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Summer on the Run is a 12-week blog and video series that follows former Olympic swimmer and avid runner Summer Sanders on her journey to train for Disney's Princess Half Marathon on Feb. 24. Follow her on espnW.com as she shares training tips, and a little inspiration, as she gears up for the main event.

By Summer Sanders

I run because it opens me up. It's me time, and every moment I'm out there is a challenge that I have to meet.

It's not easy. It reminds me of when I was swimming — it's freeing, it relieves my stress and it gives me focus. Those good feelings are not tied to one sport. They are part of athletes' universal language.

Running also opens up my creativity.

Why I am Running

I always have my smartphone on me, which is crucial when I run. I think of all kinds of ideas while I'm out there. I write them down in the notes section of my phone. It's just like working through feelings in your dreams or writing down your thoughts before you go to bed at night.

I also get back in the pool all the time. It's so normal for me. If I go for a 40-minute run, I'll get in the pool afterward for another 20 minutes. I use swimming like people use yoga — it complements my training and allows me to continue to run as often as I want. I stop at the wall and stretch. I love having swimming in my back pocket.

How I overcome certain training road blocks

I also have a girlfriend yoga night. Twice a month, we do sweaty, hot Vinyasa yoga and then go to dinner. I look forward to that night — to the workout and time with my friends; it makes working out more social, just like it was in college.

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By Sarah Spain

A couple of Saturdays ago, while you were watching college football or out buying a Christmas tree, 24-year-old Kelcey Harrison was running the last 20 miles of a 3,500-mile "jog" from Times Square to her hometown of San Francisco. Harrison, who graduated from Harvard, where she played soccer, is young, healthy and motivated. By the time she completed The Great Lung Run, she had logged 30 miles nearly every day for four months straight.

Harrison ran because she can. And because her lifelong friend Jill Costello — who was also once young and healthy and motivated — cannot.

On June 6, 2009, Costello, then a junior at Cal and a member of the crew team, was diagnosed with lung cancer. The disease was already at stage 4 and had spread; she was given about a year to live. Costello spent that year finishing school, earning Pac-10 Athlete of the Year honors, acting as vice president of the Panhellenic Council and doing tireless work for lung cancer charities — all while undergoing chemotherapy.

In May 2010, doctors told Costello she could not be cured; all they could do was try to make her last few weeks more comfortable. In those last weeks she walked across the stage at graduation (with a 4.0 GPA) and helped Cal to a second-place finish at the NCAA crew championships.

"Jill was really strong," Harrison said. "She was really confident that she was gonna be the one to beat stage 4 lung cancer. She was very convincing in her argument; even at the very end we really believed she was going to be the miracle."

Costello died June 24, 2010.

Natalie Coughlin’s trip to Rwanda provides firsthand insight

No. 1 Killer
A young, vibrant nonsmoker, Costello was the last person anyone would expect to get lung cancer. But 20 percent of the more than 20,000 women diagnosed with the disease each year have never smoked. Lung cancer is the No. 1 cancer killer in the United States, taking more lives than colon, breast and prostate cancer combined.

Great Lung Run

The goal of the Kelcey Harrison's run across the United States was to raise $250,000 for lung cancer research. Donations are being accepted here.

Despite the staggering stats, there are no pink ribbons worn or mustaches grown in the name of lung cancer. There is, instead, a stigma that the disease is self-inflicted; an illness brought on by a life of smoking. Research and funding is limited and the five-year survival rate for lung cancer is 15.5 percent; it hasn't budged in 40 years. More than half of all people with lung cancer die within a year of being diagnosed.

Costello hung on for 18 extra days.

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By Kate Fagan

What to do about Hope Solo?

That's a question nobody is asking yet — not publicly, anyway.

On Jan. 1, Tom Sermanni takes over as coach of the US women's national soccer team, a change that ensures that fresh eyes are about to evaluate every player on the roster, including the one who currently starts at goalkeeper: Solo.

To some people, this coaching change feels like switching the hood ornament on a luxury vehicle. The engine remains the same, doesn't it? We're talking about a team with significant momentum, only a few months removed from winning Olympic gold in London. The squad, which features several marketable women, is in the middle of a Fan Tribute Tour. For the next month, everything is smiles, high fives and no-pressure matches. This is the happy-go-lucky portion of the team's schedule, as "Fan Tribute Tour" is synonymous, of course, with "victory tour."

Hope Solo: 'I'm happy in my life'

But we are still two-and-a-half years removed from the team's next marquee event: the 2015 Women's World Cup. And anyone who thinks Sermanni won't be building his own engine, to match his brand of soccer, is kidding herself. Just as Pia Sundhage, the team's former coach, put her own stamp on things when she took over in 2007, Sermanni will have a new take on the roster, on what works and what doesn't, on who fits and who doesn't.

More specifically, he will need to decide whether Solo, who will be 34 years old in the summer of 2015, is still worth the occasional PR headache or if she's a case of diminished returns.

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By Jim Caple

While Hope Solo blocked shots during Tuesday's U.S. women's soccer team training session for an upcoming game against Ireland, 11-year-old Natalie Sacker stood near the goal at Jeld-Wen Field wearing a black Solo jersey with a cardboard sign at her side that read, "FC Salmon Creek Loves Hope Solo."

Alex Morgan's medal

In other words, Sacker is a big Solo fan. She has a 6-by-9-foot Fathead poster of the goalkeeper on her bedroom wall in her family's Vancouver, Wash., home. A goalkeeper too, Sacker also writes notes reminding herself to do things Solo does as a player.

So how did this girl respond two weeks ago when she read the bizarre story that her favorite player had married Jerramy Stevens just one day after the former football player had been arrested on suspicion of fourth-degree domestic violence?

Natalie simply told her mother, "I hope the marriage works out, and she is still a great soccer player."

"I think coming from someone that young, that's very wise," Stephanie Sacker said of her daughter's comments. "Not everything in your personal life is worth copying, but that certainly doesn't take away from you as an athlete and a role model in the sport. I thought that was very mature of her to recognize that. ... "You hope for the best and hope there is more to the story that maybe isn't quite as dramatic as it seems."

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By Shannon Owens

What's next for 17-year-old golf phenom Lexi Thompson after charging through junior and amateur competitions and becoming the youngest player at the time to qualify for the U.S. Women's Open? Being immortalized in a Tiger Woods video game, of course.

"I didn't see it coming, but once my manager, Bobby [Kreusler], told me, I was so excited to get this experience," Thompson said. "I mean to be on a video game ... there's nothing like that."

Except actually meeting Woods.

Watch Lexi behind-the-scenes in "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14"

Thompson met her golf idol for the first time in August during a private reception for the competitors in the Notah Begay III Foundation Challenge in Verona, N.Y. The 12-player tournament was split into two groups of six American golfers and six Asian golfers for an East versus West challenge. Thompson and Cristie Kerr were the two LPGA competitors invited to compete on the West team.

"I posted a picture of me and him on my Facebook, and a lot of my friends were going crazy saying, 'That's so sick that you met him.'" Thompson said. "They're definitely a little jealous. But he's just a normal guy and a world-class player, obviously."

Life after London — Jessica Hardy

Much like Woods, the juxtaposition of the normal and abnormal seems to be a dominant theme in Thompson's meteoric rise to golf fame.

She is the second-youngest player to win a LPGA tournament after 15-year-old Lydia Ko, who won the Canadian Women's Open this season. But Thompson still sits in rarified air of women's golf. She is just the second woman to wear a motion-capture suit for the "Tiger Woods PGA Tour" video game. Paula Creamer did it two years ago.

Samantha Davies's Solo Odyssey

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By Brant James

NASCAR driver Danica Patrick hired her trainer Bob Alejo as she began to transition from IndyCar to NASCAR, but not necessarily because of the heavier, more brutish stock cars she would have to wrangle, Alejo said. He said her workout routine, an all-encompassing regimen that emphasized increasing strength, likely would not have varied if she had remained in open-wheel racing.

Danica Patrick, Tony Gibson a Familiar Fit

"I think it was a concerted idea between all of us that, to whatever degree, athletes are elite in every way — in thought, act, fitness, the whole thing — and we needed to do this." Alejo said.

Most successful modern race car drivers belie — and chafe at — the notion that they are not well conditioned, nor athletes. While degrees of commitment and success vary, strength and fitness routines have become elemental in drivers' preparation, said five-time Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson.

"There's certainly huge gains during the race, postrace, and during the season from the training," he said. "Being held accountable, week in and week out, helps you make a lot of choices during the week that lead to a better quality of life and, in the end, not only helps you physically, but mentally."

Alejo devised a yearlong workout program with a month-long "transitional period" in December, designed to build strength and increase endurance throughout the racing season. Though many drivers' routines are adjusted to avoid late-season fatigue, Patrick enters her last Sprint Cup race of the season and next-to-last Nationwide Series event this weekend at Phoenix using the same regimen as in January.

See the details of Danica's fitness routine after the break!

We are pumped to share one of our favorite stories from espnW here on FitSugar!

By Jessica Long

Jessica Long is taking a well-deserved break after winning five gold medals at the London Paralympics — and surviving a media frenzy surrounding her biological parents. Jessica blogged exclusively about her experiences with espnW.

It was day three of the Paralympics when I started getting messages from Russian reporters on Facebook and Twitter. "We've found your family!" one said, with a photo of a Russian-looking family attached. Another asked if I'd go to Russia straight from London to be on an "Oprah"-like TV show.

Is this a joke? I thought, my mind spinning. Are they just trying to write a good story?

My brother and I were adopted from Russia when I was 13 months old, and though I've always known the story of my adoption, I've never met my biological parents.

Little did I know, some reporters had taken it upon themselves to find them.

Watch Julie Foudy talk with up-and-coming stars including Paralympian Jessica Long

It was so much to handle right then, in the middle of the biggest meet of my life. Yes, that family in the photo had blond hair like me. But I look like a lot of Russian families, I'm sure. Half of the Russian Paralympic team has blond hair! How was I supposed to know what was real? I wasn't angry, but I couldn't quite process it all, and of course it made it very hard to focus on the races I had each day.

I kept getting messages and links to Russian newspaper articles, and on the final day of the Games, the USOC confirmed for me that it was definitely not a hoax. Since then, I've had all the articles and interviews translated into English and learned a lot about my Russian biological parents.

Choose to Matter by Julie Foudy

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By Kate Fagan

Meet the NBA's first female coach. Well, not yet, but that's at least what Natalie Nakase has in mind. The question is, when will the league be ready? Before we get to The Dream, we must visit the beach.

The beach is where Natalie Nakase is sweating through a Navy SEAL workout with Billy Knight and Earl Watson. The trio attended UCLA together a decade ago, playing basketball for the Bruins. Now, during an afternoon session in Santa Monica beneath the blazing summer sun, they are shuffling and backpedaling and straining on the constantly shifting sand.

Where Do Women’s Sport Go From Here?

A few minutes into their session, a man bikes past and eyes them, craning his neck to get a better look at the unusual scene: two strong, tall, black men crawling on the beach alongside a small, fit, Asian woman. "We always draw a few stares," Nakase says with a laugh. "I guess people don't see this every day."

Nakase has spent the past few years coaching professional basketball overseas — coaching men who tower over her — and the 32-year-old California native earns a living in the offseason by training kids and college players. She doesn't have to be here today, submitting to this torture with Watson, a veteran NBA point guard, and Knight, a shooting guard who plays abroad. But all three friends are chasing something, an intangible edge that comes with pushing the limits.

Female reporters feel singled out by dress code

Which is why Nakase is dragging a 15-pound weight bag through the sand between four orange cones about 20 yards apart, pausing at each one to do 20 soldierlike pushups. After she finishes her last set, she rises, covered in sweat, chest heaving, and brushes the sand off her shins and knees. She has not rested more than a minute before Knight grabs a weight bag and takes off running for a distant lifeguard stand. The 5-foot-2 Nakase follows him, her strides short and strong. Knight returns first, then collapses into the sand and watches while Nakase grinds through her final steps. As Watson looks on, he says to Knight, "NBA players wouldn't even do this s---; they'd quit halfway through."

Lance Armstrong's tarnished legacy

The day before, Nakase had told Watson her ultimate goal, the same one she had expressed to Knight a year earlier:

"I want to coach in the NBA."

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We are pumped to share one of our favorite stories from espnW here on FitSugar! This week, figure skater Ashley Wagner blogs about her journey to the 2014 Winter Olympics.

By Ashley Wagner

To come as close as you possibly can to your dreams without achieving them is heartbreaking.

That's what happened to me in 2010. You may or may not have noticed me back then, but I was the first alternate to the U.S. Olympic figure skating team. Going to the Olympics has always been my dream, ever since I watched Tara Lipinski win the 1998 Games.

When I just missed the team, it kind of made me re-evaluate whether I even wanted to keep skating at all, but I ultimately realized I wasn't done with the sport. I want to work as hard as I can so the next time I won't leave anything behind, and have no regrets.

I started skating when I was 5 years old. I was living in Alaska at the time — one of many places we called home because my dad was in the Army — and my little brother and I were cooped up in the house, challenging my mom as most kids do. She decided to take some action, so she signed us up for a Mommy and Me ice skating class. I loved it, but she hated it. My mom never got back on the rink again, but I never wanted to stop!

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I just loved the feeling of skating. Even as we moved around a lot with my dad's job, my parents made sure there was a rink nearby wherever we were stationed. I was always in a new place with new people, but the ice was the one place I was comfortable and didn't have to readjust. I felt at home, and skating was like an old friend that had always been there for me.

Flag football takes hold in Anchorage

I'm confident I have some talent, but I think the one thing that got me to the point where I am now is I'm a ridiculously hard worker. Everything I've accomplished as a skater is the result of a lot of blood, sweat and tears — the old-fashioned way. I'm on the ice 20 to 25 hours a week depending on the season, and I spend an hour or two off-ice each day doing yoga, core weight training, swimming, running and circuit training.

I've made plenty of sacrifices along the way. In high school when my friends were going to a movie on Friday nights, I didn't go because I had practice early on Saturday. I completed my senior year of high school online because I had moved from Washington, D.C., to Delaware to train with a different coach. I'm 21, but not a normal college kid because I chose to move to California to train full time. Still, I get to do what I love more than anything else in the world, so I'm lucky.

Blog from bobsledder Elana Meyers on Lolo Jones training with them

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By Kathryn Bertine

According to my friend Felicia, I am the 2012 road cycling world champion. Felicia cheered me on in Limburg, Holland, in my time trial and road races in September, and since then she has referred to me as champion of the world. "Where shall we go for lunch, world champion?" she asked, to which I quickly responded, "If I'm world champion, what do you call the 39 women who finished ahead of me in the time trial and the 80-plus competitors in the road race?"

espnW Summit reminds us that women matter

"They're world champions, too," she said, intonating duh.

"And Judith Arndt and Marianne Vos, the actual world champions in the time trial and road race?" I asked.

"They're the extra-special world champions," Felicia assured me.

Oh, I see. Well then, I'm sure they don't mind sharing the title with me.

"Don't you get it?" Felicia said. "You were there. You were at the world championships. That's amazing."

In some ways it is amazing. Taking into account the details of getting to world championships for the past five years, I too have been downright dumbfounded that I've reached the starting line of some of these events. Given the foreign language barriers, homestay dynamics, registration protocols and mechanical issues with my bike — all of which I've often had to navigate solo — the race itself is usually the easiest part of the trip. The wickedly strong legs and unsmiling game faces of the greatest European cyclists have no physical or emotional effect on me, but trying to find a postrace sandwich has often brought me to tears. Worlds man, it ain't easy.

Shamila Kohestani a voice for equality

The day after the road race in Holland, I opened an email from an anonymous sender who didn't exactly share Felicia's opinion that I should be allotted any sense of world championshipism. Since I'd finished 40th in the time trial and been broomwagoned on the sixth of eight laps in the road race (I was hardly alone — only 80 of 132 finished the race), the author of the email felt compelled to articulate my unworthiness. I was a complete loser. I was an embarrassment to my country. I was undeserving of being there at the world championships. Before sending the email into the trash, I had three gut reactions. My first thought was about the unknown writer: Have we dated? My second was about the ridiculousness of it all: One must be incredibly bored or angry to send such a message. My third thought lingered on the words "being there." Even if a competitor is highly unlikely to win the world championships, does she truly deserve to be there?

I believe the answer is yes.

It is no secret that sports fans and athletes usually come in two varieties: those who believe that winning isn't everything and that participation is the true beauty of sports, and those who follow the Ricky Bobby philosophy of, "If you ain't first, you're last!"

Yet in a sport like cycling, where there are often 200 competitors in the elite fields, "being there" is just how it's gonna go for 199 of us. Not coming in first doesn't make a cyclist a loser, it makes her the majority.

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