Meet OCR and Ultra Runner Athlete Kelsey Childs

Some people like to run. Others like to run distances and then there’s Kelsey Childs. She enjoys distance running over mountain tops and obstacle courses, too. Kelsey, whom Pines is proud to sponsor with superfoods nutrition, is just 21 years old. Originally from Westchester, New York, she goes by the nickname Storm (on Instagram @Storm_the_spartan where she has over 20,000 active followers.) 

Since childhood, she’d trained in mixed martial arts and even considered a career as a professional in Bellator MMA or the Ultimate Fighting Championship, before her Muay Thai instructor invited her to be on his Spartan team. She competed in the 2016 Spartan New Jersey Super and says she was hooked.

Now she’s not only a top Obstacle Course Racer (she placed third in the 2019 Bermuda Triple Challenge, and 1st place in her gender and age group in the 2019 Spartan West Virginia Sprint) she’s also an ultra runner who likes altitude. Her most recent event was the Third-Annual Spartan Ultra World Championship, a 24-hour Obstacle Course Race that took place last November in the snow-capped Mountains of Åre, Sweden.

Training under acclaimed 2019 Spartan World Champion and OCR Coach Robert Killian, Kelsey is setting her 2020 sights high: “Most importantly, my goal is to get top 10 elite in the Spartan Mountain Series.” The Spartan Mountain Series is a series of spanning some of the steepest elevation in North America, including challenging climbs, descents and carries. 

Good luck, Kelsey! 

Here's Kelsey being interviewed recently on OCRM Insider, available on Amazon Prime. 

Here's Spartan Coverage of the West Virginia Race from 2019: