Latest News

Lots of OCR races take place at altitude and course designers love using mountainous terrain to elevate the challenge and adventure of their event.

These locations offer breathtaking views, both visually and physiologically! Competing at altitude layers unique variables to race-day execution, and preparing is key. 

There’s only one problem: many of us don’t live in mountain havens!

You’ve done the work, and now it’s time to put it all together! We all know that consistent training is essential for great race day performance, but races are chaotic and wrought with unknowns. An underappreciated challenge of race day is “performing on demand”, or competing at your physical capacity in an uncontrolled environment, harnessing the work you’ve done into great race-day performance. To help, a bit of pre-emptive planning goes a LONG way! 

Ahhhh, the local legend Laurel wreath. A symbol that among runners tends to bring up a lot of indifference, jokes, and some whatever/consolation prize vibes. 

I'm going to look at a few things here. Who does this function benefit? Is this something that is needed? What has the impact been on the running community and safety?

Six years ago, I ran my first obstacle course race - a Spartan Race at Citi Field. All I wanted that day was to not die.

I was 47-years-old, having recently awoken from my sitting-and-screens slumber as a journalist and media executive and decided to tackle something new and hard. Athlete was nowhere on the descriptors friends and family used for me.

Flash forward to today. I’ve run 50 races, competed in two Spartan Race world championships and now podium in my age group on days when everything is clicking. (And I don't miss my spear throw!) 

I love doing races with Ainsleys Angels. I’ve done many! I started back in 2018, I signed up for the Running Gives you Wings 5k in Fredericksburg VA with Team Tommy. Chris Rhinehardt was paired with me and showed me the ropes. I got my wings and I was hooked. 

Since then I’ve been an Angel Runner pushing chariots for many teams out there.

Helping people experience running and races is very important to me because running has made me a much happier person in life. I feel like a kid with so much joy when I run that I want others to experience this and have the absolute best day possible. There’s no better feeling! 

Flowstate is the mindset that turns on when you’re trail running. You become fully focused on your run and tune out distractions. I find this usually happens towards the end of the race or during parts of intense focus; it can be used to stay mentally focused and to push yourself.

There is no one way to enter the “flow state” but it is definitely important to learn how to switch it on during your race.

With the New Hampshire state slogan, “Live Free or Die”, it’s hard to not stay curious here.

New Hampshire may not have any National Parks, but it’s home to one of the lushest National Forests in the country, The White Mountains. On any given day in the White Mountains, I am entranced by its wildness, humbled by its immensity, and awed by the mystery of it. It simultaneously amazes and awakens me, but it always elicits a sense of profound serenity.

What is a Fatass race? 

Tired of paying hundreds of dollars to run ultra marathons? Nickeled and dimed to death with logistics? Hotels, rentals, and on and on?

Let me restore your faith in running races and humanity in general. 

Ultra-distance races (in running, these are technically any races longer than the marathon distance) are some of the most unique, arduous, and downright crazy things you can put your body through. Appealing, right?!

If you’ve been contemplating trying an ultra but don’t know where to start, here are a few things to consider...

So you signed up for that OCR race your friends kept bugging you to try and now you have no clue where to start with training. Don’t panic, it’s not as scary as it looks on the YouTube videos.

It is very important to remember that no one was ever an expert at anything the first time they tried it, so go easy on yourself and stay determined!