Silly rabbit, racing on the schedule!

April 2025

Who knew I’d be popping back into your inbox this soon! Don’t get used to it… but I have some exciting race news to share and I wanted you all to hear it first! 🥳 Scroll down past the rabbit photos to read more…

Photo by Audrey Allen

Pacing rabbit 🐰 at your service!

Last Saturday evening in San Juan Capistrano, CA, I put on some fluffy bunny ears and paced 6400m of a 10k at The TEN hosted by Sound Running.

My motto for the night was “I take the work seriously but not myself.”

The best part: my training partner, Katie Camarena, ran a huge PR by finishing in 31:45 in her hometown! She ran really well and finished super strong. I loved being able to pace her as long as I could and then beat a drum and screamed as loud as I could for her the last 2 miles.

post-race interview with Citius

Photos by Cortney White

MORE RACING THIS MONTH!!!!

This is the update everyone is asking me about! During two post-race interviews I got asked “what’s next for you?” and I said that I wanted to do Drake Relays and the USATF Road Mile National Championships… but that I hadn’t heard back from the race director about if I got accepted.

Good news- I got in! I’m headed to good ol’ Des Moines, IA for a week to do both races. Someone once told me that Des Moines is one of “the last hidden gems in our country”… so there’s that! 💎

In 2023 I raced the road mile championships here, but didn’t stay for Drake Relays, making this my FIRST time competing at Drake Relays! Which is perfect because one of my goals for this year is to compete at meets and events that I’ve never done before. At this stage of my career there’s still so many races I have yet to do! This gives me chances to create new memories instead of comparing myself to the past and being held back by old memories (both good and bad).

Race details:
April 22 is the Grand Blue Mile* AKA the USATF Road Mile National Championships

*Anyone can sign up to run this road mile! If you’re in town, you should totally do it! It’s so fun and it’s the same course that the pros run

April 26th is the Drake Relays which is denoted a World Athletics Continental Tour Silver Level meet. I’ll be racing the mile on the track on Saturday!

⬆️ TBT to the 2023 Road Mile Champs where I surprised myself by running 4:30 for 4th place after a not-so-confidence-inducing training camp leading up to the race…

A workout and a recipe

Two of my favorite things: running and cooking

The workout. I thought it would be fun to share a workout in my newsletter every now and again. Sometimes you just need someone to tell you what to do and it can feel more inspiring to get out the door if you have something new to try. So try this!… be sure to get a good warmup in (as always). If you need some ideas for drills to incorporate, check out this video I made. After a jog, drills, and a couple strides… you’ll do sets of 3x400 with 60 sec rest between reps and 3 min rest between sets. The paces and the number of sets you do- that’s up to you. I don’t know you, afterall! I love love love 400s. It’s just the right distance where you can get through it without getting in your head too much. Then you have a little breather, and you go again just before you feel ready. Then the longer break between sets helps you recover and mentally reset to go again. Be sure to get a cooldown jog in after, too!

Click here for more individualized training…

2. The recipe. Not to outshine my most popular pasta recipe… I bring you another one! Because pasta is the best and I crave it so much when I’m training. This one is awesome because it’s super quick and only requires one thing to wash: a pressure cooker/Instant pot. If you don’t have one of these… get one. They’re incredible. Here’s what you need:

1lb ground beef
1 white or yellow onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
8oz of mushrooms, chopped
29oz can (the big one) of tomato sauce
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp Italian seasoning or a mixture of oregano, basil, rosemary, and thyme
1lb dried pasta noodles of your choice (something that holds sauce well, I’m loving Cascatelli)
parmesan cheese

Here’s what you do:
1. Put the pressure cooker on “saute” and brown your meat while breaking it into small chunks. When it’s cooked, add the fennel seeds and a sprinkle of salt and pepper and remove and put in a bowl nearby.
2. Put some olive oil in the bottom of the pressure cooker (still on saute) and saute your veggies- onions, carrots, and mushrooms, until onions are translucent and carrots/mushrooms are a bit softened. Add in the Italian seasoning and stir.
3. Add in the tomato sauce, then fill the empty can with water and add that. Add the meat back in and then add the pasta noodles. The level of liquid does not need to cover the noodles, but it should be close. Then set the Instant Pot to pressure cook for 6 min.
4. Let it release naturally for 5min then you can flip the top to manually release pressure. Voila! Pasta night! Add some grated parmesan cheese to the top and pair with some crusty bread and you’ll be in heaven!

Curiosity over fear

Last weekend stepping on the track with my bunny ears on, making myself (and hopefully others) laugh before taking on a challenge, was so much dang fun.

I got called out this week by someone who said “I thought you said 2024 was going to be your last season on the track.”

They’re not wrong. I did say that. Because how things were going the last 4 years… well, no one wanted to keep doing that. I spent more time injured than healthy and even when I was “healthy” I knew something was still wrong. It wasn’t fun. I love this sport so much, but the frustration drove me to try triathlon and then drove me to plan on retirement.

Then I met Dr. Noah Moos and got introduced to the world of functional medicine. I started learning about my MindBody, and I realized that I had been coming at my symptoms all wrong for years. When I changed my approach, slowly by slowly, my pain changed. It’s been almost a year since my first trip to Austin, TX to see Dr. Moos and the year has honestly felt long. We have done a lot of really good work. And I finally feel like it’s starting to pay off.

So why would I stop now? I don’t want to do triathlon. And I hope I don’t have to retire. I really want to see what else I can do with running. I’m 32 years old and I’m acutely aware that I don’t have all that much time left to find out.

So 2025 is about curiosity over fear. Maybe that’s something you can relate to: staying curious about what you can do. We can all do so much more than what our silly little brains limit ourselves to. 🧠 See you on a starting line very soon!

-Colleen

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