Why Now?

I've been thinking about starting a running blog for about 5 months. I repeatedly come back to my favorite running blogs for inspiration when I'm feeling reluctant to get out the door, when I'm sidelined by injuries, and when I doubt my abilities as a runner. But since there are so many blogs out there written by amazing runners, I feel as if there is no place for me, a slightly-better-than-average runner. Someday, though, I hope to be a great runner and I think I have what it takes to make improvements in that direction.

Sometimes when I'm feeling especially discouraged about my abilities I go to the blogs of some of the runners who inspire me most and I look back at their first few entries hoping to see what they were thinking before they became well-known and successful. Do you know what I usually find? I find that they didn't start their blog until they were having success. So I'm hoping to start this blog off right with an honest first entry. I want people to look back through my posts and realize that they, too, can become great adventurers, obtaining their goals and pushing their physical limits.

Another reason why I'm starting this blog now is because my old blog called "More Than a Gear Guru" is about to end and I want my far-away friends and family to stay updated on my adventures. Previously I blogged about my experience as the Equipment Manager for a non-profit campus ministry that provides outdoor adventure experiences for college students. Jobs come and go, but my passion for running and thirst for experiencing the outdoors will continue until I'm in the ground. Now that my husband and I are moving to Colorado, we will have many more opportunities for adventure.

With all of this talk about honesty, here are a few honest assessments of where I'm at right now:

• I started running competitively in middle school but quit cross-country and track in high school because pre-race anxiety would cause me to be too sick to run. I was on the varsity team my freshman year of high-school but couldn't deal with the pressure and expectations.
• I kept running for pleasure throughout college at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and was most inspired by my freshman-year best friend and running-buddy, Ami Hutchinson. We went our separate ways but maybe someday I'll get to tell her. I guess I'll have to run The North Face 50k in Wisconsin to find her. She has won the race the two years she ran it.
• Throughout college I constantly battled shin splints. After working at a summer-camp in Colorado, I got hooked on trail running and found that staying off the pavement took away a lot of pain.
• My husband is a much better runner than me and I constantly have to remind myself to not make comparisons. I didn't realize how good he was until the weekend he planned his sneaky proposal. My dad and I were planning to run a local 5k and Cory had my dad secretly enter him in the race. I said yes and then Cory won the race the next morning. When he ran his debut marathon one month before our wedding, he was well ahead of the Boston-qualifying time.
• Over the past 2 years, I've gradually worked up from 10k to marathon distance, battling sesmoiditis and sciatic back pain along the way. I've learned that even though I'm young, I can't neglect stretching, icing, and cross training.
• My general outlook on road-running is that it's a necessary evil to improve overall fitness and to get faster for trail-running.

Some of my adventure goals:

• Run the Pikes Peak Marathon in August 2013.
• Run a 50 mile race before my best friend, Sara, comes back from working with the Peace Corps in the Gambia. That gives me two years.
• Run a 100 mile race before I'm 30. That gives me a little less than 7 years.
• Hike all of Colorado's 14ers with Cory before I'm 50. No need to rush it. I want to enjoy them slowly.