CONCLUDING.

My Augustana running career ended in so many places. Technically, you could say it ended May 15, 2021, when I ran my last race in the golden AU uniform. Or in June of that same year, when the injury that unknowingly ended it all occurred. Or a random Monday on campus⁠—just under three weeks ago⁠—when

HOW TO NOT-RUN(?)

It’s no secret (or maybe it is) that I haven’t run in a long time. Twelve weeks (or 87 days) to be exact. In the space between injury and surgery, not-running was easy. For a while, I could convince myself that maybe I’d be fine without surgery and my comeback would be quick. I biked

LESSONS LEARNED

This past year of running has been pretty good to me. I trained hard, upped my mileage a bit (then dropped it back down), set some PRs for the first time in four years, broke 5 minutes in the mile (and then did it some more for good measure), qualified for my first NCAA Nationals

THOUGHTS OF A FIRST-TIME STEEPLER

Four days ago, I raced my first* steeplechase. It was exhilarating; it was exciting; it was. . . exhausting. I honestly didn’t know what to expect, so, to save you from also not knowing what you’re getting yourself into (if you ever decide to run it), I’ve compiled my thoughts from the day. 7:45 am

RUNNING (SHOULD BE) FUN

You know when you expect really great things out of yourself and then all of a sudden you can’t even muster up “okay” results because anything besides great is automatically bad?? Yeah, that sucks. And in the weeks following nationals (yay, whoot whoot, I qualified!), my running was exactly there. Any time I ran, I

FINDING THOSE MINI-WINS

Get out your cakes & candles because we’re celebrating the small stuff today! This past weekend, I raced the open 800 for the first time all season. As runners tend to do, I had some big goals going in — how could I set myself up well for conference? For future 800s? And . .

WHEN OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS

What’s the shortest turnaround you’ve ever had between signing up to race and actually racing. For me, it was 36 hours. And it actually happened two weeks ago. My team was headed to one of our first meets of the season, and after a lot of back and forth debate, my coach finally asked me:

YAY HILLS!

This past Friday – much like every week during winter training (and sometimes during summer) – the Augustana distance team trudged up a hill. Okay, fine. ‘Sprinted’ might be more accurate, even though sprint might be too generous. Let’s just call it somewhere between a trudge and a sprint. But the point is: We did

[S]PEAKS: BRITTANY CHARBONEAU

“I’m Loving Every Minute of It!’” Brittany Charboneau can best be described as joyful. Or personable. Or caring. Ecstatically energetic. Rambunctious, even. She packs a lot of personality. Charboneau started running in eighth grade. After stints on school teams all the way through college, she turned to marathons and, now, trail races. It took until

REDISCOVERING JOY

It’s been 76 days since I last posted. Someone may want to check my math on that, but the point is, it has been a long time since this blog was active. Because 76 days? That truly is a gaping absence for my blog. At first, I aimed to post once a week. It was