The Ultramarathon Mindset: Trail Talk

The Badwater 135 ultramarathon is billed as the toughest footrace in the world. It goes from Death Valley, Nevada, to Mt. Whitney, in California. Sally McRae was first-place, female, this year with a finishing time of 30:48:47. Her closing comments about her mindset at Badwater come close to being a super-power. She went into this race with the mindset to feel and experience all the difficulty and...

Shannon Mick is a Licensed Professional Counselor who specializes in Telemental Health and is an Ultramarathoner.  She first got into running when she was dating her husband.  She thought running was stupid and would kind of get mad at him for not spending time with her and instead going for a run.  She ended up doing a 5k and finished second to last.  She is a competitive person and knew she coul...

Heather Hart is a marathon runner and adventure racer.  Adventure Racing is a multi-sport feat that could include trekking, paddling a kayak or canoe, rock climbing and even horseback riding.  The course isn’t marked and participants cannot use GPS.  There is a time limit and teams have to hit as many checkpoints as they can in the time provided.  The challenge of Adventure Racing is facing the un...

My guest this week is Ciara Carter. Ciara is a runner, personal trainer, health coach, and podcaster.  Her podcast is called Run, Thrive, Survive, where she talks about running, psychology, and mindset. I was a guest on her show last week, and she’s a great host.  She’s also a great guest, and we had a lot of fun talking about running and mindset. Most of us hate running on a treadmill. In fact, w...

Sarah McMahon is about to run her first 100 mile trail run in a truly epic race. If you've read the book, Born to Run , you know about the Tarahumara and the wild and beautiful Copper Canyons of Chihuahua, Mexico. In a few weeks, Sarah will travel to run these challenging and famous trails.  Sarah is an ultramarathon runner, blogger, and poet. She talks about growing up near a small town in Wiscon...

Margaret Spring ran her first race at age 7 and came in first place female. After college and running half-marathons she decided it was time to run a full marathon. She set a goal to run the Boston Marathon and chose her first marathon to be one that would let her qualify for Boston. And she qualified and went on to run Boston. Her first trail run was up Pikes Peak in Colorado. She swore she'd nev...

Simone Biles' decision to withdraw from the Olympics drew both criticism and praise. I imagine most of the critics never stood in her shoes.  This week I talk with Tony Diaz. He is a runner, a cyclist, and Wushu martial artist. He holds several national titles in Wushu and competed in the Wushu World competition and placed 5th. He said, "I saw the look on Simone's face and recognized she was in tr...

Trail runners and ultra runners have a streak of adventure in our souls. We love the challenge of pushing our limits. And for some of us, we have a drive to keep expanding our horizons. My guest this week is Jim Lane, a fellow barefoot runner who followed his desire for adventure to the country of Costa Rica. After serving in the military and as a firefighter, he retired and moved his family to a...

Ultra runners don't just eat . . . we fuel. And when our fueling doesn't work the way we'd planned, it often leads to problems in a race and the dreaded DNF. Dana Eshelman is a registered dietitian nutritionist, a nutrition coach, and a triathlete. She has numerous half-Ironman races to her credit and is training to compete in a full Ironman next year.  The knowledge Dana shares is for all athlete...

Candice McField is an executive health coach and former professional body builder. She recently wrote a book called As For Me And My Body, a guide to fitness based on fundamental wellness principles to help people get off the diet treadmill and become truly fit. Candice writes: Permanent change of any kind begins within. It requires transforming your  mind and spirit, not just your body. Her appro...

The official minimum distance you have to do each day for a "run streak" is one mile.  Most runners on a "run streak" will face those days when the minimum is all they can do. My guest this week has a run streak of 43 years. He's run every day for over 15,706 days and counting.  But he thought the minimum requirements were too lenient, so he decided to make sure to have at least 40 miles a week. H...

Ultra runners set big goals. And we put in a huge amount of effort and time and mindset to achieve them.  Ryan Steiner is my guest this week. And his ultra running goal took him ten years to achieve. He overcame great physical and mental challenges to get to the starting line of his first ultra. And he found acceptance and encouragement in the trail running community.  He has big goals ahead if hi...

You have to be extraordinary to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. My guest this week is working her way to a world record for the most ultramarathon races completed in a year.  Technically an ultramarathon is any race longer than a marathon -- 26.2 miles. Usually we say that the 50K (30-ish miles) is where the "real" ultras start.  But Jameelah Abdul-Rahim Mujaahid isn't satisfied to go...

Experience is the best teacher. And most of us who run figure out what works by trial and error.  But what if you could learn from someone else's experiences? My guest this week is John Krause. He shares his ultra running knowledge and his trial and error experiments as a runner on his YouTube channel, "Motivation Theory Running."  In this episode we talk about his approach to running as well as h...

A FKT is a "fastest known time" for someone to cover the distance on a set route. The year, 2020, may be remembered as the year of the FKT because so many races were canceled and ultra runners were looking for a new challenge. Brittany Peterson and Cody Lind decided to go after the FKT for the 310-mile-long  Superior Hiking Trail in  northern Minnesota.  Brittany and Cody are ultra runners with a...

Rob Koch goes by the handle "vegan-vet-runner" on Instagram. And that title only scratches the surface. He is also a  graduate student at Adams State University, studying Applied Sports Psychology.  He is an ultra-runner and has a wealth of knowledge about the mental side of athletic performance. In this episode you may find some helpful mindset tools you can use in your next race. Connect with Ro...

Ultra running is 90% mental, and the other half is physical.  ~Rich Davis Megan Flanagan is an ultra runner, a running coach and has a podcast called "Strong Runner Chicks." She recently completed a challenging 50 mile trail race and we talk about some of the mindset tools she used to finish that race. And the tools she uses to help her clients perform their best. Connect with Megan: Instagram Fac...

The Shouse Trail is a loop of .294 miles. The previous record for running the Most Known Loops  was 196 loops. Todd Chandler set out to beat this record, and he ran alone, overnight and into the next day to accomplish it. He went on to run a total of 212 loops to make it 100K! In this episode we talk about the mental work that goes along with running long distances and some of the strategies Todd...

Keep moving forward! This is the mantra of an ultramarathon runner. We say it in the struggle to finish a race. But it applies to life as well. The dreaded DNF is always a possibility when we run a race. The mindset to keep coming back after failure is just as important as giving your all in an ultramarathon. Troy Pruett has this mindset of determination to not let a DNF keep him down. He doesn't...

Most runners have an 85% chance of being injured each year. The odds are not in our favor as runners. My guest this week is Lisa Pozzoni, a ChiRunning Master Instructor. She is an ultra runner who has been injury free for most of her time as a runner.  We talk about how ChiRunning can help runners be efficient and reduce injuries in this episode. Also, some of the big changes that have come to the...

David Scoggins discovered barefoot running on his own through trial and error. Most runners find books and info online about the advantages of barefoot running. And then they might give it a try.  David took the opposite route. It wasn't until he faced circumstances that led him to start running barefoot that he realized that other runners were doing this too. Now, thirteen years later, he's not l...

How many more years can I keep running? There is a myth some runners believe about getting old. Many runners assume that there will be a point . . . the effects of getting older . . . when they won't be able to run any more. Dickie Longo is an example of why this common belief isn't true. He has been running since age nine. Now, at 84, he has long-term plans to run with his great grandson six year...

Ultra runner and 1 million push-ups It's challenging to run an ultramarthon. It's also challenging to do 5000 push-ups in a day. Nate Carroll combined running the Glacial Trail 50K AND did 5000 push-ups along the way.  Now he has taken on the challenge to break the world record for the most push-ups done in a 365 day period. His goal is to complete at least 1,500,231 pushups in one year to raise m...

The question all runners ask when we get injured is, "How soon before I can run again?" And long recovery times leave us chomping at the bit, to get back all the fitness we think we've lost. Rest is hard when you are a runner. My guest this week specializes in helping athletes work through the mental stress that comes along with being injured. Carrie Jackson is a Mental Skills Training coach. She...