Rachel is one of two new guest bloggers who will be writing for 42.2 for the 2016 marathon training season. She will be writing monthly blogs on the second Saturday of every month, updating us on the ups and downs of her journey from 0 to 42.2. I sat down with Rachel to find out a little more her and her running journey up until now. I can’t wait to see what this season has in store for Rachel. Good luck girl! 

Age: 23

Occupation: Research Assistant with the Hotchkiss Brain Institute

Goal Race: Dublin Marathon

Before joining the UofC Marathon Training Program, how much running had you done before? What was your longest race, if any?

I ran on and off for a few years but then around January 2015 I started running more regularly. I think I did it mostly because I was stressed out about exams and just needed to do something else other than study. That’s when I really started to get into it and began doing it consistently and I kind of fell in love with it.

At most I’ve been running about three or four times a week. They mentioned that we should be able to run three times a week by the time the program started so I feel like I meet that requirement pretty good.

The longest distance I have ever run was in January of this year when I did 18km. Usually I run shorter than that but that was a pretty victorious run for me.

What made you decide to train for a marathon?

I think it goes back to when I was younger, my dad used to run a lot. I remember going out to Victoria when he was doing the Victoria marathon and stopping at different points on the route and just being amazed that someone would run that long. So that kind of planted the seed in my brain. But it’s never been something I really seriously considered until I started running regularly and I started thinking it would be really cool if I could go and do that myself.

What made you decide to join the UofC Marathon Training Program?

I thought about training on my own and I just wasn’t super jazzed about it so I looked at a few different programs. I knew I wanted something that would keep me accountable but a lot of other training programs were pace based or were not directed at a first-time marathoner so it was really intimidating to think about going to do something like that.

But when I found this program it just seemed so friendly. It was especially helpful when I went to the information night and heard about other people’s experiences and heard stories from people who had never run a marathon before about running really long distances. Everyone was so friendly and I just like the way it is set up. For the weekly runs to be based on times instead of distances and the other little things like that seemed like a really good fit for me.

What are you most looking forward to through this journey? Is there something you are really excited about?

Having done a few runs with the group I think that it’s going to be really great having that social aspect to the training and having that support along the way is going to be really important.

I think it will be a big victory to do my first half marathon since I have gotten close but have never actually made that full distance. So doing it officially in a race will be really cool.

Do you have any concerns going into the marathon training season?

I would say going into this I was really worried about the pace that I was running at and that I would just be the slowest person here but after the first few runs I realized I am going to be ok. That fear is lessening but it was the big one going in.

What made you decide that blogging was something you wanted to add to your journey?

I have kept my own blog for a long time and when you sit down to write something it’s always a good way to process all your thoughts and reflect on the kind of stuff you’ve been doing. I wanted a way to be able to do that and also in the future it will be great to have something to look back on.