Name: Rebecca Kittrell
Age: 44
Hometown: Monticello, NY
Current City: Long Beach
Separated for 6 years (never to return)
Children: Olivia almost 14 and Elijah 12.5
Pets: Jasmine, 10 month old corgie, and Russian Tortoise Jeffrey
Occupation: attorney for developmentally disabled and mentally ill individuals
First, Disclaimer: I have only ran the hills once, last winter when Kim Scharoff convinced me to come try them in an effort to get me off my ass after months of doing nothing, and I didn’t complete the full 10K but I plan to be back many times in 2018, so thank you Lou for picking me to be warrior of the week.I grew up upstate with my parents and a sister who is 13 months younger and a brother who is 7 years younger. I was physically active in terms of playing outside, walking in the woods, and riding my bike up and down the country roads. But I never ever played an organized sport my entire life. I was very involved in music and speech and debate in high school. I played the cello and was quite accomplished, making it to the All State level. I was also a national champion in debate, so although I have nothing but finisher medals for running, I have an attic full of debate trophies at my mom’s house. I first started running in about 1991 in college at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. I’m not really even sure why I started, but I did, and I ran about 3 miles basically 5 days a week. I did that for a few years, and then moved to the big city (NYC) and kind of stopped, although I stayed active with working out, roller blading, tennis, volleyball and a few other things. I graduated law school in 2002, moved to Long Beach,and then got married a few months later, and had my daughter within a year and a half. Seven months later, I was pregnant again with my son, and by the time I gave birth to him in 2005 I was about 100 pounds overweight. My marriage pretty quickly disintegrated, and by 2010 I started planning my exit strategy. This is when running came back into my life. I started meeting with a nutritionist and started a couch to 5k program, and by about 2011 I had lost about 90 pounds. My first race was cow harbor 10k in 2011. I ran a bunch of 5ks and 10ks all over long island in 2011 and 2012 and ran my first half marathon in queens in March 2012. It is still my PR. At that time I had no running friends, and did everything on my own. I left my husband in February 2012, and then in October my world basically fell apart with Hurricane Sandy, and running was put on the back burner. I didn’t start again until 2015. My first race back was hope for warriors 5k in Lindenhurst, where I met Linda Ellen-Many, who actually grew up in the same town as me. That was where my current love of running, and my introduction to the Long Island running community really began. In May 2015, I ran the Long Island Half, my second half marathon, and then a bunch of races after that. I met a lot of people along the way. In the summer of 2016, I started suffering with major depression and I was sidelined for about 9 months. I started running again full force after I got picked in the lottery for the NYC lottery in 2017, and started training in June. Since then I have ran 5 more half marathons, including my first ever trail half on December 3 in Brookhaven, and I finished NYC marathon, my first, and definitely not last marathon on November 5. I have big goals for 2018, mostly losing the 30 pounds I gained while depressed, getting back to my pre-depression pace (which was still slow), and finishing my second marathon – most likely Wineglass. I have made amazing friends this past year, and what started out as the worst year of my life, has turned out to be one of the best, and I can say that running, and the amazing, supportive runners in this group played the biggest part in my comeback. Only good things to come….