Gone Coastal OBX

I will admit the below image is exactly what the ENTIRE team looked like right after Adam said "Ok I got it, are you ready for this... (pause)... CLOWNFISH ON THREE!" It was really quite funny as there was a pause and Adam starts counting and we all yelled CLOWNFISH? (Notice the question mark). I had this thought in my head immediately"is he making fun of us. Do I really look THAT silly running down the beach or road or maybe I look like a clown while trying to do sit ups or squats or dive into the ocean (no comments Amanda!!)" Then I realized I probably really do, but at the time I did not realize that Nemo and his dad Marlin were in fact Clownfish and after a parking lot google session with Kendall and Brooke (I think it was Brooke) it was quickly realized they were and I was ok with that. I mean seriously why not embrace my inner 6 year old and love me some Clownfish. Let's look at it this way, Nemo got a bit lost out there in the big huge Ocean righ...

I have so much bottled up inside of me that I want to say today and just don't know how to get it all out. It's strange being in the position that I am right now. Knowing that life is MUCH better than it was and knowing that I am in a much better place, mentally, physically, and emotionally, but yet still having days that you just feel like you have done nothing but screw everything up and want to hide from the world. That is where I am today. Wanting to hide. Feeling like I am never a good enough friend, mother, daughter, teammate, trainee, employee... you get the picture. Just that all over I am never going to measure up feeling. Do I know that it is not logical to actually think this way, yup I do. Do I feel that way anyway, yup I do. It just makes me wonder, does everyone have days like this or is it just me, the mental case, that feels like this. Maybe it is because today is my Monday, and after a 3 day weekend of a friend lovefest it has come to a screeching halt an...

Today was the second time I have heard the words.. "Go home." I think those words are worse than any of the others that I have heard while on my journey. The first time was a few days prior to half marathon and I had cut the skin away on my blister and the hope of sending me home that day was to have my foot healed enough to run the half. It worked it did heal and I was able. Today it wasn't for such a reason, today it was because I don't know when it is OK to stay home yet, today it was because I don't know how to pick my "day off". As I was standing there waiting this morning I told my friends that were there that I would be walking today and when they asked why I said "because today is my day off and I can't really remember the last time I did not exercise of some sort and I don't really have a day off in the foreseeable future." My thought process was I knew I would feel guilty if I stayed at home sipping coffee knowing that today...

A very happy group of campers. I am sure that each and every one of you are just DYING to hear about the graduation cermony of Bootcamp. I am not sure that I can even make the words to describe what it was, or is. To me graduation day is a HUGE deal, it marks another 6 weeks complete on this journey, another 6 weeks that I laid it all out there and did not die. (even though my mother thought I was going to die from some unknown disease that would not be curable by modern medicine). So I will give you a run down of the morning because it is as very worth while tale considering you have read the rest of the journey. It really started the night before as I laid out my clothes for graduation and went to bed.. all of a sudden the panic hits! I am going to over sleep I know I am going to over sleep there is no way that the alarm clockS and the cell phone are going to wake me I am going to sleep right through graduation! Needless to say that didn't happen and I was up well before ...

Today I come to you with a challenge, a challenge to see how much you can change about your life in four months. Four months ago was a cold rainy January Saturday.  I had told myself earlier in the week I would go by Knuckleup just intending to just check the gym out and see what this hoopla about Outer Banks Bootcamps was all about. Back up to the cold rainy part, when I got up it was a nasty nasty day and I decided I was not going out in the cold rain to look at any old gym I would just take a peek on Facebook and maybe I would go another time. So on the sofa I sat with Lifetime Movie channel already on.. Side Note: it was like 8 am anyone who knows anything about Lifetime Movie Channel knows if you turn it on during the day you will be sucked into it head first and you will NOT move another inch unless it is to get a snack. ... Laptop opened to Facebook and I decided now is a good a time as any to check out the gym, on Facebook, in my jammies, with my coffee, and my blan...

Our Flag. Photo by Christine Flip Flop by Re (yes I have OCD) Today was one of the hardest work outs I have encountered at Outer Banks Bootcamps to date! It was also the most amazing and enlightening day EVER!  I know you are sitting there thinking how in the world could it have been the hardest and the best. Well I suppose that is where my brain is these days, the harder the better. Even better yet, not once today was I the "weak link" nor did I ever feel like I was being left behind or weighing the team down.  I left that beach today feeling completely exhausted and elated! Why? Because not only was I not the "weak link" NO ONE was!! Today we fell completely together as a team. We were there for each other with short words of encouragement, a little extra tug on the rope, a hand when doing sit ups in the surf, a high five on the run to the pier and back. Today we weren't A Stingray we were THE Stingray's. On Wednesday we graduate, we will be to...

My heart talks to me in a Dory voice, my brain doesn't.. my brain sounds more like Nemo's dad Marlin. My brain is always grumbling and telling me I can't or I will never be good enough or it hurts way too bad or I am fat or .. there are so many OR's that it is not even funny.  Very much like Marlin in the movie, everything was always gloom and doom. My heart says just keep swimming, swimming, swimming or running, running, running or BREATHING BREATHING BREATHING. Whatever the occasion calls for. (recently at bootcamp it has required all of those and then some). My heart wants so badly to be more than I am, to not be the one in the back, to not be the one the rest of the team is constantly waiting on in push up position, to not be the one who's foot feels like glass just split the bottom of it open again and tries to get off of the shells... cont. Side Bar on Foot:  it hasn't split open just truly felt that way, the only way I can describe what my foot f...

So I fibbed a bit.. this next post is not about Jockey's Ridge it's about Braveheart. Yes you heard me right it is about that 90's movie that every time it is on the TV you get sucked in and you realize 3 hours later that you are still sitting there! Last Wednesday "The General" Matt Costa announced "Monday is Braveheart day, you show up with some kind of blue on your face." That was it, that was all, no further instruction given. Shortly there after we get an email, all BCPlus teams, show up with your "War Face".  Over the course of the weekend I was asked by more than one, "Is he kidding?" by the end I wanted to just say I don't think Matt Costa kids. So I showed up like this: Thankfully it wasn't a joke and more and more people fell in line with their beautiful war paint. Thanks to my gorgeous friend Lindsey I also donned a "Kilt" (mens plaid boxers but they did the trick). I also couldn't just let i...

"The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo First I would like to say thank you to Miss Crigler for posting such inspirational little quotes each day. It never seems to fail to strike something as fitting in my life at the moment, usually relating to my journey with Outer Banks Bootcamps . Now on to some colorful fun and a wonderful way to clean it up! On Saturday I got to spend some time with two of best guys on this side of the Universe, which is always a joy in it self, but this was extra special cause we spent four hours building the outside shower here at my house! It turned out PERFECT, and exactly as I envisioned it. (Even if at first we all just kinda had different ideas of what it should be). I can't thank these guys enough, I am truly blessed to be able to call them both "Friend". On Sunday I spent time with some of the bootcamp girls! Lis...

Yesterday was, thankfully, finally, my first day back at Bootcamp since my little boo boo (aka as the foot nearly rotting off). I have to say it was beyond wonderful! We played a great little hand of 52 pick up Boot Camp style! Coaches Jay Bowman, Jody Long, Adam Swansen and Christine Da Mosta all gathered us around in a big circle on the sand and one by one a card was drawn out of a deck of cards hidden in a hole in the sand to prevent card fly awayage. We were to do the exercise associated with suit the number of times the card indicated with the exception of 2's (wild cards) 7's (break cards) and face cards (get your head wet I don't care HOW just get your head wet cards). 46 bicep curls, 46 tricep kickback, 46 flies, 46 burpees, 1 badly attempted head stand in the ocean ending in a snoot full of sand and water, 11 head first dives in the ocean, 4 Wild Cards, 4 30 second breaks (some how I missed out on two of those four lol), one side bar with the wonderful Coac...

" I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition." - Martha Washington Do I realize at this moment that half of my readers are my family and are are dying laughing at the thought I may have a "sunny disposition"?? Yes. Do I think it is funny they are laughing at me? Sure why not? Being a "Sunny" kinda person has never been my strong suit. I have always maintained a "screw the world" attitude (Sorry Aunt Ann but you know it is true) about pretty much everything in my life. I was also an amazingly unhappy person with no true direction, goals, or path in life.  I tried a little bit of everything to fit in, marriage, friendships, jobs, being part of the family, divorce, changing jobs, not being part of the family, drinking, not drinking, partying, staying home... you get the picture. The problem was nothing quite clicked and for years I blamed everything but the ...

First and foremost I received my official time yesterday from the half marathon. Apparently there was a computer glitch and it wiped out some of our times when we finished, I of course was one of those people. In light of the glitch I did receive a photo of myself crossing the finish line, I will warn you it is not a "pretty" picture but really would yours be so glamourous if you had just run 13.1 miles in less than 3 hours in the pouring rain??? I am gonna take a bet and say no. Cool note about the pic, the girl in the visor and the guy in the orange smiling are my friends Amanda and Randolph cheering me on to the finish! My goal time for this race was 3 hours and 30 minutes, by the time I got to the race I decided that was going to remain my goal time because that is what I had set, well that and not to crawl. Somewhere a long the way I must have had it in my head I wanted it to be under 3 hours, because that is all I focused on at the finish was the clock saying 3:04...