Getting started

Earlier this week I said I'd talk more about why the Naperville Marathon is so close to my heart.

Well, before I moved to the Chicago suburbs, I lived in Arkansas. If you've always lived in the Chicago area, you probably don't fully realize how daunting a task it is for someone with limited opportunity to visit the area to select a neighborhood or suburb in which to live.

Do I want to live in the city or the suburbs? Are there bad suburbs? Where are the gangs? Is the mob still around? Where can I afford to live? Is the snow really THAT bad?

So many questions.

Add to that I was moving ahead of my husband so I would also be alone for a while. I had to be sure I picked a location where I could be safe with my Yorkie who thinks she's a guard dog, but is really just a pest.

I knew Naperville had a great reputation and I had been there once before. For dinner. Yes, that was the extent of my experience in Naperville - dinner at Rosebud. And that was the foundation for my decision to move there. Haha.

There was a track and some really great paved trails near my apartment where I would walk my dog and attempt to jog (I wasn't quite a runner yet). I quickly fell in love with those trails and wished one day I could live in a home as beautiful as the ones I walked and jogged through.

At the urging of my co-workers, I registered for BeachPalooza, a 3-mile obstacle course run in the heat of July. I finished shortly behind my super-fit friend Erinn, but realized I wanted to do better.

So, I signed up for a walk-to-run group at the Naperville Running Company. There, I met many women and a few men who had the same goal as me - to run three miles without stopping.

I still keep in touch with some of those women. The support and inspiration was incredible and it motivated me to keep going.

This is me after finishing the Soldier Field 10-Mile.

Flash forward to 2012. I had run a couple 5Ks and a 10K. I wanted to run more. I went to the Shamrock Shuffle expo (I got pretty sick and couldn't run the race) and played Plinko at the American Cancer Society's DetermiNation booth. I won free registration and thought "why not?" I was registered for the Soldier Field 10-mile, maybe I'll do some fundraising, too.

Somehow, though, they convinced me to join the fundraising team for the Rock 'N' Roll Half Marathon - my longest distance ever.

In March of 2012, I moved. But, Naperville wasn't done with me yet. Stay tuned for Part 2, where I'll talk about how I became more than a DetermiNation runner with a return visit to the Naperville Running Company.