About Me

I’m a small-town girl currently living in the bigger small town of Greenville, SC. I’m married to an awesome guy and fellow runner, and we share our home with two very opinionated cats.

I started running when I was 10 years old. And yes, I do think that was a good thing. My whole life has essentially been a series of seasons—summer track, junior/high school track, high school xc. I even competed for 4 years at the collegiate level, and while that was a GREAT experience (that’s me finishing 2nd in the conference in xc my senior year ) it was pretty exhausting emotionally.

After a two-year hiatus, I dusted off my running shoes and entered a new season of running: running for me, and running for FUN. I look a little bit different now…for one thing, I’m about 20 pounds over my college racing weight. I’m not sure if anyone thinks “runner” when they look at me, but that’s ok. I finished a 15k in Tampa in February 2007 (the photo shows me heading to the starting line), and that convinced me that I don’t want to be done running yet. I don’t plan on re-retiring for awhile.

In 2008, I undertook the Greenville Track Club/Carolina Triathlon Running Series. I completed 9 of the 10 races, which ranged from a 2-miler on the track to a half marathon to an 11k trail run. For my trouble, I received a year’s worth of semi-dedicated training and an age group award.

In 2009, I set my sights higher and began training for the “big one” — the marathon. A great winter/early spring of training left me feeling very confident that I’d soon be the proud wearer of a finisher’s medal. What happened instead proves that, no matter how many years you’ve put in, you can always learn something new about the sport. On an unseasonably hot day in April, I found myself with the dreaded DNF instead of a finisher’s medal.

I was blindsided by the disappointment. After several months of mental recovery, my new goal is an old one — finish a marathon. It is time to pick myself up and try again.

About the Blog

This blog is part of the “running for fun” experiment. If anyone else finds my experiences entertaining, enlightening, or enjoyable…well, that’s great, too. But the real purpose of the blog is recording my journey mile by mile, step by step, random thought by utterly random thought.

I love to blog…but one of the negative aspects of blogging is that the more you write, the less time each post gets to spend in the limelight. If you’re new to MeganRunning, here’s a list of some of my favorite posts (long since covered by other ramblings) that you might enjoy:

• A Word About Cross Training…Or, an Ode to DDR
• 1001 Reasons Not to Run
• What to Do for Runners
• Monikers
• Just One More…Or, the Games We Play
• To a Tee
• Swamp Rabbit Trail: Part 2 of Some
• On Energy & Deception
• Lessons Learned While Almost Running a Marathon

Around May 2008, the blog has acquired a guest author: my very good friend and running buddy. If you see a post that talks about me in the third person and/or has “~ Running Buddy” at the end of it, it’s her handiwork. I’m fairly certain I don’t have multiple personalities—if I do, I’m positive that only one of them is a writer/blogger. Here’s a link to Running Buddy’s first post. You can also separate our posts by selecting one of us from the “authors” link in the left menu.