Keagan Anfuso's Staging Area

Running has never been my strength. I’m, by far, a cyclist, rock climber, and a paddler. A few years ago, a friend actually said, “‘Let’s try something that we’re bad at.” Which resulted in us signing up for the Amphibious Duathlon at the Whitewater Center in Charlotte, NC. We “trained.” We showed up. It kicked our ass. However, in the process of getting the life kicked out of me, I discovered that I really, really love trail running. AND THEN, I registered for Grand Circle Trailfest Kanab. Which meant spending the next two years ( got a stress fracture the first year ) training for a terrifying amount of distance.

The problem is, I live in Jacksonville, Florida. Not exactly surrounded by trail running. So training became a lot of Peloton Tread and running on the road. Second problem, I’m still a very bad runner! So, I started to really struggle to find motivation to keep training through the injuries, and well, being so damn slow.

During this time, I listened to an episode of the podcast “Wild Ideas Worth Living” featuring an interview with Nicole Snell. Nicole is a women’s self defense trainer and activist who does a lot of solo hiking. She talked a lot about survival, safety, and self-protection when she is out on the trails alone. She said when she first started solo hiking, everyone constantly commented on how dangerous it was for a woman to be out alone on the trail. So, in reaction, she decided to “become the most dangerous thing on the trail.” For her, that meant being in epic shape, training defense, and elevating her outdoor education.

As a person who is into outdoor adventure AND who is active in true crime culture, this podcast episode is when the motivation and “reason to run” really hit. Listening to Nicole, I realized, as someone who strongly believes in being prepared and self-reliant, I was very unprepared for something to go wrong in the outdoors. Out of all the training that I do for climbing, paddling, and cycling, the thing I am most likely going to need to do in the event of any kind of emergency- is run. At that time, I put together that if I needed to run for help, it would take me an hour to go a few miles. Unacceptable.

So, that became my leading motivation to get me through the boring training runs, the road runs, the long run days that feel awful, and the upset about being so damn slow. I’m training and maintaining to be the most capable woman that I can be. The epic-ness of being out in the wilderness while doing it helps too.