Hi! Welcome to my first blog and I hope you enjoy! Since this is the first post I wanted to take the time to introduce myself and share a little about my running journey and motivation towards making the blog in the first place!
My name is Emma, I'm a rising junior at Purdue where I run track and cross country. I'm studying industrial engineering and plan to graduate 2025(ish), to be honest I probably won't graduate on time, engineering is hard so I enjoy a lighter than normal course load. I'm from northern Michigan which has led me to find mostly outdoor hobbies. I love spending time outside in all seasons (winter is my favorite, I absolutely adore the snow). Some of my favorite activities include water skiing, wake surfing, downhill skiing, hiking (specifically during peak leaf color season in October), swimming and just spending time in the sun.
So maybe you're asking "if you're studying engineering, why are you writing a blog?". And this is a valid question and a great time for me to point out that they really don't teach engineers how to write so please, give me grace on my grammar. Anyways, as some of you know I've had a tik tok since covid and posted a lot of running and food related content. Along the way I've been able to meet a lot of you at meets and through DMs where you've asked for advice, shared your experiences, and expressed gratitude towards my content and how it helped in different ways. The transition to college was tough and this year I hit some challenging times which I've been working hard to overcome and plan on sharing soon. With that being said, my tik tok content stopped because my mental energy was being used elsewhere and it's hard to make uplifting content when I'm constantly fighting internal battles. For some reason in the form of videos and vlogs I am unable to share
the more challenging and less talked about parts of the sport which I so badly want to talk about. While the fact that so many of you have reached out and told me my advice has inspired you has motivated me to write this, it has also reminded me of something. Over the past year I've continued to give advice and talk positively towards others but I'm often not very good and take my own advice. But thanks to those who have reminded me that sometimes I do actually have useful things to say, today is that day where I start listening to my own advice because I deserve the strength I so badly want for everyone around me. Through writing I am able to say more than I normally would and more importantly is a way I am able to talk to myself and remind Emma that she has the strength to achieve what she once thought she could.
Now that we got the sappy stuff out of the way, obviously I love to run, or else I would not be here writing this right now. I wanted to share some of my background and what parts of the sport that get me out of bed even on those days when running feels impossible. I started in a little elementary running club in 3rd grade and honestly didn't like it very much. Running is hard and painful so I didn't see a future there. Years went by and I kept doing it because honestly there aren't many after school activities for a middle schooler. The summer before 7th grade my coach gave me a challenge to run 200 miles in the summer (roughly 17 miles a week). Even though at this point I still didn't love running, I took on the challenge because my competitive side would never pass up something like that. Long story short I pushed through the challenge
that summer, experiencing my first tears and exhaustion from the sport, but most importantly a sense of accomplishment. Coming back to cross country in the fall with this new experience changed the sport for me forever. I immediately saw my hard work pay off, showing me that with some grit and hard work, my goals could be met. From then on I loved setting goals and doing everything possible to get a little closer to those everyday. Aside from setting goals, running has given me so many meaningful relationships and ways to unwind during tough times. I try hard to enjoy the little things like deep long run talks, the feeling of a post workout fist bump because I finished the workout where I wanted to give up, the excitement of a new pair of shoes, or the anticipation of an upcoming race after a long break. If we take the time to enjoy these little things it allows those hard days to not be so bad because the relationship you built with the sport is so strong and you will do anything to get yourself back on track.
With all of that being said, back to the blog introduction. My goal for this blog is to share my stories in hopes to inspire athletes to fall further in love with the sport. Of course running at a high level comes with ups and downs so I hope these stories also help and validate those who are struggling and provide insight through my experiences on how to navigate them.
Thanks for reading and I hope you are just as excited as I am to start this blog journey! I would love to hear any and all of your thoughts so please please use the comment section below or contact me via email or DM (information is found on the home page but I will also put it at the end of this post). I want to hear from you! As far as future posts go, I am not going to try and stick to a schedule because I know once I say I'll post weekly, then I'll get busy, so I plan on posting more regularly on my Instagram and running it simultaneously with the blog, posting summaries of recent posts and notifications when new blogs are posted. So if you don't already, go follow my Instagram to stay up to date on all the content!
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