In one month I am leaving on a cross-country journey from Seattle to Miami – via bicycle – with my husband and my two dogs, Oliver and Samantha. I am 40-years old and a recent empty nester. My name is Lynn Roden. This is my story.
Ten years ago I was a successful web designer/graphic artist and although I loved my job, I woke up one day to discover I was not the size I remembered. How come my size 6 pants were now starting to feel tight? Some may say “Only a size 6!” but you have to take into consideration that I was thin my whole life leaning between a size 0 and a size 2 – going up to a size 8 would have been the equivalent of going from a size 6 to a size 14 to me, a big difference.
I started with a personal trainer at Olympia Gym in Aventura, FL. working out two times a week. I started watching my nutrition and added cardio into my workout routine. Two days a week gradually became three. I loved this new more confident, stronger me and decided to become a personal trainer myself.
At the gym there was a front desk manager who took his job very seriously. It seemed that every time I came in this man would come out of nowhere to make sure I had signed in. It became a game and I would start coming in just to buy a bottle of water at the juice bar just to defy the need for me to sign in upon entering Olympia. He had a Harley Davidson motorcycle and I had been wanting to ride. One day my trainer hooked us up, we went to lunch, and were married six months later.
On our first year anniversary my husband, Roy, was diagnosed with YOPD – Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease. I entered my first triathlon. Somehow becoming stronger physically was akin to being strong emotionally. In addition, my two teenage daughters were grown and independent enough to want to leave home. I found myself 40, an empty-nester, and with a new husband with a degenerative neurological disease. (more…)
