It’s an early spring morning in Boulder, Colorado, and I’m sitting in a local coffee shop drinking a piping hot coffee and trying to warm up. Typical for Colorado in early spring, it is blizzarding out, with a cold wet snow coming down. Just the day before, however, it was sunny and 70 degrees out. The local trails had finally started to dry out from a fickle winter, and trail runners were rejoicing at finally being able to get in some solid time on the trails under warm, sunny skies.
For many ultrarunners, the summer racing series is just around the corner, and this spring blizzard is putting a huge damper on their training. For Cassie Scallon, however, it was no big deal, as this was a recovery week after another successful early season race. I had arranged to chat with her this morning, hoping to hear how she was doing after running two successful races and being named to the first ever US World Trail Championship Team.
“How are things going Cassie? You ran a really strong race at Lake Sonoma.”
“Things are going well, thanks. I’m feeling pretty good, better than I normally feel after racing a 50 miler. I didn’t expect to run that fast – 20 minutes faster than the last time I ran that race. So I’m pretty happy with how I feel.”
Shaking off about an inch of fresh, wet snow, Cassie and I chat for the next hour about her return to racing from injury, how her early season races went, and what her plans for the summer are. Like many strong ultrarunners that I’ve met, Cassie is humble but confident.
Having just taken second place at the Lake Sonoma 50 mile race in California the week before, securing a ticket to the iconic Western States Endurance Run, and finishing third earlier in the year at the Chuckanut 50K, one would think she had a few things to brag about.
“I’m not going to take the ticket to Western States. I am confident that I will have an opportunity again to run that race in the future, and I want to go into it prepared. Right now I don’t think I could run it as well as I would want to. Also, I already promised my good friend Aliza [Lapierre] that I would pace her, and I want to honor that.”
It’s that humble yet confident attitude of personal challenge and experimentation that stands out when talking with Cassie. “I like to challenge myself, but also experiment with new things. After my injury, my first big test came when I paced Greg [Salvesen] at the HURT 100 in January. After that I felt pretty good, and my running was going well, so I ran Chuckanut at the end of March. The last time I was injured, I ran Chuckanut and Lake Sonoma and had a really good season, so I thought I would do that again.” Running two highly competitive races only three weeks apart is certainly a challenge, but it is also an experiment in how well the body will adapt and recover.
“Challenging yourself is very interesting to me. I like experimenting and discovering. Lately I’ve been thinking of trying out a timed event like a 24-hour race, and I’d also like to see how fast I can run a 50 miles. It’s the same at home, I try a lot of things in the kitchen, like making my own cheese and yogurt. It’s fun.”
The late spring, early summer season will certainly prove to be an experiment and a challenge for Cassie. “I’m racing The North Face 100K in Australia, and then two weeks later I’ll be racing the IAU World Trail Championships in France. It’s a heck of a travel schedule, but I’m pretty excited.”
The snow has let up a bit outside, and it’s turned into more of a slushy rain at this point. My coffee is long gone, and both Cassie and I drift into talking about the local trails, running in the mountains this summer, and mutual places we have both lived. “I’ve moved around a bit, from Denver to Portland to Durango and now here. The community here – Rocky Mountain Runners, Boulder Track Club, my brother – they really make this a great place to be. Flagstaff Mountain is right outside my door, and all of the trails here are really conducive to keeping me motivated to run. It’s easy to challenge oneself and experiment with different runs and types of terrain.”
The drive to continue to challenge herself, as well as experiment with new things, seems to be working. Cassie has already had an excellent start to her season, and although plans can always be derailed, it won’t stop her from pushing herself with new challenges both on and off the trail. “I just got a metal detector, which is super fun – I just found my first ring! And I’m doing this class at Rally Sport that is really hard, but making me stronger and hopefully more coordinated. I don’t know, I like to continue to mix things up. Like I said, a timed event sort of interests me in the future.”
Whatever this summer brings, be it more podiums at the North Face race and at the World Championships, or just new experiments in the kitchen and challenging mountain runs in Colorado, Cassie is sure to continue to have fun.
We finish up our chat, and Cassie heads out into the cold, slushy spring rain snow. I ask her what she is going to do now, and she says, “I don’t know, probably go for a run. It’s going to be fun in these conditions!”