Welcome to my blog!
Thank you for taking the time to check out my new blog. To be honest, I have dreamed of creating a platform to share my running stories for a long time, but just never had the time, motivation, or creative reach to get started. Amusingly, it was my masters math course that piqued my interest. Every week, we are required to post two blog entries, one on the current chapter on our book and the other on a mathematical question and answer to a Ted Talk.
It was when I wrote a blog about estimating the total number of miles we could reasonably guess all runners participating in the Runners World Run Streak would cover during the Memorial Day to 4th of July window (I calculated ~6,900,000 miles for frame of reference) that I thought, “hey, this is fun, and could be a great challenge moving forward”.
And here I am. Trying to figure out how to articulate my thoughts on the broad topic of running and endurance athletics in general. I have so many ideas, so many grand plans, but need a direction, a purpose, a goal. Running for me has always been a mental, almost spiritual endeavor. I am never more at ease with myself and more connected to my emotions than when I am out on the trails. How do I capture these emotions in a compelling narrative, and how do I make it relatable to my fellow runner and non-runner alike?
To help guide you (and myself) along in this journey, I have laid out a couple of goals for my blog:
THROUGH WRITING THIS BLOG, I will aim to....:
1. Highlight the emotions I experience while running and then expand upon those in a constructive way. These emotions range every week, sometimes every day, be it during a jog after work where I’m too exhausted and mentally drained to run more than 1 mile, or those Super Saturday’s where motivation hits me like a ton of bricks, and I run 15 miles like it isn’t even a thing.
2. Express my fears and reservations with running in a constructive manner. To reflect upon the lows to help elevate the highs. To pinpoint where my internal frustrations in my running abilities come from, and help harness the positive energy to block out the negative vibes before they even hit.
3. Expand upon my goals in endurance racing, especially as we grow closer to the day when I actually sign up and run an ultra-marathon.
4. Focus on the beautiful running community that exists wherever you go. Runners have a special bond with one another, and distance runners even more. We all understand the sacrifices we make in order to achieve our lofty distance and time goals, and that’s what makes the running community so strong. A runners high is real, it is tangible, and it is evident in every single one of us who are willing to seek it out.
And I will attempt all of this, while drawing from the wide breadth of knowledge already existing in the running community.
I’m excited to begin this journey, and so happy you have decided to join. Through a weaving narrative accentuated with photographs, I will expand upon running through the mental and emotional experience. I hope you enjoy!
Xoxo – Kate
