Welcome to Mission Breathe Again- A runner with cystic fibrosis

I was six the first time I ran a 5k.

Not for my lungs. Not because anyone told me to. I just wanted to run it, the same way some six-year-olds want the biggest rollercoaster or the whole birthday cake to themselves. I still don't have a better reason than that. Thirty-some years later, I've stopped needing one.

I was also diagnosed with cystic fibrosis that year. It's a genetic disease, it fills the lungs with thick mucus, and it's not a small thing — I've had the hospital stays to prove that. But it's not where this story starts. It never really was. It just took me a long time to stop letting other people put it first.

So I'm not going to either.

Here's what this blog actually is: chapters, not highlights.

One race. One hospital room. One specific person who said one specific thing that changed how I saw myself, for better or worse. I'd rather give you the real 400 meters of one race than a tidy paragraph summing up thirty years. The small stuff is usually the stuff that actually sticks.

A neighbor once told me, casually, like he was reading a weather report, that I'd never make the Olympics. A doctor walked into my hospital room one September and said, "I hear you're the runner," and I don't think I've ever lit up that fast in my life. A bib showed up for the Boston Marathon because someone decided I wasn't allowed to sit that season out.

Those are three different chapters. You're getting all of them, in full, with the details I've never actually put anywhere public before.

Partly that's for you — if you run, if you or someone you love has CF, you are also a runner with cystic fibrosis, and if you're just tired of people deciding who you are before they've met you.

And partly, if I'm honest, it's for me. I want the real version written down somewhere, while I still remember it in detail — not the cleaned-up version. If I ever write a book, I want the material already sitting here waiting for me.

This is the trailer. The actual movie starts next post.

Follow along on Instagram, and if you're looking for a speaker who'll give you the real version instead of the poster version, you can contact me here or check out my speaking page.