Inspiration

What an AMAZING weekend! Road Tripping with a great friend and more Mudder!

I had the opportunity to go to Englishtown, New Jersey and watch World's Toughest Mudder. I was there partly to support my fitness professional, Ben, and I was curious. What would the course look like and more importantly to me, what would the competitors look like? I will be honest and admit that I expected to see a lot of really buff people. There were many of those, but there were also average looking people. Maybe average isn't the right word, since I don't think there is anything average about someone who would choose to compete in World's Toughest Mudder.

The point of that was, that most of those people weren't all that different from me. I see myself as average in many ways. Does this mean I am thinking I could compete in World's Toughest Mudder: HECK NO! Not right now, maybe not ever, but it made me think...a lot.

The idea that maybe I am ready for things I don't think I am kept me tossing and turning into the wee hours. I've been harboring and nurturing a little dream for awhile now. I stepped way outside any semblance of comfort and tried to do something about it last spring/summer but the time wasn't right and I really was not ready.

I thank you Ben for being kind and gracious enough to offer me advice and pointers and things I could work on. At the time I wasn't ready, I suspect he knew that, but he was kind enough not to crush the dream. He could have laughed at me, told me I was nuts, but he never did that. I could thank him privately for that, but I think it merits a public thank you. So there it is: Thank you Ben for knowing me better than I knew myself.


Mary Hoadley also deserves a huge thanks. She has known me since my beginnings as a Mooser and she has done nothing but encourage and support me. I'm so blessed to have had the opportunity to take her classes at the Wellness Center too. Those classes are nice complements to my work at Fortitude Fitness Systems. I've discovered as much as I LOVE the heavy lifting, tire flipping and pushing the Prowler around until I think I might be sick I also love yogalaties and I'm learning to appreciate Zumba.

With that out of the way, I'm ready now. I'm willing and able to take the steps I need to take to become an instructor. I want to do this right though: I will seek training. I will work as hard on this as I work at being a special education teacher. I won't ever do anything half-way or half-assed. It's not who I am and not anything I would be comfortable with. If I am going to try to help people improve their lives as I've been helped I want to be competent and for me that means I need to learn. It will take time, probably a lot of time.

So I'm still in the midst of my journey and transformation and I've figured out the next portion of the road. Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.