I love helping and motivating others. I constantly share my story to show others that ANYTHING is possible. It may not be easy and you might have to give it many tries…but it can happen. Did I ever think that I would be up and running again? No. I stopped running for many, many, years! Let me tell you, the first year back running was HELL! Pure HELL! It felt like I wasn’t getting anymore, no improvement. I could only make it a few hundred meters before I’d have to stop. Just a few hundred meters!?!? That’s it!
I don’t know what’s worse…my stubbornness, or my determination. It took a good year for me to run a mile. It also took me about 18 minutes to do so with many walk breaks. My first 5K finish time, was over 50 minutes. I felt like crap after my first 5K. Everything hurt. I knew the road to the New York Marathon was going to be REALLY hard for me, but I wanted to get there so bad I kept going.
I refuse to believe that my severity of my twisted spine would keep me from running. There are amazing, incredible, people out there EVERY DAY defying the odds against them. Why can’t I do that? I didn’t want to be limited. I’ve always been an active person, and the older I get, the tougher it’s getting. But my dreams are BIGGER than anything. I have been working my butt off, and the hard work is paying off.
While I started off with 18 minutes miles, I now comfortably run 9 minutes miles. I always told Alpha that there is no way I could be in the 9 minutes group. Because whenever I tried to pick up the speed, I got very uncomfortable with pain.
I’ve been working real hard with my amazing PT, Joe, from Action Potential Physical Therapy who has never given up on me and is ALWAYS there to help me out. While he is hundreds of miles away from me, it’s like he is here. He checks up on me and tells me what to do. The ONLY one to go above and beyond to help me find relief. A true master of his work. With all that, I have managed to run into the 8 minutes miles! Isn’t that crazy!?!? Who would’ve thought that!!!
My spine is putting pressure on my chest cavity. The most painful part is my rotating ribs. Holy Moly! Ridiculous pain. But I can’t breathe normally. I have to work at it to breathe. To help that, I do lots of stretching and strengthening to help reduce the swelling and pressure on my chest.
I was so excited when RunHaven found my journey and read my story. They were so inspired that they interviewed me and wrote a pretty accurate and pretty amazing article. Theresa, asked some great questions, and is marvelous writer! She captured my journey through my eyes and I was honored to be featured on such a well-known, HUGE website for runners.
I share and talk a lot about my story so the word gets out on Scoliosis. We need people to share their struggles and triumphs to help the doctors find out more about it. Little to nothing is known about Scoliosis. I actually just shared on my FB an article that said “The cause of most Scoliosis is unknown.” I am hoping that there are many other people like me who share their story and hopefully give some useful information to researchers and can help us Scoliosis fighters. I haven’t been able to find relief because little is known on how to “fix” me without surgery. So I am glad my story gets around and encourages others to speak up. It makes me happy that I inspire others to see the possibility of reaching a goal when you refuse to give up. It isn’t easy, but nothing in life ever is. Especially the great things. Those are the toughest, but also the most rewarding.
The article written on RunHaven.com can be found here. Take a moment and read it. Everyone has a story, but the most powerful ones are those of people who are fighters, who never give up, and refuse to get knocked down. To my fellow Scoliosis fighters, and chronic pain sufferers known that you all inspire ME to do my best and be the best Scoliosis runner out there. You all are incredible people and so glad to have connected with you. Keep sharing your journey with me and keep fighting for that dream. We are in this together, and together we will rise.
-the Scoliosis runner
Empire Unleashed 
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