College Can't Slow Down a Runner

After a long and dragged out day of college spent in the laboratories of UMass Dartmouth, my sister Erin doesn't kick back and relax like most other college students would. Instead, she throws on a fresh new pair of gym clothes, ties on her sneakers, puts headphones in her ears and starts blasting her music, as she takes off down the campus road running.

Erin Markham is both a hard-worker, as well as a caring sister, who doesn't want to slow down. With a five foot eight inch height, a light complexion from our dad, straight brown hair that reaches her shoulders, and a happy-go-lucky attitude, Erin is a strong-willed person who will do whatever it takes to create a balanced lifestyle that makes herself as well as those around her happy.

Over the past couple of years since starting college at UMass Dartmouth, Erin has been hard at work with her Medical Science major. She found the major interesting, at the expense of needing to dedicate much of time towards her schoolwork, with her freshman year alone needing to take eight classes in order to stay on a four-year schedule. Needing a way to get away from her schoolwork and relax herself, she picked up on running thanks to our mom, who has been running in her free time and for races over the past five years. Soon afterwards began swimming as well as cycling over at the YMCA down the street when she comes home to visit for the weekends. When I asked my neighbor, Sean, about Erin's training, her stated how he's "surprised about her drive to do so much, especially with her college workload".

This past summer, August 24th, Erin decided to try and take on a triathlon, which was a thirteen-mile race focused on running, swimming, and cycling, all of which she'd been working on over the past couple of years. When I asked Erin why she wanted to do a triathlon, she said she "wanted to try something many people could only dream of doing." From her triathlon, she placed second in her age group, which was nineteen to twenty-three years old. When I saw her cross the finish line at the end of the race, I could see how ecstatic she was from what she had just accomplished.

I asked Erin if she would do another triathlon in the future. "I'm ready to do another one next year.", she said. "Maybe you can do it with me next time too!"