Stephanie Sullivan: She Does Tri December Camper of the Month

By Christie Carlson

In 2008, Stephanie turned 40 and had her third child. The baby fat wasn’t coming off as fast as she would like and she wanted to get back to where she was before her baby. Stephanie looked for a solution and found the perfect gift for herself: She Does Tri camp.

Stephanie attended She Does Tri camp in April of 2009 as a birthday gift to herself for her 41st birthday, and Stephanie has quite the success story that makes her our December Camper of the Month!

Stephanie’s Accomplishments since She Does Tri

Since Stephanie attended the She Does Tri camp in 2009 she has had many different personal accomplishments in her fitness life. Stephanie since thecamp has lost almost all of her baby weight through different physical activities. Before the camp Stephanie did not do any swimming, but now is partof a swimming group that swims each week. Not only is she is a swimming groupbut she is doing new strokes she never knew she could do, including her favorite: the butterfly stroke!

Stephanie's goals for the upcoming year?

Stephanie has now completed her first 5k and just as she was telling me these accomplishementsshe had run a 10 mile trail run and absolutely loved it. As Stephanie isgetting her work life put together she is also trying to refocus on her fitness. Stephanie isn’t sure what races are in store for 2012, but she doesn’t that her rigorous training is coming back starting in the new year.

How has triathlon training has benefited Stephanie?

Stephanie loves training and loves the endorphins that she gets from training. Like all of us, she can’t always fit training into her every day schedule so when she misses a day of training she goes through "withdrawal" from the endorphin "Wonder Woman" feeling. Not only are the endorphins a motivating factor for her training, but having goals give her something to prepare for and as she says, “The journey is the reward.”

What's Stephanie’s weekly routine and focus on exercise?

The last year for Stephanie has been hectic with small kids and on top of that writing her final dissertation for her PhD with graduation this month - congratulations! Before her crazy school schedule started Stephanie was religiously doing 4 different exercises throughout the week. Although she is currently up all night long cranking away on the dissertation, her goal for 2012 is to bring the old schedule back and recovering from the late nights at the computer.

Her pre-dissertation routine was:

• Mon swim, lift
• Tues swim, bike
• Wed run, lift
• Thurs swim, bike
• Fri run, lift
• Sat rest
• Sun long run

What have been Stephanie’s "Best" and "Worst" moments while training?

Stephanie takes everymoment as the best moment and takes every workout as a blessing from God that she has had this opportunity in her life. The ability to swim, bike, run and train every morning is something Stephanie never takes for granted.  Her worst moment was when she got a stress fracture just two weeks before the Medoc 10 Mile Trail Run.

Stephanie says the hardest part of training is understanding her limitations and seeing her swim buddies compete in the 70.3 World Championships in Las Vegas in November.  She wanted to give a shout out to those fellow buddies, Robert Morrison, Mike Colombo and Jim Bullock: "You rock!"

Stephanie's gratitude for She Does Tri

Stephanie has such gratitude for what the She Does Tri camp has taught her and how much it has boosted her confidence. Stephanie has won a handful of Athena championships since 2009 and before didn’t never even thought about running 10 miles. In the near future Stephanie hopes to have Krista Dave be her tri coaches so she can "check the box" next to Half Ironman on her bucket list.

From the She Does Tri team we are truly proud of Stephanie and all she has accomplished since attending camp and cannot wait to see what great things are still to come.

Inspired,

Christie Carlson
She Does Tri Team