When did you start running and why?

I guess I very first started running (besides laps and sprints during soccer practice) the summer before 8th grade, back in 1995. I had just been accepted onto an Athena team (what girls’ travel soccer is called in Georgia), and our coach wanted us to be able to run a mile in 8 minutes by the end of the summer. My best friend was on the team, too, and we’d go to the high school track or a park a couple times a week to practice a mile.

I only ran sporadically (anyone else learn that word thanks to Clueless?) during summers until the summer before 11th grade (1998) when we decided to join the cross country team. We just thought it would be fun, and we made it fun by talking the whole time, running through all the sprinklers, cutting through the woods, and resting in the shade. Needless to say, I wasn’t the best on the team. In fact, I was in the bottom half, but that didn’t bother me. I was always in the middle of the pack during races, even if I only got to run in the races that everyone was in.

Once I started college, I went back to the sporadic running, though I was pretty regular during summers, until I started seriously trying to lose weight in 2008. Then I remembered how much I love it.