Running is tons of fun with IRunTons
IRunTons Facebook cover.
IRunTons is a private coaching company run by Sandra Gallagher-Mohler dedicated to the comprehensive training of runners and multi-sport athletes. In person training sessions are available for athletes in the Baltimore Metro area, in addition to web-based coaching available globally.
Gallagher-Mohler started running 19 years after catching the “running bug.” Now, as a competitive runner and triathlete, she is able to comfortably admit that she is addicted to running. She says, however, that it’s “Not in the creepy, ‘I have to run or else’ kind of way, but in a way that I know something is missing if I’m on a hiatus.”
She adds: “Nineteen years is a long time to be in a relationship with running. We’ve had our ups and downs, and I’ve even broken up with it a few times, swearing that I was ‘done! and would never again lace up my spike,”but… I always came back, knowing that I am a better person as a runner than not. It fuels who I am at the very core, and it challenges me to dig deep within myself even when I don’t want to, or think that there’s nothing left, only to find that I’m always stronger than I think I am, and capable of more than I ever thought.”
Gallagher-Mohler has been a high school Cross Country, Indoor and Outdoor Track coach for the last nine years, and as a current Division I Track and Field coach, she’s had the very fortunate opportunity to witness the “bug'”take hold of hundreds of athletes.
“It’s a wonderful process to watch unfold as cautious, intimidated and undeveloped young buds start to find their strength, confidence and spirit, ” she says. “It’s an honor, in my opinion, to be a linking part of this new love of sport, which is why I also began private coaching. It allows me the opportunity to find runners all across the running spectrum (newbie or novice, six years old or 60) and spark, or even re-ignite the flame that burns within them.”
At IRunTons the emphasis is that everyone has an inner “Badass,” an athlete who, is “distinctively tough and powerful; so exceptional as to be intimidating.” For some it may be buried deep beneath piles of laundry, work reports, children’s science fair projects or low self-esteem, but it’s in there, and IRunTons strives to help you find it through your training.
Gallagher-Mohler says that, first and foremost, running and training for running events is all about creating and establishing balance. Unfortunately, much of my work as a coach is about rebuilding athletes who have found themselves experiencing chronic injury, fatigue or poor race performances after inadvertently overtraining. Her words to the wise are ‘Just because some is good, does not always mean that more is better’.
She explains that the not only does running provide the potential for a healthier cardiovascular, skeletal and muscular system, it can also aide in regulating your body’s stress response. “And another often overlooked blessing of being a runner is the community you are immediately a part of. Go to any marathon expo and you’ll know what I mean. ”
You can find out more about catching the running bug yourself here.
Claire Bolden McGill is a British expat who lived in Maryland for three years and moved back to the UK in August 2015. Claire wrote about her life as a British expat on the East Coast and now works in travel and hospitality PR in the UK. She still finds time to blog about her repatriation and the reverse culture shock that ensued – and she still hasn’t finished that novel, but she’s working on it. You can contact Claire via twitter on @clairebmcgill or via her blog From America to England.