On The Right Track

Thanks to the incredible support of the amazing people I'm surrounded by, throughout the global network of connected individuals, everything is progressing swimmingly.

Centrelink approved funding for my prosthesis and it is currently being configured by APC Prosthetics in Northmead. I have to head to the office, bike in tow, to test it on Tuesday. While I'm over there, I need to go in and meet all my friends at TADNSW, who have let me piggyback off their charity to raise - can you believe it - $10,100?! Wow! I'll come back to this point.

I've changed bike supplier and what a great choice that has turned out to be! My coach suggested that it would be beneficial for me to work with Clarence St Cyclery because they're close to my work, he has a great relationship with the manager and because they have developed a support relationship with the Paralympic team. They are very sympathetic to my cause, also, and have given me a great deal, as well as being tremendously attentive and helpful. Danni and I went in to get me fitted up for the bike and there is only 1 part missing from completion. If that part can be sourced locally (it is currently on backorder), then within a week from now, I'll have my bike and stationary trainer in my home!! The funds raised are sufficient to cover my bike and trainer, helmet and cleats, proper clothing, a good lock AND insurance.

Learning to ride, on the other hand, is the biggest challenge I've faced yet. I met coach Tom out at Dunc Grey velodrome on Tuesday to have my first lesson... It was super tough. 28 years of my oblique slings functioning in their specific and unique alignment, which involves my right ribs slotting over to the right hand side of my right hip, is a difficult thing to correct and is prohibitive to me finding the balance point and position to allow for solo riding. Technical and complicated, I know, but essentially it lead to me being exhausted within 10 minutes! The other problem is that, unlike my coach, I'm not very patient. Seeing me try to ride for the first time, he just smiled and sighed and said "this is going to take a while."

Raising over $10 000 in such a short time has not only done amazing things for my confidence, but it has exposed me to the beauty of the human spirit and the power of human generosity and kindness. The wonderful ways in which people contributed and the ideas people had were ingenious and touching. I need to make a couple of shout outs:

• To Skye Jones, for calling for paper bag donations in all her spin classes.
• To Diane Azzopardi for auctioning her dvds to contribute.
• To Jules, who sold his artwork at a discount and donated a percentage to me.
• To Louise and Steve Kovacs, for their generous donation and requesting that I write to their nieces and nephews - which I did.
• To Fitness First Bond St for running a charity day with $10 sessions and all proceeds going to me - thanks also to the PTs who volunteered their time for me.
• To FSP for their $1500 contribution and complete support.
• To the friends I didn't know I had or hadn't heard from in so long who surprised and delighted me with HUGE donations.
• To Donna and Alison, for all your advice and encouragement.
• To Ingrid, for the posters, for listening, for being patient, for my website, my newsletter, for everything.
• To Eddie, Chandler and Danni: for being my tripod of closest friends, who support me in every way, every day. It takes a lot of flexibility and patience!
• To Scott and Louise, who jumped in at the very last to push me over the line.
• To everyone who contributed in any way. For Donating. For spreading the word. For believing in me. For caring. For being part of something bigger than ourselves.

Thank you <3

This Amazing Journey

I am pretty positive most of the time that I lead a particularly charmed life. I live in a GORGEOUS city, it is a beautiful time of year, I love my work because I find it so satisfying and rewarding to help people change their bodies, minds and lives. I have found my soul mate and life partner and I live exactly how I believe and see fit. I run when I want to, swim, dance, move, live, breathe, share, eat and cook. I experience so much joy.

It wasn't always like this. In fact, I've been through times tougher and darker than many. That's another thing I'm glad for - that most people can be spared those experiences, but also that I'm strong enough to shoulder them.

I'm happy as it is and I'm totally glad to be here... I'm an ambitious creature though and I love a good challenge, so the opportunity to work towards a gold medal in cycling at the paralympics when I've never ridden a bike alone is something I simply can't pass up. In fact, it frightens me to admit I've never wanted anything so badly in my whole life.

So I'm just back from a month overseas, trekking in Himalaya - hard to be me, right? I start planning some fundraising events and plotting some ideas for February - when people's wallets have had a chance to recover from Christmas and New Years, and so my ideas and events are well conceived and well executed.

Then on Monday I received an email from the Paralympic Committee advising that the National track championships are on February 3-6 2011, and that I need to attend for classification and to put down a time.

BUT I HAVE NO BIKE OR PROSTHESIS!?

So after a minor panic attack, I resolve to set to work on Tuesday to raise funds for my bike with the special gear set that will enable me to ride one handed and the stationary trainer that will enable me to ride MY bike, indoors, without an arm. I got up early and wrote a plan and brainstormed with my close friend, graphic designer and web site producer, Ingrid in Canada. I was on the phone by 9am, spoke to my accountant about the possible ways I could raise funds without the tax man eating them instead of them going to my bike and the donors receiving the tax deductions they deserve. The only feasible solution was to partner with a charity.

I got onto the Everyday Hero site and went through the list of charities geared towards helping people with disabilities... When I got down to T, I discovered TADNSW - Technical Aids for the Disabled. A charity with a service called Freedom Wheels - specifically aimed at assisting the disabled to ride bikes! Well YAY - that's exactly what I want to do! So I got on the phone secured an authority to fund raise. I see the beginnings of a beautiful partnership... While its fantastic that I found this organisation just when I needed them most, I must say that I'm completely baffled and bewildered by the fact that I have not once heard of this service in all my 28 years. I could have started riding long ago!

I spoke to the team at Renegade Cycles and made sure they knew about my order and were happy to help and I also contacted my friends at Financial Service Partners, who helped launch my motivational speaking career. Then I built my fundraising page and got Ingrid to help me writeup the facebook event.

At 1pm Tuesday I launched my fundraising campaign on Facebook and Twitter. I sent my email campaign shortly after. To my astonishment, the donations started rolling in immediately, accompanied by beautiful messages of encouragement and support. It was an incredible feeling to be connected to so many people in the faith and hope that I will reach this lofty goal of raising $10 000 in 10 days, and ultimately success in para-cycling. At the time of writing this entry, less than 48 hours later, I have raised $4535. INCREDIBLE.

Wednesday was another big day! Fitness First have offered to run a fund raising event where the PTs will give  30 minute training sessions for $10, with all proceeds going to my cause. FSP have a plan to raise funds for me and another friend is pitching me to her company in the hopes of securing corporate sponsorship (thanks Donna!). I also met with my cycling coach, Tom Skulander, and will be headed out to the Velodrome to start training with him (see: learning to ride a bike, Jayme Paris' old one!) on Tuesday.

This morning I did another big thing and instructed APC Prosthetics to go ahead and order my arm from the US. I am confident that funding for the prosthesis will be secured when required.

The response has been completely overwhelming. This amount of support is something I never dreamed I was destined for. I just keep trying to keep on top of the donation emails, responding with my expressions of gratitude, regardless of how insignificant and unsubstantial they seem to me as compensation.


My eyes keep welling up with tears. This journey is amazing. I have never felt so loved.


If you have made it this far through reading my post, please share this link to my fundraising page and my story with everyone you know.


<3

Loving The Journey

The Toyota Paralympic Talent Search was an incredible experience and I got so much out of it. Meeting bronze medalist Jayme Paris and her devoted mother Trayce was a huge gift. This is a relationship I look forward tremendously to developing over the coming years.

Fast forward 10 days and my first motivational speech for a Financial Service Partners dinner was a great success. I couldn't have done so well without the tremendous support, guidance and encouragement of Andrew May, or without Geoff organising the event. I was completely unprepared for the positive response I received or the amount and quality of support offered. More great contacts made, more amazing relationships to nurture and grow.

2 short days after that and I was sitting in APC Northmead with plaster drying on my arm - my first ever mould for creating a socket for my first ever prosthesis, the arm. My phone rang and it was fitness first calling to tell me that I had made the finals for the $30000 New You Awards.

Another 2 days and I received my letter from the Paralympic Committee, encouraging me to continue training for both cycling and athletics! 2 more days and the New You Awards came and filmed an interview with me in the gym and a request for permission to contact the local media followed.

In short, the good news has flowed freely in my direction. I am with a man that I love passionately and on a journey that I feel the same way about. I know what I want. I have clarity. I have direction. My goals are clear and success would feel amazing, but RIGHT NOW is better than the end game. I'm really loving the journey. Every moment is incredible. I'm living my life from the heart and I honestly feel that this is the biggest reward in itself. Once I took that first step in the direction of my dreams, everything around it has fallen into place so naturally. I never want this to end.

I do so love life all its challenges and my next one begins Monday, when I fly out. I'll be overseas for a month, and for 25 days I'll be trekking through the Himilayas, headed for Everest Base Camp. You can find plenty of information about my trip here. I'll have my best friend with me and a fully loaded kit of supplied we have spent months accumulating. I've no doubt this will be the trip of a lifetime.

I'm also using the trip as the start of an 80 day challenge to mentally, spiritually and physically prepare myself for 2011. I want to finish 2010 in the shape that I want to maintain from day 1 of the coming year and I will do everything in my power to ensure that the next year is the best one so far. Once I'm back, I will be detoxing, goal setting, programming and planning. I will write in a journal for 20 minutes every single day starting Monday. I'm going to head towards this years' end having taken stock and expressed gratitude for all that it has brought me and for the person I have become - and I'm going to do everything in my power to ensure that person is everything that I can be :)

See you in November! Xx

The Snowball Effect

I'm 9 days away from participating in the paralympic talent search day and I need to turn my head space around.

Calamity has snowballed over the past 2 weeks: I have dropped and smashed my PDA twice in ten days ($120, $150) and last night locked my keys in my apartment ($120). These things don't really impact me in any meaningful way, but I think energetically I may have drawn them to me by my mounting dread and negativity.

Yesterday was the worst day I have experienced in recent memory. I have been training exceptionally hard and had an extremely tough and rewarding hill session on Wednesday morning. It was physically draining and my legs have suffered. I have also been limiting my carb intake. My first practice run of the beep test yesterday afternoon really reflected these two factors and my result was terrible. My legs just wouldn't serve me, though the lungs were OK. My attitude was terrible going into the test and I let myself down from the very beginning. Worse than the result itself was my emotional reaction to it. I was a tearful mess for the hours following. Its a good sign that I'm carb depleted, over-trained, but most of all, I'm completely overwhelmed.

As a child, I was kicked off the school netball team. I was always the last girl picked for any sports team. My self esteem in the sporting arena was abysmal and my performance reflected my sentiments. In 9 days time, when I step onto that field, I don't want those memories to come with me. I don't want those feelings to hinder me. This fear of failure I'm currently battling is at risk of paralyzing me. I want to send it packing. I want to summon the internal power, the strength and will to make all that negativity turn on its heels and flee. I want this entry to be the turning point to setting me on track to positivity.

The people I will meet at next Sunday's talent search will likely have had very similar childhood experiences to me. They have all faced adversity. Their bio-mechanics are all going to be challenging them in different ways, just as mine challenge me. This is my opportunity to compete on a level playing field. It's also my opportunity to shine. What I would love to be able to do is go in there and beam. I have this light inside me. This power to  inspire people just through my radiant love of being alive. I want to generate that energy and to produce enough of it to motivate ALL of us next weekend. I want the experience to be a positive one for every athlete on the field, but especially so for every single person I come into contact with. I want us all to be enriched and feel like winners on the day and for the outcome to be secondary to the experience.

Please send me your love, thoughts, well wishes and positive energy to help me make it so. <3