Who I Am

My name is Brandon and I am a runner from Coon Rapids, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. I have been running now for 10 years, since I was in middle school and am about to finish college this spring with a teaching degree in physics and chemistry. I will be using this blog to talk about why I run, what I'm doing with my running, racing, basically anything that has to do with running in my life.

A little history of my life as a runner: I began running on my middle school track team as a way to stay in shape for basketball season but quickly fell in love with running, so much so that within two years of high school I no longer played basketball but ran year round! I ran for Coon Rapids High School in cross country and track and absolutely loved it. I began college at North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND preparing to run for the college but a major injury came quickly and that plan ended abruptly. I transferred to the University of Wisconsin-River Falls the next year and began training for my first marathon (once I was healthy) and ran the 2004 Twin Cities Marathon that fall.

That race got me hooked on the distance and I had to do another one! I barely qualified for Boston but I did qualify so I had to go out and run it, so I did. I ran Boston 2005 and since I have run Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, MN in 2006 and 2007 and also ran the Twin Cities Marathon in 2005. My P.R. (personal record) is 2:59:01 (Grandma's 2006) but my running has been sporadic over the last 8 months.

After running Grandma's 2007, I began training for my final season of college cross country at UW-River Falls but quickly developed a rather severe injury to my left hip. I went through a number of doctors before getting physical therapy which finally solved the problem. Over the last month, while student teaching, I have finally gotten back into running consistently and it's such an amazing feeling to just be able to be running regularly again. When I can't run consistently, it feels like there is something missing in my life.

I believe that my ability and love of running is a gift that God has blessed me with and I want to be sure that my gift does not go to waste, not to mention running is easily my greatest stress reliever and my best way to relax.

I'm planning to register for the 2008 Twin Cities Marathon and train for it this summer. Up until then, I'm planning to take each run one workout at a time and just enjoy the coming of spring and perhaps run a road race here or there!