Welcome to my next update for my Gold AAAF Sponsorship.  Where has the past year gone? When I was at Port Macquarie last Sunday, I couldn’t believe that it has been a year since I gained that spot at the World Championships and went to Hawaii.  The place that my sponsorship journey began.

The last few months I have had a couple of little goals in place, which I have achieved but there has also been a lot going on!  My baby daughter moved out of home to go 12 hours away to Uni, my oldest puppy dog, Peppa, my border collie, passed away, I resigned from my employee management role to concentrate on building my own business again which is going really well, and I have decided to pack up and sell my house to downsize now my girls are officially adults!  In amongst all of that I have trained and competed in an Olympic Distance Triathlon at Mooloolaba in March, the Half Ironman in Port Macquarie, plus Mother’s Day Classic 8k Fun run. 

My brain has been super busy, and the plus side of that, is that when my brain gets super busy with that much, it forgets about my hair follicles and my hair gets a chance to regrow!  I have a massive amount of re-growth going on all over my scalp now!  Yay!!   Unfortunately, my hair loss patterns seem to be that the healthy and calmer my life is the less hair I have, where if I am under pressure, super busy and overwhelmed, then it grows back.  The other times I have had regrowth was through my divorce a full head of hair, as well as bigger multiple patches when I had long covid and shingles.  I don’t want to get too excited though, as once life settles down again, it might decide to fall back out again.  The joys of Alopecia, you never know when it is going to fall out or grow back.
It makes you sit and wonder, do I want to be fit and healthy with no hair, or stay sick, unhealthy, and overwhelmed, to keep my hair at a cost?  Everyone is so different, and everyone’s bodies react differently.  I guess it is up to each of us as individuals as to how we feel about each stage, and degree of Alopecia, the treatment steps we take, and the lifestyles that we keep.

But back to my event results – I achieved a personal best time at the Mooloolaba Tri as well as at Port Macquarie Half Ironman.   This is a great feeling after you put in all the training hours, it is nice to come away with little wins along the way, especially with all that was going on in life at the same time. At Port, I wanted to be top 3 in the swim leg, and managed 4th, and wanted to come in under 3 hours off the bike for the 90kms and made it with seconds to spare, allowing me to stay in 4thspot.  Unfortunately, with my running injuries, I have slowed down quite a bit, but I still crossed in 17thoverall ????

I look forward to continuing my 2024 goals and hope to keep encouraging others to set themselves a challenge, and then go out and chase those challenges. 

“If it doesn’t challenge you, it will not change you”.

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Sally was a part of our sponsorship program – you can also participate! Go here to learn more https://aaaf.org.au/sponsorship-program