Cheers-
Coach Erin Kreitz Shirey
Erin,
This note has long been overdue! I hope that you know how much I APPRECIATE you. I have not expressed my appreciation in so many words and ways, but I am so thankful that I met you. I have indeed come a long way from the first day I came in to try out your early morning boot camp class (thank you Karen for pestering me incessantly that I must meet Erin!) armed with nerves (the trepidation of “going to boot camp”) and vertigo! You kicked my butt on the first day and I have been hooked since!
It has been almost a year since I joined PowerfitnessPDX and I see all the positive changes in myself both physically, emotionally and mentally. Who knew that I could do over 20 military push ups - in proper form! And for someone who has never run in her life, I am amazed that I can jog for over 30 minutes WITHOUT stopping!! It is so exhilarating and rewarding each time I finish a workout with you and the gals. My days are always better when I start them with a PDX workout. Before I met you, I was so out of balance when I didn’t get a workout in first thing after I woke up. I would always try to pencil in my workouts and as everyone knows, our own personal goals go to the bottom of the list. Kids, husbands, significant others, jobs – LIFE takes over and we play second fiddle, again. Before I joined the group, my workouts were not very consistent. I exercised after 10 pm when everyone in my household was upstairs and left me alone to get my workout in. I traded in a decent night’s sleep for what workouts I could squeeze in during the workweek. I didn’t realize that this was working against me. I wasn’t losing weight and inches and I felt so resentful of the little time I had for myself. My fitness regimen did not work as well as I wanted it to. Until I met you and started my Power Fitness PDX workouts. Boy, did you change my life!! Do you remember the first few weeks when I did the stairs at Washington Park? I thought I was going to throw up! Living with vertigo, stairs was not my cup of tea. In fact, I avoided workouts that involve climbing up and down stairs for fear of falling down or losing a step and injuring myself. Erin, you changed all that! I conquered my fear of stairs because of you. I have learned that the stairs don’t rule me. I RULE! It is now all on my own terms.
Over the course of the year of doing PDX, you helped me understand that exercise/fitness is very fundamental to how we should live, that it can be fun and it doesn't have to feel like a chore. You have inspired me every morning to challenge myself, to do that extra push up and lunge, that extra sprint up the stairs. I have become one of your bonus Betties! Doing PDX, I am much more alert and in perfect equilibrium. Take it from this neurotic Libran, I am so much happier when my scales are in perfect balance!
So Erin, a huge THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for helping me believe that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
Dig deep, play hard!!
xoxo,
Gemma
