GUEST ENTRY: April 26, 2000 -- 10:53 AM EST

"Success consists of simply getting up one more time than you fall."

This motto is found on one of the signs that hangs in the Arizona Cardinals' locker room in the movie Jerry Maguire. And I'm using it as my training motto.

I was a relatively healthy person up through my sophomore year high school. I was on the swim team at the local Y, and though I wasn't one of the team's stars I worked hard to improve my times and be a good teammate. I also played field hockey for the first two years of high school, and between the two sports managed to keep in shape and stay relatively healthy. Then the swim team relocated to a pool an hour away, I decided I didn't want to be a junior or senior on a junior varsity team, and lost all contact with the fitter, healthier me.

I had no foil for my daily habit of eating twinkies instead of hot lunch, and the weight started creeping on.. When I was swimming and playing field hockey, I weighed around 125. By the time I graduated from high school two years later, I weighed 165. Today, eight years from that point and ten years after leaving my active days behind, I weigh 245.

That's a pretty big stumble, there. 120 pounds is a long way to fall.

I decided to do the marathon to help others, but also to help myself. This marathon is going to help me in the process of getting back up after a ten-year descent into poor health, aching knees, a finely-developed taste for fattening foods and a bad case of carpal tunnel.

I'm looking forward to meeting my fitter, healthier self again in Orlando. We have a lot of catching up to do.

~Adrith

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