The 2nd Annual 10,000 Kettlebells for Parkinson’s fitness challenge is finally under way! We’ve already had folks signing up and are starting to get some organization-wide support, which is FANTASTIC! If you are new to the challenge, I invite you to read about how this fitness challenge got started.

The fitness challenge last year raised several thousand dollars for Parkinson’s research through donations to the Royal University Hospital Foundation in Saskatoon. I would like to pass along the appreciation of the RUHF, Dr. Rajput, and my own family, including my mother who has struggled with Parkinson’s for a number of years now.

I will say more about this next “story” throughout the month, but I can tell you that our family has seen a dramatic change in our mom’s fitness and well-being. She still has Parkinson’s, but Parkinson’s does not have her any more.

I also plan to share stories from some of last year’s participants. Talk about encouraging! The whole fitness challenge is really about just that: encouraging and challenging one another to better wellness. We had ups and downs through the month, but we hung in there. I learned that I can hang in there when I need to.

And I’ll need a bit of that tenacity today. . . I very cleverly scheduled February 1st to fall on a Wednesday (swimming day) this year, so I get to mash a big batch of Kettlebell swings after work with my swimming stroke improvement class right afterward. I predict I will sleep well tonight!

This year, I’m also encouraging people to leave a few comments on the blog – comment on the blog posts, share a victory, encourage a buddy. If you want to share a picture from the fitness challenge, just click the email link and attach the image. Hearing from you folks really makes my day!

If you are new, or would like to re-live last year’s fitness challenge, you can find the blog posts in the archive. Here are the instructions:

• On the right side of the blog pages, scroll down to find the “Blog Archive”
• If you can’t see the year, 2016, click the down-triangle beside 2017 to collapse that list
• Click the right-triangle symbol beside 2016 (it will change to a down-triangle, and show the months of 2016)
• Scroll down until you can see February, and click the right-triangle symbol beside February
• Scroll down until you get to the blog entry from DAY 1. Clicking the individual blogs will allow you to read through last year’s blog posts. Enjoy!