They Call Me Seashell

  I came for the salt but stayed for the family. As we move into the new year with new goals, a new lease on priorities, and a renewed fire inside to get back to doing things we love, this year I decided to return to the BASE Performance race team for a number of reasons.  I joined BASE back in 2017 after trying out the BASE salts and having my hiney saved on a long hot run.  I reached out to Matt Miller, the owner of BASE, and told him how grateful I was for his product.  He replied to me and mentioned that they have an ambassador team and if I would like to apply he could provide me the link.  So I did and the rest was history! I took 3 years off  racing for BASE as I because a brand ambassador for a Women's only race team, but I always stayed connected with Matt and the BASE family as a whole.   Over the last 2 years, I have doubled down my support of BASE and Matt specifically because of the open heart and arms that Matt and his wife Lauralee have wrapped around the greater end

  I went from saying to myself that I would never be able to do an Ironman, to having KONA Legacy goals.  Ironman had become such an integral part of who I was; not by definition rather by lifestyle, by showing me that I am worthy and able, that anything is possible if you put your mind and body to it.  The truth is that I have been struggling the past few years, ever since I was injured in 2019 at IMTX.  The medical DNF hit me in a way that I was not expecting. Until that point, my only DNF ever was my first Marathon where I was battling a mental demon and had allowed external influences to cast doubt and mental exhaustion upon me.   I had promised myself that I would never DNF again.  You know what they say:  never say never!  I was so excited to toe the start line again later that year at IMFL, however, going into the race I was injured with a hip/glute issue and my fears of falling short of time became a reality when I had yet another medical - this time on the bike -which resulted

I remember that first day back from Panama City Beach in 2012, standing in the elevator at work a person in my building noticed my IM Florida Finishers jacket. He asked me, "So, what was the hardest part?" while pointing to my jacket. I turned to him, smiled, and replied "Signing up." I never would have been wearing that jacket if I did not start.  And believe me when I say that it takes the most courage to sign that piece of paper and hand over your $700+ non-refundable entry fee. Do you know why there are so few Ironman finishers in the world?  At IM Florida in 2012, they celebrated the 500,000th individual finisher of the Ironman races. That is a lot of people in general, but that is over multiple races world-wide in all of the then 30 years of the branded event.  The reason why it took 30 years to hit half a million Ironman finishers is simple.   The fear of the unknown. If I look over what I personally overcame to find that courage, we must rewind even further

Every year around this time, I ask my teammates to come up with a power word (or small 1 to 2 word mantra) for the year ahead. I thought it would be fun to see what word you are pulled towards when you think of 2021... the word you can hold onto to dig deeper, or stay the course when things get difficult. My words in the past have been FEARLESS, RELENTLESS, BEASTMODE... and I realized that for me, those words ended up almost hurting me more than motivating or inspiring me when when things started to hit the fan and I had to do some soul searching. I was not feeling fearless, relentless, and certainly was not in beast mode... and the words just did no good for me. I almost felt like I was weak just because I could not rise up to the level of my power word. We already have so much stress in our lives... why add more to it? A power word is meant to inspire, to lift up and the words that I had chosen in the past certainly could do that for the right person in the right headspace... but for

Am I finishing... or starting?

This is something big for me - I am very excited for the 2019 season!  I have not been THIS excited for a year in my entire time of being a triathlete, including the year I trained for my first IM in 2012.  This year is very special for me because of so much change.  For the first time in my triathlon life I am without a local triathlon club.  That feels so weird to me but I feel that it will free up my interests to focus on my outreach initiative.  I am continuing to be a Collective Beat member in 2019 and now officially am a Coeur Ambassador *squeeeeeeee*   Words cannot describe the joy in my heart.  Through my Ambassadorship with Coeur,  I strive to empower women to take a chance on themselves and go for their goals!   I have loved Coeur products and the company for years, and I am super blessed and beyond words of gratitude that I made the team this year. #teamtiger This year I am focusing on slow transformation, making small changes that add up to big results.

I went back to my Dr last night to review my final test results and got the all clear on resuming normal training life as long as I keep on making the modifications I am to my lifestyle and monitor my BP keeping an eye on it. I have one happy heart and now with my Boston Heart Diagnostics results in hand, I am very aware of where I need to focus my lifestyle efforts. If you have never heard of the Boston Heart test, it is a blood work diagnostic which reviews your risks for heart disease and assesses your overall heart health identifying specific areas in which you can improve your markers.  It is also very impressive and paints a wonderful picture of your risk for heart disease. I chatted with my coach today and we are on track for a stellar rest of the training cycle to IMFL in November.  I am one happy Seashell! With this set back, I am starting a little late in my training but being only 7 weeks in I have more time in front of me than behind me which is a good thing, it