From Tampons to Half Marathons #fcrr #doinit

So something happened on Tuesday night. My friend Jen, of Suburban Hippie Homestead, and I met up with some of the Forest City Road Races runners for Tampon Tuesday.

What is Tampon Tuesday? Well, it's a local networking event where your admission is a feminine hygiene product that gets donated to local shelters, schools, the food bank etc. It's a chance for people that you would never see or chat with about your business, goals, or in our case running the Forest City Road Races, to connect and share.

So, what happened? How did my pack of tampons turn into a half marathon?

While we were listening to Alyssa Jarvis of the London Food Bank talk about the Business Cares Food Drive, it hit me that there is so much more out there that I could be doing with my running. I mean....I finished Insanity, so why not a half marathon?

Then Shauna, the FCRR Community Director, got up there and kinda knocked my socks off. She said a word that I am all too familiar with...

Purpose

What are we here for if not to run with purpose?

So there...there we have it. Purpose lit a fire under neath my soles and I am determined to run the half marathon at Forest City Road Races in April 2015. Sure, I won't finish first and yes, there is a distinct possibility that I will be last. But I will be there putting one foot in front of the other. I will be there pushing myself.

I will be there with purpose.

Will you?

Two 5km's...One Weekend #fcrr #doinit

Well friends...my 2014 race season has come to a close with the Santa Shuffle in London, Ontario this past weekend.

Dressed as snowmen, we ran in support of the Salvation Army. I was pretty darn happy with my pace, and it was a great training run for WDW10km! The atmosphere was super festive; most everyone was dressed up, there was holiday music playing as we ran the track and hot cocoa waiting for us at the end!

Then of Sunday, I joined up with the Forest City Road Races folks for our first training run!

You may have seen on Facebook and Instagram, I was recently named one of the ambassadors for the 2015 Forest City Road Races! I'm so excited to have found a community where I feel at home. Everyone was super welcoming, and it was actually my first time running without music and for the purpose of enjoying the company of other runners.

It was awesome. We chatted about our reasons for running, why we started and what our goals are. I talked about my weight loss journey, and how I've been working really hard over the past year to lace up and get out there.

We finished our 5km training run at Farm Boy, who greeted us with hot coffee, bananas and energy bars!

And then I started thinking about my goals for 2015. Aside from WDW10km, what do I want to accomplish?

Two words.

Half Marathon.

Stay tuned!