The Runners Smile

So my last run was Sunday. I don't even know if I can call it a run! With the exception of a clinic visit and 5 minutes on the treadmill tomorrow, I'm not allowed to run again until next week!

I did run somewhere between 7 and 11km of my usual 16k loop around the reservoir on Sunday though. It wasn't a constant run after the 4km mark as my left knee has been unhappy since my first run at Camp Calvin on the Monday morning. I have NO idea what I have done to it. Physio seems to be getting it back on track to a degree.

Mentally I was more than prepared for this run. I was ready to knock this sucker out of the park. I was using it towards a 10mile virtual race (16.1km), a training incentive to help me work on both distance and time together, to help me get to 'bigger and better' things. I was ready! I was ready to smash this sucker out of the park and to run the 'loop' faster than I have ever run it before.

I was optimistic. I guess I was a little too optimistic! I smashed out the first 4km in record speed for me and then everything kind of fell apart. I went from the prospect of setting a new 5km PR to my slowest 5k split time to date. It was bad! Really bad! My knee buckled for lack of a better word. Something pinched and it hurt. A few hopping steps to slow down and I knew that was pretty much the end of my blistering pace (I was averaging 4:30mins/kilometer. A normal run for me is about 5:50/km most runners that I know in town that aren't elites struggle to keep the pace under 7mins/km). I was done. My brain was still on over drive - go go go - but this time it was my body that threw in the towel.

I was mildly shattered to put it lightly. After the 3k mark there really is no turn around point in this loop. Sure you could turn around in the literal sense and walk back to your vehicle/starting point. If however you decided to go forward, it was at least another 4km before the next possible pick-up point if you had any issues. I figured that I was here for a race and I wasn't leaving until I knocked out my full 16km. I'm not going to lie, it hurt! Physically it was going to be a struggle to make it around the wonderfully hilly route when anything other than flat seemed to set my left leg into a world of hurt. Shooting pain up and down my leg starting from the knee with any sort of incline suggested I was in for a really good, long and painful slog. Mentally I was kicking myself in the butt. How could I be so ready and then crumble after only 4 something kilometers? Well... it happened! That also mean I had another 12km to fight with myself! SO much fun!

I did better than someone ...about 3.5km into my run everyone had to pull off
the path to make room for an ambulance that had to come up from the Weaselhead.
I hope whoever they had to go in and haul out is okay! While not 'dangerous' it
has to be at least mildly difficult trying to get someone out of the Weaselhead area
given the steepness of some of the paths and the low overhang of trees. Hopefully
the person(s) were not too seriously hurt/injured!

While fighting with myself mentally, I was allowing my knee time to relax and chill out a bit. Afterall, on the flats (there are some, not many, but some!) the pain would go away and I could walk normally. When I pinched my LCL after sideswiping an ice block with my right leg in early March, I had a hard time walking period. I could still walk without a pinch so I was hoping I was just having a minor setback. I tried running again. I was able to last for little spurts between 6 and 8km and stopped again to walk when things were starting to feel a bit out of sorts. I survived the big hill, granted, I walked it and it pinched from time to time...but I made it! At least I didn't have to suffer the "pleeeeeaaaase come get me" phone call of tears and shame!  I made the big hill so I was going to finish the last 8km of this bloody loop!

The top section between the big hill and the canoe club is relatively flat. I regained my composure and decided, still beating myself up mentally, that maybe I was doing something stupid. Maybe my form had changed and I was doing something to set my knee off? I wasn't willing to given into the fact that I still had 8km to go and that I'd be walking the bulk of it. It wasn't allowed to happen. I made it to kilometer 11 (not bad...!) paying close attention to my technique and taking the time to work on my fore-foot strike. My pace was undoubtedly slow (for me, I was pushing 6:40 mins/kilometer) but I wasn't about to give up. I made it to the canoe club and once again leapfrogged the same couple I had passed at least another four times on the path. They were also running. I blew past them in my first 4km then they caught up to me... then I passed them a couple of times in the Weaselhead and they did the same. I lost them at the hill (go figure) and thought that was the end of that. HA, then I passed them at the boat club!

There was a slight incline after the boat club. The incline is slow and gradual leading up to Crowchild and Glenmore. It's noticable visually but when running it really isn't too bad. At this point my knee decided it had had enough. Another good pinch on my downward step left me to do another few hopping steps to bring myself back to a crawl. What a pain in the patooy! I'd fought it out for nearly 12km and finally had to resign myself to the fact that the rest of the 'course' was hills. I was walking! I still had a fabulous four more kilometers to hang my head and walk. Slowly. Very slowly!

It's not the end of the world of course! I was disappointed with myself for being so confident in my knee post week of intense physio. I was also happy that I didn't give up and turn back after the first four kilometers, after all I still need to do some sort of activity to keep myself in shape. Additionally, I also needed to keep myself on my feet for as long as possible. The only way to train for longer run distances is to do it on your feet! 16k isn't terribly shy of 20 which in turn is really darn close to a half marathon. I need a time somewhere under 1h 50m for my next race. My goal was 1h 45m. I think what was hurting me more than my knee was knowing the possibility of breaking 1h50m in exactly three weeks time is pretty much out of the question. It's not impossible but improbable. This thought on its on means I will be required to find another certified half marathon sometime in the last two weeks of September so it doesn't conflict with my big races in October.

Brilliant! Three days later and I still find myself in a bit of a bind and doing the math to see just how hard I would have to push to get the time I need on the 25th given any number of different race scenarios. My fingers are crossed that my knee behaves and I can just go for it! 

Anyways, to wrap things up a bit...
My motto for running - keep going and keep smiling! When you stop enjoying it, don't do it! Despite the pain of my knee (especially in the last 3km of solid roller coaster-like hills... ask me how much fun that was!) there was no way I was about quit. I came out for a reason. While I couldn't smash my run off the the charts, I was still there for a race. A virtual race in my books is still a race! It might not count towards anything in the grand scheme of things but until you REALLY do one, you don't know their value as training incentive. They are there for your time of need and they are designed to push you.

I am extremely goal driven. I don't give up. I don't think I have a quit or off button. Someone forgot to design one for me when I was being assembled! It's both a blessing and a curse! I will fight until I get something but it also means I get really frustrated in the process before I get to the final 'ah ha.' To get through things I usually grit my teeth and just smile. For running this means I may not physically enjoy the process but I'm sure going to find a way to make myself enjoy it mentally. Smiling is usually a good start! ***don't try this with archery though.... smiling is a really good way to throw off one's anchor point! Laughter is also bad and tends to throw arrows way off target!!!

If I can force myself to smile, I can force myself to find the good and enjoy something. Even if it is something small like a minor success or smiling at the baby ducks chasing after each other, there is always something to smile about. Heck, on this run I was thrilled to stay a few strides in front of the ominous thunderheads that were trying very hard to dampen my spirits...and maybe my socks/shoes! 

With that, you can always tell who the real runners are. When you are out walking along the parkways or paths in your area, the real runners are the ones who are smiling or take the time to smile. The rest are just "want to be" runners that take pleasure in having people look at 'how good they are.' I'm not saying this to be mean... more often than not it's true. Go for a run and test it out yourself! It doesn't matter how fast or slow you are or how 'skinny' you are or aren't. Just run. Simile at the runners that pass you and make your own judgement call.

That brings me to the following from a fellow runner, Alice. This is why it is possible to push and keep going when you are ready to 'quit.' 

"When you’re out there on the footpaths, do you smile? When your feet fall into the rhythm, one after another, do you smile? When the person running towards you has a grimace of pain and determination on their face, do you smile? When the person running towards you nods their head in your direction, do you smile?

The runners smile. The nod. The acknowledgement. A shared understanding of so many t...hings. A shared moment.

And every time I see someone running towards me I want to smile. I want to say 'how awesome are we right now for being out here and running?!' I don’t know their story. I don’t know what race they are training for. I don’t know if they’re just running for fun. I don’t know how many years they’ve been running for. I don’t know if they have been out there for 10 minutes or 2 hours. And they don’t know any of these things about me.

But when a fellow runner looks up and smiles it can mean the world. It can mean the difference between me stopping running because 'I feel exhausted' and finding the mental strength to keep going despite what my legs are telling me. It can be the difference between me getting down on myself for not running as fast as I want to and feeling on top of the world. We are runners and we’re all out there.

Do you smile? Today a lot of my fellow runners smiled. Perhaps more than ever before. And maybe that’s why my run felt so good. Even when I’m so tired from running that my mouth has forgotten how to work and I accidentally create a big spit bubble as well as a grin, I always try to smile. Because when you’re out there pounding the pavement alone, it’s nice to know that someone else is out there and for that brief exchange, they’re with you."

-Alice, 3quartersalice.tumblr.com/

Killer Bees

 I have just returned from my second music camp for the month. While I have run a few half marathons, my training has been significantly sub par since the city has flooded nearly a month ago. I was able to get a few smaller runs out while at camp and did a fair bit of walking. As a result I am feeling reasonable about my ability to knock off some distance runs in the near future.

Anyways, I returned Saturday evening and, after little sleep (if you know anything about music camps, you know very well that sleep is of extremely short commodity!) I headed out to Canmore with one of my teammates, Trish. Today was one of our Grizzly training runs out of the Canmore Nordic Centre. The drive was beautiful but the clouds over the mountains looked rather threatening. We left home around seven and arrived in Canmore around 9. A few wrong turns later, we successfully found our starting point – aptly marked with a ‘Grizzly’ truck and trailer. We were among the first to arrive and decided to walk around a bit and to also check out the wildlife sightings report at the centre itself.

By 9:40 most of the runners had arrived and the event coordinator, Tony, had started his pre-run briefing. There were probably about 30 runners in total. Tony would be doing the course backwards on bike to ensure that runners didn't get lost on the few really tight switch backs en route.

A view of our course from the 'stadium' at the Canmore Nordic Centre.
Straight up and into the mountains!

The course was beautiful!!! We started as a group right at ten. The first 3km of the course were straight up the side of a mountain and were definitely not for the faint of heart. This section did a pretty substantial job of separating the ‘big guns’ from the rest of us. It is safe to say Trish and I hung out closer to the back of the pack with some of the newer trail runners…. partly because I was one of the only ones who had a phone to call with in the event of an emergency…! We made it through the first 2.5k before we took a quick walk break to let our calf muscles release a bit. The lactic acid build up was something fierce and I was starting to feel like speed walking the day before hand was maybe not the best idea. I was feeling muscles that I hadn’t felt for a while! HA!!!

The end! A few of the stragglers on the final descent towards
the stadium area of the Canmore Nordic Centre. We took
group photos at the end of the race. It was great gun and a
great run! How is that shot for a great view? Picture that for
the whole course!!!! Amazingly awesome and awe inspiring!

After the 3.5k mark or so the course became filled with more bends and the occasional downhill stint. The uphill sections were smaller and much more manageable on already tired legs. This was Trish’s first run over 5km and her first trail run to boot. I should mention that 7km on a trail like the one we were doing is equivalent to running 10-12km on the road… so it goes without saying that Trish did amazingly well! We had to take it a bit easy on some of the downhill sections due to loose rocks and both of us nursing minor knee injuries. There was one particular section after the switchback that Tony had been monitoring where we were joined by another two ladies and all four of us fell in some way, shape or form. I was leading the group and nearly face-planted (I caught myself at the absolute last second), Trish nearly rolled her ankle on some rocks and both of the other two fell in to the rocks. It was becoming very clear how technical some of the trails are to the newbies but man, are they ever bloody fun to run!

It took us 40 minutes to make it through 5km. This is by far the slowest I have ever run. Even for me this was quite an eye opener as to what will be ahead of me over the coming months in my training leading up to the race in October. I knew I was going to be in for lots of hills and rocks and tree roots but I guess you can never really prepare until you are actually there. We finished our first loop of the 7km in a little under an hour (HAaaaahaahaha!) and made it out wildlife encounter free! The last 1k stretch was downhill and a little bit more open. As a result, I was able to book it at my normal run pace without having to worry about my group getting eaten by any sort of wild life.

Overall, the trails were densely wooded and incredibly beautiful. It was a blast getting to run with a group of like-minded people through one of the most incredible places on earth. Tony has done an amazing job organizing the Grizzly ultra and the bi-weekly run groups in Canmore. This guy is awesome! I am looking forward to our next run already and I am hoping that I can get some more of my teammates out to test the trails. It will be really good for them to learn just how much more difficult trail running is in comparison with road running …and how a 5k trail run is not the same as a 5k road run. Race day will be interesting but hopefully the rest of them come around. I am the speed at the front end of the race with the longest (15k) and one of the more difficult trails, but still! It is no reason for the others to let their guard down!

Stampede Road Race

So I guess it is time for another blog posting. While busy with school and fiddle related everything-s at the moment, it is difficult to sit down and focus on writing about running. I promise this will get better as I have to spend less time worrying about school.

Anyways, it is probably old news by now, but Calgary has recently been hit by some pretty bad flooding. As a result, my training for the last few weeks has been extremely limited. My normal loop around the reservoir has been out of the question as I would have required a snorkel and floaties to make it through the back stretch around the Weaselhead. I managed an 17km run through our district but wasn’t overly pleased with the need to run on concrete sidewalks because the grass was over my knees in places, or the need to stop at the dozen or so street lights. I like a solid run, none of this stop and go stuff. I was still proud of the fact that I was able to knock off such a distance and only get lost twice (the cons of trying to get out a big number distance wise in a relatively small area). The week prior to that, as the flooding was just beginning I did my regular 10k look through our neighbourhood.

This past week I was away at the Leahy Music Camp in Lakefield, Ontario. Talk about exciting! I had an amazing time playing alongside and learning from Leahy, Natalie MacMaster, Matt MacIsaac, Andre Burnet, Tim Edey and Mac Morin. I wasn’t able to run but I walked a lot and made up for some running through dance. Don’t forget that a single round of the Highland Fling is equivalent to running a mile. Add all of my practice dances up and I still ran about 30 miles this past week. That’s beside the point however as it wasn’t counted towards anything….!

After returning home I played a quick fiddle gig at the Calgary Stampede on Saturday and worked on getting my hydration back up to par before my half marathon on Sunday morning.

I signed up for the Stampede Road Race half marathon in early May not knowing whether I would be ready for the distance or not. With all of the flooding we had experienced my original training plan had to be put on the back burner. Not only could I not complete my 20km loops of the reservoir (both sides), but I was also helping with flood clean up and ‘feeling the burn’ for other reasons (i.e., because I helped carry 4 feet of solid mud out of a basement because the ‘water’ was too thick to pump out…. You get the idea). Going into the race I was nervous! Big time! My longest run to date had only been 17km. I was still a few kilometers short of my target distance and didn’t know how my body would handle the added mileage.

My fellow leading buddy. The other lady ran next to me
most of the time. We alternated who was out in front
but stayed together until we hit the big hill. What a great
group of people to run with! We even chatted as we ran
.... who knew? The nice thing was I even pushed my pace
a little as well so it was really a good group to be with. I
knocked 10s/km off my average pace to stay up at the front.
It had me smiling for the bulk of the race which is always a
good thing! A happy runner is a good runner!

Start times were slightly staggered. There was a group of runners and walkers starting at 7am and a faster group of runners at 7:30am. Given that I was out of practice with only two runs under my belt for the previous three weeks, I didn’t know what my expected finish time would be. I thus decided starting with the slower group was probably to my benefit. I knew I wouldn’t take longer than the 2h45m cut off time (if you were expecting to take longer than 2h45m you HAD to start in this group), but I wasn’t feeling overly confident about my ability to extrapolate on my 17km run time on a relatively flat course (100m of elevation gain) to estimate my finish time for 21km on a slightly more hilly laden trail (i.e., one big hill being 250m on its own and quite nearly vertical). Slow start it was!


I was actually really glad I had started with the slower group. The people were awesome and very friendly. We had good fun joking around and talking at the start line. I started strong and fell into my normal pace quickly. I was actually impressed because I lead the group until the 12km marker. There was another guy and a lady from the Bahamas’ and I that held a rather tight lead group right from the start gun. At the 12km point, the elite group leaders had caught up to us and passed us in a flash. Man do those guys have legs – they don’t run, they fly! One day!

The course was a bit different than my normal route around the reservoir. We stayed to the higher trails…maybe this was in part to the high water washing out some of the lower tracks? It was nice to have a change of scenery but also meant we had a bit more in the way of hills to contend with. Never the less, I think this is by far one of my favourite run routes around!  After the steep descent into the Weaselhead area, signs of the recent floods were quite prominent. Part of the trail was sliding down the slope (marked off with bright orange pylons) and the bushes and trails were thick with mud. Had I been awake at 4am when I was getting ready for the race, I would have put on my trail shoes with better grips instead of my road runners! Whoops! The flat stretch along the marsh area was very thick with slippery mud. I am REALLY glad our little group had made it there just as the elite group was catching up. We had thankfully made it through the slime before the bulk of the people and thus probably made it through the slime before it got really bad. There were the odd dry patches amongst the mud but I can guarantee most of the 600m stretch was spent trying to catch ones balance before falling flat on ones face... unless you were lucky enough to have long legs that reached from dry patch to dry patch! I wasn’t one of the lucky ones and ran with my arms slightly out to the side and up trying to maintain my forward momentum and vertical stance.

The whopper. Note how small the people in front of me are. This is from the half way point of the hill just after going around a hair pin turn. It's a gross hill at the best of times, never mind when you are on tired lefts and 14km into a race.

Knowing I still had 1/3 of the race to go after making it out of the Weaselhead I opted to walk up most of the whopper hill and had a swig of my Gatorade to keep my energy levels up. Normally I would run the hill but again, I was 4km short in my training and didn’t know what to expect from my body as I neared the end of the race.

The stretch along the top of North Glenmore Park was beautiful. Overlooking the marsh area it was pretty clear most of the plant life was gone or covered by many inches or feet of mud. Nevertheless, it was still as beautiful as ever. Here the number of runners started to pick up significantly. Instead of being in our small group of 4 runners (we had another girl join us around the time we were in the mucky section), we were now in a group of many tens of runners. We passed the canoe club and the golf course before heading north again to cross over Glenmore Trail. Here I lost my run buddies as I don’t like to run on concrete. The overpass over Glenmore was concrete so I decided to take it slowly and speed walked my way up and over to the other side of the freeway. I could still see my run buddies only slightly ahead of me and figured I would just keep my pace solid until the end. At this point we had just reached kilometer 18. Still breathing… still standing. Sore, but still going!

Somehow I managed to make up a bit of distance on the home stretch and reclaimed 3^rd for our group of slow-pokes. The final stretch of the race, the last part of kilometer 20 and the early stages of kilometer 21 brought us back into the athletic park. We had a small grassy incline to run up before getting onto the race track and crossing through the finish like corral gates. This is where I caught up with my lead group. I finished my first 21.38km race (half marathon) in a little over 2h and 10m. I am really pleased with my finish time as I was expecting to be somewhere around the 2:30 mark give or take a couple of minutes. I suspect if I wasn’t airing on the cautious side and ran the whopper of a hill and the overpass that I probably would have finished just under 2h. Darn! Oh well, there is always next time!

I signed up for this race as a challenge – to see if I could actually do the distance. I wasn’t expecting to be prepared and I was definitely not expecting to finish as strongly as I did. I didn’t sprint to the end like I normally do because my tanks were well and truly empty, but I did finish with a solid clip and I was still vertical!

After the race we had a Stampede pancake breakfast. I will tell you that was one heck of a welcomed treat! I stretched out on the grass with a couple of juice boxes provided by Oasis and a bottle of water while the kids’ races were getting organized.  After a bit of stretching and taking my time to get back into a vertical position I joined the lineup for our pancake breakfast. OH YUM! The Lions Club brought out a truck, some grills and a group of volunteers to make breakfast for all of the racers and their families. Runners had the breakfast covered in their race fees, family members had to pay $5 – a very reasonable price for a yummy breakfast! We had pancakes, sausages and maple syrup a plenty. Cobs bread also had freshly baked scones of many different varieties to choose from. I loaded up with more juice and another water and joined my trail running buddy Greg on the bleachers around the track to much away on my breakfast and cheer on the kids as they ran between 300 and 1200m (ages <12m to 12 years). There were some future track starts in the making on the track if I had to hazard a guess. The kids races were followed quickly by awards, photos and a wrap up of the mornings events.

What a great way to spend a Sunday morning. The weather was beautiful and absolutely brilliant for running. It was 13C when our start gun went off and 20C by the time we finished. The temperature increase is another reason I am glad I started with the earlier gun time! It was nearing 25C by the 2h mark of the second gun time. I wouldn’t have been too excited to run the inclines, the over pass and the long home stretch with limited shade in 25C heat.

Anyways, I guess that is it for now! If I am still in cow-town next year, I can guarantee this race will be back on my ‘to-do’ list for sure. It was extremely well organized and extremely efficient. The people were amazing! I don’t think we could have had a better day to get out and celebrate the Stampede. Come hell or high water!

The 'Res'

Haha, a double meaning with this one!

So back tracking a bit with this one as this actually happened before the blog was officially started.

Anyways, one of my newest running loops is around our local reservoir. It is just under 16km if you follow the main drag over the bridge or can be 20km if you run around the entire lake. Only a small portion of the loop is in a populated area, most of it is park land or falls on a native reservation. The trail itself is maintained beautifully and the paths are nothing short of a runners dream. The trail is also 'hill central' and a prime place to work on any sort of speed or hill related training. The hills are about 225m (some more, some less) in elevation change from top to bottom... feel the burn, that's all I've got to say about that!

Anyways, as you enter the furthest part of the loop away from 'civilization' and you are out on the reserve, the trail drops significantly. 250m down a winding slope you end up in a wooded marshland. There are creeks and small lakes everywhere you look. The bush is fairly dense and the trail flattens out for about 500m before rounding another corner.

On this particular day I was having a great run. I was already 6km in and flying by everyone else on foot. My pace was extremely comfortable and I had managed to overcome some issues with my breathing -vs- foot strike pattern. I was feeling great! I had just made it down the 250m twisting and turning trail from the top of the river valley to the bottom by the lakes. I crossed the old wooden bridge and said 'hi' to the ducks in the small lake to my left (this part of the trail tends to be sparse in the human department as I think most chicken out as a result of the sheer drop of the paths!). As I was rounding the first small lake I had to slow, and almost came to a grinding halt as a mother duck was leading her 12 palm-sized ducklings across the path. At my sight the little ducklings started racing for the water and the mother duck turned to hiss at me for disrupting their commute. What a good mother duck she was! I was quite thankful she was crossing when the path was completely void of people other than myself. Some of the bikers can fly down the hills so fast that they would have made duck-cakes out of the cute little family.

The flat marsh and swamp area on the reserve as viewed from above.

After watching all of the ducklings reunite with their mom, I picked up my pace again and continued onwards up the trail towards the river.

The hair on my neck stood up as I looked forward and realized there was a rather large, not-human black thing in the middle of the trail up ahead.

If you know our area, you know that the reserve extends straight out towards the Rocky Mountains. You would also know that this area is wooded for the most part and that bears are not particularly uncommon. Having run into rabbits, coyotes, eagles and other raptors and ducklings by the score it is not terribly surprising when 'holy shyte, bear!' crossed my mind!

I couldn't make out the shape. It was big, black, too short to be a person, too large to be an unattended child and its 'legs' were too far apart to be a human. My heart was racing - and not just because I flew through the first 6km of my run. I had little in the way of options. In front of me was 'big, black and unidentified' and behind me was a solid 1.5km incline. I figured if I looked like food I was pretty much hooped as my legs were tired from my run the day before (that's what marathon training is all about right? running on tired legs!)... I was going to be lunch!

I moved up the trail, towards 'big black and unknown' slowly. Still running, but slowly. I still couldn't make out what it was that I was seeing. I couldn't see any visible foot falls as the thing moved towards me and I moved towards it. I also couldn't see any people. 400m away. I still have nothing. 300m ... yeah... my blood was definitely pumping! 250m away and FINALLY I could breath a sigh of relief. I caught a flash of light - the kind that only man-made synthetic plastic-y stuff gives off. My heart rate slowly returned to a level below 'stroke eminent' as big, black and unknown and I approached each other.

Now, MOST people wear bright colours and are pretty easy to distinguish from their background no matter where they are. I've even run this trail with army recruits coming towards me and could see them clearly from more than 500m away. This 'thing' for lack of a better word had be completely at a loss. So, what was it?

Finally within 100m of this 'thing' I could tell it was a push stroller... not a normal shape by any means. It was all black and had a screen down the length of its front, also black. It had a rolled up plastic cover (to go over the screen) of which I am assuming caused the flash of light that caught my eyes. Black wheels, odd shaped, all black stroller thing... and dad in black shorts with an olive green/beige shift that completely blended in with the background.

WOW - talk about heart attack central!

Welcome to my world of running! If you know me well enough you will know that I have some sort of field around me that attracts animals and that a bear and I meeting on the trails is totally not out of the question. While I am not really afraid of any sort of wildlife by any means (it comes with being a biologist :D), I think I will be carrying something for protection on my runs now just in case. What? I don't know... but I am sure I will find something. My truck keys are a start (they are with me anyways)... but I will find something else too.

The beginning!

Haha, where to start?

I guess I need to say something to kick this sucker off!

A little bit about me. I am a 20-something scientist and I'm always on the go. I love to be outside and I love music. Combined with my ability to literally never sit still, running has been a good way to put two of my interests together. I've been an on-again off-again runner for about 5 years. The advancement of technology and the ability to take everything with me 'on the go' has allowed me to get out and enjoy running more consistently than ever before. Now a 'full-time' runner (no more of this 'off again stuff'), my running career of sorts was kick started by a friend who, for nearly two years insisted that we run at Disney World together. This friend happens to be one of my best buddies who also happens to live on the complete other side of the continent. Anyways, I finally said yes and thus, I suppose the rest is history!

Join me on some of our running adventures as we both train for some pretty intense runs and experience the ups and downs associated with training, racing, travel, etc.

Together we have already collected some pretty fun stories and we decided it was time to share. So, this is 'me!'

With that, get up, lace up and get running! If we can do it, so can you!