it's a katie life: About!

Let me start off by saying that I have not always been a runner.

In fact, growing up I couldn't have been any less of a runner. Although I was very active (softball year round, soccer and basketball) I hated running. I think part of the reason I stopped participating in Soccer at 15 was because I realized just how much I hated running (and my fat ass had developed "exercise induced asthma") and didn't want to put up with the torture of playing defense simply because I sucked at running.

I continued to play softball until I graduated from high school but gave up on basketball too. When I wasn't spending my evenings on the field, I didn't really do much else. I loved the computer and eating so I was pretty sedentary.

Fast forward a few years and I'd graduated with my BFA in Sound Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design (another 4 years of sitting in front of a computer in a dark room) weighing in probably over 200lbs. I remember the first (and only) time I saw a number of 200 or more on the scale. It was immediate disappointment in myself. So I stopped weighing myself. Instead of eat right, or exercising I just pretended like it wasn't an issue. After a few months of doing much of nothing post grad I packed up everything I owned and moved to Indiana (from Savannah, GA) to be a live-in nanny for a family that had just had their world rocked by cancer.

The short 8 months I spent with the family is where I found my turning point. The mom (young, only 28) had just finished a tough battle against Leukemia and I came in to help out around the house as much as I could. We often found ourselves at the gym 3 or 4 times a week. Krysta was trying to build back her strength in hopes of one day getting back to where she was pre-diagnosis. She talked often about how she was in the middle of training for a half marathon when she was told those words none of us want to here. Taking up running was a slow process and it started with me really not knowing how else to spend my time at the gym and really wanting to do something that showed my admiration for Kyrsta's strength and courage.

After 2 weeks of struggling through Couch 2 5K I decided it was pointless to do all this work and not focus on my eating as well. I started weight watchers at 189lbs in Janurary of 2012. Getting the weight off was not nearly as challenging as I thought it was going to be. I didn't have many opportunities to go out to eat or drink so it was the perfect environment to start a lifestyle change. I moved back to GA in March 17lbs down and ran my first 5k in 34 minutes, without stopping to walk once. I honestly have little memories of that race. It should probably hold a higher amount of significance for me, but it's the marathons that stick with me now.

Back in GA weight watchers was a little more challenging. I took to emailing my virtual meeting girls. Since I did the whole thing only online we (me, my cousin, a friend or two of hers, another friend of mine and a friend of hers) would send each other daily emails with details and updates about how we were doing. It was a life saver.

After running my first 5K I knew I needed another goal to keep me active so after reading around a bunch of blogs I found about the Leukemia and Lymphoma's Team in Training program that allowed me to raise money for Krysta and train for a half marathon with a group. I would have never been able to do what I did with out them. I raised over $1300 and ran a 2:10 half marathon in November of 2012. I also moved to Atlanta in that time and started working for Wesley Apartment Homes as a leasing consultant (who I still work for now as an assistant manager).

I'm not going to lie. After finishing that half marathon the last thing I wanted to was run another one. But for some reason I agreed to sign up for the 1st Nike Women half marathon in DC with my cousin (it was going to be her first!). It was a lottery so a big part of me just hoped we wouldn't get picked. Then we did. Buuuut I didn't really train. Before I knew it we were six weeks out from the race and the most I'd run was six miles and I was fighting a serious case of runner's knee pain. I stupid trained for that race and stupidly ran. After a 2:15 finish I told myself that I wouldn't do that again and I would lose the base I'd already built. I scaled back, added to my base and agreed to run a marathon in Vegas with my boss.

Over the summer I trained pretty consistently. Track tuesdays with my boss and his friends (who all eventually became my friends), my first trail race, first 10k race, a half marathon PR (ugh the pain) and then... Vegas. I felt absolutely miserable the entire race from some weird stomach issues, I have yet to figure out what triggered it. So I said, "no way will this be how I go down." So I ran another, 30 minutes faster, but in the process of inconsistent training I hurt both of my achilles tendons.