Dirt Nap Diaries
A trail running podcast for everyday trail runners juggling training with real life. Hosted by women’s trail running coach Brittany Olson, it’s where the messy, funny, and real parts of running meet strength, joy, and the reminder that you’re more than “just” a runner.
Episodes
63 episodes
Episode 62: Running with Poles: A Coach's Guide
Trekking poles can be your best friend if you take the time to work with them AND listen to this podcast. This episode breaks down what poles actually do, how to pick the right ones, how to solve the stow and retrieval problem, and how to pract...
Episode 61: Easing back into running after racing: Mentally, emotionally and physically
Week three post-Mog and I'm thinking a lot about what easing back into training actually looks like. You're not just recovering from the race. You're recovering from that entire training block you just put yourself through.This episode b...
Episode 60: Mog 100: The Full DNF Breakdown
Last week I told you I didn't finish MOG 100. This week is the full breakdown — mile by mile, what the race felt like, where it went wrong, and why my DNF ended up inspiring someone else to pull the plug on theirs too. We're talking humidity, v...
Episode 59: DNF at Mog 100: The Short Version
I DNF'd Mog 100 on Saturday. Pulled the plug at Buck Springs, right around mile 43, after hours of pain in places that have never once bothered me on a run, and a race I've wanted since 2018 that just... wasn't fun anymore. I'm not ready for th...
Episode 58: Taper Diary: Live From Week Two
Mog 100 is Saturday, y'all. It's a stacked week, a concert tonight, beer night with an extra reason to celebrate, my friend Catherine in town, a cabin trip Friday, and I am nowhere close to packed. But since most of my life right now is trainin...
Episode 57: The Case For Good Enough: Running On Empty
I'm tired. Like really tired, and I don't fully know why yet, work's fine, running's fine, life isn't bad, but I've been running on empty for a while now, struggling to get out of bed for a trail run, struggling to sit down and program my athle...
Episode 56: Trade offs and the off season: Why they're both part of the plan
Signing up for something big changes your day to day whether you like it or not, but what that actually looks like depends on your job, your family, your flexibility, your life. Racing back to back all year doesn't make you more legit than the ...
Episode 55: The Seasoned Runner: The dark side and a little about the brightside
It's still my birthday month! In case you were wondering.This episode gets into something I've been chewing on: seasoned runners and the trap experience can turn into. We start with the good stuff, reading an elevation profile, understan...
Episode 54: Alone on the Trail: Why Solo Miles Matter
A text from one of my athletes got me thinking about solo running, and it turns out I have a LOT of feelings about it. Some of you won't run alone, ever. Some of you love it but won't admit it to your run crew. And some of you are the friend wh...
Episode 53: The Hill Is Not the Problem: A Tactical Guide to Uphill Running
A bunch of you have been asking me about running uphill, so this is the tactical episode I promised. I'm getting into what those grade percentages actually mean (so you know if a hill is legit steep or you're just making shit up in your head), ...
Episode 52: I Cried, Then I Climbed: The Tour du Mont Blanc
I'm back from Europe and I finally get to tell you all about the Tour du Mont Blanc... 10 days circling Mont Blanc (around it, not up it), about 105 miles and 33,000 feet of climbing through France, Italy, and Switzerland. This one has everythi...
Episode 51: Post-Race Blues: When the Finish Line is Behind You and You Still Feel Off
The race is over, the crowd is gone, and everything is quiet again... and that quiet can feel really loud. It's been about eight weeks since Cocodona, and I finally named what I've been feeling: post-race blues. Except mine don't look like what...
Episode 50: Too Much, Too Little: Finding Your Training Sweet Spot
I'm off hiking around Mont Blanc while you're listening to this, but I couldn't leave y'all hanging...so today we're talking about the two extremes I see all the time as a coach: doing too much and doing too little. Sometimes in the same athlet...
Episode 49: The Door Has Conditions: Racism, the WNBA, and Who Feels Safe on Our Trails
This one's a deeper episode, and I'm not dancing around it. A few seconds of a basketball play turned into a suspension, death threats, and racial slurs aimed at Alyssa Thomas... and it says everything about how black women get treated in the s...
Episode 48: What coaching is all about: We're all adults here
Nobody signs up for coaching to get judged. But a lot of us show up bracing for it anyway.In this episode, I'm breaking down what coaching actually is, what people get wrong about it, and what your job is as an athlete versus what mine i...
Episode 47: Your body knows: The physiology behind why your numbers lie
Your watch doesn't know you. It doesn't know you had a rough night of sleep, that you're in your luteal phase, that you've been stressed all week, or that you're climbing in 90-degree heat. It just spits out a number. And yet somehow, that numb...
Episode 46: Born to Climb: My Journey to Vert
I didn't build a love for climbing. I just finally stopped being surprised that it was already there.In this episode, I'm answering a question from one of my athletes and friends — how did I actually build my capacity for vert? Were ther...
Episode 45: Cocodona 250: Your Questions Answered
You asked, I answered. This episode is a full Cocodona 250 Q&A — your questions about training, gear, crew, the mental game, recovery, and everything in between. If you've been curious about what actually goes into running 253.4 miles, this...
Episode 44: Cocodona Mile 176 to the Finish: Left on Birch
Made it! The final stretch. Mile 176 to the finish line at Heritage Square in Flagstaff.This episode covers the solo section through the Foxboro habitat where I was navigating a tracker scare, chatting with a woman from the UK named Jen,...
Episode 43: Cocodona Mile 75 to Mile 176: The Long Middle
Mile 75 to mile 176 — and this stretch had everything.In this episode, I'm taking you from Whiskey Row through Watson Lake, across Fain Ranch, up and over Mingus Mountain in the dark, down into Jerome, across the Verde River, through red...
Episode 42: Cocodona Day One: The Desert, the Dark, and Why It Still Feels Like a Different Race
Day one of Cocodona 250 covered 75 miles — through the Sonoran desert, up into the Bradshaws, through the first night, and into Whiskey Row in Prescott. And honestly? It still feels like it happened in a completely different race. Maybe that's ...
Episode 41: Cocodona 250: What I Wish I Said at the Finish Line
This week’s episode isn’t a full race recap yet because my brain still feels a little scrambled from five days across Arizona. But after sitting with the experience, I wanted to talk about the things that mattered most once the finish time goal...
Episode 40: There’s more than one win: Celebrating all the things
You trained for it. You showed up. And somehow…you’re still telling yourself it wasn’t enough.In this episode, I’m talking about something I see all the time—runners finishing races (or not) and immediately going to what went wrong. Miss...
Episode 39: How Training Actually Builds: From General to Specific (And Why It Matters)
Training isn’t random—even if it sometimes feels like it when you’re in the middle of it.In this episode, I’m breaking down how a training block actually builds over time so you can stop second-guessing every shift in your plan. From ear...
Episode 38: The final phase of training: Taper like you mean it
You hit your last long run and now you’re just…supposed to back off? Yeah. That’s taper. And if you’ve ever felt weird during this time—physically, mentally, emotionally—you’re not alone. I’m in it right now heading into Cocodona 250, so this e...