One of my favorite...

I love this photo of me. I love this layout, too. The title is "Courage to Be Myself". Love that. It's hard to be yourself sometimes...especially when you grow up overweight and unhappy like I did.

The year I decided to become an "athlete" was the year my Dad died...1996. There he was lying in his hospital bed, weak and on the verge of death. He had put up a long, hard-fought battle with leukemia for nearly 10 years. I remember just hours before he passed, sitting on the edge of the bed, stroking his hand and trying to come to terms with the fact my father was never going to see my children grow up or help me celebrate my 30th birthday or take my son to his first major-league baseball game...I remember making a promise not only to him but to myself that I was never going to die with regret. Never. I had always dreamed of being physically fit. Of running a marathon or playing tennis. I vowed that I was going to do just that in honor of my Dad.

Three years later I ran my first marathon-26.2 miles-in Anchorage Alaska as a member of the Leukemia Society's "Team in Training".

I raised $4,000 to help in the battle against leukemia. That race changed my life. The next year, in 2000, I learned how to swim, bought a bike and a new pair of running shoes so I could compete in the Danskin Women's Triathlon in Denver Colorado. What a thrill it was crossing the finish line.

A couple years passed and the running bug got the best of me. My best friend Suzi and I trained for and finished Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota in 2002. That race was particularly hard but once again quite a thrill to complete. As I crossed the deserted finish line a woman with a tape recorder in her hand rushed up to me. Turns out I was the "last official finisher" of the day. There were still several hundred behind me but after 6 hours they stop counting. I'll never forget when she asked how I felt about coming in dead last. I proudly replied that it "felt great". I then went, trying to explain to her that I didn't race to win. I raced to finish. The feeling of finishing is incomparable to anything I've ever felt. Knowing that you've trained for MONTHS and MONTHS, working so hard towards a goal then actually following through with that is incredible!

So as I go about this weight loss challenge I've set before me I will try and remember how GOOD it feels to FINISH WHAT I START!!! Instead of starting/stopping and then starting over again...I will continue moving forward, taking it one day at a time. One meal, one snack, one workout at a time. And I will envision myself crossing that finish line...slimmer and healthier than I've been in years. That will be something.