Name: Kristin Martin
Age: 34
Hometown: Commack
Current Town: Floral Park
Occupation: Construction Management/Property Manager Supervisor
Marital Status: t-minus 8 days til I say I DO!!
Thank you Lou for asking me to be this week’s warrior spotlight! I apologize for not submitting sooner, I have bride brain that I don’t know if im coming or going!
Lol My mother and I have spent the last 11 months planning, designing, creating, building everything ourselves and decided not to hire a coordinator or a florist for the wedding (regretting that decision as I write this lol). I am one of 5 (middle child). I went to Adelphi University where I majored in Business Management and landed a job on Park Ave working at a Private Wealth Management Firm. Market crashed a year into working at the firm, lost my job and decided to switch careers working in real estate and property management for the last 10 years. Now on to the fun stuff!! How running began… before I begin I want to add I was never athletic I tried out for softball but I was horrible and didn’t make it, I tried cheerleading and didn’t make it.. I didn’t have an athletic bone in my body! Senior year of college I took a class just to get some credits in, it was a gym class! Not your typical fun gym class, it was a class on how to use weights and how to do squats and how to use machines. Most people would have switched out within the first 2 classes but I fell in love with it!! After I gradated I continued going to the gym 5 days a week, it was my passion, my time to myself. It wasn’t until 9 years later I decided to get serious and do figure competing and compete in 5 shows taking second place in all 5 shows after that I wanted to try something different and switched to CrossFit where I have been cross fitting and competing for the past 4 years. Going back in time again.. When I was 24 years old I was introduced to OCR (obstacle course racing) I competed my first race and was hooked! For many years I was a avid racer, I was fast and always placed in the top 10th percentile. It wasn’t until I was 30 years old when I herd about OCR Worlds. I came in 10th overall in a race and qualified to go to Canada to compete against women all over the world! At that point I was approached by James Stangle who was the leader of an international racing team (M.I.T Tough Team) and joined his team and had the amazing opportunity to compete in world championships in Canada and then qualified to compete in North American Championships in Vermont two years ago. So running and hills, LOTS of hills was something that excited me. I ran only in races but never enjoyed running until 3 years ago. 3 years ago I decided to take on a new challenge. It was called the “1000 mile challenge”. I had one year to run 1000 miles (roughly 80 miles a month to stay on course) I got on the treadmill January 1st and ran 1 mile and almost died! I said there is no way I can do this!! It would be impossible!!! I didn’t give up, it wasn’t until month 3 that I started enjoying it and I was running 80-90 miles per month. I was hooked and it was something else that I enjoyed on top of all the other crazy activities I do. I finished… I completed my 1000 miles on December 31st and then I was like “now what”. So… my next challenge was to prepare for my 1st half marathon 5 months later. Most ordinary people would want to their first half on a nice easy flat course, nope not me! I flew to Montana and ran my 1st half marathon in Glacier National Park! 4,000 elevation start with a 4,000 elevation gain within the first 4 miles. I survived (barely), finished with a decent time and I hope one day to race in another one. Fast forward… I now run for fun enjoying my 5ks and 10ks and found an amazing group of people who enjoy running as much as I do!!! I hope you enjoyed my story!!