Christina Messuri

My younger sister has been running seriously ever since I can remember. She has run many races including the Boston Marathon twice and the DC Marathon. In 2010 she signed up to run the Disney World Marathon. Soon after, my brother-in-law, my other sister, and myself decided to make a trip out of it and go down to Florisa to watch her race. A few days later, my other sister told me her and my brother-in-law signed up to run the Half Marathon that same weekend. As not to be left out, I signed up as well. With just 3 months before the January 2011 race, I had a lot of work to do. I had never run a race in my life and quite frankly running was not high on my list of favorite things to do. I headed over to A Runner’s Circle to buy some new sneakers and was told about the Thursday Fun Runs. I started running with ARC on Thursday nights and a few months later I started pacing my own group.

I ran the Disney World Half Marathon in 2:50:15, under my goal of 3 hours. That was it, I was hooked! Later that year I signed up for the DisneyLand Half Marathon in California in September of 2011. In that race, I cut 20 mins off my time and finished the DisneyLand Half Marathon in 2 hours and 30 mins.To date, that is the running accomplishment I am most proud of but hoping for many more of those moments in my running career. The best part for me is never in a million years would I have ever considered myself a runner and now in the last 2 years I am proud to say, “I am a runner.”

“I run so my goals in life will continue to get bigger instead of my belly.”
- Bill Kirby