Life as a professional athlete, as a Mom, as a wife…well life in general is similar to that of a roller coaster ride. One minute you are up, going full steam ahead, flying high with the wind in your hair, aint nothing gonna stop you. The next you hit a curve, a corner and you going downhill fast wondering what went wrong until suddenly before you know it you are on the up again and feeling on top of the world. There are no hard and fast rules in life but how you tackle it depicts the outcome.

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling,

                                      but in rising every time we fall.”

I write from my heart and to be honest, the last few months have been everything but plain sailing, they have been tough. After I ran and won CT Gun run on 11 September 2015 I was rushed into hospital for an emergency sinus surgery. I had thought the surgery was something minor and I’d have a few days off which right then seemed like a fabulous guilt free chance to “rest” and I would be back on the road in full force 2 or 3 days post surgery. Well that didn’t go to plan, the surgery hit me hard and 3 weeks later I was still battling to bounce back and sadly had to pull out of Valencia marathon which I had been training so hard for. Such is life and you have to roll with it. When one door closes another opens.

It took me 6 weeks to bounce back from that surgery but I can honestly say after being so sick with sinus for so long, I haven’t looked back.

Once Id got back on track things started to pick up, I started to feel the rhythm again and I was loving it. Runs were finally feeling awesome and I could feel my body was responding, I was “back”….so I thought. Until a few weeks down the line I got bronchitis, yip bronchitis. Staying healthy is one of my biggest challenges that I face as a mom of 3 little ones. We all have our own challenges, this is one of mine but in the bigger picture they wont be little for ever and they won’t always be brining home all these pre-school germs …well we can hope haha. The bronchitis hit me hard, I was man down for 10 days. Another knocked but I got up again.

Sometimes getting back up is SO hard and its at times like these that I realise how blessed I am and how incredibly grateful I am for “MY TEAM”. I get back up for them. The people who believe in me and support me through everything in this journey. From my husband, my rock, to my running partner, my Physio (Mr Sticky),my coach, my Bios, my running club KPMG, my sponsors, I’m not going to name them all, they know who they are… YOU GUYS ROCK. THANK-YOU for helping me see that I can be anything I want to be.

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”—Maya Angelou

TODAY I did a session at Prime with one of my best friends who just happens to be my physio too. We did an altitude session that I feel REALLY knocked me back into the game. It was hard, I hurt and it was AMAZING. It put things into perspective, it sorted my head out and IM BACK. It’s time to DIG DEEP and bring out the A game. Lets do this, let’s make it happen, lets enjoy the ride.

In the words of Dr Seus ” You off to great places. Today is your day. Your mountain is waiting. So get on your way.”