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There’s no better way to get a window into the complicated world of a musician like Scott Stapp than by listening to their music. Scott Stapp’s latest album, The Space Between the Shadows, which dropped back in July, is driven by the song “Purpose for Pain.” The standout single mines the tumultuous period the singer endured since his last record in 2013 for inspiration. “Purpose for Pain” clearly carries a potent message, with a chorus that hits with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer: There’s gotta be more / Cause this life is insane / Gotta turn this around /...

For the first time since February 2018, Emily Infeld embraced the hard effort of competing in a race. Paying no mind to the clock, she trusted the cues her body provided her as she continued to battle her way through the final hill all the way through the finish line at TD Beach to Beacon 10K on August 3. Just seven months after her last hip surgery, Infeld had the rush of racing again, a feeling that she missed. The 2015 world bronze medalist covered the 10K course in 32:39 as the fourth overall finisher and top American in Cape...

Angel Vazquez, 38, of Kissimmee, Florida, vividly remembers the moment last June when he first thought he was having a heart attack. He was working from home that day—his mom was there to take care of his daughters—when suddenly he started to feel terrible. “I started to sweat profusely, I had trouble breathing, my heart was pounding, and I felt like I was about to faint,” he tells Runner’s World. “I didn’t want to freak anyone out, but I just had a gut feeling. My dad had two heart attacks and my uncle had a few as well.” So he...

Bob Wilcox never runs without a four-legged companion by his side. He’s done so since the the early ’90s, when his own dogs kept him company while training for marathons. The puppy eyes that awaited him when came home from work as a healthcare consultant were just the motivation he needed to get out the door each day. “They were always my best training partners,” Wilcox told Runner’s World. “I’d come home and if I’m tired, there’s the dog ready to go.” However, after his German Shepherd passed away soon after moving to Los Angeles, he felt like his runs...

You’ll want to be ready if you find yourself on the receiving end of a Kate Hall medicine ball toss. I wasn’t. During a midday early May workout, Hall recruited me to catch her throws and roll the ball back to her. I moved to the middle of the infield at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland, Maine. From just inside the track, Hall sprang forward and heaved the 8-pound ball. Next thing I knew, the ball landed just in front of me, bounced, and crashed into my chest. It left a red mark on my sternum that lingered for a week....

The day before ultrarunner and obstacle course racing superstar Amelia Boone hit “publish” on the blog post that echoed through the endurance-sports world and beyond last week, she almost didn’t go through with it. “I was like, why am I doing this? I’m not recovered,” she told Runner’s World afterward. Even after her message went live, she spent some time second-guessing her motivations. But ultimately, Boone said, the predominant emotion she felt now that her 20-year experience with anorexia has become public knowledge is relief. “It’s honestly like having a hundred-pound weight vest lifted off,” she said. Now, she no...

When you hear about an ultra in the state of Tennessee, it usually stirs up images of the famed Barkley Marathons. Though the state’s namesake ultra is the crown jewel of Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell’s race series, extreme runners seek out the other challenges he offers once winter thaws out and southern heat moves into the Volunteer State. These include classics like Big’s Backyard and the Strolling Jim 40-miler. But only one race leaves state lines: The Vol State. With a 10-day cutoff, there’s a heavy emphasis on self-sufficiency. That doesn’t mean runners are on their own the entire race....

It all came crashing down one morning in April 2015, when April Lund was 32. The evening before, she had stayed out late drinking, and she woke up alone in her apartment in Bismarck, North Dakota, with no idea of how she got there. “I blacked out completely,” she told Runner’s World. “That’s when I knew I had to change my life.” At the time, Lund was overweight and had been struggling with an alcohol addiction for about eight years. She had just moved to Bismarck from St. Louis, Missouri, where she said her social life centered around drinking. While...

Name: Kate Perelman Age: 33 From: Silver Spring, Maryland Job: Federal contractor and social media specialist People think depression is just feeling sad, but that’s not it at all. Depression makes you feel nothing. And in late 2018, after years of battling the disease, feeling nothing replaced my love for running. So my brand new pair of silver and blue Asics sat in the corner of my apartment, laced for a run that I thought would never come. My couch became my safe harbor. It’s where I made several impulsive internet purchases one day in late November, which included, for...

Last January, Lauren Barnathan, 31, didn’t realize what was happening when she tried to roll over in bed but couldn’t because her left side was limp. The Tampa, Florida, resident had always been fit and active, so the tell-tale signs she was experiencing didn’t add up in her mind for someone her age. As soon as her then-fiancé flipped on the bedside light, however, he knew exactly what was happening: Lauren was having a stroke. Adam Barnathan, 32, an emergency medicine doctor, recognized the facial droop, inability to use one side of her body, and slurred speech that he often...

Kristina Baum, 37, had an inauspicious start to distance running: She signed up for her first race, the Army Ten Miler, back in 2006 with zero training. “I thought I might as well just show up and try it, and see as far I can get,” she tells Runner’s World. She ran eight miles without stopping and walked the last two. The physical after-effects were rough—she threw up twice, and was in pain for days—but finishing the race completely hooked her on running. So she started training, and ran the Houston Half Marathon in 2007 and 2009. But at the...

From a bed at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis on May 4, Gabriele Grunewald posted a photo of herself on Instagram asking for some “brave vibes” as she fought an infection, which forced her to miss her own “Brave Like Gabe” 5K to raise money for rare cancer research. “It’s not lost on me that maybe this is one of the most poignant ways to show just how critical research is,” she wrote. “Cancer is nothing if not incredibly inconvenient and we need more options.” Just five weeks later—10 years after she was diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC), a...

Aubrey Garcia, a 7-year-old girl from Plainville, Kansas, had a crowd of people in tears of joy as she pushed her way through her first-ever track race, a 50-meter dash, on May 14. Her mom, Chelsea Garcia, watched as Aubrey stumbled at one point, but kept going, her determined grit shining through as she pushed forward in her leg braces one step at a time. “I don’t even know how to describe how we felt to watch her accomplish something like this,” she told Runner’s World. “It was just breathtaking to see something happen that you never thought you would...

It was hard to miss seeing Manny Garcia either out for a run or coaching soccer in his hometown of Mission, Texas, in 2014. He was out running almost every morning before his teaching job at Nikki Rowe High School, and then back out to coach the soccer team in the afternoons. He was healthy, though the runs were to shed a few unwanted pounds to get him below 200. That was his only goal, at least until January 2, 2014. He had finished soccer practice and mowed the lawn, so he lay down to watch TV. That was the...

Most Tuesdays, I run early in the morning with a woman named Meredith. For such close friends, we’re quite different. Meredith is a voluble social worker who draws energy from crowds. I’m an introverted editor who works from home. Meredith runs her best in large races and loves training with big groups. I’ve set PRs in solo time trials and tend to bail when a run’s head count gets above five. Meredith is a worrier, beset by regrets and anticipated outcomes, who has sought treatment for anxiety. I have dysthymia, or chronic low-grade depression. We like to joke that Meredith...

Growing up, Kelly Pietkiwicz, 29, wasn’t a runner. Sprints were her least favorite form of exercise, and she gravitated to swimming and competitive cheerleading instead. But while she was preparing to move to Nashville, Tennessee, from Memphis after college, she wanted to find a way to keep connected to Memphis. The answer? The St. Jude’s Half Marathon. “St. Jude’s Research Hospital is located in Memphis, and I had volunteered there,” she told Runner’s World. “My sister Micky was also leaving Memphis, and we both felt like we needed a way to keep Memphis a part of our lives.” So when...

After a six-year hiatus from running, Anne Mahlum got back into it big time, finishing up her goal of completing a marathon on every continent. Her last remaining one? Antarctica. She crossed that off her list on March 17, and she did it for a good cause: She ended up raising $102,927 for the New York City chapter of Back on My Feet, a nonprofit she had founded in 2007 that uses​ running and community to empower people experiencing homelessness. While Mahlum hadn’t laced up in six years, she wasn’t inactive. She had been busy growing her boutique fitness company...

In February, Bonnie VanDeraa approached the finish line of the Sweetheart 5K in Tulsa, Oklahoma. With a determined look in her eye, and loads of cheers from the crowd, she focused on putting one foot in front of the other. This race was a major milestone for her; it was the first she’d complete without the aid of a walker in more than a year. At that point, VanDeraa had been running for a little more than five years, starting after she signed up for that same race back in 2014 with a coworker. Following that, she completed a bunch...

Holding your keys between your knuckles. Rearranging your schedule to squeeze in a daytime workout. Constantly scanning your surroundings. Avoiding running alone in the dark. Ask any female runner and she will tell you that she’s had to take one or more of these precautions at some point when running outside in public spaces like running trails or city streets. It’s not just the fear of assault that keeps women off the streets when night falls, but the tragic murders of young women like Mollie Tibbetts, Wendy Martinez, or Vanessa Marcotte that hit close to home. Because of this, many...

When Anastasia Pursel crossed the finish line of the Bakersfield Half Marathon, she did it with a team by her side. As she ran through the straightaway the morning of November 18, her friends Bryan Matthews and James Miller held each of her hands. While the crowd cheered enthusiastically, Matthews carried a hand-painted sign with the message, “Victory Is Mine.” Only 8 years old, Pursel is already a fighter. At 17 months, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a cancer that starts in the bone marrow. After six months in the hospital and another six months in isolation,...