Wherever Meagan Nichols goes, she brings with her two passions: Running and journalism. Now, she’s combined those – along with a bit of good, old-fashioned entrepreneurial spirit – in RunForecaster.com, a website devoted to road race reviews.

Nichols, a Tennessee resident with deep ties to southern Maine, describes her eureka moment for starting the site: “After my college running days finished, I started to participate in weekly group runs, and I noticed we spent most of our runs talking about the ins and outs of road races. Was it hilly? How was the food? What about the post-race activities? I thought there might be an opportunity there.”

After the seed of the idea germinated in her mind, it just grew and grew: “I started to bounce it off a few close friends and family members and the feedback I was getting was positive, so I decided to do a little market research in the form of a survey. I asked runners to list what the most important things about the race-day experience were to them.

“After I compiled my data, I hired a marketing team to build and design my website, which was a long and at-times frustrating back-and-forth process, but I’ve been pleased with the end result,” she says.

The site is clean and easy to navigate. Anyone can trot by, sign up for an account, and add a race (past or upcoming), including such details as address, date and a time, website, overview, map and photos.

Visitors to the site can also send races to their friends, mark this or that race a favorite, and send inquiries. They can also rate a race in five categories (Overall Experience, Bathroom Availability, Post-Race Activities, Course Layout and Hills), then provide a more in-depth review.

“It’s important to point out that Run Forecaster is an interactive site. I want it to be an all-purpose resource for runners. It is definitely a site for runners, by runners,” Nichols said.

There are already 10 pages of races listed, and though many are gathered around Memphis, Tenn., (Nichols is a Memphis native), a number are scattered across the country. Several Maine races feature prominently, including the Westbrook Strong 5K, the Casco Days Country Run, and, of course, the TD Beach to Beacon, founded by Cape Elizabeth/Freeport resident Joan Benoit Samuelson, winner of the 1984 Olympic gold medal in the women’s marathon.

Nichols might hail from Tennessee, but her folks are originally from Maine, and her extended family largely resides here as well, so she’s spent every summer of her 22 years on Sebago Lake, and happily calls it her second home.

Though she’s young, Meagan’s not without credentials. She took up serious running in high school, at St. Benedict at Auburndale, and still holds a school record there, in the 4×800 relay. She then attended the University of Memphis on cross country/track and field scholarships.

There, she worked on her school newspaper, as all good aspiring journalists do, and was the sports editor in her last semester. She interned with Current Publishing last year, before graduating in December – a semester early, in fact – with a 4.0 GPA.

Since the start of this year, she’s put her newly honed skills to good use, writing for several publications local to Memphis, including the Memphis Flyer, for whom she covers the food beat. To burn off any indulgences, she continues to run.

She entered her first half-marathon, in Greenville, Miss., in February (and won!), then recently tackled the Shipyard Old Port Half-Marathon. She plans to take part in the St. Jude Half-Marathon in Memphis this December.

“This past spring,” she says, “I also returned to my high school as the hurdles coach. While I’m a distance runner by trade, I competed in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in college, which requires jumping barriers.”

Meagan gets great support from her business partner, who also happens to be her mother, Christine Nichols. “It can be a little scary at times when starting a new business, because there are a lot of uncertainties, and she’s the one that gives me pep talks and tells me to keep going.”

Run Forecaster, which just launched recently as an LLC, is firmly affixed in the social-media sphere. It’s on Facebook, Instagram (at http://instagram.com/runforecaster), Twitter (https://twitter.com/runforecaster1), YouTube and Google+. Active engagement across the web is helping Nichols spread the word.

“I think we’re doing a decent job of getting our name out there not just in the States, but around the world. It’s always exciting when you look at Google Analytics and see someone in Japan or England has visited. As of right now, people from 10 different countries have viewed runforecaster.com.

“I’m in the process of reaching out to road race directors and tell them we will feature their upcoming race on our homepage; in exchange, they place our link on their race page,” she said.

Among runners themselves, at least one big name has already nodded in Run Forecaster’s direction: England’s Gemma Steel, who claimed the women’s Beach to Beacon title, retweeted some of the site’s coverage of the race. “Little moments like those give you a confidence boost,” Nichols says.

Nichols’ aspirations for the site are huge, but she’s grounded in reality as well.

“I would love for Run Forecaster to become a well-respected and trusted name in the sport of running. If it blossomed into the world’s most extensive catalog, that would be amazing, but at this point, I have to be somewhat realistic. I know this is going to take time, and I have to build the site little by little each day.”

The immediate benefits to both racers and race organizers can’t be overstated, though. Naturally, racers get information on what they’re likely to face before, during and after an upcoming challenge, but they also get a forum to provide feedback to race organizers, who can then take that feedback and improve the experience they provide.

That’s what we call a win-win.

The Run Forecaster website, founded by Meagan Nichols, has a main page that is clean and attractive.Meagan Nichols crosses the finish line at a half marathon she won in Greenville, Miss. in February. Nichols is the founder of Run Forecaster, a new website that allows racers to rate races in which they’ve participated.Meagan Nichols, founder of Run Forecaster, takes part in the Old Port Half Marathon in Portland.