Ailsa MacDonald is a 41 year old ultrarunner who was born in Great Britain and raised in Nova Scotia. She currently resides in Cochrane, AB and splits her time between Cochrane and Phoenix, AZ when she is not working two week shift rotations in northern Alberta as an Imperial Oil Plant Operator. You first heard about Ailsa on this podcast when we interviewed her mother Morag in episode 72. Ailsa has been an athlete all her life, competing at a high level in marathons, Ironman triathlons, and ultramarathon trail races. As a relatively unknown ultrarunner at the time, she outright won her first 100 mile race at Sinister 7 in 2017. Since then she placed 13th at Western States in 2018 and 6th at CCC at UTMB in 2019.
In this episode we discuss how working two week shift rotations and training in three very different geographic locations has worked to Ailsa’s advantage, the influence her mother has had on her running success, the things she learned from her challenges at UTMB last summer, as well as her goals for 2022 which include a return to Western States! Ailsa runs for Saucony and we are super happy to welcome her on the show.
Connect with Ailsa :
Resources we discussed in the episode:
Connect with Carolyn & Kim: