About Lara

When I was in 8^th grade my P.E. teacher told us that an up-and-coming star named Melody Fairchild was going to be running and there was no way any of us would or could ever beat her.  So just go out and do our best and try not to embarrass ourselves.  What I heard from her is that if you can’t be the best, don’t bother.  So of course I stopped running after that track season and figured that I was a loser that didn’t have any right to be out on the streets in sneakers.

It took a good twenty years, but I got her voice out of my head and started running again because of my fat dog and my huge time constraints.  I started by running for as long as I could (about 2 minutes) walking for a bit, then running again.  After a week of this I remembered how much I used to enjoy running and started to look forward to our little outings.  Eventually the flab of my butt firmed up and the experience of moving faster than a walk became downright enjoyable.

My girlfriends knew I was running and kept asking me to join them on their Saturday morning adventures around the trails.  I figured they were way too fast for me and held off for about 9 months until I was able to comfortably run about an hour without feeling like I was going to have a heart attack.  When I finally joined them I couldn’t believe how easy it was to run trails, and that I wasn’t the last girl in the line.  I fit in perfectly.

A few months later I had the urge to write about my weekly trail runs with my friends.  Mostly, I wanted to remember to notice the little things in life.  I loved the changing of the seasons, the variability of the trails we hit, and how different I felt each and every time.  I wanted to slow down time and hold onto these little moments of magic.

So I run and write this blog.

The rest: I have a Master’s degree from the University of Denver in Environmental Policy and Management.  I’ve worked on the sustainability side of things and currently I’m putting it all together as a Career Consultant with Ask Liz Ryan (yup, you can actually book a consult and talk to me about your professional dilemmas and job transitions!).  I have two kids that are old enough now to get themselves ready for school while I’m finishing up a run in the morning, and they’re used to seeing Mom sweaty and stinky as they’re bleary-eyed from sleep.

I did my first Ultra Marathon a few months ago and will do the Desert R.A.T.S. 25-mile trail race in mid-April, the Colorado Marathon in May, and the Green Mountain Relay in June.  After that, we’ll just have to see what happens!