You go, Joan!

Joan Benoit Samuelson is 50 and running in the Olympic marathon trials.  When asked why she said,  “…because it’s an Olympic trial and I qualified.”  How inspiring is that? You go, Joan!

I love her.  She always came across as being so down to earth yet when running, looked like an angel in motion.  In my thirties I ran through graduate school, through my first job, through my licensing boards and early marriage until illness stopped me.  Eventually I got back to modified running, walk/running, whatever my body can do at the time. (I despise the term jogging, bleh!)  Joan was always an inspiration and she still is.  She says,

“Marathoning is a metaphor for life, so there are a lot of parallels you can draw.  I tell people to follow your dream, follow your heart, follow your passion, run your own race and believe in yourself.  I think anybody who wants to succeed has to have passion.”   

You go, Joan!

Joan invites us to see that at 50 we are all marathoners, that each of us can choose to run our own race with style, hearts pumping, heads up, moving forward with purpose and passion.  Thanks for the inspiration.  Thanks for helping me to remember that I have purpose and passion.  I can keep running my race.