Goodbye Phil, Hello Tsunami

Phil went home a couple weeks ago because my struggle all year to get my own chair finally resulted in the prettiest blue chair arriving on my doorstep. I had already named her Tsunami, which is why she ended up being blue. I have been drawn to blue since I shifted into the wheelchairs (Saber got a new cover, which also ended being blue) and looking up the color meaning gave me all kinds of reasons why. Blue is the color of the sky and sea, and is often associated with depth and stability; it also symbolizes trust, loyalty, confidence, and faith.

Some people race to show how fast they can go, how far they can go, how high they can climb. I just want to show everyone that I can keep moving.

I will admit that all those other things make me smile as well.. but that's more because I fought so hard for those things that I was able to accomplish before my leg gave up and now it seems so much more natural.

I will always be grateful for Phil, for the things I learned, and the places I got to go. He got me started on this journey and I'm glad I happened upon the community center that allowed me to borrow him. Hopefully he gets to rest up before someone else that needs his help comes through.

My first two runs with Tsunami were 9 and 18 mile days, and I finally got to start learning the correct technique for pushing... and I found all those muscles I was supposed to be using, but hadn't found yet. Luckily, I was at least building up my endurance all this time so I'm still pretty confident that I'll do okay at my first marathon next week. Also, building up my faith was a 6 mile run the other day where I stayed at an 8 minute mile pace while just trying to run easy. Another plus is I traded in overall exhaustion for muscle soreness. I'll take that any day!

So here's to my new adventures with my very own chair. Thank you to all that sponsored me!