Kara Goucher Rediscovers Herself, and Her Running

Where's the coffee? It's a Sunday morning in a Westin hotel in Napa, and runners emerge from the elevator bank in search of bagels to nibble on, Nuun with which to fill up their water bottles, and most important, a little caffeine to perk them up after last night's dinner and wine-tasting. They ask each other, "How far are you going?" Four, six, eight, more? There's a shuttle leaving at 8:00 for Alston Park, where a web of packed-dirt trails and a few steep hills offer countless route possibilities. But because the park is only four or so miles away and this is a group of resourceful runners, many of them decide it makes more sense to extend the distance by running to the park. In fact, several of them already left earlier to log a longer effort. "What pace?" the runners ask each other. "I'm doing 8s." "I'm doing 9s." "Just let me get some more coffee."

All the runners milling around the lobby are women, save one. Chris Heuisler, who has the enviable title of "RunWestin concierge," has two jobs today: One is to help this mix of recreational and serious athletes get to and from the park for a one-plus-hour run. The other is to assist in any way he can the star of this show, the host of this weekend running retreat.

And here she comes, bounding into the lobby, with her brown hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing a pink Oiselle top, light blue Zensah compression leg sleeves, and pink, blue, and yellow Skechers. It is possible Kara Goucher has dark circles underneath her eyes, and it is possible she had a glass (or maybe even more) of cabernet last night, even though the whole time she was sipping and eating and chatting with her friends and fans, the thought of her upcoming long run hung like a dark cloud over her head. Around 10:30, she had looked around and asked, "Who wants to run 17 miles tomorrow morning? At 6:20 pace?" Sally Bergesen, founder of Oiselle, bravely offered to accompany her--on a bike. "But I don't have a bike." How could they get a bike? "Chris!" Kara slapped the table. "Chris could make it happen!" So Chris had gone to the local Walmart at 11:00 p.m. dressed in his Saturday-night finery and paid $85 for a mountain bike. "No one blinked an eye," he tells Kara and Sally this morning, and they all laugh with glee.

"I totally sold you on it," Kara says. She does a little dance, hopping from foot to foot. "Chris, can you get us a bike?" she says, low-circling her fists, re-creating the previous night's pitch. Her ponytail swishes from side to side. "C'mon, you know you wanna do it!"

quot;Ill break three hours in a marathon.".

 Who could resist? It's precisely this combination of winsome charm and champion's confidence that has drawn this group of 50 to Kara Goucher's very first weekend running retreat for women. There are first-time half-marathoners and 2:50 marathoners; the ages range from 19 to 63; people have traveled from South Carolina, Maine, Alberta. Several came with running buddies: Allison L'Hotta, 26, a pediatric occupational therapist in Los Angeles, and Kerry Devitt, 26, a librarian in Chicago, are former college track and cross-country teammates. "We came here for a weekend together," they say. So did Andrea Wong, 39, a pediatrician, and Jen Heffner, 36, a Pilates instructor, and both moms of elementary-age kids, who live across the street from each other on a cul-de-sac nearby in Napa. Others booked double rooms with acquaintances: Two women from Utah "met" each other before the retreat on their local running club's Facebook page. Many traveled solo. Registration opened in July and sold out in two days. "It would've gone faster," says Goucher's husband and coconspirator, Adam. "But we had issues with Pay-Pal." Ask any woman here why she came and she may say running, wine, hanging out with like-minded people, but all will say, "Well, it's Kara."
 

"Im a good cheerleader for others. I will be a better cheerleader for myself." Boston Marathon in 2009 and was impressed by how approachable and inviting she was," says Jess Russo, 32, a musician and mom from Lafayette, Louisiana. "When I saw that she was hosting a running retreat, I e-mailed my husband the link and he called me right away, and said, 'You have to go! Can I book it for you?' I was on cloud nine!"

But on this Sunday morning, Kara has to set aside the fun with fans to attend to her day job, reestablishing herself as one of the country's top runners, which injuries have hindered for nearly 15 months. She's got a 17-miler to nail, no matter how few hours of sleep she got. While she's doing that, Kerry and Andrea and Jess and all the other retreat attendees will run or ride the bus to the park, do their own workouts in self-selected groups, and meet her there afterward for chats and selfies. And so Kara heads out the lobby doors, past the tinkling ornamental waterfalls, down the hotel steps into the gray and cool morning, and starts into a fluid, easy-seeming stride, with Sally pedaling alongside on the Walmart bike.

"This has been a year of self-discovery for me," Kara Goucher says. "I've been following my heart and gut all year."

The event that arguably precipitated such intense reflection and change was in June 2013, when she placed a frustrating fifth in the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in the 10,000 meters, failing to make the U.S. team for the World Outdoor Championships in Moscow. Goucher, 36, owns an enviable resume: She nabbed a bronze medal in the 10,000 meters in the 2007 World Outdoor Championships, competed in the 5000 A Part of Hearst Digital Media Other Hearst Subscriptions that same year. After taking time off in 2010 to give birth to a son, Colt, she returned to set a PR of 2:24:52 in the 2011 Boston Marathon, represent the U.S. in the 2012 Olympic Marathon, and take another shot at Boston in 2013. Still, by that summer, she was tired of the grind, feeling burned out. "I was running to meet requirements, and I was stressed out," she says. "I didn't love my running. It was an obligation in my life. It was a way to support my family. And I wasn't enjoying it anymore."

Kara poses with husband Adam and vegan Lottie.

 Luckily she lives with a man who is literally an agent of change. Adam Goucher, himself a 2000 Olympian, gives motivational speeches with a partner, Tim Catalano, about how to get more out of running--and life. "Adam said, 'Kara, you can keep going the way you're going, and you're good enough that you'll win a lot of prize money, but you're never going to be great,' " she says. " 'Is this what you want?' And I was like, 'Noooooo.' "
 

And so began a year of big changes. In a shocking move, she left billion-dollar behemoth Nike, with all it confers (and demands), and signed in March with upstart free-spirited women's-athletic apparel company Oiselle (wah-ZELL), with less than $10 million in revenue. She subsequently signed with Skechers (which notably also sponsors 2014 Boston champ Meb Keflezighi), and Nuun hydration. She left her Nike coach Jerry Schumacher and the training group that included her friend and rival Shalane Flanagan, and reunited with her college coaches, Mark Wetmore and Heather Burroughs. She moved from a "huge" house she and Adam had built in Portland, Oregon, back to Boulder, Colorado, close to where Adam had grown up and Kara had attended college.

But the path to a new life wasn't exactly straight and smooth. In March, she finished a workout of 500-meter repeats and felt a twinge in her lower back, which turned out to be a sacral stress fracture, scotching her training plans for three months and any racing for at least five. If her new employers were bummed, they didn't let on. "These companies signed me when I was down," she says. "They were like, We think you're great, and we think you have a good story, and we think people relate to you.' They're not paying me to run fast, they're paying me to be me, and that's a totally different way than I've ever been treated before."

While Goucher waited out her injury, her coaches, Wetmore and Burroughs, wouldn't "let" her cross-train for more than 75 minutes a day. (She rode a Spin bike, aqua-jogged, and later ran on an Alter-G treadmill.) Which left her with more time to play with her son, Colt (who would turn 4 in September), and talk with Adam about what else she really wanted to do. And top of the list was a women-only weekend running retreat. "This has been a dream of mine for years," Kara says. The timing was auspicious: The lifestyle companies she'd recently signed with put a premium on social connectedness with fans. "For the first time in my life, people were asking me, What do you want to do? How do you want to inspire?' "

A chalk sign directs participants to Kara's group run.

When you are an effusive and personable Olympian, you have a lot of similarly wired friends to call upon. Kara assembled a roster of presenters for her inaugural weekend retreat, including Oiselle CEO Bergesen as a keynote speaker; clean-eating blogger Lottie Bildirici for a vegan food-prep demo (beet smoothies, berry maca muffins, and raw espresso-date truffles--yum!); Tracey Katona for a Pilates workout (ouch); clinical social worker Anna Paffel, a pal from high school, to lead a group discussion on managing life's expectations (sniff!); and Adam and Tim for their motivational speech about rejecting complacency. (Adam, Tim, and concierge Chris were the only men present at the retreat, and they were quick to excuse themselves when the talk got emotional, like during the social worker's therapy session.) Oiselle, Skechers, Soleus, and Nuun provided goodies for the participants' swag bags. Before the retreat, representatives from Westin hotels had suggested three possible locations, but for Kara the decision was a no-brainer. "I was like, 'Napa, Napa, Napa. We're going to Napa.' "
 

The weekend would start with a wine reception on Friday evening, include two morning group runs, and conclude with a postrun brunch on Sunday morning. Kara and Adam posted notice of the retreat on her Facebook fan page and through Oiselle's Twitter feed, and not surprisingly runners snapped up the opportunity to get close to Kara, even at a cost of $1,250 per person (not including airfare). And save for her solo 17-miler Sunday morning, Kara would be present for the entire weekend--and present in the most mindful sense of the word--chatting with everyone, listening to stories, posing for numerous selfies. Talk about all-access pass.

Health - Injuries.

 "Kara is very much herself," says Oiselle's Bergesen, explaining her appeal. "Wherever she is, she shares that with others. At the same time, she's achieved these incredible athletic feats. She could be standoffish. Some people can get like that, especially when they reach that level and get some form of celebrity, but she has not. She's very genuine. She speaks from the heart, she makes people feel like they're part of her inner circle."
 

Indeed, that's exactly how the retreat attendees felt--like Kara's BRFs (best running friends). "It was such a gift to feel like we were just running with another one of our buddies, and to not be intimidated by the fact that we were with a total Olympic rock star," says Mimi Hahn, 49, of Salinas, California, and vice-president of marketing for the Monterey Bay Aquarium. "I can't say enough about how Kara inspires me to be not just a better runner but a better person," says Paula Cassidy, 38, a personal trainer and coach in Houston.

But what was in it for Kara? Can you imagine this kind of thing happening in any other sport? Serena Williams volleying balls and sipping daiquiris with ladies in tennis skirts? (No.) Maybe this kind of gathering is possible because running exists in a less commodified realm than mega-bucks spectator sports, but even within running, there are not a lot of athletes who could pull off this combination of world-class performance and intimate fan connection. Or one who would even want to. So why does Kara?

failing to make the U.S. team for the.

 
"It feeds my soul," she says. "Every time I get to hang out with fellow runners, I feel really inspired. We all run for different reasons, but it bonds us all. This is about the purity of the sport, the friendships that are built around running, and all the positive things that it brings into your life. It's like a common passion and a little bit of geek club. I love it, and I want to share it."
 

"Sharing" is the operative word when you spend a weekend with Kara Goucher--an athlete notorious for her emotional vulnerability--and a group of women runners. From workouts to wine-tasting, every moment turns into a ripe opportunity to gush and bond.

"I'm going to cry already," Kara says on Saturday morning, getting choked up as she introduces her friend Tracey, who will conduct the Pilates session. The retreat participants sit lined up three rows deep, arms-length apart, on white towels in a conference room. They wear capris and tank tops, and their hair is pulled back in ponytails or tucked behind a Sweaty-band. "I'm getting so emotional hanging out with my girlfriends."

Pilates pal Tracey leads workout sessions.

 Kara hugs Tracey, whom she met at Nike, and says, "This workout changed my life." A few years ago, Kara's then-coach had scolded her about her posture, she explains, and prescribed workouts with the resident and merciless Pilates instructor. Their friendship blossomed beyond the gym, and indeed it was Tracey who played a key role in the genesis of this retreat. After the 2012 Olympic Marathon in London, where Kara placed 11th, Tracey took her discouraged friend to Canyon Ranch. It was Kara's first weekend without her husband and son since Colt had been born. "I took classes, and learned about nutrition, and had the best time," she says. "While I was there, I was like 'I want to do this for other female runners!' "
 

Tracey has the regal and slightly intimidating bearing of the former ballerina that she is. "Pilates brings your mind to your body, and your body to your mind," she tells the participants. "It strengthens your weaknesses." She then leads the women through Kara's 50-minute routine that includes such Pilates exercises as the One Hundred (because you are supposed to do 100 of these crunch-like exercises), the Roll-Up, the Double-Leg Straight. "Tuck your chin in," says the taskmaster, stepping carefully around the towels. "Knit your ribs." The women groan, and grunt, and peek at Kara executing the moves at the front of the room. "Lift your leg! Lift your arms! Scoop, scoop, scoop!"

So it is something of a relief to burst out of the overheated conference room onto the chilly streets of fog-bound Napa for an uncomplicated five-mile run. Kara leads the group over the First Street Bridge across the Silverado Trail to the bottom of a steep and winding hill, atop which they will pose for photos, to the astonishment of a local homeowner whose front porch overlooks the bluff. "Usually we get teenagers coming up here to drink!" The group expands along the straightaways and bunches together again at stoplights, everyone trying to stay as close to Kara as possible. (It is her second run of the morning, but an "easy" pace for her is a tempo run for some.) Many of the runners wear gray or pink Oiselle tops, as if in homage to Kara. In fact, a 29-year-old real-estate broker from San Diego has on the same chevron-print sports bra Kara wears on the cover of this issue. "It just became available online!" Kimberly Chanelle Clark-Aguilar says excitedly. "I bought it for the retreat!" It's like an athletic flash mob. Passengers in the few passing cars gape.

We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back.

 
By the time the runners return, the sun breaks through the morning clouds, and the day begins to warm. They gather on a courtyard patio for postrun blueberry muffins, fresh fruit, and lemon-lime Nuun. Kara fields whatever question anyone wants to ask for nearly an hour. She speaks about expectations: "You can't do in a race what you haven't prepared for." And about coming back from injury:"It's been frustrating, but instead of looking too far ahead at the 5:30s I need to run for the marathon, I look at the progress I've made. A few weeks ago I could do 10 miles at seven-minute pace. Now I'm going for 17 miles at 6:20. It's a process." She talks about having a theme word for a fall marathon: "Courage." And about that fall marathon (which she would announce publicly, on September 8, as the Other Hearst Subscriptions Marathon): "I won't be fighting for the win. It's really more about reestablishing myself as one of the top runners in the world, in that upper echelon, and reminding people I'm not gone." About competition versus camaraderie: "It enhances your own enjoyment to be interested in someone else's success, not just yours. When I get to the starting line, I'm not your friend. I will hug you, wish you well, and mean it sincerely. But when the gun goes off, I know where I can stick it to you, and I will if I can." And about why she prefers to run every day: "I never take days off, because when I do, I feel like a slacker, and I don't enjoy it. I don't feel like myself unless I run. It's how I deal with sadness and happiness. I need it. It's like therapy." The women laugh and nod. They get it, they get it.

World Outdoor Championships.

 Later that evening the runners will come back to the same courtyard patio dressed in a range of Saturday night attire, from T-shirts to spaghetti-strap dresses, Birkenstocks to Blahniks. Kara wears a print sundress, shawl-collared sweater, and cowboy boots. Her friend Anna wears a crisp white shirt-dress and heels. They load their plates with a well-earned buffet dinner of heirloom tomatoes, pesto bocconcini, Bay shrimp ziti, and free-range chicken. Waiters pour local sparkling wine, sauvignon blanc, or cabernet, and bring around must-eat-every-bite dark-chocolate-orange minicakes. Sally Bergesen talks about launching her dream company, some of her marital travails, and the enormous impact of having signed Kara. "There are different ways to measure success," she says. "We got a sales bump when we announced we hired her. We got a big high-five from the women's running market. And we sent a powerful message to the sport, because Kara is a force athletically and in the industry."
 

Force of personality may be hard to measure, but despite not scoring a big win in the past two years, Kara remains one of running's most popular icons. In a 2014 Running USA survey of 14,000 women, she was the number one most "recognized" female runner. And women are powering the sport of running these days, making up a remarkable 61 percent of half-marathon finishers and spending an estimated $7 billion on activewear annually, according to the market research firm NPD Group. From the launching pad of the more lifestyle brands that she now represents, Kara can transcend the hard-core performance-oriented community and reach a wider range of people who aspire to the broader health and fitness perks of running. Not to mention setting the stage for her own postcompetition future, in a way no other runner has before.

But does that make Kara "great" the way Adam suggested? Perhaps it is about redefining great. Because here's an important secret: She's having fun. "I'm enjoying my running right now more than I have--honestly?--EVER."

On this Saturday night in Napa, there will be much chatter and laughter and clinking of glasses, and some people will stay up past their bedtimes, long runs in the morning be damned.

"Honestly, my favorite part of this whole weekend is the sharing," Kara says on Sunday morning at the farewell breakfast after everyone has come back from the run, showered, and packed. "I love hearing everyone's stories."

As she stands on the patio with the sun shining down, Kara says she wants each of the runners to say two things out loud: one thing she is good at and one thing that she will do. The women pay attention to each others' answers, which are--as the whole weekend has been--touching, funny, emotional, ambitious.

"I'm a good cheerleader for others. I will be a better cheerleader for myself."

&Running in the Cold

&and 10,000 meters in the 2008 Olympics, and took third in her debut marathon in

"I'll break three hours in a marathon."

&Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

"I will be kind to myself."

&failing to make the U.S. team for the

&How to Watch the NCAA XC Championships

Selfies, girlfriend! (Jess Russo, center)

 If proximity to Kara was the number one reason these superfans signed up for the retreat, many discovered they got nearly as much from hanging out with each other. "I came here to be with 49 other women like me," says Tammara Francis, 31, an account executive, Spin instructor, and mom from Calgary. "This weekend has been a journey of self-discovery," says Taralyn Summers, 32, a mental health therapist and mom from Salt Lake City, echoing a common theme of the weekend. "I'm so inspired by all the stories. Of course, you don't have to pay for that, but Kara provided the avenue to meet all these people. I mean, of course, besides it being awesome epic to meet Kara." Kristiana Almeida, 30, of Santa Barbara, California, who's planning to open her own fitness facility, puts it more emphatically: "I am ready to rock life."
 

"This is my favorite part of the retreat," Kara tells the women in the courtyard. "This is so real."

And Kara? What is she good at and what will she do? "I am very good at bringing people together." To which all the women brought together by Kara nod in agreement. "And I will make the Olympic team for Rio," she says, and squeals a little bit like a girl, and jumps back to her chair. And there she is again, that thoughtful, silly, relatable runner with big athletic dreams. You think she's your BRF until you start trying to figure out how long you could keep up with her on her 17-miler.

Lest you think she's getting soft, she isn't. The weekend was called, after all, Podium Retreats with Kara Goucher. "My competitive drive has not lessened," she says. "I know I haven't raced in 15 months, and I've kind of been out of the picture, but I still have big dreams and goals and that has not lessened at all."

Still, the pressure has lessened because she's competing now for companies that care as much about her irresistible personality as her impressive PRs. "I used to think you needed to win races to be popular, but I've learned that the fans don't really care," Kara says. "If I never win a race again or never PR again, they don't care. They care that I'm trying, that I'm making myself vulnerable, and that I have a goal and I'm making sacrifices for it."

It's a new way of thinking for an elite athlete, if not unfamiliar to those of us who run only for our own purposes. And maybe that's why we can relate to her, because she's articulating thoughts every runner has. "I've learned that it's more about the journey than about results," Kara says. "I've always loved the journey, but then when it didn't go as I hoped, I felt like everyone was disappointed and it was a waste of time. And I'm learning more and more that it's never a waste of time. The journey is what makes you who you are, and that's never-ending. If I won New York, it wouldn't mean, 'Now my life is perfect, and I can just sit in my house and I'll be happy forever!' I'll have to continue to take more and more journeys, and that's actually the fun part."

Even so, there is one thing she wants you to know. That 17-miler at 6:20 pace? Despite the lingering effects of too much socializing and too little sleep, she got the job done, exactly where she was supposed to be on that run on that day. As friendly as she is, she is still a competitor. Are you paying attention? Look her in the eye. The pace averaged out, she wants the record to show, to 6:18s.

***

Virtual Races With the Best Bling here.