From Childhood Sprints to Boston Marathon: My Lifelong Journey of Running and Resilience
My earliest memories of running date all the way back to elementary school! My favorite event for field day was a short sprint race. I wasn’t very coordinated as a child but with running all I needed was my legs! I loved that I found something that I was able to be competitive with! I would be so proud of the blue ribbons that they gave us! As soon as I was old enough for the cross country team I signed up! I had a lot of success and absolutely loved being part of the team.
My high school coach had so much knowledge and experience, I learned a lot of what I know about training from him. He pushed us hard and took our team all the way to state championships my senior year. After highschool despite getting scholarship opportunities for some smaller schools I decided to take a break. The competitive part of it just took a toll on me and I think at the time I didn’t really realize that it truly wasn’t about living to achieve others expectations of me. I understand now what it has taught me and continues to teach me. It stretches beyond running, I have learned discipline, disappointment, mental will and also gratification! These are the tools that I need to overcome regular life obstacles!
I truly believe anyone can become a runner because I know first hand what it feels like to start over. I can still vividly remember the first day I decided to start running again. My legs felt like they were going to fall off, my lungs burned but somehow I pushed myself to finish one mile and pretty much collapsed in the grass. Everyday after that I added a little each time and all of a sudden it started to become easy! I would go out for an hour and just enjoy being by myself to regroup and recharge.
It wasn’t until about 5 years ago that I started entering races again, I enjoyed running just for fun but I knew something was missing. I ran my first full marathon in 2017 not knowing exactly what to expect time wise. So much can happen in 26.2 miles, I was ecstatic when I finished my very first marathon with a Boston qualifying time in Pittsburgh! I was accepted and ran the 2018 Boston in conditions that were less than ideal however that’s a story for another day! I am currently training for another full and hope to achieve a NYC qualifying time! My goal is to run in three of US world major marathons!