Our Trip Continues in South Carolina and Georgia before we head to Charleston, SC Marathon and 100K Bike Tour. While in Columbia, South Carolina we helped man the registration table at the Harbison 50K – this was a great way to meet each runner in person and give them a pack of Try Chips to TRY!  We traded race director Dan Hartley our services and Try Chips for everyone in exchange for letting Jackie and Tim run the event as a team.

We ran the 50K (25K each) Jackie ran it in 3 hours and 4 minutes – Tim ran it it in 3 hours 24 minutes.  (Total TRY TEAM TIME 6:28) – Sure was a fun day meeting new Try Chips TRYBE members – hearing their stories of TRY and connecting with folks who understand what TRY is all about!

Our trip is all about TRYING to be sustainable – so we are camping for about 90% of the trip and making our own camp cooked foods.   The first night was a bit cold (28 degrees) so instead of pitching our tent since we got in so late.. we just rolled out the sleeping bags and slept in the Jerry mobile.

Jackie has been doing a bang up job on sampling our Try Chips at the Earth Fare stores.   Usually what happens is Tim works in the Earth Fare cafe responding to e-mails and doing our posts and Jackie samples to customers who come into the store.   At the Columbia Earth Fare store Jackie sold out the entire stock of Try Chips the store had in less than an hour.

POST #1

Starting January 3rd Tim and Jackie from Try Chips hit the road in our Try Chips Mobile and Wagon (Actually we took Jerry’s mobile and left the Try Chips mobile at home as it would not pull the wagon)

First stop Asheville, NC to visit with Earth Fare stores who now carry our Try Chips and meet with some new and old friends while in town.

Our first stop on the trip was to meet with our new friends at Chi Living.  Danny and Katherine are the creators of the Chi Running method and have really saved Tim’s knees for sure when he runs.   We are big fans and so nice to meet a couple who work together to make the world a better place to TRY!

We were so excited to meet with them, laugh a little and get to talk more with Gordon their new company strategist.

Our next stop brought us to two Earth Fare stores in Asheville, NC where Jackie spent a few hours handing out samples and letting folks who came to the store know more about all the great attributes of Try Chips!

We then stopped in to see our good friends at Fast Pivot http://www.fastpivot.com/ – Matt, Daphne and Jonathan who helped us build our Try Chips online store.   They rock and help us get Try Chips to all our TRYBE (tribe) members in a fast and efficient way!

Our last day in Asheville brought a little challenge as we could not get the wagon back on the Jerry Mobile… As strong as Jackie is we had to turn to the other Jack to get the hitch up high enough to move on to Columbia SC.

This was our second challenge with the wagon as in Virginia we needed to stop and get new tires for it.   We sure miss the Try Chips mobile, but the wagon has way more room!

But in telling his story, Jeremiah mentions matter-of-factly that not once but twice he suffered an illness in which doctors weren’t sure if he’d be able to walk. When he was 6 years old he contracted encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain most commonly caused by a viral infection. The disease returned in a milder form when he was 16. And those early battles are enough to give Jeremiah a lifetime of perspective.

“I was never supposed to be able to walk again and that drove me to get out there and get moving,” he said. “In the beginning, I didn’t think about it too much because I was pretty young, but the second half of high school I started to consider that God had given me this ability to to run and I started using it more. I guess in a way it has encouraged me to work harder. When things really get me feeling down, I can see how blessed I am to be where I am. When I look back at that time, I couldn’t even walk. It didn’t drive me then as much as it does now, especially with two kids to see how blessed and healthy they are.”

As Jeremiah started running more himself, taking on local 5K races and getting into the half marathon distance, he began coaching. A teacher at Mifflinburg MIddle School in Pennsylvania, he is entering his ninth year as a the district’s track and field coach and his third as its cross country coach.

When it comes to the social hierarchy of teenage life, running is often not part of the glamorous cadre of sports. But Jeremiah has helped create a culture on his team where they embrace their sport and have become ambassadors for it.

“We have a saying on our team that says, ‘Your sports punishment is our passion.’ The kids have really embraced that idea,” Jeremiah said. “They’re pretty well-respected by their peers. They’ll talk about workouts they’ve done and that goes a long way because when they hear about the workouts, others will say, ‘There’s no way I can do that. I have so much respect for what you’ve done.’

“When you go out and run at a race, there’s not a large cheering section when you come back. There are no cheerleaders or band at our events. But we’ve built our pride up. Even though it can be a punishment in some ways for other sports, it’s what we do and the kids have embraced it.”

They’ve embraced it, in part, because of Jeremiah’s enthusiasm for the sport and for sharing his passion for running. While coaching and teaching keep Jeremiah from training and racing as much as he would like, he is still active in the local running community and, more importantly, with his team. The workouts are informal over the summer and more directed once school begins in the fall, but by participating himself, he not only gains respect, he helps to motivate and inspire his student-athletes.

“I try to meet them in the summer to go for runs and show them it doesn’t always have to be work,” Jeremiah said. “I want them to see it can be enjoyable and a good social time with friends. We try to do other things, like ultimate frisbee, to get the same workouts in and hopefully they will realize this can be a lifetime event.

“I think the runners respect it to because I can say, ‘Hey, this is the workout’ and then go do it with them.”

And of course every summer is the traditional “beat the coach” 5K.

“Every summer we go to one of the local 5Ks and the kids see if they can beat me,” he said. “It’s a good family kind of thing. We go run for bragging rights for the next year. I think it’s important to do that while i still can. The day will come when I won’t be able to do that anymore, but if I can still do the same workout and still race, I think it’s important for the kids to see that.”

What inspires Jeremiah is the camaraderie of running, whether it’s helping one of his students reach his or her goal or goofing off at the track with his friends. It’s the people which keep him healthy as much as the exercise itself.

“Every kid is different. Some are inspired to win it all and have the talent to do that. Some are inspired by the idea of being able to run in college. For some, just finishing a race without walking may be their goal. You’ve got to set your goals and they’re different for each person and even for each race.

“The social aspect is a huge motivation. I love the people I run with. The other day we ran 40 100s on the track for a friend’s 40th birthday. It was dumb and useless but it was a great time and we just had so much fun doing something we loved with the people we cared about. Why else would you run these ungodly distances unless you were with people you liked?”

By Amy Moritz – you can read more from Amy at:

www.amymoritz.com

Brad Boisvert took up running seven years ago. He didn’t know his daily jog would develop the tools he needed to face a rare auto-immune disorder. When he couldn’t run, Brad Boisvert knew something was wrong. In December he had a respiratory infection, not uncommon in the winter months in Pennsylvania. But on New Year’s Eve, he began to feel a tingling sensation in his fingers and toes. The tingling turned to numbness and began to spread.

With his wife out shopping, he decided to do what he loves — he jumped on the treadmill in his home for a short run. Only the activity that he most looked forward to, that brought him joy, felt all wrong.

“I got up to get on the treadmill because you know, I  can’t stop running. I gotta keep going,” Brad said. “But when I got on the treadmill, I couldn’t feel from ankles down and from my wrist down. I started running but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t feel safe. My wife came home and took me to an emergency care clinic.

“They didn’t do much for me and basically told me it would get better or worse in the next 24 hours. I went home and went to bed right away. I woke up at 3 a.m. and I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t feel from my knees down and from my elbows down in my arms. We went to a hospital emergecy room and within two hours, they diagnosed me with Guillain-Barre Syndrome.”

Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) is a rare disorder where the body’s immune system attacks parts of the peripheral nervous system. While there’s no certainty as to how its contracted, symptoms often start to occur a few days after a respiratory or gastrointestinal viral infection.

After being admitted to the hospital, Boisvert’s symptoms progressed to the extreme. By Jan. 3, just three days after experiencing symptoms, he was paralyzed from the neck down. Doctors put him on ventilator then in a medically-induced coma in order to give him a series of blood treatments over the next 10 days.

It was seven years earlier when Brad took up running as a way to lose some weight. He wasn’t that big, but wanted to get into better shape. He started out running two days a week then increased to running every day. He didn’t run great distances — about four miles a day — and didn’t start racing until a few years ago completing a handful of half marathons and one trail marathon. But he loved what the active lifestyle of running brought to him. And in some ways, it helped save his life.

He developed an understanding of his body so he knew when something was wrong.  His doctors noted that the time he spent running had helped prepare his body to fight this auto-immune disease and that his attitude toward his body and physical activity may have accelerated the healing process.

“I don’t remember this, but my wife said when I was in the coma and they would bring me out from time to time to test me, I would get agitated because I wanted to get up and run,” Boisvert said. “One of the things I was always saying was that I was ready to run.

“The doctor’s were saying how good of shape my lungs were in from running. When I came out of the coma, within a week I was off the ventilator and walking on my own which is unheard of.”

“I was very strict about my rehabilitation. In the hospital, there were people young and older than me, some in worse shape some in better shape. But they would lay in bed until it was time for them to go to rehab and not do anything else. My therapist gave me things to do in my room. It wasn’t a lot. I was lifting my arms above my head or lifting my legs up in bed. I would do whatever they told me to do, as many times as they told me to do it. I’m structured that way. I believed that’s what helped me recover faster, too. I wanted to get back to running.”

The day after he was released from the hospital, Boisvert was back on the treadmill. He was walking very slowly. He knew his body and didn’t push it, but was consistent, working to get stronger and increase his endurance daily.

There is no cure for GBS, but the disorder is controllable and Brad has sensation back in his extremities and is back to his active lifestyle. He’s back to running, back to TRYing, because, rather simply, it makes him feel good.

“I never was a runner before in high school or college,” Brad said. “I can’t explain it very well, but it just feels like a little bit of freedom. Your mind is free at that point. There is nothing else you have to think about it. I don’t ever dread my run. I want to TRY and be the best and healthiest person I can be. I just want to feel good about myself.”

This fall, Brad plans to run in three half marathons. He’s not worried about personal records, just enjoying the ability to finish the 13.1 miles and knowing each step he takes helps him live a much healthier life.

You can read more by Amy Moritz here on Try Chips.com or at  www.amymoritz.com

Brad and Tim (Try Chips) at Dam Half Marathon- Brad's first event back after "Trying" experience.

All in the family: Keeping playtime alive

Growing up in a big family in Pennsylvania, Mary Kowalski and her siblings found ways to make their own fun. Sure they played high school sports, but the organized activities paled in comparison to the fun they would create for themselves. Playing outside was just part of their lifestyle. And even though the kids grew up, the grown ups kept on playing like kids.

That’s one of the reasons why Mary and several members of her family decided to participate in the inaugural Try All By Fire event. While the group regularly enters races together this was a unique opportunity for them to just play together.

“So many races are geared toward individuals,” Mary said. “Even if you register and go with with a bunch of friends, it ultimately comes down to doing it yourself. You’re all out there at the same time but at different places on the course.

“One of my sisters thought Try All By Fire was great because it was something we would normally do, but now, we don’t have to worry about what to make for dinner, there’s a party afterward and we get a sweatshirt.”

Mary will be participating a six-person team with three of her sisters, a brother and a brother-in-law. The group plans to start their day with some kayaking and finish off with mountain biking. Both are relatively new pursuits to the family, but changing up the activity is part of what makes it so much fun.

“The races we usually do, like the Megatransect, are all running and hiking,” Mary said. “We wanted to do something different so I worked on figuring out the logistics. This year, many of us got into kayaking, so we’re going to do about eight miles in the kayak. Two of my sisters are novices in mountain biking. They bike here and there, but they didn’t even have mountain bikes — we went looking to get them some. We went on a ride and it was a tough workout for them but the loved it. They said, ‘We’re in. This is great.’ That’s pretty much sums up how we are as family.”

Trying something new is part of the ethic Mary and her siblings were raised with. While they played organized sports growing up, the culture of youth sports was more relaxed without year-round single-sport commitments. The kids had plenty of time to create their own fun, explore and be active without having to coordinate schedules. Unstructured playtime was how they lived.

“When we grew up, the culture wasn’t as demanding,” Mary said. “If one of us played soccer, it wasn’t 12 months out of the year. Kids have less time to be creative these days and play outside, find fun and bike around the neighborhood. We just grew up that way. My brothers and sisters, we all played together and did stuff together and being active is one way we stayed close as a family.

“We had a good foundation. Because we weren’t lazy kids, it was easy to find fun as we got older. Now, one of us loves fishing and is constantly fishing and walking in the woods. It’s a natural progression. I started running and doing triathlons. As we got older, we found things we liked to do and it almost always involved family and the outdoors.”

Being active, healthy and connecting with family is part of what inspires Mary to keep trying new things. An athletic trainer at St. Francis University in Loretto, Pa., part of what inspires her to TRY is the desire to be healthy and fit. But the other part of it is having the opportunity to discover something fun and pass it on to someone else.

“It is actually fun to be fit and healthy,” Mary said. “What inspires me is once you go out and tell others what you’re doing, they try something and now they’re having fun and feel great about themselves and they tell other people. It’s like the Pied Piper effect. This person may have never thought they liked hiking but now they’re totally into it and they share it with other people.

“My family agrees I’m kind of the ring-leader of being healthy and fit and passing on that lifestyle to others. It’s something I enjoy doing. I want people to have high self-esteem because they’re able to do things because they’re healthy and not limited by being tired or 20-30 pounds overweight. I want people to feel good and see how easy and fun it is to find something you like to do that keeps you healthy.”

You can join Mary and her family at this years TRY ALL BY FIRE – Check it out! http://trychips.com/tryallbyfire/

-Amy Moritz www.amymoritz.com

She describes herself as a slightly overweight, middle-aged woman, someone trying to embrace a healthy way of eating and living and discovering that challenging herself brings its own set of unique rewards.

“I’m just a normal person. I’m not a competitive athlete,” Bingaman said. “I just want the chance to be a bit better. I heard a quote recently. The author is unknown, but I put it up to inspire me. It says, ‘Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can really go.’ You don’t really know what you can do until you try it.”

Becca’s journey began last year when the young woman who was the chief financial officer at her company passed away from cancer. In honor of her and to raise money for cancer charities, Becca participated in a three-mile fun run, thinking about her former coworker and her mother, who was also battling cancer at the same time.

“I figured I could walk three miles and I found that I’d walk then jog then walk,” Bingaman said. “It was mostly on trails and took me around 45 minutes. I walked way feeling good about myself, No. 1 for supporting a good cause but No. 2 for the fact that I did, I completed basically a 5K. I thought, wow, you know what, I want to see what I can do.”

She entered a local 5K and improved her time, finishing in around 40 minutes with a run-walk approach and she was officially hooked on running and racing. Becca ended up on a team for an indoor triathlon taking on the swimming and running portions. It was there she learned a bit about the mental game and the importance of nutrition.

“After I finished swimming, I thought holy cow, I was not prepared for that. I wasn’t prepared for all those people in the pool at the same time. I was intimidated by all of the people in serious mode. looking fast, and I asked myself, why are you here? Why do you think you can do this? Your mind is really your worst enemy.

“I got out of the pool shaking so badly. I went into the locker room and I had a bag of TRYChips in my locker. I ate those and I actually felt better right away. It was exactly what I needed. My problem was that I didn’t know how to fuel before, during or after and the triathlon got me thinking about that.”

As she found new challenge in fitness, including a night-time trail run and her first half marathon, Becca also plunged into overall health and wellness initiatives, enjoying not just running and moving but also finding ways to eat healthy and maintain a balance. Her new lifestyle has paid off in all areas of her life. Generally, she finds she has more energy and can sustain physical activity longer. The connection was evident this winter, when her home in Pennsylvania was under plenty of snow. Previously, Becca would have needed help with the shoveling, or needed to do it in small chunks. This time, she was able to shovel the driveway herself.

“It’s not that I was grossly overweight but I was not as physically active as I should have been,” Becca said. “I find that the more I try to be fit, the more I can do the things I enjoy. This is not a get-fit quick fix. This has been an inside and outside change that I can keep going for the rest of my life.

“People say to me that I should set a size or weight goal. And I’ve said no to that. I want to be fit and whatever that looks like on me, that’s what I’m going to be. I’m just thrilled with how far I’ve come. I feel like I have further to go, but every time I exercise or every time I enter a race, I’m one step closer. It’s a reminder, for me, that this is my new lifestyle.”

And Becca has some intensely personal reasons for embracing a healthy lifestyle. She witnessed her mother battle cancer 21 years ago, and survive. Then, cancer returned and her mother passed away last year.

“I know how valuable life is,” Becca said. “I watched my mom battle cancer and last year she lost her life to it. During my half marathon, I wore my mom’s cancer survivor t-shirt. She was overweight her whole adult life. She tried everything under the sun and it never worked. She never could win her [weight] battle and she gave up. I watched her body go through chemotherapy and radiation and thought, you know, I don’t want to do that. If I can change my life to better my odds of not having to do that, then I’ll do it. Life is too valuable.” 

You can find author Amy Moritz on her website at www.amymoritz.com

“I started strength training on a regular basis at a gym and heard about the four-mile race and it seemed like a nice little challenge,” Buohler said. “I thought it would be a good idea to get out and get a little leaner. Then I placed first in my age group and thought wow, I really enjoyed that challenge.”

A native of Emsworth, England, she moved to America in 1991. The 41-year old now lives in South Florida with her husband and two children. She always enjoyed an active lifestyle, but never participated as a serious competitor until that four-mile race in 2006. And she found something enticing about the competition. Granted, her penchant for winning her age group, or earning podium finishes, was a motivating factor, but the sense of accomplishment in bettering herself helped foster an entirely new avenue for her health and fitness interests.

As her running progressed, Buohler fell in love with the half marathon distance, taking first in her age group in a number of races, including the ING Miami Half Marathon and the Walt Disney World Half Marathon. She then branched out to the duathlon where she finds variety and a different kind of challenge both physically and mentally.

“The half marathon is one of my favorites, because it’s a challenge of running longer but you’re not really breaking the body down too much,” Buohler said. “In duathlon what I love is you get the change. You’re running and you need a break in the action and you get that break and when transition to the bike. It feels great on the bike and then, when you start to tire of the bike, you can’t wait to get back on the run. I really enjoy the change up.

“Mentally, it’s fun to have that break, to keep changing it up. Maybe athletes are a little ADD. I think that’s the case with a lot of us. I can’t sit still and I like to keep busy.”

Busy she certainly is, not only training six or seven days a week but also working as a coach and fitness trainer while studying to obtain more coaching certifications. This September she will be competing in the World Duathlon Championships in Spain while pushing out of her comfort zone on the track to compete in the 5,000 meters at the World Masters Athletics Championships in July in Sacramento, Calif. While she’s excelled at the 5K distance on the road, she has never raced on the track and will be up against some of the best in the world, including former Olympian Zola Budd.

Daunting? A little bit. But as much success as she’s enjoyed in the last few years, Buohler is always looking for another challenge. In addition to competing in international championships, she has a goal of running the big city marathons after finishing her first marathon, the Athens Classic in Greece, last year in 3:26:24.

There is a tinge of regret in Buohler for finding her way to competitive running and duathlon later in life, but even so, her ability to challenge herself and celebrate life and health are what continue to inspire her to TRY.

“Often I wish I started earlier and hadn’t waited so long,” Buohler said. “I’m a master already and I think if I had started early, I may have had better opportunities, but I didn’t every look that far ahead. I just did my first race and took each step as it came. I never knew what the outcome would be. Every time you go out and just try to do better.

“I think we were given these amazing bodies and I see some people less fortunate in health who would love to get out and do some of the things I do. It makes me want to make the most of what I have. I am lucky to have my health and to be able to do what I love.”

Try Chips met Lisa at the Melbourne Marathon in Florida and made a fast friend and supporter of our Try Chips.  We are so excited to know Lisa uses Try Chips in all she TRY’s!

For more on Lisa visit her website at www.lisabuohler.com

Amy Moritz is a writer in Buffalo, N.Y. Visit her blog at www.amymoritz.com

by Amy Moritz

One day in 1998, he was standing in a Nike Town store, staring at a poster.  Joe Taricani had been a recreational runner and had just completed his first 5K when the advertising signage caught his attention.

It read: “Do you want to run a marathon? Don’t think you can?”

That, Joe thought, was a pretty accurate description of his own running life. The poster was for a USA Fit training program and the introductory meeting was at a nearby high school.  “I was curious,” Joe said. “I thought, well, I can’t run a marathon, but I’ll use it as a program to get in shape. When the miles get too far, I’ll just stop.”

But stopping never quite happened.

“The way those programs work, all of a sudden you’re running seven then nine miles, then it bumps up to 12 and back down to six,” Joe said. “My competitive juices started and once I got going, I got after it. I still had a lot of doubts in my first marathon. In the middle of the race I actually still couldn’t believe I was doing it. I couldn’t believe I was actually running a marathon. I finished and it was great.”

And Joe kept going. About 20 marathons under his belt, he become hooked not so much on the running but on the accomplishment.

“For me, it was the sense of starting something, working to achieve something and then finishing something,” Joe said. “The completion factor involved in finishing a marathon is amazing. The finish line itself is very symbolic for a lot of reasons.”

After his first 26.2 miles, Joe got away from the marathon for a number of years, until the death of a close friend spurred him to return to running. It was 2006 when his friend passed away from lymphoma, and the idea of celebrating life by running a marathon appeared.

Joe with Try Chips Friend, Dave Mari

“To have one of the physically strongest people I’ve ever known and one of my best friends struck down by cancer, I got to really take the approach that life is too short,” Joe said. “You need to enjoy your family more. You need to enjoy every day more. So I started running again.”

That first run wasn’t all that pretty.

Admittedly overweight and out of shape, Joe said he ran for about 150 yards before he was winded. He repeated the same process for a few mornings and realized that the idea of running another marathon might need some tweaking.

“I realized that there might be a marathon in my future, but I was probably going to have to walk it,” Joe said. “And you know, that’s OK. I had the experience of running and finishing some marathons, so I know what it’s about and I can make the best of it.”

He trained for 14 months and ended up running the marathon, finishing in 4 hours and 55 minutes.

“That was no where near the 4:11 I had done in the past, but I felt OK,” he said. “I went a lot faster than I thought I could and I fun. It was a celebration, a way to have victory even when you’re hurting.”

Celebrating the finish, the average people who run marathons to see what they can do, is part of the reason behind Joe’s internet-based radio program, “The Marathon Show.” He interviews race directors, authors and athletes and lately has started recording broadcasts during the marathon, running throughout the race and chatting with runners, volunteers, race officials and fans.

It’s part of his desire to share the joy of the journey with others. And part of what inspires him to TRY.

“I like hearing stories from people out there trying for their very first marathon,” Joe said. “I could listen to anybody talk about their training, about what worked and what didn’t. I love hearing people talk about their experiences of getting out there and trying and waht the finish line was like for them.

“We celebrate everybody and everybody that’s running a marathon is remarkable. I’m the most average of all the runners in the audience, but I make it OK for them to run at any speed they want. We celebrate the finish line, not the finish time.”

TRY CHIPS IS A PROUD SPONSOR OF JOE AND THE MARATHON SHOW – AND JOE IS A PROUD SUPPORTER OF TRY CHIPS!
Visit Joe and The Marathon Show at www.facebook.com/marathonshow

or at  www.themarathonshow.com

Read more by Amy Moritz at www.amymoritz.com

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We have three flavors of Try Chips all with the same goal in mind.  To help you TRY!  Featured today is our flavor Endeavor.
We carefully select nature’s most supercharged ingredients to help not only fill that void in your belly that is in need of a crunchy snack – but also will aid in your efforts for everyday endurance.

In might be the most popular major for college freshman — undeclared. And Laurie Reinhart fit right in with the trend. She had no major when she began college and was uncertain of what she wanted to do with her life until one day when a visit to a chiropractor sparked her interest.

“When I was in college, the health care field appealed to me but I didn’t have any direction,” Laurie said. “I was afraid to aim too high.

“Then I went along with a friend to their chiropractor appointment. I watched him work and decided that was what I wanted to do.”

And so began Laurie’s journey to the National College of Chiropractic. She learned not just about natural health in order to run her own practice but how to live her own naturally healthy lifestyle.

“It’s been really good for me personally,” Laurie said. “I’m a much healthier person. I always struggled with my weight a bit because I didn’t know any better. When I learned about healthy living, it all came naturally. It’s so much easier to be thin when you know what to do.”

But for Laurie, it’s not just about being thin. It’s about being healthy, about embracing challenges and, most importantly, about enjoying life.

She began running after high school as a way to help manage her weight. She dabbled in the sport, participating in 5Ks after a friend encouraged her to try racing. Laurie enjoying not only the exercise but the people she met along the way.

It was again through the encouragement of a friend that she tried trail running. And trail running led to ultra running. And a new passion was born.

“I absolutely loved it,” Laurie said. “I”m not fast. I just like the adventure. For me, it’s more a sense of playing hard in the woods and that really appealed to me.”

Laurie started doing ultras about five years ago, beginning with 50K runs. She graduated to 50 milers and has completed two 100-mile events — the Vermont 100 Endurance Race in 2010 and the Massanutten Mountain Trails race in 2008. It’s the challenge that she finds so intriguing, one that brings her back to the long distances time and time again.

“You get done and go, ‘Wow, I just ran 50 miles’ and you’re completely exhausted,” she said. “It’s a real sense of accomplishment. Maybe it’s because I never trained to run fast. I don’t get that sense of exhaustion at the end of a 5K. Having a 100-miler under my belt carries through to other things in my life.”

As she embraced the ultra running lifestyle and incorporated it into her knowledge base of healthy living, Laurie worked to get more involved in her local running community in Pennsylvania.

She helped mentor women who were running their first 5K and helped give them learn not just how to get through the race, but how to make healthy choices to support their new sport.

“They get so much false information about running and nutrition,” Laurie said. “They work so hard to have a healthy lifestyle and train for this race and the end of this 5K they’re given a bagel and a bottle of Gatorade. That’s more calories than they burned off.

“I feel compassion for people who try so hard and have the wrong information and I’m seeing it with beginner runners. That’s one of the reasons why I love TRYChips. It’s real food and low in calories with antioxidants. It’s prefect.”

Laurie was introduced to TRYChips during one of her ultras, when she herself was experimenting with better nutrition during her long runs and races.

“When I started ultra running, I did what people told me to do, eating the GU’s and Gatorade,” Laurie said. “Being in natural health, I avoid that stuff in everyday life. But at aid stations, I just did what everyone else was doing and I thought it was stupid. I was already challenging my body to run 70 miles and now I’m going to burden it with corn syrup and red food dye? But I didn’t know what else to do. I had to eat.

“I found good things at aid stations like fruit, and used that and tired to eat less on trail runs and avoid the garbage when I found TRYChips. I thought it was perfect for me.”

Her natural health background continues to inspire Laurie. She’s preparing for another 50K run, more as an event to participate in than as a race. Which is just fine by her. Because once she started down the path of healthy living and outdoor adventure, it became an important part of her being.

“I find that I can’t quite explain it to people who have never been there the power of momentum and the feeling of strength that comes from healthy living,” Laurie said. “Once you get started and adopt a lifestyle of being active and taking responsibility for your own health and making healthy choices, everything in your life just moves forward.”

You can read more great articles by Amy Moritz at

www.amymoritz.com

Laurie will be participating in the TRY ALL BY FIRE event hosted by Try Chips on August 13, 2011

http://trychips.com/tryallbyfire/

Out from the cubical: Finding joy and health in running

The hours in front of a computer screen were starting to get to Katelyn W. She longed for some activity, for a sense of control and commitment to herself.

Looking for a way to fill that desire, Katelyn turned to running. And her choice of hobby was most surprising, even to herself.

“Even as a child, I hated running,” Ketelyn said. “I can’t explain it, I just hated it. I wasn’t good at it and didn’t understand how anyone could consider it enjoyable.

“Up through high school I was always a healthy weight, mostly thanks to lack of laziness, a relatively healthy diet and God-given good metabolism. I played basketball and softball until my last year of high school, and tried here and there to join leagues in college, but never really stuck with them. In fact, I didn’t stick with much of any exercise regimen in college and if it weren’t for a very hilly campus, probably would have come out 50 pounds heavier. I never, ever, in all of those years ran.”

After graduating from college, Katelyn would spend around eight hours a day working on her job search. During that time, she recognized her need to get outside and do something. So she started running a mile every day.

“It was agony, but a bearable 10 minutes of agony, in comparison to the rest of my considerably lax day,” she said.

She brought back her mile-long runs after landing her first job, where she realized that although she loved her work, the sedentary corporate culture was hurting her overall sense of well-being.

“I realized that corporate America and obese Americans go hand-in-hand,” Katelyn said. “There’s so little push for movement, for healthy lunches. Everyone’s busy with their nose to the grind, eating out with clients for multiple meals a day, and so focused on work, they forget to focus on themselves. I saw my future flash before my eyes and wanted to get into healthy habits before I joined the rut of real life.”

Running focused Katelyn on her health and fitness along with providing her a sense of control and freedom. While she had enjoyed her previous team sports experiences, she found the solitary nature of running beneficial. It could fit into her own schedule. There was no need to register for leagues, pay dues or carry around concern about letting others down should she miss a game. With running, Katelyn was in control.

As she continued to run, her agony morphed into fun. A friend convinced her to register for a 5K and while the thought of the race scared her, she also found excitement in training for a big event. And after that first 5K, she was hooked.

“Crossing the finish line was a feeling of euphoria unknown to me prior to that first race,” Katelyn said. “I wanted to feel it again and again.”

The enjoyment she found at the 5K level led her to search for bigger feats. She upped the ante by participating in the Survivor Harbor 7-mile run Baltimore, then started shopping around for a half marathon. The 25-year-old completed her first 13.1 event at the Philadelphia Half Marathon in November. That’s also where she discovered Try Chips.

“When my friend and I first tried them at the Philly Marathon expo, our first thought was ‘Man, this would be such a good replacement for couch time munching!’ They provide the crunch without the calories and all of the extra health benefits can’t be beat,” Katelyn said. “I also very quickly learned, from my very first interaction at the expo booth, that Try Chips starters care about their relationships with fellow runners, and they are not just out to sell a product.”

While creating a healthy lifestyle is a driving force for Katelyn, she also found that feeling of accomplishment itself inspirational — whether the accomplishment is crossing a finish line or starting her day by completing her workout.

“If I get out of bed and go for a run on an otherwise freezing and miserable morning, I’m on Cloud 9 the rest of the day. I have a clear mind and I enjoy my breakfast knowing I’ve already got a number of miles under my belt for the day. Even if nothing else major happens, I’ve accomplished those miles. And that’s something.”

You can read more great articles by Amy Moritz at

www.amymoritz.com