Hi There! An Introduction

This will be my running journal-race report-venting and sharing place. Here's a little about me.

Growing up, the house sports were baseball and aerobics. In 10th grade, I decided not to play softball anymore (too many line drives coupled with a dislike of the start/stop/wait pace) and looked for something new. In fall of 11th grade, I tried cross country and loved it like crazy. My best 5k ever was 26.xx. Senior year, I joined the team but didn't finish the season due to shin pain. I am a quirky, injury-prone runner. Our coach set up a triathlon, a 10k, and weight training. It was pretty awesome - thank you coach!

The tendency toward getting injured has been with me always.

It was a long time before I started running again. I filed it away as something I had to revisit.

My freshman year of college, a fellow student at my university was brutally murdered while out on a nighttime run. I run in her memory sometimes.

My husband and I made some kind of weird agreement to be sedentary. This seemed to work for quite a long time. We had some amazing kids and got winded while playing with them. A lot of years passed.

In 2012, there was so much running in popular culture that you could almost call it an engulfment risk. Running was everywhere. It looked like runners were having fun that I wasn't having. I took the kids to a kids run at a zoo. I ran a few 5ks. It was inspiring and fun and hard work. It was all of the good things.

It stuck. I ran more. And more. I read the running blogs. Idiot Runner Girl and Wannabe Athlete are two blogs that helped.

I ran a poorly organized 10K in my grandfather's memory, in an hour. Then WOVI played Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix. It was too perfect.

On 10/20/2012 I ran my first half marathon and got lost on the unmarked course. It was beautiful. I didn't train with fuel, and I got so sick. I wanted to do lots more of these.

I kept training (a little). I ran all of the runs. I ran more half marathons.

I was challenged by a work mentor to run a full marathon, so I started training for one, even though he was crazy and there was no way I could finish one. 26.2 is a lot of miles.

Despite the fact that 26.2 would be impossible, I decided that I should become an ultramarathoner before my 40th birthday. I decided this 4 months before my 40th birthday. I was successful in that race and I also got shin splints on that day, because I ran the hills very poorly but joyously.

Trail running is a thing. An awesome thing.

When my shins felt better, I rain an impossible 26.2 miles for training on what happened to be a really, really difficult course, then I ran my official yet impossible 26.2 miles on a hilly road course. I count 83.4 impossible Happy Birthday miles.

I accidentally became a Marathon Maniac; however, becoming a Half Fanatic was very much intentional and happened yesterday (10/5/2014).

Please use caution. None of this is medical advice. If you attempt to do what I have done, you could get runner's knee (or a lot worse).

Today, my Athlinks account sits at 529 race miles. There are three ultras and eight marathons tucked in there. There's probably 15,000 crunches and a few planks hidden behind the scenes.

How many miles will be added today?