South Carolina Trail Marathon!

Personal share! Beyond stage and screen, this was one of my biggest personal highlights of the year.

Months of mountainous training. Grueling runs. Lessons that carried straight into life.

I’ve been a distance runner since I was in my teens and have run races all over the globe, and trail marathon training still humbled me. Uneven terrain. Constant injury risk. Fueling challenges. Managing heart rate on steep mountain climbs from the jump.

And then race day threw a curveball. A winter race turned into a seventy-eight-degree heat wave!

Discipline mattered. Preparation mattered. Making room for curveballs without abandoning the plan mattered.

With two races happening at once (half and full marathon), it was easy to go out too fast. Many did. The heat was intense. One runner collapsed mid-race, and first responders could not easily access the terrain.

It was an intense 26.5 miles and feeling incredibly Blessed to finish 8th female overall and surpass my race goal.

The takeaway carries far beyond the trail: stay in your lane, push beyond your comfort zone, and keep the blinders on to your own race!