WEEK #7: LINA MIRANDA
Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
I grew up the youngest of four children to immigrant parents in Mississauga ON. Growing up I was never involved in any school teams or after school sports, so for me, the power of fitness and leading an active lifestyle was something that I adopted as an adult. In my early 20s I joined my first ever sports team, it was an all female cancer survivor dragon boat team. My first taste of true fitness and the magic of sport was with 20 other ladies who like me had a reason to push ourselves, to train hard and to be each other’s supporters; we were all survivors. Since my first taste of what sport and fitness can do to the body, mind and soul, I had branched off and started partaking in half-marathons, and group fitness. Now, 19 years later I am a group fitness instructor and an avid crossfitter.
I am a wife to an amazing man who was a varsity athlete and semi-professional soccer player. Together, we are the most proud parents to a lovely 5-year-old girl who has been involved in sport since the age of 2.5. Our daughter’s life revolves around being active and going to Crossfit with Mom and Dad; her norm is fitness, to be active and to push the boundaries. Being active is not a choice for our family, it is a norm, and it is part of our lives.
Please share a story about an internal or external barrier you have faced. How did you overcome that barrier?
At the age of 21, I was diagnosed with a late stage stomach cancer, after having most of my stomach removed and months of treatment, I faced the biggest battle of my life which was to survive the next 5 years; which for my staging at the time was 15%. It was at this point in my life that I turned to fitness and to sport. Initially my thought was that I needed to be active in order to be healthy and to have the best shot at beating my odds. What I soon started to realize is that fitness and sport offered me so much more than just good health; it provided me strong friendships, it provides clarity to at times a foggy brain or a stressful day, it helped me understand that I was so much more capable of achieving things than I thought I was.