Huntsman World Senior Games Active Life

Today’s guest is Nate Marshall, a K-12 charter school executive director in Northern Utah. Nate grew up playing a variety of sports, but his favorite was golf. He also became an avid mountain biker, participating in a cross-country biking event that spanned 850 miles from Washington through Oregon and Idaho when he was a high school freshman. In college, Nate began running and coaching a high scho...

Our guest this week is 49-year-old Travis Marchant, a hematology/oncology pharmacist at Intermountain Health. Like many American young men, Travis played basketball and football during high school and believed he could do anything physically challenging. As an adult, back injuries tested his perseverance as he transitioned to running and triathlon training. Travis conquered the inaugural full Iron...

As a proud member of the St. George Marathon Legacy Club, 52-year-old Idonna Clarke, mother of six children and grandmother of 5, is shooting for her 24th marathon later this year. Idonna’s first exposure to a marathon was at the age of 12 in Los Angeles, where she distributed water cups to runners. As a rising freshman at Brigham Young University, she chose a poster of the St. George marathon to...

Dr. Warren Butterfield has been in practice as an orthopedic trauma surgeon since 2007. He came to St. George in 2014 to assist in the transition of then Dixie Regional Medical Center to a level 2 trauma center and is currently the Director of Orthopedic Trauma at Intermountain Southwest Ortho Urgent Care. Dr. Butterfield earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Utah, completed m...

Sandra Checketts, widowed mother of 5 and grandmother of 10, has always enjoyed running, including as a cross country and track competitor at Utah State University. She is full or part owner in several health and wellness businesses and enjoys activities like snowmobiling, swimming, and hiking. Her purpose now for staying healthy is to be able to be active with her grandkids. When she first compet...

Dr. Vonda Wright is an internationally-recognized practicing double-boarded orthopaedic sports surgeon, author, speaker, researcher, and innovator whose work stands in the intersection of longevity, women's health, mobility, and musculoskeletal aging.  Widely recognized for her thought leadership, Dr. Wright is a frequent media and conference expert, having been quoted often in the Wall Stree...

Shelley Sybil Gish has spent most of her life learning about the benefits of holistic healing, with fifty-plus years of experience in behavioral genetics, thirty-one years in alternative health modalities, and ten years in herbology. As the single mother of eight children and the proctor mother of many adjudicated youth, her journey into the world of health began as a necessity to care for her lar...

Jason and Heather Ranoa are the Cycling and Triathlon directors for the Huntsman World Senior Games. We are fortunate enough to have had them for the past 3 years. Jason and Heather coach a non-profit Junior Developmental Cycling team based out of St. George. This team helps develop the future for American talent. Jason and Heather also time and run cycling races at the highest level throughout th...

Nick Cipollino came from humble beginnings and knows the value of hard work. Nick took up sporting clay shooting in 1988 following a knee injury. He was introduced to the Huntsman World Senior Games in 2012, and at the age of 80, he secured gold in all seven shooting events at his first Games. Nick's Army service during the Korean War fueled his competitive spirit, and he has earned around 70...

Ninety-nine-year-old Dutch-Canadian Betty Brussel is happiest when she is swimming. Setting world records, which she did as recently as a week ago, is just icing on the cake. Betty enjoyed swimming as a child when she wasn’t busy helping raise her 10 younger siblings in the Netherlands. Later in life, after she raised her own children, she decided to resume swimming and even compete, beginning at...

Karen Straw was born in Massachusetts and considers herself geographically challenged, having lived in Colorado, Arizona, Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific and now calls Utah her home. Karen graduated with her Master’s degree from University of Utah in Speech Language Pathology. She has been working with adults experiencing brain changes her entire career as a S...

At the age of 60, Steve Ault faced a Parkinson's diagnosis and the option of Levodopa for symptom management. Rejecting only temporary relief, he spiraled into depression until a chance meeting with Bahram in August 2017 offered hope for a healthy life at 120. Encouraged by his family, Steve underwent a radical transformation, altering his diet, practicing extended fasting, and engaging in ri...

Pickleball pioneer Barbara Wintroub brought the sport to Santa Monica, CA fifteen years ago and Palm Desert, CA the next year. As one of the best senior players the sport has to offer, Barbara is nationally ranked in pickleball and a tournament tennis player for 63 years. Beyond coaching and teaching pickleball, she is an active aging expert with a degree in kinesiology who has written a book that...

Dr. Gloria Horsley and Dr. Frank Powers are nationally recognized relationship therapists in their early 80s who met through a dating app called SilverSingles and later wrote a book together called “Open to Love: The Secrets of Senior Dating.” In “Open to Love,” the two therapists share their personal and professional stories of love and romance in their later years. Inspirational, and most of all...

Eighty-year-old table tennis player Charlie Slater loves the fact that age isn’t a major factor in who will win a match. As a senior player, he has been beaten by an 8-year-old when he was 72 and an 84-year-old when he was 62. Charlie currently resides in Decatur, Georgia, where he plays weekly, runs an annual table tennis camp for youth, and also runs a newsletter and website for the Decatur Tabl...

Originally from Spain, Alfredo Aliaga lives in Berlin, Germany and has always enjoyed hiking. He has held a variety of jobs, including as a sheep herder, serving in the military, working for a telephone company, and as a pharmaceutical representative. He has hiked in Spain, the Alps, Nepal, and in many national parks in the United States. Alfredo set a Guinness World Record at the end of October 2...

Dr. Kelly Starrett is a coach; physical therapist; speaker; and three-time New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling co-author of "Becoming a Supple Leopard," "Ready to Run," and "Built to Move." He is also the co-founder of The Ready State, the world's most comprehensive collection of guided movement, mechanics, and mobility instructional videos. He was...

Today’s guest is Damien Leake, a master of the performing arts as an actor, singer, dancer, and more! Damien was born in the Bronx, New York and is a graduate of New York’s High School of Performing Arts. He also is a world-class Masters track and field athlete who is a multi-national champion in the 50m, 60m, and long jump and has competed at the Huntsman World Senior Games multiple times. Most r...

Dr. Barbara Nelson is a retired OB/Gyn and public health physician, and she also is a former exercise physiology professor at Brigham Young University-Idaho with a Master's in public health. Her extensive athletic achievements include completing 31 full Ironman triathlons, 54 half Iron distance triathlons, marathons, half-marathons, trail runs, road cycling, gravel, and mountain biking. Barba...

Fifty-seven-year-old Jon St. Arnaud started playing soccer in his youth and still loves it, though he retired from the game in his thirties to prioritize family. Facing health concerns in his mid-forties, he was motivated for change, and he embraced Spartan racing after a personal trainer's suggestion, reviving his competitive spirit. Two years of rigorous training and a shift in diet and lif...

Today’s guest is our resident volleyball expert, Sue Mailhot. Sue played high school volleyball up until 2010 when her knees told her she should stop. However, when she played college recreational co-ed volleyball, she got the opportunity to referee and a new love was born! She liked refereeing so much (and especially the fact that she could get paid doing it), that she began refereeing high schoo...

Our guest today has been a swimmer since she was 6 years old. Jeanne Smith was born in Southern California and spent an hour a day, 5 days a week, nearly every week at the pool until she graduated from high school. Swimming has always been a respite from stress for her, yet it was too inconvenient for many years as a working college student and young mom. Jeanne dove back into swimming many years...

Willie Spruill, a 64-year-old Army veteran from St. Pauls, North Carolina, has overcome physical and mental challenges to become a celebrated athlete. After serving in the Gulf War and facing post-war struggles, including contemplation of suicide, Willie found solace on the track. Attending a track meet in Virginia, he was inspired to participate in the 2017 Lumber River Senior Games, winning mult...

Misti Miller grew up near Lake Tahoe, where she loved the exhilaration of bridge jumping, cliff jumping, and rock climbing (with ropes and free soloing). One of her favorite experiences was participating in a Guinness Book of World Records event bridge jump off the Foresthill Bridge in Auburn, CA, free-falling 1200 feet before rope tension transitioned her into a huge swing. Professionally, Misti...

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