This one's for you Arizona...

24 hours from now I'll be a little under an hour into the PF Changs Rock n Roll Arizona Marathon. My runs the past few days have felt like adrenaline was pumping through my body as if it were race morning; I'm EXCITED!!!...probably more excited for this race than any race I've ever done (except maybe some state championship races in HS).

I was born in Phoenix, raised until college in Tempe, went off to Duke, came back to AZ, lived in Scottsdale for a year and if you ask any of my former college teammates, all I did was talk about how awesome Arizona is when I was at Duke :):) I LOVE Arizona so much and I cannot wait to race through three of its many awesome cities and hopefully be not only the first American woman to win the race but also the first from Arizona!!!

My family and the people in my life from Arizona have given me so much. My family did so much for me but the biggest thing they did was support me through anything. I made my own decision as a 15 year old to transfer high schools (spurring a huge controversy yet held my head high and everything worked out), worked my butt off taking all honors and AP classes, worked a job and won 9 individual, 1 relay and 3 team state championships while at Mountain Pointe High School. Of course there will always be the "haters", (aka my motivators, hehe;) ) but I love my family, friends and fans so incredibly much!!

Anything can happen in a marathon and tomorrow I'll be racing and visualizing what I want out there, doing everything possible to make it happen. After my first marathon here in 2008 (6th place) a new dream materialized in my head- WIN the damn thing someday! Fifth place in 2009 was a big disappointment, although a 4 minute PR did happen, which was great. I learned from the NYC marathon a little bit more about my fueling and this time....just my Vanilla Bean GUs and water will fuel me out there during the race :) I'll be thinking of ALL of you out there who support me, love me and want to see me do well. Most of all though I'll be out there gunning for that finish line on Packard Drive happy to be representing the state that has essentially hoisted me to the level I've reached. I'm hoping this race propels me mentally and physically to another new level....


Here is a link to an article from the Arizona Republic from this past Thursday


Quote: "If you had one shot, one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment, would you capture it, or just let it slip?"--Eminem