In the months leading up to our October 23rd 20th Anniversary Party, every week we’re going to post a picture of a randomly selected WUS who has left the DC area and include a couple fun facts.
#1. JULIAN JAMISON [WUS era: 2013 – 2018]
WUS movie star
Fun Fact #1: In the 2014 documentary film The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young, Julian Jamison’s quote about hardship and personal growth became one of the documentary’s most memorable lines:
“I think most people would be better off with more pain in their lives, honestly. I think that, if nothing else, they would appreciate the pain-free times more.”
Julian’s Barkley experience was also featured in a chapter of his sister Leslie Jamison‘s bestselling, prizewinning book of introspective essays, The Empathy Exams.
Fun Fact #2: Julian has more Hardrock finishes (n = 5) than marriages (n = 3).
Where is Julian now? Julian punted across the pond to become an economics professor in the UK. [Fun Fact #3: As a teenager, Julian punted straight to Cal Tech without finishing high school.]
#2. NEAL GORMAN [WUS era: late 2000s/early 2010s]
WUS cover boy
Fun Fact #1: Neal was featured in Outside magazine for breaking the record for the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning, finishing in the top-5 at the country’s four most prestigious 100 mile races over 11 weeks: Leadville 100 (3rd place), Western States 100 (5th place), Wasatch 100 (2nd place), Vermont 100 (2nd place).
Fun Fact #2: Neal won the inaugural WUS donut run, despite pooping on the return trip in the yard of a mansion in Kalorama (photos by Bobby and Keith ).
Fun Fact #3: Neal won the second WUS beer mile after losing the first race to Bobby Gill’s superior beer chugging. Neal bested Bobby at the wire and both men collapsed and lay panting at the finish line of the National Cathedral cinder track. Neal declared the Beer Mile was worse than any moment of the Grand Slam.
Where is he now? Neal punted south to Charlottesville, raised two kids (Trail and “Switchback“), and had his illustrious running career cut short by a chronic cytomegalovirus infection, a cautionary tale of overtraining and the “babies ruin everything” theme that runs through many a WUS tale.
#3. MICHELE HARMON [WUS era: sporadic visitor over the 2000s]
WUS Ultimate Survivor
Fun Fact #1: Michele is famous for being the only WUS to survive a multi-day coma. Actually, Michele survived TWO multi-day comas.
In 2002, Michele was competing in the Vermont 100 Mile Endurance Run. During the race she inadvertently overconsumed fluids, leading to severe dilution of her blood sodium concentration (hyponatremia).
As the race progressed:
She became increasingly confused.
She no longer recognized fellow runners or even her husband.
Shortly after finishing, she began vomiting uncontrollably.
She then suffered a seizure.
She lapsed into a coma that lasted three days.
Recovery. When Michele regained consciousness, she described profound neurologic impairment:
She did not know where she was.
She could not identify the year.
She temporarily couldn’t read.
She couldn’t perform simple arithmetic.
During the confused period after the coma she became combative and required medication to protect herself and hospital staff.
Fortunately, because exercise-associated hyponatremia develops acutely (over hours rather than days), the brain can often recover remarkably well if sodium is corrected appropriately. Michele ultimately made a full recovery.
Why her case became famous. Her experience became an important educational case in endurance sports because she documented it publicly in extraordinary detail. At the time, many runners still believed that “you can’t drink too much.”
Michele’s case helped illustrate that: exercise-associated hyponatremia (EAH) is usually caused by drinking more fluid than the body can excrete, rather than simply losing sodium through sweat; taking salt tablets cannot reliably prevent hyponatremia if fluid intake is excessive; severe EAH can progress to brain swelling, seizures, coma, and death.
Her story has been cited in discussions by researchers whose work helped shift endurance-sport hydration advice away from rigid drinking schedules toward “drink to thirst” and avoiding overhydration. (Her own detailed account is here: https://www.ultrunr.com/hyponatremia.html)
Did she continue ultrarunning? Yes. Remarkably, Michele returned to ultrarunning after her recovery and had a long, successful career. She went on to win another Bull Run Run 50 Miler, Old Dominion 100, and continues to race through her 60s. Her recovery and continued success are often cited as an example of both the seriousness of exercise-associated hyponatremia and the possibility of full neurologic recovery when it is recognized and treated promptly.
Fun Fact #2: Michele has more divorces than Julian. They are both math people. Classic overachievers.
Fun Fact #3. Michele once quit her job at Westat to travel for a year around South America. When she expressed reluctance about returning to her job, the company maximally raised her salary until she finally agreed to return to work.
Where is she now? Michele followed the Kerry Owens WUS retirement train to Sedona, Arizona, where she continues to race big ultras. This year she finished the 2026 Hong Kong Ultra 100K at age 60.
Final question: what was Michele’s OTHER coma? Michele’s parachute got tangled in high voltage electrical wires while skydiving.
#4. AMY SPROSTON [WUS era: late 2000s]
WUS world champion
Fun Fact #1. During Amy’s first group trail run, led by Ed Schultz in Montgomery County, she fell and broke her pinky and ring fingers (long bone). Classic Amy. Ed would never have guessed that Amy would go on be a 100km World Champion (2012), a 4-time top-10 podium finisher at Western States (2nd in 2016 and 3rd in 2013), JFK 50-miler winner (2010), and win countless other major ultramarathons (MMT, Hurt, Pine to Palms, Black Canyon, etc.)
Fun Fact #2. In 2022, Amy attempted the self-supported Appalachian Trail FKT. She was on pace early in the effort before severe flooding led to trench foot, forcing her to stop after more than 340 miles in just eight days. She later described the experience candidly, emphasizing that even unsuccessful adventures can be worthwhile.
Fun Fact #3. Amy recently bought a winery in the Aosta Valley in Italy that she plans to renovate into an inn for hikers and trail runners.
#5. SEAN ANDRISH [WUS era: lived in WUS house 2007-2011]
WUS poster boy
Fun Fact #1: Sean was a paid New Balance model. His ads made it all the way to Japan (we only know because one of his friends there saw the ad).
Sean was recognized everywhere he went. When he ran a dinky 5-mile trail race in Shepherdstown, WV (“This Run Is For the Birds“) as a favor to Martha, the volunteer directing race traffic gave him a puzzled look when he got out of the car. Sean Andrish, what is a guy like YOU doing here?
Fun Fact #2: Sean’s main running fuel is Mountain Dew, Taco Bell, and Sheetz.
Fun Fact #3: Sean won the Laurel Highlands 70.5 Mile Ultramarathon despite having a seizure along the way. Sean also set the course record at the Superior 100 less than two weeks after brain surgery for epilepsy, with roughly 50 staples still in his scalp. His neurosurgeon allowed him to run but warned him not to expect much because he had lost significant blood during surgery.
Fun Fact #4: Sean set the FKT for the 252-mile Tuscarora Trail.
Fun Fact #5: Sean ran on the Montrail-sponsored trail running team from 2002-2009 and the Inov8 team from 2009-2013. In 2006 he won the USATF 100-Mile National Championship at the Mohican 100.
Fun Fact #6: For Sean’s 40th birthday party, his family organized a “Roast.” Martha prepared a speech with the trash-talking theme of “Why Sean Doesn’t Have A Girlfriend.” Then, for 60 minutes, runners of different ages, genders, and speeds got up to the mic and gushed about how amazing Sean was. There were kids Sean had coached on the local high school track team. Back of the pack women that Sean patiently paced through their first 100-miler, supporting and offering words of encouragement. Even Keith announced (in front of his fiance) that living with Sean in the WUS house was the best days of his life. When it was time for Martha to give her real roast, she took one look at Sean’s adoring mother and shoved the paper down her pants, insisting she had written nothing.
Fun Fact #7: Yet….Sean’s best running season (2009) coincided with Martha’s arrival in DC and the beginning of their weekly runs together. In 2009 he won: Promise Land 50K, Bel Monte 50K, Laurel Highlands 70.5 (despite the mid-race seizure), The Ring (71 miles), Great Eastern Endurance Run, Wild Duluth 100K, and Hellgate 100K.
Where is Sean now? Sean moved to Frisco, Colorado in 2016, after falling in the tracks at the Woodley Park metro station while having a seizure. And escaping Angela.
#6. BOBBY GILL. [WUS era: early 2010s]
WUS Entrepreneur
Fun Fact #1: Bobby was as co-founder of the Cupid Undie Run. He quit his job at FDA and moved into the WUS house to oversee the national expansion of this wildly popular event that began in DC with 600 runners and has raised over $25 million for neurofibromatosis.
Bobby had previously heard about the Underpants Run held before the IronMan championship in Kona, Hawaii. But during Gary Knipling’s Eagle Run, Martha told Bobby about a different twist on the event, as Martha’s Amherst College cross country team ran an annual “Underwear Mile” around campus during frigid winter weather that required heavy pre-gaming. The first Cupid Undie Run was therefore held on Valentine’s Day, one week after DC’s infamous “Snowmageddon” blizzard. WUS Ryon Lane ran it with only a red sock on his willy. Photos circulated but I will spare you.
Fun Fact #2. Bobby won the inaugural WUS Beer Mile in 2011 (although Neal Gorman beat him by a hair at the second Beer Mile). Bobby was openly infatuated with Gabby Gorman, Neal’s wife, which made their rivalry even more heated.
Fun Fact #3. Bobby participated in one of those military-style rucksack competitions that required crawling on elbows in the sewage under the C&O canal tunnel. Several competitors got staph infections.
Where is he now? Bobby punted west to Colorado to raise a family and work on advancing sustainable cattle ranching. Then his family moved to Valencia, Spain. Possibly they are in LA now. Bobby doesn’t trail race anymore. But Cupid’s Undie Run continues to be held each year in dozens of US cities.
#7. BRIT ZALE. [WUS era: early 2010s; WUS house resident]
WUS Free spirit
Fun Fact #1: Despite being tiny (maaaybe 5 feet), Brit became a WUS legend by eating 13 donuts at the inaugural WUS donut run.
Fun Fact #2: She ran her first 100-miler at Grindstone, where she finished 5th. To celebrate the accomplishment, she got a tattoo of the Grindstone elevation profile on her ankle.
Fun Fact #3: Britt spent years trying to join the FBI (being tiny and underestimated was to be her superpower). By the time the paperwork was processed and she was accepted into training, she had already punted to Moab to become a skydiver and base jumper.
Fun Fact #1:
#8. BRIAN GREELEY. [WUS era: same as Brit; they were WUS house roommates]
OG WUS hippie
Fun Fact #1: Brian had a special aura. Brian was the only WUS that Martha and Sean let join their prized Wednesday night run (except Aaron on occasion when he became Martha’s boyfriend). Brian was the rare combination of very fast (won prestigious races like Uwharrie 40 mile) but very chill (kept trying to convince Sean and Martha to quit their jobs and join him bumming around the country in search of beautiful trails).
Fun Fact #2: Brian had special talents. He could recite entire Seinfeld episodes, line by line, to keep Martha entertained during long mountain runs.
Where is he now? Brian worked at the NIH while he lived in DC. He left for the University of Michigan to get his PhD in neuroscience. He married his girlfriend and then moved with her to Vancouver.
[Fun Fact #3: Brian would infuriate Martha by randomly showing up at WUS years after he left DC without letting Martha know he was coming. Did he know how much trouble he would be in if Martha didn’t show up that night because she had a work or family commitment that she totally would have blown off had she known he was coming?]
#9. JOEY COHEN (aka “Joco”). [WUS era: 2010s]
“I’d run the sh&t out of that hill.”
Fun Fact #1: Joco trained for VHTRC’s toughest ultras (e.g., TWOT, Manitou’s Revenge) by running 20-30 repeats of the same sledding hill near his home.
Fun Fact #2: After Joco moved to Cleveland to start a family, he quit his job as a government lawyer to start his own business Adventure Dogs CLE that exercises his client’s dogs by taking them on runs.
