ALL ROADS LEAD TO BEND

It all started with Jesse Thomas (Lauren's husband) going to High School in Bend, Oregon. Over the following 15 years: Jesse goes to Stanford, Jesse bewitches Lauren, Lauren bewitches Jesse, love, a wedding, a reckless but intentional night of passion resulting in Limabean, a few stops along the way, and Lauren and Jesse ultimately decide to base themselves in Bend. Sarah and Bob Lesko also are Bend lovers, and upon further inspection all realized that Bend might be the best training grounds in the country...

BEND IS FOR RUN-LOVERS

1. The High Desert plateau is around 4000, perfect for interval and quality training, while the trails on the mountain reach 8000 feet...perfect for oxygen deficient aerobic training. 

2. The pollen count is 1/10 that of Eugene--ladies toss your Claritin and Asthma inhalers.

3. A small town, you are on beautifully manicured paths and trails within minutes. Either flats or hills, and almost never need to touch a crowned road.

4. Cheap enough to live and enough to do so the idle runner mind won't get bored.

5. Access to amazing world class PT resource who recently located to Bend.

6. And best of all, Chief Picky Bird Lauren Fleshman is there and anchor tenant for some hot 5k training in the future.  Bonus: they are tricking out their house with elite athlete treadmill, etc as base of operations.

*also Oiselle stud halfer Marci Gage already in town and training for 2016!

ENTER PROJECT LITTLE WING

We wanted to start a group focusing on the 5k primarily, but with the flexibility to run the 3k-marathon. Also, knowing this was a "start-up" we were looking for Oiselles who we both knew really well personally, came from "inside the family", had already displayed overwhelming talent in their running careers, but had pushed through a couple of hard years and were on a come back trail. They also needed to be in a position to chuck everything, take the plunge with us and move out to the middle of the Oregon desert. 

From this spirit, Project Little Wing was born. Little Wing has the obvious Bird reference, but it is mostly inspired by the Jimi Hendrix song:

Well she's walking through the clouds
With a circus mind that's running round
Butterflies and zebras and moonbeams and fairy tales
That's all she ever thinks about
Riding with the wind…
                          ...Fly on, Little Wing