Reading glasses are a pain. I can never find them when I need them. They are useless in Northwest winters when fogging up or getting covered with rain. Why bother to carry them in my race pack?The course didn’t look comp...

 I muttered a pithy mantra after tripping over nothing, during the last half mile of the McDonald Forest 50k: “Be here now.”“Jeez, Prongay, you won’t get to the finish line that way,” screamed my inner critic. I ignored...

This year, we’ll be interviewing women who inspire us on the trail. These women display passion and perseverance, mentor others in the ultrarunning community and remind us to keep running, even when it’s hard. Below is our interview with an ultrarunner from Colorado who loves the challenge of high mountain races, Sheri Atkinson.

Imagine the only shirt size options at a race were women’s sizes. Imagine tights and shorts had no support for men’s genitalia, hydration packs and bottles were designed for the female figure and shoes were made for a wo...

My body is changing and my mobility work needs to adapt. I’ve started sprinkling mobility work throughout my day. After a long meeting I’ll mobilize my hips. Later in the day, I’ll run through an ankle flexion drill. A few minutes of foam rolling before bed releases tight muscles and leaves me relaxed and ready for a good night’s sleep.  

I want to believe that age is just a number, but after 8 hours crammed into an airline seat, my brain isn’t buying it. I feel stiff when I stand. My hips take a moment to fully open and I curl in the middle, like a shrim...

Strength, agility and balance help us fly down technical trails and stop ourselves from falling when the inevitable toe-catch occurs. During perimenopause and menopause, as estrogen declines, we lose muscle mass and our...

I’ve always believed that eating should be fun. I’ve never counted calories or grams of anything, but I wondered if a little nutrition review might help me recover faster after a workout. Here’s what I discovered.

Running has always been my happy place—a place I think and unwind. I’ve resisted the idea that running places stress on my female body. But speedwork, long runs and weightlifting stress muscles. And with perimenopause an...

So much of life is about what we choose to see. We can see aging and menopause as a bad thing, or we can learn the facts and develop strategies that reduce or eliminate energy loss and disrupted sleep, and enhance our performance.

So much of life is about what we choose to see. We can see aging and menopause as a bad thing, or we can learn the facts and develop strategies that reduce or eliminate energy loss and disrupted sleep, and en...

As runners approach menopause, our risk of osteopenia and osteoporosis may be equal to or greater than that of women who do not exercise. Running, whether on trails or pavement, isn’t enough of a stimulus. To build bone density, we have to lift heavy.

I’d ignored lifting for years, convinced it would make me bulky, mess up my running and take me indoors, away from the trails. I knew, because of menopause and genetics, I was at risk for osteoporosis. I also knew lifting heavy would improve my bone density, improve my balance, increase my metabolism and improve my immunity.

I started finding other women in their fifties who were active and struggling with menopause. Why the hell is nobody talking about this stuff? We need to make it okay for those conversations where we can say, “You’re not alone.”

More than 75% of females experience menopausal symptoms, and the symptoms typically last 4–8 years. That’s a lot of wet sheets, disrupted sleep and years of not feeling like a runner. But could I do anything to reduce my symptoms?

This month, I want to move from heart—the internal passion and supportive family and friends who fuel your running—to heat, the work you do to keep your body fit and functioning. It includes runs, strength training, plyometrics and mobility. It also includes (gulp) regular appointments with your primary care provider.

For this month’s column, I sat down with Meghan Canfield and Pam Smith—who are friends, running partners, teammates and competitors, both with long and outstanding ultrarunning pedigrees—for a conversation about menopause, aging and the frustration of slowing pace.

You spend a third to half of your life postmenopausal, and 10 or more years perimenopausal. Symptoms are common and expected, but can impact your racing and training, and your heart and bone health. The good news is, like any race, the more you know about the course, the better you can adapt your training to meet the demands of the “Menopause 200.”

I did not sign up for the Menopause 200. My ovaries did. Oh, they had warned me this mandatory event was coming, waking me with a drenching sweat or anxiety storm, tapering periods and replacing my brain with mush that increasingly felt like it was thinking on the wrong side of frosted glass. I was perfectly content to ignore it all, until I found myself at the start line, unable to run.