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.

3 thoughts on “Profile #6: Hitting full stride with Roxane Geisler

  1. What an inspiration Roxane is to the fitness community. If she can do all that plus raise a family and devote time to her spiritual life, her husband and home as well, I give her mega-kudos. Keep it up, Roxane!

  2. I just sent this post to a bunch of my friends as I agree with most of what you’re saying here and the way you’ve presented it is awesome.

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