Angie Salas (Runner Angie)
Runner of the Month
February, 2007

“I run just for the love of running." How many of us say that? But do we really? Or is there always that next race, or latest PR in our mind? Can we really say it honestly?

Angie Salas can, and she does. Growing up in Waterloo , Iowa the second oldest of eight brothers and sisters, being active always came in handy. “I rode my bike everywhere, even in high school. It was easier to sneak out of the house on a bike than in a car,” claims Angie. Running didn’t introduce itself until a couple years later, though, when activity would become more necessary to counteract the demands of college life in the College of Nursing at the University of Iowa .

That’s also when Angie would adapt the somewhat unique habit of early morning running. Any weather, any day, 5:00 a.m. meant it was time for a run. This continued after college and into the real world where she would find early morning runs essential to keeping balance in her life. Working as a full time nurse, Angie also found running a great way to socialize with coworkers, talk about something other than “hospital shop talk” and relieve stress at the same time.

It wasn’t all stress, though. That hospital is also where she would meet her husband, Hillard. It wasn’t long after they’d met that Angie was dragging him out at 5:00 a.m. for a run, as well. “On one run he fell through a hole covered in snow and ice and had to finish the rest of the run with me with a freezing, wet foot.” Wow, that really must have been love. Hillard also got Angie into cycling around that time, which she found to be great cross training though, from what I can tell, she didn’t have to sneak out of the house anymore.

Before long, Angie and Hillard’s daughters, Megan and Sarah were born. Time obviously being at a premium with kids, Angie found running to be the one activity she would stick with. That 5:00 a.m. wake-up call for running must have worked well with feeding schedules? It was after having her second daughter that Angie decided to train for a marathon. “Up until that point, I thought people who wanted to run that far were just insane,” says Angie. But (surprise here) Angie enlisted her sister to run early in the morning with her and together they trained for a marathon. Trained being the operative word.

“I have never been ashamed to say that I’ve trained for more marathons than I’ve started and I’ve started more marathons than I’ve finished.” You may have heard or read Angie saying this before. It’s not as common among runners, to admit defeat. With Angie, though, it’s anything but. Along with knowing about running, training, injury and (often quite helpful to many of us) the human body, Angie also knows herself. She knows when she’s feeling good, when she’s not and when to listen to all of that. Part of that might be why the completion of her first marathon came at the Old Las Vegas Marathon in 2002. “It was wonderful,” she says, and now believes that might have been a bit of a “sign” that she’d meet all of the people that now make up the LVM21 Club.

As the President of the LVM21 Club, Angie is a great resource giving advice on training, health, exercise-induced asthma (after experiencing it herself one scary morning) and even the occasional cheer for, how would you say it, noisemaking during a run? You’ll hardly ever find her tooting her own “Running Horn” though. For that I had to dig a little further. Turns out Angie owns an age group win and a 2nd overall win for the 2005 Central States Marathon. On a cold, windy day (25 m.p.h. winds, actually) on gravel roads out in the middle of cornfields, Angie finished the race at 4:11. The only person to finish before her? A good friend she’d talked into doing the marathon with her. She also won her age group at a half marathon in Cedar Falls , Iowa and had a half-marathon P.R. in 2006 as well. None of these is particularly important to Angie though. “She just runs and runs and runs,” says Hillard.

All along, though, Angie will tell you one of the greatest benefits of running has been the people she’s met and the friends she’s made along the way. She’s very involved in her local running club in Dubuque , Iowa where she and Hillard live with their daughters Megan and Sarah, now seven and nine. It’s there in Dubuque where Angie is the race director for a local half-marathon and is looking forward to the day she can run a one mile run and a 5K with her daughters. She hopes to continue running for many years to come, well into “old age.”

Look out, though, if you’re ever in Dubuque. There will be a woman out running the roads, Winter or Summer, at 5:00 a.m. and even if you’re not an early riser, she’ll probably talk you into in anyway.

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