Kasie Enman: The Skyracer When she isn’t helping at her daughter’s school or running her family’s maple sugaring business, Kasie Enman is off and running around the world. Literally. The 35-year-old mother of two from Huntington has been the surprise standout on the international Sky Racing Circuit. For the past two years, she has been beating some of Europe’s top talent in this series of ultramarathons at elevations of 2,000 feet or more. In 2014, Enman tied for second in the Skyrunning World Series Ultra category, even though it was only her second season of racing ultramarathons. In 2015, Enman continued to succeed on both national and international levels, despite plaguing injuries that have disrupted her training schedule. In February, she competed at the MSIG Sai Kung 50k in Hong Kong, a grueling race with countless steep ascents and descents, as well as a long and exposed ridge run. The heat was punishing, but she was able to power through to a third-place finish. Back on home turf in May, Enman won the women's division of Burlington’s Vermont City Marathon, with a time of 2:49:04. However, she describes this second VCM win as “bittersweet” since she was six minutes shy of her goal time of 2:43, the standard qualification for the Olympic Trials Marathon. In the 2008 Olympic Trials Marathon she finished 11th. The Middlebury College grad rounded out her summer successes in July with a silver medal at the U.S Mountain Running Championships in Oregon, which was good enough to land her a spot on the U.S. World Mountain Running Team for the second time. Although she was injured for most of September, Enman still pulled off an 11th-place finish at the World Mountain Running Championships in Wales and was part of the U.S. silver medal team. Given her impressive results this year, it is difficult to believe that Enman is not at the top of her game. “I haven’t really been able to perform at my best in a while,” she said. “But I am confident that I still have a few PRs and great races left in me once I catch a break.” In addition to training, Enman and her sister-in-law, Molly Peters, have been involved in a movement to make race distances equal for men and women in both mountain running championships as well as in the NCAA (see “Speak Up.”) If anyone has doubts about women being capable of racing the same distances as men, all they have to do is take a look at Enman’s career.
Flo Meiler: Setting World Records, at 81 Although some women today may take for granted their opportunity to participate in high school, collegiate and professional athletics, Flo Meiler
Huntington's Kasie Enman has become a force on the world Sky Racing circuit in races like this marathon in Zermatt. Photo courtesy Drozo/Salomon.
Meiler has received recognition for her accomplishments from The New York Times and CNN. She was also named the USA Track and Field Athlete of the Week at Nationals and is currently in the running for the IAAF Best Masters honors.
Mat Fraser: The Fittest in the World
You can't keep Flo Meiler down. At 81, she is still setting world records. Photo by Eliot Burg
remembers a time when women were excluded from sports. At 81, Meiler grew up long before Title IX. However, the Shelburne resident never let that hold her back and is proving that it’s never too late to pursue your dreams. The end of 2015 marks an amazingly successful year for Meiler. Going into the National Senior Games held in July she set her sights on advancing to
the World Masters Athletics Outdoor Championships in Lyon, France the following month. She qualified easily, picking up eight gold medals along the way. Then, in France, she set two additional world master records (to add to her existing 25); one in heptathlon and another in the 4 x 100-meter relay. In addition, she collected ten medals at the meet, five of which were gold.
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This past summer, Colchester’s Mat Fraser stood before one of his toughest adversaries: a 600-pound block of rubber named simply “The Pig.” Surrounded by screaming spectators, the 25-yearold went to work under the sweltering California sun flipping the massive block end over end. Held in Carson, Calif., this event was CrossFit’s highest level of international competition—simply called “The Games”—and the title of “fittest on earth” was on the line. Fraser was among the top 40 men and 40 women looking to claim it. But more on that later. Standing at 5’6” and weighing 185 pounds, Fraser has developed a talent for lifting some very heavy things very quickly. Fraser became involved with competitive weight lifting in high school in Colchester and attended the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., for two years after graduating. But at 19, he suffered a back injury from overtraining. After surgery, he returned
DECEMBER/JANUARY 2015-16