It’s the turn of a new year and the long distance training season has officially begun. You may be asking yourself, ‘How can I get faster and PR in almost all my races?’ Well the answer my friends may just be found at the Thursday night interval training that our new East Nasty of the Week will be leading. Say hello to Amanda Tungett!

Amanda was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. According to her, she was a bit of a dork throughout middle school, but then again weren’t we all. By high school however, she was able to exude some coolness, which lead to her becoming prom queen her senior year. She played soccer from kindergarten all the way through high school, and she even started competing in kick boxing matches by the time she graduated. In a strange way kick boxing lead to Amanda’s origins in running.

During a match, Amanda shattered the bones in right her arm and had to have reconstructive surgery and bone graphing on her wrist. It was 10 months of excruciating pain, external pins, and various casts. It also helped her gain about 15 lbs. After her arm healed up she joined a couch to 5K program. As the pounds shed off she became more and more addicted to running. She also ran her first race at the age of 20…and won her age group! Since then she has run in and placed in several 5Ks and sprint triathlons.

Amanda (along with her husband Mike and her two sons Noah and Titus) moved to East Nashville in January 2009. She works for the Margaret Maddox Family YMCA as a personal trainer and as their Development Coordinator. So on an average day, Amanda will help people achieve their work-out goals and then she will work on programs to help raise funds for the YMCA and the East Nashville community at large. This year she also helped out on the board of the East Tomato 5K, which is easily their biggest fundraiser of the year. She helped the East Nasty Potato to Tomato training group get started, and that is how she wound up coming out to our Wednesday night runs.

She loves our little community of runners and the Wednesday night runs so much that her and her husband Mike now get a babysitter for her boys so they can consider their run a version of a “date-night.” This year she also joined the East Nasty Ragner Relay team, the awesomely named (“The East Nasty Honey Badgers- that’s right! We don’t give a sh*t!).” They wore costumes and everything!

As stated above, Amanda is going to begin leading interval training runs on Thursday night. They will meet at 11th and Holly (right in front of the yellow house) at 6pm, and then go on to run hills, tempo runs, and intervals. The program will definitely improve your running IQ and help out those looking to get a bit faster. Amanda herself hopes to enter at least one 5K a month in 2012. She also is looking forward to cheering on Mike as he runs his first half marathon this year during the Country Music race.

On a final note, Amanda also might begin taking her talent and love of drawing to new heights by studying tattooing under former ENOW Ian White. Ian just opened his own tattoo studio, which can be viewed here, and she is hoping to turn her love of tattoo art into a minor hobby.

Be sure to tell Amanda congratulations on the honor of ENOW, and be sure to attend her Thursday night workout sessions. They may hurt a bit, but it will be worth it in the end.

Rod