Tag Archive | "Hope Shull"

Run It Fast Race Across the USA Rosters – April 13 2020

Run It Fast’s Race Across the USA Team Relay

Run It Fast’s ‘Race Across the USA’ kicks off at midnight on April 13, 2020. It will pit four teams comprised of 60 Run It Fast members racing each other across the United States. The race starts on the Santa Monica Pier in California, just outside of Los Angeles, and will go all the way to New York City.

The teams will cover the 2,907 miles by team members submitting their day running/walking/hiking miles to their team captain daily. This will be done via screenshots of their Strava/Garmin/GPS from an outside run or via a photo of their treadmill displaying the appropriate data.

The four teams are named after Run It Fast members that passed on from us way too soon. It’s a simple way we can help remember them and keep their legacy close to us.

Race Across the USA Team Names

  • Charlie Taylor Team
  • Hope Shull Team
  • Suzy Michelson Team
  • Jeffrey Price Team

Team Rosters for the Run It Fast’s ‘Race Across the USA’

Participant Rules:

  • Can start Monday 4/13/2020 at 12:00 A.M. of the time zone you are currently residing in.
  • No less than 1.0 mile for any outing. You can submit as many runs/walks/hikes you want a day that you do. Each one just must be at least 1.0 miles.
  • You MUST have GPS (prefer Strava/Garmin) and send a snapshot of each run/walk/hike to your team captain within 24 hrs. If you happen to forget to turn in your miles you have 48 hrs to get them in before those particular miles expire. Treadmill miles count too and just need a snapshot sent as well. 
  • Map will be updated 1x per day with all team progress.

Any other rules that need to be created or issues that arise will be decided and agreed upon by the four captains.

A big thanks to all these runners taking part, and a special big thanks to the captains:  Shane Tucker, Marylou Corino, Melissa Price, Joshua Holmes, and Jill Williams, who is our Mission Control helping keep us straight with all the numbers and logistics.

Posted in Relay, THE CLUB, Ultra MarathonComments (0)

Charlie Taylor Hope Shull Award 2014

Charlie Taylor is RIF’s 2014 ‘Hope Shull Inspirational Runner Award’ Winner

Charlie Taylor - Run It Fast Pistol - Hope Shull Award

I’m honored and happy to announce that the 2014 ‘Hope Shull Inspirational Runner Award‘ goes to RIF #353 Charlie Taylor from Gallatin, Tennessee.

Last year’s winner RIF #5 Lisa Gonzales beautifully captures why Charlie Taylor is this year’s winner of the ‘Hope Shull Inspirational Runner Award’:

Last year, I was honored to be named the 2013 Hope Shull Inspirational Runner Award. When RIF #1 Joshua Holmes asked me who I felt was deserving of the 2014 award, quite a few RIFers came to mind but one runner stood out – RIF #353 Charlie Taylor.

Charlie is an ultra runner and a survivor of cancer. Having survived cancer myself, he was inspiring to me because he not only battled it with determination and humor but he also didn’t let it stop him from living life the way he wanted to.

Many of my friends in Run It Fast are friends with him and I would see his posts or posts about him and I got to follow his story. Charlie is a survivor of colon & liver cancer. He went through surgeries to remove first the colon cancer and then the liver cancer last January. Once he was recovered from that, he then had to do 12 rounds of chemo but as soon as he was given the all clear post-surgery, he was back to running. He was a running machine!

If you have never gone through chemo, let me tell you what it’s like: Chemo is like having your life ripped out from under you. Everything, and I mean everything, changes. It makes you feel like you’ve aged 50 years in a day. Every detail of your life is focused on not getting sick from the treatment, surviving the treatment, and then recovering from it. You feel like your life has been hijacked. You are exhausted and food tastes like crap and things don’t work the way they used to. You have to worry about white blood cell counts and not getting a cold because your immune system is shot. And then there’s chemo brain – forgetfulness and not being able to focus. Honestly, if given a choice, I’m not sure I would do it again. That’s how bad it is.

I had to stop running for a while because of my tumor and the surgery to remove it but I ran a little through chemo. Mostly though, I was happy that I could continue to work and function on my own. I was so excited when my 6 rounds of chemo were done because I thought I would immediately bounce back and start running long again. But that didn’t happen and I was tired for months after my last chemo treatment. I was trying to get back into running but was this close to giving up. I was just too tired and frustrated.

Charlie Taylor PWB w Wife - Run It Fast

But then last July, I saw that Charlie was going to run the Vol State 500K (314 miles across Tennessee) as part of 3 person relay team. I remember thinking how can he do that? How can he run that much? I was barely running 5Ks and I’d been done with chemo for months. But he did it and he and his team set a course record! Then Charlie ran a 50K in August…the same month he finished his last chemo session. Charlie was running ultras in the midst of 12 sessions of chemo! How could he do that? Where did he find the energy? Or even the desire to do it?

In the year since Charlie had his surgery last January, he ran 12 races including 8 ultras (one of them being the Pistol 100 Miler!). As I started back running , posts about him would periodically pop up and I would tell myself to “Suck it up buttercup!”. Surely, if he can do all that, I could run a half marathon, right? And if he could do ultras during chemo, I could run a marathon a year after I was done with chemo, right?

Seriously, I still don’t know how he did it. He is made up of some strong stuff! He inspired me to be that strong too and to push myself.

The great thing about Charlie is that he is always smiling or cracking a joke in his photos. The cancer that he is dealing with is scary and has daunting odds but Charlie is positive and squeezing all he can out of this life. I think where I had seen myself as a victim of cancer, Charlie didn’t even give cancer the power to affect him at all. That was what was most inspiring to me. He battled it on his own terms and in his own way and inspired me to do the same.

This year, Charlie will be running the Barkley Marathons (one of the toughest, most insane 100 milers in the world). I look forward to seeing what he does there! If you want to be inspired, you should follow him too!

Thank you Lisa for those powerful words that summarize why Charlie is the winner of the Hope Shull Award for 2014.

Charlie Taylor Hope Shull Award 2014

The other Run It Fast members that were finalists for the award this year included Mark Hellenthal, Nathan Bass, Amber Goetz, and Marj Mitchell. They all inspired us in 2014 and continue to with their drive and indomitable will to be stronger than any obstacle they might face.

What is the Hope Shull Inspirational Runner Award?

In January 2012, we presented Hope Shull with a membership to Run It Fast – The Club at the Race for Hope 5K in Henderson, Tennessee.

The 5K was held to honor Hope as she had terminal cancer with just a few weeks to live. She died shortly after the race was held.

Hope Shull with Marj Mitchell Race for Hope

Hope was a personal friend to myself and many other of the early members of Run It Fast. I ran several of my very first 5K races with Hope and her good friend Marj Mitchell in West Tennessee.

I wrote Hope a letter to be presented to her at the Race for Hope 5K last January that Marj read to her at the race.  The letter included a permanent membership to Run It Fast along with a few other words that included the creation of an award in her honor –  ‘The Hope Award.’

January 12, 2012

Hope,

I’m amiss that I can’t be at the race today.  I’m in Los Angeles, but you are on my mind as you often are.

I asked Marj if it would be ok ,and she thought it would be, so I want to proudly announce you as the newest member of Run It Fast – The Club.

You will always be RIF #225, a special number to me as 25 has always been one of my two most favorite numbers.  You will always be a part of the club no matter what transpires from this day forward between any of us.

I’ve always wanted you to be a part of the club because you embody EVERYTHING that Run It Fast was created to become. Run It Fast is a club full of members that have this deep down desire to overcome obstacles in life and limitations that most others let hold them back or down. Run It Fast members don’t let their situation or hardship in life dictate their life for them.

Instead they go out and conquer life by digging deep to train hard, run races, and forge friendships along the way that inspire others to do things that perhaps they didn’t think were possible either.

Also, I want to announce that starting this year, at the end of the year, the Run It Fast – Club will annually give one member the honor of being named the Hope Shull Inspirational Runner of the Year!

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the example you’ve set for me not only with running but with life.  I’ll never forget sharing the car ride back to the start of the Labor Day 5 Miler with you a couple of years ago. That was a beautiful day and a lot of fun.

With my utmost love, respect and admiration,

Joshua Holmes

Run It Fast ® (RIF #1)

Congrats to Charlie on joining Lisa as the winners of this prestigious award. Thank you for the inspirational you have and continue to provide for Run It Fast members and runners all over the globe.

Posted in RunningComments (0)

Hope Shull with Marj Mitchell Race for Hope

Lisa Gonzales is the 2013 Hope Award Winner

Last January, we presented Hope Shull with a membership to Run It Fast – The Club at the Race for Hope 5K in Henderson, Tennessee.

The 5K was held to honor Hope as she had terminal cancer with just a few weeks to live. She died shortly after the race was held.

Hope was a personal friend to myself and many other of the early members of Run It Fast. I ran several of my very first 5K races with Hope and her good friend Marj Mitchell in West Tennessee.

I wrote Hope a letter to be presented to her at the Race for Hope 5K last January that Marj read to her at the race.  The letter included a permanent membership to Run It Fast along with a few other words that included the creation of an award in her honor –  ‘The Hope Award.’

January 12, 2012

Hope,

I’m amiss that I can’t be at the race today.  I’m in Los Angeles, but you are on my mind as you often are.

I asked Marj if it would be ok ,and she thought it would be, so I want to proudly announce you as the newest member of Run It Fast – The Club.

You will always be RIF #225, a special number to me as 25 has always been one of my two most favorite numbers.  You will always be a part of the club no matter what transpires from this day forward between any of us.

I’ve always wanted you to be a part of the club because you embody EVERYTHING that Run It Fast was created to become. Run It Fast is a club full of members that have this deep down desire to overcome obstacles in life and limitations that most others let hold them back or down. Run It Fast members don’t let their situation or hardship in life dictate their life for them.

Instead they go out and conquer life by digging deep to train hard, run races, and forge friendships along the way that inspire others to do things that perhaps they didn’t think were possible either.

Also, I want to announce that starting this year, at the end of the year, the Run It Fast – Club will annually give one member the honor of being named the Hope Shull Inspirational Runner of the Year!

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the example you’ve set for me not only with running but with life.  I’ll never forget sharing the car ride back to the start of the Labor Day 5 Miler with you a couple of years ago. That was a beautiful day and a lot of fun.

With my utmost love, respect and admiration, 

Joshua Holmes

Run It Fast ® (RIF #1)

I’m proud and honored to announce that the ‘2013 Hope Shull Inspirational Runner Award’ goes to RIF #5 Lisa Gonzales from Alta Loma, California.

Lisa has inspired all of us with her bravery, courage, and tough inner fortitude in battling cancer over the last few months while never losing faith and being extremely positive and supportive of every member of Run It Fast, as she recovered from surgery and continues to go through chemotherapy.

Lisa insisted upon crewing me at the EC 100 just two weeks after her surgery. She has yet to deliver me a good cheeseburger during a 100 miler when crewing me, but she did a great job that day crewing me to a Top 5 finish.

She has been vital to the growth of Run It Fast over the last two years and has a true passion and desire for the club to become the best.

She is one of the toughest people I know. I draw inspiration from her, not only during my races, but in life in general. My worst days are nowhere near what she has gone through and survived in the past year.

Lisa gives ‘Hope’ to hundreds of runners in the running community across the globe every day!

I’m very proud of Lisa and honored that she is the 2013 recipient of ‘The Hope Shull Inspirational Runner Award.’

Posted in Running, THE CLUBComments (0)



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