Meet The Nation 350 - Kristin Napora

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

All right, you guys, it's gonna be Meet the Nation, Meet the Nation Monday. This is where we call somebody that listens to the podcast for whatever reason, and get to know them a little bit better. We ask them questions about themselves, and people that listen to this, they enjoy actually meeting people. So this weekend, I saw this in action. I saw somebody mention that they watched the other persons, or listened to the other persons meet the nation, and they knew stuff about each other. So it actually does work, believe it or not. So we try to do this every Monday. I've been off for a couple weeks because I've been race directing and putting out aid stations and stuff, but my season's over. So I hope to do this more regularly. I have about five or six more of them in the can here. If you haven't put your name on the list, email me at tenjunkmiles.gmail.com, and I'll put you on the list. If you're on the list, you're coming up soon, because there's not that many left. And when they're over, I'm going to take a break until somebody else decides they want to join the list. So shoot me an email, tell me you want to get on the list, but until then, it's going to be Kristin Napora. Who I actually saw this weekend, as well.

Donate or volunteering at the aid station.

Is that how you pronounce it?

Kristin Napora (1:48)

Yeah.

SPEAKER_1 (1:48)

Okay.

I thought maybe I was getting it wrong all this time. Where am I calling you? Where are you located?

Kristin Napora (1:56)

Currently right now or where I live?

SPEAKER_1 (1:58)

Where do you live?

Kristin Napora (2:00)

I live in Belleville, Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_1 (2:02)

Where are you right now?

Kristin Napora (2:04)

I'm at REI with Steph Danneberg.

SPEAKER_1 (2:06)

Oh, she's shopping?

Kristin Napora (2:08)

Yes, there's no REI or Sierra in her area of Virginia, so we're hitting all of them fine gear that we don't need but need.

SPEAKER_1 (2:17)

Okay.

That's perfectly fine. Do you do anything for work? Do you have a job?

Kristin Napora (2:23)

Not anymore. I was at Cave of the Mounds for a bit, but I had to stop with ankle surgery because there's a ton of stairs and I haven't really gone back to anything yet.

SPEAKER_1 (2:34)

The Cave of the Mounds is cool.

I went there with my wife a couple of years ago and I had forgotten how cool it was. But if you're at the Badger and you're looking for an excursion, that's a nice excursion.

Kristin Napora (2:45)

Especially in August because it's like 55 degrees year round in the cave. So it's very nice when it's hot.

SPEAKER_1 (2:51)

Nice.

All right. Tell me your running story. Just your short little, how did you get into it and how did it progress and how bad is it gotten? Where are you at?

Kristin Napora (3:01)

I started running with my dad because he always did marathons and he ran in high school. So I was maybe a fourth or fifth grader doing 5ks with him. And the old Roadrunners Club in Maryland.

And they separated the men's and women's races then. So I would run with one of the ladies from the club and do 5ks. And I ran all the way through high school and then I was having knee problems. So I kind of stopped for a while. And then somehow after my son was born, was in my thirties, I decided I should start running again. And I started doing run walks. And at the time, both of my parents were working on the 50 states of marathons and half marathons. And they had both switched to run walk at that point.

SPEAKER_1 (3:49)

Have either of them done any of our races? My races?

Kristin Napora (3:54)

My first half marathon was with my mom at Badger. And I think it was the first year for Badger. It was the 2019 Badger.

SPEAKER_1 (4:02)

I was just curious because I don't remember ever meeting family members and I didn't know until, I didn't remember until now that you had family members that ran.

Kristin Napora (4:12)

They did it once. I convinced both my parents and my brother. And my brother hates running. He's a hiker.

But he gets sucked into stuff every so often. And my parents are both in their 70s. So they're kind of more walkers for things now. But they both finished the 50 states of halves and marathons.

SPEAKER_1 (4:32)

And so then this must have escalated. How does it that you found out about?

Kristin Napora (4:35)