In our weekly Q&A segment we asked Oiselle pro athlete, Little Wing coach and Picky Bars co-founder, Lauren Fleshmen a few questions about life on and off the track. We caught up with her as she was gearing up to head out to New Mexico in preperation to start off this year's indoor season.

What is the number one question you have answered on your blog Ask Lauren Fleshman?

The top questions I get are about injuries, food/weight, and pressure, and my top askers are high school and college athletes, guys and girls.

Describe your childhood dream.

From the time I was six I wanted to be a person with super powers. At first that meant a person who could bend a spoon with her mind, or teleport, or see ghosts, but by fifth grade I started noticing ways some people through history had a super power to move others to see the world differently and inspire action. I wanted to be Martin Luther King, or Toni Morrison, or Bob Dylan.

Describe your fondest race memory.

Sophomore year of college, at Hayward Field, I won my first NCAA title in the 5k, beating defending champ Kara Goucher, (my teammate at Oiselle now). Right before my warmup, a fifth year senior dude I looked up to said, "What are you going to try to do in this race?" I said "I want to win." He said, "Just don't try so hard to win that you end up 12th." In the race I kept my cool and made a massive move with 600 to go and won. In the finish area I was numb. It just didn't feel real. I ran my cool down alone, and as I crossed the footbridge towards Pre's Trails, I stopped right in the middle of the bridge and looked over the edge at the Willamette River rushing below me. I had the sudden urge to jump, which I wouldn't do because it would be the end of me, but what I craved was the sensation of flight. All the pressure and energy of the race was stuck inside me, and I wanted to release it somehow. I ran back over the bridge to the middle of this big grass field and lay down on my back, arms and legs wide like a snow angel, and stared up at the sky. I swear to god it felt like my heart opened up and I just started laughing. With nobody around me I just let it all sink in that I had been brave, and I had done it, and I didn't need to be humble or put it into words for anyone else. I knew it may never happen again, and it was something very few people ever get to experience, and I wanted to feel all of it. After a few minutes I got up and ran back to my team, and that was it.

Describe your worst habit.

I'm like Doug the dog in the movie "Up" where I'm like "SQUIRREL!" meaning I drop everything and go 1 billion % into whatever latest thing caught my attention. This means I'm chronically late, disorganized, and need a personal assistant to keep me functioning like a normal human.

Describe what it is like training with Little Wing?

I'm the coach of four pro women, Kate Grace, Christine Babcock, and sisters Mel and Collier Lawrence. I also train with them obviously since I'm a pro runner too. So we meet up for practices and I give everyone the workout and we go kill it. We do what every pro group does, we train hard, eat brunch, lift weights, do PT, and talk about running. But we have our own vibe going too. Everyone works at least a few hours a week part time for balance and healthy distraction, and has their own life outside of sports. Our houses are full of rollers, therabands, rocker boards, trampolines, and other PT tools, and we have everything we could possibly need to reach our potential thanks to our support crew at Oiselle, Rebound, Focus PT, and our massage therapist Justine Lucia.

Describe the kind of kid you were in high school.

Runner nerd. I don't know I was a lot of things, but mostly a runner nerd. Our school had all these trees with benches around them and different cliques claimed them. Of course the runners had our own tree, but I had friends at lots of trees. I was an AP student, I had a best friend Spazzy, and we looked alike down to our Levi 501's and our Doc Martins. I didn't get boobs until senior year, so I wasn't exactly a dude magnet. Pretty nieve, secretly pining after the Mormon boys, that kind of thing. I won Homecoming Queen senior year, which I'm pretty sure was some kind of totally bizarre revenge of the nerds prank.

If you had a day off from your everyday responsibilities, describe how you would spend it.

I'd teleport to the John Muir wilderness, mid backpack trip, and walk 20 miles with Malindi Elmore.

Describe your most embarrassing moment as an athlete.

At the Birmingham Invitational, I was attempting my first sub 5:00 mile and was late to the start. Everyone was lined up and I came running across the infield in my sweats to the starter yelling "wait! wait!" He paused and everyone stood there, toes on the startline as I stripped off my sweats, unfortunately pulling down my racing shorts with them.

Tell us about your favorite memory with one of your current or past training partners.

I have hundreds of memories of running with Alicia Shay, my Stanford Teammate from Gillette, Wyoming. They all blend together into one memory with different backgrounds from Red Rock Canyons to urban bike paths, to forrest trails, to Buffalo Park, to racing side by side in Terra Haute at NCAA's where we finished 3rd and 4th; the conversations range from nutrition to God to love to loss to the path of a soul to the sound of only footsteps, on snow, on pine needles, on asphault, on gravel roads, on tartan track. There's nobody I love running with more than Alicia Shay.

Describe the perfect post-race meal in detail.

Easy. Burger. Fries. Crux Double Cross. Friends who haven't showered or changed yet. Bib number still on under my warmups. Banged up wood table. Knees crowded together under it. Johnny Cash on the radio.

Describe your favorite workout?

8-10 x 1k on dirt in 3:12 - 3:15 with 1:30 recovery.

Who is your childhood hero and why?

My high school coach, Dave DeLong was my childhood hero because he LOVED running, and poured himself into creating a team that spread that love to everyone. Alumni would come back 2, 5, 10 years later full of memories from high school cross country, and clearly thought of The DeLongs as family.

Describe your guilty pleasure.

Staying up until 2am writing.

If you could give one piece of advice to any runner that is looking to compete at the next level, what would it be and why?

Learn about sports psychology. Doing the work is not enough.

Describe your favorite place to run or train.

Bend, Oregon baby! That's why I moved here and why Little Wing is here. A good place to train has several great long run options, preferably some along water and others in the mountains with cool views. It has a flat 1000 and 1600 meter stretch of dirt for intervals. It has four seasons, with 300 days of sunshine and less than one month of snow. The ideal training town has enough going on to give you a reason to leave the house now and then, but not so much happening that you feel like a loser staying in more often than not.

If you had to listen to 1 song in your head every time you ran for the rest of you life, what would it be?

All roads lead to insanity on this one. I refuse to answer. Ok I'd pick Become Ocean by John Luther Adams, grudgingly.

Dinner for 3 (living or dead) who and why?

I'd pick a dead person but then I'm pretty sure we'd end up wasting all our time talking about the internet or something. So I'm gonna say Barack and Michelle Obama because I'm really curious to know the difference between what they dreamed it would be like, and what it is really like.

Describe your pre-race ritual.

Most of my races are in the evening so I wake up with my heart beating out of my chest. Maybe do a 15 min shakeout run to calm down. Eat. Distract myself. Eat. Take a nap and set alarm for 35 minutes before I have to leave for the race. When it goes off I shower, braid my hair, get my kit on, quadruple check my backpack, and leave. I like to get to the race 90 minutes before the start so I can just chill out and listen to music or joke around with friends. 50 minutes before the race I warmup.

What is the one song you just can't help but dance to?

Avicii "Good Feeling"

What does racing/training look like for you in the next 6 months?
Jan 2 – Feb 5th Altitude Training in Albuquerque, NM.
Feb 7th: USA XC Nationals no longer happening for me due to missing the last four weeks with bursitis on my heel, but I'll be there as a coach.
Feb 13/14 Husky Classic, indoor meet, Seattle WA
Mid/late March: A road race TBD.
April 16/17th: Mt Sac Relays. Walnut, CA or Oregon Relays in Eugene
April 19th-May 3: Sea Level training in Palo Alto, CA.
May 2nd: Payton Jordan Invitational at Stanford.
May 15th ish: Oxy High Performance Meet in LA area.
May 30: Pre Classic (would like to do Pre or NY, but lots of factors determine this: which events they have, if I get in, etc)
June 13 New York Diamond League (see above)
June 13/14 Portland Track Festival: This is a local race with good conditions that is well organized that could be a great tune up for USA’s.
June 25-28 USA Championships Eugene, OR. 5k most likely.