Awakening

It all began in Fall 1997, my Freshman year at Freehold Boro High School.  I joined the Cross Country team to get in shape for basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring.  I had no intentions whatsoever of making running my thing.  Well it turned out that I was a pretty decent runner, made a lot of friends on the team, and was actually having fun out there.  I think what I liked most about it was that success didn't always boil down to winning or losing (we had a losing season), and you didn't have to be the natural athlete to become a good runner (5'6 and 150 doesn't exactly scream runner...or really any other athlete for that matter).  I've always loved competition though, and worked hard at everything I did.  So what I quickly learned in running was that no matter what, you were always competing, whether it was against yourself, the stopwatch, or other runners.  There was always a driving force, and a reason for you to work harder, and that hard work would eventually pay off.  Well, I failed in my attempt to make the basketball team, but I really wasn't too upset.  Running had gotten into my blood, and I just went straight to the Indoor Track team to run some 1600s and 3200s.  By the time Spring came around, I didn't even think twice about joining the Outdoor Track team.  I was hooked.  So after it was all said and done, I enjoyed 12 great seasons of running in High School.

Slumber

College was a different story altogether.  I wasn't nearly good enough to run at any school, so I would have to do it on my own.  Well...that didn't turn out so well.  To tell you the truth, I can't even really remember how much I ran during those 4 years...  I think I started off with high hopes and ran a decent amount my Freshman year, and maybe did a couple 5K races.  But the rest of my time there, running was just something to do to stay in shape, and it really wasn't a big passion of mine.  The one exception was the summer of 2004 when I had an internship with Nike in Beaverton, OR.  Being there totally brought back my passion for running.  To help, my roommate was also a big runner, and there was also a big 5K happening at the end of the summer, so I had a reason to run again.  I wound up with my personal best in a 5K up to that point, and it was a great summer!  Unfortunately, when I went back to school, I didn't continue on.

Reborn

And finally, we come to my current chapter.  In June 2006, I moved out to Oregon to start my Nike career.  Not coincidentally, I started my running career back up again.  There's just something about this place that makes me want to move my legs!  I got onto a Hood to Coast team that year and that was easily the highlight of that year.  In 2007, I ran my first half marathon, and ran a variety of other races as well.  2008 though was by far my best year ever.  I set PRs in every single distance that I've run, and I just felt great!  However, after Hood to Coast that year, I was pretty burned out, and took some time off.  After that, when I tried to start back up, I started back up too quickly, and battled through injuries off and on.  So 2009 was pretty much a bust for me.  Zero races besides Hood to Coast.  That marked the time for the start of some serious training for me though.  I'm now ramping up for a killer 2010.  I'll be running in the ORRC 10K series, and my goal will be to win the overall series.  So far I've got 8 10Ks, a half marathon, 2-3 5Ks, and H2C lined up from Jan-Oct next year.  Hopefully all goes well!

Thanks for reading about my running life!