Katie's Story

After my third son was born, I knew I had an uphill battle to get the weight of three pregnancies off. I had not been physically active since high school and had the body of a fairly large woman. I didn’t exactly need a pully system to get out of bed, and I could still wash all parts of my body without using a mop handle, but I was out of shape and overweight. I vividly remember lying in bed one night, after a typically productive evening of watching TV and eating ice cream, looking deep into my husband’s eyes, and saying, “I want to do a triathlon.”. He laughed, not because he thought I couldn’t do it, but because I always have to reach for something big. For some strange reason, he thought I should start with a 5k first. I thought, “No, I need to reach for this dream. I need to swim farther than I have ever swum, bike farther than I have ever biked, and run farther than I have ever run…all in the same day. Seems reasonable.”

The first thing I started with was swimming. I know, most people get the running piece down first and swimming last. But after having a baby, getting in the water was very appealing. The heaviness of pregnancy was still pulling me down, and the buoyancy felt so good. Plus it was nice to get in a zone in the water where I couldn’t hear any whining or crying, no one was trying to get my attention, or if they were I couldn’t see them, and I kept on swimming. If your house is loud and crazy like mine was, I highly recommend diving into the pool and swimming a couple laps. No matter how slow you go, or how hard it is, I promise it’s better than doing laundry.

I worked hard on the swimming, and I had always been a fairly solid biker. I added the running piece last, that was my weakness. I always believed I had bad knees. Truth be told, I think I just hated running and used that as an excuse in high school to get out of running. It stuck with me. Turns out, my knees weren’t so bad; I just hadn’t developed the discipline to stick with running long enough to get through the rough part.

Eight months later I completed my first triathlon with my friend Lisa, also a mom working to be fit. Since then I have completed 8 triathlons, 2 ½ Ironmans, 3 ½ marathons, 1 century bike ride, and 3, soon to be 4, full marathons. Endurance events have become my thing I guess and my goal is always just to cross the finish line in one piece.

I believe there was something more than just wanting to get fit that kept me working hard. As I became a mom, I felt like I had started to lose a part of myself. In taking on the role of caring for everyone else first, a mom’s life is completely turned around and there’s no time to figure out who you are, or what your goals are. Even if you managed to figure that out before motherhood, it often changes when kids come along. I loved being a mother, but I lost myself in motherhood. I embraced it so much because I always knew that being a mom was what I wanted more than anything in the world, and when it happened, whoa, I jumped in full throttle. But at some point, I started evaluating who I was, what I was about, and what I could achieve. The irony I discovered, was that I needed to be me in order to be the best mom I could be. It took awhile to explore what that meant. For me it started with writing down the dreams I once had but had not yet achieved. One dream I wrote down was the idea of completing a triathlon, and telling my husband about it brought it to life. Crossing that finish line for the first time showed me a deeper part of myself than I had ever known, and helped me become a better mother in the process.

Today, I still train for endurance events to keep that part of myself alive, to not lose track of who I am and to show my children what they can accomplish with hard work and dedication (the fact that I can get out of the house for a couple hours of alone time might have something to do with it too!). I feel passionately about the connection between a healthy mom and a happy mom, a happy mom and a happy family, and a happy family and all sorts of good sh**!! They all cycle together and we want to help women make that connection. It’s a busy world and joining a health club might not be feasible for everyone. We want to share simple ideas you can use for exercising at home, getting your kids involved, making healthy choices about food, keeping life simple, what gear to get, and how to train for a marathon. You can do this, because we did.

What dreams are waiting for you?