Bio
I’m a history teacher in Wyoming. My husband, Patrick, and I have been married for 14 years and we have two sons. We used to teach in a Yupik village in Alaska, and we lived for many years in Oregon too, before moving to Wyoming.
Ultra History
I ran my first marathon in 1997. It started at sunrise on the Navajo Indian Reservation in New Mexico and it was so beautiful that I ran about 20 more marathons before my first ultra in 2011. I have run eight ultras, with two 100-mile finishes: Bighorn (Wyoming) and Pine to Palm (Oregon).
Why West Highland Way?
When I was 16 years old in 1992, I was an exchange student in Barrhead/Glasgow. One morning my host-mother told me about a 95 mile race to Fort William, all in one day, in the mud and pouring rain. She thought it sounded terrible, but I was thinking… that sounds extremely fun! I went back to Scotland after college and backpacked the West Highland Way. Over the years, as the internet improved, I kept checking back to see if there was a WHW race website. I watched as the website evolved and the race grew, and now that my children are big enough for a trip to Scotland…. here we come!
Aim for the race
Where I live in Wyoming, there are almost no organised races or ultras. I run on deer trails and old abandoned 4-wheeler tracks. My PR for a 100-miler is about 28.5 hours, so that would be a good goal for me, but with no spring races to use as a guide, I really have no idea how long it will take me. So, I am just going to try to train consistently and hope for the best!