Summer racing season has been off to a solid start for our Team Injinji athletes, with big wins at the San Diego 100 this month and Western States and Badwater just over the horizon. Our own Alexa Dickerson is heading into her second year racing Badwater and is training with running coach and Team Injinji teammate Lisa Smith Batchen. We sat down with them to get the scoop on training for the esteemed race.
My name is Michael Wardian and I am a 39 year-old father, husband, international ship broker, coach, inspirational speaker, little league baseball coach, and endurance athlete from Arlington, VA. I am hoping that I can provide some guidance with this blog on how I try to make it all work. It doesn’t come easy, but to be cliché, nothing worthwhile ever does and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The way I try to make all this work is to do what I call “Invisible Training” and by that I mean I try to make my training as low/no impact on my family and work as possible.
Two pink lines can change everything. When I took the test back in February, my emotions went from shock to denial to disbelief to acceptance to joy and finally elation!
Last month, Team Injinji athlete Marshall Ulrich was inducted into the Colorado Running Hall of Fame. Marshall is a widely recognized and highly respected athlete in the ultrarunning community. He is the only person in the world to have completed the “triple crown” of extreme sports, achieving records and firsts not only in running, but also in mountaineering and adventure racing. He has completed more than 125 ultramarathons, averaging over 125 miles each. Ulrich has climbed the Seven Summits (including Mt. Everest) on first attempts, and completed 12 expedition-length adventure races.
Winter is officially over and we’re ringing in Spring with a bang, basking in another win-filled weekend for Team Injinji. Below are some of the highlights from our unstoppable ambassadors, achieving peak performance in a wide array of footwear. These victories spanned across continents and time zones but were all powered by a common unsung hero: Injinji, the Original Performance Toesock.
Last Christmas I was on vacation at my parent’s house in Arden, NC and I got my first taste of Mt. Mitchell on a 3600ft, 5.5 mile climb out of Black Mountain Campground. The trails were steep and technical and the top featured a picturesque Spruce-Fir forest covered in 6” of powder. I shared a few pictures from the run on Facebook, and a generous Brevard native, Scott Wolfe offered me his spot in the Mount Mitchell Challenge (40 miles). I was psyched to have an excuse to come back in February and compete in a race known for snow and harsh conditions.
The Mt Mitchell Challenge in North Carolina is a 40 mile route with serious elevation gain (climbing nearly 5,000 feet!) on the tallest mountain on the eastern seaboard. Dave Mackey (Hoka) and Dominic Grossman (New Balance) had a strong showing with Dave pulling in 1st finish at 4:38:13 and Dominic 3rd for Mens in 5:02:37. The course had to be altered due to ice conditions so while Dave was dominating the record we may have to witness him racing it again to beat the full course record in ’14.
