The start of my glorious running career didn’t start until 8th grade Middle School. And I owe it all to Lisa Karchnak. It's funny how I remember all these names. Lisa was tall, blonde, and cute, and in 8th grade, she was a goddess. One day she actually spoke to me. She came right up to me and asked me if I wanted to sign up to do 'track'. I quickly agreed and then asked someone near me what 'track' was. I think I did it more to get to know Lisa, but to my recollection, we never exchanged more than a few words during the season.

I remember my first day of track practice. The coaches wanted us to run from the middle school to the high school, which was ¾ of a mile away. I thought they were insane. About half of the people who signed up for track quit after that day. I vowed to be one of the quitters, but the funny thing was, I told myself I’d stick it out for one more day, and then I said that each day for the rest of the season. Then I started making friends and started liking it. I was a hurdler and high jumper.

One of the last middle school meets we had, there were a bunch of high school kids going around asking us if anyone wanted to do cross-country. Again, I had to ask what that was. When someone said that it was a team that ran and practiced for a 3.1-mile race, I thought that was truly hardcore, in a real bad-ass way. I don’t remember what possessed me to say yes to signing up, but I’m pretty sure Lisa was probably nearby. I remember wanting to have bragging rights all summer, but having no intention of actually doing it. In hindsight, its rather amusing that I wanted to have that hardcore cross country runner image, seeing as we all know how all the cheerleaders are just lining up to date the cross country guys.

Cross country practice started before the school semester even began. Some team member called my house and left a message with my mom that practice started Monday. I couldn’t let my mom think I was wimping out, which looking back now is why I think I went. And the first day wasn’t that bad. I remember thinking that this was such a hardcore sport, and I was hanging with it. I remember seeing improvement and wanting to stick with it. I ended up running a 19:22 for the 3.1 mile that season, which I thought was the greatest thing ever.

I ended up doing indoor track and track that year, but I just never found my events. I wasn’t good enough to be competitive in the mile, and my lack of co-ordination at the hurdles killed me against the high school competition. But I was in pretty good shape though.

That summer my friends and I didn’t have cars, as we were just 15. We had rode our bikes the summer before, but never like that summer. We went amazing distances. We’d make a 3 hour trip to go to the wave pool for 2 hours before turning around and riding 3 hours back. Rides like this were common. At the end of the summer, a week before I moved to Pennsylvania, there was an American Cancer Society bike-a-thon where contestants got pledges “per mile” and then you had to see how many miles you could bike in 5 hours. The record was 45 miles or something like that. I did 76 miles in 4:48, and decided to call it quits when my quads started trembling. I still have that trophy. As a fifteen year-old, I set a record that had stood for years.