Ok well, I guess it’s my turn.
My name is Nichole. I’m 30 yrs old and I have 4 kids ages ; andres 12, Soledad 10, nikola 8, and Adrian 6. I am a personal trainer but mostly, a stay-at-home mom. Sooooooo….
I started running at 19 after my first child. Really, I never did anything physical up until then. In fact, I prided myself on that. I moved to AZ from NY when I was 12 and I think that the jock culture there really ruined sports for me. In my 6 th grade mind, it was cultish. Kids in my new school actually brought kickball to school with them in preparation for recess. It was totally different for me. Everyone talked about sports all the time! Even in academics, everything revolved around sports. I should point out that not all of AZ is like this. I happened to move to Scottsdale AKA “Snottsdale” and a pre requisite for living there was being white and loving sports. Even if u weren’t white, as long as u wanted to be, u were A OK. So as u can c, I didn’t think much of this little subculture of AZ and wanted nothing to do with anything that represented them. I successfully never took P.E. For all 4 years of High school. During my senior yr of high school I moved to an apartment complex with my mom and sister. That is where I met my husband. We got married and I moved back to NY at 18. We moved to my grandparents basement apartment in commack and I was so happy to be back in NY! It was like I had been holding my breath for 7 years and finally, I could breath. Probably for reasons more than just regional. During the last couple of years in AZ, my mom had gone through her third divorce, my step dad ( who raised me for most my life and I called dad) had left us and never looked back, and for my sophomore year I had been the only one left in the house… Literally! My dad left, my sister took off, n my mom moved in with her boyfriend. I was responsible for getting rides to school and my mom would come periodically to drop off money which I in turn spent on ordering pizza 24/7. Just to clarify, my mom was a good mom but depression and tragedy is not a respecter of persons and she went a little wacky for a bit. I include this part of my life only to offset the shock that I was married so young and quickly. I was 18 chronologically but really, I was not a typical 18 year old. So fast forward, we moved NY and my dad got my husband a job in local 1456 Dockbuilders union and he was able to bypass the 7 yr apprenticeship at the age of 20! This was a huge deal and I will forever be grateful to my dad. Oh and yeah, I started a relationship with my dad at the age of 18 when I moved back to NY. Up until that point, he had not been in my life. I has my first child that nov. We only had one car and I bought a second hand stroller and started walking to Mayfair shopping center that spring just to get out of the house. It was a pretty special experience because as children, my sister and I used to ride our bikes the same route to Mayfair and now I was walking with my baby. Seemed like life had come full circle and I really enjoyed this time in my life. Soon I discovered that I could get there faster if I ran. It was only 1.5 miles away so wasn’t unrealistic. I started running. I then got a different stroller because the wheels on the one I had kept falling off lol. All of this running was done with no intention of being athletic or taking part in a sport. I just wanted to get to baby Gap faster and it was cold outside. By the summer it happened, I was now running for fun. What. The. Hell! How could I let this happen?! I eventually got over my self betrayal and by 20 years old, now ran routinely with my double stroller and two kids. I really liked it and the kids loved it! When my second child was 9 months, I did my first marathon. It was ok I guess but I really didn’t like the crowds and it felt very much like a performance and less like my runs. I had two more kids in the next 4 years and by 24, I had a specialty made to order triple stroller and did all my runs with the younger three in tow while my oldest was in school. This was my running group for many years. I did a couple more official marathons but did a lot more unofficial ones. I don’t run for the race. For the most part, I stayed away from running groups cause they killed my vibe with all there competition, PR’s, calf strains, and race talk. After years of running the Selden hills on my own ( an 11 mile variation) I found the Selden hills warriors and u guys became an exception to my rule.