Welcome to Friday’s Featured Female!

Friday's Featured Female, #FFF This weekly series features inspirational stories from admirable women.  IMHO, it’s always good to be reminded of how strength, determination, hard work, heart and ingenuity can impact the quality of one’s life and I’m proud that these women will allow me to share their stories here. Today’s #FFF is the very amazing Debbie@LiveFromLaQuinta.  As she’ll tell you below, Debbie and I didn’t know each other before Ragnar SoCal 2014 but another #FFF,

Melissa@MelissaRunningIt, brought us together.  Debbie is a disciplined runner, a ridiculously sweet person and her unique dedication to both fitness and animals is admirable.  As a runner and an example of being fit for life, Debbie has run 36 marathons (yes, 36!) and is a prime example of what you can do when you’re determined, dedicated and love health and fitness – there may be something to that vegan living!  Learn more about this fabulous woman now!

Sooooo have you met Debbie?

  Hi, I’m Debbie and I blog over at Live from La Quinta, where I write about running, fitness, and living a vegan lifestyle. I’m very excited and proud to be a Friday Featured Female. Melissa and I met when we were part of the same Ragnar Team back in April. There’s nothing like the shared experience of six dirty, tired, yet awesome women, together in a van for about 36 hours to create an unbreakable bond of friendship. I’m so happy that I’m going to get a chance to meet up with most of the women again in a couple weeks at Blogfest! Maybe we can discuss next year’s Ragnar (what do you say, ladies?). Ragnarian

Interestingly, this post, written today, is so much different that it would have been if I’d written it a week ago. You see, a week ago, I was a director at a small fitness center, where I’d been working for almost nine years. I loved most things about my job. Fitness is my passion, and I am so lucky that I was able to make it my career. I had a circuitous route to fitness. When I was in school, girls weren’t especially encouraged to “do sports.” Even then, though, I had some running talent. I used to love to beat the boys when we would do running events in sixth grade. I eventually drifted away from sports, though, and by my early 20s, I was not active at all. I had two small children, few resources, I smoked cigarettes, and I used to say that I kept my weight in check because of my waitressing job. Back in the 80s, you see, it was all about the weight, not health and fitness. Bear20 All that changed in the late 80s, when I made my first career switch, leaving restaurant management (very happily I might add), to become a recreation director. I was responsible for planning activities for members of a campground facility, which included, in addition to teaching arts and crafts, planning events, and overseeing shuffleboard tournaments, scheduling exercise classes. Not being an exerciser, I didn’t have a clue, so our classes relied on exercise videos. It was right around that time that I finally quit smoking. As many people do, especially those that don’t exercise, I started to put on weight. This finally inspired me to start exercising. I started with aerobics videos, then when I was bored with those I started running. My body seemed to remember that I loved that competitive feeling, and I found I was pretty good at it. What really changed my life though, was that I started teaching the aquatic exercises at the campground. I had no clue how to do it, so I researched and studied, and eventually designed a great program. I loved it! I was so happy that I was able to teach people how to get fit and to enjoy it that I embarked upon my third career, personal training. RnR1 I went back to school, got certified, and started training. I first worked at Gold’s Gym, then eventually found my way to country club fitness. I worked at several country clubs, and I appreciated the older, less fit population that I found there. While many of my clients were interested in losing weight and looking good, their priority was to feel good and to continue to live a functional lifestyle for as long as they could. And to improve their golf game. When a client realizes that you have helped them move better, decreased their pain, and that, maybe for the first time in years, they can stand up without assistance, they are yours for life. Well, almost. Last week I was fired from my job. Oh, it was nothing personal (at least to them). I worked for a fitness management company and we managed the fitness center under the direction of a homeowners’ association, a board of directors and a fitness committee. Have you ever tried to keep that number of bosses happy? Well, I couldn’t. They decided that they needed a new director and I was let go. And now I’m seriously considering yet another career change. Don’t get me wrong. I love teaching fitness. It is my calling and I always plan to keep my certification current and hold on to a few precious clients. But, I’m a little tired. So I’m taking a look at a few other options. Why not change your life (again) completely at age 56? Real estate was the first thing that came to mind. My husband and I have talked about it and we think that we would make a great team. However, even though we have signed up for a real estate course, we haven’t yet made much headway. We’re working on that one. Another option has presented itself to me and I’m getting pretty excited about it. There is a huge need for social media managers that can work with small businesses to improve their online presence. I have a lot of experience with social media and I think that with some extra research and study (just like I have done before), it will be a great fit for me. To that end, I have started a new blog, Media Fitness Coach (little play on words there), where I will post information and guidelines to help educate business owners and managers about why they need to be active on social media. I will still continue to blog at Live from La Quinta, though. As I stated, fitness is my passion, and I love to spread the word of health. Live from La Quinta gives me the opportunity to do that. I really feel like I’m moving forward again. I hadn’t been happy at my job for a while. And to quote one of my commenters from today’s post, “We have the opportunity to reinvent ourselves on any given day, but it usually takes a great big kick in the ass from the Universe .” Yes, that’s about right. Have you ever made a major career change? Did it take a great big kick in the ass to get you going? My social links: Website: Live from La Quinta and Media Fitness Coach Twitter: @LivefromLQ and @MediaFitCoach Facebook: Live from La Quinta and Media Fit Coach Pinterest and Instagram