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Five Stories to Make Your Trail-Loving Heart Soar

This Valentine’s Day, enjoy our favorite heart-forward articles hand-selected from the Trail Runner vault

Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app.

Want to know the best part about today? Today, society loses some of its stigma around vulnerability, around fully expressing love and affection. Today, we celebrate others, no matter how big or small, no matter how romantic or platonic. 

Go ahead. Bake those heart-shaped brownies for your neighbor. Write a stack of love notes to tell your besties all the things you most admire about them. Eat chocolate until CVS runs out. Take a minute to shout “I LOVE YOU!” from the rooftops to everyone you know, and to yourself.

At Trail Runner, we are celebrating today by sharing some of our favorite stories about the many ways we can fall in love: with our partners, our friends, our trails, and most importantly, ourselves.

1. The Beating Heart of Nolan’s

By Zoë Rom

The two adventurers that fell in love with each other, then the legendary line linking 14 of Colorado’s highest peaks.

2. How Two Strangers Teamed Up To Win One Of The Toughest Stage Races on Earth

By Brian Metzler

A last-minute change of plans left one Colorado elite athlete seeking a partner for the grueling 8-day TransAlpine Run. She found her on a mountain. Wearing heels.

 

3. My Trail Running Valentine

By Zoë Rom

It’s not you, it’s me. To be more specific, it’s my temperamental Achilles tendon. And lately, my tendon needs some space.

4. Trail-Running Couples Share Their Best Running-Date Stories

By The Editors at Trail Runner

Trail runners do romance a little differently: less candlelight and heart-shaped truffles, more mud and hastily ingested sugars.

5. How Rob Krar and Christina Bauer Balance Running and Marriage

By The Editors at Trail Runner

Krar and Bauer, who live in Flagstaff, Arizona, have been learning how to balance Krar’s rising star with a lifestyle that suits them both, not to mention full-time jobs—Krar recently decided to leave his gig as a graveyard-shift pharmacist to focus on running; Bauer is a counselor at a charter school.