On the plane to New York

Oct/Nov 2024

Written on the plane to New York City 🗽

Hey, team!

It’s been a while… 🙈 It feels like there is so much going on in life right now! I’ve been too busy living it to write about it which is great except I do love brining you all along for the journey. It’s always more fun to celebrate the wins when my team (you) has been there for every up and down along the way.

First of all, I’m excited to share that… I’m healthy! I’ve been running between 50-60 miles per week consistently week after week. In June and July I was at about 25-30 miles per week, Aug and Sept I moved up to 40-45 with one down week for a brief health scare, then Oct has been good to me with 50-60 miles feeling STRONG! I mostly do 2 workouts a week and a long run with a few hours of biking when I feel inspired. My workouts are nothing crazy, I’m still swallowing my pride and being patient, listening for my body to tell me what is right and how much to push. I have done better at trusting that I know what it feels like to simply work hard and I know what it feels like to fight myself with every step. I’ve definitely had a few tearful setbacks that felt scary and brought up “I could slide right back into the darkness at any moment” kind of thoughts. The difference is that now I have better tools to bring me back to a place of calm more quickly. Dr. Moss in Austin, Dr. Cohn in Huntington Beach, Paul Mackinnon (my form coach) and my main coach, Karen Harvey (more about her down below).

New York City Marathon Weekend

I’m writing this update from the plane on my way to Neeeew Yooooork! I love this city so much and there’s no better weekend in the city than marathon weekend. I’m bringing in SO much energy and hype for all of you people who are racing on Sunday. I've got a lot of opportunities to connect if you’re in town and want to say hi IRL.

My newest partner, Runna, is the #1 run coaching app worldwide and they recently launched in the US in a big way. I am the first US-based coach on the app, which is really fun! When you sign up for a training plan you will see my face introducing you to Runna and then throughout your week I’ll pop up to help you warmup for a speed workout or help you think about the flow of your training week.

Runna is an official partner of the Abbott World Major Marathon series so they are bringing me out this weekend for all kinds of cool activations around the marathon. One thing we are doing that I’m particularly excited about is a #fastbraidfriday braid and nail bar on Friday afternoon at the Runna hub. Come out and get your hair braided and your nails done for free! We have goodie bags with all kinds of fun products in them from my various partners as well.

Check out the full schedule of activities below.

📍Runna hub: 1875 Broadway, NYC 10023

Explore RUNNA

IN OTHER NEWS…

1. We adopted a puppy!!!!

We were fostering this sweet pup and everybody (including Pie) fell in love, so we had to keep her. Six has an extra toe on each of her paws, which is how she got her name. She is always attached to Pie’s hip- absolutely obsessed with her. So we joke that she’s always “got Pie’s six!” Six loves every single dog (especially her sister), she’s in a big licking phase right now, and she just learned how to dig holes in our yard. She’s a mix of German Shepherd, Husky, Pit Bull, and Belgian Malinois.

2. I did my first Gran Fondo!

I met Phil Gaimon at a WHOOP event recently and found out about all the crazy cool bike adventures he does! He hosts his cookie fondo event every year in the Santa Monica Mountains and I got to participate this year. This ride is all about challenging yourself along some intense climbs and eating cookies along the way! I chose the 83-mile route with 8k ft of climbing and I ate 5 giant cookies along the way. It was SO much fun and is absolutely a bucket list item for any cyclist! Phil’s Cookie Fondo

3. I did a campaign with Maybelline about mental health

This is totally a dream brand for me. Maybe she’s born with it… Maybe it’s Maybelline! 😜 Maybelline has a super cool initiative called Brave Together which is all about having real conversations about mental health and providing resources and tools for taking care of ourselves and others. You can access that here and check out the video we did on my IG.

AMA

I’m bringing back the “Ask me anything” segment. Here is your chance to ask me anything you’re curious about- could be about training, injury, running, riding, dogs, life… anything! I’ll pick a few to answer in the next newsletter update.

email me your question

Lastly…

I’m now at my hotel and need to go to bed, but there’s two other things I wanted to share in this newsletter. The first is that after a lot of soul searching this summer I decided to move away from the triathlon and thus move away from my triathlon coach. I’m so grateful for the time spent on that part of my journey and for the support I received. However, my heart just wants to run and feel good running right now. So I reached out to my old college coach, Karen Harvey. She’s the only female coach I’ve ever had in my career and I was missing working with her so I called her up and asked if she would come out of retirement for me. Luckily, she agreed and she has been helping do this slow, gradual, patient build this fall. It’s a full-circle moment for both of us because Coach Harvey had to leave FSU in the middle of my senior year, so we didn’t get to finish out my college career together. She’s helping me temporarily until I find a more permanent setup, but this feels meant to be and I’m so grateful we get this time together.

The last thing I want to say is (and this is a big topic that deserves more space but…) I’m struggling with the duality of wanting to celebrate feeling good in my body, feeling healthy and strong but also wanting to protect my heart in case I do break down and get hurt again. I’ve been heartbroken by injury too many times to count and I just don’t know if I can take another one at this point in my life and career. We are being conservative with training, but I also hate that I have to do that. I want to be relaxed and run freely without fear of my body betraying me. I don’t want to be reckless, but I want to be all in. I want to be smart, but I want to push my limits because I don’t do anything halfway. Do you see the push and pull? And so it’s a balance and I am trying to figure out how to be totally in JOY with where I am but also realize that nothing is permanent and nothing is guaranteed. And that I will be okay no matter what.

Sending you all lots of love and peace. And I hope I get to see some of you this weekend!

Your bestie,

Colleen