Hello!!

I guess for my first posting, I will give thought to why I now suddenly am blogging. I think a lot of it has to do with my personality and just how I am. I've never been known to be a real "book-smart" person, a great thinker, or one who writes or does brainy things; but I am someone who does like to dabble in new trends, and is not one to shy away from the latest fads of society. I guess until now I never had an interest in blogging because I never really had an inspiration or a platform that my blog would center around.

I have been a runner...more accuratly, was a runner, from the time I was 16 until I was 21. Going to a new school for high school, and not wanting to play soccer anymore in the fall season, I decided to try cross country to keep me occupied and figured it was a good "sport" to get me in shape for my favorite sport basketball. It was fun, and I met some good friends that year which made the transistion to Charlotte Christian in 9th grade easier. After JV basketball I figured I would do track since I enjoyed cross country, and never really got into baseball growing up anyway. As the next year rolled around, I of course did cross country again but this time started having some relative success. I made all conference and all state that year and really started to enjoy running. After the season and about 2 weeks into basketball season, I decided to quit basketball and join the indoor track team for a couple of reasons. Primarily I did not enjoy the coaches for basketball, and I knew that I had more long term potential with running. I regret missing out on a fun year with my good friends who made up the basketball team, as that would have been a fun way to part with basketball, but at the same time indoor track was something in which I went on to be the school's "mvp" that season, and also served as a spring board into my serious running career.

After highschool, I ran cross country, indoor and outdoor track at Appalchian State University for 2 and a half years. (3 cross country seasons and 2 track seasons.) The reason I didn't run the whole time I was at App was simply because I got burned out. I know I probably didn't reach my full potential, (and I never really struggled with injuries) but at the same time I am glad I got to experience the college life aside from the huge commitment that is being part of an NCAA sports team.

Since the day I told my coach I was going to "hang up the spikes", running has predomently become something I have only done from time to time. The fact that I quit running due to being "burnt-out" I haven't considered myself a "runner" since then. That could change.

When Katie and I moved this summer into our first house, one thing that I started doing was jogging around the neighborhood so as to get a feel for the new surroundings. As summer turned to fall I was planning on doing the Turkey Trot again on Thanksgiving so I was running a little bit here and there...probably 10-15 miles a week. While we were at ASU for Homecoming I was talking to Carson Blackwelder - an old teammate of mine at App - catching up like old friends do. He has never become burnt out on running as far as I can tell, and after college has been a coach for Morehead in Kentucky and now currently South Carolina Upstate in Spartanburg. Aside from that, he told me he was running a marathon over Thanksgiving in Philly with another one of our old teammates. I told him that was something I definitly wanted to do at some point in my life. (The way I figure, as much running as I have done, I have better at least be able to say that I have run a marathon in my lifetime. ) I saw Carson the next weekend at Brain Deal's wedding in Boone, and he encouraged me, like Nike says, to "just do it. Don't worry about what your time will be - you can do it easier than you think", he said.

I'm not sure why - but I decided to go for it. I started looking at Marathons all around the US. I wanted to pick one that met a few criteria. I wanted to pick one that was not too far off - so I wouldn't loose motivation; and I wanted to pick one that was not too soon, so I would have at least a decent amount of time to train. The other thing I wanted my marathon to accomplish was that it be in a fun location. I ended up finding a couple that might fit the time frames, but the reason I decided on the A1A Marathon in Ft. Lauderdale is because I could also visit my good friend Evan down in Boca Raton like I've said I wanted to do for sometime.

After I picked my marathon, I started googling marathon training one day and found that a standard training calander is 16 weeks. When I did the math, I realized I would only have a few more days of "casual-every-now-and-then" running before I had to get dedicated. With my first marathon on Feb. 21st, my traning started the week of Nov. 2nd.

All that to say, I now have a platform with which to blog. My hopes are that posting and seeing my entries will encourage me to stay motivated and dedicated for ever how long I stay on this running kick, and while doing so will use this as a medium to express myself through ideas, thoughts, and whatever else I feel like sharing. The blog name represent Philippians 4:8, which says, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." I chose this because I want this to be positive outlet, and I was trying to think of something cool for a name in general that made people go - what does that mean?!

With that, I close my first ever blog post and sincerely wish thanks to anyone who reads this!

-Daniel Eggers