Hey y’all. Welcome to Mobile Bay Runner! I am Sam.
I was born and raised in Sweet Home Alabama, where the skies are so blue and as it turns out, the governor is not always true. In real life I am a Certified Public Accountant, but here on the interwebs I identify as a runner. I’m still in Alabama, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to share some snippets of my running journey with you guys here at Mobile Bay Runner!
I love running (duh!), drinking coffee, eating fudge, spending time with animals, being outdoors, being on the water, taking naps, and watching sunsets. In my spare time (i.e., when not working or running) I also enjoy reading (occasionally), writing and arithmetic.
I joined the track team my sophomore year of high school as a discus thrower. The next year I was recruited (and by recruited, I mean that they needed a person and I was a person) to run the 4X800-meter relay. If you are familiar with track at all, you likely know that racing 800 meters hurts something fierce. While high school track was my first introduction to the sport of running, I wouldn’t classify myself as a running enthusiast at that point.
I took “jogging” as an elective my freshman year of college (really) and got a little more into running then. I ran my first 5K at the end of the semester and on race day, 3.1 miles was the farthest I had ever run without stopping. From there, I built my mileage and race distances up VERY slowly over time. I trained for a 10k, then a 10 miler and then a half marathon. I really enjoyed the whole process of working towards a goal and subsequently completing that goal. I was on my way to being officially hooked.
I decided to train for another half marathon, but unfortunately, this is where things got a little messy. I was attacked on a run, kidnapped and raped repeatedly, but by God’s grace, I was released. This event changed the trajectory of my life. For 10 years, basically I just struggled. I was simultaneously thankful to be alive and scared to live. I struggled with PTSD and an eating disorder immediately in the wake of the attack and those struggles later morphed into anxiety and depression (and probably a host of other things as well). It took me the greater part of a decade before I was even comfortable talking about what happened and even then, while I thought I was “over it,” the healing was truly only just beginning.
The fact that I kept running at all still kinda blows my mind, especially because as my dad lovingly said to me one day, I really wasn’t very good at it (and he wasn’t wrong). Since then, I have improved a little bit 😉
Why is it that I kept running you ask? Well it’s a seemingly simple question with a complicated answer. Asking a runner why they run is almost like asking someone why they breathe. I run because I can and because I can’t not. I run because it grounds me and gives me wings. I run to embrace community and to find solitude. I run to focus and to disconnect. I run to find strength and to be vulnerable. I run to challenge myself and to give myself grace. I run to hurt and to heal. I run to overcome my fears and to surrender my expectations. I run to be the best that I can be, while knowing that I am already enough.
One of my favorite running memories to date was in January of 2015 when I won the Rock-n-Roll Marathon in New Orleans. I was on cloud 9 for weeks after that race. I overcame a lot of adversity to get to that point and the significance of the moment was not lost on me. I felt so alive, so thankful and so joyous. In my mind, I had transitioned from victim to victorious and I didn’t want to ever look back.
I started this blog shortly after that race in 2015 as a means of sharing my “victim to victory” and “triumph over tragedy” story. I was empowered to share the story of what I had overcome. I knew the story would resonate with people on many different levels (whether it be overcoming injury, illness or some other affliction) and I hoped that it would inspire people who were in the midst of their own struggles to keep fighting. What I didn’t realize at that time is that some of my biggest struggles were still ahead of me. If you really think about it, we are all just constant works in progress. Every day is a blessing and a new opportunity to grow, to learn and to conquer!
Another major milestone (as far as running goes) came in December of 2018 when I finally managed to break 3 hours in the marathon! This had been a goal for over 3 years and I had come close a couple times, but always seemed to come up a minute or two short (or long I suppose) … until I ran a 2:53:05 at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Marathon. At somewhere around mile 16 of the race, I saw my mom and dad on the course and I said to them, “I’m going to do this. Today is the day.” If you’ve run a marathon before then you will recognize the riskiness of that statement. I had a lot of race left to run at that point, but sure enough, I managed to get it done (with a nice little negative split I might add (1:28/1:25))!
Since then I have also run a 2:49 (Indy Monumental 2019) and a 2:51 (Louisiana Marathon 2020). My big goals currently are to run just under 5 minutes for the mile, 17 minutes for the 5k, 1:20 for the half and 2:45 for the full. I truly enjoy the process of training and pushing myself to be the best that I can be and the outcome of seeing times on the clock (especially when they are dropping!).
My hope is that I can be a source of encouragement for runners and non-runners alike. While you will mainly find running related posts (training logs, race recaps, etc.), you will also find a few “deeper” posts that from a broad perspective likely fall under the category of emotional well being.
You can also follow along on Instagram if that is more your style.