Q&A with Former Pro Runner Melody Fairchild

Melody Fairchild, 44, of Boulder, CO, was a high-school running phenom. She was so talented at such a young age that it’s argued she was “the best high school distance runner of all time.” For context, Fairchild started running when she was 10, and not by outside pressure; she ran because she wanted to.

She won the highly-competitive Bolder Boulder 10K as a high schooler. Three times in a row. And then, if that wasn’t enough, she brought home eight state titles in cross country and track combined, twice won the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships (a near impossibility), and became the first high-school female athlete ever to break the 10-minute barrier in the two-mile (it would be 22 years before anyone broke that record).

And so, it would seem that Fairchild had a successful professional running career stretched ahead of her as far as the mind could see. It didn’t happen that way. She battled eating disorders all through middle school long before her record-setting high school performances. Her eating disorder was a perform storm; developed from her intense perfectionism and athletic drive plus the emotional turmoil created from her father’s alcoholism, her mother’s fatal fight with cancer, and intense family financial struggles. Regulating what she ate was Fairchild’s way of assuming control, however fleeting it was.

Thankfully, she was able to recover and, as she says, learn to “eat to win” throughout high school, college, and a four-year professional running career. Ultimately, though, she was led in a different direction, one that would bring Fairchild full circle back to the sport in a different way.

To understand what happened and the important work she’s doing today, we sat down with Fairchild to learn more:

You started running when you were 10 and very quickly rose to the top. How and why do you think you were able to do this?My soul found running by two things in my environment: the beauty of the Rocky Mountains (if I ran far enough up the canyon where I grew up, I caught an inspirational glimpse of those mountains), and the inspiring community of World Class runners floating through the streets of Boulder. When I saw them, I knew I wanted to be just like them.

The Bolder Boulder 10K road race had much to do with planting the seeds of my competitive fire, as this was the one running event I ran even during my elementary and middle-school years. I would win my age group and be rewarded with coveted medals and records every year. And my times kept dropping.

If your eating disorder was improving, what drew you away from professional running?
The process of becoming fully at peace with how to nourish me as an elite athlete unfolded throughout high school, college, and as a professional. I got serious about learning how to eat to win and I hired a professional nutritionist.

An eating disorder was not what caused my professional running career to end; it simply wasn’t that black and white.

The combination of these three things led me to diffuse my myopic focus on professional running: a burning curiosity about life and human nature, a passion for meaningful connection with others, and the desire to give back to running after it had given so much to me.

I began to satisfy my curiosity by studying the Feldenkrais Method (a mindful movement method), and I began coaching. After a poor performance at the 2000 Olympic Trials, I lost my sponsorship contract, and needed to find new ways to pay my rent.

You started coaching adolescent female runners, something you’re still doing today though summer camps. Why do you see this as necessary work?
Girls need support and reminders to keep their dreams alive when so many images from the media are suggesting that they should spend their energy and time altering how they look.

Girls need a supportive circle of women who are living examples of how to live authentic lives, women who dare to be vulnerable in sharing their stories of ‘becoming.’ We offer all of this at my camps, as well as challenging runs on Colorado trails and education on training, nutrition for athletic success, mindfulness, core strength and form, and writing as a way a to stay connected to the ‘real’ you (and also to document your journey).

Out of everything that you’ve seen as a coach, mentor, and running leader, what do you think is the most prominent risk for the next generation of female athletes?
MEDIA.

How can we teach them to overcome the inherent risk of absorbing too much media?
Create a disciplined intake of media. Turn it off, go outside, and move.

How do you teach mindfulness in your camps and why is this necessary?
We sit silently in nature and practice deep breathing, which changes brainwave states. We do it long enough for campers to feel the difference in their thought patterns and their physical bodies. We also write, in both structured and unstructured ways. It helps campers to begin to see that, like in meditation, they can become witnesses to their lives and develop the intuition and confidence to be responsive rather than reactive.

Knowing all that you know now, and after working with so many young women, what sort of advice would you go back and give to your younger self?
Trust yourself.
Be kind to yourself.
You are allowed to get off track because ‘off track’ is where your real living and learning happens.
Take a moment (or take days) to breathe and to listen to yourself.
Talk to a trusted friend (or even a brand new person you just met on the street) before you make a life-altering decision.
Sniff out JOY; unbridled, authentic JOY is the secret to success. Seriously.

In addition to coaching and hosting yearly camps, Fairchild leads a women’s run group three times per week in Boulder, coaches the Boulder Mountain Warriors, a youth running program for ages seven to 14, and is a mother to two-year-old Dakota. Find out more about Fairchild here.