Hi! I’m Teresa – I’m a veteran of the USAF and US Navy. I had always been active (mostly weightlifting, biking, and running) but in late 2003 I injured my lower back during a training exercise in the Navy. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia when the pain meds I took for my back did nothing for the pain and instead increased it to pain all over my body. I was unable to do much more than walk and was very sedentary for almost a year. Finally, the Navy doctors sent me to a Pain Management clinic and I started doing head to toe stretches every morning. Soon after, I started walking after the stretches and then started running again. I figured I’d stop if the pain got really bad. On June 8th, 2015, I realized I had been running a mile a day most days, so I officially started my run streak – where I run at least a mile every day. I started running local 5k races and found a group of veterans wearing red Team RWB shirts at a race and immediately went online to join. Running with people helped me realize I could run further than I originally thought I could and I started training for my first half marathon. After I ran a few of those, a friend encouraged me to look up the Half Fanatics Facebook page. I figured out what I needed to do to qualify and joined the Half Fanatics. It was on this page that I first “met” Tina Lam – the incredible runner from Alaska who was always cheerfully posting her snow runs and wearing her Team RWB gear! I was finally able to meet up and run with Tina in Colorado in July of 2023 when we were both there to run the Vacation Races Rocky Mountain National Park.
During that weekend, Tina mentioned the Anchorage RunFest 49k and I was immediately intrigued.
I have been driving around the lower 48 states the past couple of summers, and this year I am beyond excited to run a 49k for my 49th state in the beautiful 49th State – Alaska!!!
