BRISTON RAINS

MY STORY

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It started my freshman year of high school when I went to the first cross country practice. Our coach had us run a lap around the field as our warm-up. It was a half-mile loop and I figured it'd be easy. We started our run and about halfway it felt like my entire body was in pain, I was breathing hard, by the time we finished I was already gassed. I was very out of shape. I remember our first cross country meet that year I couldn't even run a full 5k without walking. I was by no means talented, I showed no potential. This continued to the end of my sophomore year going into my junior year. Going into my junior year I knew I wanted to change and do something athletically. One day I was scrolling through YouTube and stumbled upon a video documenting the race of an ultra marathon runner. The runner was running a 100-mile race through the mountains on trail and it was absolutely amazing. I was hooked. I set a crazy goal to run on the USA mountain running team, to be a professional ultramarathon runner, and to win big 100 mile races. That weekend I went and ran my longest run ever of 7 miles, which turned into 12 miles.. 18 miles.. then 26 miles. I started reading books about training, ultramarathons, and even world-renown ultra runner Scott Jurek's books. I fell in love with the sport. Without a lot of athletic talent, I knew I was going to have to work hard if I wanted to achieve all of my big goals. First, I had to go to college and run if I wanted to take my running to the next level and improve. That was the first goal, the NCAA. All my classmates would make fun of me for it because I was nowhere close to being a collegiate athlete. I put my head down, stayed disciplined, and worked. Within the blink of an eye, a year and a half later, I was signing to go run at Southern Arkansas University at the NCAA Division ll level. That's where I am right now getting trained at the collegiate level in a successful distance running program. I still have the same fire in me and the goals that I set my self two and a half years ago. Since running is what I love, it's what I want to pursue after college. As an entrepreneur, I knew I wanted to own my own running company. Within the first few weeks of college, I founded the Texas Outlaw Running Company. I want to help runners and people who want to be runners succeed no matter the odds just like I was able to. I want to leave a legacy and unfortunately I'm not talented enough to leave one at the Olympic level. However, I can leave one by being a part of the sport. Whether that's through coaching, race events, or maybe even in the ultrarunning scene.