I kind of fell unexpectedly into the world of ultrarunning. I work for a company that puts on marathons and a bunch of my coworkers did a half marathon together. I wasn't a runner at all and didn't have any desire to run but felt the pressure to do this race with them. I ended up really enjoying the experience. A few weeks after the race, I started trail running and instantly knew that I wanted to do a race on trails. The natural progression was to challenge myself with larger distances and in the spring of 2024, I ran a 50 miler. I had only been a runner for about a year so it was a steep learning curve to run a race like that.
2. Who are you inspired by?
Anyone that does something with a high probability of failure to me is inspiring. I remember being at the finish line of a race I was working at and a woman crossed the finish line. She had run a half marathon and had done it in about 6 hours. I could tell she was hurting and this was a huge accomplishment to her. I could tell it meant a lot more to her than a lot of runners that finished hours faster than her. I think people don't take as many risks as they should. Signing up for a race you may not be able to finish is a risk more people should take. Watching people take these risks inspires me to go do hard things.