SOMO News

This guest blog post is from 2018 Team Missouri athlete Lynna Hodgson (track & field). It has been edited by SOMO, but these are all Lynna’s thoughts and feelings.

I’ve been training seven days a week for three to four hours per day. I’ve been getting on the treadmill. I usually fast walk one mile, jog a mile and I do that for five miles. Then I would get on the elliptical for 10-20 miles, same for the bike. It’s an elliptical bike hybrid. It usually takes me 30 minutes to do 10 miles and one hour to do 20 miles. But before I do the machines, I always stretch, it’s always good to stretch before you do any kind of exercising. I also working on my eating habits, which isn’t easy to do!

Ed note: Special Olympics challenged all USA Games athletes to complete 1 million steps in their training for the USA Games. Lynna was the first Missouri athlete to complete her millionth step last week. When I found out that I was the first athlete that reach 1,000,000 steps, oh my…I couldn’t believe it! I was mostly surprise I took that much steps.

I’ve been counting down the days until the USA Games, I’m SO excited and nervous at the same time. I’m nervous about if I do a good job, I don’t want to let myself or other people down. I have a bad habit about that. I’ve never been to competition like this before, and I don’t know what to expect. But there is always a first time for everything. I’m SO excited for this!! I’m really excited to meet new people and I’m planning to get all the 51 pins (one for each SO program at the Games) and show everyone what I can do!

I think it’s really important for my fellow athletes to eat healthy because I know they would feel much better when they compete as they will have more energy. I mean I’ve been changing my eating habits and I really can tell a difference when I compete!

Believe it or not, I been trying to figure out how to encourage my fellow teammates to eat healthy. I think if the athletes can see what they are doing in their bodies, they would want to be healthy too. Or do a challenge for everyone and get incentives. Just maybe that would work.

To me, it’s really important to show my fellow athletes how to eat healthy and be healthy because so they can feel SO much better and compete better. I find that if you eat healthier and exercise more you feel so much happier, mentally and physically.

Ed note: Lynna is enrolled in Athlete Leadership Programs and is one final class away from graduating with a Communications degree. In order to graduate, she needs to complete a project that she comes up with. So for my capstone project I decided to build a committee, and the team will help me to get healthier lunches for state competitions starting in 2019. This project relates to be healthier because if you put healthy food in your body, the outcome will be great. But if you put unhealthy food in your body, you’ll become tired and not want to move. It’s like if you put gas in the car, it will run, but if you put not gas in the car it won’t run…so think that your body as a car.

I’m really looking forward to Seattle as the experience of a lifetime, meeting other people and making new friends, seeing all of the places we will visit, competing and making a lot of memories!