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Shannon Farar-Griefer
Fit Family Profile
By Kelly Burgess
It was two children that started Shannon Farar-Griefer on the road toward running ultra marathons, and it's two children that keep her committed to living a fit and healthy life.
In the case of the first two children, one of them was her oldest son, Moe. Shannon had just given birth to him and wanted to lose the rest of her baby weight. One day, while she was nursing him, she watched a marathon on television and thought to herself, "Why on earth would anyone want to run 26 miles?"
The next day at the supermarket Shannon couldn't get those crazy runners off her mind, and picked up a copy of a running magazine while she was waiting in line. As she glanced through it she saw a picture of a little girl with no hair. The caption said, "Run for me." It was an ad for the Leukemia Society. Moved by the picture, and still piqued by curiosity at what motivated those runners, Shannon contacted the Leukemia Society, volunteered to run for charity, started running and never stopped. Now her two sons, Moe and Ben, her youngest, help keep her motivated to live and model a fit lifestyle to enjoy the good health with which they've been blessed.
Shannon realized early in her career as a marathoner that she had to think of herself as a runner and establish an "I can do it" attitude to be successful. She's tried to instill that same attitude in her family, not just by example, but by making fitness part of the routine of their lives.
"From when I first started training I didn't try to work around my kids; I tried to make them a part of what I was doing," she says. "I bought a jogging stroller and ran with them."
