First Post

I'll begin by explaining a little bit about myself. I am a 23 year old recent college grad who is, for the most part, undecided about what I want to do with my life. I majored in International Studies with a minor in Business and French and like most people that I tell this to, I'm struck with the question of, "what are you going to do now?". My answer is almost always "I have no f'n clue".

For now, I am a waitress until I begin my service with AmeriCorps in mid-April in hopes that I will survive off of their meager income (averaging about $5/hour) and gain experience so that I will be able to finally get one of those full timers with big fat paychecks... or most likely go back to selling my first born to finance more student loans so that I can go back to grad school.

Until this moment, I have wanted to keep a blog but figured that writing about my complaints in the restaurant industry, updates about my boyfriend, how my dog is doing, etc. is not exactly what I'd call good reading. But through a thorough self-assessment I discovered that I may have one topic that others may find interesting, at least others with the same interest, and that is RUNNING!

My Running History:

I first began running through the influence of my mom and step-dad who are, and continue, to be HUGE runners. I was one of those little kids you see racing my heart out to get through the 1 mile fun run at 5ks. When I was 8, my mom enrolled my older brother and I onto a club track team and I would run so hard on the 1500m race that I would cry every time I finished. I was never the fast kid, though, but I'll tell you one thing, I was still competitive and would fight hard for that 3rd place!

After my season on the kids track team, I went on a running hiatus until I finally agreed with my mom to go to one of the summer workouts with the high school cross country team right before my freshman year in exchange for a trip to the mall. It definitely took a lot of convincing because I wanted to be one of the "cool kids" and I didn't think being a cross country runner would get me there. But,  I went and I ran and thought I was going to die but kept going back. I ran cross country and track until I graduated four years later and continued to run (non-competitively) throughout college and here we are today!

While there have certainly been months where I have ran maybe as much as 3 miles, I somehow almost always come back and now I'm at it again to train for my 5th marathon.