PraxisFitness

I’ve had a little photo blog for a while, and although I don’t post in it nearly as often as I would like, I enjoy having it.  While I thought putting my photos “out there” was a little scary, putting my fitness journey out in the world feels quite a bit scarier. In spite of my reservations, I suppose a little background might be in order.

After high school, during which I was so incredibly shy that I wasn’t good at anything that involved dealing with people, I became the girl people looked at as “that health nut”.  In college, I decided I needed to get over the shyness - so I took so many courses one semester that I was too busy to worry about being shy… it worked.  One of the options was the cross country team.  The team needed a minimum of four girls to be supported (it was a small community college), so they didn’t mind that I had hardly run a day in my life. Turned out I had a little talent at it and was a solid although not stellar member of the team.  For about a dozen years after that, fitness was a part of my everyday life.  My fitness was never gym-oriented though; it was social.

After the cross country team, I ran with running clubs.  When I moved to DC, I found a club there, and they were my lifeline!  In addition to that, a friend introduced my to rock climbing - one visit to the climbing gym, and I was hooked. I went climbing four nights a week, most weeks, and spent nearly every weekend when the weather cooperated climbing outside at the river.  Nearly ten years after moving away, I still think of myself as that person - the one who had no trouble hiking hills, running 5Ks, and climbing a wall.  I worked up to climbing a 5.10, hiking 40 miles in a weekend, and running a marathon, without really realizing that I was more fit than the average gal.

I joke that the day after the marathon hurt so much I never ran again, although in the last eight years I have completed 3 sprint triathlons and a couple of road races so I guess that’s not literally true.  At the same time, I married a Navy man and started moving around the country.  I had no social network, so my only organized activity was the bike commute to work.  For later moves, even that fell by the wayside.  I don’t mention these as excuses, only by way of explaining just how far down I’ve come!

There’s a bit more to the story (isn’t there always?), but that’s enough for now. Hopefully some of y’all out there can either relate or sympathize.  Now comes the hard work of not being a hypocritical trainer, LOL!