What started in 1998 as a desire to find an activity for her son, Ryan, soon sparked an interest in Linda as well. She began entering Ryan in area races and in an effort to show support, she would enter the events as a walker. Shortly thereafter, she incorporated some running into the mix. Initially embarrassed to be seen running during daylight hours, Linda would often run at night. When she reached 3 miles for the first time, she mentioned it to a friend who encouraged her to enter her son’s next race with him, which happened to be the Grunt Run the very next day. Her intentions were to run it with Ryan...but when the gun went off, she took off like a rocket and next thing she knew, she was hollering back to Ryan that she would see him at the finish line. At the finish line she waited for her son to cross, with a glass of water in her hand for him, feeling terrible--in part because it was physically tough, but mostly for the fact that she had taken off on him, allowing the competitive beast that was lying in wait to get the best of her. Like most of us that can remember doing our first fun run, there is a thrill of finishing (and in this case, Linda actually placed third in her age group adding to her excitement) which encourages us to look beyond and seek out the next challenge, which is how Linda first caught the ‘fever’ and got started.

(Note: Linda did mention that 3 years later Ryan finally got revenge at the same race and blew her off the Grunt Run course. Since that day, he is the one waiting at the finish line with the glass of water in hand and grin on his face!)

Aside from being able to actively participate with her son, running has also turned into something that she does for fitness, as a stress reliever, socialization and more. Now, many races later, Linda still considers the Grunt Run as being one of her favorites, for obvious sentimental reasons, but she also looks forward to the Boilermaker, Corporate Challenge and the Auburn summer and winter Great Races (she loves team events.) Additionally, her weekly ‘girls only group’ speed sessions and dinner afterwards also ranks highly on her list of favorites.

When not running, biking, swimming or snowshoeing, Linda spends time with her family. She and her husband Jerry are proud of their children’s accomplishments and spend time attending their many sporting events. They both enjoy watching their children compete. Ryan is a successful varsity runner for Oswego High School in both cross-country and track. Zach plays modified football, basketball and recently began competitive swimming for the first time, to which Linda is most grateful as she can finally attend an event without wearing 8 layers of clothing! Besides family time and her running, Linda also enjoys collecting dolls from her childhood (such as Liddle Kiddles, Flatsys and other 60-70's dolls), reading, writing and listening to music. She also enjoys junk food (basically anything chocolate), a habit she attributes to her mother. She just hopes she will be blessed with her mother’s metabolism someday!

March, 2003