FALL 2026

Lessons from Stamata

Training Camp

WORDS BY TEAL BURRELL

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRENDAN DAVIS

Everyone is crying.

It’s day three of Stamata training camp, day less-than-365 of knowing each other, and we’re sitting on the screened-in porch of a cottage in Glen Arbor, Michigan, speckled sunlight peeking through the woods. Fourteen women sitting in a circle, crying over goals that scare us. Crying for our friends: masters athletes whose bodies are betraying them, women who are spread too thin, doubters struggling with past shortcomings.

But with each teary confession, we are also cheering and nodding. Holding back from shouting, “Yes, you are justified in wanting that! You can do it!” We understand why it’s hard to voice it. Why it’s scary, why it’s emotional, and why we want it so badly regardless.

My turn comes. I share my big scary goal: to PR again.

I haven’t PRed in eight years. I’m 41, a mom of two, and my best days might be behind me. I qualified for the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials, an absolute dream come true. Consider this trajectory: I wasn’t fast enough to run collegiately.  I finished my first marathon in over four hours, and for a long time wasn’t sure a Boston qualifier was possible. But I was gritty and determined and got faster, becoming bold enough to dream of the Trials, despite the logical doubts. Since qualifying in 2016, I’ve told anyone who will listen that we are all capable of more than we think.

Then I failed to qualify for 2024. I blamed injuries, a rough return from my second kid, running out of time in training. But maybe time wasn’t on my side in a different way. Maybe I was (am) too old.

After 2024, I struggled to combat the doubts I once conquered. I applied to Stamata wanting to chase the 2028 standard, but more so wanting to meet other women who share these same dreams and these same doubts.  

Running has always been a shortcut to  friendship. Sharing miles leads to sharing something deeper, an intimacy forged through hard work. I’ve seen these women four times, yet they feel like old friends. At camp, we commiserate about hot races and strange pacers and discuss wedding plans and motherhood. We sit on the dock, crystal-clear water lapping below, and talk about busted toenails, the lack of fast spring marathons, the best Reese’s flavors. We take a sunset cruise, laugh through TikTok skits, and end a run at Lake Michigan, the brave ones diving in. We go to the overlook at Pierce Stocking Drive but are forbidden from climbing down—and back up—the steep 450-foot sand dune. (“It will ruin tomorrow’s workout.”) We are on a vacation from our real lives, play-acting as pro-runners, savoring being treated like them.

On Sunday morning, long run workout day, things get slightly more serious. Everyone is fueling up, strategizing paces and groups. But there are also high fives, dance moves disguised as drills, and twinning in our Tracksmith gear.

The workout is two miles at half-marathon pace, one mile float, three miles at half-marathon pace, one mile float, four miles at marathon pace, one mile float, one mile fast. The paces for my group, “the Cheetahs,” intimidate me, but I’m hoping for a boost from the pack. Last fall, the day after meeting these women, they pulled me to my best workout in months. Still, Maria and I aim to start slower than the others, at 6:05.

We don’t. I run 6:01 for the first mile and am off the back. I’m reminded: these ladies 
are fast.

The other Cheetahs beat the time goals. I’m going the other direction. But when I meet up with Maria on our floats, she is nothing but relentless positivity. In our first workout together, in February in Flagstaff, I was dying from the altitude, and Maria just Would. Not. Give. Up. She kept grinding, getting the work done however she could. In Michigan, I try to stay with her, to emulate her attitude. I keep falling back.  

For the final mile, I cut my recovery short to start with the group. We’re off, and I’m just a few steps behind. It’s only one mile, but it cruelly ends uphill. When I finish, the emotion I’ve been holding in for 13 miles catches in my throat, stinging my eyes as I gasp for breath.

It feels like a missed opportunity. Perfect weather and teammates are advantages I don’t often have back home in Virginia. I want to be alongside these women, not behind, but worry I never will be.

Afterwards, Steph offers insight. Alyssa a hug. Katy and Sarah an opportunity to talk it out. More advantages I don’t have working out alone: comfort, understanding. As we brunch and joke together, I realize that I did run faster than at home. The camaraderie, the cheers when we crossed paths on the out-and-backs, the chasing, it all helped.

Still, later that day, sitting on the porch sharing our goals, I worry I seem delusional. That workout was not evidence a PR is possible.

My teammates don’t care. They know we all have days when things aren’t clicking. That if you keep putting in the work and believing, you are more capable than you think. It’s what I’ve told others for years. Now, they echo it back. When Allie and Maria, two other masters athletes and mothers, shared their goals, I shared my confidence in them. On my turn, they are a mirror, bouncing that confidence right back. That’s what I get from this team: not just teammates and friends, gear and vacations, but support, hope, and people in my corner. 

That night, the tears come again. (Turns out, there’s crying in running. A lot.) We’re previewing an episode of the YouTube series, and the emotions on the screen hit us in the cabin. We’re reminded how hard this dream is, how nothing is guaranteed, how the marathon can break your heart.

Witnessing that only makes me want it more. The women squished together on these couches will head back to full-time jobs and families and pressing obligations, but will find the time and energy and will to keep training. Watching them grit through the tough days and hold each other up in the aftermath reminds me this dream takes one hell of a fight, but it’s worth fighting for. Fighting to discover what’s possible, to show that moms and masters and women in general are capable of much more than we’re told. I leave camp the way I leave every weekend with my teammates: inspired, with renewed determination to get to the point that I can line up alongside them and chase our dreams together.