Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 158. Hillary Allen, Ultra Runner

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158. Hillary Allen, Ultra Runner · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I was like, Hillary, this is it. You're falling, You're dying,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Like you need to brace yourself for impact and just
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: try to relax like this is happening. And that was
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: kind of on repeat every time. I kind of made
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: impact with the ridgeline which I fell off of and
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: in total I fell one hundred and fifty feet and somehow.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Survived Season six of Hurdle. What is up?
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: Emily Abadi? Here, New hurdlers, veteran hurdlers.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: All welcome.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: Before I gush with excitement about a new season with
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: new opportunities, let me reintroduce you to the beauty that
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: is Hurdle. Hurdle is a wellness focused podcast where I
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: sit down with inspiring individuals to talk about big ones,
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: tough moments, and everything in between. On the show, you
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: can expect vulnerability, motivation, and candid discussions with everyone from
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: top athletes and CEOs to aspiring entrepreneurs on what it
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: really takes to follow your passions. My mission is simple
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: to inspire you to be your best self, move with intention,
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: and have some fun along the way. Honestly, at the
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: start of every season, I take some time to just
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: sit down and reflect on where I've been where we've
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: been three hundred and twenty nine episodes of Hurdle later.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: This thing is nothing like I imagined. It is so
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: much more. I am so appreciative, so grateful for this audience,
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  Speaker 3: I bring to this feed. And as I keep rolling,
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: I would love to know if there is someone or
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: something that you want to hear about on the show,
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: So feel free to shoot us a message with your requests.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Over to Hello at Hurdle dot us.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: To kick off season six, I am bringing you Hillary Allen.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: She is an endurance athlete and ultrarunner, coach, host of
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: the Train Right podcast, and new author of a book
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: called Out and Back. It was the biggest no brainer
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: for me to kick off season six with Hillary because.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Her story is unreal.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: In twenty seventeen, she faced a near fatal hurdle moment,
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: which we're going to unpack today.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: During a sky race.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: In Norway, which is essentially I think of it like
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: a run that involves massive vertical gain and direct assense
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: over super steep technical terrain, Hillary slipped and fell from
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: a ridge QA fifty foot free fall followed by a
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: nasty tumble of more than one hundred feet down jagged rocks.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: In today's episode, she talks to us about how she
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: got there, born in Colorado and falling in love with
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: the outdoors from a young age, and then trail running
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: while working on her master's degree, ultimately becoming one of
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: the best mountain ultra runners in the world before this accident.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: She talks us through the details of that day, bracing
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: for impact and ending up in a hospital with fourteen
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: broken bones. Lucky to be alive. She gets honest about
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: the road to recovery, which was more than just physical,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: admitting that there were times in the months that followed
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: where she didn't want to live.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: The story again.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: It's remarkable and I am happy that Hilary is here
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: to bring it to us today. Before we get into it,
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: I do want to thank my longtime sponsor friend of
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: the show, Athletic Greens. If you haven't heard about Athletic
• 3:48
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• 3:51
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• 3:52
  Speaker 3: It's got the anti accident equivalent of twelve servings of
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: fruits and vegetables. It's also got prebiotics, probiotics, adaptagens, foods,
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: it's gone it all and for me, I'm not even exaggerating.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: Adding Athletic Greens into my routine is probably one of
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: the most responsible, smart things that I have done as
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: an adult, because it is me finally investing in my body.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Like I said, it's jam packed with a ton of
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: necessary goodness, all of which I was seriously missing out
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: on before. Like I had no dedicated multi vitamin routine.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: I was literally buying whatever gummy vitamins were on sale
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: at my local CBS.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: And now I just feel so good.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: Starting my days with Athletic Greens, prioritizing my health and
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  Speaker 3: my well being. Of course, they have an awesome deal
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• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Head on over to Athleticgreens dot com slash Hurdle again,
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: that is Athleticgreens dot com slash Hurdle to get.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Your today, no code necessary.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Make sure you're following along with the show over at
• 5:05
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• 5:07
  Speaker 2: I am over at Emily a Baddie.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: There's also a Secret Hurdler's Facebook group and a weekly
• 5:12
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• 5:16
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• 5:19
  Speaker 3: this action are in the show notes. Excuse me for
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: getting a little sentimental, but thank you so much, so
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: so so much again for giving me your ears and
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: being a part of this community. I am so excited
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: for what's to come with that. Let's get to hurdling.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Today. I'm sitting down with Hillary Allen.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: She's a runner, she's a cyclist, she has a new
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: book out, she's an author called Out and Back.
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  Speaker 2: How are you doing?
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  Speaker 4: Hell, yeah, I'm doing good.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just you know, taking it by, you know, as
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: it comes. It's an interesting year, yeah, the last couple
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: of years.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: But Out and Back. Congratulations, this is really exciting.
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I know.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I actually the last time that we spoke, actually the
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: first time I met you, I don't think the idea
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: had had come about yet of me writing this book.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: So it's really cool to talk to you about it now.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: I know. It is really cool.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: So for context, Hillary and I met on a trip
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: to Joshua Tree with the north Face.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable trip. This was I want to say, was it
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: summer twenty eighteen?
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: I think it was because we were. Yeah, so, Joshua Tree.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I think it was spring because it wasn't unbearably hot yet.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I just remember we were camping and it was still
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: really dry, and they're like bees everywhere, and there's like
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: like buckets of water that people would put out so
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: the bees would be attracted over there, not to.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Us of the sugar water. Right. Yes, yes, So we've
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: known each other for a few years now.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Kind of crazy how much has happened since we met,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: and I'm excited to fill in the hurdlers on what
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: happened even before we met as well. Now, before we
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: dive into your backstory, I'm curious about the title for
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: your book, Out and Back. Talk to me about the
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: why behind that.
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a good question, and I'm really glad.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: You asked it because I actually hate out and backs,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Like on a run, I hate them, like they're my
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: least favorite kind of run.
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: I prefer loops.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: I prefer like a point to point, you know, a race,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: or like you know, someone picking you up, you know,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: after you finish this epic traverse or something like this.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: But an out and back like on the same trail
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I really don't enjoy. So why would I name my
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: book this, so it has irony to me, there's a
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  Speaker 1: deeper meaning. And I like double meanings because when you
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: first look at it like out and back, I think
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  Speaker 1: you don't, I don't like this, But as I dive
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: deeper into it, I start runs. Most of the time
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  Speaker 1: from my house or a trailhead and even when you
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: come back to the same place, even if it's a
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  Speaker 1: you know, an out and back or a loop, you
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  Speaker 1: come back with this with just new experiences and you're
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: coming back to the same place, but you take with
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: you all of these this knowledge that you've gained. And
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  Speaker 1: so I wanted to name my book something that represented
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  Speaker 1: this and from the journey that I took that I
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: kind of I went out there and now I'm back,
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  Speaker 1: but I'm back with this whole new perspective on life.
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  Speaker 1: And yeah, I think that's what the book is about,
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  Speaker 1: kind of sharing what I learned along the way.
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  Speaker 3: I totally resonate with your feelings on the out and
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: back by the way, so perfect, perfect name. I love it,
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  Speaker 3: and I mean has so much to do also with
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: your story of literally being kind of down and out
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  Speaker 3: and now being back. So before I feel like we're
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: foreshadowing like this massive hurdle moment, which we certainly are.
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  Speaker 3: But before we even get to your accident from twenty seventeen,
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: let's dial it back and talk a little bit about
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: where you grew up and when you were growing up.
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  Speaker 3: Were you an active kid?
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm a Colorado native. My parents they were
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: both professors at Colorado State University, and so they worked
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: a lot, but then we had the summers off where
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: they could take extended time because they weren't teaching, and
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: so they would, you know, take us, my sister and
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  Speaker 1: I in our campra van and we would go camping
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: and travel on these epic road trips around the US.
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  Speaker 1: And I've visited almost every single fifties of the fifty states,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: and I've visited countless national parks, and it was just
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: an incredible way to grow up. So I say that
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: I grew up like outside in the dirt. It was
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: definitely a tomboy. Whether or not people like that term,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: it resonates with me. I was just very outdoorsy and
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: active and none of the typical kind of you know
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: things that interested in my sister, Like she was playing
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: with like dolls and dress up and stuff like that.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: That never really interested me. I was always interested in
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  Speaker 1: bugs and like, you know, being outside getting my hands dirty. Yeah.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: And I think actually I think I learned how to
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: walk on a trail. Yeah, like just like kind of
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: like in a campground or you know, like a crushed
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: dirt path. That's like, I mean, that's like, like I said,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: that's kind of when with how I grew up. I
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: was my birthdays in August, and so you know, we
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: were always We're always out and about during that.
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: Time of year.
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  Speaker 1: And I grew up just I think just with this
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: curiosity and this just this excitement for life, like asking questions,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: whether that was with the physical world, you know, in
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: exploration like looking for animals or bugs. But science was
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: also a huge part of my up bringing. I mentioned
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: both of my parents were teachers at Colorado State University,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: but they're both in science. Like my mom is a parasitologist,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: so microbiologist, so basically studies parasites. Foreshadowing to when I
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: started running. The first thing my mother bought me was
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: a life straw to filter water because she didn't need
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: to get giard yep. And then my father was a
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: food science human nutritionist at UH. He's a professor doing research,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: so our you know, our dinner conversations were just you know,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: quite scientific in nature.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: So cool way to grow up though, like being surrounded
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: by just like an overwhelming wealth of information and inquiry.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it really encouraged that in me. Even before
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I got into running, I was always an active kid.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Like my father was a really big runner as well,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: and that was the kind of part of us. We
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: were always active, but my parents viewed it as okay,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: like you need to be physically active and be healthy
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: in that way, but you know, you can play sports,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: but you won't get to play sports unless you do
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: well in school. And so it was always this balance.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: So yeah, Actually, before I started running, I was pursuing
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: a scientific career actually, for I was in a PhD
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: program in neuroscience, and like that was just never the
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: that was never kind of that was always the goal.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Like it was never an option for me to not
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: go to school. Like so, like so fast forward to
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: like now when I'm now a professional runner for the
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: North Face. It feels kind of weird at first, like
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: making that decision, I kind of was afraid to tell
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: my parents because they're like, yeah, and what else are
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: you doing, but yeah, I mean I still do a
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: bunch of other things, but like my life has just
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: been totally rooted in I think curiosity and the two
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: ways that I explored that were through science and that's
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: something that I've pursued for the majority of my life,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: even more so than running. And then sport, but just
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: kind of like first it was in all sports and
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: like basically every single sport that I could try to
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: like beat the boys.
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: And then yeah, and then.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: It kind of I played tennis in college and then
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: it just kind of evolved from there.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: Where was college?
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: He was in Iowa, Like, I don't know, Actually, why do.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: You say it like that? No on Iowa.
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry. Actually, Iowa it was great. I loved I
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: loved going to school.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: There with iow that you say it like that, I know,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: I'm so sorry, but like.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Not no offense to the to the state, maybe a
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: little bit, I don't.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Are they Iowans?
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: I think so?
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: And yeh so, no offense to the Iowa.
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: No offense to the islands.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: You they are some of the nicest people, like in
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: the Midwest. I really really like I made some great
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: friends there, But Iowa is just is not for me.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: I'm definitely I was just to come back to Colorado
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: and the mountains. I think it's just the lack of mountains.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so, I mean, I went to a small
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: liberal arts college. I had a tennis scholarship as well
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: as an academic one. I got to pursue chemistry. That
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: was my undergraduate degree, so I got to do undergraduate research.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Like if I had glasses right now, I'd be pushing
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: them up because I'm such a big nerd. But yeah,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: so that's kind of and then yeah, that was just
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: kind of the I think the spark for me was
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: in college of where I kind of I just started
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: to get into this world of sports and be more
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: curious about what I could pursue in the world of sports.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I became a pretty I was a very competitive tennis player,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: and I was always looking for like the I don't know,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: the next challenge, and I spent countless hours practicing trying
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: to get better. And I had this crazy record in college. Actually,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: so tennis for women, they pay best out of three sets,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: so two out of three sets, So if you split sets,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: so if you each win a sets, which is the
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: best to the first to six games, you have to
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: play a third se and I had this ridiculous record
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: in college that every time I went to a third set,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I always won. And it was I think just because
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: I outlasted these other girls and I could just I
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: would just run down every single ball, and like, I
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: think they just got pissed off and frustrated at the end.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: That endurance gigging in.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I think that was the first time
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: where I realized, like, hmm, okay, like I think I
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: have I think I have some.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: Extra something here.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't until after college that I kind of
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: was able to discover exactly what that was.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Did you think about taking tennis any farther? I did?
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: But tennis is difficult because I love it so much.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: It's like a it's an individual sport, but it's also
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: just this strategy and there's there's just so much beauty
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: to the game. But it's difficult because you have to
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: have a court, you have to have another person to play,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: sometimes three other people. It can get rather expensive his
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: racket clubs, and even if you're you know, outside of
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the public park, sometimes the courts aren't in good condition
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: or even have to pay to reserve court time. There
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and when I was in graduate school at the time,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: you know, the only times that I could play with
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: other people, you know, no on wanted to play with
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: me at five in the morning. They wanted to play
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: with me at like you know, midday or like you know,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: five pm after you get off of work. And it
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: was it just became kind of too much of a
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: puzzle to try to fit the time required to pursue
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: it in a way that I wanted to. And I
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: was actually in Denver for graduate school, University of Colorado,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Denver campus, and a lot of the good competition was
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: in Boulder, and so that's like a forty five minute drive,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: and so you know, basically it was just a math
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: equation that would would always add up to like twenty
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: five hours and I only have twenty four hours in
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: the day, so and I needed to sleep at some point.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: That's kind of insane, though, I mean, it kind of
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: had a light.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: Bulb moment us now when you were talking about the
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: difficulty of like integrating someone else into your sport, and
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: I've never thought about and we're going to talk about running,
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: but I guess I've always known that running is great
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: because you can do it anytime, anywhere. You don't need
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: a lot to get it done, and all you need
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: is you. But when you take a step back and
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: you think about why some of us love it for
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: that opportunity, because all you need is you and you
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: don't need to rely on anyone else, and you can
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: go out there and deal with your shit and just
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: be on your own. Of course, there's also the opportunity
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: to like engage with other humans on the run. But wow,
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: that makes me take a step back and really have
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: a second of appreciation for this thing that we both
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: share in common.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: It's beautiful because I mean even you know, go backwards
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: in time to when we met, Like we know we
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: were in Joshua Tree, a place that I had had
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: actually been since I was a kid, right, But it's
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: a cool way to explore and you could do it anywhere.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Like I know that we were running on the road
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: and you were there, But then I know I had
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: discovered some trails in Joshua Tree to run around, and
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: you know, it's it's beautiful because you can do it
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: anywhere and it's so simple, And that's actually what drew
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: me to this sport. It wasn't necessarily that I loved
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: running even as a kid. I didn't really love it.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: I did it because like my father did it. He
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: was He's from Great Britain and he was on the
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: British national team for running the marathon. He's seventy six
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: now and he like, you know, oh my gosh, fifty
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: five years ago and he was like twenty He ran
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: like a two twenty eight marathon something around there. So
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: it was like it was pretty stout for that time.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: And you know, my sister was a great runner, so
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: she loved it and so she did it.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: But I didn't really love it.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: And I was just doing it because I wanted to
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: stay in shape for tennis or these other things. Like
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: I didn't see a point in running unless there was
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: a ball to chase after.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: And so then when I was in graduate school, I
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: was like, well, what is this, Like, I'm time crunched.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: I need some sort of an outlet. And I found
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: this kind of running club that was half a mile
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: from my house and I showed up one morning. These
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: ladies were so One thing that drew me to it
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: was it was just all women. And the second thing
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: that drew me to it was that well, obviously it
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: was close.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: To my house.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: And the third thing was that it was this five
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: like five in the morning, and that was perfect for
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: me because I could actually run and then head into
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: lab because I needed to be there by like seven
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: thirty or eight am, and so it was perfect. And
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: I showed up and you know, low and behold. These
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: ladies were like in the early fifties and had been
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: on the Rebok team back in the eighties and were
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: like Olympic trial marathoners and just badasses and they really
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: loved running and they had been running together and been
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: training partners for like thirty years. And I just kind
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: of started falling into love with running through their story
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: and seeing how they kind of you know, they just
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: had their pair of shoes and they you know, walk out,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: get out the door. They all lived within like half
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: a mile of each other, these three ladies, these two women,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: and yeah, they're just like you know, using running is
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: like a means to catch up. And it just was beautiful.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: And then I was just like, Okay, what is this,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: what is this running thing?
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: I think it's beautiful too because running is a universal language, right,
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: Like you see so many stellar athletes from all around
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: the globe and they come together to run everywhere, even
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: over the pandemic, to be connected through sport despite being
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: in different places. There's this universal acceptance and language that
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: as runners we can communicate with. You know, you don't
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: need a lot again to lace up and get out there,
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: you just need a willingfulness to do so. And that's
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: pretty freakin' awesome.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: I love that, and it's because it is, and I
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: think it's even though it's so simple, it can feel
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: so powerful. And so I just fed my independence in
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: a really meaningful way. Yeah, and it felt like a
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: form of self care. I don't know, it was just Yeah,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: that was just kind of the beginning of me discovering
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the beauty of in the simplicity of movement.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: And like, you're in Denver, so I'm assuming that at
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: this time you're already you're already starting to get onto
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: the trails.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Right, Actually that didn't come until later, but yes, So
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Janie Day, she was this woman who she was the
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: leader of this running club and so she was a marathoner,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: but then also that was on a road. She also
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: loved the trails, and so she was the first one
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: that kind of introduced me to this concept of trail
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: running as I was training for my first road marathon
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: and we use like every Sunday as just kind of
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: a recovery run where we could go to the trails
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and just like kind of play and not worry about
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: time or pace. So yeah, it was kind of during
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: that time in grad school that I would you know,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: it started with once that I would go to the trails,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: and then it quickly evolved from there.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: So when you say it quickly evolved from there, talk
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: to me about getting more acquainted with the trail and
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: I'm curious, like, at first, did you feel a little
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: uneasy about going out and doing something like that on
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: your own? I mean, I feel like, at least on
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: the on the road, especially as someone talking to you
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: who lives in a major city, like when you're on
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: the road, typically there are a lot of people around.
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: If something happens, like you can navigate it. So I
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: would assume that hand in hand with you getting into
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: trail running also came a burst of some independence as well.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and thankfully for me, I did have other like
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: some people there with me to kind of help pave
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the way, and also with my upbringing, like I actually
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: feel more comfortable outside in nature than I do, like
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: in a bigger city. So sometimes, you know, when I
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: was running in a city, i'd feel sometimes more uncomfortable
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: than when I would you know, run on a trail alone.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: But that didn't come until a bit later, until I
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: was a bit more you know, familiar with going out
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: and actually running on the trails, because before that point
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I just had associated trails with hiking, and so it
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: was it was a steep learning curve from there. But
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: thankfully I had kind of Jane and her friends to
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: kind of pave the way. And there's just something incredible
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: about seeing someone who, I mean, who is doing this
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: when she's you know, like fifty something years old, and
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: she's not scared, and so you know she's doing it.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: She's showing me what to do and saying that I
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: can do it, and I'm like, all right, well, like
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: let's do this, Like I don't, all right, there's no
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: reason why I can't do this. Learning from Janie was
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: just it was the biggest gift. And you know, she
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: she was not afraid and she you know, she was
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: early fifties and you know, like most you know, trying
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: new things or trying new trails, and she was super
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: encouraging to me, telling me and showing me that I
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: could do it, and like, it was so much fun
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: for me because I felt like I had nothing to prove.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: There was no competition aspect to it. It was simply
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: learning and I was just trying to learn everything I
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: could from her. And I think it's different like later
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: as I started to run more by myself and gain
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: more confidence and meet other people, Like, yeah, sometimes I
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: think some of the little competition thing can get into it,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: and you know, people start racing on a trail and
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I was just always like not really drawn to that,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: which is ironic because now I race like competitively. But
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: still how I view running, it's just very much how
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Janey introduced me to it. It's a time for exploration.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: It's a time to just get to play, let your
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: mind wander, and like that simplicity, just because there's no expectation,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: it can bring so much freedom and creativity. And as
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: I was getting into running in graduate school, I just
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: became a better scientist, I became a better person. I
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: felt just this lightness of being. I felt, you know,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: just creative and full of energy, and running was a
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: huge kind of spark and motivation probably in every other
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: aspect of my life.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, for you, as you got more and more
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: into the sport, when did it shift from this thing
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: that you did on Sundays and maybe a little bit
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: more often as time went on, to like, Wow, yeah,
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: I'm in graduate school and this stuff is all cool
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: and everything, but maybe I should just do this running
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: thing a lot more.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I tried. I'm a person that I think
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I do a lot. I put a lot on my plate.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: I like to say yes, I like to do a
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: lot of things, and there can become a tipping point
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: where it's too much, and I was definitely reaching that
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: in graduate school at the time. In graduate school, I
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: was working probably seventy hours a week, so this required
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: me to come in on Saturdays, and my life was
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: just basically like you know, sleep, run, eat, graduate school things, study, repeat,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: And you know, I wasn't I didn't really have a
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: social life except for the you know, other graduate students
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: in my in my cohort, and my running friends. Right
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: like that was my social outlet to be able to
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: go for a long run with them or just by myself.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: So I did my first marathon in twenty and twelve,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: and that was a road marathon, and I dabbled in
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: like a other, like a couple other road things in
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: twenty twelve, But then it wasn't until twenty thirteen that
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I ran my first trail race. And then twenty thirteen
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: was a really busy year for graduate school. I was
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: kind of doing my some just big projects, and so
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: it wasn't an until twenty fourteen that I had my
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: first trail running season. And so my first trail running season, granted,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: like I'm training for my first ultras, like my fifty
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: mile race and my first one, and this was all
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: for fun, like I had.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: I actually I wanted.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: To do the race just because I wanted an opportunity
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: to do the distance. And I had run a fifty
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: k and I was like, okay, I did that. It
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: wasn't too super super hard, like, uh, maybe I can
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: do a fifty and so all of this was for fun,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: just out of later.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Literally it wasn't super hard. I meant like I.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Met like I ran okay. So for context, I suck
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: at roads. I did a road marathon and I wasn't
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: satisfied with the time I had. I ran like a
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: three this is gonna make me sound like a jerk.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: But like I ran a three fifteen marathon my first one,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: and I was like this his this was this was hard,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: but like I want to try to break three hours.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: And so I trained and I did the kind of
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: like a self supported, unsanctioned whatever. Janie was there, like
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: riding her bike around Washington Park because I did laps
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: about them this thing, and so I ran a two
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: fifty one and I was like this sucks, Like I
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: don't want to do roads ever again. And yeah, So
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: than then a trail runner was born, and I was like,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: the trails are fun. I'm just gonna do this. And
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: so this was like I said, two end of twenty twelve.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: So then by the time I was into twenty and fourteen,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: like racing trails and like having fun, I was like
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: I my perception of like hard was different. So when
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: I finished like a fifty k, I didn't feel as
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: wrecked as I felt after a road marathon, and I
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: was like, okay, like there's something I can explore here,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: like PU like push go deeper. And so in twenty fourteen,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: when I was you know, doing trails and kind of
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: exploring that I was getting more curious about how like
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: long these how these longer distances would be I don't know,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: taken in my body, like how I could handle them,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: because like that feeling of going all out in a
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: road marathon is just so different from trail running. And
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: so in twenty fourteen, I really wanted to like do
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: a bunch of races that just felt like that were
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: fun and that I was just interested in doing. And ironically,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: this is this is where I realized that I had
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: some sort of potential. In twenty fourteen, I actually I
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: ran my first fifty and on that fifty mile run,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: not only did I win, that was the first woman
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I actually set a course record. And this was like
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: a woman who Darcy picked you, and she's been in
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: the sport.
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: For a while. She's a legend.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: And so when I like crossed the finish line, I
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: was like, wait, are you serious, Like, because there's multiple races.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: This was Big Horn fifty, there was like five other
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: races happening at the time, so I had no idea which,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: you know, how which people I was passing for which race.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: So when I crossed the finish line, I literally was like,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: I think you guys made a mistake. There's no way
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: that I won. Then after that it was just kind
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: of this. I started getting more confident and I started,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: you know, doing other races, and I think in twenty
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: fourteen I picked these races because they were interesting to
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: me and they were fun, like for instance, the speed
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Goat fifty k like these pretty technical fifty kilometer so
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: about thirty one mile races with a lot of elevation gains.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: So for instance, speed Goat was in Utah, so at
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Snowboard a ski resort, but obviously in the summer, I
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: did this race called Run the Rut, which was in Montana,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: so in Big Sky, Montana, right at Big Sky Ski Resort,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: but again in the summer, and so you'd climb up
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: these like big steep hills and I loved this aspect
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: of trail running because I could hike because it was
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: steep enough you couldn't really run, And I don't know,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I just felt this like freedom that like you know,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: I was just going off of effort and feel because
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: your pace didn't really matter. You just kind of had
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: to go and see how it kind of turned out.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: And after twenty fourteen I kind of had play like
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: run these different races, and I ended up winning the
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: US Sky Running Series, like this whole series of races
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: because I had competed in some of these like races
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: that had qualified for this series, and.
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: Literally it was like an accident. I had no idea
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: that I was like actually competing in this series and
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: that I.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Won, and until obviously the last race of the season,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: and I'm just like, huh, okay, maybe there's something to this.
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: And granted this.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Was the whole This was all the while while I
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: was working sixty to seventy hours a week in graduate school.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: And all of these races, like I mentioned, some of them,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: you know, were big Sky Montana, some of them are
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: in Utah, others were in Arizona, some were in Colorado.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: So this is you know, Usually a race would happen
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: on a Saturday, and I had to work in labs,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: so I would go to lab early on Friday, and
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I would leave, you know, after I got my work done,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: and then sometimes get in the car for ten hours
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: at a time to drive to the race from Colorado,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: you know, and then to try to compete in the weekend.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Geez.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: And that was gonna be my question for you, was
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: like were you driving here? Were you flying here? How
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: are you funding getting around and like indulging in this
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: thing that you started to love so much.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So, I mean I was like grad students do
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: not make that much money, and so it was definitely
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: like stringing together just kind of the scraps like but
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: just going purely off of passion. Like I would get
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: in my car and you know, I would go on
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: these epic road trips like I do like road trips
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: is kind of like with my upbringing. But it was
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: just because I loved it so much and I was
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: curious and I wanted to see a new state. I
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: wanted to instead of experiencing it as in a national
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: park like hiking like I did growing up, I wanted
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: to experience it on foot, running and it was a
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: really cool way to almost rediscover the United States, like
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: these different places that I had been before, but I
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: had never had a chance to run in like in
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: this in this certain area or experiencing it, you know,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: as an adult. It was really freeing and I just
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: loved it so much that literally that was just my life.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: It was like, you know, on on a weekend where
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I had a race, I would try to you know,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: front load my lab week so I would work like
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: ten hour days during the week you know in your
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: tape RNs. So I was like, you know, trying to
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: work more, and then I would make it happen for
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: the for the weekends, and then you know, when I
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: was head tired on Monday, still try to you know,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: string it together.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: And would you be traveling to these places solo or
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: would you be bringing anyone along for the ride?
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so it was a mix.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: So I was dating a guy at the time, and
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: so he was really into running, and so we would
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: go on a lot of these road trips together and
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: even when we didn't have a race, sometimes he would
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: come to support me. I'd come to support him. But
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: you know, it was my friends who who wanted to
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: kind of go on a vacation, like moab is So
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Moab Utah is really close close to Colorado. It's like
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: a six hour drive, so it's actually pretty easy to
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: do that on the weekend. So I would go to
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: places like that, or go to the San Juan Mountains
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: and the other part of Colorado basically like the western
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: slope of Colorado for the weekend just to go running.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: So I would go with my friends. I'd go with
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: my boyfriend. At the time, I just was falling in
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: love with this lifestyle of you know, being outside, and yeah,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: like that's that's when I really began to think, especially
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: when I had more success at running, like I want,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: I really wanted to know, like what was what I
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: could do, what I could accomplish, Like is this a
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: chance that I should take on myself? I mean, but
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: these were huge questions to me because I had devoted
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: my life to science, like so had my parents, and
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: this was a career that I really wanted, Like I
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: wanted to be a professor. I wanted to get my PhD.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: And I wanted to pursue science. But you know, the
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: hours that you work in graduate school and how tough
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: it can be, it can it was draining, and I
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: was beginning to not love it anymore. And then you know,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: the juxtaposition of this thing of running that I was
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: just exploring. I mean, it's like cue the Disney music
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: of like a whole new world, Like literally that's like
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: I felt. But I was just falling in love with this,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: and like the more success I had, it was kind
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: of right around the time when you know, sponsorships are
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: being offered for people, and I was getting calls from
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: different companies and it wasn't until in late twenty fourteen
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: that I got a call from the North Face. And
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: after that I was just kind of like, holy crap,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Like they didn't even they didn't even offer me money,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Like it wasn't even that. It was literally a trial
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: period to see like okay, like.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: Do you fit with the team?
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: You know, can we like let's see if this works
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: and then we can talk about like an actual like sponsorship.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: So right, it was like kind of an ambassadorship and
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, man, like I have I have
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: to say yes.
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: Taking a break from today's episode to talk to you
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• 39:25
  Speaker 2: And what made you want.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: To say yes to the North Face versus like, I'm
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: sure other brands that were giving you a call? Also,
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: I always wonder this, like like rewind, I mean, I
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: guess in the internet's the thing in twenty fourteen, but
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: I always wonder, like, how do these brands get your number?
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: Like whenever anyone's like and then the north Face called,
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: I'm like, and like, who gave your number to the
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: North Face? But I'm assuming that point of this question,
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: as I'm like rambling here, is that I'm sure other
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: brands came at you and gave you a ring and
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: they had money behind them, So why did you choose.
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: The North Face? Yeah?
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: See, this is a great question. So first of all,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I had no idea. I was like, how did this
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: person get my number? So it's like an athlete manager
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: for north Face.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: And you always have to like thank the like someone
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: slipped them your digits and you're like, thanks whoever, that.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Was, thanks, yes, And so actually for me, it was
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: after one of the races, so run the Rut, one
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: of my favorite races in Montana. So two of the
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: guys who who raced direct that Mike Foot and Mike Wolf,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: and they were both north Face athletes at the time,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: and so when I did well at that race, they're
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: just like, hmm, like you should look at this woman.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: And so they kind of gave Mave Sloan at the time,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: she was the athlete manager for north Face. They gave
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: her my contact info and then it kind of took
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: off from there. And so yeah, there were definitely other
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: There were definitely other companies, but honestly, like just the
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: legacy of north Face, honestly it was it was because
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: I grew up in the mountains of Colorado and I
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: saw myself more than just a runner. I saw myself
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: more of just as an athlete, and the north Face
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: is just the epitome of that. And they have so
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: many iconic runners, but just mountain athletes. And just to
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: be able to kind of like rub shoulders with that
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: kind of company. I was like, oh, man, like this
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: is where I see myself. But it just I don't
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: know the ideal, like the pinnacle of like what an
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: athlete to me looks like. And yeah, I just and
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: some of my idols Rory Bosio, Rob krr Stephanie Howe
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: like all of these athletes. I mean not to mention
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: the climbers like see to Wright Conrad anchor Jimmy Chin,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: like Alex Hanold, Like I was like, wait, what.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: I love to hear it. I love to hear it.
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: So you start to excel in this sport. You're doing
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: this trial ambassadorship of sorts with the north Face.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Do you graduate from graduate school?
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So in twenty fifteen, I was actually grappling with
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: all of these decisions because I wanted to take the
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: sport to the next level. I wanted to see where
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: I could go, and more and more I was offered
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: these international trips to travel and to race on the
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: world stage, and that was kind of like the next
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: step after having national level success. And so then I
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: was forced to choose because you know, you you only
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: have two weeks of vacation time for graduate school and
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: it's usually around you know, Christmas time, but you know,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: like for these races, especially international races, like these big races,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: were during the summer, and I had to start making
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: decisions of Okay, well do I want to do? I like,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: how can I do both? And the answer to me
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: became just like more clear that I couldn't than I
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: had to choose, and my heart was being more pulled
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: to the running and seeing you know, basically taking a
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: chance on me, taking a chance to see if I
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: could actually, you know, do something that was out of
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: the norm. I had been in school for like the.
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: Like twenty years, like forever I was done.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: You know, it was like, okay, so I made the
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: decision to get my master's degree, and I was like,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: I can still do a lot with that. In fact,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: I so when I made that decision, this was in
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. It was during the time when I raced
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: my first international race over in France. It's the month
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: blank eighty k It's a pretty tough fifty mile race,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: and I ended up placing third. And usually Americans don't
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: do very well at some European races just because of
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: the elevation gain is like super steep and technical, and it's
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: just different, especially for their first like debut race. And
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: after that, I was like, all right, Hillary, you have
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: to take a chance on this. And then when I
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: came back, my advisor was not pleased with me that
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: I had, like, you know, taken a week off, and
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: so I basically made arrangements and defended my thesis and
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: graduated with my Masters, and then I started balancing running,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: trying to see if I could gain sponsorships and get paid,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: and then I also started teaching at a small college
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: on the side. Yeah, I was just kind of, you know,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: just balancing the best of the best of both worlds.
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: The best of both worlds. I mean, that's insane. The
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: third place is absolutely insane. And I would imagine at
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: the time, like just to be in this position where
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden you are traveling internationally to do
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: what you love, and what a pinch me moment to
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: be like, yeah, I'm in France. I'm here just to
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: like do some running, and then I'll go back home
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: and I'll teach some courses and then I'll come back
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: and I'll do some more running.
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: It's seriously, I was like, is this is this real?
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: Like is this is this okay? And honestly, like I thought,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: I literally told myself Hillary, like give it a year,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: like because I didn't think that it was gonna you know,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: I thought I was just giving myself a break and
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: then I'd kind of figure out the next step to
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: do if I wanted to continue with grad school or
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: you know, do something else. And so I thought of
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: it as a pause and now like fast forward, you know,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: six years later. But absolutely it was deaf. It was
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: definitely a pinch me moment.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: So bring me in a Norway because I want to
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: get to this part in your story. I mean, obviously
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: you start to see a massive success. You are placing
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: all around the globe in all of these super technical races,
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: but in twenty seventeen, you go to one particular race
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: that literally changes your life forever. Talk me through what
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: the race is, how you got there, and how the
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: days started out.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: So yeah, like you said, I quickly my life was,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of revolved around this. I would go
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: back home and Boulder and I would teach, and then
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: every summer I would pack up my bags and I
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: would move to Europe and do these you know, super
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: technical races, and for me, my style of running was
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: just drawn to the technical style of races that most
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: likely happen in Europe. And so I was doing that
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: from you know, May until August every year, and it
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: was on the World Series, the sky Runner World Series circuit,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: which is it's just some of the most technical races
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: that you can imagine. It's like so fifty kilometer races,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: like thirty one miles all the way up to you know,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: one hundred k so a little over sixty miles, and
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: they would gain anywhere from like you know, twelve thousand
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: feet to like twenty thousand feet.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: That is just insane.
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: And so one of.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: These races happened in Norway, and I would kind of
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: choose these races because they were happened in super interesting
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: parts of the world that I'd never been to, and
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: so now I was just exploring kind of the map
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: of you know, like what was possible to explore on
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: your own two feet. And this one race, it happened
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: in Trumpso, Norway, so it's super far up like in
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: the Arctic Circle in Norway, and it was iconic. It
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: was this this race is called the Humper Rocken Sky race,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: and the running in Norway is not really running. It's
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: like just like scrambling, like over granted, and it's just
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: really technical running. You can't really run that fast. You
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: have to be very skilled and kind of pay attention.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: But this is exactly the type of running that I
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: love and I practice it a lot, and so I
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: was kind of on this race. It was about a
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: you know, thirty five mile course and at the halfway
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: point you cross over this ridge it's called Humper Rock
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: and Ridge and it's just this iconic granite ridge line
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: where it's kind of third class. So you basically have
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: to have three points of contact. So I use like
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: a hand and like your two feets. You're kind of
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: not running, but you're moving fast like hiking, and then
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: you can have a hand down to like stabilize yourself.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: It's really fun because you're like interacting with the terrain.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: And I remember at this point I was actually winning
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: the World Sky Running Series. I was ranked number one
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: in the world at this discipline, and this race in
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: Norway was kind of just like a bonus lab. And
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: at the halfway point, as as I ran on this ridge,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: I remember seeing some photographer friends of mine cresting this
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: peak and about to turn around a corner and the
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: next thing I knew, I was in the air. And
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: I don't even remember a moment of me hitting a
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: rock or slipping or like you know that moment when
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: you trip and you're like, oh crap, like you're gonna
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: catch yourself. That never happened, and it was just instantaneously,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: and I was literally the horizon was upside down and
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: I was like, literally in my head, I was like, hmm,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: this guy is not supposed to be there.
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: And.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would like the world slowed down. I almost
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: felt like I was watching myself fall and I had
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: just this strange logical epiphany that I was like, Hillary,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: this is it. You're falling, You're dying. Like you need
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: to brace yourself for impact and just try to relax
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: like this is happening. And that was kind of on
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: repeat every time. I kind of made impact with the
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: ridgeline which I fell off of, and in total I
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: fell one hundred and fifty feet and somehow survived.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: Wowah, so that happened.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so you fall and you break fourteen bones and
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: you of course end up in a hospital after getting airlifted.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: Talk to me about your first memory when you kind
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: of come back into your body.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So, honestly, the rescue operation was kind of a blur.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: I do remember waking. I passed out somewhere along the
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: way after the fall, and then once I woke up,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: I was just in pain and kind of the world
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: was pulsing in and out as That's as best as
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: I can describe it, and there's just more blurs of images.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: I still just remember the fear in thinking that I
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: was still dying. But I remember the first part of
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: me actually coming into my body was after they hoisted
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: me up into the helicopter and I kind of looked
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: at the doctor who was there, and I started crying
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: because I was like, am I going to be okay?
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: And he gave this like a you know, we're going
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: to take you to the hospital, like don't worry, Like
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: well you'll like he couldn't, you know, really answer the question.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: But and then the second moment was when my mom came.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: So I was in the hospital in Norway. You know,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: they had cleaned me up, but this wasn't until like
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: two days after the accident. I was like on painkillers
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: and still really groggy, not really knowing what had happened.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: People had come in and out of my room, but
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: I really didn't know. I Like they were talking about
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: an accent and I was like, what accident, Like what happened?
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Like I still didn't know what had happened to me.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't until two days later that my mom came,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: you know, she flew in, and at that moment I
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: realized was like, oh my gosh, like I'm the one
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: that fell, Like all these people are here for me.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of when I was like I had,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: you know, I was in my body. I knew I
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: was super injured, Like obviously I hadn't moved in two days,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: but like I was like looking at like my my
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: arms which were broken, one of which was externally fixated
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: to have these rods poking out of it, and you know,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: looking at my lacerations and on my legs are completely
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: covered up. And it was at that moment that I
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: just felt this like sinking and this sadness because I
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: finally realized what had happened and the gravity of the situation.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, looking back on it now, I remember watching a
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: couple of those videos that you posted in the days
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: after that accident over on social media. I mean, for
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: you looking back on them now, it's literally just you
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: crying to the camera and in one of them, like
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: completely void of emotion. The second one, I feel like
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: a couple of days later really realizing what's going on.
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: When you watch those videos, now, what does that bring
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: forward for you?
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I watch them when I just cry. It's I
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: just remembered all too vividly, and I just remember me,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: you know, I do. I do remember that matter of
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: fact video where I had like, you know, tubes coming
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: out of me everywhere, and I was just kind of like,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: I think I was just like in disbelief, like I
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: was in shock, Like look, you know, there's like a
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: video where I could see myself and I was just like,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: oh my god, like is this really me? And I
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: just remember that disbelief and that that sadness. I remember
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: the fear. And you know, some would think, is like
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: why did she post these extremely intimate moments on on
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: you know, social media? And and for me, it was this,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: this this kind of contract that I had written with myself,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: I myself that I was going to be honest with
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: this process because too many times I feel like I've
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: seen people shy away from hard moments too many times.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: I've seen myself shy away from hard moments and you know,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: retreat into the darkness, into this dark space where no
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: one can see me, no one can see my vulnerability
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: or weakness. But I realized that I wasn't going to
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: do myself any favors by doing that, and I wanted
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: to use it as an opportunity to be honest with
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: myself and the feelings that I was feeling, how much fear,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: how much sadness, how much anger I had, and in
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: hopes that with that honesty, it would encourage that in
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: other people, and you know, to encourage others that were
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: strong enough to be there with me in that Hopefully
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: that it would encourage and I could uncover that strength
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: within myself to you know, be with myself when I
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: felt that, you know, sad and wrecked and just hopeless. Yeah,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: and so i'm you know, they're still up on my
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: social media and yeah, sometimes you know, people still comment
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: on it. So it brings me back there, and I'm
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: I'm proud of those moments, even though they're they're very
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: painful to relive because you know, it's almost just like
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: you know, ripping a scar open again, I'm with you.
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: I co sign this idea of vulnerability in front of others,
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: sometimes in a self serving way. With respect to this idea,
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: and Ashley Wilkings, a trainer who I've had on the
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: show before, she said something I'll never forget that just
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: be careful that the sword that you use to save
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: others isn't the one that you fall on. Right. But
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: sometimes for me when I you know, even something as
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: simple as like lace up in the morning and I
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: put my phone down and I record myself like tying
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: my shoes, there are so many days where the last
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: thing that I want to do is look at myself
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: in the eye and show up on camera. And I
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: don't feel good, I'm not happy, I'm dealing.
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: With some shit.
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: But doing that and put myself out there, it is
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: a reminder to me that I can show up for me,
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: and maybe by showing up for me and showing up
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: on social all encourage the other person who doesn't think
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: that they can show up at all that day to
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: show up at least for them and kind of take
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: it as the day comes from there.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, you like literally that is sometimes what
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: got me up in the in in the morning. You know.
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: It was it was these.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: Moments where I just felt helpless and like it was
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: the only thing that I could do was to show
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: up for me, like you said, Like for me, sometimes
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: it's as simple as like when I couldn't move, you know,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: I was on a scooter because I'd broken both arms
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: and my foot and I had surgery on my foot
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: and both arms.
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: So like I was on this.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: Scooter contraption thing, and sometimes the only thing that I
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: could do in the morning was show up to the
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: coffee shop, my favorite coffee shop.
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: I'd like roll.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: Down the street and go there and i'd you know,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: greet these you know, baristas that knew me by name
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: by now, And that was sometimes the only thing that
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: I could do. And I told myself, Okay, but if
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: that's the one thing you can do, then maybe, you know,
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: maybe that'll encourage other people, or it'll you know, encourage
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: me to do something else that day, like for myself.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: So how do you go from a place where doctors
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: in Norway telling you telling your mother that you may
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: never be able to walk or run again, to being
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: on the scooter to then not only walking but running again.
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: I'm sure obviously it doesn't happen in a concise two
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: sentence exploration.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: No, but it's actually it's really hard. It's really hard
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: to describe that process. I mean, that's like part of
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: the reason why I wrote the book was just to
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: kind of document that process, not really the physical recovery,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: but more so the mental recovery that I had to
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: kind of do in the work that I had to
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: put in. But it was really a slow burn, and
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: writing for me was such a cathartic process throughout it all.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: It was a place where I could be honest, where
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: I could be completely raw and nothing would judge me,
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: and I could write down exactly how I was feeling
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: that day, and it was a thing that continually encouraged
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: me to show up and to keep putting the work in.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: And something that I visualized early on in my recovery
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: was me building this brick house, and that each day
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: represented a single brick in the foundation. And even though
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: I didn't know like the house, what it would look
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: like or what I was actually building, I knew that
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: if I put down a brick each day, that that
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: would make the foundation stronger, and so then I could
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: make it anything I wanted to in the end. And
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: the other piece of that was that every time it
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: was like a brick, you know, and it was imperfect
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: and like cut and chipped, and you know, it was
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: like it felt like a crap day, but it didn't matter.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: I would still do what I could and I would
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: like lay that brick down even if it was imperfect.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: And I just had this idea in my mind that
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: I was creating something bigger.
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: And you know how powerful is like visualization, right, Like
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: that was what you chose to think about on the
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: good days and the bad days, that every single day
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: was a brick to build the foundation. I mean, I
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: would assume, especially being someone who is an endurance athlete,
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: there have been so many times in your professional career
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: that you were just trying to get through the next step,
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: the next mile, and in that process as well, you're
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: thinking about building a completely different house in a completely
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: different way, you know what I'm saying.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And honestly, like visualization is so powerful. I think
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: it kind of goes hand in hand with just like
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: positive self talk, because if you're manifesting and I don't
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: even know if I like that word, but like you're creating,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: or like you're investing in this bigger picture of you.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: Like even though you maybe aren't happy with where you
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: are at today, that doesn't mean that the work you're
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: doing today won't create something different or new or like
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: I don't want to use the word better because that's
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: some sort of judgment, but just something that you want
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: to work. And so, yeah, visualization for me is quite powerful.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: I'm a visual person. I mean, that's like part of
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: the reason why I love trail running and being outside.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: But it also just helped me manifest those positive.
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: Thoughts we just wrapped about visualization, but also you mentioned
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: the word positive thoughts. During some of those really dark days,
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: I would imagine that it was quite hard to have
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: positive thoughts. And I'm sure I know a lot of
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: people listening to this can certainly relate to that hurdle,
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: to that struggle of being in a place where positivity
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: almost doesn't feel like an option because shit's bleak. So
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: for you, how did you stay positive and find light
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: when it did feel so bleak when you were on
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: the scooter hanging out with the baristas.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, And to say this, it's like, I'm
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: not an expert, and the this is just to demonstrate
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: that it takes practice, continual practice, and even though I've
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: had I should be an expert. Like I had to
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: do this, you know, every day, for you know, years, Yeah,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: to find the motivation to keep going through you know,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: recurring injuries or multiple injuries and this crazy recovery, this
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: loss of self identity and not feeling like myself anymore.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: I had to practice this positive mental thinking every day.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: And I'm still not perfect at it, and I still
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: have days where I have like horrible negative thoughts.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: Can I ask you about those for a second?
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, liked they ever.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: Get like really bad?
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, did you ever think about getting to a point
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: where you were like I don't want to be here anymore?
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: Many times?
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: And you know, that was actually something really scary that
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: I that I had to I had to admit that
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: that was what I was feeling, and it was really
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: hard for people. I loved to hear that, and some
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: people couldn't even hear it because, you know, and especially
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: through this accident, you know, everyone was like, oh, you
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: should feel so grateful that you're alive, and I didn't.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: I felt like I had I wish the accident would
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: have killed me because it felt easier than dealing with
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: the day, the daily struggle.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: How interesting and beautiful though that you were in a
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: place that you vocalized that to other people, because a
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: lot of people going through and I won't say similar
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: because totally unique and individual experience that you went through,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: but a lot of individuals that are dealing with thoughts
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: of perhaps self harm or whatnot don't feel comfortable opening
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: up to other people or feel ashamed and embarrassed, and
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: so they don't. But for you to be in a
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: place where you were like, I need to talk to
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: someone about this, I think that's really good on you.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you, and this is this is going to
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: tie into kind of everything I was in it, say,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: regarding the positivity piece, which you think, okay, like how
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: do these things relate? But for me, I couldn't always
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: talk to people. I am a very independent and like
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: reserved person and so I don't trust that easily. So
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: for me to speak to this was a huge deal.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: But how I started was being honest with myself and
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: writing those thoughts down in a journal, writing them down
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: and getting them out there so they didn't consume me.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: So I think that was the first step. And this
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: is the first step that I always take when I
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: want to be positive, is that I embrace the negative
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: feelings because unless I can actually admit and be honest
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: with myself and know that I'm struggling, like, then I
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: can't I can't create change, and I can't be positive
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: because if I'm just lying to myself and I'm like,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: I'm fine, this is all good, I'm just grateful to
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: be here, like whoo, like, that's a lie, like and
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do that. And for me, first of all,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: for me like honesty with me, if I if I
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: put that vibe out there, then I felt like I
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: was lying to myself, and that I think is dangerous
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: because then it creates this unsafe space even within myself
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: to not allow room for the negative feelings. So for me,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: in order to be positive, I had to write out
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: those negative thoughts. I had to experience them, I had
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: to lean into them. It was icky, I don't like it.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: And then I could put words to them and speak
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: to the people that were closest to me. And then
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: the beautiful thing is is that once I put them
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: out there, they were gone and it's kind of like
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: this release and then I could, you know, then be like, Okay,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: well I don't those are out there. I feel this way.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: I can't change it at the moment, and what else
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: do I have? And the answer to what else do
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: I have? Was always hope? And then that's where the
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: positivity would come in.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and recognizing in those moments of vulnerability and honesty,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: the difference between fact and feeling and understanding Okay, I
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: have hope, I have X, I have things that I
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: need to move forward, even though it feels like I
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: am so tripping on my ass every time I'm approaching
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: this hurdle, Like, at least I know that beyond the frustration,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: there's something on the other side.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: I just have to be willing to get myself there.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I love this analogy of the hurdle because
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: I think of that as like I was not I'm
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: a trailerner, but still like I'm not good at hurdles.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: You are, you are.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: But the thing is is that this analogy for the hurdles,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: it's because it's like people think, oh, there's a hurdle,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: you like jump over it, but uh, sometimes you have
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: to freaking crawl you have to jungle gym your way
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: over that hurdle.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: But as long as you're trying.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: And like problem solving a way to get over it,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: you'll get there.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: And I love that analogy.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: Oh thanks man.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: I was I was waiting three and a half years
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: ago for this moment when someone like you just really
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: reinforced where I where I was going.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: With it, seriously, like I get it. I like every time.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: I really like the analogy because it's just it's perfect.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 5: And yeah, also with trail running, it's like.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: Dude, but so many hurdles and trail running, are you kidding?
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: Like Boulder Rock you're talking about like quote unquote running,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: but you have like a hand on the ground like
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: hurdles every single step when it comes to your sport,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: they just might not have like two legs and a
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: bar that goes across the top.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: Sometimes I wish that they were that simple.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: But yeah, okay, So talk to us about where you
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: are now, how the recovery has been.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: Are you back to racing, what's going on with Hillar?
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: So the crazy thing is is that obviously the accident
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: changed my life. It changed how I trained, and I
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: mean so yes, I'm I'm back to racing. I'm back
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: to elite level racing, which is crazy, like I never
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: thought a million years of this would happen, but I
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: held on to hope, and I held on to this
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: belief that my best athletic days were ahead of me.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: And that is like a mantra that got me through,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: and I think it's amazing. It's timeless because no matter, like,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: no matter how old you are, no matter how young
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: you are, no matter if you tried a new sport, like,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: there's always something to aspire to. And the accident was
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: just a way for me to fall in love with
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: running again, and fall in love with making new goals,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: fall in love with making myself a better version of myself,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: learning about me, learning about what makes me happy, learning
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: how to rest, learning how to have a balance life.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: And it was it still is kind of a journey.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: I've had injuries since then, and it doesn't get easier
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: to deal with any kind of hurdle that life throws
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: your way.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: But I will say that I feel.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: More in tune with what I need during those moments,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: and I have now more resources to be able to
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: reach out to and to, you know, I think about
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: like a tool belt. It's like, Okay, I have these
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: different recovery tools and so now I know which one
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: to use when I'm feeling this way or when I'm
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: experiencing this, And so I just feel I just feel
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: more balanced and I feel more just in tune with
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: what I need. And I you said this earlier in
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: the podcast, but I the feeling of like I got you.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: Like I say this to myself, It's like, Okay, if
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: something comes at me, whether it's with running or just
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: in life in general, I mean, you know, I think
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: the past couple of years have been really hard on
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of people. And to know that I have,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: like I got you, I say this to myself, no
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: matter what life throws at me, it's a really peaceful
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: place to be. And that doesn't mean it's gonna be easy,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: but it just it just yeah, I just think the
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: accident in recovery is a way, it was a way
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: for me to discover that that's that strength and the
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: ability to kind of rely on myself.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: For someone who struggles with that I got you mentality,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: For someone who struggles showing up for themselves, what advice
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: do you have for them?
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So I just encourage honesty. For me, I think
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: it's so important to be honest with where you're at.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: If you don't feel like showing up that day, okay,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: like own it, be honest with yourself in that moment.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: And I think what you'll learn is that as soon
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: as you allowed room for acceptance of that you know,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: almost unacceptable emotion or peace, it actually it disappears and
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: then it doesn't hold weight. It's almost free, and then
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: it allows room for you to actually, you know, show
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: up for yourself. And then you know, as soon as
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: you admit to yourself like, oh I don't I don't
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: want to do this today, then you actually might end
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: up doing something because you've allowed room for that like
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: negative emotion or just to be honest. And I think
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of power in that.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: And I think sometimes when you admit to yourself like,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: oh I don't feel like doing this, then that opens
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: the door to like do something different.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: Then you do that other thing, and.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: You realize that it is within your power to show up,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: maybe in a way that you didn't anticipate. So the
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: next time that you're confronted with this scenario where you're like, oh,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: I just don't know if I can do it in
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: your gut and in the back of your head you're like, no,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: but I can, Like I can do this.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: I this the last time.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: I just need to get over this initial moment and
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 3: then we'll conquer from there, you know.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think it's exactly that. I mean, we're
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: so complex, but I think there's a lot of power
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: in that honesty and like I said, creating space because
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: then yeah, then you can pull on these other instances
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: in your life. You're like, oh, well, I did this
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: hard thing and I'm still okay, and I you know,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: figured a way through it, and it just it creates
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: like this almost waterfall and this like positive feedback and
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: we love that.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we love that. So what excites you right now?
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: Oh man, there's a lot of things actually, So definitely
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: the book.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: It's kind of crazy to have this this story.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: Out there, and like I said, it's less of a
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: recovery story and more of just a human resilience story.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: I described it as like an invitation for people to
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: use challenges as a way to learn and to become
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: better people. So I'm definitely.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 4: Excited about that. Excited every time I see someone.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: New with this you know, personal story of mine. But
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: I'm excited also just for community. I know it's been
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: really tough the past you know, year and a half
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: with the with the pandemic, but just different opportunities that
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: I think instead of viewing it as a door being closed,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: that many doors are opened and there's a lot of
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: collaborations and new community that has been opened up through
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: these challenges or these kind of like unprecedented times. Yeah,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: I'm excited for exploration in a different way, whether that's
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: you know, exploring local trails at home or near my home,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: and then you know, return to racing. I'm certainly excited
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: for racing, but that's like, to me, that's not even
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: the even on the forefront, just because I think there's
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: so many other things to explore.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: First.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: When someone goes to your Instagram page, they see this
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: endurance athlete, a runner, a psychist and author, a science nerd,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: all of these things. When you look in the mirror,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: what is it that you see looking back at you.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's such a good question.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: So yeah, because I think we get like caught up,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: and I certainly do of all of these things, like
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: how do you define yourself? I define things by what
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: I do, right, But I think when I look in
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: the mirror, I wish I can send you this photo
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: I haven't posted yet, but I will. It's a photo
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: photo of little Hillary on career day in kindergarten and
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: I'm holding a bugnet and.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 6: Of my bug collection of like butterflies, like beetles, spiders,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 6: like all this shit, and I'm there like and I'm
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 6: so excited.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: I'm wearing a lab coat and I've put bugstickers all
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: over it. Hell, yeah you did.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: When I look in the mirror, Yeah, when I look
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: in the mirror, I seriously see that, Like I see
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: this little girl who's still has this curiosity for life.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: And I think my favorite phrase is a little kid.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: My favorite question was why? And that is still who
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: I am today.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: Right now, Hillary, you have an opportunity to offer one
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: piece of advice to the Hilary who is just coming
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: back into her body. She's in Norway. She's like, what
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: the hell is going on? She's coming to terms with
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: what's gone on, and she feels completely hopeless. You right
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: now can tell her one thing. What do you tell her?
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: I would say, don't give up on what you love.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: I love it I'm so grateful for your story. I
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: loved hurdling with you. How did the hurdlers keep up
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: with you? How do they follow along with you? Give
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: me all the details.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, thank you, it's been such a pleasure. And yeah,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: so you can follow me on Instagram. It's Hillygoat Underscore
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: climbs h So that's my nickname, and then there's pretty
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: much everything there. And then also my website it's Hillary
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: Allen dot com. And so there's info for my book,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: for running coaching or you know, just anything virtual book
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: tour stuff. I encourage you to sign up for my
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: email list because I actually have created a little Hilly
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: Goat book club, So if you buy my book, you
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: can you know, take like I've created this little pdf
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: thing so you can, you know, go through these challenges
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: and like it's just really fun.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 4: So yeah, that's pretty much.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: You're about to be inundated with run Coach rests from
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: the hurdle community.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: So I hope you've got your spreadsheet. Oh, here we
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: go on lock I do.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: I am over at Hurdle Podcast and at Emily a
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: Baddie Another hurdle conquered.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: Catch you guys next time.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: Oh,