Tiny Thunder Running

Can you believe that we made it through 2017 and here we are at the start of a new year full of new goals and possibilities? 2017 was a mixed bag for me. Running-wise it was fantastic, but other things not so much at all. Looking back at all of the things I have accomplished and all of the miles I have tackled make me feel nothing short of amazing. Incredible. Strong. BADASS. I wanted to do a quick run down of all the races I did this year. I didn't blog on all of them but I thought it would be fun. I ended up doing 18- YES EIGHTEEN races this year ranging from 1 mile to 100k (62+ miles) with a total of 1540 miles which is my highest mileage yet. So here goes, you ready?? 1.  Squirelly Tail Twail Wun  - 2/26/17, time 2:26:34. This was a super sweet, muddy race. The temperature was cold but not frigid and I had a course PR. I had so much fun and it was a great first race of the year for me. I plan to back in 2018 for year 4. 2.  Chambersburg half - 3/11/17, tim...

Since it's been almost two weeks since I ran my first 100k, I thought it might be time to try and make sense of all the thoughts in my head and write them down. At the beginning of 2018, I set a crazy goal of completing Devil Dog 100k after pacing a good friend at the 2017 event. It was pretty overwhelming and a lot SCARY to set such a goal after having only completed one 50k in 2017. I knew it was going to be a lot of work and that it would not be easy. In the first half of the year, I focused a lot on keeping my body strong and healthy with some cross training workouts that helped tremendously. I felt so strong and capable. In September, you might remember that I completed 45 miles at the 12 Hour Labor Pain  race and felt pretty incredible about that. I faced a lot of life changes between that race and Devil Dog and was honestly feeling extra anxious about it in the weeks leading prior. My schedule kept me from a few longer runs so I just hoped that all my other trainin...

I took the day off work Friday so that I could sleep in a little and take my time getting ready to head to West Virginia for the Freedom's Run  marathon. Something really cool happened on my way there, something that only a runner can appreciate. About 30 minutes into my drive, a car passed me on the left, honked and waved. It took me a second, but I realized that the drive did this because he, too, was runner with multiple 26.2 stickers on his bumper. A huge smile came over my face. Really awesome run nerd moment, right? I picked up my packet Friday afternoon at Shepherd University in WV. My sister lives about 20 minutes away so I stayed at her house for the weekend. It is always fun when I can mix my race schedule with some family time as well. Friday night was pretty low key and I went to bed a little later than I should have (OOPS!!). After my parents arrived, we talked about places my family could come out to see me along the course and got a little plan in place so I knew w...

At the beginning of the year, I set a few really crazy goals and set out to achieve them. I don't think I ever really wrote much about any of them because, to be honest, they were SUPER scary to me. Mostly because I wasn't sure how my body would hold up knowing that during the last two fall training cycles, I ended up with KT Tape holding me together. I was scared that I would sign up for races with these amazing mileage goals and my body would refuse to participate. I asked around and did some online "research" for quick exercises that I could do to try to prevent a repeat for the third year in a row. I wanted to make these scary goals attainable, but knew it was unrealistic to think I was going add in additional 30 minute long training sessions on top of all the running I would be doing. Thankfully, leading up to last weekend my body felt great. It might sound a little pompous, but I felt really strong and confident. For me, this is a HUGE change from last y...