Who I Am

I thought I'd write a bit about my background today. I already mentioned I am a 27 yr old dog loving girl who is trying everyday to figure out what I'm supposed to be. So for now, I'll just give some hard facts about myself. I have a degree in Kinesiology with a concentration in Exercise Science from Cal State Univ, Sacramento. Given that information, it sounds like it should be pretty easy to figure out who I'm supposed to be, huh? But life is funny that way, just when you think you know exactly what you are meant to do, and you have all the means to do it, life gives you a curve ball. But this doesn't have to be a bad thing, and as a matter of fact, it's been a great thing for me.

Health, fitness and nutrition have been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember, and they still are, I just happened to have stumbled upon a couple new passions I feel the need to explore, and so I am.

In high school, I ran track (mostly sprinting events) and played tennis, but my true love was being captain of my cheer leading squad. We cheered at football and basketball games, but my true passion was competing. This is where I had my first experience of competing at a national level. After high school, I tried out for a co-ed open collegiate team and it was there that I had the time of my life! We were a large squad (more like family) and traveled as far as Texas to compete nationally. We threw stunts that were 3 people high, basket-tosses where girls did flips in the air and tumbling passes across the stage that seemed to go on forever. I cheered with this team for four years, but I knew I couldn't be a cheer leader forever, I needed to find something to fill my competitive itch, and so I did.

I began competing in NPC figure competitions upon retiring from cheer leading and would go on to compete for the next 5 years. Allow me to back track a bit, I haven't mentioned that at the age of 18 I got my first job as a personal trainer in a gym, and this is something I haven't stopped doing, only now, I run my business online and help clients with nutrition more than I do with working out, as I feel this is where most help is needed. My site is currently under constrution, but please come by to check it out soon, www.tanyapennington.com

But working as a personal trainer in the gym is how I met the right people to help me get started in figure competitions. It takes hard work, discipline, dedication and saying no to friends who want to go out to eat weeks before a show. But stepping on that stage on the day of the show, knowing you put everything you had into your physique, made everything oh so worth it. I placed anywhere from 4th place up to taking the title of 1st place and overall, traveled as far as New York to compete nationally, and loved every minute of it. When I talk about competing, I talk about it in the past tense, but lately I've considered stepping back on the stage to compete again, at least locally. It's been a couple of years, but I think competing in 2-3 local shows each year would not only help keep me in shape, but I would be doing it just for me this time. Yes, I did it for me last time too, but I was always doing it with the goal of trying to make it to the top, to the pro level if you will, and that can be very stressful on your mind, body and soul at the national level. It's a bit ironic really, how you can be among the top 10% physiques in the nation, but yet feel like you're never quite good enough.

So there you go, I'm taking the reigns back and I'm going to start competing again, as a hobby, for the same reason I started competing back when I was 21, because it's fun! I just made this decision right now as I sit here blogging. Thank God for blogging. I'll be more clear about what time frame I plan to do a show in soon, but for now I'm going to throw the month of November out there as guesstimate.

So there you have me in a nutshell, and I'll leave you with a quote that struck me in a good way.

"I went back to being an amatuer, in the sense of somebody who loves what she is doing. If a professional loses the love of work, routine sets in, and that's the death of work and life." -Ada Bethune

First True Love of My Life

"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears." -Kahlil Gibran

I couldn't think of a more appropriate way to start this blog, than to talk about my first true love who changed my life forever. After all, he is the reason I began journaling in the first place. Sounds kinda boring, doesn't it? Everybody has a first true love, but I don't know many who had one quite like mine. I thought you may like to put a name to a face, so if you look to the left, you'll see one of my favorite pictures he and I took together last summer. Yep, Bodacious was my 140 lb. bullmastiff, and it is because of him that I am who I am today...no, it's is because of him that I am becoming who I am supposed to be.

Would you believe that two and a half years ago I had an extreme fear of dogs? Yeah, I was even afraid of the little ones, weird huh? Well in 2005 I decided it was time to get over that fear and started researching some different breeds. I hadn't settled on any specific breed when one day I walked into a client's house, and there sat the most beautiful, confident, calm dog I had ever come in contact with, a bullmastiff. I had never even heard of a bullmastiff before! So I researched the breed, knew that it was the perfect breed for me, and the rest is history.

He was an amazing dog who's life purpose was much greater than I ever could have imagined. Bodacious was only here on earth for two very short years. Just weeks before his 2nd birthday, he was diagnosed with severe sub-aortic stenosis and chylothorax, two diseases so rarely ever seen in one dog. One day we were going for walks and playing at the dog park, and the next day, the vet told me to take him home and make him comfortable because he would be passing anyday. Devastation, surreal, not possible, they had to be wrong, not my little boy who loved life more than I knew possible.

We went home and I spent every waking moment with him for the next month and seven days. I cooked his favorite meals for him everyday and did extensive research on herbs to help keep him comfortable. The bond that he and I created in that last month together is a bond that will be with me forever. Bodacious passed on December 17, 2007.

My life would never be the same, I care more, love more, laugh more, share more, but mostly I just plain feel so much more.

So I guess the moral of today's entry is that it's worth it, what they say, to face your fears, I did it, and got the best two years.