It’s Thursday, so our small group headed up the Incline like we do most every Thursday throughout the year.  This time, however, was with heavy hearts.  We paused at the top of the Incline to look out over the city.  Normally this is such a beautiful site as the sun is coming up over the horizon.  Today, not so much.  Smoke covered the entire front range and you could see smoke billowing up in the Black Forest where the fire is still burning.  Conversation of the morning of course focused on…

I’m going to guess that we’ve set a new precedent in teamwork for this year’s Triple Crown Runners.  As I sit typing my Black Forest Fire (BFF) Refugee blog in my RV, parked in the backyard of my teammate, Jon “JT” Teisher, I can’t help but be grateful for all the crazy twists that brought me to this place.

It might be an oversimplification to say that running got me here, but not entirely untrue.  Without running, I likely would never have met my husband, Andy, our team sponsor, Tim…

My relationship with running is a tumultuous one. Similar to couples you see that don’t seem quite right together, who argue all the time, and when you’re sure their bond is going to implode at any moment, they seem to still hang on year after year.  The reason is simple.  It’s because what you don’t see are those quiet, private moments they share that somehow generates the power and desire to keep it all together.  It is deep, it is personal and it comes from places of the heart where only…

After every race, I tend to go over things in my mind and analyze what if anything I could’ve done differently or better to improve my time.  But at the end of the day, what does it really matter?  I’m not an elite runner and consider myself a weekend warrior when it comes to running, although I do think for the most part I put in some decent results.  So even if I had pushed a little harder up that hill and finished a couple minutes faster, I still wouldn’t have been in the money.  I…

A few posts ago, I talked about how things inexplicably fell apart every time I ran in the Garden of the Gods 10 Miler. When I was diagnosed with bronchitis a week before the race, several friends asked if I was still planning to run. My attitude was this: “I might run, I might walk, but I will finish. At least this year, the falling apart will have an explanation.”

I took almost the whole week off running, and when I showed up on race day, the most inexplicable thing of all happened:…

That's right.  I absolutely, hopelessly, and frustratingly love carbs and have a relentless sweet tooth.  Cheese bread from a certain local pizza joint in the Springs, ginger snap cookies, cheesecake, blueberry muffins, that wonderful lemon pound cake at Starbucks...they're my nemeses.  In my quest to get and stay fit, it's been difficult for me to moderate the intake of these things in my diet.  So in this blog post, I'd like to do a couple different things:  discuss my…

Despite the cold weather and looming clouds, the start of the 2013 Ascent Cycling Series proved to be yet another success. There were solid fields in every class, ranging from the youngest of juniors to a spunky 65 year old. Smiles abounded as riders turned racers maneuvered around rocks, up steep hills and down tricky switchbacks. Number plates adorned bikes of all kinds,…

Countdown to the Garden: 4 days! I have a feeling that with my lack of consistent speed work, I won’t be as fast as I was hoping. (On top of the fact that the high is 88 for Sunday!)

I recently returned from a family trip to Philadelphia. While there, we ran in a very cool woody single-track trail in Fairmount Park, the largest urban park in the nation. Along the path leading to trails were various historic buildings, statues of historic figures, and adorable baby geese.…

I’ve always loved words. Even before I discovered the addicting game of Words with Friends on my iPhone, I’ve appreciated the power, pattern and freedom of language.  Probably from the day I first learned to speak them and certainly to the day I learned to write, words have always been of particular interest to me.  It is no accident that I chose Public Relations as my college major. The art of constructing words to appropriately convey thoughts and evoke emotions is a love that I have known…

The Effects of Overtraining Part II

As I love discussing training methods, conditioning and recovery I often find myself saying “Mel wait remember what happened the last time you did this”. If you ever wondered if you are overtraining consider the following symptoms:

~Persistent muscle soreness, Persistent fatigue, Elevated resting heart rate

~Reduced heart rate variability, Increased susceptibility to infections

~Increased incidence of injuries,…

“I have great news,” I tell my family. “It’s not going to sound like great news at first, but it really, really is.”  Pregnant pause.

“I have bronchitis.”

Another pregnant pause.

Then they asked what you may be asking yourself: “What could possibly be great about bronchitis?"

What’s great about bronchitis is this: it’s an actual diagnosis. It's treatable, and it explains why I’ve been so slow on the trail, so tired and short of breath, so unmotivated. My weekly…

George Sheehan once said that the only difference between a jogger and a runner was a bib number. I loved that quote when I was running. I always took that iconic statement as a reflection on the commitment it takes to sign up for a race. It didn't matter if you were fast or slow, there to win or simply to finish. If you were willing to take a risk an toe the starting line, you earned the title of runner. That step is scary for many people as all the standard worries are voiced. "I'm not…

Tarahumara Arnolfo Quimare, Ultramarathoner Dave James and Custer County cross-country standout Corey Lewenkamp lead the way out for a preview of the Hardscrabble Mountain Trail Run course Wednesday evening.…

Racing Naked! Bolder Boulder 10K Race Report

Yes... I am bold! Bold…

Racing Naked! Bolder Boulder 10K Race Report

Yes... I am bold! Bold…

A gaggle of us Springs folk took advantage of the holiday weekend to head down to Los Alamos, New Mexico for the eighth annual Jemez Mountain trail run.  Jemez is a tough race run mostly through the Santa Fe National Forest and the Valles Caldera National Preserve.  Runners are treated to all kinds of fun – technical singletrack, rough jeep roads, lots of steep climbs, some true cross-country, and beautiful views of the Jemez Mountains.

Jemez has become somewhat of a tradition for me,…

I rolled down the window and cranked up the Rock ‘n’ Roll at 3:15 a.m. as Shawn Finley and I blasted out of Colorado Springs on Saturday morning.

Our destination: Moore, Okla., a green, tree-filled city raked by a killer tornado on May 20.

I pulled a U-Haul trailer full of new and used running shoes, all donated by the awesome folks in the Colorado Springs…

We all have our own reasons we run.   For some it’s to get in shape or lose some of those excess pounds.  For others it’s to relieve stress or serves as our therapy.  While others, it’s purely the competition.  For me it has been a combination of all of those things.  Lately though, because of some nagging injuries, I’ve found myself thinking about this topic a bit more.  And then I came across a story of a friend that really put everything back into perspective for me.

Laurie just…

Hooray! I am now home for the summer – finals are done, the Pikes Peak Sports website has replaced a Free Radical Chlorination bookmark on my computer, and I’m halfway done with undergrad! And what better way to kick off the summer than a run to Barr Camp?

It was the first time for me to run with my family’s new running partner, Jeff Watson, an orthopedic hand surgeon new to the area. (Welcome to the great running community that is Colorado Springs, Jeff!) I had heard about his sub-3…

     I joined a swim team in third grade, the Schofield Barracks Sharks, while my dad was stationed in Hawaii. I most often swam freestyle quite successfully at all my swim meets, with the exception that I refused to dive off the platform. I would either jump or belly flop into the pool, regain my form and then swim to victory, despite my rather peculiar and ineffective start. My non-existent diving skill was certainly not due to lack of effort on my coach's part as he would even keep me…