Running with the Antelope

Book excerpt: A memoir of Melanie Carvell's journey from the agricultural village of Mott, North Dakota (population 732), to world duathlon and triathlon competitions, then a splendid career as a physical therapist, director of the Sanford Women's Health Center in Bismarck, North Dakota, and a widely sought-after motivational speaker. Melanie learned to run on the northern Great Plains where the winters are long and harsh and the wind tests the human spirit. She attributes her national and international success to her agrarian roots and the challenge of biking, running, and swimming in one of the most formidable landscapes of America. Her motivational philosophy is, "If I can do these things, given the modesty of my upbringing and the harshness of the Dakota climate, so can you." Carvell encourages readers to begin a program of athletic training, weight loss, or general self-improvement. With loving anecdotes about Carvell's life as a top athlete and her work as a physical therapist, Running with the Antelope is part self-help book, part prairie memoir, and part song of love to North Dakota, which is undergoing a rapid transformation from its agrarian past to a carbon extraction industrial future.