I am so stoked!

Susan says: Aaahhh, the leading lady in my own life. Well said Jennifer. I love that. I am the leading lady, my husband is the leading man and our kids are the best supporting actor and actress. (They get to be the leading man and leading lady in their own lives)

In true leading lady fashion, I am so stoked! I’m having the best time in my forties. I’ve decided to try all these things I’ve never tried before this decade – sort of a jump start on my bucket list, right? So I’ve recently joined “Team Ripped Chix” (just the name sounds so cool, I think…) and I am training for a marathon! Team Ripped Chix is a group of women, awesome women who started out as friends and acquaintances. Some of them are real sports aficionados and some are just beginners like me. The more seasoned ones are helping the beginners and we are making a great team. This is my first marathon. Since I’ve never done it before, I will be part of a relay team that divides up the miles. Since the race is 24 (or so) miles, 6 of us run four miles. That’s not so bad. In fact, it’s just perfect. I have a great gradual program that I will do over the next 12 weeks to get up to comfortably running a 10K, so 4 miles will be a piece of cake. So far I love the early morning hours; I get my dogs and we go for a walk/run.

But the really cool thing about this group of running ripped chix is that we have decided to use our marathon running to raise money for charities. Frankly, the idea of doing it for money never even occurred to me. But some of the women had done this for previous runs, so we all decided “why not?” I quite like the idea. It makes it about more than just myself, serves as a motivator (and at 6:00 a.m. when that alarm goes off, I can use all the motivators I can get!) and helps out some great causes. So I need a charity! Any great ideas? Each woman is making suggestions and we will be coming up with the best way to do it. Some of the suggestions have been for various disease/cure related causes, other suggestions have been for creating awareness about certain health and or social issues. Some suggested the charity be a local one. The Williams Syndrome Foundation is one that is near and dear to my heart, but there doesn’t seem to be a local chapter. So I am taking suggestions – make a comment and name anything at all and why and I will consider it. I will let you know what I come up with.

Yay Team Ripped Chix!!