JUNE 2023 UPDATES
Getting to know Griselda:
Q: How did you get into running?
I got into running a little over 10 years ago as a means to improve my mental health. I had just graduated college–a first-generation student–and broken up with my then-boyfriend. Life was weighing down on me so a few friends and I decided to begin incorporating movement into our lives. We began a little workout group at local parks and ended each session with a short run around the field. I hadn’t run since high school but the 1-2 laps around the field were becoming my favorite part of the workout. On days when we didn’t meet for our workout group, I would go out on runs on my own starting with 1-mile runs. It’s been a “run-derful” journey since those 1-mile runs around my neighborhood as I have had the pleasure of running in different locations and different distances.
Q: How did you choose your event/goal? ie. Why Mammoth Trail Fest, specifically?
I chose The Rut as my event because of peer pressure, but the good kind! One of my friends & run club leader of Santa Mujeres Run Club, Priscilla Rojas, had done the event the year before with the Inclusive Outdoors Project. She loved the event so much that she rallied up a group of diverse runners here in San Diego and encouraged us to apply for the Inclusive Outdoors Project program for this race. We all got guaranteed spots! Now, we are all on this journey to run The Rut and have become each other’s support group through this process. I chose to run the 50k distance because it is a distance that has become familiar to me. I did 2 ultramarathons at that distance in 2022. I also was drawn to this distance at The Rut because of the elevation gain. I love to challenge myself and this race would have the greatest elevation gain that I would have ever done.
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Getting to know Nicole:
Q: How did you get into running?
While I have run my entire adult life, I was more of a casual runner until 2020. I use the term casual runner to mean I really didn’t train consistently, even though I did run 2 marathons and an ultra while in my “casual runner” mode. 2020 kinda changed my mindset around running due to the pandemic lockdown. Since everything was locked down, hiking and running trails turned into the one thing I could still get out and do consistently. And from then on, I fell in love with trail running. In 2022, I moved from Hawaii to New Mexico and with that move I ended up living at the bottom of a mountain. Now, I run that mountain 5x a week and do a trail race about once a month. I LOVE running trail, and while I am not a particularly fast runner YET, I do hope with continued training to become a competitive trail runner in the next few years.
Q: How did you choose your event/goal? ie. Why Mammoth Trail Fest, specifically?
I like racing the sub-ultra distances and probably the biggest name in sub-ultra racing right now is the Golden Trail World Series. And while I still have a long way in my training until I am competitive, I did want to run one Golden Trail race this year to test my fitness and see how hard I need to work for the future. When I saw that they added the Mammoth Trail Fest for this year’s edition of Golden Trail, I checked out the race. It looked phenomenal, so I signed up! It is at the tail-end of my trail race schedule this year, so it has become my “A” race for the year.