I am married to my college sweetheart
and a mom to two young adult sons.
I am a runner, a personal trainer;
and I am nuts about Virginia Tech football!
Oh, and I kinda like the Washington Nationals, too!
2010 North Face Endurance Challenge Marathon
I hold a BS in Health and Physical Education from Virginia Tech and taught PE for two years right out of college. After teaching, I moved to the fitness industry and now have over 30 years of experience helping people learn to lead healthier lives. In addition to my Health and Physical Education degree, I am a Certified Weight Management Consultant and a Certified Conditioning Specialist, both with the National Sports Performance Association. Additionally, I am a Road Runners Club of America Certified Running Coach.
I have coached runners for both the National AIDS Marathon Training Program and the Worldgate Sport & Health Running Program. Currently I lead a running group called The Cruisers, and I am very active in our local Moms RUN This Town chapter.
I am passionate about running, working out, and helping others to adopt a healthy lifestyle to improve the quality of their lives. I believe that consistency is the key to a successful lifestyle change; and that staying active through strength training, cardiovascular conditioning, and stretching, along with making wise food choices, is paramount to staying healthy, fit, and young.
Back to running….. I ran track in high school, but couldn’t run cross country because my school didn’t have a cross country team; and yet one of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t run cross country for Virginia Tech. I think the coach would have loved another pair of legs on the team, even though I didn’t have any distance experience!
I decided that I wanted to run a marathon for my fortieth birthday present to myself. I ran my first marathon (Marine Corps Marathon) in the pouring rain, qualified for Boston, and loved it! Four short weeks later, I ran the JFK 50-Miler with my new running buddies, and I haven’t looked back! I have 40 marathons, countless half marathons, 20-milers, 10-milers, 10K’s, and 5K’s behind me now and I’m still going strong!
Enough about me! I hope you’ll find my little blog entertaining; and that it’s something you’ll want to read while enjoying your morning cup of coffee. Here’s to a healthy start to your day!
I’m so happy you found my site so I could find yours… FORTY marathons under your belt?! That’s amazing and I think I might follow (to one degree or another) in your footsteps. I’m getting ready to run my first marathon. Thanks for the inspiration to keep running and to run far!
I’m so excited for you to experience your first marathon! Which one are you running?
virginia tech alumni here…miss blacksburg sooo much
I LOVE Blacksburg, too!!! My husband (VT alum as well) and I love where we live now, but say Blacksburg is the only other place we would consider moving to.
Another Tech alumni 🙂 Just wanted to say hi. My husband and I are both VT alum (him ’07, me ’10) and we miss the ‘burg. We loooove Tech football, and only live about 45 minutes south of Bburg so we try to get out to as many games as we can! And yes, you can live 45 minutes south of Tech and still miss it…
Are you running in the 3.2 Mile Run in Remembrance (my husband and I are)? My husband and I graduated from VT many years ago, and our oldest son graduated from there in 2011. Blacksburg is my favorite place on earth!
Yes, I am. I’ve run it every year since they started it, except the year it got canceled. My husband runs, but he doesn’t do this race because it’s too hard for him to participate in an event that is centered on April 16.
I understand your husband’s feelings completely… That was a tragic day for Hokie Nation. 🙁
It was (and still is) really hard but I love the sense of community the race has. Kind of a way of showing “We Will Prevail” to use Nikki Giovanni’s words.
[…] runs we’ve done together. And of course, acknowledging him in this little blurb on the My Team tab on my […]