Welcome to Season 25 of the Platte River Fitness Series! We hope to continue to live our “why” by “bringing people and causes together in a collaborative effort so that individuals can achieve whole human health in a flourishing community.”
Read MoreThere is an old adage about “building the plane as it flies.” At first glance that may seem like a bad plan, and it would definitely be impossibly bad if taken in the literal sense. I think the phrase is really about the nature of creating. Loft something skyward and then create the lift any idea needs to gain altitude. This kind of on-the-go building and creating leaves room for adjustment, adaptation, thinking and the ever-necessary rethinking. Most of all, it keeps the visibility clear for innovation. It will soon be 25 years since the PRFS took flight with the barest frame of an idea.
Read MoreNovember is here which means there are only two events left in the 2025 season of the Platte River Fitness Series. The final two events are also special holiday events that bring family and friends together in a warm and wonderful way. I love them and look forward to both. I also look forward to the hectic final part of the year as a time of building something even better. I thought it might be interesting to learn more about what goes on during the final months of the year! It is anything but boring!
Read MoreThe first test was a cold, pelting rain throughout the entire event. Wet heads went into wet helmets and water ran like a river out of little running shoes. The second test this group of athletes faced was a race director who had just one skill and not much else. Her only skill was a wholehearted desire to make sure children were included in what was being built.
Read MoreThis month, we take a look back at an event where the power of running to change “maybe someday” to “if not now, when?” became manifest. On August 16, 2015, 54 women from our local area joined together in a spirit of unity and sisterhood, 17 women running 13.1 miles and 37 running 26.2 in the all-women Leading Ladies Marathon.
Read MoreAccording to the Google AI overview of why a twenty-fifth anniversary is silver, it is because “silver symbolizes the strength, longevity and the elegance of a long-lasting relationship.” That sounds right to me for marriages and for the Platte River Fitness Series. By the time school begins in mid-August, we will have completed fourteen events with only five remaining in our 2025 season.
Read More“Community” can mean many things to many different people.
Read MoreHenry Ford is famously quoted as saying “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” I like that framework a great deal and I think we can use it almost as a template as we reach the twenty-five-year milestone for the Platte River Fitness Series in 2026.
Read MoreMovement is medicine for all the parts of us that are woven into what allows us flourish. May is Mental Health Awareness month, but anyone who is paying attention is already aware that our mental health lives alongside our physical health, and the two are inextricably linked together.
Read MoreSince the PRFS’s inception, April means triathlon in North Platte, first as the James O’Rourke Memorial Triathlon and now the Tri-Nebraska Triathlon. There is this feeling, the kind that really doesn’t have a name, that comes over me every April.
Read MoreMarch is like a signpost. It may still be cold and may even snow sometimes, but dawn breaks sooner, and the sun sets later, and we know Spring is peaking around the corner on the road up ahead. March is the sign that tells us to keep moving forward, knowing our reward for surviving winter is coming. March is also the traditional beginning of the Platte River Fitness Series racing season. Like the seasons, 2025 will bring a few changes. Change can be challenging but it can also bring variety, new experiences and new opportunities inside an initiative that is now 24 years old.
Read MoreWe made it through the pandemic with a virtual triathlon, and this time, we will have a beautiful new pool and a gorgeous facility as our ultimate reward.
Read More
When I was in college (when dinosaurs roamed the earth), I became interested in a concept of community change centered around the phrase “an idea whose time has come.” The idea comes from French writer Victor Hugo who said, “Nothing else in all the world…not all the armies…is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” An idea whose time has come is an idea that a community is ready for. In 2026, the Platte River Fitness Series will reach a landmark year, celebrating its 25th year as an idea our community was ready for.
Read MoreOur January blog is taking a look back at the persistent, the dedicated, the resolute, the inspired. We celebrate the culmination of what makes the Platte River Fitness Series a series, the Points Competition and the Finisher’s Challenge.
Read MoreI have never written one of those “year in review” letters we sometimes receive in our Christmas card from family and friends. Bear with me. I think it takes a special talent to sum up a year in the length of a page or two. With no experience, I might not be very good at it. It is good to do things we might not be very good at, so here goes.
Read MoreThe sky was still dark at the pre-dawn gathering, a time I call “the magic hour.” As the field of marathoners began to build, the starting line swollen with runners, the anticipation of what lay ahead was palpable.
Read MorePRFS athlete Kisha Arnold’s story is a reminder of the real and metaphorical ways that a tree, a “touch tree” is not just beautiful but orienting. It can help us find our way when we step off the path of living a healthy, flourishing life.
Read MoreThere is something powerful about the ways we affect one another, sometimes without even knowing that we’ve made a difference.
Read MoreThe world will soon be watching as athletes, the highest of the high performers from all around the world, gather in Paris for the Olympics. The competition will be mesmerizing and the stories moving and compelling.
Read More
