Celebrating the hard work of a few 2025 Mountain Ridge athletes

The Grand Canyon, courtesy PD GOHil

As we get 2026 underway, I’d like to take a quick step back and congratulate a few endurance athletes that worked super hard last year to accomplish some very lofty goals!

PD Gohil

In December 2024, PD approached me about his long-time goal of a Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim run. Interestingly, he had no ultrarunning or trail running experience. He did have experience with long hikes in the outdoors and hunts at western altitudes. 

Clearly, PD had a huge desire to push himself, though sometimes, it’s that desire that gets us into trouble, especially as newer runners! I always want people to have longevity in running and improve their health, which is where we all must strike a balance.

This would be a tough 46+ mile adventure that PD hoped to achieve in May 2025. Not only does a person have to be physically conditioned for such a task, they must sustain a big psychological load to navigate and emotionally self-regulate. They need a willingness to self-rescue in an emergency and they have to self-support by carrying their food and water since there are few places to resupply. 

PD’s a busy guy with kids and owns multiple businesses, some of which require heavier physical labor that is taxing enough to affect training and recovery. Our first task was building a bigger aerobic base, which wasn’t always the easiest in WV’s winter. That’s where cross training on the bike was beneficial to avoid getting too much of a run beat-down but build base time. And knowing the canyon would require big ascending and descending, using the stair stepper and steeply inclined treadmill helped build more base and break up monotony, yet have specificity. 

Things didn’t always go smoothly, which is to be expected with so many new puzzle pieces to fit together. Sometimes PD’s body would retaliate from this new running idea. His inner shin and hip region soft tissues might occasionally become irritated, but we’d do a couple physical therapy interventions and adjust the plan to let things settle. Again, the cross training came in handy. Most importantly, he never gave up on his goal. 

As an intermediate goal, I suggested he experience his first ultra-distance while having aid station support well in advance of the Grand Canyon trip. He was able to enter the early April James River 50K near Gladstone, VA. This went splendidly with a finishing time of 6:12 for 21st overall and learning about regulating his hydration and nutrition as things became physically and mentally tougher.

Colorado River crossing, Photo Courtesy PD Gohil

Finally on May 21, 2025, PD set out into the Grand Canyon. He initially had some self doubts, as anyone would. I’ll let his words tell the most of the story: 

“My initial thought was there's no way a person can do what I'm about to attempt one way, let alone two. But then I reminded myself that I was capable, and many others had done the same before me.”

My barrage of warnings about controlling the descents, his quad soreness after the James River 50K, and online horror stories of other Grand Canyon runners persuaded PD into a controlled downhill pace. He worked especially hard on single leg strengthening in the month prior and felt that helped. He made it to the bottom of the canyon in two hours!

He said, “it was a fairly gentle climb for the next couple hours. I felt absolutely amazing! I made it to Manzanita where the big climb starts and took a few minutes to pack some extra water and get some more nutrition ready. The climb out on the north rim felt like an eternity. I was pretty sure I was never going to reach the top. But every time I turned around and looked at how far I had already come, it blew my mind.”

“I made it to the North rim in 7 hours and 10 minutes. Distance of 22.5 mi and gained about 6000 feet in elevation. My wife met me there and I was able to load up with more nutrition and water. I felt some blisters coming on and I re-taped my feet and changed socks. I was able to jog a considerable amount of the way through the canyon as the temps got hotter and hotter. I was tired. Damn tired. But I still felt good and felt like I had the energy to move. So I kept pushing. Made it to Phantom Ranch at 5 minutes after 4:00. I was supposed to get a lemonade and a Snickers, but I was 5 minutes too late. They closed at 4:00. That really sucked because I was looking forward to that lemonade big time. Fueled up with 4 liters of water. I began the 7 mile and 5,000 ft climb out of the canyon by 4:30ish.”

“The climb out was not as miserable as I envisioned, although it was slow. I took breaks as needed and worked my way all the way to the top. My nutrition worked out really well. I used liquid calories from (the) Skratch supercarb mix and the Skratch hydration as the bulk of my calories. I was able to eat some, but food was so repulsive it was almost unbearable to eat. Finishing in about 8 and 1/2 hours from the North rim to the south.” 

Natalie Capito

Natalie started off 2025 by completing a more mentally relaxed run at the Disney Marathon in mid-January. I don’t think the Disney running event scene was a perfectly dreamy experience for her as the course sounded a bit on the boring side with crazy early start times and the 3:00 AM shuttle bus to get to the start line sounds like a little much. Physically, however, Natalie was still pretty sharp and ran a 3:34!. 

By February she was starting to build miles for the Pittsburgh Marathon on May 4. Unfortunately, at Pittsburgh she didn’t feel her best, having had a few consecutive days of sleep disruption, but still ran a quick and respectable 3:35. 

In June, Natalie started to build for the Dingle Ireland Marathon where she ran a speedy 3:30 in 2024. This year, the weather was remarkably uncooperative with aggressive cross wind and headwind gusts. It was a tough day for most, slowing nearly everyone down, so she finished in 3:43. Unfortunately, even on days when your fitness can be great, it’s a lesson that many circumstances are not in our control. 

Natalie pushed on through but nasty weather struck again for her final race of the year too. A major December snowstorm hit our area the day prior to the event and prevented safe travel to what was to be her first 50K trail race, which was a bummer for the both of us. You know the course is bad if the race director is emailing everyone to say, “stay home!” At least it was a solid block of training and some good trail running experience to add into the mix that will come in beneficial next season. Next up: Pittsburgh Marathon, May 2026.

Disney World is a place with a marathon, Photo courtesy Natalie Capito

Sara Lunden

Sara had a huge year, kicking things off with the Cabin Fever 50K on February 15. I wasn’t envious of that one because the weather looked AWFUL. Something like 39 degrees and rain. The hardest conditions to regulate body temperature, nevermind the endless mud supply to slip and slide on. But she’s a tough cookie and buckled down to finish that one in 7:25.

Sara’s next goal was the Falling Water 100K on April 26 where she managed to cut two hours(!) off of her time from last year, running 18:09.

Falling Water 100K, Photo courtesy Sara Lunden

Once she recovered from that lengthy endeavor, our focus was mostly on completing longer adventure-oriented runs through the Mon National Forest and the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail. It’s important to have these kinds of days for friendly social interaction and for taking a mental break from a structured plan. But they still helped prepare her for the culminating event of the year - her first 100 miler at the Rim to River 100 on October 25. The weather turned out to be super, although the course decided to throw everyone a curveball as a big mudslide forced a sudden reroute mid-event. Nevertheless, Sara finished up strong in 28:49! This ultimately completed the New River Gorge Trifecta, which you can see has a pretty sweet trophy and buckle!

Next up: Gorge Waterfalls 50K in Oregon, April 2026. 

New River Gorge Trifecta, Photo courtesy Sara Lunden