Well hello there.

I'm Michelle. The gal "running" this place (pun very much intended). I'm married to J, and mom to sweet lil LJ (almost 2). I have been overweight obese most of my life. As long as I can remember though, I've wanted to run, but figured that the impact would kill my knees. I let that, as well as my laziness and love of food, stall me from exercising for many moons. All it did was make the numbers on the scale climb higher & higher.

Being fat for so long (close to 35 years), I've heard all sorts of comments about my size. For the most part, I  pretty happy with who I am, regardless of my 300+ lb stature. I have a good husband, now have a great little boy, stable job, good (quirky but good) sense of humor, and some fantabulous friends. But something clicked in my head in the last few months, and I realized that I can deal with comments made about my weight, but I don't don't want to subject my son to having to deal with them too. Because let's face it, kids are cruel. If they can bug another about something, they will. I don't want to be "LJ's fat mom" for either of us. And the fact that LJ's mom is fat, well, that could/will be fodder for someone some day, unless literally I get up off the couch and change it.

So I've been doing just that. I started volunteering 3h/wk in the JUMP! child minding program at my local GoodLife gym, and in return I get a free gym membership, and free child minding for LJ when I'm working out. Dudes, i KNOW. FREE. it's my favorite thing ever.

I"m trying to work my way up to 5k, and am following a c25k-ish schedule for trying to run, but it's a slow go. Hell, I couldn't run more than a minute when I started, and can now do 2-3 minutes a few times in a 30-min treadmill session (depends on the day). My goal right now is to run the MacPass Mile in August, and I'll be participating in the Bluenose Marathon 5k event in May. I'm not sure if I'll be doing that as a runner, walker or somewhere in between, but I will be there.

So anyway, that's me. Hopefully this blog will chronicle my thoughts & progress on my journey.. I've linked up some running/fitness blogs that I like on the side, I hope you'll check them out too.

Oh. One more thing. A case of the runs. Kind of a sh!tty title, right? But I think of it more as a case of wanting to DO something (ie RUN), rather than "i gotta poop". Hey, I'm mom to a toddler. poop happens. So will running, I hope.