Never took a step until I was 38!

I never even had P.E. in school because I had juvenile bursitis and a bunch of other stuff. I used to be a size 20 and almost 200 pounds. I got down to about a size 14 when I started running. Now I'm a size 2! I have been married to the love of my life since 1995 and I am the parent of two awesome boys. My oldest has autism but is nearly recovered. The journey to autism recovery was a marathon in and of itself. Enduring much retaliation for the fight to get him services led me to seek an outlet that I could release some stress....found it in running. I've only been running for about 6 months. I ran my first 5k a couple weeks ago with a time of 33:12 so I'm slow but steady. Signed up today for my first half marathon in October and I am shooting for participating in a marathon in March in my area that is just 3 days before my 40th birthday. I'm very excited to have found this site and look forward to learning a lot!

p.s. Anyone else think Fartlek is just a hilarious word?

Welcome aboard! I love stories like this. You will find great folks, advice and encouragement here.

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Run, run, as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!

Welcome...congrats on the 5K!

An inspirational account! Autism, as you no doubt know, has a large spectrum, some of the abilities are amazing. My son demonstrates various traits...Sometime he drives me crazy, yet he has achieved far more than I ever did at 15 years of age.

Welcome to the forum! You've accomplished so much already it's inspiring!

I have a student who is autistic and am just amazed by her. She loves puzzles and organizing, so I had my classes make puzzles from their drawings. We laminated them and mounted them on cardboard and gave them to her. The way her eyes just lit up as she said her first words to me, "Wow!" reminded me of why I teach out here.