As a young teen, I tried to get into running a few times, but never stuck with it. I was much slower than my peers and struggled through every run.
About 17 years ago in college, I decided to try again, just to stay in shape. This time, I stuck with it.
Justine
Racing was never on my radar; I was just in it for exercise.
In 2014, one of my coworkers convinced me to run the Army 10 Miler. I had never run farther than 5 miles but thought I would try. I ran it without any training, successfully finished without any issues, but still didn’t feel a huge desire to race.
I didn’t run another race until I tried the Baltimore Half in 2016. I didn’t train properly and hated it. For years, I was only concerned about speed, I never ran a slow run, then I (predictably) got injured.
I ran the Baltimore relay in 2017 and then my hip tendonitis eventually took me out of running for about a month, which I hated. I went to PT and started back running, but progressively got slower and slower and the pain came back on and off. I didn’t want to go back to PT because I didn’t want to stop running, so I just lived with it.
After living in Frederick for about a year during the pandemic, I decided to join the Steeps to meet people since I liked to run.
I immediately got sold on joining the marathon training group.
Justine
I figured, I would do some of the shorter runs and then drop into the half marathon training group.
Once I got started, I just kept going. Once my hip turned to IT band issues, I finally admitted I had to go back to PT, but thanks to the folks in the Steeps, I wound up at a PT that was able to keep me running and training.
When I joined this group, I never thought I would run a marathon and didn’t even know what an ultra was. In October 2021, I completed my first marathon. I immediately decided I wanted to keep running marathons and try to branch out into ultras.
On March 6, I ran my second marathon in under 4 hours, shaving 43:52 off my first time, after only five months. In April, I will run my first 50K and I signed up for JFK 50-miler in November. If I hadn’t joined this group, I never would have thought I could accomplish this.
The wealth of information in the Steeps is amazing.
Justine
This group is full of people who are so welcoming to runners of all abilities. If you like to run, whether it’s a 5K or a 100-miler, the Steeps have something to offer. I’ve made some great friends and I’m so glad I joined the Steeps!
Have an idea or a person to highlight in our Member Spotlight series? Contact Barb at barb.meely@staging.steeplechasers.org!