Andi here. Let me be the first to say, “Welcome to Andorfins.” Wow, that feels good to say!
Some of you may know me as the girl who handed out countless roses on “The Bachelorette,” or maybe you’ve found solace in the single life from some of my books.
Well, welcome to a new chapter!
I’m sure so many of you are wondering how this all got started. It’s been in the works for quite some time so I’ll give you the cliff notes version:
Back in 2019, I had this crazy idea that I would run the New York City Marathon. I’d never considered myself to be a runner before. In fact, my idea of running was going out for a stroll along the Westside Highway during sunset where I’d usually meet up with my girlfriends for happy hour. So, you can imagine that the idea of running 26.2 miles along with 50,000 other people was daunting to say the least.
And then I met someone who would become the first true driving force behind my motivation to run. His name was Roberto Mandje, a former Olympian turned running coach. “I’m a blank canvas, feel free to paint away,” I told him at our first training session.
And paint he did …
Along the way, I shared a lot of my journey on social media and I found so many people sharing their own running journeys with me which became my second driving force to run. I felt so inspired by everyone else’s stories that I wanted to share these stories with the world. And thus, the hashtag “Andorfins” was born. Never in a million years did I expect for it to take off the way it did, but it proved to me that I wasn’t alone when it came to running.
One (grueling) marathon and a crazy year later, and … well, here we are!
I hope you find Andorfins to be a welcoming community that doesn’t care how far or how fast you run. A community that is open and vulnerable about why they run. And a community that makes you feel that even if you are running alone, you are never alone in running.
So lace up and get ready, cause we’ve got a world to run!
Legs Go!
Xo,
Andi