Middle-distance runner Riley Bahr is a curious, competitive, leave-no-stone-unturned woman who makes the most of her opportunities — those that are presented to her and those she creates. These qualities have served the Cincinnati, Ohio native well in her cross country and track career, from high school through her time at Florida State University. And they have driven the newest EcoAthletes Champion to take the #ClimateComeback path academically and in her soon-to-launch career.

 “Riley, in her short time as an EcoAthletes Champion, has shown herself to have the potential to become an EcoAthletes Superstar,” said Lew Blaustein, the organization’s CEO and founder. “Why? Well, she has a rare combination of sober concern about the climate crisis, and a ‘happy warrior’ approach to finding climate solutions. We are fortunate to have her as part of the Champions network.”

Bahr began the sports side of her Green-Sports journey by being a lacrosse player first and a runner second.

 “As a freshman in high school, I’d run cross-country in the fall to be in the best shape possible for lacrosse in the spring,” she recalled. “As time went on, I found I enjoyed cross-country more. I love being out in nature, on the trails, in the woods. And it really is the best social time to chat with teammates and build lifelong relationships.”

She showed real promise on her cross-country team during her sophomore and junior years, showing frequent flashes of her competitive nature. 

“I alternated between the number one and two spots on the team as a sophomore,” shared Bahr. “The other girl was a senior; she ended up running in college and that gave me the belief that I could do the same. As a junior, I qualified for the state championships. But that wasn’t enough. I wanted, I needed to challenge myself to see how good I could be. So, I would run with boys and sometimes beat them. This gave me tremendous confidence.” 

Despite her success, Bahr was not highly recruited by college track programs. That’s when her leave-no-stone-unturned-ness kicked into gear. She wrote to the major, Division I track programs in Ohio — Ohio State, Cincinnati, Dayton, and more.

“My older sister had run collegiately and told me, ‘You can do it!” she related. “I committed to Dayton originally but, when I was rehabbing a small injury during the winter of my senior year in high school, I did so by swimming. I’d look at the snow on the ground outside and said to myself, ‘I need to go to a place that has warmer weather!’”

Despite having signed with Dayton, Bahr visited Florida State and felt that the Tallahassee school was the right place for her almost immediately.

“I loved that there were so many different trails and soft surfaces on which to run — whereas they run on the streets in Dayton which can be brutal on your feet, knees, and hips,” observed Bahr. “Coach Kelly Phillips at FSU said, ‘you can walk on to the team’. I was sold and decided to become a Seminole and make the best of my walk on chance!”

She did so almost as soon as she arrived on campus, modeling behaviors from a stellar senior class. They advised her on the importance of getting enough sleep, managing iron intake, when and how much to train and when to do homework. Bahr was on her way to earning a spot on the travel team when the COVID pandemic hit in March of her freshman year. Despite having to head back home, she quickly turned challenge into opportunity: “I fell even more in love with running when I was in Cincinnati! It got me out of the house, and I got to run with my sister. The time without racing allowed me to increase my mileage and I became a stronger runner because of it. When I got back to campus for the start of sophomore year, I was ready to make a big improvement.”

Bahr was not kidding. Her personal best as a freshman in the two-mile was 11:44; she knocked 40 seconds off that time as a sophomore. Her 5K results were similar as she was able to go from 19:10 to 17:40.

Coach Phillips left after Bahr’s sophomore campaign. This was a big challenge and of course, an opportunity. 

“I journaled a lot during that time to make sure I stayed in the right mindset,” she noted. “Genuine gratitude became a key part of my approach. It would have been easy to be negative during the time between coaches. But I stayed with the positive mindset all along.”

That paid off for Bahr. She hit it off with the new coach, Baylee Mires (“I loved her energy and her individualized training style”). And her continued improvement as a runner — she cut another 29 seconds off her 5K time as a junior — led coach Mires to offer her a small scholarship (“AMAZING!”).

The 2022-23 season, Bahr’s fourth at FSU, was her strongest. In cross-country. She ran at the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and NCAA Championships, helping the Seminole women’s team finishing a solid 18th in the latter. She followed that up with a strong indoor season, culminating with a personal best in the 3,000 meters at a big meet in Boston.

Then came her final outdoor track campaign. Bahr set a strong reach goal for herself: break 17 minutes for the 5K. The Wake Forest Invitational presented a big challenge and opportunity: the best field she ever faced. Bahr rose to the occasion, running through that 17-minute barrier by posting a 16:58, breaking her personal best by an impressive 13 seconds. That performance earned her qualification for her first ACC Track and Field Championships, a great way to end her career.

Bahr brought her ‘run fast’ attitude to the classroom as well as to the track, completing a double major in Spanish and Biology in just 3.5 years. She did not slow up after receiving her bachelor’s degree, beginning graduate school at FSU’s Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship a semester early.

That is not surprising at all since she knows well that we need to sprint into meaningful climate action now while being prepared to engage in a marathon as far as fighting to make those actions as significant as possible over the long haul.  

Bahr has been passionate about the environment for about as long as she’s loved running.

“I grew up in a household that respected the environment from a holistic perspective,” she observed. “My parents made the connection between climate, health, and nature. This was engrained in me.”

At Florida State, Bahr’s overturned ‘climate action’ stones whenever she could, sometimes in the most unlikely of ways.

Her decision to major in Spanish accelerated her interest in cambio climático. Trips to Costa Rica and Nicaragua connected her with meet people who have been impacted by extreme weather events that were made more intense by climate change.

She took that heightened climate awareness back to campus, added a dash of eco-activism, and came up with a Green-Sports recipe.

“Track and field student-athletes get so many shoes from Nike at FSU, and they’re needed; four to six pair per person and we have 60 people on the track team!” shared Bahr. “And when we’re done with them, they end up in the trash and ultimately the landfill. So, when I was a junior, I reached out to Nike and eventually pitched an idea that would allow the track team to send their end-of-use shoes and apparel back to the company.”

While a partnership did not result from her conversations with the company, Bahr found another way to divert gear from the landfill through a ‘gear drop’.

Her Green-Sports passion rose to another level when a fellow runner introduced her to the nascent ACC Sports Sustainability organization, led by University of Virginia discus thrower and future EcoAthletes Champion Sadey Rodriguez. She pointed Bahr towards an ACC sustainability impact report and other sports sustainability research, leading her to a life-changing observation.

“I began to see that a career that would combine environmental action, holistic public health, and entrepreneurism would be a much better fit for me than chiropractic, the path I was planning to take,” she asserted. “So, I pivoted to pursue a master’s degree at FSU’s Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship in social and sustainable enterprise. I’ve really loved learning about the environmental costs of energy and fast fashion, the opportunities around scaling clean technology, and the breakthrough potential surrounding sustainable agriculture and cities.”   

Diving in with her trademark leave-no-stone-unturned verve, Bahr studied methane emissions reductions at a local landfill in Tallahassee and conducted a research project on the intersection of infrastructure, climate change, and policy in Miami with three other grad students. That project became a global semi-finalist for the University of Oxford’s Map the System Competition.

Becoming an EcoAthletes Champion was a logical next step for Bahr.

“The one word I use to describe EcoAthletes is ‘inspirational’,” she noted. “Finding like-minded athletes at the college and pro levels, who are already making a difference on climate, is inspiring to me. So too are the resources that EcoAthletes has provided me. And I am excited to inspire other Champions and our followers however I can. Because if we are really to make progress on the #ClimateComeback, inspiration is a must!”

You can follow Riley on Instagram and TikTok