Proud Moment: John

My proudest moment would have to be crossing the finish line at my first triathlon, the Greenville Sprint on 8/17/08. When I put down the cigarettes only 9 months before, I did not think I could become a triathlete. Heck, then I couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs. Nobody thought I could run a triathlon. But I joined a gym, picked up some nicotine gum, and started out doing 20 minutes on the elliptical machine. That was all I could do.

By April of 2008 I was focused and could run on the treadmill finally. The workouts had grown to about an hour. Then a car accident sidelined me for 2 months. My car was totaled, and I was unable to run for april and may while recovering medically. I came so close to picking up the smokes again it scared me. Then the wife started making fun of me for even thinking about doing a triathlon earlier, and I became determined not to let the redneck that hit me take away my race. So I started training again. Getting into the pool, small brick workouts, using the stationary bike and treadmill at the gym, even doing mini-tri’s from my parents backyard pool.

Race day came and I knew I had managed the distances separately in training. But could I really string together 400 meters in the pool, 15 miles on the bike, and a 5k run? All in one shot? I finished in 2:02:30, good enough for last place in the novice group. But when I crossed that finish line, I knew then that I had won back my health and found a new kind of happiness that keeps me racing today.

Just this month I completed my first Olympic distance triathlon (1500 m swim, 24 mile bike, 10k run) only six days before I completed my first full marathon. And now I find myself unable to walk up a flight of stairs again. But this time, it’s not from smoking.

- Carolina John from Smoke Training

If you would like to share your proudest healthy memory, email story and photo to healthyashley dot gmail dot com.