Hello! Welcome back to Stride for Stride with Smrcka. This blog installment is on how Olympic Distance Runner Deena Kastor, maiden name Drossin, uses quotes from other novels and stories she’s read in her own book Let Your Mind Run! She also has held 5 World Records and 7 American Records. Kastor graduated from the University of Arkansas with an English Creative Writing Degree and a second major in Journalism. Also during this time, she was a 8-time division I All-American, 4-time SEC champion, and 2-time NCAA runner up. While I will be focusing on the quotes Kastor implements from others to enhance her novel, I will also be using her words from the novel as well. This is all to convey the important lessons and journey that Kastor had and how she expresses that in a form that many English majors can truly appreciate. Let’s dive in!
Continue readingStride for Stride with Smrcka
Stride for Stride with Smrcka: Alexi Pappas – Bravey
Alexi Pappas is a Greek-American Olympian, writer, poet, actress, and producer. In this first blog installment of Stride for stride with Smrcka, I will be diving into how many athletes, and specifically in my specialization of running, go into deep literary lengths in the many books, poem collections, and blogs and websites themselves. Many notable runners and coaches have been known to be in the broad degrees of English such as Deena Kastor, Mark Wetmore, Chris Lear, Kathrine Switzer, and of course— as this blog will discuss— Alexi Pappas! The Novel that Pappas wrote is called Bravey where she talks about her own self journey in confidence, self-reliance, mental health, and the events in her life that led her to be who she is today.
Continue reading
JFR Blog 