For folks who don’t know… Novant Health Hemby Children’s Hospital is the official beneficiary of the Novant Health Charlotte Marathon. The Marathon is proud to raise awareness – and money — for such an important and remarkable place in the Charlotte community. 

All that “remarkableness” doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Along with the medical team and staff, it takes folks dedicated to fundraising to make it happen. 

Amy McKinney is one of those dedicated people. She’s the philanthropy manager at the Novant Health Foundation – and she’s our guest on this episode of The Running Around Charlotte Podcast. 

Our first guest today was actually our very FIRST guest on The Running Around Charlotte Podcast. If you’ve been running around Charlotte at all, then you probably know Lisa Landrum.

She’s the creator of the online and “in real life” community that is Run Charlotte Run. She’s the founder and head coach of Forward Motion. She’s a longtime pace team member here at the Novant Health Charlotte Marathon. She’s also a mom, spouse, all-around good people, and a personal friend… 

Lisa Landrum, thanks for being on this episode of The Running Around Charlotte Podcast! 

There’s lots of new stuff happening at this year’s Novant Health Charlotte Marathon and Marathon Expo. For starters, we’re expecting a whole lot more of you — that’s exciting! From live music, barbecue, a new Expo location, and a LIVE broadcast recording of The Running Around Charlotte Podcast, it’ll be a jam-packed weekend for sure. Tim and DC hit the highlights on this week’s show.

Here’s a hot take for you: The Novant Health Charlotte Marathon has donated nearly $300,000 to Novant Health Hemby Children’s Hospital since 2013. Last year, we upped our donation goals with the launch of Team Hemby. This year, a Team of Charity Chasers joins the effort… and there’s an all-new initiative you may have seen… the Miracle Miles. Betsy Zarzour joins us today to give us the ins and outs on ALL these new programs, and how YOU can get involved.

If you feel you’ve “been there, done that” with your running, we’ve got a different kind of challenge for you. Running the half-marathon with a weighted backpack.  You may have heard of “rucking” — which is basically a form of military training where you run miles with a full backpack. In case you didn’t know, the Novant Health Charlotte

Marathon has a Rucking Division in the half-marathon race, and on today’s Running Around Charlotte Podcast, our man Mike Sweeting joins us to explain more about it.

One of the easiest ways to give back to your running community is to volunteer at a running event. There are lots of ways to do it, and most any kind of help is welcome. 

Arguably, one of THE most rewarding volunteer opportunities is serving as a pacer or pace team leader at an event. Guiding someone or a group of runners you might not know or ever see again… and getting them to the finish line for the first time or their best time. There’s really nothing like it. 

And once some runners get into the pacing game, they just keep on keeping on. One of those runners is BD Sechler. You’ll see him at this year’s Novant Health Charlotte Marathon… AGAIN! 

DC, do you have plans on Thursday night? Well, you do now… if you’ve yet to make it out to the Birdsong Run Club you’re missing out on ANOTHER excellent opportunity to do a little running around Charlotte. (See what I did there?)

They meet Thursday nights at 6:30 at the taproom on North Davidson here in Charlotte. The Birdsong Run Club has a mix of a couple different routes, and some fun folks to run around with. We’ve got a couple of them right here on the program today! 

Experience, they say, is the best instructor. Sharing that experience with others as a coach or teacher is a heck of a way to pay it forward. Here in Charlotte, we’re lucky enough to have LOTS of experienced coaches and guides willing to help runners of all kinds reach their goals. 

Angela Knepprath is one of those runners who do just that. She’s an experienced marathoner herself, a “Run Far” coach, and a newly-elected board member of the Charlotte Running Club. Even cooler, she’s our guest today here on The Running Around Charlotte podcast.

Running is a lot of things to a lot of people. It’s a way to get or stay fit. It’s a way to unwind or get fired-up. It’s a way to get some “alone time,” or it’s a way to be around old friends and make new friends. Running is a way to connect with people and make a difference in many different ways. 

Ayumi Nagano is one of those people who seems to use running for ALL that it can be. She’s a mom, runner, coach, and activist … the kind of person you’d absolutely want in your corner. We’re excited she’s slowed down long enough to join us on this week’s episode of the Running Around Charlotte podcast!

The running community is FULL of stories. From triumph to tragedy, success and failure… Some of our favorites are ones where running LITERALLY changes someone’s life.

Today’s guest on The Running Around Charlotte Podcast has one of THOSE stories. Brad Pope says running SAVED his life, and he’s here to tell us about it. We won’t spoil this one for you, so let’s get right to it!