Chicago Marathon 2013

I have been over my own head in holding down my life lately, however, I am still holding it down.

I didn't look back at my last post to see if I mentioned I would be running the Chicago Marathon 2013 for a charity team, so if I didn't mention it, that was the plan.  Sometimes I forget where I work and I need to write it down, so let me refresh my memory and restate that here as well,
1- Full time 3rd year DPT Student
2- Team Enterprises- Bacardi Girl
3- Hooter's of Oak Lawn- Hooter's Girl
4- Ascent Talent- Promo Modeling
5- PUSH Models
6- ATN Events- Brand Ambassador

Surprisingly and thankfully, all these jobs allow me to pick and choose the events/days that I work so I am able to balance it all out nicely [most of the time.]

In the midst of this craziness I am losing who I am, there is always something that needs to be done and if I would step back I would see that I am exhausted, depressed and stressed to the max.  Besides needing to work so much so pay off the debt I have since I moved (and ran out of financial aid money) I think I work so much because I am actually pretty stinkin' lonely and bored if I'm not.  It keeps me socializing with MANY individuals keeps me busy and not thinking about what I am missing in my life.

Anyway-- back to the Chicago Marathon... I have not been training because as you can imagine, I have been SO SOO busy and I'm working through some sort of knee/leg/quadricep injury right now as well.  I haven't had the energy, motivation or the love for running like I had last summer and I am convincing myself that I can't run a marathon this Fall.  BUTTTTT-- let me mention why I even decided to run this marathon in the first place.  There is a VERY special woman, that I like to consider a modern day super hero, that goes by the name of Colleen McGrath.  I'll sum the story up and just provide a link to in depth details... Colleen's mom died when she was a teenager from cancer.  Colleen was diagnosed at 13 y/o with pancreatic cancer. Colleen's dad "MADE" her go to a children's oncology camp before choosing to give up chemo treatments. Colleen beat pancreatic cancer.  Colleen's dad died from cancer.  Colleen returned to camp as a camper then a counselor and later a dedicated employee of COSI.  Colleen returned to camp during the summer of 2012 at age 27 and informed us all that she had Stage IV colon cancer.  Against all odds----Colleen beat Stage IV colon cancer.
----Colleen's determination to send children to camp and provide them with the best experience of their life, which she contributes to saving her life as a teenager, is what she aimed for Team One Step (my Chicago Marathon Charity Team)  to do.  Colleen was not going to give up on fighting for her life and if you ask me who the strongest individual I know is, without a doubt, I can assure you she is the first name that comes out of my mouth.  The last thing I had planned to do in the next year was run a marathon; however, I decided in Feb/March of 2013 that I would do it because Colleen is one inspiring individual.  I knew the time would come where I would say, "I really don't want to run this marathon, I'm behind on training, and there's no way I can run this marathon."  That is where I am at now.  All odds are against me in successfully running this marathon; I am exhausted, I am injured, I haven't been training, my nutrition is terrible, I can't afford (literally $$) to eat and train for a marathon, I don't have the time to train, and I don't have the time to fund-raise for it.  THENNNNNNN I go back to the beginning and think about why I decided to do it.  I don't intend for this to come out rude if for some reason anybody takes it that way, but when I think about not doing the marathon, what stops me is that I would have to tell someone that beat the deadliest of cancers NOT ONCE, but TWICE, that "I can't do this." [in reference to running a marathon]  I think that would be harder than actually running the marathon.

Colleen's Story

SO basically.. I am going to run the Chicago Marathon on 11 weeks of training and a prayer.  lol.  I wanted to post this as a constant reminder and motivator to myself and also keep you all up to date on my marathon training.  I need all the support I can get as I am already about to lose my mind.  I am hoping to post more frequently so you can track me as I proceed through the next 11 weeks.  Hopefully things will start becoming more balanced in my life and I find my lost love for running and endurance activity again.



Best----

Kristin.

Keep up with me on Twitter @kCull4_SPT or Instagram @kcull_4

<3

Personal Growth is a Beautiful Thing.

It's been a long time since I've posted in here, my apologies..like always!

Anyway, I felt like this was a really significant day for me to post.  As those who use to follow my sporadic posts around this time last year know that I was going through some real tough times, depression and anxiety were at an all time high and I needed to make a change in my life because this was not how I wanted to keep living.  I was stuck in the gray of depression, yet I could still see the brightness of my future that I was desperately reaching out for.

Last St. Patricks Day, the guardian angel in my life, my long time friend, Siobhan, got married.  It was a tough day for me as a result of my depression but of course for Siobhan, I pulled through.  She has been there for me through EVERY complication that has come up in my life and the last thing I would do is miss her wedding day because I was in such a horrible spot in my life during this time.

As I sit here today and look back at myself a year ago, I cannot help but to beam with pride and joy, and almost want to cry for myself in the progress that I have made in my own personal development.  I have always been an individual with the inner strength of steel; however, occasionally I will experience what I call, situational depression.  My "situational depression" always makes me a different person.  Thankfully I am so head strong and have such a solid foundation of strength and wisdom, that once I slowly work my way out of the depression, I come out of it SO much stronger and motivated to achieve my dreams and pursue new goals.

Last St. Patrick's Day 2012 is history.... today, on St. Patrick's Day 2013, I have the plans in my head to MAKE my own HISTORY. I sit here as an individual that has inner happiness, balance, strength, dedication, motivation and so many things that I want to accomplish in life.  I have so much on my plate that I am grateful for and I would not take back a single day of those days I spent alone and depressed.  They have made me who I am today and the things that have not worked out along that way have brought me to people and places that continue to help me see the individual that I am meant to be.


To all my followers going through tough times, I understand where you are and I know where being strong can take you.... in closing and in honor of St. Patrick's Day, I want to share with all of you an Irish Prayer that I found on IslandIreland.com that is symbolic of this post----

"May God give you...
For every storm, a rainbow,
For every tear, a smile,
For every care, a promise,
And a blessing in each trial.
For every problem life sends,
A faithful friend to share,
For every sigh, a sweet song,
And an answer for each prayer."


Thanks for reading!  Feel free to keep up with me on Twitter--- @kCull4_SPT

My Return to Blogging! :)

Hey guys!

Sorry for not blogging in so long.  I simply wish I could fill all of you in on the happenings of my past 4-5 months, but it would just be way to much to write about. A few things that I want to mention due to relevance of any future posts are the following:

--- I set a goal for myself to train and run a half marathon as a part of Team One Step.  However, in the earlier half of my training I suffered a hamstring strain and let me tell ya, NOT FUN.  The injury occurred July 8, 2012 and I was not pain free until I started physical therapy the second week of August.  This did not leave me much time to finish training, considering the half was Sept 8, and upon d/c from physical therapy, my PT cleared me to increase my mileage .25 a week, which I have obeyed! :)  To this point in time I am up to 2.5 miles again (YAYYY!!!!!!! Not much, but when you are injured, you would do anything to run just that much!)  So of course, not running my half that I had my heart set on was tough but I did not want/there was no possible way, I could actually run this injury without being in pain the entire time, and more than likely following up with another injury that will set me back again for future events!

I have definitely learned from that experience (of course) and now I am taking steps to make sure I maintain every aspect of my life that is relevant in allowing me to successfully complete future events.  These "aspects of my life" (nutrition, strength training, mentality, stretching, listening to my body and  taking injury  prevention measures (ice, heat, KT Tape, compression sleeves, etc) are not just things I do for training, I say "of my life," because that's what they are... they are a part of who I am and I don't just ignore them until they need to become a priority.  I learn from my mistakes and I consider my body to be fragile, I feel that (literally) one wrong move may have a negative outcome and may result in injury.  Anyway, this was important to discuss because for my new blog, which, hopefully can be linked within this one, I will be focusing on Mind-Body Wellness/Training!! :)   I hope to interest you by blogging about the ups,downs, lessons, and future goals I have in regards to my physical and mental training/conditioning. 


-Alright, So now that I am back in training mode with no injuries (***hold my breath, knock on wood, fingers crossed***) I am about to get in "The Zone."  I have registered to do the Sears Tower Stair Climb in Chicago on NOVEMBER 4th!!!!  I AM SOOO excited and anxious!!!  Last year I did the Aon Center "Step Up for Kids," 82 floor (?) climb.  This was my first and I was very proud of myself for my completion time.  See my Athlinks profile for results here: http://athlinks.com/racer/118538989 ,based upon my time for the Aon Climb, I would like to set a goal for myself to finish under 27:00 for the Sears.  I love that last year was my first year finally applying my dedication for fitness to actually participating in timed events!  I think I had always filled myself with the fear that I was not well enough conditioned to complete such events at a reasonable time so I never participated.  Now, I feel like this is something I owe to myself, it isn't to compete against others.  It's to reward myself for maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle, I love to see my hard work and dedication pay off.  These events make me challenge myself to work to be a better me, I love having a goal to work towards, and such races make me compete against myself.  I love the quote: "I don't stop when I'm tired, I stop when I'm done," this is how I feel about workouts and it's that mentality that keeps me pushing my hardest the entire time of an event.  I want to over achieve the goals that I have set out for myself, I have previously established times for my past events, and now I am adding to that list as well as having my sights set on setting new PR's!! :)


----REDEFINE YOUR IMPOSSIBLE!----



Alright, just gotta throw in another thing here because it was the last post I had blogged about back in June.  My experience with the Chicago Nike Northside vs Southside 16" Softball Game. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!  I can honestly say I had the best 2 days ever that week, it was by far one of, if not THEE coolest opportunities that I have ever had the chance to be a part of!  The first night I went up and they just had me doing my thing at GSP Boxing Gym downtown Chicago.  They had recorded me doing my warm ups, stretching, hitting the bags, and several drills that are a part of the Nike+ Training Drill Pack that syncs with the Nike Lunar Hyper Workout training shoes. If you are a fan of doing at home cardio drills, I strongly recommend purchasing a pair of these shoes.  I am literally DRIPPING sweat by the time I finish, which reminds me, I need to start utilizing those shoes/application again!  So the next day we had the softball game, I did not expect it to be nearly as large of an event as it turned out to be!  I thought it would just be a small pick up game with the two teams, some Nike team members, a couple staff members from the company that did the film production, AKA...Suite Partners, and of course A.J. Pierzynski and the Northside's coach for the day, Johnny Knox.  I walk up to the field that we were playing at in Lincoln Park and I about died.  Tents, cameras, trailers, workers everywhere, banners, you name it... of course quite, shy, little me did not expect an event this size and I was just like, "what did I get myself into!?" LOL!  But just an overall AWESOME experience, I am sooo fortunate to meet some of the people that God places into my life.  Some have more significance than others, yet they all play a role in my personal development.  At this event, along with the Nike staff, I also worked with Suite Partners, as I had previously mentioned.  It's so funny because I really don't know them that well but to me, each person I met that day from their company was beyond friendly, down to Earth, welcoming, fun, and just an overall pleasure to work with and be around!  I felt very empowered by this experience,  Nike and Suite Partners did a great job working together to carry out such a fantastic event.  In these 2 days, I felt like I stepped made a major change in myself, I did things that I did not think ever possible for me, I stepped outside of my comfort zone, I felt as though a part of me just grew up and became more mature in the sense of my future aspirations.  Since this experience, I feel much more empowered to make the things I dream of achieving someday into a reality.  I know now that nothing is out of reach and I am capable of doing great things.  Thank you for helping me to realize this, Nike! <3
Soooo I thought I would share this video with y'all now! :)

Enjoy ~~~> Nike Video!!  Here's the link in case that one does not work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IvxB-akT_A&feature=youtu.be

-- So now that you're a little more up to date on my life, I just want to invite you to continue following me as I begin working towards creating my new blog!


Thanks for reading guys, I really appreciate your time and interest in reading what I have to say. 




<3
Kristin.