Video by Dan Mirolli | Visual and Broadcast Communications

Corinna Coffin, a sponsored athlete with world-championship aspirations who burst onto the obstacle-course racing scene last fall and quickly found herself, grinning and muddy and bruised after races of 10-to-12-plus miles, up on the podium to collect those giant prize checks, is a high performer by any standard. A Hokie Ambassador and Rec Sports trainer and fitness instructor and CrossFit athlete and Triathlon Club member, sometimes all in a single day, the newly minted alumna with degrees in Spanish and human nutrition, foods, and exercise probably thought it strange to sit still during May's commencement ceremony in her favorite training venue, Lane Stadium, instead of doing what she normally does there: run up the 220 east-side steps 10 times, sometimes with a 25-pound weight held overhead and sometimes bear-crawling down, just for kicks, on her hands and feet. She fuels her high-activity days with up to 3,500 calories so that when she spots the stadium from across campus and hears it call to her "I challenge you," she can say "challenge accepted."

Photo by Logan Wallace