Monday 111014

News stuff:  Latest ATUC.   The women’s beer mile record fell.  Did Serena Williams really say her ass was too big to run a marathon?  Tabor Scholl commits early to CU.  Most important, it snowed today.  I guess that means the official start of the Ice Beard season is underway.  I currently have no chops to build such a thing on, but the snotsicles are going to be coming out.

Different sort of stuff that caught my eye:  nice TED talk on “The Power of Why” and then separately – why TED talks are typically so engaging.

Right calf is still hot.  I thought with that and the snow (as light as it was) I’d give it a day of complete rest but Hans was in town and he begged me for a run.  He was only slightly excited.  He broke the leash outright.  3.4 miles.  None of that fast but I guess I got some sort of core workout on the side where I was holding the leash.

Foo releases the rest of the Sonic Highways album today.  Guess what I am listening to?  It is not a bad album, but I don’t think it is as good as ESPG or In Your Honor.  The two tracks, “Congregation” and “I Am A River” are the albums highlights.

25 that influence more … Melody Fairchild.  She is not a loud person, but her results are incredible.  In Colorado, she is a legend.  As a high schooler, she won the Bolder Boulder citizen’s race 3 times, nabbed 8 state titles in XC and track, ran 2 miles under 10 minutes (9:55, and then a HS record that stood for nearly a quarter century), won Kinney twice (it is now Footlocker), and took third in the World Junior XC championships.

That sort of thing gets eyes on you, and you become an influence.  The running world watched her with anticipation as she headed to the University of Oregon, to watch her struggle with what scares us so much with runners – and what seems to be particularly true with young female runners:  an eating disorder and injuries.  After giving up her scholarship she came back to win the NCAA 3k in 96.

After a brief foray into the marathon, she seemed to step out of the limelight, and slippled into various HS and college coaching gigs.  In the last few years however, she has been a force on the MUT and masters scene.  She was 8th in the WMRC in 2012, won the Collegiate Peaks 25 miler multiple times, took 2nd in the Masters race at USATF XC in Boulder this past year, and has picked up a variety of other wins and podium appearances.
That is a helluva storied career.  While I appreciate the results folks post, in this project I have increasingly come to see that influence can be bolstered by results, but it does not mean it creates the influence alone.  The influence really comes with what one does back into the sport.  I understand these often go hand in hand – one does not get the stage to influence as easily as the “winners” but “winners” are not necessarily the best influencers.  Melody has constellation of results (along with some really big results in there) and has also given back.

She “gives back” to the sport in that she directs a summer running camp for middle and high school girls focusing on training, appropriate body image and mental strength:  "I saw a disturbing trend in young girls in high school, not making the successful transition to collegiate running and then, again, from college to post-collegiate running," Fairchild says. "I wanted to teach young women to trust what is going on with their bodies and begin to understand what they are capable of."  As I have probably made clear previously, I see the impact that coaches have – particularly on children to be hugely influential. And now Melody is the coach at Shining Mountain as well.  And if that is not enough – she also runs the Boulder Mountain Warriors XC team, a team for kids.