Nasties, meet Alicia Palladino, a Boston gal living in the South.

If you’ve met Alicia, you know she will make you laugh faster than Snellen can sprint 50 meters. In fact, I nominate her for Best Sense of Humor in the East Nasty yearbook. Hold the phone, we really should do a yearbook. Can someone get on that?

Running was not Alicia’s first sport. In high school, she played field hockey and was a cheerleader (seems about right with those pretty blonde curls!) In fact, she didn’t start pounding the pavement until after graduating from Salem State College in 2002. She moved to Nashville in 2009 and heard about East Nasty a year later from fellow Nastie, JP Cowan. She was terrified to actually run with the group, but was more than happy to have beers with everyone after!

In 2011 she joined P2T training with encouragement from Heidi Wilson, and ran the Tomato 5k. Soon after, she was a full-fledged East Nasty, running regularly on Wednesday nights. The group has made Alicia actually enjoy running. Being able to call any number of East Nasties at any moment and find a running buddy is kind of awesome. Oh and hardcore breakfasts after training runs shouldn’t be overlooked either.

East Nasties Sara Spencer, Alicia Palladino, Kristine Mylls & Heidi Wilson

She is most proud of her first half marathon in NOLA last year. Preparing for even a six mile run at the time seemed insurmountable and resulted in mini panic attacks. But once she realized she could pull those off, she was well on her way to running 13.1. She has now run 3 half marathons, multiple 5ks, a 5 miler, and 2 mini triathlons. Oh and she has the Stump Jump 11 Miler on the docket for this October.

Alicia is an Oncology Nurse at Vanderbilt in the Cancer Infusion Center. Translation, she administers chemo. Basically, Alicia is a rockstar when it comes to her career path. She’s far too humble to ever draw attention to that fact, but I think we can all admit that’s a pretty commendable career choice.

Oh, and if you’ve been to even one John Mayer concert then Alicia was probably there too. She’s been to 60-70. Say what you need to say.