Online or Offline

When you have a blog, you put yourself at risk of having a stalker, or some weird man following your life. However, I stay in this blogging in addition to professional running, not just because of my book coming out in the future, but because I think the good outweighs the bad. However, I try not to post too personal of things on here. Mostly, I just talk about running, and never my location or perfect pictures or videos of me.

It means a lot to me that my doctors from my chapter of health obstacles can tell a patient to come on my blog and read my story. Or read my story to help them write an admission essay for college. When I was going through a lot, all I wanted to read were inspirational stories about people overcoming health obstacles and returning to a happy life. As soon as I felt in a good place after overcoming my health obstacles, and sealing the deal with pro running of long distance, I put myself out there. I feel like basically everything I post is appropriate and health related, so my boss can read things on here and feel okay. This may become a place where I just have my book soon, but I think most of the pieces on here are inspiring to people overcoming obstacles trying to live a healthful life, or even athletes looking on how to improve running or lifestyle. I love meeting athletes and they inspire me to be better in running and life.

Yes, there is that occasional man I was never dating lurking on here who does not have my number, but I have helped too many going through what I went through to take this down so close to my book publication. My doctors love telling current patients to read my ‘About Me’ section and learn from how much my life changed from my health obstacles and constructive ways to run to overcome anything in life. Overcoming health obstacles is a big thing for me, and I upset to find out that a friend from my past told a different friend inadvertently that their health obstacles were too much for me, and it made them feel weird about talking to me while still overcoming those obstacles; I was devastated to find out something silly like a person not in my daily life saying something incorrect was why I missed them that much longer. If only that girl said it would make me want to look at them even more, instead of what they did which was significantly disappointing to find out later on. The only thing I do is encourage people to run to overcome anything in life, figurately or literally. I love a good story about becoming a stronger person, we are meant to adapt and grow through obstacles into better people. I never say things like ‘nope’ I say things like ‘yes’ let me see everything. If I am running recreationally and not in the elite field of a longer event, I like to pick a buddy and pace them through the hard parts, and sometimes I get to do that in real life as moral support to a friend I love whom is trying to overcome an obstacle; those times are always an honor to have. One time, I paced a judge 20ish miles into a marathon when she almost dropped out because of her knee tendonitis, and it’s one of the coolest stories I have; thank god she is a marathon runner almost just because of that reason, Empire State Marathon 2015 forever. That was the fall that I ran two marathons, not just one. Another time, the last two miles of the 1812 half-marathon I helped pace a military woman running for the first time, feeling that wall in the end, but it was cool talking them through it; she’s an incredible woman. In real life, I have helped buddies enduring health obstacles I had in the past, wear that monitor one more time, switch medicines, or watch lacrosse practice instead of playing. Another time, one of my best friends whom had been a collegiate DI lacrosse goalie, needed to run a midfielder mile time and I made her try to keep up with me for five miles at my fastest pace the week before; because I always made that gap she had to run so fast, she beat attackers in practice the next week. That is actually how I got my official Cornell Women’s Lacrosse t-shirt when I watched them play at Harvard that spring, I made my goalie friend faster than the attack and some midfielders during the timed mile. I actually had the opportunity to run on the indoor Harvard track, which was pretty cool on a weekend with my coach, it was my special thing in U20 marathoning, completely separate from my friend’s lacrosse game of course; I ran a very fast marathon track time at age 19 on the Harvard track. My time trial ended up being a bigger deal than the race I thought I was training for by running that private event, at the time I thought it did not even matter and it was just a build up with my coach for a race; it’s a cool thing about me living my best life that year not even realizing it at the time. That’s how I knew how to travel from St. Joe’s to Harvard to watch my friend’s play some LAX a few weeks later. The first time I took a train and needed to get a cab, I freaked out but it was fine in the end. Nevertheless, 5:30 minute miles are a big deal in lacrosse conditioning. Seriously, those days were when it was fun to be a young marathon runner in the elite field, comparing it to my lacrosse buddy’s athletic careers, now I feel older even though I’m still young for the sport; already been there done that. In reality, being young for the sport never made me feel younger it made me feel older than my friends, and then I started doing work earlier than them and when they caught up to me it made them understand why I stopped going out so much. It all comes full circle, you can hit different bench marks on sperate timelines than your friends or need a ‘water break’ at different time too. I would rather sit down and talk to someone for fifty years than make them run fifty miles with me, especially if we are in a place in life where we already ran a lot and should sit down like that anyway. I might be jealous or perhaps more attracted to their comfy chair than them; all those rumors must be true now. Sometimes, overcoming an obstacle makes you a better person in a way that you learn compassion, like one of my friends overcame a health obstacle to suddenly become the nicest man ever, they were kind of really mean before ‘running to overcome’. For instance after a mission trip I had horrible anxiety for months post seeing terrifying things in the third world, and they would lay with me watching a movie, where before ‘running to overcome’ that just is not something they would do with me unless I had some extravagant outfit with spray tan and my hair styled perfectly well. It took years to watch a movie together and eat popcorn, it was harder to get him to be a good friend than it was to run a marathon at seventeen; going through something in life made him gain a pleasant personality, at least with each other, just sitting there. He was like that because of going far away to school at five, not having anyone ever hug him, and by the time twenties rolled around they were just very very cold, running to overcome made them more warm and fuzzy or compassionate; you need to hug your kids everyday so they express emotion healthily as adults. All of my interviews are a big deal to me, and so are my running stories, there is a bigger purpose. The best runners run for something bigger than themselves. You can really use personal experiences to help other people, and it collectively makes a big difference, one second of compassion can be very profound and lead to something bigger.

There is always a debate on the pros and cons of putting yourself out there, but when you do it to help other people there are always more pros than cons! Even whenever you write a book, you do it more to help someone, not to be a money-maker. I share running stories for the right reasons, and I think the right reasons are the only reasons. It’s nice to give someone your card and they can look at your cohesive website with anything you’ve published. When my book is out, I’ll be at all of these race expos, retreats or events, talking about me and a lot of people love to talk to me about my run accomplishments, so that’ll be cool when things are back to normal! I love hearing “Wow, you finished MDI” or “Wow, you ran all of those times by… 20 and 25…” or “ How did you overcome all of those health obstacles and run to that standard?” or “How do you organize your fundraising events, because I am trying to….?” or “Do you still want that contract? Will you sign it?!” so I love being a blogger with a soon to be book publication. It is like the entire career could be a secret, but I get to have an entire book.

****I ran my fastest marathon time @19 on the Harvard track, and it was only supposed to be a time trial before Boston, which I did not end up running that Spring…. I think I was fastest at 19, and I do not know if I will ever be like that again, only time will tell. Did I outgrow being good at the marathon before hitting 26, the age you should run 26ish miles the best? I do not share this story all the time, because a family friend is insanely jealous, but would not care if I ran MDI a million times. :) Sometimes you do things young, but that is the time it happens for you. I did a lot of training in Boston, and loved the indoor Harvard track, I took the train from Maine down to Boston all the time in college just to run the course and meet with my coach. Magic was made in my marathon PR wearing a sports-bra with spandex and Nike sneakers on the indoor Harvard track, me running at nineteen was everything. Even though I never studied at Harvard I love it so much, because that is where I ran my fastest marathon time ever and watched my best friend play lacrosse for her dream school.