I NEVER thought I could do this!

How can I describe cold winter weather for those of you who have never experienced it…when you step outside and take your first breath, it feels as though your lungs are shrinking. After about a minute, your nose starts to run, and your mitten becomes a ready-made tissue. Sometimes your eyelashes will freeze to your upper lids, which then takes a quick mitt rub (with the other mitt of course) and a few fast blinks to warm things up again. Fingers, toes and cheeks become numb within minutes and if you ever experienced this, you know the ever importance of slowly warming up cold appendages. If you do it too quick (like run them under warm water) they start to itch and hurt like you’ve never felt before.

Yes, Canadian winter is not for the faint of heart. You must be hearty and tough out there – but most importantly, dress for the weather and that is exactly what I did when I ran the other night in the 8km Sight Night Run. I am proud to say it took me 1 hour and 2 minutes to conquer this feat. This is the farthest distance I’ve run in a race thus far.

What I’ve learned from this experience is that I truly and do ANYTHING I set my mind to. My goals and aspirations are LIMITLESS.