“Big Bad Gunslinger”



“All calculations based on our experience elsewhere fail in New Mexico,” Lew Wallace, author of Ben Hur, in 1881

Wallace said it but anyone who’s called New Mexico home can confirm it, including me. 

There’s no other place on the planet like New Mexco.  

What other U.S. state has its own official question: “Red of green?” As in, how do you take your chile? (I’m not making this stuff up. I worked for the New Mexico legislature for a session.)

The correct response: Christmas, which means a bit of both and the way I like it.

It was in the “Land of Enchantment” or “Land of Entrapment” (for those of us who eked out a living there) that I ran with none other than the “Big Bad Gunslinger” himself, Hal Higdon.

Actually, the “Big Bad Gunslinger from out of town” is not what I called him or the way I thought of him, but how Hal Higdon  referred to himself in a cyber piece about running with me on his visit to Santa Fe more than 10 years ago.

He found me, or I should say someone to run with (can’t say it was me in particular he sought), through the local running club, which it turns out I was the president of at the time.

I don’t know if it was his “big bad” reputation (he ran a 2:21 marathon PR in his heyday) or it simply didn’t work out for anyone else’s schedule, but he got middle-of-the-pack me, not some younger male verson of himself, by default.

Poor guy.

So here’s where the Lew Wallace quote fits into the equation with Mr. Gunslinger.

We didn’t run on official trails, per say, but as anyone who’s spent significant time in New Mexico, and Santa Fe in particular, knows, only the best neighborhoods have dirt roads.

Again, I’m not kidding or making this up or being sarcastic.

Truly, there are many, many exclusive, beautiful homes in Santa Fe, these charming old adobe abodes as well as “fabodes” on steroids (the newer fake adobe ones), all on dirt roads.

People spend beaucoup bucks to build them, then rely on the city or county to grate their roads regularly, especially in the winter, to get out of their driveways.

And the best way to get this done? Buy doughnuts for the local guys who’s jobs it is to do this for you regularly.

Again, I’m not kidding. That’s how things work in New Mexico.

Anyway, the area where I took Hal, mainly the north and upper east sides of Santa Fe, is mostly unpaved so you sort of get the benefit of trail running on dirt, minus the single track.

To compensate for the lack of single-track ambience, however, you get plenty of angry local drivers who try to run you off the road. 

That’s whole other post for another time. …    

I took Hal on what my friend Suzanne called “Danica’s Run” because I made up this course.

It started at Fort Marcy Recreation Center in Santa Fe and wound itself up and through neighborhoods off the ski hill road, on ski hill road for a bit, down to upper Canyon Road, onto Canyon Road (yes, the famous Canyon Road with all the famous artists and galleries), by St. John College, through town and back to Fort Marcy.

It wasn’t all dirt but probably about 75 percent was and some steep grades to match. It was one of my favorite runs in Santa Fe and he liked it, too.

I can’t say my pace impressed him but I think my choice of course and the views did. We enjoyed our conversation and he sent me a copy of the article he wrote. 

So there you have it, my brush Mr. Gunslinger and one of my favorite unofficial trail runs in Santa Fe.

I came up with “Danica’s Run” in the era before Santa Fe’s Dale Ball, which was written up in Runner’s World, was built. I will talk about that particular trail yet in another post.

Aging is inevitable, but growing old is a choice. Lace up your shoes, and let’s go.

Mileage yesterday: 6.2; Denver to Boston miles logged: 868.4; Miles left to go: 901.6

An attitude of gratitude



Happy Thanksgiving!!

It’s a beautiful day in Colorado; the peaks of the Rocky Mountains are crisp clear in the distance. I started the day with 4.5 mile run, then we headed to my sister’s house.

The run and the drive gave me time to reflect on all the blessings in my life. Everyday, not just today, there are so many to celebrate. A few years ago I began keeping a gratitude journal. Not to get Oprah-esque but this tool really does change your outlook, especially if you’re fighting a funk. At least it does for me.

In the spirit of the marathon here are 26.2 reasons I’m grateful today. 
1. My faith in God
2. My husband
3. My children
4. My mother
5. My father (I hope where he sees me now I still make him proud.)
6. My sister and her family
7. My brother
8. My extended family
9. My many friends, near and far.
10. My running community — the Columbines, Quick Chicks and others who’ve touched my life
11. The people at my church (St. Catherine Greek Orthodox Church).
12. My health
13. Having enough food, shelter and comfort
14. Living in America and being an American
15. The gift of being able to write
16. The gift of being able to run
17. The stamina to complete marathons
18. The endurance to keep this blog going
19. Volunteers and spectators who’ve been there at races I’ve run. (They’ve lifted my soul when I needed it the most.) 
20. The teachers at my children’s schools. (It takes a village.)
21. The doctor, nurses, therapists and workers who mended my mom’s broken body after her accident last year and helped her walk again. (They do the work of angels on this earth.)
22. Living in beautiful Colorado and enjoying the sunshine and mountains
23. Reading the works of some of my favorite writers — Frank McCourt, David Sedaris, Anne Lamott, Rick Bragg, John Steinbeck. And there are many, many more. (Their inspiring words make me want to beat on my chest like King Kong.)
24. The people who read my blog. (Thank you for your faith in me. I hope my words carry you when you need it.)
25. Strong coffee and under-eye concealer — like a good run, they give me a boost when I’m dragging.
26.  Hot showers and a yummy breakfast after a long run — they make feel reborn.

Here’s the .extra 2 on my list: the gift of being Tarzan and Jane’s mom.

Yes, I named them earlier on the list but parenting is a 24/7 job. It’s taught how to go the extra distance, even when I didn’t think I had it in me, much like those extra steps in the marathon.

To those of you reading this now, I hope your bounty, too, is plentiful.

Aging is inevitable, but growing old is a choice. Lace up your shoes, and let’s go.

Mileage today: 4.5; Denver to Boston miles logged: 844; Miles left to go: 926.
25.
 

Sun and soil: Rancho San Antonio



I dig dirt, preferably beneath my feet as I stride.

Logistics and life’s chaos, however, often prevent me from trail running.

When it happens, as it did yesterday with the Distance Divas, and with my sister earlier in the week, it’s chicken soup for this midlife runner’s soul (and soles).

Nothing cushions the aging ego and joints like gentle sun and soil.

Back in the day, when I lived in Northern California out of college, long before I became a slave to soccer schedules and karate lessons, trail running was almost all I did. I lived only a few miles from  Rancho San Antonio County Park, Los Altos, California. (Pictured above)

Every day on my way to and from work I drove by it — the park’s trademark Spanish colonial mission building with its red-roof tiles visible from Highway 280. (The park is still there although I’m not sure about that gorgeous structure.) 

I loved “running at Rancho,” as my friends I called it. It’s what I miss most when I reminisce about living in the Bay Area, along with eating blueberry coffeecake at Hobee’s after races on the weekends and the citrus trees and bougainvillea plants in my Cupertino neighborhood (also headquarters to Apple Computers).

My favorite was the Wildcat Loop, a series of switchbacks that climbed to a ridge top overlooking Silicon Valley. I’d pause at the top and imagine the area as John Steinbeck must have seen it a half century before me, still a fruit bowl full of orchards and pastoral towns, rather than the sea of homes and people it is now.

It’s been many years since I’ve been there or run it but I hope to get back. If you are ever there I highly recommend it.

In the next few posts I’ll talk a little more about trail running. I’m no expert and I don’t get to do it as much as I like, but remedying that could become one of my goals for 2011.

Aging is inevitable, but growing old is a choice. Lace up your shoes, and let’s go.

Mileage yesterday: 12 on mostly dirt trails; Denver to Boston miles logged 862.2; Miles left to go: 907.8. 
 


  

Profile #6: Hitting full stride with Roxane Geisler



Roxane Geisler, second from the left in red jersey, pictured with members of the Highlands Ranch Running Club, a group she coaches and helped to start. HRRC’s women’s and men’s teams won the relays at the Denver Rock N Roll Marathon 2010.



Roxane Geisler at the Evergreen Town Race 5K, August 1, 2010.

Profile #6: Roxane Geisler

Roxane Geisler couldn’t be more in the trenches of a full life then where she is now.

The mother of four boys, ages 15, 11, 6 and,2, she’s up daily from son up to son down.

If it’s possible to diaper, and help with math homework, and run a household, and work, and run, she’s done it, although obviously not at the exact same time.
 
One day last summer I ran into Roxane at one of our local pools. She bicycled there with one of her older sons and pulled her youngest son in an attached carrier. They were there for swim lessons for the older child.

Even earlier that morning I saw her at the track. She zipped around in a flash as we did intervals with the “Quick Chicks,” a women’s group we both run speed workouts with year-round.

Later that day she met up with the Highlands Ranch Running Club , a group she started a few years ago in our community, for another helping of track.

No wonder she clocked a 3:38 at the Colorado Marathon in Fort Collins last May. Roxane’s life is a full-stride sprint, which she loves to do. (Check out the great picture of her above.)

Roxane, who’s a music teacher and whose husband writes arrangements for a publishing company, seems to draws stamina from her busy load. 

“I started running for stress relief and to enjoy creation. It brings me closer to my faith in God and I love being out on the beautiful trails in Colorado. I don’t know what I would do without it,” she explained.
 
A native of northern Colorado, Roxane joined her high-school cross-country team after a friend asked to do it with her. She’d never participated in sports before then and struggled to complete the distances at first.

Eventually she grew stronger and by senior year became captain of the team.

In college at the University of Northern Colorado she met Doug Bell, owner of a local running store in Greeley. Bell encouraged her to join a group he organized. She began to run 5Ks and 10Ks regularly and participated in the Colorado Relay, a 100-mile race.



It solidified her love of running. 

Roxane also met Dan, her husband, while at UNC. They both got their master’s degrees in music from the University of Miami. She ran her first marathon (3:43) in Miami, before they had children. She did it with minimal training, following a Galloway plan.

Today Doug Bell remains a friend and mentor to her. A few years ago when she was asked to help form a new running community in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, where she lives, Roxane drew upon her experience from being in his group.

At first it was often just Roxane and her husband and a few other participants at the group’s weekly runs.

Today HRRC draws around 30 people and “feels like family,” she said. 

Roxane organizes the group with another local coach and friend, Phillip Buckley. They recently ran a men’s and women’s relay team in the Denver Rock N Roll Marathon and both teams won their divisions.

The success of HRRC seems to reflect Roxane’s own full life, heart and spirit. A 5K racer with a 19:03 PR, Roxane always has positive, encouraging words for others at the track or at local races.   

Running 5Ks and 10Ks are her favorites, she admitted, but she hoped to run strong at the Colorado Marathon in Fort Collins, too. She wanted to run that particular race because the area brings back good memories of her parents and childhood.

She managed a great finishing time, although she said she felt exhausted and dehydrated by mile 18 and was having tunnel vision.

Luckily HRRC friends came to her aid and ran with her. “I don’t think there is anything like a ‘comfortable’ marathon,” she joked.

She will not run Boston in 2011 given the craziness of the entries this year, but might try again to qualify and run it in the future.

Her focus remains on HRRC and growing that community even more.

“It’s exciting to see all the connections and the ways it’s helped people here,” she said. “Running is so much a bigger part of my life now and it’s miraculous. I am so grateful for it.”

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Aging is inevitable, but growing old is a choice. Lace up your shoes, and let’s go.

Mileage today: 6; Denver to Boston miles logged: 839.5; Miles left to go: 930.5.

It takes a village …



I just wanted to add a side note to my post earlier today.

I went up to Fort Collins, about an hour north of Denver, this past weekend while my husband was out of town. My sister and her family live there and our mother spends part of the year by my sister’s place and the other part in northwest Indiana, where we grew up.

Being with my mom and sister allowed me to run this weekend, which I would not have been able to do otherwise because my children are young and there would be no one to watch them. We all got to spend time together as a family and the children had fun with their aunt, uncle, Baba (grandma) and cousins.

My sister and I shared a lovely run yesterday on a dirt trail we often go to when I visit. It was a chilly morning but warmed up by the fact that we were there together. 
 
Communities are so important, not just for our children, but for each other.

As Thanksgiving nears I am grateful for my “village” — my family, friends and people in my life. This weekend was a wonderful reminder of that.  I am looking forward to the holiday soon.

Next weekend I get to run with the Columbines’ Distance Divas again — woo-hoo!

Tomorrow I will profile another Boston qualifier who’s done much to create her own “village” where she lives and help others. I hope her story inspires you as much as it did for me when she shared it with me.

Aging is inevitable, but growing old is a choice. Lace up for shoes, and let’s go.

The high road, part IV: Mind over cesspool

“Mom, when you do the right thing, you’re a good guy, and the good guys win, right?”

Gulp.

Jane’s question after her Brownies meeting gave me pause.

How could I answer her? How could I teach my 8-year-old that I believe in making the tough choices, even if some of the world doesn’t value character or decorum? How could I teach her that hard, honest work (physical and mental) pays off?

“Yes, honey. In our hearts the good guys will win,” I answered. 

Running on flat ground is easier, and so is avoiding conflicts. Life is often not fair. People cheat and do crummy stuff and get away with it. (Think Bernie Maddoff. Yes, he got caught eventually but not before creating a lot of damage.)

I didn’t want to tell her this yet because no matter how lopsided things can feel, I still believe in navigating the high road. It builds our physical bodies and characters.

Demonstrating this in the real world, however, can be challenging. 

As a mother and athlete I struggle to find positive role models for Jane to emulate, especially younger female ones. Our internet-driven, anything-goes world is enamored with celebrities. And sometime it feels to me like the cesspool of humanity is the only thing rising to the top.

The other day I stumbled accidently on an internet segment of Serena Williams lobbing the f-bomb better than her tennis racquet at the U.S. Open in 2009.

Was that the high road? I wouldn’t say so, but I got sucked into viewing it like many other people.

I could digress more but what is the point? I can’t change people. With newspapers, readers often gravitated to headlines of “bad news” even when they complained about them.
 
Today the same stuff gets high clicks. The format has changed but not human nature. By joining the blogosphere I hope to promote some civility again, whatever comes from this blog.

I remember one of Jane’s teachers telling me it takes 10 positive comments to counteract one negative one dealt to a child so the good strokes, just like hill work, are worth doing. 

The only thing I can do is be my own word. I don’t reward bad behavior in my children and I make a point to avoid similar content when I can.

Hills take mental and physical strength and so do the tests of our everyday ethics and humanity. Both are worth mastering to me. That’s what I will tell her as she grows up.

When I see a hill on my running path I pick a benchmark to reach. I repeat to myself, “You can do it. You can do it.”

I give myself an “attagirl” when I get there and then shoot for the next benchmark. By breaking the hills into workable parts I summon my strength and courage.

Likewise I strive to make ethnical choices. I’m no saint and I do the best I can. It may not get me rich, but usually I can sleep with my conscious at night.

The other day a friend asked my advice when dealing with her own conflict. I told her it never hurts to take the high road. The next day she called to thank me.

We grow when we face the bumps, not run from them. That’s how winners climb to the top.

And that’s what I will remind Jane and myself.

Aging is inevitable, but growing old is a choice. Lace up your shoes, and let’s go.

Mileage yesterday: 10; Denver to Boston miles logged: 830.5; Miles left to go: 939.5.



The high road, part III: Mountain goating 101



OK, repeat after me: “We love hills! We love hills! We love hills!”

When in doubt in life, fake it until you make it. Then one day, before you know you it, you actually become what you want to be if you are adamant enough.

That’s how I qualified for Boston. I did not give up.

Now that I know what’s coming for me at Boston I am taking a similar approach.

For me information is knowledge and power.

After searching the web I found this Runner’s World article on what they consider to be tough hills on some of the country’s most popular races: (“Sublime climbs”)

Now here’s a bit of coach speak on the art of mastering hill running. (I completed my RRCA certification a few weeks ago.) If you want to succeed at hills, rope a mountain goat, tie the end of the rope to your waist and run with the goat leading you.

Just kidding.

Instead, simulate in training what will be on the race course.

In other words: it’s attitude over altitude, plus hill repeats and other methods that support hill training. Call it Operation Mountain Goat.

When I approach hills I take shorter steps and look ahead, shoulders and back straight to crest the top. I usually make up for speed on the downside. Jeff Galloway, which I read up on recently, also recommends this. He, too, says it’s not about keeping the exact same speed going up but matching your effort level. (See Galloway’s approach.)

There’s a hill behind my daughter’s school (less than a quarter mile in length) that I use for such practice. Each rep is like shampooing at a hair salon: climb, crest, jog down, repeat, A set of six to eight is a great workout. (I do a few miles of warming up beforehand and a few miles of cooling down.)

It snows in Colorado so sometimes I hill train indoors. Some people run up and down stairs. That’s not my favorite but it’s there in a pinch.

I prefer setting an incline on the treadmill (2 percent) or using a hill mode option if the machine has one.

A third option is using the StairMill, which looks like an escalator. You can set your speed, intensity and duration. I do 30 minutes at a level 11 on cardio mode. It may not sound like much, but I sweat more than a broken water glass in a restaurant by the end. I love it. (Bring a towel and water if you try it.)

A fourth option is consist strength training with weights, and core work such as planks or crunches on a physioball. I find that it gives me more explosive strength on hills in addition to running the miles. 

Those are a few of my tips for preparing for future hillside battles. I invite you to share some of yours, too.

Tomorrow I will wrap up this series by talking more about the mental training on the high road.

Together we’ll climb to the top.

Aging is inevitable, but growing old is a choice. Lace up your shoes, and let’s go.

Mileage yesterday: 4; Denver to Boston miles logged: 820.5; Miles left to go: 949.5.




The high road, part II: Mountain goat mascot

Assume the fetal position.

That’s the poor signal my brain usually gives me involuntarily when I encounter hills on my runs and I’m feeling tired or weak.

A big part of my mental training these days is visualizing myself as a mountain goat — lithe, nimble, strong, and able to scale any terrain seemingly effortlessly at any time.

Goats were plentiful in the land of my ancestors. Perhaps me being the first of my family to be born in the United States explains why my mind and body want to go soft despite my gene pool. 

There’s not a single goat in my cushy suburban, cookie-cutter neighborhood. Go figure?

Yes, life in America in comparison is soft.  

Back in Eastern European, the origins of kin, no one had any choice but to face life’s high roads — real or perceived. The dirt roads into my parents’s villages were remote, rocky, unpaved, and you guessed it –steep.

My mother spent her girlhood shepherding her family’s flocks for survival on such terrain and the area wasn’t much different when I visited there in the 1980s. 

Those were the living conditions on a normal basis when times were good.

In the 1990s a civil war erupted in the region, which is why I haven’t been back. I have no idea the state of those roads today (chances of land mines are good), but I can’t imagine they would be any better.

People who lived there, then and now, had to be tough like those mountain goats to make it. Because some of them did, I am obviously here and alive today.

The irony is the mascot of the Boston Marathon is a unicorn, a mythical animal that most think of as resembling a horse. In many older depictions though the unicorn has the beard and hooves of a billy goat.

Horses have speed and fluidity. Goats can traverse the heck out of anything, which from what I gather will be needed at Boston.

My job now is to mold myself into a creature that is a bit of both.

I kind of like that idea. Yee-haw!!

Aging is inevitable, but growing old is a choice. Lace up your shoes, and let’s go.

Mileage yesterday: 5.5; mileage today: 3.5: Denver to Boston miles logged: 813.5; Miles left to go: 956.5.

The high road, part I

Hill work — I’m not good at it and I don’t like it, but if I am to conquer the Boston Marathon I better learn to roll with the hills, and roll with them, and roll with them, and roll with them.

That’s the conclusion I came to the other day after pulling up an elevation chart of the Boston Marathon course.

Yes, the first mile starts extremely downhill, but the course also goes up and down, and up and down, and up and down …

Well, here, take a look yourself: Boston Marathon elevation chart

And that’s all before the infamous “heartbreak hill.”

Then there’s a whole bunch of downhill … again.

On paper it looks like a roller-coaster ride at Elitch Gardens in downtown Denver and a potential quad-thrasher.

That is why I’ve started to focus on core and strength work this winter as I get ready. I’m thinking I should shore up my defenses wherever I can. Any perceived gain I might have won from training at altitude (5,900 feet where I live) will be lost to those rollers.

Winter is always a good time anyway for that kind of stuff since we get forced indoors here in Colorado because of the shortened daylight hours and the mercy of the elements.

It will be a challenge though because I will need to log the miles PLUS gain some extra strength.

By the time spring rolls around I usually feel like a caged hamster ready to run free in the woods after the long winter, being in the gym so much and running on the “dreadmill” over and over again.

For the next few posts I will talk about attacking the hills and the challenges of taking the high road, both the literal and the metaphorical, and why both can be good training.

My goal is to grow strong enough this winter to beat the curves and inclines ahead of me at Boston and elsewhere, instead of it being the other way around. 

Fastening your seat belts. It could get a bit bumpy ahead. 

Aging is inevitable, but growing old is a choice. Lace up your shoes, and let’s go.

Mileage yesterday: 9.5; Denver to Boston miles logged: 804.5; Miles left to go: 965.5.

Boston profile #5: Mastering heart and sole — Pamela Monaghan-Geernaert


Writer’s note: This profile is BostonorBotox.com’s 50th post and it’s also about my dear friend Pamela Monaghan-Geernaert. Without Pamela’s encouragement I might not have run a BQ, and this blog may never have existed so she’s sort of like BostonorBotox.com’s fairy blogmother.

The following is her story.

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Pamela Monaghan-Geernaert is like the bionic woman of goal-setting. Few things keep her down and she’s always reaching higher, faster, stronger. 

Pamela is quite inspiring and doesn’t see herself that way. 

“I’m just very dogged when I do something,” she said, but her accomplishments speak for themselves: 

  • Pamela holds a Ph.D in medical sociology of gerontology from Case Western University and is married to another Ph.D. who is an expert in his field.
  • She’s a certified personal trainer and aerobics instructor.
  • She ran the Boston Marathon in 2009 and will do it again in 2011 (with yours truly). 
  • Her marathon PR is a 3:28, which she set at the California International Marathon in 2009 on her birthday. (She ran 42 kilometers on her 42nd birthday.)
  • She’s a dedicated mother. 
  • She scrapbooks, knits, makes and sends out her own Christmas cards each year. She attends PTA meetings and volunteers at her daughter’s school.

Pamela’s family recently moved from Santa Fe to Washington, D.C., and her latest project is their 100-year-old house, which needs some TLC. If anyone can make it sparkle again it will be Pamela.

After all, “lively” is her middle name. That is not an exaggeration. It’s a direct translation as her the middle name is “Gay.”

“My parents gave me the middle name Gay because they said I was such a happy baby,” she told me.

The first definition of “gay” in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary isn’t the slang term for homosexual but rather a state of being “keenly alive and exuberant.”

That suits Pamela. She is equal parts exuberant and focused when you meet her.

People who master a skill make it look easy when in fact mastery often takes years of hard work. That also is part of Pamela’s story.

The youngest of four daughters, Pamela grew up in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She dedicated years to her education, which she paid for herself and she became the first in her family to complete a Ph.D.

During her years as a starving student she became an aerobics instructor to help make money. She ran, too, just for fitness.

She didn’t think of herself back then as a runner and she also had a horrible experience as a teen in high-school cross country.  

During her sophomore year a girl from an opposing high school team pushed her down while they were running in the middle of a race.

Stunned and confused, Pamela hesitated before she got up. Her coach came over and yelled at her for not getting up sooner. Traumatized by what happened Pamela quit cross country.

“I never understood what happened. I was a middle-of-the-pack runner, not someone who was going to win, and I thought the girl who did it was my friend,” she explained.

Years later, she took up running again for fitness. Then a friend asked Pamela to do a marathon with her. Pamela’s father had died earlier that year. This time she found camaraderie, not competition, in a friend.

The marathon took place on the first anniversary of her father’s death. Pamela’s mother met her at the 20-mile mark and at the end. It was moving experience for them both.

“After training for that marathon it was the first time I saw myself as a runner,” she said.

From that point forward running became a focal point in her life along side the other milestones.

She celebrated her bacholerette party by running a half marathon in Las Vegas. She ran with her maid of honor the morning of her wedding. She ran a slow race a few days before her daughter was born. She ran with her daughter in a jogger until “she was clamoring to get out,” Pamela joked.

She also ran a few more marathons in hopes of qualifying for Boston. Each time she set her expectations high she fell a little short.

Finally in 2008 she trained for the New Mexico Marathon “on the fly,” no attachment to the outcome, and she qualified. It was liberating and exciting.

She ran several marathons after that, including Boston, and got stronger and faster. Then she set her PR in 2009, the day of her birthday, surrounded by friends, love and support — miles and worlds away from that hurtful experience as a teenager.

“Yes, I’m glad I’ve met my goals, but what I really enjoy is running with people and especially with my friends and being able to chat and connect,” she said. 

The bonding experiences are what she cherishes, Pamela stressed, and that’s where her goals and heart are today.

“I picture myself still running as I get older, but what I really hope for is to continue to do it with friends (like we did at my birthday); doing girls’ weekends where we get away and meet up somewhere once a year,” she said. “Running is a part of my life now and I love it.”

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Aging is inevitable, but growing old is a choice. Lace up your shoes, and let’s go.

Mileage yesterday: 5 and today: 5; Denver to Boston miles logged: 795; Miles left to go: 975.