About Gabby

At the finish of the Detroit International Half Marathon 2019. 

Hi! I'm Gabby Ring, an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based runner who's chasing big dreams. I started running in March of 2015 because I was having an identity crisis nearing the end of my college education, realizing I could no longer call myself a student after being a student my whole life. So I decided to call myself a runner. 

I saw that the Big House 5K, with a finishing kick into Michigan Stadium for the last 200 meters, was being offered in April and signed up. It was held a few weeks before I graduated the University of Michigan in the same stadium. 

I signed up for my first marathon, the Detroit International Marathon, on Global Running Day 2015. That summer was spent making a lot of rookie mistakes as a rookie runner, but somehow I managed to qualify for the Boston Marathon, place third in my age group, and 32nd woman overall with a time of 3:25:52. 

I've gone on to run another six marathons, including the Ann Arbor Marathon, Chicago Marathon, Boston Marathon, and the Big Sur Marathon twice. I've also suffered and recovered from two major injuries- plantar fasciitis in winter 2016 and a metatarsal stress fracture in winter 2017 that put me in a boot and crutches for four weeks. I ran the Boston Marathon a week after getting out of the boot and off the crutches and it was painful. But I'm still proud of my body for healing enough to let me run. The next time I get to run Boston will be special and an automatic Boston PR. 

My favorite distance to train for is the half marathon since I love grinding out runs at tempo pace and working to make that pace feel comfortably hard. I had my breakthrough half marathon in October 2019 where I ran my first sub-90 minute half marathon at Detroit and was 14th woman overall out of 6,000 women.

I am coached by all-star runner Zachary Ornelas (a former UM runner and 2:17 marathoner). We started working together in October 2020 and I'm excited to see all of the great success he will set me up for with his programming. 

Although I earned my minor in writing, I am relatively new to blogging. Please comment your thoughts and opinions and what you would like to read. I am open to constructive feedback! 

Happy running, 

Gabby