About Us

Rachel -

Hey y'all! My name is Rachel & currently live right outside of Richmond, Virginia. I still consider RVA (Richmond VA for those who don't know the short hand) my home, although I technically don't live in the city. I haven't always been a runner. I actually spent most of my life playing footy or better known as soccer. I played soccer through college where I experienced my first major injury. I tore my left ACL in 2009 which ended my college soccer career. I still played for fun but around 2015 I really found my love for running. I had always been a casual runner, just running a few miles to stay in shape, but never significant mileage or any races. In 2016 I got a crazy idea to train hard for a half marathon (Rock 'n' Roll Nashville). It would be my third half marathon, the first 2 were kind of disastrous & I had no clue what I was doing. HA! So I trained hard and had a 2 hour goal in mind.

Through the running community, I have met so many amazing people. Many who have helped me with my running and have taught me so much. I had a friend help me train for Nashville. My training went great, I got to Nashville & ran an amazing race. I felt good, I was enjoying the course & the people. I got to the end & felt so good I didn't look down at my watch. Crossed the finish line only to realize I had JUST missed my goal, I finished in 2:00:28. This sparked a fire inside of me that wasn't going out anytime soon. I was too close to that goal to not get it. But unfortunately right after my race and before my September redemption race, I tore my right ACL in August 2016 playing soccer. Long story short & 2 surgeries later, I was ready to kick it back up. I wanted that sub 2 half marathon! Once I had finished enough rehab to get the go ahead to run, I went full steam ahead. I got an awesome coach & trained really hard for the 2017 Richmond Half Marathon. I had attempted 3 other half marathons before my goal race, just because. Rock 'N' Roll VA Beach (this was supposed to be my redemption race, and I got to run it as a comeback race after my surgeries), Crawlin' Crab, Mulberry Half. To make a long story short, I got my sub 2 in my HOME CITY! Richmond was good to me & I now have a PR of 1:53:15.

But we all know what that means ... I WANT MORE! So here is to sharing my running adventures, chasing PRs, bloggin' & hopefully meeting tons of new running friends along the way!

Shaun -

My name is Shaun, and I'm a 30-year old, and I live in Richmond.  I'm guessing the blog title gave that part away though?   I ran track and cross country in high school, but let me tell you I hated everything about cross country.  Track was great, I loved running sprints, I loved running the 400 and 800, but anything over a mile was miserable to me.  As you can probably tell I stopped running after I graduated high school.

I love running Ragnar races.  

Years went by and at the beginning of 2014 my friend Paul decided he wanted to use running to propel his weight-loss journey.  Now being the friend I am I was like "Yeah, man I'll start running with you!"  Initially it was by far the worst decision I had ever made, I couldn't understand how anyone could actually enjoy doing this.  Fast forward to April where I did my first race the Monument 10K.  Let me tell you I definitely didn't break any speed records that day, but I loved everything about it.  The adrenaline and pushing myself became something that I wanted to keep doing.  So I began to take running a little more seriously, I still hated long runs but at least I was running 3 or 4 times a week.  I found that I enjoyed doing half-marathons they gave me time to settle in and if I missed on long runs it seemed to work out okay.  I had run several HMs when I decided that I wanted to make the March 2016 Shamrock my PR race.  I spent the winter training harder than I ever had, granted it probably wasn't as hard as I should have, but it was hard for me.  Race day arrived and awful would be an understatement for how bad the conditions were.  It was cold, it was rainy, it was windy it was everything I feared crammed into one race.  I had a goal of breaking 1:35, unfortunately I didn't meet that, but I did PR at 1:38:01!  That race drained all the enjoyment I had gotten from running and months went by before I took it seriously again.

Something clicked in August and I'm back to loving running again.  I have goals and I'm excited to share my adventures with you.  Motivation is still an issue with me sometimes there are days where I hate running, but it's getting better so here's to new friends and runs.