I am doing this for Vic

When I transferred to the University of Tampa, my first roomate experience was exciting because I never lived with anybody that was not my family. His name was Victor Strizzi and he was also doing ROTC with me and we were both sophmore transfers. One thing we loved doing as a hobby was running, so we became running buddies. He always told me that he was going to run a full marathon before he died and I applaud him for that. We always ran 8 miles on Bayshore Blvd together and we wer were almost the same in speed, but I was a little faster than him. One day, he randomly told me he was going to run the Disney Marathon 3 months from that day. I told him he was crazy and that marathons take over 6 months to train for. He did not care and told me that I should run it with him. I "chickened" out and told him that I would run it next time. He trained everyday for his big race and packed on way more miles than me every week. He exceeded my expectations and became a better runner than me. He ran the race with pride and finished in 4 hours and 7 minutes. I was so proud of him. The next semester we ended up pledging the same fraternity and during the pledge process, he died in a motorcyle accident on his way to get a haircut. This affected my life a lot and I now take running more serious than ever because now I want to finish what he did. So in respects to Vic, I am going to run the disney marathon next year and my goal is to run it in 4 hours and 7 minutes. For now, I am training for the Gasparilla half marthon in the end of February to build myself for the Disney Marathon. This is for you Vic.

Run for Life

Ever since I was a freshmen in high school, I had a skill that I never knew I had because I was so busy trying to become the next Michael Jordan or the next Brett Favre. Running was a sport I was a "natural" at. I ran my first cross country race and beat half the guys on my team. After a while I realized that I ran better than I played basketball and football, so I decided to stick with the sport I was better at doing. Throughout my high school career I developed into a runner that most people aspire to become. I loved it so much that I wanted to become a cross country coach because I loved to train runners to become better competitors. My senior year, I was captain of my team and wanted to win regionals and place in the State Championships. Unfortunately, I got tendonitis in my groin and could not lead my team. My team ended up placing second place at regionals and still qualified for State. We then placed last at State because of my injury, but I still respected the sport. I stopped running competitive after I graduated, but still run as a hobby. Now, I train for half marathons and marathon races for fun, just to reach the limits my body can take. This is what I live for now and what I still love doing.