The Steep Stuff Podcast
Welcome to the Steep Stuff Podcast, your source for all things Sub-Ultra Mountain Running
The Steep Stuff Podcast
#71 - Denali Strabel
Join us as we explore the inspiring journey of Denali Strabel, a remarkable figure in the sub-ultra and Alaskan mountain running scenes. She shares her incredible path from training for Mount Marathon to clinching a podium finish at the Rut 28K in 2024. Denali opens up about the intricacies of training postpartum, the influence of her coach David Roche, and the vibrant yet often overlooked running community in Alaska. With roots firmly planted in the adventurous Alaskan lifestyle, she paints a vivid picture of navigating the wild terrain, offering personal anecdotes about wildlife encounters and the unique challenges Alaskan runners face.
Together, we delve into personal reflections and the evolving relationships runners have with the sport. Through childhood stories and mountain adventures, we uncover the profound spiritual connections runners develop with nature. This episode also celebrates the camaraderie among mountain runners, shedding light on the empowering spirit of women supporting each other. Whether it's the thrill of racing amidst the breathtaking yet daunting landscapes or the resilience required to pursue personal bests, Denali's story is a testament to the tenacity and passion that define mountain running.
Discover the balance of ambition and realism, where personal goals often intersect with public aspirations. We discuss the dynamics of women's mountain races and the importance of creating supportive environments for athletes to thrive. Denali's narrative, intertwined with themes of empowerment, equality, and maintaining authenticity in the face of external pressures, offers a heartfelt celebration of the sport. Whether you're a seasoned runner or curious about the world of mountain running, this conversation promises to inspire and ignite a passion for the trails.
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Follow Denali Strabel on Instagram - @denalibug
Follow Denali Strabel on Substack - @djunebug
Check out Denali's Website - Denali Strabel
What's up, fam? Welcome back to the Steep Stuff Podcast. I'm your host, james Lauriello, and today I am so excited to bring you an episode with none other than Ms Denali Strable. I'm so excited to have a conversation with Denali. She's an absolute standout in the sub-ultra scene as well as the Alaskan mountain running scene. She came on the episode to talk all about Alaskan mountain running. We talked a ton about Mount Marathon training, what it's like training postpartum as a mom, as well as her experience at the rut 28 K this past summer in 2024, where Denali got on the podium. We also talked about coaching and her coach did, mr David Roche. A big shout out to David. So what an awesome episode. Denali is an incredible human, super inspiring, has an amazing, just amazing personality. I think she should start a podcast. I told her this and just it is a great episode. She's just someone that you could tell is just really important for both the sub-ultra and just the Alaskan mountain running community in general. So I hope you guys enjoy this one Without further ado.
Speaker 1:None other than Mr Nelly Strable. It's time. Ladies and gentlemen, we are live People, earth. Listen up. The Steep Stuff Podcast is brought to you by Ultimate Direction USA. I am so excited to be partnering with Ultimate Direction in 2025 as the official hydration solutions partner for the Steep Stuff podcast.
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Speaker 2:Direction Denali Strable. Welcome to the Steep Stuff Podcast. How are you? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's such a pleasure getting to talk to you. I mean, after having Ruby on, I'm just like pulling all the Alaskan runner, mountain runners out to get them on my, my podcast. So it's one by one, here we go right, right.
Speaker 2:We can't hide anymore, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what I feel like it's such like an underground I shouldn't say underground. I don't think that's very right because, like you're running contingent in alaska, particularly like the anchorage or the greater anchorage area, is like pretty, pretty significant. It's a lot of people. I know because, like julian has talked about, like how many people come out to Cirque Aliasca and it's it's quite a large amount of people plus Mount Marathon and stuff. So it's a it's a cool little area of of our sport which is pretty dope. So yeah, I don't know where I'm going with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's only underground because we don't have minus, uh, mount Marathon's media coverage. We don't have any, any coverage and there's no knowledge to anybody what we're doing, but our summer is so short that I think we all have our heads down. It's hard for a lot of us to kind of promote because we're just trying to get adventure after adventure after adventure before the snow comes back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I don't know how you guys do it up there. I mean I I was just complaining to you earlier before we started the recording. Today was the first cold day we've had in Colorado Springs in like two weeks and I was complaining and I was like I don't know how you guys survive winter up there. It's terrible.
Speaker 2:But that's it. It's a survival thing. It's a survival thing and I had to learn that. And I'm from here. You can cry. It's still going to snow. If you cry, you might as well just buck up and survive.
Speaker 1:That's fair. That's fair. I'll take that. All right, let's rewind this a little bit. I want to help tell your story. So, who is Denali Strabel? How did you get into running? You've had significant success in the sport. I mean, I've put like 15, 16 years you've been running Mount Marathon, which is crazy. Let's talk about you. What's your? What's your background?
Speaker 2:Uh, I think my background is Mount marathon. Um, I grew up in Seward Alaska. I grew up on two prominent trails Mount marathon and then a trail lost Lake. It is a trail runner's dream. I almost love that more than Mount Marathon. But I had every example of adventure. I come from a long line of hunting guides, fishing captains, pilots all that cliche Alaskan explorer. That's what I come from. So I think that running has always been something about respecting the outdoor lifestyle that we choose and respecting the land.
Speaker 2:I didn't get into actual serious racing outside of Mount Marathon until I was a much older teenager probably my first senior race, 18. Um, I had never ran any of the other Alaskan, uh, mountain runs because I kind of took that traditional path, at first that cross country track and then probably 2013,. I came back and was like I got a knack for this and I kind of miss my childhood and I kind of want to see where I can go with this and so every year I try to get out down to the lower 48. And that's been fun too to explore our country by trail. It's so epic to me so I like to get out. But I think I'm kind of do this great white buffalo thing where I come down real quick. I race. Sometimes I do well, sometimes you've never even heard like my name and then I just leave right away, and I think a lot of Alaskans do that. We just make quick trips out and I guess that's what I've been doing for the last 10 years. Wow.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I mean like, do you like? Do you more prefer racing in Alaska? Or I guess, when we had talked originally on Instagram, one of the things you had said to me you're like, you know, I like the racing in the 48, but I think I'm going to do more, continue to do more stuff in Alaska. Do you more prefer, like the mountain, the mountain, racing on that scene, or do you more prefer the lower 48?
Speaker 2:I think the only reason I don't prefer the lower 48 is because I have a tendency of getting sick on the airplanes. Um, I also have learned how to deal with that. Like, I can puke and rally on a Thursday night and do just fine on a Thursday. I've done it before. Um, I always come down with family members when I race, so I do have a big team. Um, I think that racing in Alaska isn't just about racing Alaska. It's like there's no reason for me to fly out of Alaska in the summer. I'd rather save that for a Hawaiian trip in January.
Speaker 1:Um, so it's, it's hard, and I.
Speaker 2:I also thought you would probably ask something like this and I asked my husband, who has a long resume of Alaskan races, and he was running when Jeff Rose was running. So it's like everybody knows about Jeff Rose but they don't also know about the three Alaskan guys who were beating Jeff Rose up in Alaska. Um, and I talked to other phenomenal, legendary runners and they all said why would I, why would I race anywhere else If I could just have enough racing and adventuring packed in three to four months? And I kind of I think I'm very more. The older I get, the more I think, yeah, I'm going to be just like my parents and just race up here, but I do. I do make it a priority to get out at least once. Um, like I'm going to broken arrow this year.
Speaker 1:Um, we'll get to that next year.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's like if I'm going, I'm going to. Everyone says you'd like to find the mountain marathons of the world and I'm like hell yeah, like if I'm going, I'm going.
Speaker 1:It's funny you say that, like one of the things Ruby had said to me on the podcast was the way she just described mountain running in just, I guess, in the Chugach slash, just that Anchorage area, and how it was just so proper mountain running, whereas you don't really get a lot of that in the lower 48, in some sections, sure, but it's more FKT stuff. You're not really racing in the high peaks unless you're maybe running something like hard rock in the sand wands or something like that, like there's not met or there's not really any like sky racing or sub ultra racing, really like proper other than like the rut, maybe broken arrow you could stretch, but that's really it. Um, you know we're uh down for lower 48, so we did, I don't know. I plan on going to alaska. I'm excited. I can't wait to go up there this this year I am so excited for you.
Speaker 2:I'm like, take my hand, I will make an itinerary for you I will get you all the right names.
Speaker 2:You're gonna meet everyone and you're gonna be like, oh my gosh, everyone is so jazzed for me to go on this trail, so bring your running legs, go everywhere. People. We love hosting people. I think that's the mountain running thing too. Is that I was. I grew up in the mountain running, but not racing. My parents race, so I'm kind of like what they call a child of Mount marathon, like I was just born into it and um, it's just always been what I've done and I. It wasn't until I moved away where I realized my childhood was pretty extreme. So I think everyone who stays here just gets more and more fit for crazy adventures and no one thinks twice about it. Like no one. They're like oh yeah, I did that last year too. Like there's no. Like you, this unnamed, it's like nope, yeah, I did it, and they're cool, cool how?
Speaker 1:let me ask you this how many generations back is your family from, from alaska?
Speaker 2:um three wow I could be messing that up. Sorry, snow keeps hitting my roof three. My dad was born and raised in Seward Um, and so we've just been there and they now live in a smaller town in hope, which has its own racing Mecca. So it's just everywhere you go in Alaska there's going to be some, some running, some adventuring, hunting, fishing community. It's such a big state but such a small town, feel. Yeah.
Speaker 1:What? Um, maybe talk about your background in the sense Now you said you had done cross country or trucking cross country when you were growing up. Did you also cause it seems like a lot of athletes kind of do the dual sport with cross country track as well as um cross country skiing? Were you into cross country skiing as well?
Speaker 2:Oh no, no, I'm the odd Alaskan. I did not grow up skiing. I didn't want to do anything with it. I chose to do basketball because I wanted to stay in the warm gym. I was a terrible basketball player, but I would rather embarrass myself at basketball than go skiing, because it's just yeah. And I kicked myself for it. So I learned how to ski, probably when I was 25. And then I really skied when I was pregnant.
Speaker 2:Because of the weight in front of me and my nerves being pushed down, I couldn't run or walk, but I could glide and I could skate, ski, glide. So as long as I kept my legs apart, I just took breaks. So I mean, I really, I really. I think I missed out having not much of a scheme background, but I went like straight track, like I was an 800 to 300,000 meter runner, so I was like going for fast stuff. So I never acknowledged anything outside of okay, I'm going to do 4th of July, cause I always do 4th of July, and then I'm just going to continue to run the highway. But now I think like man, what if? I always think what if? What if I had more? Because I'm so adventurous now and I try everything and I say yes to everything, and so it's just kind of interesting to me that as a teenager I was like, absolutely not, I'm not skiing.
Speaker 1:Did you? What got you into the trails then? Like, did you? I mean, obviously you said your parents raced, so from a very young age were you like, let me just go run on this trail, like from this adventurous spirit, really, yeah, and my parents would run further and then they would do out and backs.
Speaker 2:So I would just run until either I didn't want to go anymore and I actually got in trouble no, I shouldn't say trouble, it was just I got in a pickle a few times of going too far out, because they were going far out and they hadn't come back yet.
Speaker 2:So I was just jamming and I accidentally did things like seven to 10 miles as a child, just being like, oh man, I was just so. I've always just had this, I guess, more spiritual with the, with the mountains, versus this like oh, I need to race them, like mountain marathon never got to me until I was in the senior race, like that pressure. I probably could have tried to go for faster times as a junior race, but I promised myself that I wasn't going to let this race ruin this mountain for me. So even at a young age I was very knowledgeable about how I felt, about how I spiritually feel about the mountains versus how racing, because racing was such a job for me. So I think it's easier to go to track and roads because that's kind of that's kind of more business versus what trail running. I mean you can make trail running very competitive, obviously, but at the time I thought I can't ruin this for me.
Speaker 1:That's fair. Let's talk about your relationship with the race. It's such an interesting. You've got 15, 16 years of racing this.
Speaker 2:I've been racing since I was nine years old.
Speaker 1:And you're so young still. That's crazy. To come back every year and do something. Are you like what motivates you for it? Is it to just continue to do Because you compete at a high level? I mean, a few years ago you got second place. You know, like you're competing for the podium every year at such a high level, like, is it a goal to win it one of these years, or like what continues to drive you to do it?
Speaker 2:I think that man such a good question, such a great. I think that if you look at all of my times and my places on paper, you could definitely say this gal has lived a life on this mountain. I have had everything from getting second place smashing between Olympians and them thinking next year, you know, and when you're a hometown girl, it's it's, it's heavy that day. I doesn't matter what I do, I just go there and think, okay, can I hide? No, I can't, like you know it's so and it's it's. You could let the pressure get to you. And so I think I've also had races where I broke my foot at the top of Mount Marathon and I ran down on a broken foot and I still finished and that had a ripple effect of that ruined my entire summer because I had a broken foot. And so it's like I've had highs of highs, lowest of lows and I've had to really find like, why the hell am I even doing this anymore?
Speaker 2:And I, um, I think back at what my twin sister and I, when we started acknowledging my mom cause she never talked about it um, how good she was at mountain running, and it wasn't until lists started coming out that I kept seeing my mom on these um career stats and I was thinking that's incredible and my mom would just go. Yeah, I just, I just really love that mountain. I work hard, you know no big deal, but I mean, getting like top three for 10 times is nuts. And so we, my sister and I, as children, we promised ourselves that one of us was going to go after mom's career stats, and so I, probably the last seven years, have just allowed myself to get just as um I would say um motivated to get a sub hour finish and to get a sub 13 minute downhill.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow.
Speaker 2:Um and me and my girlfriend Christie, one of my training partners. She's at the top of the list now for, I think, sub hours. I think she's at the top for top three. I don't know that woman and I'm at her and I are both at the top of the list for, I think, sub hours. I think she's at the top for top three. I don't know that woman and I'm at her and I are both at the top of the list for um the downhills, so it's super cool to have someone huh, Chrissy Marvin or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember, so I've watched the live stream the last few years so I know that last name. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Chrissy Marvin, super, just super, super and still actively involved in it. So it's really cool to have about like four of us who are actively kind of changing the career stats because we've been doing it for 10 years, right. So now we're at the where we've ran enough, where my name is now up with my mom and now I'm like I want more. And people think that's crazy for me to just only focus on a sub hour. But I've been there where I should have ran a 51 minute and I I did a one, oh one, or my broken foot year, I would think it was right under a sub hour. So I did like a 20 minute downhill, um, and so it's just like I think getting a sub hour is the mark for women. Uh, it's hard, it's hard to do.
Speaker 1:It is, it is. It's so great. Your relationship with the race reminds me of like Darren Thomas. Did you meet Darren Thomas out there? Yes, it reminds me of his relationship with like Pike's peak, because he grew up in Colorado Springs and has ran this race. He just did a beautiful write-up on sub stack um about all the good right.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, so it's just interesting to me.
Speaker 1:I could draw a lot of parallels in that story where you've done this for years and years and years and you grew up around this race and it's it's more than just a race to you, it's something. It's it's not just the community, it's just something bigger, which is very cool, especially because your mom did it so much like that.
Speaker 2:Okay, so cool. My mom had a baby, then one and then had twins and then one. So everyone every winning year was after having a baby. And um, mountain marathon has a women's only field. So it's not like pro field, like right, you have waves of what you anticipate your time to be. But the cool thing about Alaskan Grand Prix is it's not centered around the professionals or the elites. There's just elite people here. We're centered around a party let's get up the mountain, let's celebrate our life and so. But my mom ultimate badass these women.
Speaker 2:The first race was in the eighties, all women's race, and I think that was the one my mom won, um, anyway. So it's just like it's always been a race for me where, like, the women get their own prime time and you don't get that a lot, and then for the junior race, the gals and the boys run together. So when you're the first gal, I mean that town goes absolutely nuts Cause you're kind of probably in the top 20 of voice. So it's just a really cool inspiring. I've always felt supported as a woman there, as a young gal budding in the relationship with racing, I've always, always felt supported, just kind of like day of things get a little crazy because I bet you can um agree to this that, like, mountain running is usually on your own and kind of a solo effort and nobody, nobody cares. And then all of a sudden there's one day where this transcends the community and it becomes the Alaskan Olympics, because everybody's watching. It's like, oh, all of a sudden I have guys at the bar telling me like, okay, what you got to do to now is you got to go up to. You know, like thanks, thanks, joe. But I think I got this covered.
Speaker 2:I love the support and I've had many years on this mountain and I'm an older you say I'm young to it, but like I'm in my mid thirties and there's girls who are 18.
Speaker 2:That's, I'm much older than them when you come to like mentally. And so I mentally have to. I have to love this mountain. I have to acknowledge that there's a race and not let it affect my heart anymore, because this mountain is my, this mountain is my everything. Like my sister died and we have a tree planted there and I spread ashes up there and now I've become the like fun, crazy lady who's up on the hill, like with this tree, and I hope that, like, my legend lives on to that, that like oh, there's Denali and her sister's tree and like I just want to be an old lady and always, always going to that mountain for some reason, and I think, with my sister's tree now I can just go there and sit in a lawn chair and hang out. Um yeah, this mountain means so much to me, but it's like this running community means so much to me.
Speaker 1:Do you plan on going back for life Like? Is this the type of race you'll do as long as you possibly can do it?
Speaker 2:Do you plan on going back for life Like, is this the type of race you'll do as long as you possibly can do it? So I want to get my 20. And then I want to see if they'll let me commentate, because I think I'd be super awesome at it.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so I'm going to like I like I have a tendency of forcing myself in situations, so I'm just going to like, once I know that I have my 20, I might kind of force myself into I think we need a microphone at the halfway point of the mountain and I'll be your girl, um, and then I'll probably come back as just to just to do it, because I think that I'll need a break from being so competitive.
Speaker 1:To like I really would want to come back and be like I just want to participate and I just want to have a good time and kind of not running to the level that you want to on at a race like that, or or you know, or whatever race it could be, and it's like, at that point do you just stop and then come back to it when you can have a little bit of enjoyment and maybe take a break. It's a weird thought, you know, for I mean, granted, I see a lot of guys and gals now running at a high level and they're into their forties, so, like there's, you know, there's plenty of time, but I don't know. That's something.
Speaker 2:I was literally on a podcast last night and I was talking about this and it's been very fresh in my head. It's a weird thought. It's on everyone's minds right now, Like I want to be a lifelong athlete. And how do I, how do I do that and what does that look like? So I mean, I'm still exploring it. So I just hope my knees hold out for another good downhill, and that's what I always hope every year.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about community Cause I think that's just the very one of the most important aspects. Is not the most important aspect not just of the race, but just like the Alaskan running community in general, because it seems very tight knit. Can you talk about the Alaskan?
Speaker 2:Grand Prix and the people, and just like how much that means to the community. Yeah, yeah. So the Alaska Grand Prix nine races. It starts in March and goes till August. There is a top scoring for the top 20 and it's best out of four races. There is recognition for getting the gamut, that's if you run all the races, or I think it's changed to now at least seven.
Speaker 2:And then there is the inspirational award, which is named after Robert Spurr. He was a pioneer of the Anchorage area and it's an award for a mountain runner that year who displays um that uh, supports the encouraging of others in the mountains and just motivates others in the mountains and just kind of represents what kind of Robert did, um, and then the whole thing is taken on by Alaska mountain runners and there's a board and it's all the people I've either grown up with or ran races with. So it's it's, it's really people who are still much involved in the races. So they're right there, they're the race directors, they're the volunteers, they're the racers themselves. Um, and their, their kind of philosophy is kind of, I would say, what everybody up here mostly believes in, and that's continuing the tradition of this healthy lifestyle and encouraging others and educating others, time to be in the mountains.
Speaker 2:The bears are low, you go high. There's not avalanches, there is rotten rock. There is a lot of things that you do learn from trial and error. But I think everyone can always find a group and if you can't find a group, you just call the local running store and there's a group for you. I mean it's very small town, cliche, but it's kind of all around the state and that's really motivating. I mean that's super motivating. Like I came back after a botch track career and botch kind of life and I was going through some hard things and I ran my first Grand Prix race outside of Mount Marathon and I had to DNF.
Speaker 1:Oh man.
Speaker 2:Because I started it off like a race and like a track race race and it was no, you don't do that here, only the elite do.
Speaker 2:And yeah so. But everybody came to me and said, no, you're doing so well, and like someone gave me a goo and someone encouraged me and someone supported me, and it was just like it wasn't this, I don't know. I guess on the track it can be lonely, right, you have a bad thing. You just walk off the track and it's kind of like, okay, let her be. No, people were up in my business, like, how are you doing? I saw that you didn't move on and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I just had never felt more supported by strangers. And then, um, yeah, then they realized I was living up in Anchorage and they're like, okay, well, we're dragging you on these runs and we're going to teach you what to wear, and you've been in California for like five years and you don't even know how to be in Alaska in the winter. And so I think that personally, I feel like the race itself is just because we're already in the mountains. So we might as well race and we might as well have fun. We might as well tailgate at the end or tailgate at the top. I mean, another guy you should talk to is Connor deal. He carries the speaker up the mountains. He is like Alaska's mountain DJ Um and he also races well.
Speaker 2:So everybody who is volunteering and has doing these things are also racing. Like I'll do my race and then I'll run up and watch the men, like we're all very involved with each other's um kind of. I guess experience versus like no one really gives a flying F. Maybe the younger ones, the younger runners kind of get this in Mount marathon, but once you understand no one gives a flying F. Maybe the younger ones, the younger runners kind of get this in Mount marathon, but once you understand no one gives a flying F. What you finish in, no one, no one cares, it doesn't matter, it's only as important as you make it so like something with Mount marathon. You really have to learn like as no one cares. They just want to see you at the barbecue at night and we just want to cheers to having hurt legs. You know we're just. We suffered together and let's just kind of now hang out together.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that makes sense, it does. It does. It's like the I don't know, it's such a special aspect of of like just community in general and it's something like I don't know. I I've been pondering this for a while and I feel like not that trail running has gotten away from the community aspect. I think some aspects of maybe ultra running have, but I think I've found like, for instance, like the Cirque series is a great example Like everybody, nobody really gives, nobody really cares.
Speaker 1:You know, obviously the front of the race is super competitive, but there's six or 700 people in a race, right, so not everybody's competing to win, but when you're done the race, there's this giant community aspect where everybody's together.
Speaker 1:It's a giant party. You know, julian's did a great job as far as getting that together in the lower 48 and as well as Alaska, but you don't find as much of that now and I just find it really inspiring and exciting because, like so I live in Colorado Springs, which in my opinion should be the mountain running mech of the world, because you know, we've got Matt Carpenter here, we've got Joe Gray here, we have, you know, the Pikes Peak Marathon and scent like this is the place, but it's just trying to build that community and get more people out and get more people together. Like we have an amazing community but it just it needs to grow. So it's just interesting to kind of like take pointers and hear things like the Alaskan mountain runners and see how everybody you know it's just a different vibe and it's very close. So I like that.
Speaker 2:And we also don't. It's not like I think when I first moved up there was this kind of like oh the runners, oh the skiers. And I had kind of grown up like oh the skiers, um, and. But I think that deep down we all share a common interest of being outside that, where it's not like a big deal for me to line up against Olympic skiers, I see them as another woman who can help and support and encourage me. I mean I could name drop all the women. Like I know David Norris, so hot right now. I mean awesome, he's the guy so hot right now.
Speaker 2:But guess what, there are ladies who are doing just what exactly what those boys are doing, except for they're not, they're not traveling down to the States. And that's what's so cool and that's what I'm so happy for you to like. Come and see like most of the women up here are older, they're mothers, and if they're not mothers they're doing something else too, Like they're biking, they're skiing, they're paragliding, I mean they such crazy things, and men too. But I, you know, I have to speak for the women. I just I'm so excited for you to just kind of see how it is remarkable If you just kind of be a fly on the wall and sit back and you can see there are.
Speaker 2:There are people from all different different athletic abilities and nobody cares. Like nobody's kissing the feet of the Olympians. We're kind of bashing them of being like, oh, you climbed like dog turds today. What happened, you know, and like you just don't, I don't know. Like you, just no one again, no one really cares. We honor you, like Claire, rhodes, trace and Knopp, all these people who are going out and making a name for themselves. They've got the entire state back in them. I mean, absolutely. I am just like so excited for them. And then you have all of us who stay back behind and we're so excited for ourselves too. So like everyone's just supporting everybody, no matter what they're doing, and I think it's something very unique. Like you don't. You don't usually get that.
Speaker 1:No, and there's so many of you, like there's a lot like Lars is a great example Like there's so many people um, in that like greater Anchorage scene that have either come down and raced a few times or, you know, competed at a high level, cause I think did you go to race breakneck as well that year? I can't remember, I think you did.
Speaker 2:Um, I did Waterville and that was one of the things that you have to be careful when you're a sky runner, mountain gal, and they it starts on a like two mile service road run. That's not a mountain race for me, and so I I should have went to the one that Claire and Ruby Lindquist went to, and Lars and all them, cause I'm like dang it and.
Speaker 2:I'm so happy that I did do that, because when others ask me about racing outside, that's the first thing that I let them know is like, really, look at the profile and if you want to train for that type of mountain race, then you've got to do a, b and C. If you want to train for something like the rut, then yeah, you've got a backyard for that. That's no big deal. So it's just kind of like I have learned by trial and error. I'm like like what's the definition of mountain mountain running? And everybody has a different and I love exploring it, though I'm not dog. In Waterville that was such a fun course. It was gnarly, it was treacherous. I love it when professional athletes have to run in the rain or like the snow or like it's not perfect conditions. I just love that. And so it was. It was hardcore, but it was hardcore in the sense that I was prepared for the rut, I was not prepared for um Waterville and you just, you just learn that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about the rut. You were just there this past year. I mean I have not. I'll be going there this year, very excited to go do that race. I think I'm just gonna do that. I don't know if I'm gonna do the vk and the 28k or just the vk, I don't know yet, but anyway I one of my best friends ran it last year in the 28k had a great race. He was so excited, um, but like he's like one of the best technical runners I've ever met in my life, like technical downhill runners, and he had said that that was the hardest race he's ever done and he's very experienced.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was really surprised to hear him say that, cause he's a tough dude. I was like all right, like we've got ourselves a tough race. Yeah, I like that. What was your? What was your experience like at at the rut?
Speaker 2:So for me it was a full circle moment I had. That was one of my first 50Ks back in 2017. Gosh, and it was when it was a world series. So Hillary Allen, eden Nielsen, all of those, I mean that was. I think I met Corinne Malcolm and Arden there for the first time.
Speaker 2:That was kind of like all our first ultras. It was awesome and it turned into B course because of lightning. So when it came around that my family members were going, it was like New Year's Eve or something I can't remember we're like, we're going. I was like I'll say yes to everything, so we're going. And we went as a family and I thought I'm going to do the, the shorter course, and I want to race up to lone peak, cause I didn't get to so many years ago. And, um, I honestly had one of the best races because I had just this celebration.
Speaker 2:Um, I was vomiting Wednesday or Thursday before the. Yeah, my whole family had to take care of me. I like, oh, it was disgusting. I vomited the moment we flew in and I was just sick, sick, sick, sick. The people who had not experienced that were super worried, but my mom was like she's a gamer, it's okay, like on par with what usually happens.
Speaker 2:So I was just thinking, hey, you know, getting sick was actually something that I can like, understand, and I'm feeling great and I did a lot of prep beforehand. Um, I'm, it's a mountain. I want to take you up Madanuska peak. I did that mountain a lot and I sonnet a lot for the elevation and I just learned some awesome mantras in my uh mind to kind of take me away from the pain. Um, I, like I said my um twin sister died and so I'm really grieving and so when I do these hard mountain races I kind of think like this is, this is the easiest thing I have to do today, like this is actually easy. So the pain I feel is not really anything.
Speaker 2:So that whole rut experience for me was such a full circle moment of look at how much I've learned since the first time I did the rut, look at how how much I belong in these mountains. And sure, those two gals were like 20 minutes ahead of me but I was like Holy crud, I'm, I'm in third place, I celebrate, and I knew a lot of people on the course. Um, so I was just, I was just having such a good time because my sister was my biggest fan and she always got so mad that they only filmed the top three. So when I found out I was in the top three, I realized all my family members who were watching the live stream were actually going to see me racing and so I just, I don't know, I just like I got so much momentum hour after hour being out there and I hit my goal of what I wanted, uh, time-wise, and it was third place and I I don't know.
Speaker 2:It was just such a fun race and so I don't remember the pain because I was so prepared Like yeah, I mean, like I said, grief is the rawest you can get of a human experience. So I mean just being in the mountains like like I have to look at. I'm racing now because I choose to be in the mountains. It has nothing to do with outside validation. I'm not trying to get a sponsorship, I don't. I don't think like I do enough outside of Alaska to have any brand like want to sponsor me. So that's, I'm not a part of that rat race, I don't, I don't give a flying F? Um, but then when things are working out, I, I gave a damn and I'm like well, let's see how far we can push this. But I definitely made sure that if I was going to train and try to be at an elite level, I wasn't going to let this like consume me. I just I just wanted to have a good experience and I felt like I did, and so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I congratulations on an amazing race. I mean. I was watching the live stream I saw you um jammed out and it. What a funny, what a fun race, just what a fun atmosphere. Mike foot puts on just a world-class event. So yeah, I I'm very excited to go do it.
Speaker 2:You, you, I. I feel like you get all the best parts in that 28 K without all that mileage that the 50 K does. Right, I loved the 50 K, but I just wanted to get just a straight shot to all the places I want to go to and I gosh yeah, I don't go to many races. Um, double like broken arrow, is going to be the first to the second time that I'll go to a race. I've already been to Um, but I could go back to the rut year after year.
Speaker 1:I mean I feel like for you guys to like Alaskan runners it is proper, whereas like you guys have proper mountains or run up and down. That's a little more. Whereas like the rut is just technical enough for you guys, whereas like it's not like a Colorado where we just have big Hills. It's a little, you know, like yeah, we've got altitude, but our mountains aren't very technical.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, and I'll bring that up Like I would love to change the narrative about when people come in and race our races. You know, no one says, oh, you got top 10 at Western States, you got top 10 at so-and-so, you got rallied. You know people, people like to say, oh, you go up to Alaska, you're a professional athlete, you got your tail handed to you. You know, I don't. I don't think that's necessarily true, because you can look at the rut and be like, yeah, on paper there's there was 10 girls better than me, but you know, it's a mountain race, anything.
Speaker 2:There's so many bamboozle moments, there's so many like things that are out of your control in those actual treacherous mountain races that I think that's what I want to change about. When people talk about the lore of Alaskan runners is that it's just our courses have to be looked at as if, if you're coming up here, getting in the top 10 is freaking, phenomenal. Getting in the top 20 is everybody's goal and and I think that the rut, the reason that the rut is so well for us is, yeah, it's. It's kind of like dealer's choice of who's going to just gut it out today. I don't care if you can run a sub three hour marathon on pavement.
Speaker 2:I'm climbing, I'm, I'm power hiking more than you are like I don't know or like I'm running when you're power hiking more than you are Like I don't know, or like I'm running when you're power hiking, right. So it's just kind of I think that the rut and even the broken arrow is on the faster side for me, but I think that it has that essence of it's. It is raw mountain. You are out there and you're exposed, and to get into the top 20 at those races is is just I mean, yeah, cheers to you.
Speaker 1:You've had like and you've had success at broken arrow before, like a lot of success at the 23 K so what I'm excited. I'm really excited that you're going to be coming for the 46 K. Why? I'm just curious, why the 46 K, not the 23 K this time around?
Speaker 2:So, so I hardly like I said, I hardly go back to the same place. Um, it's the anthropologist in me where I want to go see a different land and I want to go look at different rocks and I want to explore a different culture. But I would say broken arrow is, um, a place I used to go to in college and that was where I did my elevation camp. So I I also have amazing memories of my coach, diljeet Taylor, who's at BYU right now just phenomenal woman. I have amazing memories of my twin sister there. I mean, there's just, it's just such a good vibe.
Speaker 2:Um, and so last year I decided that I was going to try to do a USA race that fit my like, like how I said Waterville was awesome, but I should have done something else. And so I'm like I just want to try one more time to make a USA team. Um, and you know, whatever they say, whatever, when those races come out, I have to choose the one that I'm, I'm suited for. And when it was broken arrow, I about dropped the computer. My husband was like get over yourself. I was like this is a sign from the universe. We're doing it.
Speaker 2:And, um, because I did the short race last year or not last year, god years ago, before I had a kid 2019, I now get to experience a new race, the double. So it's kind of like flip flop of the rut, where I did the long one, first short one, now I get to do the long one after doing the short one, and I'm I'm looking for another full circle moment. I'm just I don't know if I'm up there in the top and they live stream me. You just look for my smile, cause I'm going to be having so much fun. Well, I'll be having so much fun if I'm in 30th too, like. So that's my goal is. When I saw that on the list, I just took that as all right. Heck, yeah, I mean sure I'm going to be lining up with girls who are 10 years younger than me, women who don't have babies. I don't know how I'm going to fare, but who cares?
Speaker 1:It's going to be fun either way. I mean, you've got mom strength. I think there's something to be said about mom strength.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I rally. I rally now. But also, like, postpartum is so crazy. I'm in year four of it and I still have a different body. So I have to be patient and that's my advice for pregnant women is during your pregnancy, hang out, chill out, nobody cares. You just need to care that, like, okay, just get out moving However you can.
Speaker 2:A walk should not be slept on, like, just walk and then, when you're coming back, if it takes you years to come back, it takes you years to come back. I mean I'm just finally coming back because I have a huge village of helpers, pts, doctors. I have a hormone imbalance, I have nerves. I mean my body got destroyed after birthing life. But I'm also recognizing how much stronger I am, how much I don't take runs for like granted, because I don't have a lot of time anymore. Um, I have a lot on my plate. So I think that I think, yeah, I'm always going to be any and, like I'm just going to be in the corner of any mother, I'm always going to be rooting them on and like yeah.
Speaker 2:DM me, ask me your questions, because I just I love exploring the subject. You know the medical mystery a woman's body, so it's like I'm just learning as much as I can about my own body. And it's been a wild ride because postpartum is just, it's just, it's tough.
Speaker 1:What is? What does training look like now for you, having like a tough schedule and as well as having, you know, trying to figure things out postpartum, like what. What does training look like?
Speaker 2:So I have a coach, david Roach, and I would say that having an online coach teaches you to be Uber accountable for yourself, right, I could lie to him and say I'm doing everything he doesn't know. So I was kind of put off by that type of coaching. And just the universe kept putting David and I back together, finally just slipped into his DMMs and was like hey, I keep seeing you around, what's up? And we've had this awesome relationship with just kind of giving me enough of what he thinks I can have. And then, if I want more, I ask him and he just doubles downs on like, okay, your main priority was always to adventure, always to be an adventurer, and I'm like, nope, I want to get serious about this. And so he's always ready for me to get serious and we just take it a day at a time.
Speaker 2:I am cross training a lot. Right now I literally just got a Zwift bike. I was putting it together right before this meeting. So kind of like, all right, right, when we get off, I'm going to start tinkering. Um, I ski a lot, but this winter has been crap, um, so I, just I, I get in what I can get. In.
Speaker 2:A lot of times I'm waking up at five, 50 in the morning to squeeze it in. Luckily my son is in preschool. So my Mondays, tuesday, wednesday mornings, I I'm getting as much volume, or those are my long days. Those are whatever I can because I have, I think, five hours without a kid, and then the other days are just kind of survival. Um, so I can, I can do a lot off of those three days, uh, but also running this lodge I have, um, I have lots of steps every day. So my life is active. And then I, I walk my son, we go on bike rides, we go, so we have an afternoon full. I mean I get miles and miles just being on my feet. So I've I've subconsciously had to throw that in there of like you live a lifestyle that is always on your feet, and if I put my watch on and I make the 22 beds that I could make here, I get a few miles because it's a three-story place that I'm in.
Speaker 2:So I have to count for my actual life right now, because it's not like I can leave the door and say I'll call you later, or maybe never, like how my husband and I used to be, like we have to be responsible for a baby, he has to know where I am. I mean, those first few times of us going into the mountains, we were calling each other to be like hello, hi, are you coming back? Or like I didn't bring my phone one time and Eric was like excuse me, we're not doing that anymore. So it's been a learning process, but I would say I'm I'm spoiled, because everybody in Alaska there's no like oh, you can't take your baby up that mountain. It's here.
Speaker 2:Let me show you what I stuffed in the sack to make them fit there more, because you're you're now squeezing, you know like okay, yeah, it's like the rules of what you can do with a baby, or kind of like a yield, right, you just kind of like slow down and like can I fit them in this pack? And then a girlfriend said, oh, you just have to wedge shoes in between them and then they don't boggle as much, right, yes, so it's never this. No, you can't. It's like let me show you how to fix, kind of what you're doing and then give you poles and have you go up the mountain with your baby on your back. So it's very I feel like it's very supporting, like I'm supportive of other moms too, so I don't know. I try my best.
Speaker 1:That's amazing and hilarious too. The rules are more like guidelines, right? What are you on, Especially the winter, winter running? Are you on the roads or the treadmill? What are you doing for volume and speed?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a treadmill mama, because right now the winter is so bad, it just keeps warming up, it keeps icing over. I would say so. Usually, like last year, mondays with Christy Marvin, my girlfriend, we would do a three hour run in the swamps, because you just don't know what the footing is going to be. That could be anywhere from 12 miles to 15 miles. So we were always like, okay, three miles or three hours. Then the next day, tuesday, we'd go up a mountain called Lazy Mountain which is over 3000 feet, and we do a loop that was kind of like seven to eight miles and it could take you under two hours. So it was like a bam bam and then I would be, um, fat tire biking, which is the fat tire bike PSI. Now I'm going to explain it. I don't want cyclists coming after me, but it goes on snow and I bike and I share it with my husband, um, and so I learned how to do that and I was rallying the trails as much as I could, and then I was taking a day off on Thursdays or Fridays or something like that, and so I've been trying to dial that same thing in as much as possible, given the cruddy situation. So that is honestly why I got a Zwift bike, because my online set, or my, my indoor setup, was just my, my bike, with a junker Facebook marketplace trainer and I. I just need something that's going to give me mountains, give me elevation.
Speaker 2:Um, because I do go on the treadmill. I do, uh, I did 12 miles the other day on treadmill. Um, I cannot, I cannot listen to things on the treadmill because I want, I want to focus on how my body is doing and also, like, if a jam and song comes on, I have been known to dance and fall off of the equipment. So I just have to be. I just like I either have to be yeah, I can't, I can't listen to most things. Um, so I do rally mentally on the treadmill and look at my firm plan and just go deep into the deep grief grave and just, yeah. So treadmill is just kind of you have to make it what it is Like. I have to tell myself, like this, this is going to make it where I can run broken arrow, this is make it where I can break 40 minutes in Mount marathon. This is, you know, like it's not for, uh, it's just, it's not the work that everyone wants to do, but it's the work that needs to be done.
Speaker 1:I feel your pain. I hate the treadmill but it's. I'm on it a lot more than I wanted to be this off season, just because you know if you want to get fast, that's the necessary way to do it. I mean, yes, there's other ways too.
Speaker 1:And like, yeah, we've got some melted trails, but like yeah it's, it's a necessary evil, and I can't believe you did it without music. I have to listen to music. Or else, like I'm, I'm, I'm, I get so like like, oh, I can't do this for an hour, this is so annoying, like I gotta listen to like I could put on like like I have to listen to my thoughts. Exactly, exactly. I can't get deep in my own mind, yeah, yeah, and I would say I mean like I, I'll go in and out.
Speaker 2:Like I love doing a movie, I'll start a movie, I'll stop a movie. So I do go in and out. I've been better Cause David's told me, like don't make it miserable, I'm all. It's not too miserable for me, I am just. It's just for my safety. Honestly, because I fall, I fall off the elliptical more than the treadmill because there's kind of bars, but the elliptical I have definitely. Like a beat came on and threw my hands up in the air and I fell. So yeah, I mean, really, it's personally, I'm just cats out of the bag, it's for my safety.
Speaker 1:That's fair, fair enough. What's what is it like working with David Cause? It's funny, I've talked to so many people that I that are coached by him, but I've never asked them, like what is David like as a coach? Like he seems I don't know. I we follow each other. I've talked to him a couple times but like don't have like a crazy relationship with him. So I'm just curious to see like what it's. What is that like?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, he's definitely a goofball. Um, and at first you're like why are you so supportive, like I think I think just when you're used to, I kind of like misery, likes company. And then, when someone is kind of going up, used to I kind of like misery, likes company. And then when someone is kind of going up river and that's kind of what he does, he does, he goes up river of like I was down on myself, it was COVID and I had just found out I was pregnant and he's a new coach and I didn't know how to tell him. And he was like heck, yeah, pregnancy is cool. And I was like pregnancy is cool. What are you talking about, man? Like you know, little girls learn at a young age. It's puberty and getting pregnant will ruin your lives. And I've done it and I've done it and he's telling me it's cool. And I was like who is this Yahoo? And then he's just always like but he's as serious as like I think you want to make him right. Like I told him I didn't want to be so involved with numbers, I didn't want to be so involved with getting consumed by things, because that was kind of the track life. And, um, he was like, heck, yeah, whatever you want.
Speaker 2:And I was like, yeah, coaches say that and I've had great coaches. I shouldn't. I'm not dogging on any of my coaches. I have had wonderful coaches. Diljit Taylor took me to Heights, yeah, and you know it's amazing what she's done with that BYU thing.
Speaker 2:So I take what coach Taylor has taught me, what my high school coaches taught me, and now I mix it in what David has taught me and he has really taught me the day-to-day process. You know, he's really taught me like, in the end, none of this matters, we're all stardust and we live and we die and you just are you proud of yourself? And like success for me is making sure somebody, like, say, leaves a race weekend feeling like I, I felt supported and loved and I'm going to sign up for another race and thank you, denali, for helping me. Or like success for me is like knowing my strengths. Like, yes, david helps me believe mentally that I can climb, but something with my body physically has me tapped out with my climbing. Like, look back at all my climbing years, splits of Mount marathon, and I have tapped out and it's infuriating. But he just keeps telling me like now you just need to mentally believe and I'm like, believe this Right and just like, but he's always still there and I'm just like pushing back on him a few times but then I just, I just understand that he is.
Speaker 2:He is somebody who really, really wants me to be happy and whatever that happiness looks like, you know, if I want to break 40 minutes and that's going to make me happy, then yes, let's go for it. But he also truly knows that I just want to do the bomber traverse, I just want to do this Ridge link up and I want to tan on the rocks. Cause he knows like what I secretly want is I just want to be a lifelong athlete. And he kind of like I like after last year's mountain marathon I was so frustrated with my race and all my girlfriends were like people would love your average race, and I was like, yeah, bring me down a T. You know like you're absolutely right.
Speaker 2:And then I talked to David and I was like I'm getting podium out the rut, I'm doing this. And he's like it's going to be hard and you're going to have to, you know, do everything that you pretty much don't want to do and you can do this. And I'm like it's. If it's only just for a certain amount of months, I can get Uber involved with the times, uber involved with the you know the mileage, the elevation. And he just broke it down for me and he said, like, give you a few days of rest and let's do it. And he was just like he was just backing me up, backing me up so much that when I got to the race at the rut I was like I have put in myself in this position because, like my coach, my coach literally wrote me the training I needed and and I did it, and so now I just get to have fun and, and other people were in part of that race.
Speaker 2:But I would say that David David helped me believe that I I do belong. Um, you know how, how many times I run outside of Alaska is how many times I run outside Alaska, but I do belong in that field. That says you better watch out because I'm a downhill demon and I can murder you and some days I climb well, so just wait, just wait. And I think the rut was like, did I always climbing? Well, get out of here. I had so many text messages of like you're climbing, and so it's just like I just kept leaving.
Speaker 2:Like you know, david was one of those few people who, who? He, just he knows my deepest, darkest, like conscious thoughts, and he also knows like when I'm, when I'm serious about something, I could do it. I could do like I could rally for four months and you'll get, you'll produce something amazing out of me, um, and he doesn't push me any more than I need to be pushed. So I think right now, we're still exploring each other. I've been with him since July 2020. So I mean, and I I told him I'm up for it, I'm up for the next 10 years. Let's see what. Let's see what happens.
Speaker 2:And, on top of postpartum, it's super cool that his wife has been having babies. So, like, now he's not just some cause. I almost asked like, hey, maybe could I have Megan, cause she's like a woman, but he's, he's involved now he's totally involved with babies and he's just become more and more, um, I think, just just living the life of being a parent. And I trust him that much more with understanding, like, hey, my pelvic floor is just exploded and I don't know what to do, so I'm just going to hang out with my PT and see what happens and he's going to be like cool cross, cross training for the next you know however long. And so, yeah, he's, he's, he's living parenthood and I think that that helps me more to believe. Like man, he's just going to learn more and more about it and I I'll be his guinea pig.
Speaker 2:It's cool, there's a lot of us, I think. I think he, I think he coaches a lot of moms. So it's just kind of yeah, and, like I said, I have to be accountable for myself. Yeah, and, like I said, I have to be accountable for myself. So, like I need to put, I need to make sure David trusts me that I'm saying like if it was too much, it was scary to say, hey, I didn't like that, that that was no, I'd no, thank you. And that's not just me saying like that was productive, no, thank you, that was never no, and he'll, he'll kind of fight a little bit if it's really important, but just also like, okay, you're the boss.
Speaker 1:I love that he's a good coach man. I didn't. That's. That's interesting to uh, to hear that dynamic. And you know, david's an incredible human and and he's world-class in his own right now it's kind of crazy to see how his profiles explode.
Speaker 2:I would not be able to coach people one parenting and training myself. So he he to me, is like an Alaskan, because he's like how the Alaskans are volunteering and on the board they're also the ones sometimes winning the races, so they're still well involved with themselves too. So, david, I like to think that he is well-rounded and we're all, we're all in our own trenches, right like I don't know what is his struggles, but I also can recognize that like he's making it work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's true, that's true. And yeah, like I said, he's just an incredible human and it's a fun dynamic. That is really, really cool. I've been thinking about the next question I want to ask you and I've been kind of divvying between two, but I'm very curious to see what your relationship with competition is like.
Speaker 2:Like, like my best girlfriends. Is that what you're asking?
Speaker 1:No, it's like. Like what? How are you like? Are you super?
Speaker 2:competitive or is it matter less to you? Or like, okay, so I guess I'm going to part it. Like I'm super competitive with myself. So when we're talking about competition, like there's that road of in my heart, I believe that I'm the best in the world, Um, and so I have to find, like, what's realistic and what's not. Like, uh, I had an accountability group, um, a few years ago.
Speaker 2:And, um, nick, he's, he, he's a coach himself, and he, he would ask, like his athletes, what are your goals? And then, what are the goals you're not telling me about? And like, when he said that, I was all, oh, shoot, what. So now I've started to like, but what am I really like what? What is going to be like when that gun goes off? What is going to? What am I actually going to? You know, like, am I going to tell David I don't care about winning Mount marathon? And then, secretly, I care a lot. And so that's me.
Speaker 2:Then the guns going off, and so if I'm not in first, I'm like, ah, I'm not going to win, I'm not going to. So you know right. So I have to go through that actual with me, like, am, am I wanting to win Mount marathon or the rut, or is it just about time? Or is it about the experience? And I have to, I have to go down that road. I think weeks before the race, even months on my long runs, I asked myself these very um, kind of just uh, these little questions, but they're going to have a ripple effect on my whole run and thinking about what am I truly doing this for? Because I I don't want to hide things from myself, because then when that gun goes off, it's like right, like your brain turns the mush so you can really only think of one or two things, and so it's like, oh my God, it's very primal.
Speaker 2:Right, right. So it's like is my primal thing to win this? Because I wasn't training to win this, because I didn't tell anyone I wanted to win this. And now flip-flop I with the competition of women. I run with these women, I don't run against them, and so when I say that I'm a downhill demon, I don't have an ego at all at all. I don't care for it, I just understand that I was a dancer and I grew up on Mount Marathon and that combination has made it where I am. I'm dancing down the hill. I mean, I literally have my recital down the mountains, I, I love it, and everybody who knows me knows I love it. And I love getting filmed and I love getting pictures of it because it's it's like my childhood dream of being a ballerina. And so when I, you know, have presented myself as a downhill demon, I only say that because I want the climbers to be terrified of me, because I know that that's how I'm going to get the best climb out of them, because it has been known like myself Hannah LaFleur, shauna Severson, all these downhill demons you could be up us two minutes on the climb and I mean Hannah LaFleur has won the race up of a downhill, wicked, awesome. So it's just kind of like no, I didn't think I was going to get Claire Rhodes last year, cause I was like, oh, she's going to break 50. I know what 50 looks like and that's breaking 50. And Kendall Kramer was with her and I was like, oh my gosh, she's still in college, I've given birth, like we're in different times, right, but like I knew, like, but they might still be thinking about me, right, like they're not going to give up on that climb, because they might say, well, that doesn't mean anything, because it's happened before. So I think that I just want to get the best out of gals or or like up here because we are such a tight knit group.
Speaker 2:I mean, last year, at the tourniquet arm race, I text my girlfriend, anna Dalton, who is someone else you need to interview. Here's all. My name drops. Um, I said let's go after the record on paper. This girl smashes me Absolutely and I think over the years she's learned that I do this, like it's not, like, oh, she's crazy. Um, she's like, okay, maybe you know, she gets a little scared. And then, um, you know, right before the race, I saw her was like all right, we're doing this and I just, I just want to open the door. As crazy as it is for me to say I'm going after a course record, if I think someone could get the course record, I want to open that door of that safe space for them to say, even if they say she's crazy, I'm the one going to it like at least they're now exploring that they're thinking about it, yeah, right, like because I think everyone's afraid to say that.
Speaker 2:But if I look at a girl and I think you're gonna get the course record, instead of saying you're gonna get the course record, I'm gonna be crazy and say I'm gonna get the course record, let's do it together, let's manifest this. And that race last year we had three women get under an hour for whatever that race was, and that was the first time in the race history. So it was, like you know, better together. Um, so I'm alone. I am so terrifyingly competitive with myself, but outside I just want to hug and kiss every woman and tell them they're beautiful and just really support them. And no, we don't have to be best friends, but I just hope that if, if they know that I'm in their corner, then I feel like I've I've found success in the mountain running community.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this this is, uh, something I think is really important is one of the things that Mount marathon does is does have a separate men's and separate women's category and it's and I feel like it's better for both groups. So that way, if the men start before you guys, or if you start together, the women in the front aren't getting slowed down by middle or back of the front pack men. I think races should do more of that and we had what was it? The Headlands race, 27k last year broke it up. They did the men's. I think it was the men's race on saturday, women's race on saturday, men's race on sunday.
Speaker 1:I think we should do more of that, just because and I think you'll get better performances out of that and that way the women can have their own you know it's more, you put the spotlight on both groups, you know, as opposed to you know just covering the front of the race with the men and then you know you kind of lose the women in the middle of the pack. It's not as special, whereas, like Mount Marathon, there's a separate stream for both and it's really exciting to follow along. So I don't know. I just thought I want to put out there to race directors to start thinking about that, because it would be fun, right.
Speaker 2:Well, I think to add to that something that has been happening lately up here and, if you haven't noticed, I'm someone who asserts myself into things and I'm like a pit bull for things that I believe in, and so I was like I got to make this cool and I was kind of talking with another gals and like kind of you know, feeling outward verbiage and I was like, hey, you know, like like that lady train that happened and they're like, oh my gosh, it was a lady train. And so, like I kept pointing that and I kept getting other gals to say it too to the reporters and like no, I'm not saying that I started something, but I would just like kept it, like, yeah, let's keep using this verbiage. And every time it ends up happening and it actually ended up that year was like Christy Marvin and the lady train. And but I think something that happens is when us women finally get to run together, we, we do oh my gosh, the energy is electric. And when, like you got to search a crow pass crossing, when we get a lady train on that trail, those men just know to get out of our way. And it's never this like I've never felt unsupported by the men.
Speaker 2:Um, so all the other races, I I like to find my boy group because at back in the day I was like, oh my gosh, christie Marvin, another gal, najeeb Quinn, beat me by 10 minutes and I was just coming in third because I was the next girl, and so it's taken me seven years to get to train with Christie, because I now feel more powerful, but, like back in the day, it was all okay, where's? Where's Connor, where's Tom? Where's just all my men? Okay? And if so, I think that, and Alaska, the men encourage us women to get together as well, because they love to see it, they love the lady train, and so I just think that to all the race directors out there, to all the people thinking about you know how can we help women's sports their own race? Because we've only thought about the men. It's about like we haven't even hit the ceiling, like it's just we haven't explored enough of what happens when women get together and I think that that creates electrifying media. I think that creates just dominating emotions.
Speaker 2:Like it gets raw out there with women, and I know it does with men too, but when I'm next to a woman, I can, I can just let like there's a safe space and we're both gunning for it, and it's like there's something to go after, versus gunning for it with a man Like I'm just thinking like, oh, I just really want to beat him because I've you know, I've ran with him this whole time. But like when I'm with Julianne and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, she rallies. I rally Like we both have a great downhill, we both have a great uphill, and I mean like we're step for step and like last year's mountain marathon race, claire and Kendall, step for step I don't know if you would have gotten that if the men were there and it's step for step with that is like okay, there's three men in between us. So if I feel like there's three men in between myself and another woman runner, I'm thinking, whoo, I'm right on her tail.
Speaker 2:But then, like when you're actually right on her tail, you're like, oh, I've made this commitment. Whoa, whoa, we're in this. And then someone's behind you and you're like terrifying but also exciting. And like you're just kind of like okay Versus exciting, and like you're just kind of like okay, um versus yeah. When you're surrounded by men, it's it's its own different type of excitement. So I think, if these races want to create this? Um, like, how can we get the women out there? I think other women would see that and see the power that it is, the empowerment and just yeah, I just don't think we've explored it enough.
Speaker 2:And what an exciting time to be in mountain and ultra running. People are so fast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh my God, the sport is really getting bananas. Like did you watch black or follow black hanging at all on Saturday? That's like that was my whole Saturday. I was like, oh my.
Speaker 2:God Right, I'm cleaning and I'm watching a race and my son, who's three and a half, also is watching the race with me, you know. So it's just kind of like I know I'm creating a monster, but I'm like you're going to be running this one day, and he's like heck, yeah, yeah it's, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:It's like the sport has just grown.
Speaker 2:I mean both sub ultra and ultra, but like just black, I think it's the pandemic, because I got I um, I would say that I got pregnant, and then I realized there was a shift in the entire field and and either people you know some people missed what their college graduation and had some weird thing with their college. So, like either some people still had a year with their college or they were after 2021, they were starting their first year out of college or people just finally got to train in the way like a professional athlete trains, right, and so then they got out of the pandemic much better. And then some of us got pregnant and so, like children of the quarantine, I'm like, cool, what am I going to look like in 2021? Well, I was just volunteering and getting inspired 2022, I'm like, okay, wow, this field is getting faster and faster. And like, am I gonna keep up? What do I? Even so, I've had to as like a 36, I don't know how old I am, whatever middle age like just like, what am I doing here? Is this, what's the point? And I think that the point is heck, yeah, encourage everyone who's going faster than you. Live it up and you know, if you want to do it. I think.
Speaker 2:I think most people are open about their training. Most people are open about what they're doing. Use Strava as a tool, not as something that's going to make you depressed, right, like? Use it as when you're in the winter months, like okay, well, where. I look on there only to see, like, okay, where so-and-so running, what trails are open? What are we doing, what? What are we even doing? It's blizzarding, is everyone on their treadmill? So we kind of just like make it, make it what it is, find a way.
Speaker 1:If you want to get faster, I guess you just got to find a way now that's a healthy way to look at it too, like as for strava at least, like it's a very healthy way to look at it, like too many people do, I know, including myself, like I'm very private on strava. I mean I obviously I look at what everybody's doing, but like I don't put well, I've had a legit stalker find me because of strava.
Speaker 2:It was this most scary and with stalkers you can't what you much. I just had to move to a different town but she and it was a woman and it was like she wanted to wear my skin, it was so creepy. But then I'm like, how is she finding me? And, like I said, I I'm, I did Mondays the same, Tuesdays the same so, and I was walking to and from work and I don't think people understand that, Like I was walking to and from work same time every day.
Speaker 1:And I never realized.
Speaker 2:Like if someone was watching from a pattern, it'd be like, oh, there's the girl who smiles at the moon walking 9am. Yep, there she is. Like I just yeah. And so when I got that stalker, I had to, I had to rally with, like, my location and I also think robots are going to take over the world. So I've I've always kind of turned things off and then, yeah, it was a teacher husband guy.
Speaker 2:He, it was a teacher's husband, not a husband guy. It was a teacher's husband who picked me up one time at work Cause he said, hey, there was just someone creepy up up the pathway. I just like, I know you walk and you can hang and you've got bear spray with you, um, but like I kind of just give you a ride and I was all Whoa, I was kind of living in La La land, oops, um. So I think that, yeah, if you're going to share everything on Strava, I think just, you know, be careful, or I don't know, share it a few days afterwards, like I don't know, I don't know how you would share it, yeah.
Speaker 1:Hide your. I think you can hide your start and finish now Um yes, right, I did learn that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so that's it always scares.
Speaker 1:my wife runs with our dogs all the time and like we live in like a cool area of town but like there's there's like maybe one or two sketchy sections before you hit the trails that are like maybe a half mile to a mile away and it does. It always worries me.
Speaker 2:I'm like you know, even though you look at your heart rate afterwards, I'm like, oh yeah, there was that section of the woods.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Um, oh my God, I, where was it going with this? I sort the stalker one threw me off. That was a good oh. All right, let's talk as we wind down, because I have so many questions for you. Robots taking over the world because I always ask everybody what's their take on First of all, what's your take on AI? We'll get to that, and then we can talk about Bigfoot, because I definitely have the Bigfoot question for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is so crazy because someone just brought up AI Cause I'm a, I'm a, I'm a writer and someone asked me oh, do you use AI? And I was like no. And they were like, oh well, like I mean, I think it could help you with Graham. I'm not saying like they were just trying to see a positive spin on it, but I had to tell them, like, what are you talking about? I'm not giving the robots more information than I have to.
Speaker 2:Like, I am not one of those people who is done, we were being watched, we, you know, I talked to my phone when I'm like, you know, I want my algorithm to be this and, like you know, like my toothpaste, and yeah, so it's just like you know I want the ads, but I think I just personally think me my family knows this about me. Like my phone's broken, you have to do something to get a hold of me, you have to do something special, and I only tell a few people. It's always on silent, it's away from my, it's as much as possible as I can, but I'm also still addicted to it, right, In the own sense. So I just think that robots are a scary and helpful and to each their own.
Speaker 2:But I think that I had a super fun time in the pandemic when I put down the watch and I just had the app going in the phone. So I did record it or like so I could see, but it was like hidden in my phone, no beeps, no, nothing, and I just went to go, just went to go, and I think that robots are cool and I also just think like they have no place for me in the mountains, like that's the one time I don't want the satellites to follow me and just like so I've, I've also put on airplane. Like you know, I just try to be as away from as as possible. But I also know like I have to take breaks because I'm addicted and I have screen time and I just yeah I are yeah right, we all are.
Speaker 2:It's the world that we're in and, as I have a son who's growing up, I have to be conscious of screen time, and not only his own screen time but my screen time, because he watches me and so it's like he watches me put a book up instead of a phone. Then, before I know it, he's putting a phone right, like he doesn't ignore yeah. So anyways, and there is a yeah, there's a crazy, crazy difference between my son when he's on the screen and when he's off, and it's terrifying if I let him be on the screen too long. And then I'm like what does that do to me if I let him be on the screen too long? And then I'm like, what does that do to me?
Speaker 1:What am I not seeing how?
Speaker 1:it's doing to me. So I don't know, that's interesting. I mean, I'll say to this when I sleep I keep my phone in my office. I stopped looking at my phone. My friends hate me for this, because they'll send me a text at night. They're like do you go to bed super early? What's wrong with you? I'm like no, I just don't look at my phone. I'll put my phone down at seven o'clock and stop like looking at it until probably like till the next day. And it has been like I don't know, like it's just so nice to like detach and like get away from the phone, whereas, like, I work from home. I work in like a finance function so I'm always playing with numbers and this, that and the other, so I'm always in front of a screen more or less if I'm not running. So just to like get away from it for at least 12 hours of the day is like healthy. You know it's so bad.
Speaker 2:And, I think, being available always.
Speaker 2:I had a job where I was available always, and that's not healthy, not healthy. And then I don't want to reward myself with screen time, because when I did work from home and I was on the screen with a little screen, you know, or like, oh, I reward myself from not being on the little screen with a bigger screen of a movie, you know. So it's just like and I think there's going to have to deal with it or not and it's just become part of me, Like I'm usually the person with the broken phone and like I have a bandaid over my crack right now, Like you know, and I just it's not to be cool, it's not to be like, oh, I don't like technology, it's just that if that's the way that I can just dumb down, like how I use technology, that's, that's how I'm going to combat being addicted to it.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't think, and I think for us as humans, like I don't think things are supposed to be so complicated, you know, I think, like with having the phone, uh, like, social media is a great example, even though we all use it I'm addicted to it, I'm on it all the time, you know, but at the end of the day, like, like, we're not meant to be playing with something that powerful People aren't bored anymore and bored is something that we taught in my classroom.
Speaker 2:It's okay to be bored because then you get creative, then that's where curiosity comes from. So let yourself be bored a little bit and then figure out what your next, what your next move is, instead of really like no one stands in line anymore. We're all looking at our phone. So I I try to specifically be in places where, like usually it's awkward, not like we've made it where it's awkward if you're not on their phone.
Speaker 1:Right, and it used to be.
Speaker 2:You could just wait in line at the airport without a phone.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Now everybody's on one. They're all looking down what do I look at now? And like, oh, so it's just you know kind of just get a little uncomfortable and I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm very curious to see who inspires you.
Speaker 2:Oh, ooh, that's a good question. I mean, obviously, my mother, um, and my father, they, in their own right, have their own like my dad's the type of guy who bikes across America. My parents have both biked across America, across Canada, um, and I would say that, like, in general, um, all the Alaskan mountain runners, um, but kind of more specific, I would say I would say that, like this, this, I don't know cause, I don't like to say this new field of women because, like, so, canyons, right, there was new runners and then there was, like, the ones that have always been there. I shouldn't say, like, like Abby Hall, like I know Abby Hall because, like, she's kind of my age and I've, you know, done this, and then I knew of Riley, the winner, but they haven't been racing as long as Abby. So it's like when, when do they become a new runner? When did they become? So it's just kind of this slew of people who are kind of kind of been here for a bit, who are still hanging on.
Speaker 2:But I say that in the most respect, right, because like, like I said, for me, what's the point anymore? I've been doing this for a really long time, so it's, I guess, all the people in general who are still at it, who still allow me to be like it's okay to be doing this 12 years later and and and though no, I'm not a professional and no, I'm not sponsored and I'm nothing like like those women, but also I am in the sense of like, I love this, I love, love, love, love getting out, and I think that if you took away racing, I would still be running, and I hope that for most of those professionals, that if you took away racing, they would still be running. And, um, it's just inspiring. Also, the Alaskan women, because they they remind me that we, we started this whole thing because we love the mountains and that if I, if I want to continue to do this, I want to be just as inspiring as, say, christy Marvin or Holly Brooks, jessica Yeaton, all these like dual athletes, these just amazing women, like who we cross the finish line and we hug, and when it's not hug, like oh, I have to respect you because, right, if I don't hug, then it looks like I'm a biatch from the camera. It's like no, like like I was dry, heaving and hugging, like I love hugging Claire after the Mount marathon race and I was super bummed not to hug Claire, because I ended up in the emergency tent and then I got to hug her later and it's like a hug from Claire was so genuine and a hug from any of those women is so genuine, like we have each other's backs and so that's.
Speaker 2:I guess I'm not going to say really anyone who specifically inspires me, it's just everybody who's still here reminding each other that we do this because we love this and the mountains. As crazy and technical as we want to get about the numbers, the mountains owe us nothing. You could train as much as you want and the kid just you know you have a shit race and so you have to decide like, was it worth coming here? And I think it's always worth coming to the mountains and trails. Was it worth coming here? And I think it's always worth coming to the mountains and trails? And so, yeah, just those are who inspire me and my mom, because I had twins and had a running career after twins and I only have one child and I'm just like, oh, this is so hard.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. Good answer. I finally remembered the question I was going to ask you. Before that I blanked out on One of the things you had said earlier in the conversation was we were talking about sponsorship, or you had mentioned something about sponsorship that just doesn't interest you.
Speaker 1:It's not something that you got excited over, just something you were just like. I do this because I love it. I love that mentality. I find that very interesting Because in a world where people, even though, like I find that very interesting, because in a world where people, even though, like, yes, I have a sponsor, but it doesn't excite me in the way it excites other people, I think I don't know, I think some people I've found get a sense of they draw their purpose from something like that and it's upsetting to see, whereas I think you should draw your purpose from your pursuits in the mountains, like what have you done and the things that get you excited. I don't know where I'm going, see, Whereas I think you should draw your purpose from your pursuits in the mountains what have you done and the things that get you excited. I don't know where I'm going with this question, but I love this.
Speaker 2:I love this because I have two lives I have pre-baby and post-baby of my running and my broken era. At 2019, stellar race, um, usa team race, only the top American went was fourth American. Um, it was like a race that said, hell yeah, I belong, I don't have imposter syndrome If I work hard. I know, damn well, I've worked hard. And, again, the mountains don't owe me anything. I'm never assuming anything. But I also know, like, okay, I've worked hard for this and if it happens for me, damn right, like thank you and just um, so, anyways, I don't know really where I'm going with that, but just kind of like.
Speaker 2:I ended 2019 with a little bit of an ego. I was definitely in the rat race of trying to get sponsored, um, but trying to get sponsored and not racing enough outside Um, and I wasn't racing, like, I never got out of the top five for a long, long time, and so I thought like that's, that's what I need. But then, um, then I was told that, oh, but then you need to, um, you know, have an Instagram and then you need to post and you need to post daily and you need to get a following because, um, I'm not against sponsoring. It's just I had to learn the hard way that I don't. I don't do it that way, um, and you don't have to write like. I know a lot of people who are sponsored and don't post a lot, but they also they also have some pretty amazing outside of Alaska races, like Claire and Trayson and all these amazing people, and I've had a few, I've dabbled, but it's like I haven't had enough for anyone to really care, and so it's like I just had to tell myself when I was coming out of postpartum, like, do I want to care anymore?
Speaker 2:Cause that was very um, it was exciting when I got attention, but it was also just heavy and I felt suffocated from like having to be this person that I wasn't and I was like why couldn't my results just to be, you know, and I, and the problem with me is I get to these races and I make real life connections and I don't, like I would say my Instagram now is my writing about grief, but before that it was just pictures of me, and so I kind of like felt like it was a little narcissistic, but it was because I didn't have pictures of the women I shared the experience with. I would have loved to have been the person like, hey, let's get a selfie. I'm not that way, um. I have a picture of all the women that I've become friends with, um over the years, and when I see them at races, like we find each other, I mean, I just like live in this real life and I guess that's not cool because I'm not posting about.
Speaker 1:I think it's super cool.
Speaker 1:I think it's supposed to be your, your yourself, Like I just I get so caught up in frustration with just seeing like I don't know so many people on social media pretending to be somebody they're not and to chase something, and it's like when you talk to someone like you you're very real and you don't talk to as many people like that. So to me I find that very enlightening when you have a conversation with someone. That's well, I'm not really trying to pretend to be anybody, I'm just trying to be myself and be the best version of me.
Speaker 2:But I think you have to be shackled a little bit to the idea like, if you do, to the idea like if you do write, like like I'm, I guess I'm interested, or I'm curious to see what happens to a few of the new and upcoming runners who are now sponsored, and who are not only sponsored but sponsored by other brands too. So not only are they sponsored by, say you know, solomon, the North face, nike, whatever, they're now also getting different sponsorships that are various tools Like oh, I've got a sponsorship of recovery tools, so I'm very interested to see that play out in my algorithm of how many more ads am I going to get from them. And I guess, if you believe in a product, go for it. But I also have this fear that people are only going to want to wear what I want to wear and they're not going to test it out. So like I fear blind consumerism and like they just think I'm uber cool Cause I'm raw and I word vomit and I'm just yeah, and so whatever she eats, I'll take it and I'm just, I'm just not.
Speaker 2:I'm not confident enough that I've found anything that like I take David's approach with the shoes, why be sponsored when I could wear all different types of shoes and postpartum, one of my feet is bigger than the other. That's crazy. Like I have an eight and a half and I have a nine and a half who the hell has that? Or like my rib cage is bigger and I have small boobs. Nobody makes clothing for me anymore. I had to learn how to sew. I sew this. Okay, tell your mamas out there, mamas, I know how to sew, I'll give you the pattern. You sew now extra fabric in your clothes because it's like one size doesn't fit all.
Speaker 2:And when you're postpartum, things expanded and they came back differently and you're like and so what happens if I was, say, sponsored by a company, that then my feet don't fit your shoe anymore? Postpartum, oh my God, I don't fit any of your clothes now. Or, oh, my stomach doesn't take that anymore because I've had to trial and error and I just have this whole new body. So I'm not against sponsoring. I think there's this cool thing happening with Alaska right now and I think that, like, maybe if I was sponsored it probably because of that icebreaker like, and she's from Alaska, like I think that would be cool enough. Um, but I, I just don't consume myself with, like anyone giving a flying F, what I do and I don't want to market something that I'm not 110% behind. I just I don't. Yeah, I would feel terrible if someone got this product that I don't even like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I agree it's a good take on it and I really appreciate your transparency in the answer. Everybody's got a different take on it and it's I don't know. It's a good take on it and I really appreciate your transparency in the answer. Everybody's got a different take on it and it's I don't know. It's interesting. All right, I'm going to shift. We went from really serious and we're going to get really funny now. What's your take on Bigfoot?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Well, so I mean I love lore, I love folklore, I love crazy things. I mean, come on, I mean I, I love lore, I love folklore, I love, I love crazy things. I mean, come on, I mean I talk to the birds. My sister sends me birds all the time.
Speaker 2:I am into it, and so I think I don't know if there's Bigfoot, but I've definitely been back in the mountains where no one else has been on unmarked territory and there's been some spooky shit that's happened where I'm like I am really small in this world and I also think, the crazy thing you want to talk crazy, not Bigfoot crazy, but like the more I meditate and I'm not I think like at first I started meditating because I was like I want to speak to my twin sister, I want to get my third eye to open, and then, like I got this weird sign from my grandma and it totally changes my directory of why I meditated. And, um, I meditate now in the mountains, um, like I'll sit and I'll journal, and when you sit and you start looking around and you start hearing and I've been practicing silence and you just get past like people can't get past that silence where, like you start going in your head. Once you can get past that, it takes a while. It was I would vomit girl, like it was just no Um.
Speaker 2:But now I'm over that and I can sit with silence and I, I, I start to see things in the corner of my eyes. I start to, and they, they there's so much research about. You know, we're only using half of our brain. We're only seeing what we want to see Like. Is blue really blue? We've made up this color and you're just like what is even real anymore? And so I, I have really been exploring, going down this path of of I don't know, spirituality, of mythical creatures, of you know. I just so I respect the mountains, respect the land. When I start getting a little scared out there, I just think you know, okay, I've opened up this door in my mind and maybe I'm accepting the maybe something's really there, I can't see you.
Speaker 2:Just please know, I love this mountain and let me, let me pass, um, so you know, if Bigfoot is out there and watching me, I hope that he says, hey, that girl's cool. Um, and that's what I hope with the robots too. Like I say thank you, google, like you know, please, google, can you set a timer? You know, thank you so much. And I just want them to be like hey, you know that girl, let's just, let's leave her.
Speaker 1:We'll spare her right like she's that's funny. I don't know. Bigfoot, I don't know. I just think Alaska is a big place if he's hanging out he could be hanging out up there, I think yeah, there has not been enough explored up here.
Speaker 2:There has not been enough. And then all of a sudden I'm on right, there's game trails and you're thinking there's been a lot more. That's been on this trail 30 miles out in the mountains. Who's been out here? What's going on? Am I gonna, like you know, find the actual, yeah, yeti out here?
Speaker 1:what are you? What is it? Because you know, I don't know, I just raced, uh last summer, uh, in the tetons and I was like always looking over my shoulder for grizzly bears and stuff, and I was like, oh, we don't really have this in colorado.
Speaker 1:this is a little weird of a feeling where I'm not like the meanest thing in the woods Not that I am, but like is it a weird feeling Like are you, are you extra careful, like running in the mountains, or is it just more of like, uh, the bears are there, they don't really mess with you, kind of thing?
Speaker 2:Like what's that? Like having?
Speaker 1:grizzlies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say it was pretty reckless as a child, never carried bear spring, never carried water, I mean like whatever, um, as children do. So I grew up like, like I said, it didn't take until me moving away to realize that was pretty extreme. Um, so I grew up just aware of um, okay, we run this trail because there's less bear activity now. Or if you're going to run in the morning, run here because bears are active in the mornings, they're active at night. And then you figure out okay, what time of year is it? Okay, they're down by the river, we go high. You just figure out.
Speaker 2:And I think bears is something that every everyone's always concerned about. But I'm more worried about moose. Moose is terrifying moose. I mean like my sister-in-law just got almost trampled the other day walking back to her house. So it's just like the problem with moose is they're not really territorial and like not that I don't think bears will learn Like right. So I'm always hopeful that if I run into a bear and bears figure out like oh, there's people here, screw this place versus a moose just goes back. And so you never know where a moose is going to be. And you never know where a moose is going to be, and you never know like they're just angry.
Speaker 1:They're just, they just bad. Bad vision too, I think. I think that's why.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so so they get spooked. So it's like you're you're always going to scare them. You're always going to scare them versus a bear. Anytime I've ran into a bear, they first ran away from me, and I've only had one time where one turned around and huffed and I looked at right in the eyes and I screamed that's terrifying, oh my God.
Speaker 2:But like he left or she, and it was crazy. The most terrifying thing to me was that I did not have my bear spray in a way where I could get it out, Like I would have gotten eaten. So like I carry my bear spray now in in the front on, like if I get spooked I'll unclick the bear spray safety thing. So I'm ready. Like there would not be enough time, so I, I, yeah, you just figure out how you can live with them, Cause they're not going anywhere. Right, Right, Right and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I would say Anchorage is really good at it. They put up signs like hey, bear activity, high bear activity. And then there's red signs Like if someone spotted a bear or moose, kill, like, so there's a dead moose carcass. There's different colors of emergency, so red is like there's been a bear there, uh, like charged people. Then there's yellow like okay, last week there was a bear. You know yield, you know, I true, own, like dealers, toys, Um, so like, if you see it, people are still like you know, oh, this is very serious, we're telling fishing game. It's um, yeah. So I would say that we're all in this together, um, of keeping each other alive, and I've unfortunately had friends.
Speaker 2:I mean being eaten by bears and it's absolutely traumatizing and it makes you feel like I couldn't. I couldn't go into the mountains, I couldn't go on the trails and I'm still terrified in a certain place because I mean, he got. He just, yeah, he got eaten by a bear and it was absolutely nuts and it's just like whoa, we are so small in this world, whole whoa, we are so small in this world. Bear spray does nothing if they're if yeah, if you're not quick enough, or if you don't have a gun. So it's like my husband just tore apart a waistband and he has a little pistol that he zip ties and everyone, like, does their own thing. So because he wanted to run with it, so if we go, you know he's been known to carry a gun and yeah, or like my brother also learned, flares are good oh yeah, smart, yeah like do it.
Speaker 2:Um, and I've ran with flares before and people were like that's crazy and I was like, well, I wouldn't drop the flare. Like you know you're not gonna start a fire, like right like on the riverbed right, like I would, yeah, so I'm not up in the bush, like, yeah, so anyways, it's just like you just learn tips and tricks, and I mean I don't know.
Speaker 2:Also, I think a lot of people have fast splits through areas because it's like bear bear, bear or moose, moose, you know, um, but up here, yeah, you see the things that could kill you and they'll kill you, and it's absolutely terrifying. But, right like I choose to live here, so I have to, I have to just be super smart about it. It's the same thing as avalanches, so it's like there's not a time where it's safe in the mountains up here, but there are times where I can find a safer route because this route is not safe. So I would say that that, I guess, is where the plethora of trails comes in, because instead of not going up this mountain, then I'm just going to choose a different trail to go up this mountain, and that's kind of like the vibe up here is that, well, I'm still going to go out.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. Well, you just have to be smart, it seems like, because, like I don't know, in Colorado you get stuck in your ways. Nothing's gonna eat you well, generally, but like you know you just, there's not a 400 pound grizzly or 500 pound grizzly sitting at the front of the trail, so, like it's not, you could just continue to do whatever you want in a lot of ways, whereas, like those bears are so big and so like I don't think people realize, like whoa, no, where I used to live in Seward was by a riverbed and my mom had the grill grilling and this bear was like a mini Cooper.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're so big and the way it just slouched in and realized like oh, it's a home, like didn't know what, like you know, grilling salmon comes up over and just is just slow mo, and I'm like you're not missing that thing, that thing's oh yeah. Yeah, I mean just it's terrifying. And moose moose are just horse on steroids, all draft like things. Terrifying, like I'd rather run into. I don't know, like I guess I've been other places where people like oh, you got to worry about the mountain lions, like they're stalking you.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I was like, yeah, I'm terrified, but like I can see what can kill me, and I don't know if that's better or worse, but I don't, at least I don't know. Have this like is it looking at me? Like I don't know where it is, like no, I know where it is.
Speaker 1:This might sound naive, but, like if a mountain lion jumped on me unless it was a really big one I feel like you could get something like that off right. Or at least like, try to get away. If a grizzly bear jumps on you, you are not getting away, it's over yeah, and I've been chased up a tree by a moose um a bear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most too like a bear has, like I said, only huffed at me, but but I'm quick, like ever since that, and I'm I'm quick draw with my. So the way I have, um, my bear spray is in the front where the water bottle goes, and then I turn it so like it's still in my thing and I can get it quickly, like from an angle and like, like I said, if I'm scared I'll flip it, flip the safety on, so it's like safety off, ready to hit and just yeah, so like I know doing that, I've also sprayed and I've hit myself before oh gosh, and it's quite terrible.
Speaker 2:But like, as long as we're both hit right, like all the old versus, like trying to get it out, like I think people think you got to get it out, get arranged, like you think about getting your bear spray out, you're dead, like that's how quick it happens, and so yeah that's so true, it's, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:All right, last question I'm going to wind this down now. Have you ever thought about starting a podcast? And if you haven't, you sure seriously should. You've like one of the personalities. I don't really tell this to many people, but, like you mentioned, commentary before 100%. You need to convince them to do commentary for the race 100%.
Speaker 2:Oh well, thank you.
Speaker 1:I mean.
Speaker 2:I haven't. I feel like so, being a twin, you're split and so I'm like as much as people want to say I'm the show girl, it was because I was a dancer and like I just I have that about me, but really I hate the spotlight and I don't know, like if my word vomit is always good versus my sister. Like we had always talked about doing a twin podcast because, like she knows the camera, she knows like the techno, she would be good at questions, right, and like I would just be there for you know, but she was hilarious too, so I think we'd both be too funny. Like you got to get someone who's not funny and someone who's funny together, right, like, so I would have to find someone who's like more serious and like get me to, like you know, come in with the jokes or come in with the pun, and but then like be super serious about like women's rights and like bear aware and just yeah, so I don't know think about it.
Speaker 1:Think about it, you could do like something with like alaskan mountain running or something, or like something with alaska like there you go, look at that you got it. Thank you so much. This was a great conversation. I really appreciate your time. Um, yeah, I can't wait to meet you over the summer, uh, in Alaska, so looking very forward to spending some time up there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much. This is fun.
Speaker 1:What'd you guys think? Oh man, what, what a great episode. I want to thank denali so much for coming on the podcast. Like I said, um, just an amazing human and someone you definitely want to look up to and follow uh in the sport. She's cool people for sure. I look very forward to getting some runs uh in with the alaskan mountain running community this summer, specifically in July should be. Should be good stuff. Before you guys get going, hop on Instagram and give Denali a follow. You can find her at Denali bug on Instagram. That's just a D E N A L I bug and, yeah, give her a follow, send her some, send her some some kind words, you know, shoot her some messages and let you guys let her know what you guys thought about the episode. I'm sure she'd love to hear from all of you. Um guys, very last but not least, if you wouldn't mind, uh, the way we're able to cover uh, this amazing sport and all these athletes profiles is uh, by your kindness. So if you wouldn't mind giving us a five-star rating and review on apple and Spotify or whatever place you get your podcast at, that would be amazing. Like I said, that's how we can continue to cover this great sport. Guys, thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 1:This was a big week of podcasts. We just concluded with Denali, but we had a huge week with Frank Sinceri as well as Jason Hardrath on. So what a week of podcasts. Yeah, I couldn't do this without your support and love, so thank you guys so much. Yeah, if you guys happen to be looking for a new pack, waist belt or any hydration solutions, ultimate Direction has you covered. If you hop on onto ultimate directioncom and use code steep stuff pod in your cart, that's going to get you 25% off your purchase. Uh, there's some amazing things coming down the pike at ultimate direction, specifically in March wink, wink, uh, some cool innovations. So you guys are definitely going to want to load those carts up, uh, and get some cool stuff. So hope you guys have a great weekend. Enjoy your long runs, enjoy your workouts, uh, and yeah and yeah, take care, see you next week. Thank you.
