I’ll take it on as a challenge

Who Inspires you?

There are different ways people become motivated and/or inspired. 

Motivation

The meaning of motivation to me is being determined to make something happen, and not giving up until you have achieved it.  Different things trigger people to be motivated.  My motivation is when someone tells me I cannot do something.  I’ll take it on as a challenge.

I am impatient and I want to take HUGE leaps rather than little steps to get to where I want to be.  Sometimes, I can take too big of a leap, which can cause me to forget to enjoy the little things.  My leaps though, have also show me that these hug leaps can be possible.  An example of this is how I never did a half marathon before I did my whole marathon; I competed in a full Ironman (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run) first, instead of starting with a half Ironman.  When I ran my 100-mile Ultra-marathon, I jumped right in.  I didn’t start with the “smaller” Ultra-marathons, I chose to jump in and do a 100 mile ultra.  I did not want to train a year or even 6 months for it.  Instead, I gave myself 3 months.  Go big or go home right?

Inspire

Others inspire me.  I become inspired when someone follows his or her dream.  Whether or not they succeed.  When I was in high school, I looked up to people who ran marathons.  Once I signed up for it, I thought people who raced in the Ironman were God.  I will never forget, the day before my first Marathon, Ari, and I went out to dinner to ‘carbo-load’ (looking back not a good idea).  At dinner we saw a guy eating who was wearing an Ironman shirt.  All Ari and I wanted to do was go talk to him.  We were too scared too because we thought he was way too cool for us.  Just imagine, two 17-year old girls at dinner scared to talk to a guy 40-year old guy wearing an Ironman shirt.  All we wanted to do was pick his brain and tell him how cool he was.  Looking back though, he was only human.  When I heard about 100-mile Ultra-marathons, I thought those people were inhuman.  I first heard about it when I was 20 years old when I was training for my Ironman.  I figured only Navy Seals guys would do that kind of stuff.  For all those events, there was one person who inspired me to follow my dreams of accomplishing it.  Throughout my journey, I cannot TELL you how many people tried to take my dream away from me, without even knowing it.  I heard the word CRAZY too much.  All I needed was that one person; that one person who told me they believed in me. 

Every single athlete is human.  The athletes who succeed are the ones who are determined to be better.  If you have a dream follow it.  Do not let others tell you what you can and cannot do.  Push yourself, because that is when you will find out what you are capable of.  Nobody knows what your body is capable of except yourself.  And for the few of you, who do not know what you are capable of yet, go out and push yourself.  The best way to find out is when you break or fail.  And when you break or fail, the next time you try, you push yourself that much harder.

During my Ultra-marathon, my brain pushed my body to the point of no return.  My brain did not want my body doing anything else but move my legs.  During that race, I pushed myself to my breaking point.  My back was giving out, and my stomach was over the pounding.  Even though I was in pain, I now know what that pain feels like.  The next time I run a race, I will push myself that much harder, knowing I did it before and I can do it again.  The Ultra-marathon training and race, taught me what my body and mind are capable of; which is anything I want.

I have always said... its better to dream, because the bigger you dream the more you will accomplish.  Anything is possible, as long as you put your mind to it.