D🍩NUT STOP 2024 🏁 Better late to share than never! First, I’m SOOOOO grateful to my amazing brother for running this one with me! We talked, ran in silence, sang random songs, encouraged each other, all the things we needed to get through. Second, this race ROCKED. The course was beautiful. The weather was beautiful. The hills, not so beautiful to run up lol. On that note, my goal for this race was to run the whole thing (a big deal for me!) I was 4.5 miles in to the 6.2 total (SO CLOSE) and this massiveeee hill we ran down was now approaching as one we had to run UP. I was getting tired at this point but totally felt like I could finish the whole race without walking if it was flat. Jake encouraged me really well, and I tried, but I couldn’t make it all the way up the very long steep hill without walking. I was disappointed in myself for a bit... but as soon as I crossed that finish line and remembered that I ran ALL OF THAT race except for maybe 1/4 of a mile, I was so proud! It was my biggest running accomplishment to date, and that was a WIN. ** BONUS PICS ** Now here we are 1 month later, and last weekend Jake and I ran 10 MILES, and we only walked about half a mile near the end (we were soaked from the rain and getting verryyyyyyy tired) 1 month ago when I was running the 10K, it was hard to finish. 1 week ago when I was running the 10 miles, the 10K was somewhat easy, but hitting 10 miles was HARD. And 2.5 weeks from now, I will be racing my first ever Half Marathon. And I know it’s going to be HARD. But what I’ve learned is that it will ALWAYS be worth it and will ALWAYS lead to growth, as long as I put my best foot forward. P.S. if you’re feeling inspired to run—YAY! Go. Do. It. 🫶 And D🍩NUT STOP.