Run Bermuda! Run Happy! On Strength, Persistence and Goals!

Sometimes it feels as though life is going to crush us but then we have the opportunity to turn around and crush goals!

I thought my life was over after the diagnosis of Post-Polio Syndrome, a progressive neuromuscular disease by Western Medicine Standards in December of 2006.

I got still, asked for Divine Guidance, wrote poetry, and set an incredible goal to run the 2009 Boston Marathon. I had completed outpatient therapy at Spaulding Rehab and hired a personal trainer.

After meeting my goals for the first 6 months of our work together, my personal trainer asked me about my next goals. "I want to be free in my body. I want to be able to walk outside unencumbered. I want to dance again (I was a ballerina before contracting paralytic polio at the age of 5). I want to diversify my workouts .... Janine wrote everything down and had gathered up her things. She had her hand on the door knob and I said, "Wait. I have one more goal."

Did you ever have one of those moments when words fell out of your mouth after rising up from the depths of your soul without going through any thought process whatsoever? Well that's what happened to me as I said, 'And I want to run the Boston Marathon next year for Spaulding Rehab. I hear they have a Race for Rehab team.'

And so it began - my journey from a survivor of paralytic polio and severe childhood trauma to becoming a runner!

I was playing around on Facebook today for #tbt and came up with this array of photos:

Christmas 2007 shortly after I hired my personal trainer:


Boston Marathon 2009:


Team McManus then and now training for Bermuda Marathon Weekend 2018:


And Bermuda Marathon Weekend 2016 and 2017:


At any point along this ten year healing odyssey, I could have given up and nobody would have blamed me!

Instead, I harness the power of my Fiery Spirit and persistence to set bigger and bigger goals!

On Saturday it will be 8 great miles on the road to my threepeat of the Bermuda Half Marathon.

After Bermuda, Team McManus will be heading once again to Camp Hyannis - Hyannis Marathon Weekend! Ruth Anne will be running the Half with her friend and Tom and I will be taking on the 10K.

Strength - persistence and goals - going the distance and garnering more stories for The Adventures of Runnergirl 1953!

Go the distance with strength and courage!
~Mary

Be sure to visit my website by following this link.

My books are available on Amazon.

Feel the Heal: An Anthology of Poems to Heal Your Life


Coming Home: A Memoir of Healing Hope and Possibility that chronicles the first 7 years of my healing journey:


And my latest and greatest book - Going the Distance: The Power of Endurance (With a Foreword by Jacqueline Hansen):