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About My Blog
I’m CJ. I write about discipline, endurance, grief, and becoming who you are through repetition, not perfection.
Category: Essays
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Courage is not being afraid, it’s being afraid and doing it anyway.—Gina Bianchini My Ironman story didn’t start with confidence or a lifelong dream. It started on a cold December day in 2023, when everything in my life felt like it was caving in. I was depressed, broke, drinking again, newly heartbroken, and drifting through…
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I sought the Universe, and it heard, and it answered. I was baptized on March 31, 2024. I was submerged in holy water and lifted back into a world. This world suddenly felt rebuilt around redemption and second chances. At the time, I was drinking again. I was hurt and patched my wounds with temporary…
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During a long training ride, I passed a girl crying. She sat alone at a picnic table alongside the Minnetrista pedestrian path, surrounded by a mountain of books and a sweating cup of something cold. As I rode by, she wiped her cheek, her face blotched red with the kind of pain that instantly pulled…
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I dread running. On the days leading up, I feel intimidated. As the day nears, excuses creep in, and by the morning, I’m ready to execute them, almost not go at all. But when I do run, the dread melts into the never-ending distance. Negative thoughts shred beneath my feet as I trample through the…
