The Runners
VAN #1
Leg 1 – Sherry of Team Garza Girls
Leg 2 – Marie of Make and Takes (Captain, aka. Our Fearless Leader)
Marie runs the blog Make and Takes, a top rated parenting site featuring kids crafts, home crafts, recipes, and parenting tips. She graduated with an Early Childhood and Elementary teaching degree, where she taught kindergarten for 4 years. She’s now a stay-at-home mom of 3 goofy children and one computer geek husband, living in Salt Lake City. She’s a regular contributor at Alpha Mom and Craftzine, and is a hostess of SocialLuxe Lounge. When she’s not crafting with her kids, she loves to run, read, and blog! You can follow Marie on Twitter at @makeandtakes.
Leg 3 – Samantha of GarzaGirl
Samantha spends much of her time outdoors with her twin 6-year-olds, her partner and her camera. She won her first 5k run at the age of 8 and has been addicted to running ever since. Four marathons, one ultra, and a few dozen half-marathons later, she’s making her comeback to running after a ski accident in 2009 gave her a new knee. Samantha spends most of her time doing the mommy gig, dodging errant footballs, and working in the kids Spanish immersion classroom. Samantha has been around in online community and communications, building online businesses for longer than she cares to admit. Samantha blogs about the life she loves more than rainbows at GarzaGirl. You can find her on Twitter at @garzag.
Leg 4 – Heather of Rookie Moms
Heather Flett was a bossy big sister and professional project manager before having her controlling ways thoroughly challenged by motherhood. She started rookiemoms.com with her best friend as a result of trying to find activities that are at least as fun for mama as for baby. She co-authored The Rookie Mom’s Handbook as the diaper-bag-friendly companion book. Heather lives in Berkeley with two sons, age 4 and nearly-3. You can follow Heather on Twitter at @rookieheather.
Leg 5 – Christine of Boston Mamas (aka. Team Design Monkey)
Christine Koh is a former music and brain scientist (she earned her Ph.D. in psychology, and completed her music and auditory neurology postdoctoral fellowship at MIT/Mass. General Hospital/Harvard Medical School) turned freelance writer, editor, designer, and creative consultant. Christine is the founder and editor of Boston Mamas (through which she was named a Nielsen 50 Power Pack Mom and one of Babble.com’s 50 Best Mommy Bloggers), the designer behind Posh Peacock, writes a personal blog at Pop Discourse, and also pens the Shoestring Magazine column Minimalist Mama. She resides in the Boston area with her husband and 5-year-old daughter. She tweets about it all at @bostonmamas.
Leg 6 – Linsey of Me Too You
Linsey Krolik is the writer of her personal blog Me Too You, which she began when her youngest daughter was born very ill. She is also a partner at SV Moms Group, the network of collaborative regional blogs. Linsey is a mom of 6-year-old twins and their (suprise!) baby sister who is now 3-years old. She is a twin herself, a cancer survivor, a runner and an aspiring yogi. Linsey, a San Francisco Bay Area resident for 20 years, has run The Relay race twice before, both times with her twin sister, Robin. She is very excited to return, post cancer and post kids, to run this race again with a a great group of blogger friends. You can follow Linsey on Twitter at @linseyk.
VAN #2
Leg 7 – Kelly of Just Spotted
Kelly is a Cherry Coke drinking, crushed ice loving, world-traveling, bike riding, apron wearing, marathon training, fabric obsessed, surprisingly shy, REAL Orange County housewife & mama of 3, with ADD crafting tendencies and an MBA degree. She is the mastermind behind Just Spotted, THE premiere family & kid oriented guide to living, visiting and dreaming about Orange County. Kelly writes about her real life adventures on her personal blog According to Kelly & you can find her on twitter @according2kelly.
Leg 8 – Meg of Fox and Bunny and Woodpecker Stew
Meg lost her job in the summer of 2009, packed up her apartment in New York, and bought a one-way ticket to Tokyo. She spent six months traveling solo throughout Northeast and Southeast Asia, and had an absolute blast. Now home in Miami and not quite ready to face the “real world,” Meg spends her time ranting on her blog, Fox and Bunny and Woodpecker Stew. She also writes for The Daily Get Up and In It To Gym It. Meg’s number one passion is food: shopping, preparing, cooking, baking, and above all — eating. She’s an avid reader, smack-talking football fan, lover of shoes, and shall we say fanatic about all things environment. Check out her musings on Twitter at @domnicella.
Leg 9 – Karianna of Karianna Spectrum
Kari is a neuroscientist turned writer, the mother of two boys (5 and 9) who demonstrate the assumed origin of “boisterous,” and former competitive dancer. She took up running less than a year ago on a dare, but her initial reluctance turned into passion. She blogs at the Karianna Spectrum, which covers the “spectrum of Kari” including parenting a child with pdd-nos, but has recently become less focused on the autistic spectrum, and more geared towards her Project 2010k goal of running a 10k (or longer) every month for 2010. You can follow Kari on Twitter at @KariDahlen.
Leg 10 – Brenna of Barefoot Brenna
Brenna ran her first marathon and rode her first century (in the rain) this year. When she’s not running or cycling, she can be found working her 8-to-5 desk job, mountain biking, cooking and eating vegan food with her boyfriend Jason, and hanging out with her cat Craig. After watching the barefoot runners at the LA Marathon, she’s decided to run it barefoot in 2011. She blogs about her barefoot adventures at Barefoot Brenna and can be found on Twitter at @brenbot.
Leg 11 – Emmie of Life Behind the Curve
Emmie Johnson is a soccer player at heart. She hates to run but loves to compete. She finished her first 5K in July ‘09, stumbled through the BlogHer 5K after two hours of sleep, and is running the anchor leg in the Shamrock’n Half 2-woman relay. By night, Emmie plays a supermom, horrible homemaker and occasional blogger at Life Behind the Curve. By day, she is a senior associate at APCO Worldwide, a global public affairs and strategic communications firm. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and her masters of public policy from Georgetown. A Bay Area native, Emmie currently lives in the Sacramento area with her husband, two boys and two dogs. You can follow Emmie on Twitter at @EmmieJ.
Leg 12 – Carrie of This Mama Makes Stuff
Before the minivan, Carrie Lundell designed little girls clothing for a little company that rhymes with “Cold Gravy” in NYC. Now, instead of working at a creative job, she lives a creative life with her husband and three kids in Orange County, California and records it all at her blog, This Mama Makes Stuff. When she’s not at the sewing machine, you can find her mountain biking, thrift shopping, advocating for public school, and promoting her first publication: This is Me – a kid’s first keepsake journal. Find Carrie on Twitter @thisiscarrie.
* FORMER TEAMMATES *
We’re sad that these teammates needed to withdraw from the relay, we’re so happy to have their support in absentia!
Pamela of French Knots
Pamela Cardwell loves to run and began logging miles in her Nikes at age 10. She went on to win two state track titles in high school and received an athletic running scholarship to Vanderbilt University. Marriage and kids hasn’t slowed her down and every summer she competes in several 5k’s and triathlons. Running in The Relay is just the challenge she has been looking for since turning 30. Keep track of her daily mileage at Frenchknots or follow her rants about running on Twitter @artshoppeutah.
Audrey of Mom Generations
Audrey McClelland is a mother of 4 boys and a founder of the website MomGenerations.com, where she offers fashion and beauty advice for moms. A Brown University graduate and former employee of Donna Karan, Audrey was named a “Power Pack” Mom in Nielsen’s 2009 Power Moms list and she is the co-editor of the Lifetime Moms Beauty & Style channel and the co-founder of the fashion digital series, DailyDoseofStyle.com. She is a spokesperson for Totsy.com, a private designer sale site for moms, vlogs for Johnson & Johnson’s “Real Moms” Health Channel, is a Hanes’ Social Media Comfort Crew member and a member of the Walmart Elevenmoms, and she holds a position on Hasbro’s Playskool Panel. You can follow Audrey on Twitter at @AudreyMcClellan.
Kami of No Biggie
Kami Bigler is the thrifty maven who runs the blog: no biggie – a montage of her three favorite creative outlets: crafting, cooking, and thrifting. Her interests include portrait and tabletop photography, paper crafts, decorating and experiencing the thrill of the thrift find. Kami graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in Public Relations and spends her non-eating-blogging… and now running hours with her husband and their two children. You can follow Kami on Twitter at @kamibigler.
Danielle of Foodmomiac
Danielle Wiley has been blogging at Foodmomiac.com since December of 2005, writing about everything from recipes to meal planning to funny stories about her kids. If her blog post schedule seems erratic, that’s because she also runs all of the Chicago-based consumer brands work for Edelman’s Digital Group. She started training this past October for a half marathon in February, and will keep on keeping on for the relay in May. Danielle lives in Chicago with her husband and two children. You can follow Danielle on Twitter at @foodmomiac.
Jessica of Sassafrass
Jessica Ashley is a professional blogger, editor, and shameless shoe whore who chronicles her life raising a little boy in the big city on Sassafrass. Jessica is also the Healthy Living Editor at Yahoo! Shine, where she has spilled too many details of being a novice runner in training, the crabbiness and enlightenment of doing an Ayurvedic cleanse that lasted a gazillion years, and why good-ass jeans are critical to every woman’s empowered sense of self. Jessica’s Star Wars-obsessed, hilarious, honey of a 5-year-old boy will be cheering her on while she trains in the snow, sleet, and rain for this event. Find Jessica on Twitter @sassafrassjess.
Allison of Petit Elefant
Allison Czarnecki is the founder and chief editor of the popular family lifestyle blog Petit Elefant, where she writes about traveling with kids, fashion and style for women, recipes and crafts, home and garden, all on a realistic budget. She also spearheads the crazy fantastic SocialLuxe Lounge party at BlogHer, which primps and pampers hundreds of women on the eve of the conference. She lives in Utah where she is the happily married mother of two school aged children. You can follow Allison on Twitter at @petit_elefant.
Charlene of Crazed Parent
Charlene Prince Birkeland is freelance writer/blogger/person-who-is-good-at-telling stories, and the co-founder and executive editor of a new stealthy startup that will be launched in spring 2010. Charlene lives in Silicon Valley with her husband, two sons and lab puppy. She started her blog, Crazed Parent, in 2004, where you’ll find random riffs about parenting, cooking, baseball, photography, and her wacky dog and equally wacky kids and husband…among other topics. (She also never has photos of herself unless she’s behind the camera.) Charlene recently fell in love with running and it’s a good thing since she has some serious miles to cover in May. You can follow Charlene on Twitter at @crazedparent.
