Welcome!

Greetings, friends and strangers. I'll be using this blog to record my personal progress as a runner, aspects of the training process, races, gear, balancing training with life, and everything in between. This is by no means an original idea, just about every runner likes to blog about themselves these days. But it serves an important purpose for me, self-reflection, which is key to improvement in athletics (and just about anything else). So I hope you get something out of it, but more than likely I will get more out of it.

Some background on me and my running history...

I grew up mostly in Washington state, Spokane area to be more specific, and was interested in running from a young age. Just about every year my family participated in the Bloomsday Race, and I frequently tried to set up little running events with my friends at school. By high school, I was focused in on running Track and Field, but didn't try Cross Country until I was a Junior and attending boarding school at The Orme School in Arizona, my mother's alma matter. Like just about everyone who goes out for Track, I thought I was a sprinter, and I was wrong. A teacher and coach at Orme convinced me to try distance running, and found that I was surprisingly good at it, even with little fitness base or training. I the n became the top runner on the Cross Country team, and dominated the open 400m in Track and Field.

College took me to St. Petersburg, Florida, where I studied marine science. Eckerd College had a maritime Search and Rescue team - one of a kind for a college - which I spent all four undergraduate years participating in. My running tapered off; I did not compete for the college team or run road races during those years. But towards the end of my senior year, I ran in a 5K - the first one since high school - and it rejuvenated my love of running.

After graduating from Eckerd in 2005, I became a science teacher in St Pete and started slowly increasing my running volume again. I decided I would run a marathon in the next few years, and also took on karate as a fitness activity. Karate gave me great balance and flexibility, but as I learned in the years thereafter, tends to be physiologically antagonistic to running. The year 2007 was busy for me, as I finished my master's degree, took additional biology coursework at USF, and got married. Nevertheless, I pursued both running and karate actively, and resumed competing in races again in fall of 2008. I also became an assistant Cross Country coach, and head Track and Field coach, at a high school I started teaching at that year. By fall of 2009, I earned my first degree black belt in Karate, and decided to focus more on my running.

The Walt Disney World Marathon in January 2010 was my first marathon. I had set my sights on qualifying for Boston - I needed to run 3:40:00 - but missed by 16 minutes, finishing in 3:56:01. Still, not too bad for my first marathon. That year, I continued to race varying distances, trying to improve my versatility as a runner. I joined the St Pete Road Runner's club and ran with a group at least twice per week - this turned out to be the most beneficial part of my training, aside from trying to keep up with the high school runners I coached. I ran a lifetime PR in the 5K that spring with a time of 19:56. At this time, I was a strict follower of Daniels Running Formula, the principles of which appealed to my scientific background and the applications of which were very effective.

In 2011, I slightly improved my marathon time at my second marathon, the Melborne Beaches Marathon on the East coast of Florida, finishing in 3:54:03 with a strained hamstring. That year proved challenging, as I was in the process of a divorce and sought out a new landscape for my teaching, coaching, and running. I took a teaching job at a boarding school in Monterey, California, where I continued to coach Cross Country and expanded my own running much farther than in the past.

That fall, I ran in the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco, having barely trained for the race, finishing 3:55:55. For such a hilly course and having not properly trained, I was surprised that the race went so well, yet was tired of finishing in approximately the same times in every marathon. But I was very busy at my new school, and still didn't focus in on my training.

Spring of 2012, I ran the Big Sur Marathon after sustaining a stress fracture in my right foot, and again, hadn't properly trained. This is likely the hilliest course in the country, and I ran a slow 4:02:18. That summer, I re-married, and my husband and step-son moved in with me on the boarding school campus, and I started researching Pete Pfitzinger's Advanced Marathoning methods. Integrating what I liked about Daniels and what I was learning about Pfitzinger, I set my sights on the California International Marathon which ran in early December that year. This was the most challenging training I had ever done, requiring me to get up between 4:30-5:00am most days to fit in my training with an otherwise busy schedule. I ran the Big Sur Half Marathon that November, two weeks prior to my big race, and set a very much improved PR of 1:39:33. The Boston qualifying standards had changed the year before and I needed to run 5 minutes faster, finishing under 3:35:00. That December, my family and I drove up to Sacramento,which was experiencing the only torrential downpour of rain it had seen in decades. I had a strong headwind most of the race, which seemed to counteract the net downhill drop of the course. But I finally succeeded in qualifying for Boston - barely! - finishing in 3:34:56.

2013 was a very different kind of year for me, as a runner and a person. My husband and I joyfully found out that I was pregnant in early February, with a due date in mid October. I continued to run as much as I could, until around twelve weeks, when pelvic pain began to set in. I cut back my training volume and stuck to soft surfaces, trying every belly band and support structures I could, but the pain persisted. At my doctor's advice, I stopped running for the remainder of my pregnancy, instead maintaining my cardio fitness on elliptical machines and continuing to lift weights. By early September, my pregnancy weight gain was lower than normal, and ultrasound showed that my baby boy was on the small side, but otherwise healthy. I stopped working out at that point, aside from daily walking around the track. It was very difficult for me to not be running, as running was always my personal source of daily strength and mind-clearing. But pregnancy was temporary, and I knew I would be back in my running shoes soon. When Boston registration rolled around, I nervously submitted my entry, knowing that I would be racing only 6 months post-baby. But due to massive support in lieu of the bombings at the marathon last year, the entry pool was filled to capacity, and my narrowly-gained qualifying time was not enough for me to get into the race. I shrugged it off, and knew I would re-qualify and just try again next year. Our beautiful son was born on October 6th, and we couldn't be happier. I didn't quite wait the full six weeks to resume running, but did wait at least three. The return to running was easier than I thought, though I was significantly slower, even at my easy pace. I decided to register for the OC Marathon in Southern California, early May of 2014.

In January of 2014, my doctor discovered a lesion on my cervix that needed to be removed via LEEP procedure. While this wasn't a complicated or severe form of surgery - a short outpatient procedure - it would set my training back by about four weeks. At this point, given how I had been feeling running, I made the decision to run the OC half marathon instead, and consider a later marathon to BQ for Boston 2015. I recovered nicely from the LEEP, and have since resumed my training. My sights are now set on the VIA Marathon (formerly Lehigh Valley Marathon) in Allentown, PA on September 7th. My goal is to run a 3:20:00 or less....we shall see....

Meanwhile, my family and I have decided to move back to Florida this summer, so that I may stay home and raise our baby boy, and to be closer to my husband's family. I plan on taking my running to the next level, doing several twice-a-day runs - some with the jogging stroller - and focus on my writing...when the little guy is napping that is. The Florida climate will be a challenge to re-adjust to; there is no more perfect climate for running than the Central Coast of California, and I will certainly miss it.

See there? Even just writing this lengthy biography of my running history has helped me to reflect on where I have been and where I hope to go. Thanks for reading!