Category: About Me

Hi, my name is Shara Daron! Welcome to my website and blog. I started “The Hopeful Runner” to share with people my journey of running and following Jesus. My hope is that I encourage you to grow stronger in your faith, to feel inspired on your running journey, and to find comfort knowing that we are all going through the highs and lows of life.

I grew up in the small town of Red Wing, Minnesota and at the age of 18 years old I moved to New York City. I moved to New York City for a personal training school that I attended for 6 months. After graduating, I ended up getting hired right after school and I have been living in the city ever since. A big passion of mine most of my life was dance. I danced competitively pretty much my whole life. And that is another reason I moved to NYC. I wanted to have the option to train and pursue professional dance. Half of my time out here in the city I was training to become a Radio City Rockette. It was my dream. However most of my time training for that dream I was injured. After training for that specific dream for four years I had peace from God that it was time for me to move on as my injuries kept getting worse, my mental health was at an all time low, and I was about to get married which was my priority. As wonderful as most of those years were training, I am excited for what God has been doing in my life now. 

I currently train as a LIV Method personal trainer, helping women daily to become healthier, stronger, and achieve their fitness goals. My passion for fitness started when I was 16 years old when I wanted to cross train for dance. I loved the feeling of improving my health, feeling strong, and the feeling of accomplishment after pushing my body physically and mentally. Around the same time of starting my fitness journey was when Instagram got popular. With the encouragement of one of my best friends I made a fitness Instagram account to connect with others and inspire other people to work towards their goals. After about 1-2 years of documenting my journey I ended up getting 35k followers on Instagram and became a social media influencer. It was a great opportunity in the beginning but looking back I feel like I started to lose a part of myself. And this is when my walk with God began. 

I did grow up believing in Jesus, but I didn’t have a personal relationship with Him until I was 20 years old. At this time in my life I had it all in the world’s eyes. I was a very “successful” 20 year old. I graduated from school and was working as a personal trainer, I was a social media influencer getting to work with my dream brands such as Nike, Under Armour, Fabletics, etc, I had a super lean physique with the 6 pack abs that many people desire to have, and I even got some modeling gigs and was casted in a Kohl’s Back to School Commercial. I achieved all of my goals and dreams at the time, but still even after all of that achievement I felt empty inside. I remember crying on my kitchen floor in my New York City apartment just thinking really deep questions, “is this really it?”, “what is the purpose of life?”, “there has to be more to life than this?”. And in that moment I knew that I had to find a church and try to find truth, direction, and meaning. I will never forget the first church service I went to in the city. I felt like the pastor was speaking directly to me. I wept knowing that I needed change in my life but was scared to give my life to God. But almost 6 years later I am so happy that I did. There is nothing more rich and satisfying than experiencing the love of God. 

I recently have fallen in love with the sport of running. I love what God is teaching me through running whether it is the discipline I need to train and perform my best, my ego with being more of a beginner, managing pain, and ultimately trusting Him with what He has planned for me. Big dreams of mine are to run the New York City Marathon, increase my speed per mile, and maybe even be a part of a more competitive team in New York. As awesome as it would be to accomplish these goals, I am also trying to have open hands to let God work through me to do His work. As I previously mentioned above, I hope with sharing my journey you will feel inspired and comforted. Thank you for your interest in my journey, I can’t wait to help encourage you to walk the walk of faith and aspire to become the person and runner God has created you to be!