Why I Run Ultras.

I remember being in High School, my freshmen year my mom told me that I had to join a club or team. My closest friends Bonnie and Cailtlin both ran Cross Country, and I ran here and there with my uncle. I'll never forget the first day of cross country practice. We met at Nay Aug Park. We were told to run 2 miles. I didn't really know what a mile was. I kept up with my friends for maybe a mile, the last mile I barely was moving and I think I may have shed a tear.... If you told me back then that I would be running distances like I am now I would have dropped dead seriously... I wanted to leave that practice that day and NEVER return. I don't know why I returned to practice. I quit gymnastics, ballet, and karate, I could have just easily quit this too. This is not my earliest memory of running, my earliest memory is when I was about 8. My uncle asked my mom if I would want to run a mile race with him. I have never really run a race before, but my mom dressed me up in yes Blue Jean shorts and whatever the closest things I had to sneakers. I remember I ran along side my uncle it began to pour rain and my jean shorts began to fall down, I ran most of the race trying to hold them up. My uncles asked if they were falling, I said NO!.. ahahha. I remember my uncle dropped off a trophy to me, he said I had won it in the race, it was and still is the biggest trophy I have ever seen. I highly doubt that I had won that trophy I think my uncle was trying to set some fire under my ass at a young age... I guess it took a few years to actually catch.

I never took running seriously through out high school. I mean yes I had those days at speed work that I wanted to show off my "skills" for the football team practicing lol... I think my team mates were pretty pissed at me... We came up with slogans only we would understand like STFD, Slow The Fu*k Down. We would be told to go do a 40 minute run, the boys would go and run hard ( they were bad ass, I always looked up to them ) but us gals would run to the mall and walk around or run to the farmers market and get an apple cider.... :-/ I will never forget the day we actually ran and not only ran but gave great effort, we went out Keyser Ave and gone for more than we should have, I don't think the boys or our coach believed what we ran but we were pretty bad ass our selves that day. Don't get me wrong we worked hard here and there and got more seriously about it our junior and senior years and the boys weren't no Angels, playing ultimate frisbee behind the school.... I just let all those secrets out... :/ 

College is when I started to actually want to be faster, our women's cross country team was actually pretty good, we won our PAC Championships every year and we had a great coach who not only cared about how well we did but also ran along side us. Having that helped us tremidiously. Having people care about what you do, having their support and knowing that how you perform makes you want to do better. Leaving college I thought maybe I'll get into a marathon but before that I took a year off running after that year I really had no interest in getting that marathon in.  A college friend Megan ran her first marathon right after graduation, that set the fire for me to get at it, thank you.

So for about 3 years I ran a few marathons and seemed to be good at it. Marathon training seemed to make me a better runner, even PRing in shorter distances throughout training. Running became part of my daily life,... And now the past 3 years I look back at everything I have done and I wonder why I run Ultras.. I tell myself I stumbled upon it. But I think it was my mom who told me I HAD TO be part of something in life, it was my friends guidance in the sport, the coaches support and care, and the competitiveness in me that grew. 

I also have be accepted onto the Altra Endurance Team for 2015, pretty wowed at this because now my team mates are those runners that I have been looking up to for the past few years. Today I spent a lot of time figuring out my goals for 2015. I know my main goal is to FINISH Leadville 100. I did get selected for 2015, I am beyond excited to be running this event, it is something that I know I must do in my life time, my dream race. So I will be there! 

Last year I qualified and was accepted to run in the 50k World Championship in Qatar, I had to withdrawal from the race because of an injury, but told myself I would come back next year, this year, stronger. I've also been thinking about and pretty certain that I will be running Mad City USA National 100k, in hopes to qualify for the USA 100k team. 

I would also like to focus sometime on timed events, mostly the 12 hour. I want to PR in that event and hopefully cover 85+. Operation Endurance Run is in late March so I just added that to my race calendar. I am sure I will jump into a few 50kms because I love that distance and find it fun to run hard. Also, really looking forward to Cremator 50 mile in July, which will be a great training run for LEADVILLE.