by Dina Mishev, Featured Athlete | The last time I came to you I was eating cookie dough. Quite a bit of it. With chocolate chips and peanut butter M&Ms in it. What am I eating this time around? Brown rice. With a few pieces of mango, ¼ cup of blueberries, and ¼ of an apple. I know. Crazy, crazy stuff…

by Dina Mishev, Featured Athlete | Perhaps today isn’t the best day for me to write my first post about working with nutritionist and fellow 2010 Featured Athlete Aimee Gallo. I made myself chocolate chip cookies for breakfast. And have continued eating them through lunch as I’ve blown off an 80-mile bike ride…

by Dina Mishev, Featured Athlete | In the 1970s, Dale Shewalter dreamed of a trail stretching the length of Arizona, 800-some miles, from the state’s border with Mexico to its border with Utah. In 1985, Shewalter quit his teaching job to spend the year walking the state south to north to get a feel for where this dreamed-of trail of his might go…

by Dina Mishev | Nearly 3,000 miles pedaled (and pushed) up 200,000 vertical feet. Several broken chains and two replaced drivetrains. Ten candy bars a day. Too many ibuprofen to count. Bears, mountain lions, skunk and moose. Fifteen to 20 hours a day on the bike. Eighteen days in the saddle. One husband in front of her the entire time. Not everyone’s idea of a vacation, a mountain biking couple becomes the first tandem to finish the 2,745-mile Tour Divide race from Banff to the U.S./Mexican border…

by Dina Mishev
Culinary tourism is exploding. But who wants to spend their entire vacation eating? Certainly not me. But neither do I want my vacation to be a boot camp. Well, it turns out The New York Times’ 2009 Culinary Destination of the Year, Marrakech, in the shadow of the High Atlas Mountains, is the perfect middling ground…

by Dina Mishev
Of course I wanted an awesome souvenir. Morocco was a brand-spanking-new-for-me country. Since it’s full of awesome stuff like indigenous pottery, spices, metalwork, and leather goods, it’s not surprising I came home with my most unique souvenir yet from a trip abroad. Unfortunately, just because it’s my most unique souvenir ever doesn’t mean it’s my best souvenir ever…

By Dina Mishev
No, I’m not a masochist, but yes, I love the way my body hurts after physical exertions. In fact, it was because I wanted to feel this kind of exercise-induced pain that I signed up for my first ever 24 hour race. And just in case doing a 24 hour race itself wouldn’t be enough to bring it on, I decided my goal would be to set a new world record for the most vertical feet skied uphill by a woman in 24 hours…