3 personal bests and the story of one runner’s transformation into the runner she always wanted to be

RunnersConnect members after the 2012 Boston Marathon. From left to right: John Pereira, Tracie Winters, Coach Jeff, and Debbie Basham

While the list of personal bests this weekend isn’t quite as long as normal (everyone’s waiting for July 4th races), the results were nonetheless more impressive than most. 3 PR’s, but more importantly, 2 huge transformations as runners.

Debbie Basham ran one of the strongest races of her life at the Grandmas Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, clocking a time of 3:40:09. However, her finishing time doesn’t tell the full story, so let me explain. Debbie first started working with us in December when she hit “rock bottom”. She was broken (she was healing from a nasty achilles injury) and mentally defeated (each of her previous marathons was slower than the last). Debbie started from ground zero and basically reconstructed herself as a runner (both physically and mentally) over the next few months. This spring, she began PRing again off limited training and went into this race confident she could do well. Here is how Debbie described the race in her own words: “Grandma’s marathon did not result in a PR, but resulted in something much more meaningful to me and my future in racing. After a year of disastrous training and racing, this weekend gave me my confidence back! I have never felt so good during a race, and had a great time being that runner I always hated. You know, the one who has the energy to pass others late in the race”. Congrats to Debbie on an awesome race and making the transformation into the runner she wanted to become!

Joy Duling ran the first 4-mile race of her life at the Steamboat classic in Peoria, Illinois. Joy is just getting started with running and this was only her second race ever. However, she managed to run the first two miles of the race without stopping (for those of you newbies, you can appreciate this) and finished up strong the rest of the way, never once struggling (besides needing some water 🙂 This was a big step forward for Joy on her journey as a runner and to get more fit. Big congrats!

James Mangion ran a big course best at the Corporate Challange 3.5 mile in Central park on Wednesday with a time of 19:18, which was 28 seconds better then his old best he ran last year. For those that aren’t good at math, that’s a sub 17 minute 5k! Not bad for his first race as a RunnersConnect member and working with Coach Nate.

Jon Crane ran a solid 27:58 5 mile race on the rolling, Portugal Day 5 mile race to kick off his summer road race season. This was also Jon’s first race as a RunnersConnect member and we’re sure he’s going to have some great results in store for us this summer.

Mark Eichenlaub ran a 5k personal best of 18:36 at the Kilbride Classic. Mark has really taken his dedication and training to the next level these last few months. He has upped his training volume, paying close attention to his diet, and making the little sacrifices to improve. Big congrats to mark for chipping away at his PR! Keep rolling.

Keep up the great work everyone and looking forward to more personal bests over the next two weeks!

 

 

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