Personal/Professional: I am originally from West Allis, Wisconsin (suburb of Milwaukee). I attended UW-Milwaukee and received a B.A. in Philosophy in 1997, after which I attended DePaul Law School (Chicago) and earned a J.D. in 2000. I am a partner in the two person law firm Boyd and Kummer, LLC. I practice in the area of litigation. Primarily commercial litigation with some criminal, civil and personal injury. My firm’s website is at: http://www.boydkummer.com/ Running: I am a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. I spent the 90’s getting and staying sober while gaining a large amount of weight. I started running half marathons and marathons in 2002 arising out of a dare by a co-worker. After about a dozen marathons (PR of 3:41) over five years I grew bored with it. Then I discovered ultra running which sparked a further interest in trail and ultra events in 2012. From 2012 to 2014 I participated in around 15 ultras including three 100 milers and six 50 milers. I have also participated in the Comrades Ultramarathon in Africa, and numerous “Fatass” events such as the world’s longest (91.5 mile) turkey trot from Chicago to Milwaukee. I’m a big guy who mainly runs in the back of the pack. I chase cutoffs often and from time to time I fail. But I like to think of myself as someone who isn’t afraid to take on things that are outside of his comfort zone. My dream is to one day run the Hardrock 100. This fall I am participating in three of the hardest 100 mile races (AC100, Superior Trail100 and Bear100) within a 2 month period. In 2014 I started Flatlander Ultrarunners in Chicagoland, a trail and ultra group which now has over 300 members.

Amanda Tichacek

Bio

I grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in a small city in central Virginia. My early years were spent playing in the woods, but I became incredibly inactive when I shed the tomboy and entered adolescence. I never participated in sports or even individual exercise. I struggled with my weight and my self-confidence, which would be a recurring theme for the first twenty-eight years of my life. In 2001, I joined Weight Watchers. As the pounds came off, my self-confidence grew. I supplemented the calorie restriction with aerobics and a run-walk program, and one year later I was 50 pounds lighter. I never enjoyed the running; I just jogged around the block to maintain the weight loss. On January 1st, 2008–presumably as part of a renewed New Year commitment–I joined the online discussion boards at RunnersWorld.com. I can’t remember how or when it happened, but suddenly running was fun. Running was exciting. Running was something I could share with other people in this vibrant online community. I met my boyfriend on RunnersWorld.com, also a relatively new runner. He suggested we run the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon on Valentine’s Day 2009. It sounded romantic so I agreed. It was my first race and I laugh now when I look back at how I trained, but the seed was planted. I loved running. My reward for finishing the half marathon was a pair of Brooks Cascadia trail running shoes. The store employee told me about a club called GUTS, the Georgia Ultrarunning and Trailrunning Society. I could hardly believe some of the stuff I was reading on their discussion board (people run 100 miles??!!) but I excitedly joined them for a training run. It was my longest run ever at 15+ miles in the mountains of Georgia. Now, not only did I love running, I REALLY loved trail running. I was surprised and inspired to find out that my hometown of Lynchburg, VA was a hotbed for ultrarunning, home of Dr. David Horton. It would be two years before I ran my first ultramarathon, but the addiction spiraled from there as I became more and more embedded into the ultrarunning community of Atlanta. Now I live in Chicago, with the same boyfriend I met on Runner’s World back in 2008. I am still running ultramarathons, and so is he. These past two years, I have cultivated an entirely new group of running friends and am an active member of two Chicago ultrarunning clubs. I am continually amazed that–even in our small sub-population of ultrarunners–I can travel to Ohio or as far away as California and meet somebody who is a “friend of a friend”. Living in Chicago, I have discovered that flat trails make you faster and are great mental training for long races. I have discovered where there are hills in Chicago, and I have discovered how to use a treadmill to simulate mountain running and hiking. I run 50-70 miles per week, 15-20 of those with my dog Roxie. I have been working with an online running coach for two years, in the hopes of becoming just a little bit faster even as I cross into my 40s. I ran my first 100 mile race in June, and I can’t wait to run the next one. When I’m not running, I enjoy camping, hiking and bird watching. I will stop mid-stride if it means catching a glimpse of a scarlet tanager or a red-headed woodpecker. I am taking a class in nutrition, with the goal of becoming certified in sports nutrition. I have a small backyard vegetable garden and in one month will have more tomatoes and cucumbers than I will know what to do with. I love the mountains, and my long-term plan is to retire out west where I can spend my days running, gardening, bird-watching, and volunteering my time not only to races and trail maintenance, but also to other social programs. Funding this still-far-away dream is my full-time job as the Associate Director of Research at Emory University, where I work with three HIV and family planning research centers in Rwanda and Zambia. I am blessed to be in a career that exposes me to other cultures and that is directly responsible for saving lives.

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