2025 Marine Corps Marathon with Team Semper K9

Team Semper K9 Leads the Way

Hey Everyone!

2025 is here and that means it's time for new goals and new adventures!  And this year that goal is to run my first marathon! What better place to start than joining over 20,000 other runners this Fall in Arlington, VA and running the 50th Marine Corp Marathon! Why not also support a great cause along the way! I decided to join Team Semper K9 to help raise funds to support Semper K9 in their efforts to train and provide service dogs to disabled veterans.

Those of you who have known me for a while, know that me running a marathon is something I would have never imagined happening and I would have laughed in your face if you told me that I would some day.

For those of you who haven't known me that long, allow me to share my story. In 2022, I was in the worst shape of my life and weighed over 400 pounds. I decided I had enough and made the decision to have Gastric Bypass surgery in December 2022. Recovery was pretty miserable and I wondered if I had made the right choice. But the weight was quickly falling off!  In the Spring & Summer of 2023, I started getting out and walking. Later, in the Fall of 2023, that walking turned into jogging, and eventually short runs. After losing well over 150 pounds, I was excited to learn that I could actually run, and that it wasn't the worst thing in the world. As the runs became more frequent and longer each time, I gave myself a goal of running a 5k. In November 2023, I ran my first ever race, the FredNats Salute to Veterans 5k. I finished in about 31 minutes. This was massive for me! It was at this event that I learned of the Fredericksburg Area Running Club (FARC). So, I decided to once again step out of my comfort zone and joined the club! I began joining the club for group runs and began meeting new folks and found I actually enjoyed being out there running! At the same time I also met some awesome folks at Fleet Feet Fredericksburg, and I joined them for a lot of their group runs out on the roads and trails. Everyone was so welcoming to someone who was a such a beginner in this sport. This running thing started to become an obsession. Going into 2024, I had lost 200 pounds and was running like a mad man! My 2024 goal was to run a half marathon by the end of the year. Well peer pressure got me, and early in the year I signed up for the Marine Corp Historic Half in Fredericksburg. I joined a local training group and prepared as much as I could even though the thought of running a half marathon was terrifying. Fast forward to May 2024, I ran the Historic Half in 2:07 and had a blast! A well-organized race with a ton of community support. I was hooked! 2024 was a heck of year! I ran about 20 races. A 1, 4, & 5 miler, a ton of 5ks, a 10k, and three half marathons! I have to mention probably my favorite race, the “Finish on the 50” 4-Miler at Ohio State in Columbus, OH. Being a lifelong diehard Buckeye, this was a fantastic race! Running through the Ohio State campus and finishing on the 50-yard line of Ohio Stadium was pretty sweet. 2024 saw me running over 1200 miles for the year and taking a 3rd place age group finish in FARC's Coldwell Banker Elite Grand Prix Series. Not to mention PR after PR in my races. My last 5k in December 2024 I had a finish time of 23:20, nearly 8 minutes faster than my first 5k in November 2023. I also completed two half marathons in the Fall of 2024. Those were both 11 minutes faster than the Historic Half, just 6 months earlier.

A whole new world has opened up to me, which would have never been possible if I didn't make that commitment to a better lifestyle.

There is still work to do, but I now have a full marathon in my sights. Follow along as I prepare myself to do something that they say only one percent of the population has done. But equally as important, lets support Team Semper K9 along the way, and their mission of providing service dogs to disabled veterans.