Author Blue Collar Runners

As 2020 begins, I look back with gratitude to the year 2010—a decade that began with darkness and confusion, and ended with hope.

In the fall of 2014, Maribel Dichard felt herself hitting rock bottom. Outwardly, she had it all. A successful career, loving marriage and two healthy children. However, she also had a drinking problem, “I hit a point where I realized my kids could see it.” That evening, she took her last drink and quickly discovered running.

In 2017, Vin Framularo’s marathon plans were derailed when a snowboarding accident sent him to the emergency room with a broken back. Now he has a ritual that he follows each time he toes the starting line of a race. “I tell whomever is around me, guys, the hardest part of the race is over.”

“My life was pretty much gymnastics and school. We worked out in the gym 20-30 hours per week.” After a string of injuries in high school and her gymnastics days behind her, Meghan had a big void to fill. Her dad was a marathon runner, which intrigued Meghan, and at the age of 18, she decided to join him for a run.

By 2001, his life was spiraling out of control. Jon tried to commit suicide by taking a bottle of sleeping pills. “I fell asleep and woke up a couple days later in the hospital. The doctor said, ‘You should believe in God, because you shouldn’t be alive.’” It was a major turning point in his life.

Laura Farrell has broken barriers in the sport of ultrarunning. Her real legacy, however, began with a vision she had in the mid-1980’s. Nearly 40 years later, she has dramatically impacted thousands of lives.

In 2001, Jacky discovered a lump on her leg. One week after her diagnosis, she was in surgery having her leg amputated. “Looking back now, it sounds really weird but I’m kind of glad it happened. It puts life in perspective, you appreciate things more. I just think I’m a better person because of what happened.”

Sharon Knorr was quiet and reserved as a child growing up in Marietta, Georgia. Early on, after receiving discouraging advice from her doctor who suggested that she not run due to her asthma, she decided she wouldn’t be held back.

Thomas Torres’s first 5k race was in the middle of the ocean. To be more specific, it was on the deck of an aircraft carrier while serving in the US Navy.

Now retired from skiing and the arduous training that came with it, a thought lingered in Hugh’s mind from his old training days: “I felt like I did better the longer the distance was… maybe it was something I should explore.” It turned out Hugh’s intuition was right – and ultrarunning was the perfect match.

Running came into Lulu Martinez’s life exactly when she needed it. Growing up in Mexico, Lulu was not sporty. “I actually failed PE class. I graduated with honors, but not in PE. I was never a person who enjoyed any physical activity whatsoever.”

On the eve of Matt Klein’s first Vermont 100-mile race in July 2014, he found himself in tears. He had come a long way since his darkest days nearly a decade earlier.