I’ve always loved sports and exercise, but perhaps lacked commitment at particular times in my life 🙂

My current journey started in January of 2013. I decided that it was all very well to say that I didn’t have time to get fit and look after my health, but my family, friends and colleagues would definitely not thank me for the other things I was doing if this neglect led me to an early grave.

Add to that the realisation that I was not getting any younger, and some long-time goals like competing in a half marathon were not going to get any easier for me with every year that passed.

I started with some embarrassment at my size and lack of fitness, in the comfort and privacy of my living room. I will be forever grateful to Jonathan and his team at BootCamp Hub for start they gave me with interval and strength training. I finally could fit something in, and the approach really worked.

I started running again too, and completed a half marathon in September of 2013. I was terrified I was going to get thrown off the course for being to slow but I finished the 21km in 2h 39 min. Goal achieved.

Suddenly more things were possible. My lovely friend Simone invited me to run with her. I begged her to slow down. I had believed for years I just couldn’t go any faster. But she encourage me to try and keep up. Would you believe I could go faster. As it turns out, the trick to running faster was… running faster!

Bit by bit I got faster, and by May 2014, I had achieved my next running goal – completing a 10km run in under 1 hour. I’m not going to be racing in the Olympics any time soon, but my next half marathon I took 30 min off my time (2h 9min, May 2015) and completing a half in under 2 hours seems an achievable goal!

In recent years the speed work has gotten harder, both to do and get motivated for. After a very slow half in 2019, and I was hoping to get under 2hrs in 2020. A couple of years of cancelled races, and I’m just hoping to maybe finish another half with my old person knees. We’ll see!

While all that was going on, my kids encouraged me to join them doing taekwondo at the Australian Martial Arts Academy, and as someone who would never have chosen martial arts for myself I found out I loved it.

After nearly 3 years of training, I got my black belt in November 2015, alongside my little girl (and my boys getting their second dan black belts). As Grand Master Ridvan says, now the training really commences! And so it did, to us girls gaining our second dan black belts in December 2017, and the middle boy getting his 3rd dan in June 2018, and me getting my 3rd dan just after the 2020 lockdown.

And in another “kid inspired” activity, I responded to a call out from their soccer club for Leichhardt Saints mums to join a new O30 Womens team for the 2014 season.

Again, a sport that was completely new to me but I realised I loved that too! I am totally inspired by the amazing skills and fitness of my experienced team mates, but even more so by the “have a go” attitude of absolutely everyone on my team.

We may not be playing for sheep stations, but we have a great time and that has brought us success on the field – Div 2 champions in 2015, minor premiers and runners up in Div 1 2016. We finished with too many injuries to do ourselves just in Champion of Champions, but launched into 2017 with a fantastic year, getting the minor and major premierships. Sadly still no success at CoC, but at least we get there. 2018 was another runner up medal. 2019 was a fun season where we reached the semis with a new look team who had not played together before and had a heap of fun, and I also joined my boys in taking up refereeing. The 2019 success was my oldest whose team won FNSW Champion of Champions u16s! Looking forward to continuing in all the roles: administrator, coach, player and referee. Too much football is never enough 🙂

Another long time ambition had been to complete a triathlon. Swimming in open water was the big hurdle. Some adult stroke correction in 2014, and voila a sprint triathlon in January 2015. Hit the long term goal of an Olympic distance at Noosa in 2016, despite going in on little training and an injury. All I can say… that is a very beatable PB. Sadly, I didn’t beat it in 2018 due to atrocious swimming conditions, so that opportunity is still ahead, although I somehow have to crack the ocean swimming capability to move the dial on that. I’m not sure I’m committed enough to swimming to get over that hurdle, but perhaps bad knees will change that equation.


My kids and long suffering but very supportive husband think this is enough, but the lovely Liz found me and encouraged me to take up squash again too. Again, not exactly world beating, but a lot of fun. Lots to do, so many good times!