The Beginning
The Beginning
In 2013 my mom contacted me to let me know that my dad was sick and in the hospital and the doctors were saying that he had something called Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease also know at COPD. I had no clue what COPD was because living in small towns you never heard of anyone being real sick from something like COPD.
After doing research and having an understanding of what COPD was I wanted to do something to raise awareness for the disease while honoring my dad and the people worldwide that are affected by this same disease. At sat around thinking of things that I could do to raise awareness and thought to myself that I could begin running because I was a runner while I was in high school.
At the end of 2013 I ran my first marathon in Indianapolis Indiana. After completing my first marathon it was the worst experience of my life because of how bad my legs hurt and how long it took to finish the race but I made my dad proud because I was doing something for him so I waited until early 2014 and told myself that I wanted to attempt to run two marathons and continue raising awareness COPD and honoring the people that were unable to run. I began training properly and had a better understanding of how hard a marathon was. I completed two marathons in 2014 but the important thing was is that people were noticing what I was doing and who I was running for. I had the opportunity to meet people and talk to them about what COPD was and that was a win for me.
2015 I felt a lot better and more confident in my ability to run and began getting more support from businesses and organizations such as the COPD Foundation. 2015 was the year that I decided that I wanted to complete a marathon in all 50 states because there are people living with the disease everywhere so what better way to honor them was to run in a state where they all live. I completed 25 marathons and did 13 in 18 days while having the chance to speak to thousands of people along the way. At the end of 2015 I thought I could finish the last 25 states during 2016 but was unable to finish them all due to injury and not having the funding needed for travel, and expenses.
Throughout 2016, 2017 and 2018 I continued to run races in as many states as possible in hopes of finishing the goal of running in all 50 states. December of 2018 I ran my first 50 mile ultramarathon in Florida finishing 6th place. As of now I am two marathons away from finishing a marathon in all 50 states.
