Amanda Piccirilli-Hall

Last week was one of the best weeks I've had in a really REALLY long time. I'm not a true believer of fortune cookies but this cookie I got the other week was spot on for what was to come.

I received some very exciting news Friday afternoon -- after several interviews and phone calls/emails later, I was offered the Director of Communications and Donor Engagement position with the North Penn United Way. I am thrilled to let you all know I have accepted the position and will be starting with them in November. While saying goodbye to all of my friends at Merion is upsetting me as each day passes, I am so excited to start this journey with the United Way. I love being involved with the community and building relationships with my fellow neighbors. It will be great to interact with local businesses again and to see how many lives are improving because of this organization. I'm a people person and as of late, helping people has been a huge mission for me (ie.: Special Olympics and running for Liam.) I can't wait to see what happens, I'll be sure to write more once I'm in full swing!

Luckily for me, I continued to stay hot the next two days. Last weekend I participated in the Runner's World Half and Festival, signing up for the 'Hatrick' -- two days, three races and 22.4 miles total. I went in to the weekend ready for the challenge, knowing there was going to be hills, hills AND MORE hills (we are in Bethlehem!) For my marathon training I needed to run 19 miles so I thought this race weekend would be a perfect substitute.

My race confidence was pretty low going into the race weekend. Just a month earlier I was running the Philadelphia Rock n Roll half marathon and I was disappointed in my performance finishing with a time of 2:13 -- I really wanted under 2:10 (but beating my PR of 2:04 would have been amazing!) So a bit unsure of how things would go I went out last weekend ready to run. My little man Liam was feeling under the weather and I felt like I owed it to him to run the best I could run.

Running my best is an understatement -- I RAN THE BEST RACES OF MY LIFE.

I'm honestly not too sure what got into me but what I can say is 'trust the training.' My mileage and training really showed it is working. I ran my fastest 5k and 10k times on some tough roads Saturday and Sunday I ran a new half marathon PR -- 2:01:48. Like....WHAT!!! I've never been happier in my life to run all of these times especially on a course covered in hills.


And to seal the deal I won $65 at the Sands Casino after the 5k and 10k.

Cheers to a great weekend - lets hope things continue to stay on the up!