Ladies we Love: Jenny Jurek on Ultrarunning + Scott

March 24th, 2015 • BY Morgan Tilton

Married to ultrarunning phenom Scott Jurek, outdoor gear and clothing designer Jenny Jurek holds her own. She’s bagged 200-mile ultras and spent countless hours climbing rock, her first outdoor passion.

The Boulder-based freelance designer has also been weaving her way through the outdoor industry since 1999. Charisma and talent have taken her from positions with Moonstone Mountain Equipment to Patagonia and, now, her very own company, Rain or Shine Design.

Here, Jenny shares her take on ultrarunning, her marriage to Scott (including their ideal date), her design work in the outdoor industry, and her favorite vegan trail fuel.

WM: You probably get this question all the time—what’s it like being married to Scott?

Jenny: We’ve been married for two years now. It’s really great. He is a professional ultrarunner, but he’s a nurturing person and he’s so into food. He does all of the cooking at home. He has this puritan work ethic and is a hard worker around the house, and with everything in life—it’s inspiring. But he also has a good balance and likes to chill out, too. I like to run, so I’ll do partial runs with him and we get to spend a lot of time outside together and have a ton of fun.

 

WM: How were you and Scott introduced?

Jenny: When I started trail running, he worked up at Seattle Running Company and I would see him when I would do group runs at the store. We were a part of the same running community, so I’d see him at dinners, parties, and races. For about 10 years we were just friends—I mostly identified with being a climber, even though I worked for a trail running shoe company, and all of my boyfriends had been climbers. Scott is actually the first runner that I ever dated and he definitely doesn’t like climbing! He has a massive fear of heights.

 

WM: How did you get into running?

Jenny: Actually, when I was working for Montrail—which is a trail running shoe company—I had never run before. Three months after I started, they hired this girl Krissy Moehl and she was a really good runner. She inspired me to run my first marathon and I had never even run three miles! I was floored that people run 50K. I just couldn’t even conceptualize that distance, but she didn’t look any different than me and could do these crazy races. So, she paced me and ran with me for the last part of the Seattle Marathon and we made it in 3:58. I was so excited and then I was hooked. I realized that running was helping my climbing and it was a good balance for me. Krissy is an amazing athlete and we’ve been best friends since then.

 

WM: One more question about you and Scott—can you describe a perfect date?

Jenny: We’d go for a long run…something really fun like 15 to 18 miles up in the Indian Peaks, and then make an amazing dinner at home. Then, watch a movie or TV show online. He would kill me to share this, but I got him hooked on Project Runway and he’s totally into it. It’s really funny! That’s a habit I picked up in design school. We’d watch that, or Breaking Bad.

WomensMovement.com: What inspires your designs?

Jenny Jurek: What sparks creation for me is functionality and movement. If I’m out running, climbing or doing yoga and I notice how my body is moving, and how the clothes are moving with me or against me, and how I can make it better or more comfortable—that’s when I’m inspired. It’s those times when I’m actually using products or apparel that the ideas for designs come to me.

WM: What types of projects do you focus on?

Jenny: I would normally say that I’m an apparel designer, but recently I’ve been doing more than apparel. I worked on women’s specific sleeping bags for Thermarest and women’s hydration packs for Ultimate Direction. Since I left Patagonia, I’ve worked with Brooks Running Company and Solomon, and they make high-end technical clothing and apparel. I also do a lot of custom alterations and designs for local athletes. It’s interesting to hear what elite athlete’s needs are and most of the time they’re really specific—it’s stuff that wouldn’t translate into a mass produced product line or market, but it’s fun for me to customize things for those specific needs.

 

WM: How did you first get started working in the Outdoor Industry?

Jenny: I moved to San Francisco during the whole dot-com phase and was working for a brokerage firm and I hated it. I was looking on SNEWS one day and saw that Moonstone Mountain Equipment was hiring for a customer service rep. I applied and got the job. I handled all of the warranty repairs, and I would see all of the products and how they failed and why they failed, which got me more curious about the actual design of the products. Only 6 months after I started working there the company moved to Seattle—I was the only employee willing to move with them! It was awesome because I was only 21 and had always wanted to live there. A year later Moonstone sold to another company and I left to work for Montrail. They had just hired a new designer from Germany, and he became my first design mentor. He encouraged me to go to design school, so I found one and went while I was working there.

WM: How’d you land your first position as a designer?

Jenny: My first design job was back at Moonstone. I started as an assistant designer, and I was with them for almost one year and then I started working at Outdoor Research (OR), where I was a designer. I feel so fortunate and grateful to have had them believe in me. The company was small enough that I could do my own thing, and it was a fun environment to get my start and really feel confident.

WM: How did that position segue into designing with Patagonia?

Jenny: I had worked at OR for two years and had been in Seattle for eight. I had broken up with a long-term boyfriend and needed a change. I ran into a friend that used to work for Patagonia that told me about the position. I applied and they took a risk on me. I moved down to Ventura and worked there for three years. In the end, I loved working for Patagonia but didn’t love living in Southern California. I had started dating Scott while I was down there and it wasn’t ideal for him, either. We decided to move to Boulder and I started a freelance design company, so that’s what I’ve been doing for the past four years.

WM: What’s your favorite vegan trail snack?

Jenny: I really like these bars called Bearded Brothers. They’re mostly raw, and they’re organic. They’re not too sweet and the package is compostable. It was started by these two guys in Austin that are really into healthy, wholesome snacks. I love the Colossal Coconut Mango and the Radical Raspberry Lemon.

Read more about Jenny and Rain or Shine Design here.

 

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