eventually happen to me on a group run, but not at the seven mile mark, barely a quarter of the distance to my goal. It was hard to have such a crappy run today, just when I needed to reaffirm my dedication Instead, my faith in running was shaken.
So far in my journey towards completing a marathon, I have had a relatively easy time of training. Each week, I run further than I have ever run. (Of course that isn’t hard, not having run more than a mile at a time since high school gym class, sometime in the last century.) It is very affirming every weekend to think to myself, “okay, that was easy. I can do more”. This week, during the run, there was not much thinking going on, much less positive, goal affirming thoughts.
I should tell you about my run. It was uphill. Seriously UPHILL. For those of you who know Portland, we ran the Leif Erickson Trail in Forest Park. The first six blocks or so were fine. From there, Thurman street begins to incline. During our pre-run pep talk, our group leader said he preferred to think of it as WEST, but what he meant was UP. Straight up. For over three miles. On a trail. A rocky, muddy trail. That went uphill. Steeply. Did I mention this run was uphill?
I got passed a lot on the way up. It didn’t help that I was wearing a new Platypus hydration system that I had failed to read the instructions for and optimistically filled with (a very heavy) 64 oz of water. Since I hadn’t set it up correctly, the pack kept unzipping, and the bladder wanted to slip out of the backpack. I had to stop twice to fix it, and eventually just zipped the damn thing up completely. Hydration schmydration. Speaking of bladders, I really have got to work on those damn keigel exercises. Stupid childbirth.
I ended up walking about 3/4 of the way up the hill. I ran through all my motivations, repeated my latin mantra (A posse ad esse – from possiblity to actuality) a dozen times, and still couldn’t find it in myself to keep running. At least I had an interesting conversation while I was walking. So much better than mentally flagulating myself. Nick is a cool black guy, probably somewhere North of 300 lbs. I’ve seen him before. He commented on my skort two weeks ago, -claimed to have almost worn the same outfit. I’m so impressed that he joined Portland Fit, and even more impressed that he went for a running group instead of walking. He told me he started making life changes – eating better, sleeping more. It occured to me that he’s right. Running is about more than just races and pace. It’s about making choices and changes. Running is about taking an active role in your own life, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. At least that’s what it’s about for me.
After that reality check, I resumed running, and hit the halfway mark about a quarter mile later. Let me tell you, that halfway mark is always sweet, but to know that the rest of your run is down hill, is downright delicious. I sailed through the rest of the run, passing lots of people (always a pleasure – I’m so damn competitive, there were 48 of them, I counted) and still getting passed (16, for truth in journalism). I finished the run running, my faith restored.
While everyone in my adult life has considered me to be a “natural athlete”… the truth behind it all is that all of my young life coaches advised my folks that they “didn’t need to bring me to every practice”. I grew up alpine ski racing, running track & field (hurdles, long and triple jump) and almost always was the last one to finish (or DFL as we called it.. but I don’t think dead f last would be printable 🙂 ). In college I tried to find my nitch in playing Rugby. I found that at an “academic-only” school with NO sports scholarships that I was considered to be mediocre to good in the club sport realm. After many injuries (rugby does that to a gal), I decided my medical bills weren’t worth the joy of playing. Then off to my new adventure, soccer. There I ruptured an achilles and tore the cartilage between my ribs and sternum. Strike 3! So at the age of 35 I have come to realize that I play without a lot of thought to consequences. My latest idea is to slow down a little, train more and actually listen to my body. Hopefully one day I will be able to do well in adventure races and running races. My goal is to do an ironwoman race. Who knows, maybe that will be my nitch in life?