Push. Pump. Progress

I am a nutrition teacher, marathoner, coach, avid concert goer and baseball fanatic! I love to indulge in a nice glass of Pinot Grigio after a long work week (ok, maybe 3 or 4 glasses) and have a serious addiction to Gummy Bears! These 2 vices aside, I strive to live a very healthy life style!

I have always stayed active, and have done my best to stay in shape, in my early 20’s I began running short distances to get outside and get some fresh air, and because everyone seemed to be doing it. When I hit my mid 20’s I found myself wrapped up in a bad relationship with the kind of guy our mothers warn us about growing up. By the time that relationship came to its dramatic end I found myself feeling really down and out for what seemed to be the first time in my life. The only thing that made me feel better was exercise….. so I RAN! First I ran a couple of 10km races, but that wasn’t enough. I tried my hand at a 15km race and loved it, and within 5 months of becoming a ‘runner’ I completed my first half marathon with a time of 2:07:03. As it turned out running made me feel GREAT!  I felt like running had done so much for me in such a short period of time, so I decided I wanted to use my new found love of running as a means to give back!

September 2011 was the 10 year anniversary of the death of my friend Caralyn; she had lost her brave battle with Leukemia at the age of 20. I had the pleasure of working with Caralyn for several years and was inspired by her upbeat personality, her kindness towards others and one of her favourite sayings “Life is too Short to Be Ordinary”. So in honour of her I signed up to run the Rome Marathon with Team in Training in March 2011.

My road to Romewas a bumpy one as I suffered a bad hip injury with only 5 weeks left until race day. I was told by my chiropractor not to run until the day of the race! WHAT?!!  So I did as I was told. I was pretty panicked leading up to the day of the marathon, not only was I committed to flying to another country to do the race, but my amazing friends, family and supporters had generously donated over $14,000 to Leukemia Research in Caralyn’s memory! I HAD TO CROSS THE FINISH LINE! I could not let down all of the people who had donated so much money….. and guess what???? I DID IT!!! I am not going to lie, it wasn’t easy and it took me over 5 hours to finish that marathon, I cried several times along the way from the pain and mixed emotions…. But nothing was going to stop me from finishing this one…. because you know what?! Life really is too short to be ordinary, and failure was not an option for me.

Crossing that finish line was an exhilarating experience for me. In that moment I knew that no matter what adversities I faced in life, if I really put my heart and soul into something I could do it. I never would have dreamed 2 years ago that I would be a marathoner. That is why I decided to name my blog Push.Pump.Progress, because in order to progress and move forward we have to push ourselves!

Since last March I have significantly cut back on my long distance running. This year in order to challenge myself (since another marathon is out of the question) I have decided to sign up to complete the Toronto Tough Mudder! I am very excited about this and have been training hard. Replacing long distance running with weight training and yoga has been awesome!   I also completed the Spartan Sprint in June, which consisted of a 7km run and 15th Strength testing obstacles. It was a great warm up to Tough Mudder and SO much fun!

When I am not busy running or rolling around in the mud, I also enjoy combining my love of cooking with my “Almost” Paleolithic Diet by coming up with quick, easy and very yummy recipes which I post on my blog! My goal is to find balance in my life, not to focus on counting calories and to not be scared to take a day off from the gym or cheat on my Paleo Diet once in a while. I hope to use my passion for eating clean and staying active to inspire others to do the same!