Walking Into 2025

Welcome to Soleful Steps, where I strive to uplift, encourage and inform readers. This is my first blog post, yay!

As 2024 comes to an end, I reflect on the highs and lows of the year. They year began with several professional conferences, where I not only learned valuable information to as a registrant to implement in my career but also as a presenter gaining experience and confidence in public speaking. 

By spring, triathlon training was in full effect. I completed a few Olympic distance triathlons early spring and 70.3 Eagleman half ironman in June, in prepation for my 140.6 Ironman Maryland in September. Spring and summer flew by with my ironman training. This summer was brutally hot and training for the running portion of the triathlong was a struggle to say the least. With cycling, I get a slight breezes, so it's a bit more bearable in the heat. Even with my training, I was able to squeeze in a few fun events. I spent my birthday weekend in the mountains of West Virginia (see pictures). I continued my training while catching beautiful sunset and sunrise views. A few weeks later, I drove to Rocky Mount, NC to do the Black Farm Tour century bike ride. A century bike ride is a 100 mile cycling event. On one of the hotest days of the year, we rode through rural farm lands of Rocky Mount. Many of the farms in the area are black owned farms. They provided our hydration and fueling along the course. The homemade pickle juic was a lifesaver! This was followed by a weekend trip to Philadelphia for our regional convention for Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Because I was still training for my race, we packed our bikes and was able to get in a bike ride along the scenic Schuylkill River and Schuylkill Trail. I love sight seeing while running or cycling, it's a great way to see the sights!  

In the final weeks up to my race, I had some firsts and adventurous open water swim sessions. Twice this summer, I swam in the dark before sunrise! Now, I've ran and cycled in the dark but I've never swam in the dark! It was excited but scary, but I survived! 

September 21st, I completed my first Ironman distance race. An Ironman is a total of 140.6 miles, that consists of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 run. The thought of this was daunting but it has been a goal of mine for a few years now. This was a major accomplishment and has changed me. If I can complete an Ironman at the spry age of 55, what else can I accomplish!

After watchingThe Six Tripple Eight movie, Wicked several times, I am inspired, proud and motivated as an African American woman! So I'm going into 2025 with a new sense of "badassness", defying gravity! I'm looking forward to what the year will bring. What was your milestones for 2024 and what are you looking forward to for 2025? 

Merry Christimas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!