February 20, 2017

Motivational Monday #138

Happy Motivational Monday!

It's been a long time since I've done a Motivational Monday post, so I'm excited to bring it back today. For a while, I wasn't getting many submissions anymore, even though I was getting a ton of feedback from people saying they loved Motivational Mondays. So, I made the decision to stop doing it (I didn't enjoy scrambling to put something together each week). So, we'll see how this goes...


I was excited to kick off today's post with three very motivating stories! I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did :)


This first email is from Theresa--she and her daughter Lindsey reached a pretty impressive goal!
"Ever since my first marathon at  age 53 in 2011, my daughter and I had toyed with the idea of running an ultra. It was on my daughter’s bucket list and I wanted to help her out, so I suggested to her in May 2016 that there would be no “good” time – we needed to just do it!  
It was the culmination of 21 weeks of training (500 running + 147 walking miles). We ran and ran all summer, but didn’t see the course until 3 weeks before the race. We intended to do our last long training run there, but were so unprepared for the hills! After only 3 miles, we felt defeated and walked most of the way back. We expected some hills, but nothing like that! We live on the flats, so had NO hill training. My butt was so sore from only 3 miles… how in the world would I ever survive 35 miles of hills?  
When race day arrived, we were nervous, we were excited, but mostly terrified! The weather was gorgeous, but the hills were killers (lots of them and many were HUGE) along with the other obstacles of some narrow, bumpy and rutted paths, twigs under all the leaves, many low, mud-filled areas that muddied up our shoes and took some maneuvering to cross. We stumbled, but never fell; not even on the log balancing act! We were determined to finish even if we ended up last. We weren’t last, but at 10.5 hours we definitely got our money’s worth from our entry fee!"


Pam, below, has been on her weight loss journey for about the same time as I have, and she's gone through several ups and downs, too. She has been "following" me since SparkPeople in 2010, and I just adore her! I am super proud of her (how many people in their 60's take control of their weight and lose 168 pounds with good old diet and exercise?!! She's the only one that I know.) :)
"On April 15, 2011, I hit my original goal weight of 160 lbs. which was a loss of 168 lbs. from my all-time high weight of 328 lbs. in July of 2009. I maintained at around 150 lbs. for several years before a 35 lb. gain starting in late 2013. I got that gain back off by Christmas 2014, but ended up going off-track once again, and before I stopped I had gained over 50 lbs. back, topping out at 203 lbs. in October 2015.
Your talk about goals really hits home with me. My son was getting married in October 2016, so with that GOAL in mind (I'm with you--goals are GOOD!), I joined Weight Watchers online in April 2016, weighing in at 185 pounds (my half-hearted attempts had led to an almost 20-pound loss in the months between October and April), and by that wedding last October, I weighed in at 149.4! I consider 150 my "happy weight," and felt so good about myself. I had taken a picture of myself in the dress I bought for the wedding when I got it in April. Then I took another picture at my goal weight and was amazed at the difference that 35 lbs. made. After losing 178 lbs., I really thought 35 pounds didn't make that much difference. but it sure does!! The dress still fit okay, but it looked so much better at 150 lbs., than it did at 185 lbs.  That is the picture I attached..... 
Now I need to find another goal, because once again I have regained a few pounds.  Like you, coming to the realization that summer is your regain time, I have decided the holidays and winter is my regain time. Hopefully I can continue to get back on track once again and get back to my happy weight. I need to set a new goal--obviously!!!"


Finally, this last email is from Rhonda, who I am looking forward to meeting in Vegas! (I love your husband's comment from the starting line, by the way--haha!)
I always enjoyed the Motivational Monday postings so am excited to see you bringing that back to the blog.  Like you, I also do best when having goals “Out there”.  I set a goal a few years ago to run a Half Marathon every month.  I felt this goal would keep me focused on my running and training consistently.  I don’t necessarily set speed goals for myself as speed work tends to bother my hips… so I’m basically a turtle and am in it just to finish.  This past weekend, I ran the Heart Breaker Half in Hillsboro, Oregon and that was my 24th consecutive month running at least one Half.  There are a few months in there where I ran two!  The weather was cold at the start (30 degrees) but fortunately no wind.  My husband (my biggest supporter) walked with me to the start line, and as we were shivering, he turned to me and said, “Why can’t you have a normal hobby like knitting or something like other women?”  I’m still laughing over that one.




Ladies, thank you SO much for sharing your accomplishments! I love seeing stuff like this in my inbox again :)

If you have a story you'd like to submit for next Monday, you can check out how to do so here. Thanks!

10 comments:

  1. Love it! Great job ladies!! I'm so excited to see Motivation Mondays back again!

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  2. This is great! I think this is a great segment to do!

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  3. I think I'll have to set a goal of appearing as a Motivational Monday person in the fall!

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  4. Oh - I really needed this now! My foot has been bothering me for months so running is out of the question ... which means I'm gaining. Thanks for the inspiration.

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  5. So glad you brought this back! Thanks!

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  6. I am so glad MM is back too! I hope I get to be one someday! Goals~gotta have em!

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  7. What inspirational stories! Great job ladies! I'm working on setting my new goals too! Like many of you, I've drifted a bit over the past couple of months but all of this motivation is really inspiring me to get going on my own new goals!

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  8. Great segment! I look forward to many more Mondays to come!

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  9. So glad you brought this back! And way to go to all of you, including you, Katie! I like Karen's idea of appearing in a MM story!

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  10. Pam, my son got married in September and I also wore a sapphire blue dress! I also had to lose some pounds that had been gained for the wedding. My dress was bought only 5 weeks before the wedding but it also fit much better on wedding day than when I bought it! Ten pounds have seem to find their way back since then and I have races coming up in the spring so I have to get back at it again. Why, oh why do we do this to ourselves??? LOL

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