#tbt A Date With Destiny

I'm putting together my latest poetry book, "Feel the Heal: An Anthology of Poems" which is a collection of some of my earlier works along with my latest poetic creations.



What is so striking to me is that a poem I wrote in 2007 is now manifesting in physical reality. I wrote about the tremors being healed and having a strong core; creating myself anew and playing my game my rules (to quote Dave McGillvray's favorite phrase that I only heard last year). At the time, I had not yet been discharged from Spaulding Rehab's outpatient care and was carrying a diagnosis of post polio syndrome, a progressive neuromuscular disease. I was told that I would need to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. I was by all appearances weak, deconditioned, wearing a leg brace, experiencing chronic fatigue, tremors were very evident at the time and yet, yet I wrote this poem that talks about the body falling away healed as I prepared to leave my award winning career as a VA social worker:

A Date With Destiny

Don’t wait til you die to let your soul fly free
please listen and hear what happened to me.
My body was broken every imaginable place
yet to the world always a smile on my face.
My soul trapped inside feeling it was broken too
God brought me out of darkness my light I shine on you.
She showed me the way through people I met
it took awhile a message hard to get.

The kingdom of heaven is right inside me
take the leap of faith fulfill destiny.
While I did my soul work and let my soul fly free
my body transformed changes did I see.
My head now aligned the tremor no more
my body aligned such strength in my core.
When once head detached from my heart and my soul
they all work together amazingly whole.
The rules that I live by are my rules alone
I found strength and courage the past now has flown.

I followed my heart to create myself anew
to feel simply Divine despite all I've lived through.
Take the leap of faith into grace I can fall
but I’m floating on air answering God’s call.
Don’t wait til you die to let your soul fly free
there’s no reason to live a life in misery.
Follow your passions and I will tell you this
the body falls away healed when you follow your bliss.

Here is a visual of me Christmas 2007:


Running the 2009 Boston Marathon:


and after scoring a huge PR last year at the Bill Rodgers 5K:



As I sat in my half empty office in the winter/early Spring of 2007 at the VA, preparing to take a leap of faith and walk away from my career to heal my life, somewhere, somehow I knew deep inside of me that I had a date with destiny.

To life!

I chronicle the first 7 years of my healing journey after being diagnosed with post polio syndrome, a progressive neuromuscular disease as a survivor of childhood paralytic polio and 9 years of childhood domestic violence in Coming Home:A Memoir of Healing, Hope and Possibility.


In Journey Well, the journey continues in the wake of my nephew's suicide on 3/4/11 and the events of 4/15/13. Through my journey of healing and transformation, we learn that no matter what life circumstances happen to us, we can always find a way to journey well.


50% of book proceeds from all of my books, available on Amazon are donated to the Arredondo Family Foundation whose mission is to provide a helping hand to those experiencing a tragedy and to provide education on matters relating to military, veterans, military families, and the issue of suicide.

My Running Chroncles: Advice from Olympian Billy Mills

The subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between reality and imagination ... Relive the moment the way you want it to be. - Billy Mills Olympic Gold Medalist

Heading out on my training run, I wanted to break that 16:00 minute/mile pace that has been with me since I returned to the roads in March. I had it in my mind's eye last Saturday but it didn't happen. I'd been watching Billy Mills YouTube video as I retrain myself as a runner after last December's injury. I've been keeping a healing journal and writing affirmations.



I wanted to write down in my training journal a 5K run with a sub 16:00 minute/mile pace but to be honest, I was afraid to write it down in case I missed my mark. Now I know that you have to be willing to commit 100% to goals. I am still clearing out the messages from doctors and therapists who discouraged me from running or pushing myself. I guess too there was a part of me that didn't want to "fail" if I wrote down the goal and fell short today and that's okay. The important thing is that although I couldn't commit to writing down the goal, I made a shift in my thoughts before I went on my run.

I reminded myself that I am a runner. I imagined Forrest Gump and Wilma Rudolph and Billy Mills. I am fearless when it comes to setting and achieving goals when I move out of the way and allow the transformation to happen.

I thought about the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza, and "You Are the Placebo" and rather than focusing on the how's or why's or what's of breaking the 16:00 min/mile pace and beginning to focus on a PR for my race on July 3rd, I decided to set the goal and just let it happen.

I reminded myself of how I felt when I ran in 2010 breaking PR after PR by setting my mind and intention squarely on the outcome and visualizing how I wanted the moments to be. I ran and flowed from the inside out.

I could tell when my mind was straying from working coherently with my body and I reeled it right back using the imagery that Joe uses in his You Are the Placebo book about taming a stallion to focus during meditation.

I felt a side stitch and nauseous and I reminded myself to run from my soul. I kept coming back to running from my soul and allowing the beautiful elegant runner within me to emerge.

I did not look at my time but had every confidence that I was running a sub 16:00 minute/mile pace. I believed it with every fiber of my being and asked the Universe to work with me to just make it happen.

Now just as a side note - I have also been strength training and cross training in the pool to become the runner I am today but my beliefs about my running and setting goals are just as crucial as the physical training. Joe Dispenza talks about the importance of coherence with the mind body. During my run today I kept coming back to feeling everything working together releasing doubts and placing all of my physical, mental and spiritual energies into the outcome I wanted for today's training run.



And so it happened! My fastest pace since 9/20/14 and 1 minute and 46 seconds within striking range of my 46:53 PR at the Bill Rodgers 5K in August. ***46:52*** is the time I want to see on the clock when we cross the finish line at the Finish at the 50 on July 3rd. I believe in setting goals not limits and I know how amazing it feels to open this body up and just run as well and as fast as I possibly can.



I'm back feeling strong and confident as a runner once more surrounded by a great support crew in my husband and my running family. And when doubts or fears rear their little head, I can now outrun them. I'm retraining myself mind, body and Spirit for speed and endurance. Success breeds success. Seeing an average pace of 15:33 with splits of 15:44, 15:14 and 15:47 (the last mile had a hill!) makes me smile from ear to ear.



Life is indeed a marathon and I am so blessed on the roads and off.

Cheers! To Life! Love yourself well!

I chronicle the first 7 years of my healing journey after being diagnosed with post polio syndrome, a progressive neuromuscular disease as a survivor of childhood paralytic polio and 9 years of childhood domestic violence in Coming Home:A Memoir of Healing, Hope and Possibility.


I am working on my new book, Feel the Heal: An Anthology of Poems which brings together my best poems of the last 8 years and will include my latest poems as I continue to feel the heal and move forward in my life.

With Gratitude to J Alain Ferry - I Leave My Doubts at the Starting Line

I'm nervous. I'm excited. I just want Monday to arrive yet I want to savor every moment leading up to race day. Friday is t-shirt and bib pick up at City Sports for the Tufts Health Plan 10K for Women. I'll have a lunch date after bib pick up with Tom. I just want to cross the starting line. I just want to cross the finish line hearing the cheers from Tom and my running family. I want to experience every foot strike of the 6.2 miles on the Tufts 10K course. I want to run smart from the inside out and I would like to see my finish time better than 1:36:09 which was my finish time the last time I ran Tufts in 2010, "body and conditions willing" as my friend Gail Martin likes to say.

As I countdown to Tufts feeling all of the emotions that one feels leading up to a big race day, I have to express my heartfelt gratitude to J Alain Ferry of RaceMenu. I put in training runs, raced, put the time in the pool with Aquatics Therapy at Spaulding Rehab and continue now with mental and Spiritual preparation for Monday, but thanks to the overwhelming support, unconditional love and encouragement of Alain and his races, in addition to feeling nervous, excited and all the rest, I feel strong and confident going into Monday's race.

"Are you J Alain Ferry?" I asked Alain well into our volunteer shift together at the Heartbreak Hill Half Marathon Weekend and Festival.

"Yes. That would be me," he replied.

Alain was the driving force behind the #onerun on May 25, 2013 which marked the beginning of my running comeback:



We talked about what the #onerun meant to me, to Alain and to the city of Boston. He reminded me that he was the one who pulled out his bib from his pocket and said that we have a race to finish during the pre-race ceremony on that chilly, rainy morning in May where the weather could not dampen the spirits of everyone present.

As I ran the #onerun, I remembered why I ran the 2009 Boston Marathon and why I run. I knew in every fiber of my being I had to get back to running and the running community. I reached out and added my running friends on Facebook who were eager to reconnect and I weeded out the people I had brought into my circle who were not living Truth.

Alain handed me postcards to share with my running groups for the inaugural Bill Rodgers 5K Race to benefit Prostate Cancer.

"All ages and all abilities?" I inquired. "Absolutely," was Alain's reply.

"Oh and I'm also the race director for the Spectacle Island Run," Alain told me.

"My friend Elizabeth told me about that but she left Boston.com and I wasn't planning on running it. It's all ages and all abilities, right?"

"Absolutely. She is going to try to come back for race day so you definitely have to do it."

I registered that evening for the Bill Rodgers 5K and Spectacle Island races.

I was planning to run one race in June, my Corrib Pub 5K that was my very first 5K road race ever in 2008 and then train alone for Tufts. I was going to find women at my pace who I could run with at Tufts. But life has a way of redirecting us to where we need to be. Instead, I decided to run Tufts alone and ended up running 5 races between June and today. Each one has treasured memories and a special place in my heart but Alain's races took me to new places in my running comeback.

As a race director he has thousands and thousands of details to attend to before a race. I didn't even know I was on his radar before the Bill Rodgers 5K but he was reading my blogs and was there to cheer me on to a strong finish nailing my PR for the day. He told me it was a very special moment for him as a race director to see me with tears in my eyes digging so deep for that final stretch to the finish. When I crossed that finish line I reclaimed the runner within me. What a blessing to have the love and support of WCVB's Phil Lipof in a special post race ceremony surprise after Alain shared my inspirational story with him:



I panicked before the Spectacle Island Run after seeing the course maps. Alain responded to my Facebook posts and took the time to respond to my emails. I was almost ready to bail on the race but he told me I was ready and I was going to crush it. And crush it I did by persevering through hills and heat!





I'll be carrying Alain's love and support with me as I run the Tufts 10K on Monday. My body now knows how it feels to race again and to nail a PR. And while I feel nervous and excited, I feel strong and confident. With deepest gratitude to J Alain Ferry, I leave my doubts at the starting line.






The first 7 years of my healing odyssey are chronicled in Coming Home: A Memoir of Healing, Hope and Possibility available on Amazon. I donate 50% of royalty payments to The One Fund Boston to help survivors and their families who were affected by the tragic events of 4/15/13.



I'm working on my 2nd book, "Journey Well," due out later this year:

Race Preview: Blue Cross Blue Shield Island Run

I have another race coming up on Sunday with my dear friend and race director J. Alain Ferry of RaceMenu. I don't feel quite the same fire in my belly to PR this race as I did with the Bill Rodgers 5K Race/Walk to Benefit Prostate Cancer. There were many factors that fueled that fire which you can read about in "It's More Than a Race..." However, I do have a time in my mind's eye, 46:50 which would be 3 seconds off of my PR at the Bill Rodgers 5K.

I definitely have a fire in my belly to PR the Tufts 10K on October 13th visualizing a time of 1:35:35. Sunday's race is a wonderful prep race for Tufts.

I trained hard last Saturday really pushing myself to the edge and came within a minute or so of my PR during that run in which I incorporated hills. I don't know what the course will be like and the weather prediction is for temps in the 80's with sun. We will be in the Harbor so there might be a sea breeze. We will have to evaluate conditions on race day to see how far I want to push given that Tufts is two weeks after the Island Run.

I do notice that I am seeing glimmers of my 2010 running self when I was at the top of my running game. Back in 2010, I ran at least 5 races in 5 months and crushed PR after PR culminating with the Somerville Jingle Bell Run 5K in December. I am 4 years older so my times will be slower. I also had a strong base from training for and running the 2009 Boston Marathon. It's been a long, at times arduous road back after leaving running and the running community in September of 2011. In June, I ran the Corrib Pub 5K and the following week ran the Father Bullock Charity Road Race taking 2nd in my Age Group. Okay there were only two people in my age group but that doesn't matter. In August I ran the Inaugural Bill Rodgers 5K to Benefit Prostate Cancer and nailed a PR. On 9/13, I ran the Ogunquit Lobster Dash 5 Miler and this Sunday the Spectacle Island Run 5K. Two weeks later it's game on for Tufts. After Tufts, we begin training for the Feaster Five 5K. That will be a total of 7 races in 6 months.

It's an exciting time for me in my return to running. I know that when I go out there and race, I want to give it my all and leave nothing on the roads. Each race is an adventure. Ogunguit Beach Lobster Dash had strong headwinds, the sound of the surf, and huge puddles and rivets of rippled sand to run over. I know that Spectacle Island will hold its own sense of wonder and adventure. How awesome to take a ferry to the starting line.

Since Aquatics Therapy at Spaulding was cancelled for today, I went on a 5K walk to stay loose for Sunday's race. I'm going to have my weekly massage treatment tomorrow at Sollievo Massage and Bodywork and then rest up for Sunday's race.

I'm feeling really good about Sunday's race and I am going to take the advice of my friend and a wonderful coach, Reno Stirrat:



Alain commented on my Nike+ post from last Saturday's training run, "I can't wait to see you rock Spectacle Island." Me too!




The first 7 years of my healing odyssey are chronicled in Coming Home: A Memoir of Healing, Hope and Possibility available on Amazon. I donate 50% of royalty payments to The One Fund Boston to help survivors and their families who were affected by the tragic events of 4/15/13.



I'm working on my 2nd book, "Journey Well," due out later this year: