Gotta Run Podcast

Ultra runner Theresa Nielsen from Alberta is the 2022 Female Triple Crown Winner! The illustrious Triple Crown includes Tahoe 200, Big Foot 200 and Moab 240, an astonishing total of over 1,000 kilometres in less than 4 months time. Theresa completed these epic races in a combined time of 261:09:00 hours, just wow! Not to mention, she started off the year at Hurt 100, a race she has completed and/o...

Mike Obery from South Africa was introduced to running by his brother a few years back and since then, he has been on a tear checking off his Western States  100 qualifiers. We met Mike at the Cappadocia Ultra Trail in Turkey and was instantly drawn to his warmth and passion for life.  He tells us how Western States 100 has motivated him and is his ultimate ultra goal. Along the way, he has comple...

After an amazing season of directing races, we took off for Cappadocia, Turkey to participate in one of the most scenic races we have ever experienced. Salmon Ultra Trail Cappadocia features distances of 119K, 63K and 38K in the recognizable region of fairy chimneys and hot air balloons. Our 38K was full of oohs and ahhs around every corner, we might has well turned off our Garmins as time was our...

Dawson Mossman hailing from the Canadian Maritimes, has racked up quite the race resume in a relatively short time.  An avid hiker, adventurer and runner, his quest for ultra is far from over. What started as a bucket list marathon back in 2013 in New York City, he quickly turned to further distances in remote places around the world. In this episode, we chat with Dawson about his incredible year,...

In this double feature, Norman and Jodi take you down memory lane; recapping all of the memories from 10 years of Chase the Coyote Trail Race in Mono, Ontario. It was the first race they ever directed and they reminisce about the early days up to the very last finisher.... Neil Baird started running in his early sixties but he didn't waste any time getting up to the ultra distance. From a 5K run c...

Kathleen Egan's journey into ultrarunning happened by accident; while training for an Ironman, she spent many long training runs surrounded by ultrarunners who convinced her to cross over into the sport. That was several years ago and since then, she has competed at many well known races including Tahoe Rim Trai 100 Miler, Western States 100 and Cascade Crest 100 to name a few. She decided to up h...

Adrian MacDonald of Fort Collins, Colorado has taken to trail running like wildfire! Having competed in track and cross country in high school and college, and went to place 53 at the Boston marathon in 2018. He started trail running when the world shut down in 2020 and never looked back.  Adrian toed the line at his first 100 miler at the Leadville 100 in 2021 and finished in first place beating...

New kid on the block, Ihor Verys (Ee-hohr Vair-is), has taken the ultrarunning community by storm with his impressive wins at BC Backyard Ultra, Sinister 7 and most recently Fat Dog 120 in British Columbia. His attitude towards racing, his inner strength and his dedicated training has made Ihor excel at every race he has attempted.    He will be representing Canada at the upcoming Backyard Ultra c...

Joanna Ford from Alberta recently finished Hardrock 100 for the first time (and hopefully not the last), placing sixth female overall!  Peak bagger and outdoor enthusiast, Joanna's foray into ultrarunning started fairly recently but she set her sights on some pretty epic challenges.  We chat with her about her nine year journey to Hardrock and about her tough qualifiers at Fat Dog 120 and Bighorn...

Jason Koomen, a Canadian living in the US has been on a quest to complete fifty 100 milers in fifty States. He just completed race # 32 in Vermont at the Vermont 100. He started this journey in 2014 with Burning River 100 in his home State of Ohio. We met him at the start line of Western States 100 in June and after speaking with him for only a few short moments, we knew we wanted to hear more! He...

I'm Norman, your co-host of the GottaRunRacing podcast, and on this 50th episode we breakdown my 8 year journey and race recap of this year's Western States 100.  Over the past 2 years, Jodi and I have chatted with so many athletes about their trail to Western States, we are thrilled to have finally made it to the big show.   2020 was supposed to be my golden trifecta of running races after succes...

Marianne Hogan's gritty performance at the 2022 Western States 100 earned her a top 3rd female podium spot. We chatted with her a couple months prior to this year's race about her golden ticket win at Bandera 100K, her long road back from a serious lower limb injury and her goals to perform well at Western States. Here is our Encore chat with Marianne Hogan...   You can follow Marianne on Instagra...

Ailsa MacDonald may not have been a household name outside of Canada leading into the 2022 Western States 100 but her incredible performance has the ultra world buzzing now!   We chatted with her after she won her golden ticket at Bandera 100K about her 2018 Western States performance as well as her goal to improve her standings at this year's race. Here is our Encore chat with Ailsa MacDonald......

Dean Johnson is a Runner, Coach, and one of the Race Director's of the Lost Soul Ultra -  Canada's only 100K Western States 100 qualifying race. LSU is known as the toughest race on the Prairies (and voted “best aid stations in the universe”). We chat to Dean about the 20+ year history of Lost Soul and how it became a WS100 qualifier.  We also chat about his running career, his recent experience a...

Stephanie Simpson is an ultrarunner hailing from La Belle Province - Quebec. She is relatively new to the scene but has chalked up an impressive race resume so far with events such as Javelina 100, representing Canada and winning at Big Dog's Backyard and more recently completing the Cocodona 250. We chat with her about those events, her dreams to run Badwater and much more! Here is Stephanie... Y...

Jordan Tropf is a resident orthopedic surgeon at Walter Reid hospital in Maryland and one heck of a runner! He has an incredible set of running achievements in a relatively short period of time getting a personal best at Boston and winning Big Sur in 2 days.  He currently holds the world record for the fastest 3 marathons in 3 days. A short documentary by Believe in the Run tells the tale of that...

Chelsey's introduction to trail running began when she jumped in with both feet onto a Canadian Death Race relay team.  From there, as she puts it, she fell into the wrong crowd (LOL) and decided to take on CDR solo in 2015, earning her first Western States 100 ticket.  She was determined to earn her ticket to WS100 by completing races like Lost Soul, Hurt 100, Run Rabbit Run, and Javelina 100.  ...

Rohan Aurora was a hiker before becoming an ultra runner.  He made the switch when his virtual hiking guru, Andrew Skurka, an American professional backpacker, came in second in the Run Rabbit Run race.  After reading about Andrew's journey in this event, Rohan felt he needed to learn more about the ultra scene.  From there Rohan has never looked back completing races like the Mogollon Monster 100...

Caroline Wiebe, was inspired by Marathon Des Sables after reading a book by a previous finisher. “I just thought I could never do that,” Wiebe said. After she started running ultramarathons eight years ago, she met a former winner of the event at a presentation, who convinced her that she could finish the MDS. She wanted to compete at the Marathon des Sables to celebrate turning 50 but COVID threw...

Kevin MacKinnon For over 30 years Kevin has been coaching triathletes, runners, cyclists and swimmers, helping both international stars and age group competitors reach their own level of personal excellence.  Since retiring from a nine-year career as a professional triathlete, Kevin has also become one of triathlon's busiest journalists. He has worked as the Communications Director of Ironman Nort...

Jazmine Lowther of Nelson, BC fresh off of her Golden Ticket win at The Canyons 100, chats with us about her short yet epic journey as an ultra runner. With a history deep in endurance sports including alpine climbing, skiing and soccer, Jazmine is relatively new on the scene but has already carved out an impressive place at races such as Run Rabbit Run and Chuckanut 50k. To her utter disbelief, s...

Patrick (Paddy) was a high level ultra endurance bike racer competing nationally and internationally before switching gears to ultra running.   2015 was a turning point for Paddy when on a training ride he hit a tree and broke his back and neck.  With a remarkable recovery, he switched sports to ultra running taking on the Canadian Death Race and winning The Lost Soul 200k.   We chat with Paddy ab...

Steve started running ultras after he completed an Ironman and realized that triathlons were not for him.  After moving to Vancouver, he had nothing but mountains to explore and that's what he did.   After reading books like Ultramarathon Man, Born To Run, and Eat & Run he became fascinated with Ultras and was inspired to complete R2R2R.  We chat with Steve about his journey to Western States 100...

When we last spoke to Stephanie Maggs in 2021 (episode #7), we chatted about her quest to join the Seven Continents Marathon Club which was delayed by COVID-19.  Stephanie finally made the journey to Antarctica to complete her 7th marathon to enter the exclusive club.  Does she complete the marathon?  Did the pandemic continue to plague her efforts? These answers and more are answered in our follo...

On March 2, 2022, UTMB organizers published a press release informing runners of their intent to “immediately suspend Russian and Belarusian athletes from all events operating under the UTMB® brand, i.e. the 25 UTMB® World Series events including the UTMB® Mont-Blanc from 22 to 28 August”, until further notice. In this episode, we discuss this decision from a race organizer and runner point of vie...