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Rachel Cole Harrison loves running, and she’ll race you. But she’s going to do it on her own watch.

“I do have a competitive edge, but I try to keep it to what it is,” Harrison says. “It’s something I really want to enjoy. … I really just go with what I feel. If I feel like 20 (miles) one day, I’ll do 20. If I feel like five, I’ll do five.”

Harrison, 27, is a fourth-grade language-arts teacher at General Greene Elementary on Benjamin Parkway. She seems to be full of energy: What fourth-grade teacher can afford otherwise? She’s also fast. Harrison completed the Salem Lakeshore Frosty Fifty, a 31-mile race, last month in four hours and 32 minutes, good for a pace of 8:46 per mile, fourth place among the female finishers and 24th place overall.

But it’s not the racing that fuels her outside the classroom – just the running. Harrison found her first joy in running at age 5, circling her home in Williamsburg, Va. Now she finds great peace in running, alone with her dog and amid the Triad’s beautiful settings.

“My favorite thing is trails,” Harrison says. “I run the roads and greenways, but I love being out in the woods. My partner right now is Dodger; he’s my Weimaraner. He goes everywhere with me. I’ve just been running my whole life. It’s something I’ve always loved. …

“I love people, and I’m a super friend, but I love when I’m off by myself with my dog in the woods. We’ve seen foxes and deer and snakes. The nature of it, I really like that part of it.”

Harrison’s own nature differs from many competitive runners. She can’t give you many details about her racing history because she doesn’t keep track. She wants to pursue ultrarunning, although trying to pin her down on her next race is difficult.

“It’s why I’m so boring,” she says. “I’m really kinda last-minute. If it’s that week, and I know what I want to do, I go do that. I’m hoping to do a 50-miler coming up. I’m trying to look into some 100-milers and see what kind of stuff I want to do from there. But I’m kind of a quiet runner. I don’t talk a lot about it.

“I guess I like to go when I’m ready, on my own time.”