Gracie & Rachel Entrekin on Running 250 Miles, Breaking Records, & Proving Women Can Do Anything

Hey, Athletes After Hours listeners, you can now watch on Spotify. If you're subscribed to Spotify Premium, you can watch ad-free. Now let's get into the episode. The first year I did Cocodona, I died. Died. The peak really kicked your ass. Yeah, I still managed to win the race, but I died. She didn't just win a race, she made history. Today's guest took on one of the most grueling endurance events on the planet, the Cocodona 250. Over 250 miles, smashed the course record by over two and a half hours, climbed more elevation than Mount Everest, battled brutal conditions and sleep deprivation, and the most impressive part of it all, she kept a smile on her face the entire time. When she crossed the finish line, she became the first woman in history to win the race outright, beating every female and male competitor in the field and reminding every woman that they're capable of far more than they've been led to believe. But what impresses me most isn't the victory, it's the person behind it. After accomplishing something most people can't even begin to comprehend, she stayed for two more days to cheer on fellow runners as they finished the race. She's a physical therapist, a world-class professional ultra runner, and proof that limits are meant to be challenged. Rachel Endrican, welcome to Athletes After Hours. Thanks, happy to be here. Oh my God, I'm so excited you're here. Thanks. We've literally been yapping for so long, it's like, I'm like, how much time you got, girl? How about we just start, let's just hit record. No, literally, I was like, we might as well just, I guess, press the record button because we have so much to catch up on. I mean, first of all, I'm so grateful that you could come and be here in person. This is so special. Old stomping grounds. Yeah, she's back in her little city. I was like, wait, you lived in LA? Like, this is so fun for you. And she was, she texted me and she's like, I'm just over at Manhattan Beach Pier. Like, let me know when you want me to pop over. I'm like, I love this. This is so fun. So obviously you are, you are quite the baddie. I suppose. I don't know. A humble baddie, if you will. I guess. I just have to know, how are you feeling? Uh, good. How long is it? Has it been a month? I guess it's been a month now. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's, it's been really funny because obviously the week of the race, I just assume I'm not getting any sleep. Either I'm racing or I'm, I do not leave the finish line pretty much for the entire week. Okay. Just because, you know, that, the week of that race is my Christmas. You know, I'm just like there with all my friends and we're all doing this thing. And then we get to celebrate people finishing and it's, it's really, really cool to me. And so, um, yeah. And I was staying right by the finish line. And so, and it was pretty warm in my room. And so every night we would just open the windows, which was stupid because people come in and they, woo, and then you wake up and it's like 3.30 in the morning. Um, but whatever. But you had FOMO. You're like, I want to know who's crossing the finish line. It was, I would like, I could like look out the window and see. No, literally like, how are you guys? I don't know. Good job. Good job, Jim. Congratulations. Exactly. Um, that's so cute. Yeah. So I didn't really sleep any that week. And then I got home and it was immediately bombarded with like, I don't even know how many media requests. Well, you blew the fuck up. Yeah. It was pretty wild. I mean, as you should, I think you should have blown up even more. Truly. Maybe. I mean, I mean, that's what we're here for. We're here to blow you the hell up. Great. Because you deserve all your flowers. No, you know what? You deserve a whole garden. I'll take a garden. Yes. Especially if it's stuff I can eat. That'd be really fun. Um, but yeah, so I'm, but I'm, and then actually I went to France. Yeah. How was that? It was super sick. You had a race out in France. I didn't race. I was there for a, um, I work with a company called Bully Eyewear and they were doing an athlete summit. And so I went to that and I had agreed to go like two weeks prior to Cocodona. He had, my athlete manager had asked me if I was interested. Yeah. And I was like, oh, you know, I don't know. I'll be pretty tired. And then I sat there and I was like, I'm about to turn down a free trip to France. Like that is not. The kind of person that I want to be. Yes. And so I, I called him back and I was like, wait, is it too late? And he was like, no, it's not too late. And so I was, I was only there for five days. So it was really fast. Oh girl. It was a really fast turnaround. So on top of running 250 miles and not sleeping for two and a half days, you went straight to France and got jet lagged. Oh yeah. I didn't sleep at all for like 36 hours. And then I slept for 17 hours and then I slept for like three hours the next. So it was just all messed up. Yeah. I'm like, how are your hormones? Probably terrible, but I feel okay. I mean, I did, um, I have a, my, I took, I brought somebody with me here to LA because I wanted to show him my old life and, um, Oh, hi, have you been there? Yeah. Gorge. Love that place. So there's a 36 mile route that has almost 10,000 feet of climbing. Holy crap. And I was like, let's do it. And so we did it yesterday. And so I guess I feel okay. I was pretty tired on the last climb, but okay. But your version of tired, I think is like anyone's version of like the best day of ever like probably on, you know, at Disneyland, like you were literally the energizer bunny. It's relative. Yeah. Um, but it was, but yeah, I'm back to running. I think, um, I'm still, I am a little tired. Like I just don't quite have the same giddy up. Um, it's funny because I'm pacing my friend Devin at scout mountain hundred this weekend and you're a real friend for that. It's fun. Um, and also I owe so many people so much of my time for all that they've given me. Um, and so, yeah, I was thinking, oh man, I wish I was running this race. Like, that'd be so cool. Cause I really want to do scout mountain quite badly, but it's a really fast turnaround from Kokedona. Yeah. Um, and I was running yesterday and I was like, thank God I'm not doing it. Cause like, I'm, I don't know. I just don't have that extra gear. So how many miles is that one? Uh, scouts a hundred. Okay. Or maybe a little bit more, but it's a hundred. It's a hundred miler. Okay. Um, but it's tough. It's in, it's outside of Pocatello, Idaho. So I'm really excited. I've never been to Pocatello. I love Idaho. I do too. It's beautiful. It's beautiful there. Oh, it's such a cool spot. That's insane. First of all, like the fact that you're just, but I think I can already tell you're the kind of person where if you're doing something for someone else, it doesn't require any energy. It's just like, it's not even a thought. You're just like, yeah, I'm there. You find it. You find the energy. You dig deep and you're like, yeah, I'll make it work. Like I'm going to be there. Yeah. Do you think that you're maybe more tired from this specific situation? Cause you've done the race prior. You've done the race now three times. Yeah. This is my third. Your third time. Would you say that this is like probably the hardest recovery just because people are interrupting your recovery routine? Well, it's, it's interesting actually, because this is the first time that I haven't had to go back to work on Monday. Oh my God. The Monday afterwards. So this might be my, I don't, I don't know. I think they've all been hard, but for different reasons. Cause like going back to work and I remember. And being normal. Being normal. Oh my God. Being normal. And have to act like you're not the baddest bitch in the room. As a physical therapist, all my patients are being like, Oh yeah, you know, my back hurts cause I sit too much. And I'm just sitting there. I've just run 250 miles. And I'm like, Oh my God, I want to punch you. And I'm like, I'm like rubbing people's backs. Just like, please somebody offer to do this for me. So, um, and I remember having to like, I know I remember having to, um, demonstrate, I think like a single leg squat or something on like Tuesday. It was just like crap. Like my form is going to be really bad. I'm really sorry. Just do your best. Could we not find anyone else to do that? Like what in the world? Yeah. So, um, but yeah, I remember. Last year, my schedule was really suboptimal for immediately following this race. Yeah. I did four 11 hour days in a row. And then I was off the following Friday and it was like pink. And I remember I was just waiting to get to that Friday. I was just, and I was praying that my patients canceled. But when you take a week off of work and healthcare, all of your patients don't cancel when you get back. And so I had like 18 to 22 patients a day, like every single day. And then I finally made it to Friday. And I was just like collapsed on the floor. I'm sorry. If I was your patient, I'd be like, okay, sister just ran 250 miles. Let's give her a break. Yeah. None of y'all come through. Like give her a second. That would have been nice. I would drop off the grid. Yeah. I mean, I haven't been able to ever, but it's fine. I mean, most of, most of my patients, every time I come back to work, including when I was at select and Marina, um, everybody was so pumped and it was like half the time. Of course we would talk about, you know, what they were coming in for and stuff, but most of the time it was. It was almost like a podcast where they're like, so what, like how many hours or how many minutes did you sleep? And like, what did you eat? Did you use the bathroom? I don't even like to drive that far. Like the same kind of crap forever and ever. That's so funny. Yeah. So it was, I mean, it was, it was fun, but it was really tiring. It's exhausting. Yeah. It was tiring. Yeah. I can completely, I mean, I can't relate to that at all, but I can understand how exhausting that would be. So I want to get into the race. Okay. This is insane. I, funny enough, found you. I found you just through Instagram. Okay. Someone had posted like you're rising. Yeah. I mean, I'm not shocking at all. And I'm like, thank God the first time doom scrolling is actually paid off. Like I was so excited to find you. I immediately was like, you're a literal light, like your energy, your vibe, like you're just such a fun person. And then on top of that, you just like happen to be like one of the most baddest athletes I've ever interviewed. So I'm just like beaming to be able to talk to you about this. So my biggest question, I think when I was, I was trying to write these questions and I'm like, what do? I want to know. And as why fucking why, how many screws are loose? All of them are loose. What are we running from? I've just held together with duct tape. There are no screws. Wrap wrap around bubble wrap people. Um, I want you to first obviously walk me through the race and maybe tell me like a few core memories that really stick out to you over the last two and a half days that you were running. Um, well, I'll tell you about the race. It's like a race in and of itself, like where we go and stuff. Um, so the race starts about 90 minutes north of Flagstaff in a place called black canyon city it sits at about 2 000 feet um and then you run north 250 miles but it's almost in like a z shape so you go um you go to and it's really i love this race because it's almost a historic tour on foot of arizona yeah so you go up to this old town seen it it's beautiful okay that's the best at least it's i mean it's not the best all i could think about was when you guys were saying like it was across the desert i'm like oh yeah it's awesome i mean it's it is brutal but it is awesome like so you just look at cacti all the time sort of i mean the first 37 miles yes oh really but you but you so okay so you go up to you go up yeah to crown king and that's about 10 000 feet of climbing and 37 miles in the first yeah 37 miles of it kicks you in the teeth yep and so but you go to crown king does it weed people out really fast i suppose it can but they really you know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know heavily incentivized that you know it's or you know what to expect yeah you know what to expect for the first 37 i think it's after that where people are like ah yeah i mean you're not signing on for a 250 miler without you're sane if yeah if you're gonna quit at 37 miles although people do yeah um but but yeah they it's notoriously hard the first day is the hardest part of the race in my opinion yeah um but yeah so you go up to crown king you meet your crew you go over to prescott which is a sick area cool highly recommend if you ever want to go on vacation it's great especially in like april okay um but yeah go over to prescott it's not it's another like old um like cowboy town okay so it's really cool cool um and then from prescott that's at mile like 75 you get to pick up pacers for the first time so those are people who kind of run with you and keep you company you were doing 75 miles solo but that's okay i typically do all of my races okay so pacers i've only done having a pacer as a treat for me it's a privilege and a crew yeah i usually do everything by myself i usually do everything by myself okay i'll do 100 milers by myself and so but that's i prefer it that way because it's less moving pieces fair and i can just do whatever i don't have to tell somebody like yeah try to meet me well it's like try to meet me at this spot i think i'll be at this spot in yeah 18 like i have no idea how do you even plan that i don't know yeah i tried this year but they should just put a tracker on you and be like sometimes they do okay yeah but i mean find my friends yeah i know yeah in the middle of the woods there's probably not signal but yeah true um but yeah and so you go to prescott then um you kind of wind your way around eventually you hit um place called jerome it's an old mining town pretty cool that's the halfway point and then you go up to sedona oh my god sick yeah you run through all those red hills it's really pretty and then you kind of wind your way into flagstaff but before you finish the race you go up and over this um nine thousand two hundred foot peak called mount eldon and that's in the last probably 20 miles so you've done 230 miles of running and now you have to summon a 9 000 foot peak which is just like okay who the hell came up with this jameel curry is his name but um man man saw red let's just put it that way he chose violence he did holy crap it really is beautiful you get to go through all these little communities really yeah and it's this is the sixth iteration of the race and so those towns have really gotten quite vested in the race i've actually seen the same woman with her golden retriever every year and i've like cool that's like maybe it's her christmas too maybe yeah i mean it it seems like the relationship between and this is one thing i really like about this race and the organization is the relationship between the towns and the race is really strong they rally behind y'all yeah and that's good because you could be getting all these people like smelly nasty loud yeah runners going through your town like you could not like that yeah um but they are really supportive of it and so that but that speaks to the fact that it's a really strong organization it speaks well to both the organization and the people who run the race yeah in my opinion um but yeah so it's a cumulative uphill how obviously peak is always a story um yeah the first year i did cocodona i died died so the the peak really kicked us yeah i still managed to win the race but i died um and then the second year i did it i one of my few goals was to not die on that peak and to choose to have a better attitude on that peak yeah which check i did yay yeah it was great and then this year so in in both of those previous two years i was able to have pacers and this year because of i think it was a permit thing you weren't allowed to have a pacer so you had to do by yourself get the hello yeah the last 20 miles you had to do solo and so which is which i was ready for or i told myself i was going to be ready for um but you can't there's i mean how do you even prepare for that you know what i mean like you don't know how you're going to respond in that situation i did because i've done it twice okay fair enough yeah you like know what's what's going to start creeping up and then how to quiet it and i and i also realized too after 2025 i am in control of how i feel like if i if i because in 2025 i started to get into a negative headspace and i recognized it and then chose to act differently i love that and so i knew i could find that going into 2020. going into this year by myself and last year i was able to kind of have help um and this year you were like okay i'm yeah but it's funny because you asked about my favorite memory and i have a lot of really positive memories but one that sticks out involves mount eldon yeah so you know i'm going into this part of the course i'm almost done i'm obviously at this point i mean i don't want to say obviously going to win but like there's no one behind you i mean killian is but he's seven miles behind me like and i was feeling really strong yeah so i you know unless i tripped and fell off the cliff like i'm probably going to be fine yeah or get bit by a snake or something yeah um and so i'm running um you do you it's all uphill and so i'm running around this peak called little eldon and then you get to this junction before you start going up the big climb the big boy the big boy and it's like probably six miles and it's it's two thousand feet up in six miles it's it's aggressive holy and i've run it before training and i it's it's just it's tough it's really tough every time it's tough it's just not one of those things that gets fun yeah yeah but i'm i'm going around the corner and standing in that junction is a woman in street clothes okay um and she's holding something and she's like kind of talking and i can as i get closer i can start hearing what she's saying and it doesn't sound like english and i'm sitting here like she's by herself by herself and i'm like is this real i haven't slept you're like maybe this is fake and so there's a camera follow behind me okay um and i don't i'm not engaging with the camera follow because i want to do this by myself yeah and so they're just they can just do whatever they want and so we both get up on this woman and she asks the camera like hey do you mind not filming it's like cool i'm about to get murdered and so and so um so the camera person turns away and um and then the woman i don't know there was something about her like aura that just made me come to a dead stop i'm in the middle of a race and i'm just stopping um and then i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm and she starts talking to me and she starts telling me she's not a runner she's a native american woman she's from hopi and um i don't know she just was like you know i'm not a runner but i know what's happening here and like i hope that you understand that like what you're doing is is so much bigger than you think it is and like what you're doing yeah it's like what you're doing for women and what you're doing for everyone that's right now is just like beyond your comprehension um and she and i'm weeping you know i'm literally gonna cry right now yeah i'm weeping and the camera person's weeping we're all just crying you're like this is exactly what i needed to hear in order to like it was great push through this it was amazing and so and i'm like holding on to her shoulder and she's holding on to mine and we have this like beautiful moment it was sick it was sick and so then she um she's holding something and she reaches out to me and it's cornmeal and that's sacred and hopi culture it represents strength and like unity and harmony yeah and she gives it to me and she's like you know this is yours like you know you do with it what you will but like it's my job to give this to you and like i've done that now wow and so i'm just holding cornmeal i'm like well all right and so i put it in my pockets and then i have some residue on my palms and i like rub it on my thighs and i'm like i'm about to demolish this hill yes like i fuck yeah and it was weird because i felt i don't know if it was just like what i don't know what it was but i felt stronger energy from it yeah and so and i dropped my camera fall and i don't think you even need to explain or find an explanation for i think it's like one of those things you're like i i think it's better that it's just like magic it was magic you know like that's pure magic it was magic and so and everything needs to be explained you know yeah and so i pr'd the climb whoa yep i've never run that climb faster including in training and i was at mile 230 i pr'd it by like six or seven minutes what the hell so i was over a minute faster per mile on that climb and i got yeah shout out the cornmeal shout out to cornmeal oh my god yeah shout out to the mystery hopie lady um but yeah and so i got to the so i didn't get to the peak because i thought the peak was going to be chaotic and i wanted to have like a moment because i have this cornmeal in my pocket and i can do what i want with it so like all right um and so i there's this section on single track um where you go like up a fall summit and then up another fall summit and historically i've always died on those sections and so i got to the second fall summit and i like stood on the edge and like had i like reached in and i was like in and just like yeah like cornmeal i yeeted the cornmeal because the way i was thinking was like all right well i'm done with this it served me it served me and now it's for the rest of the racers and i knew killian the second place male i knew he was behind me oh wow and i knew that he was having a hard time and and so i was just like take it yeah and then finish the race and it was the best and i was talking to a lot of there's a big native population in that area and they're very into the race yeah a lot of them and so um i was i talked to everybody and i was like who is this woman and nobody knows still you haven't figured out and i don't think i'm supposed to oh yeah i don't think so either but um but i was really flabbergasted i think that was a i think that was a guardian angel something i don't know i haven't figured it out yet but it was it was that was real and i found it on the live stream too i found where the camera person cuts away and you can see her so i know that it was real what the i know that it was real and i had cornmeal residue in my pockets so like i know that you're like i'm not actually insane yeah but it was i mean it was one of those moments where like i remember running up that climb and not even feeling you like it was me that was doing it it was like an out-of-body experience big time i mean the second i i stopped running talking to that woman it felt like an out-of-body experience for sure and then until i finished the race it was just like this isn't me i'm just like floating yeah you're like blast off yeah did killian notice a difference in his climb i should i should ask him how was that climb yeah i don't know i don't know around 11 36 did you feel you're welcome by the way yeah exactly you got second because of that cornmeal that i threw um but yeah it was but that by far i think is is going to be something that sticks with me forever dude that's gonna be something you tell your grandkids about one day if you have kids you know it's just like that's an insane story it's an insane story you have to write a book honestly are you gonna write a book can you everybody wants me to i'm sure everyone wants to yeah so and i write for um ultra running magazine which is oh so you like writing i love writing so then that would be such a fun like passion project for you my issue is i don't know what the story is yet because i feel like i'm in the middle of it and i don't want to start you don't want to rush yeah i don't want to start writing a book if i'm still figuring out the ending yeah so but eventually and i think a lot of it because honestly i feel like my story of coca-dona is such a funny one because after every single year like 2024 i had to literally make a gofundme in order to afford going to the race rachel and then i won it and that was in because like all i go funded and so it was our win yeah you know you had the whole community behind you they all invested in you exactly it was in it like literally invested yeah and so and then in 2025 i was racing against courtney de walter who is arguably the most incredible ultra runner in the entire world wow like she is the greatest she's michael jordan she's the goat right and so you know and i'm nobody and i'm i'm racing against her racing with her or however you want to put it yeah and so nobody thought i was gonna do anything and then she wound up not having the day that she wanted and she had to drop out at mile 100 nobody told me and so i just keep i'm like man she must be having a great i'm i'm having a great day and i still haven't passed her yeah and then come to find out 100 at mile 150 i found out she had dropped and at that point i'm just like well i'm already going this fast might as well keep going so i might as well keep going and i wound up pr-ing my previous time by 10 hours oh my god and i was like well this is it this is the peak like i can never and i and i was done with the race i was like i'm not coming back oh you were like i was done this was the best i'm ever gonna do yeah i was done i got the course record yeah the women like i'm good i'm out i got fourth overall i mean like that's pretty solid pretty solid and then you know i'm i'm done with the race i'm i'm not doing it again my crew chief his name is jake vale he wanted to do it and i was like great you should do it i'll crew you we'll we'll you know i'm ready to crew yeah and then the race org was like all right well we have to you have to do it again i was like i don't really want to do it again like thank you for the thing but i'm not doing it again yeah and they were like no no like you don't understand you have to do it again and so i talked to jake and he was very gracious and and dropped out because i can't do this race without certain people and he's one of them he's your team he's my guy yeah and so um that's your right hand guy yeah and so i signed up and then this happened and it was just like okay like now i'm done now i'm done i'm not like i don't need to come i do not need to come back like i'm not like my story with this race i'm gonna do it one more time eventually i was gonna say when you want to do it again eventually because when you do it four times that's a thousand miles and you get a special buckle oh girl go for the buckle i'll do it but i'm gonna i think give yourself a second yeah 27 28 maybe okay um but and when i do it i think i want to try to do it with a lot less support so i've had full crew and full pacing yeah but i'm gonna maybe try to either do it more challenging why not like no pacers maybe okay crew you know something something i'm gonna i'll do it differently because i also am not interested in competing with my ghost yeah really um and i think that would make it more personally fulfilling for me is if i make it a different challenge a different kind of heart yeah like i've already won how am i gonna top i say i say that every year and i have so far but like i don't want to set myself up to be disappointed even if i do something awesome yeah um if i don't like win outright instead enough like that's i'm fully aware that this was a wild situation yes so i don't want to try to reinvent the wheel i just wanted this race is really good at giving you the experience that you don't expect yes um so i'm just here for whatever i get i love that you have this saying or i guess a lot of ultra runners have this saying where if you do a hundred miler something could go wrong but you could go you could have a perfect race and nothing could go wrong yeah but with 200 plus everything goes wrong multiple and it goes wrong multiple times yep so what went wrong for you um you know not much uh i've been really lucky with a lot of races and i don't often have not talking on wood don't often have things go wrong um this year i did have a couple funny crew situations where like my headlamp wasn't charged and i had to like use my tiny backup bendy headlamp in night two and it was just like dang it but it's it's not even like that it was just you can only see like a foot in front of you yeah but and i'm tired and like having this dim light is just like crap i would just fall asleep standing up i did once but um but yeah like those kind of goofy situations um but as far as like nothing really went wrong there was one yeah there was one section where i um because i have a professional uh sports scientist on my crew this year her name is emily errol shout out and she basically just like gives me what i'm supposed to eat and it's my job to eat it eat it before the next section before i see her again okay and there was it was in sedona or going into sedona and i was getting paced by my friend addy and i just like i was just tired of eating and i was tired of drinking stuff and like i just didn't want to and so i didn't and i wound up bonking somewhat hard and addy the entire time is is brilliantly suggesting and not demanding that i do things which means i didn't do them yes and so i was like i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm so um so i got into this really low place and addy actually said something incredibly profound and it was well when you're doing something that because i'm complaining about how hard it is and i'm tired and blah blah blah yeah and she's like well when you're doing something that nobody's done before it's not going to be easy and i was like fair enough that's a good point and so we made a plan because my feet were hurting and my i was getting sleepy and i was bonking and so we made a plan does you know after 100 miles right 150 150 miles and i still had 100 to go yeah and so um but yeah we made a plan to like change my shoes um take some i only use caffeine through coke basically like coca-cola i'm glad you said coca-cola i only had 230 yeah i only had 230 milligrams i think for the whole race whoa which is like yeah not very much you drank coca-cola hell yeah dog hell yeah i love that um yeah and so um made some made a made a caffeine strategy okay um no you're gonna have your morning coffee or yeah morning yeah post made it on the way yeah sure some people do that um but yeah and so we made a we made a plan and so all i had to do then was just focus on getting to the aid station implementing my plan and hoping for the best no but that was my only low spot wow was right before sedona so that's a trip yeah so maybe you can't say that anymore that can't be you're saying because you kind of almost had a perfect race at 250 the only year i really had a perfect race was when i was like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know hard oops was the first year doing coca-cola coca-cola where i almost called it coca-cola the first year at coca-cola maybe coca-cola sponsor it next year and then you'll have to run it the coca-cola coca-cola say that five times fast um but the only or i i was not good in nutrition yet so i was i was under fueling hideously oh geez and then bonked at the halfway point had to take three hours off the course and like sleep and sleep car and then kind of corrected too hard and got hypernatremic so i had too much sodium oh and i spent 10 hours barfing oh my god and it was actually i mean it's funny because my headspace was so much better i was like oh yeah i'm gonna finish this just kind of sucks and i'm just like vomiting on the side of the trail i guess yeah and but i'm like i'm gonna finish yeah i was getting passed by everybody no no i'm gonna finish as you're running yeah well i'm like curled up on the ground sometimes just like you're in fetal position position and but i'm like no i'm gonna finish just fine you're like where's that footage somewhere i'm sure the character arc is crazy yeah the growth is crazy yes um so that really was the turning point well it was really the only coca-dota in which something very obviously went wrong and it was just fuel related yeah and you realize that you can control that and you can prepare better for the next time yeah so honestly i think 2025 i get i told you i pr'd by like almost 10 hours i think all of it was just because i feel better wow everyone listening do you hear that yeah feel your body ladies listen up yeah feel better and you'll say and eat your damn food seriously oh my god so that was fun and so yeah going into this year i wanted one of my goals was to try to get close to 60 hours okay for a woman i didn't care if it was me but i thought there were a lot of really strong women in this race and so i thought that if it could happen it would be this year yeah um so yeah i wanted i wanted close to 60 hours i wanted one woman in the top three and i wanted three women in the top 10 so those were my goals for the race wait you have goals for everybody yeah that's really that's how this works that's how it works it takes really cool yeah and so but in a sport like ultra running it's not a team sport it's an individual sport you can choose so that's really cool you can choose to make it a team sport that's what i choose i love that yeah and so um so yeah so i i'm sitting here and i'm doing my dome spreadsheets which were a waste of time as it turns out and i'm i'm sitting here and i'm trying to be organized when we're just type b you gotta accept it yeah but i'm sitting here and i'm using my spreadsheet from last year okay where i did 63 x x whatever yeah and i'm slashing stuff i'm just like all right well i did this section in 14 minute pace i'm gonna put 11 yeah and i did you know i was at this aid station for 35 minutes and i'm gonna do three oh shit and i'm just sitting here and i'm just cutting everything down to like nothing and my and you're trying to wrap your head around like how the hell am i even gonna do this i have no idea yeah and my time is 61 30 and i'm like i can't do it you're like i can't shave any more down yeah i don't know where it's gonna come from and so i'm emailing my crew and my pacers and i'm like well you know my goal is to try to get somebody close to 60 hours and like this is close but it's not close you know it's still an app it's 90 minutes more yeah and i i think i said you're like not good enough yeah and i think i said you know if we do it it's because of race day magic no literally and so it was because of the cornmeal for sure um cornmeal shaved off four hours yeah cornmeal shaved off for my projected time six and a half hours six and a half i don't is that math five and a half hours i don't do math but yeah um that's what we have phones for yeah but yeah and so all but all of my goals happened i was stoked that is i was absurd yeah because obviously i was sub 60 and one and you won and then all the other women yeah and then one was either 11th or 12th so we had four or five in the top in the top 15 i think we had six in the top 20 so we crushed it i was gonna ask you do you think women are better at ultra running than men because different okay because i feel like you biohacked i did something i was thinking about it and i'm like you said that a woman holds the record for the apt is that what it is oh the uh the appalachian trail yeah and i'm like i wonder if we burn if we like burn differently i think we do do that and we just haven't been encouraged enough to tap into it well i think we've only been allowed to run yes for what less than 100 years so i i don't know we're coming women might start dominating we're coming i think for endurance sports i mean there is something about the types of fuel that women are more efficient at burning yeah like if we absorb nutrition differently i should know i'm a doctor but i don't know any of this stuff but um but we are we are yeah we i think into what i've what i've noticed from the finish lines yeah is that women tend to finish better like we tend to just look not as dead yeah and it's funny because you have more conserved energy or something we just we just are more neutral okay the whole time we're not we're not starting out exactly okay we're not really starting out too hard we're not really blowing up a ton yeah like we're just kind of we just kind of steady steady steady eddie steady and um how did killian look i mean he was he had a tough day he looked like he ran 250 miles you look like you ran three i know yeah and i mean but really all of the women who came in i i was there for the top three and then i watched throughout the race like others come in and it's just like we all just kind of look good period like i love that you know we look i mean there are men who look good too but most everybody looks worked but i i guess when we're looking at the top three yeah we're looking at the podium folks me courtney and meg just all kind of looked fine that's so insane yeah 19 minutes of sleep and you're like oh my god i'm so tired i'm so tired i'm so tired i'm so tired and 56 hours of running yeah later yep and still look fine yeah i felt i felt fine shout out the skincare she has like little eye patches while she's running i know seriously no i'm doing this for the cameras um but yeah it was i mean yeah it was it was i felt okay you know i was really excited to be done yeah you know well i am really excited to see what the future of ultra running is gonna look like me too because i do think you yeah you made history but i think you've again like created a ripple effect that's gonna inspire so many freaking women to try i hope so and just be curious yeah i'm like oh like maybe maybe a marathon's not my cap you know no like what what's wrong with asking that question you know i'm just like let's get curious with it let's see how far i can go yeah and i i don't know i i do think that women just tend to start and finish races with less of a negative split oh so we we just don't slow down quite as much and that's that is something that science has shown us yeah i am just an example of like no science is is right yeah and i think that's something that's cool because i i don't necessarily think we've had that happen yet it's like yeah theoretically yes women are better and now i'm just like yes we are we are yes we are so that's the part of the story that i think is really cool is it's like oh i just proved some science like everybody wants to prove science so she did it for the girls i am obsessed with that oh i freaking love you dude you're so cool i can't get over it thanks uh what would you say surprised you the most about the race versus the past two that you've done oh the amount of support at the end oh which i think is i mean you know obviously historical you know whatever but it felt like the entire city of flagstaff was out there um which was really cool and in year so 24 to 25 in 2024 i finished at like six in the morning so i'm cruising through town at like four o'clock and i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh am just like nobody's there which is fine because i don't care a cup of coffee my family wasn't even there really go no i didn't go um and so it was basically my crew and the race director at the finish line and they were like good job um go wow yeah it was i mean i didn't i was you guys are the unsung heroes clearly yeah i was so dead i didn't even care yeah i was like this is exactly the finish i deserve it's just nobody needs to see this um and so 24 to 25 there was a lot more people and i was about to break the course record for the women so people were rallying so they were and i finished it i think it was like 8 p.m so it's like prime time yeah you know people had dinner and then they can pop on over yeah and like i noticed even going through towns there was more yeah like rah rah and i think a lot of it was because courtney was in the race and everybody wants to see courtney yes and then when courtney drops out it's not like they're just gonna go home like now they're just gonna stay and watch whoever is going to win yeah especially because i was so close to her so it's not like yeah i can stick around for a few hours yeah exactly she's running all hang out yeah and so there was a lot of there was a lot more support in in 2025 and then this year it was like i mean the hospital staff came out and like we're standing in front of the hot there were like 40 hospital staff members just out there like in case anyone drops i mean yeah um but yeah i got people on site yeah um and so that was it was yeah the amount of support was the thing that was the most surprising in my opinion and i'm sure when you got on your phone crash yes yeah because like i mean i my floor team went viral when i was in college and like the amount of just like people constantly bombarding your phone and your you know social media yeah it's non-stop like yeah you can't even escape it pretty nuts yeah and then there's me in her dms oh no it's fine hi yes you want to come to the beach yes i would um yeah that was it was yeah it's probably so different it was and i mean really surprising was right when i finished um they wanted to do an interview which is insane but whatever girl i don't want to talk to anybody yeah well also what am i gonna say like i just have been non-verbal for 20 miles basically so um i didn't even think about that cornmeal um and so they wanted to they wanted to interview me okay and i have no idea how that went but i guess like a word's even coming out of my mouth i think it was okay okay um and then after i was just like everybody wanted my autograph oh that's really cute and i'm just like signing baby's foreheads and t-shirts and just like i've just i haven't even really sat down yet yeah and i'm and i was at the finish line um at least until killian arrived so for 90 minutes i was just like on your feet signing autographs which is fine because i was just like you were still on a high oh for sure your adrenaline's still going i think it was maybe like 30 minutes after killian finished um you're like i was like i have to go yeah like i need to shower yeah i need to sit and lie yeah and i need to eat actually no jamil's mom gave me a vegetarian hamburger which saved me because otherwise i was gonna like vegetarian yep yeah um so we can do it um holy shit yeah we can do it so everybody shut up girls yeah there's good protein sources that aren't just a cow that's impressive that's actually even more impressive to me yeah um but yeah and so uh yeah that was the all of the finish was crazy just like i'm signing autographs right now that's wild i know you're humble all i did was run what am i gonna do it's like wait all i did was run just keep going i know but how did you even get into it uh running yeah how'd you even get into ultra running um so the full story i guess is that when i was a junior in i grew up fat southeast you know don't have a healthy relationship with food don't have a healthy relationship with sports yeah and so um i was overweight and i was like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i had terrible self-confidence and so my junior year i guess my junior summer so i'm going into my senior year okay um i had a bunch of shit hit the fan in my personal life and so i developed a really bad eating disorder it was like your way of coping yep and so and one way to keep out of the house because there was a lot of stuff going on with my family too i would just go to the gym and i would just run for hours and i loved it and so um so what started as a really unhealthy coping i realized and this was before i physically changed at all so like i still looked exactly the same but i would finish running and i was like god damn it i like i feel so much better than i did when i started wow and eventually obviously i i went downhill very quickly because when you run and you don't fuel then bad things happen yeah and so um you know i got really sick i had to go to rehab twice i had to stop doing everything basically you went to rehab for your eating disorder twice yeah because the first time you fake it and the second time you're like shit so um so um i should not be laughing but you're so fucking funny dude um we can laugh at it now we can because we feel fine but it's fine no we we healed oh babe i'm so sorry it's cool that was it was like 15 years ago so it's almost i look back now and i'm like how did i do any of that no i literally don't understand no i i mean i i don't know if you've listened to the podcast at all but we've had a few people come on i mean any extreme athlete has gone through some pretty fucked up stuff with like eating disorders and body dysmorphia yeah and like i had an eating disorder and i was like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die and i'm gonna die and i'm gonna die college and like thank god i mean i snapped out of it thank god faster than i i would have broken bones oh yeah which is the high impact it's like yeah how did i not yeah but i mean yeah like how the hell did we like i don't know still do what we did i don't know without eating i don't know it's crazy yeah it is wild but um but yeah and so i remember i went i went to rehab i got out wow um and then i but the entire time especially the second time because the first time i was i for sure and so i was like well whatever i'm just gonna get right back into doing everything i was doing and it's gonna be fine and then i remember i was actually running laps around my neighborhood like a psychopath and i was like this isn't even fun because i don't feel good anymore yeah and like that was kind of when i realized all right i'm not i need to like do this right and i want to get back to doing this thing that i know that i love and i know i can use for a better purpose than i am right now yeah and so you're like protecting your love for your sport yeah so um did rehab the second time took way longer like how long like the first time i was in i think for three months and the second time it was like nine but i did i did inpatient i did outpatient i did the partial program and then i did outpatient on my own rachel i was like doing it girl you're doing it we're doing it and um yeah and so i that's brutal yeah it was brutal we have to undo a lot of coping skills but and learn how to talk about our feelings or whatever but um but yeah and so i um it took me probably i mean i was i was healthy but i still was like not great and um it's already hard to maintain a healthy body fat level when you are running as much as and like and i definitely was still not eating enough yeah um but eventually i i would say it took about four years of like gradually kind of addressing those things super mindful of it yeah and like just being very real with myself of like okay let's not do this right you can't keep doing this for as long as you want to if you're not doing it correctly yeah and so i got yeah it took me probably i would say four years um after rehab so probably 2014 is when i finally was like okay i know how to do this now yeah um and there's like less emotional attachment to it and there was so much less of a emphasis on what i looked like all i cared about was how am i performing okay and i think that was a really big mind shift change of like no one actually cares how i look yeah if i'm i can stand at the top of this podium and no one's gonna care how i look which is funny because yes they always do but i don't i don't care i don't care i don't care um and so and then you know i think i was mostly then i was mostly more interested in fueling outside of my events i felt very confident about i was feeling outside of my events okay when i was doing them i still didn't know what i was doing yeah so 2024 is coca-cola and i didn't know what i was doing still and that was a turning point again of like wait a second i'm still not i'm limiting my own potential by not doing the right thing yes and that's when i got more professional help from precision who sponsors me now yay um too and that has been another like unlock um is like oh if i eat whatever they tell me to and i don't back sass them and i just do it then i'm gonna do even better yeah um and i mean you get it as a physical therapist when you say hey do these exercises and then they come back and they can't do shit and you're like yeah yeah exactly um but i remember one thing recently that happened that made me really proud was um i did a race in march in italy and precision sponsored a couple athletes to do it and they always do not panels but like studies on us yeah which is great um and they did how many grams of carbs we ate per hour whoa and ordinarily you know rachel circa 2010 would have been all over that but for a terrible reason yeah and so this time i remember um me and another woman are like roughly the same size and like skill level and i remember she did 80 the guy did 120 and i did 60 and my first thought was like how do i get that number higher yeah i need that number to be higher because if i i got third in the race i'm like well if i'd done 80 like that other girl i would have gotten done better yeah um and then my second thought was like i'm gonna do it again i'm gonna do it again i'm gonna do it again i'm gonna do it like holy shit if i come a long way if like my first thought is like how do i improve this number where ordinarily i mean instead of like trying to improve this the number on a scale or or just like my number was smallest so like that means i'm better i'm right right or something stupid just like you know whatever bullshit unhealthy thing but i remember just thinking like cool like that's what i'm supposed to like i'm supposed to be thinking about like this in terms of performance and i am now yeah and like that is good that is your edge yeah because i i really i remember when i was in rehab one of the things for better for worse that they would always tell us is like this is something that sticks with you forever and i remember being like fuck i don't want this to stick with me forever yeah and like it has in a sense that it's my story but it has not in the sense that it affects me yeah um so that's amazing and especially because i was really curious about your your experience with your eating disorder obviously from like a selfish side of things where i'm like how did you figure that out where you can like do an extreme sport years of somehow being okay without doing the right things yes because like it's yeah i'm the type of person where if i'm all in on something well i will never half-ass anything so i'm always all in on something always yeah full ass double cheeked up every time yeah and i think what's hard is like you you take everything to an extreme yep and so i will take my eating to an extreme and it's like because you're like oh i can control everything and you just like get like in this weird control and you're like oh i can control frenzy and you just try to limit everything to make it the best possible outcome and it's like well what if we fucking didn't do that yeah what if we actually just ate the way that we were supposed to but then train at the high level yep so i really admire you for being able to figure out how to be extreme while not being extreme yeah i think one thing that's been the most helpful for me is getting to a point where i'm genuinely happy with my life and with myself and that is something that i had to make a conscious decision to do yeah because you can always find things that you're happy about yeah um but i just choose to ignore those things unless they're affecting my life or something yeah yeah whatever um but yeah and then and then just if i notice that i i start to feel bad and that i want to start controlling something just being like okay well we're not gonna do that yeah or like where is this coming from and if you do that enough times if you reject that enough times then it's it doesn't pop up anymore it can't be that easy i guess we'll just scrap that from our memory yeah we'll just talk about our feelings instead but talking about your feelings is really helpful it is good yeah very much uh underrated skill yes it takes time though yes it does well i'm really impressed with you because that's yeah it's not an easy thing to do especially when you're alone with your thoughts all the time yeah how do you do that i don't listen to music either i'm just pure i was gonna ask your psychopath yep yeah i just i and for the most part you raw dog the whole race the whole thing but i had pacers and stuff so we talked sometimes we talked a good bit um yeah what do think about i don't know i mean you know like i would probably like i don't know maybe like mentally play movies in my head or something like i haven't seen enough movies to do that that's fair um or like think about like every scenario every social interaction i've ever had like i would just panic i came up with a really good comeback back in 2019 i'm gonna text him and let him know i know um i don't know what i really think about i think i mostly just it's very meditative for me running for long distances you find your zen i just didn't kind of like uh-huh this is what i'm doing right now and i'm gonna do this and then you know i would pick up pacers and we would i would ask them how their day was going and we would chat about my day and it was just kind of like all right that is the most impressive thing i've ever heard i guess um and then you know 250 miles doing it without music or a podcast or a show or anything well my pacers are my podcasts that's fair we just chat that's true um and so i think the last thing i want to do while i'm running is yeah chatting yeah it's fun you know especially when you're in such a beautiful area like i remember the first pacer kind of takes you out of your head a little bit my first pacer was a guy named steven that i love and i've run with him for thousands of miles over the course of my life and like we were at this place called watson lake and it was sunset and it was just like oh my and there were gnats everywhere and so we were just like with these gnats and like this it was just really despite the gnats it was very beautiful and we were just sitting here and we're talking about how grateful we are that each of us are here and i was telling him about my why not you that i'd come up with in the last section of like well why can't i win i'm winning right now and like somebody has to so like let's choose why not you um and he was saying that that resonates with him as well and so it was great so that was i mean that's the kind of thing but that i mean in that multiply for the next 150 miles like that was what i was doing out there yeah i was just i was just happy to be here and i was like oh my god i'm having an experience with people that i love on a course that i love how much of your race do you think was like i guess let's break into like a percentage was training mentality and then just pure fucking magic it's there's an expression that is um ultras are 80 training and or 80 physical and 80 mental so that's my answer i love that because it is true i mean it just it yeah they always ask more from you than you think you have yeah and so and then it was a hundred percent magic yeah i don't even yeah i mean it was sounded magical yeah it was it was insane but i do you know i haven't really changed my training much over the years like my first cocodona that i was training for to this one like not that different in training really so i think a lot of it has probably just the improvements in time because i've now improved my time i did 73 hours first so how'd you shift on your time if you haven't changed your training i don't know i think it's probably experience i think it's probably nutrition i think it's better sleep management strategies aka i don't um and then um coca-cola yeah coca-cola yes um and then i don't know that's really impressive mostly i guess just like i think it's your attitude probably yeah i mean definitely attitude too learning learning how in control of my attitude i am has been a game changer and that's so empowering because you know that if you do slip into a dark space i can get myself out of it you can bring yourself back out what does the dark place look like if you don't mind me yeah i mean um when i was going into sedona with addy um my low spot i remember it was hot and i was bonking and so that just immediately becomes a dark place and i remember you know i have 100 miles i'm in the lead and like killian i'm sure is right behind me and like what happens if he passes me and i can't respond i'm like what's going on i'm like what's going on i'm like i can't respond right now like and i i don't want to think about what's going to happen if he does pass me because i'm not feeling great and i just am like crappy exactly like the internet's gonna have a field day because this woman got passed by i do just like they all thought and like that kind of shit was there i started i i mini spiral mini spiral because like it was like you know the spiral goes like this i was like and then i kind of was like okay like we do not need to do this right now we do not need to go that waste of energy yeah because that's how i look at it is like negative thoughts are a waste of energy because i am i have no idea how this is going to go in in life in general and if i only choose to like there is a 50 chance that it could all go to shit yeah there's also a 50 chance that we could absolutely nail it yeah so why don't we think about this part yeah let's just look at the positive part instead yeah so stephanie case is our ultra runner from canada i think and and last year one of her big mantras but what if it like it's super easy to think about the terrible yeah like i can i can think of 97 different ways in which killin's gonna pass me and i'm gonna fall off a cliff but what about all the 97 ways that it goes right exactly what if i win oh i love that how much more energized do you feel when you think that way so much better and hyped up yeah so much better and so i love so yeah so that's kind of and then of course i already talked like adding i made a plan to deal with my stuff and like yeah i just had to i until i got to that aid station i just had to focus on like all right we could get to the work so let's focus on that yeah let's focus on getting to the aid station implementing our plan leaving and feeling better i love that so but yeah the negative space is somewhere i don't like to live yeah it's fine if it gets physically hard because that is to be expected but like when my mental space gets negative it's like okay we do not need to stay here it is not productive yeah it is not a productive way to spend our time i love i love that you have such a solid grasp on your control of your attitude because i think a lot of times especially in this day and age like it's so quick and easy to slip into this victim mentality of like why i mean this is hard and i'm tired and it's like yeah okay i chose this yeah like girl we we picked the hard thing on purpose this was strategic yeah we don't run to make our lives easier no so why do you run um i run because my life is too easy and so if i want to practice being the kind of person that i want to be when times are tough like i have to practice that if i don't practice it it's an acquired skill right um and i would hate to have a life because you know again i'm come on i'm like a middle-class white lady like my life's pretty good yeah all things considered and like if i have a hardship come in my life i i want to have the skills so that i'm not a complete douchebag to everybody around me when that happens because it will happen yeah it's just it just doesn't happen often enough that i get to practice this and so running for me is a way to practice not being a dirt bag when i feel like ass wow yep and so my my friend steven who is pacing me he his answer is always i run because my life's too easy and that's something else that i've adopted from him because it is a really good opportunity and i i totally recognize how there's a word that i'm thinking of but i can't think of but like you know it's a privilege to say that my life is yeah yeah it's a privilege and i get that but at the end of the day i do want to like who i am when my life's hard and so running for me is the way to practice that that's really cool that's a really interesting take i've never heard that before yeah i hadn't until steven said it and it stuck i remember he told me that you're like wait me too yeah i was like what do you really went from it went from what do you mean to like wait a second yeah you're cooking what you mean yeah you're cooking with that one but yeah he probably told me that in like 2017 i just i've like sat with it over the years and now it is my answer because i'm like i'm not going to do it again i'm not going to do it again i'm not going to do it because i see what he means yeah i see what he means and it's like you're a genius how often do you see kind of the negative approach to running i think that there's a lot of people who are running from things versus running for things and i've i've done that you've done both i've done all of it i've run because of ego i've run because i'm i don't want to face my problems yeah um i think i think there's a lot and i've also seen people too who are running for social media nowadays it's like oh yeah what are we doing and running yeah yeah um and i just you know everybody's allowed to have their own reasons for doing it i just hope that everybody's happy with their reasons because i do think that there's a lot of people who um i don't know maybe aren't need to need to take a step back and reflect on like why are you running yeah like why what do i want to put into the world because of this because me i think i'm really grateful i guess for the platform yeah to be positive absolutely like that's nice i think we all need like a positive thing oh my god i truly believe you were put on this earth to have your voice and your platform yeah which is wild to um share with others like yeah i truly believe that and i truly i believe that about myself as well where i'm like no god put me here to use my voice right and to make an impact because there's a lot of negativity out there yes but for us to be able to have a come from a place of gratitude and come from a place of inspiration and just pure joy and love for positive movement yeah like how cool is that like we can reframe what sport looks like for women yeah and i've never not you know i started running in like the 2010s yeah i guess 20 2009 2010 yeah and there - I just did not. i listened and it did not go well for me yeah and i it's like the grind don't stop get up at 5 a.m and do this and do that it's like do it your own fucking way dude right like i didn't have there's not one way courtney de walter came along in 2017 and it was like oh you're gonna have fun doing this and like if i can what a concept i know what a concept i don't just have to like david goggins my way through everything that i want to quit um and so and i know that there are people who get something from that mentality of because i also think it works for some people it works for some people it we all we need different options yes and so i like the fact that i get to be another option of like hey well there's not one way to do it there's not one way and people are gonna start running marathons like rachel yeah and i've gotten a lot of i still go through all my dms i have all i go i i respond and there have been a lot of people who recently have said like hey you know your mantra of why not me got me through this race wow and like you know there was a there was a string a couple weeks ago i guess there were a lot of races but a lot of women won races outright and they were like sending messages like yo i did this because of you and i was just like this is the most gangster thing i've ever done so gangster is like and it's not even just like i'm doing it like whatever i'm saying is resonating with people enough that like they are doing stuff now and like that is sick no and then you realize i i should keep opening my mouth and saying more things yeah you're not gonna do that anyway like i just have a microphone you're like now i can talk to millions of people instead of just like five people in my community yeah exactly no but that's so sick you're like the running yoda you're so wise like i really love i love that you have such a solid take on life and like i love that you also you choose joy because i feel like i had a massive shift in my career like you to put you definitely don't know but in gymnastics i was extremely extremely hard on myself like i to the point where i would like go high in the back and i would be like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh before i would compete because i was so nervous to compete i would hold myself to such an impossible standard definitely not eating enough definitely not feeling right like just had a very shitty approach to my sport yeah and thankfully it never ruined my love for it but it definitely didn't make the times sweeter yeah you know like i look back on my memories and everyone's like do you miss competing i'm like not really like i yeah i think i would have gone gray if i kept doing it and so then i shifted and was able to do gymnastics now like as my career has been and i'm like i'm because i started flipping for commercials and social media and everything and i'm doing it because i love it yeah and i've had so many people now like just because of my pure love for the sport try it and they're like i do gymnastics now because of you and i'm like yeah that's so sick like i just love that we have that impact and that we can make that what's like alissa lu yeah yeah like same thing like you can leave your sport and come back and do it for the right reasons and like look what happens you get a gold medal instead of doing it for whatever yeah dad and daddy has she run yeah but but yeah i don't know yeah i do think that there's a lot of again everybody's allowed to have find inspiration where they want yes i'm not going to sit here and be the inspiration police but i just yeah i think it's if you have another option of where you can get that inspiration from i think fun's a great one yes so that's what and fun little um i'm sure you already know because you're a doctor but like science fact is when you smile it releases serotonin in your brain so like i learned that from a um hypnotherapist back when i was competing and he was like smile before all your tumbling passes and you'll feel better physically yeah and so now if you look back on any of my videos like i smile before every single tumbling pass oh nice and like it helped me get extra points too i don't know people were just like oh she's having fun yeah you know like it's infectious and like i think people forget like you have control to like just you know like you're like you're like you're just yeah fucking smile and our bodies are our bodies are complex but they're also kind of dumb kind of dumb like just trick your mind you're like i feel so good right now and like i gaslight myself all the time even when i'm like so stressed i'm like i feel so good right now yeah i feel great this is fine like whenever i'm scared to do something i'm like i did this yesterday it's fine yeah and it helps every time exactly life hack any whosies okay well i want to get into i know you're a busy girl and this is my job it's cool true um i have like this fun little idea in my head where i'm like there's past rachel there's present rachel and there's future rachel okay what past rachel do you take with you into your races oh man i don't know that's a great question thank you the thing that immediately came to my mind this one time i was in rehab this one time in rehab um i was just having a rough day yeah and i remember um having a full meltdown uh at snack time and like throwing my plate at a rehab specialist yeah it broke she was crashing out oh i was crashing out yeah i mean i like and like everybody's already i was coming from a therapy a family therapy session oh geez and like immediately into snack time afternoon snack one yeah you're like i do not need this right now my life yeah and um i just remember like thinking that it will never get better than this and like yeah just full crash out on the kitchen floor and all of my people in the rehab house were just sitting at the kitchen table like either staring at me or pretending like they weren't staring at me yeah um and i don't even care like i was just i was just miserable i'd probably i think this was the second time i was in rehab um and i'd probably been there for like two months and so um i was that's my that was my immediate first answer is like that person who thought things could never get better look where you are i think i'd like to just be like okay but yeah you're gonna be a trail runner yeah with confidence and you're gonna be a smoke show period so like don't worry about it like don't even you have no idea because again i mean just like stephanie k said like what if it all goes right yeah yeah like what if it all goes okay what if everything's better than you expect instead of just being like only stuck here yeah um so yeah i think that's it just always brings you back to gratitude because you're like thank god i'm not there thank god yeah thank god i was on a i'm talking on my friend steven but i was on a run with steven yeah in glacier national park probably in 2017 and i remember we were climbing oh god mount brown lookout i'll never forget because it was snowing sideways like it was insane i'm thinking to myself like this is the sickest stuff i could ever be doing yeah i get to do it with people that i love and we get to have these awesome experiences and like if i had let that dumb voice when i was 16 tell me that like looking a certain way is the only thing that matters i would have missed out on all of this and my god that's so beautiful yeah like look what i look what i would have missed out on if i had you know let anorexia win yeah that would have been so lame and so yeah i'm i yeah i don't know that's beautiful yeah taking with me the person who thinks that their life is only going to go downhill yeah i don't know we all have stuff that we struggle with and i do think that sometimes you have more control over the outcomes than you think and you just have to believe that it will get better yeah i love that all right and then how's your present what's something that's really filling your cup right now oh as much as i hate them the instagram dms they're so nice they're so nice um you know what you should do yeah you should make like a scrapbook you should screenshot them all yeah and then print them out and scrapbook them with like all of your good idea people do all sorts of stuff with reels nowadays i'm like how do you do that um well if you ever need help text me i'll help you i'll edit some videos for you yeah but yeah i mean i don't know i i don't always respond to all of them but i do at least try to make them not bold in my inbox yes and so i don't know there's the ones especially if you're like for whatever reason the thing that really gets me is either women over age 50 or fathers of little girls like oh i know that one are you kidding me hits me in my core are you kidding me and so those anytime i get or actually i had like a 12 year old swimmer wow um reach out and ask me some questions about like my attitude and i was just like what like cool that's really cool the internet where you can just like ask me a question and i might respond yeah so yeah um so yeah i mean it it takes up a lot of time and i hate how much i'm not really someone on my phone very often i know but um you're out in i don't know i mean exactly and like i'm very much i hate phones i just want to yuck it into the stratosphere but um but it is a i i understand that i've been given a platform and i think it's my job now to practice what i preach and be you know try to respond when i can yeah and so um that's beautiful yeah so the yeah so the so the continued support and the continued like i think people should tell people they admire that they admire them 100 i'm also such a big words of affirmation girl i love giving people compliments and receiving them right yeah so like why not and especially on the hard days when you're like dude fuck this run i'm nine million miles in i don't want to do the same one then you're like one mile into a nine million mile run yes and then you're thinking you're like wait remember that one girl yeah he said just keep she thought i was cool she thought it was "Oh cool, I'm gonna do it for her." I don't know, I just think it's such a cool, reminder of the impact that you have and when will we I mean think about the last hundred years no one else has been able to experience that level of like direct support you know where it's in your face and you see it every day and you're like this is crazy yeah it's overwhelming but it's crazy cool too yeah it is and the one thing that's been interesting again now that I'm much more public is the amount of or I don't want to say amount of negative feedback because it makes it sound like there's a lot and there's not um but there are anytime you're doing something unbelievable there are going to be people who don't believe it very skeptical and that's fine yes because I know what I'm doing and I don't really care what people who don't know me think I just learned the saying yuck your yum where no one's yucking our yum that's funny I don't know what it means but I like it okay okay Wes told me about it it's apparently like when someone kind of like shits on your like happy time yeah like okay like rains on your parade I used to like don't yuck my yum I used to have an expression that's don't shit on my cake okay there you go um yeah okay so it's a little less vulgar but I love it yucks your gum is a little more kid friendly but um okay I'll have to remember that one um but yeah I I've been really pleased because criticism has always been something that I'm not great at receiving um but this opportunity and I've chatted with Killian Korth about this quite a bit and he is very good at just like not blocking it out yeah um and I'm I'm actually really happy with any time I read a comment that's like oh this is super sus like how did she but it's like dude you weren't you don't know me like no you you think this is suspicious I blocked off 10 hours last year yeah like what do you mean seven is suspicious like yeah 10 is way earlier yeah but like I know how I did it yeah you don't know me yeah so like I actually don't care what you think no and like having that be some like having that be like I don't care what you think I don't care be my response is like oh cool I have thanks therapy people who have helped me along the way yeah I have tools now and like I have confidence now yeah you know I I just don't need like people who don't know me don't need to have an influence on my life no especially if it's negative and they don't know what they're talking about never so girl never I always have this saying you didn't want to switch lives with that person then their opinion shouldn't matter bang that's a good expression yeah it's changed my life I mean working with people who don't know me I don't work in social media I get comments all the time and it's like thankfully not as many as a lot of other creators but like still I they don't sometimes won't feel very good but then you're like wait a second I would not want to switch sorry you're not Michelle Obama so I don't care like the only people's opinions matter are my mother and my bestie that is all keep your opinion to yourself yeah okay and then future Rachel what's the plan what's the biggest challenge or like the most exciting thing you're looking forward to in the future I have a couple of things I'm looking forward to for me it's mostly been um because there's racing and then there's adventure yeah and I like to coca-dota has been very easy to fall into both buckets because it is an adventure race basically yeah um so for me it's been over the last couple weeks it's like all right well what do I do next like what am I what am I what I'm doing the UTMB but that feels what's the UTMB it's a race okay it is a race it's it's an adventure because it's in France but like it's a race okay it's very professional and very streamlined it's not flat oh it's around uh Mont Blanc in Chamonix so it's gonna be beautiful gorge but like it's it's just I know it's gonna be the Super Bowl and it's gonna be high stakes and everybody's gonna talk about stuff and like that's not an adventure that's my job yeah um so what trying to figure out what the next adventure has cool has been I think I have an answer but I don't think I can talk about it that's fine not be able to do it um but yeah I have I'm excited to see it though yeah I mean if anyone's gonna pull it off it's you so um but yeah so there's a couple things on the horizon that I'm like potentially gonna try because honestly it was it was funny there's one race in particular that everybody always asks me when I'm going to do yeah and I'm just like I don't know like I don't know when I'm gonna do it and then the other day my friend and I were talking about it and he was like well why don't you do it and I was like that's a better question yeah and I don't have an answer I love a thought-provoking question yeah I'm like wait a second and he didn't he didn't ask me when he asked me why not and it's like well that's what I say and so like people say that to me all the time when I'm like I think I want to do I was like I was like I feel like I should do a half marathon and I'm like I don't know if I should and then I was like why not I'm like why not damn it you're right I'm not gonna get any hotter any fitter any you know it's like what better time than now I guess yep um but yeah and so yeah so I'm I'm I've got some things on the horizon that I'd like to do yeah okay um but I am doing it'll be really interesting I'm going to Bhutan which is a country I've never even heard of this country you should look it up it's a cool place okay uh they have a national happiness index like that's yeah like the happiest place on earth I don't know I think so actually that might be Finland but like they're trying like Finland and Norway are kind of like happier okay um but there's a race there that's for climate change like to bring focus on climate change and now I have this platform of a bunch of people so I'm like oh good to raise awareness and yeah okay so um so I'm excited about that that'll definitely be an adventure yes um because I think you go up to almost 20,000 feet uh well you have to have like an oxygen tank oh no oh okay they're just raw doggit yeah no headphones no oxygen smart wall and a prayer yeah I was I was gonna ask you like phone not die when you're running for two and a half days but I guess you're not even yeah airplane mode what the hell but the first so 2025 I turned my phone off airplane mode and it crashed because I had so many notifications so I now I have somebody in charge of my social media during my smart very smart that they can like you know meet it down a little bit you're like I'm gonna go into my hole yeah for the next two and a half days no one talked to me just double tap some messages every once in a while hit collab if necessary make sure people know I'm alive yeah that's all yeah just a little wellness chat yeah shout out to Dom Grossman he did great yay I love it I love it well if you ever needed someone to run your socials I'll help out I'll fly out wherever cool all right well last thing is we usually do this segment on the show called dear athlete where we it's like dear Abby where you do like advice for like little athletes and stuff but you're already so inspirational we don't need any more advice I feel like we had so many good takeaways I want to do a fun little rapid fire oh gosh okay so it's fast speedy all right speed round so bad at these I did this one time and the first time I was like what's your favorite prehistoric bird and I was like what are you talking like an ostrich is that a prehistoric bird I have no idea is that a bird I don't know is that a lizard I don't know I don't know what it is yeah what is it oh damn I don't know actually yeah exactly so I just that's my problem with with rapid fires is I'm just like this is surrounding he's a pterodactyl lizard this is surrounding the race this is your this is your bread and butter okay don't worry nothing nothing out of left field like that um okay this is really important okay the first question is super important okay are you ready yes how did you take a shit during the race on the ground did you have your crew like turn away uh like I can't even shit knowing I can't even shit knowing that there's like a person in the other room oh I don't care about any of that stuff um no I mean if I was in an aid station I'd use a toilet okay okay they have toilets at stations like porta potties and stuff did you have toilet paper in your bag next question um but no I mean if I was out in the woods and I needed to use the bathroom I would um you dig a hole that's at least I think it's I use six inches but basically if I can stick my fist up to here it's fine um okay and then you it's like a cat do your thing oh you know you can dig over and then that's the process wow okay that's the answer next question did you have to train your sleep schedule as well as you train mileage or did you just raw dogging on race day um I do not ever train to be sleep deprived okay um and actually it's funny I was on a panel with Courtney and Meg the two and three women yeah and one of the questions was do you train sleep deprivation and all of us were emphatic no's yeah um so I actually tried to bank on sleep the weeks leading up I was I was thinking that but I was still curious if there was a strategy behind it okay I already know you didn't listen to anything bing did you hallucinate um this year I didn't really I didn't really well just saw a few crazy pterodactyls but um no they were it's funny because they were bats at the start oh but they were real oh and somebody was saying that they weren't they were like oh Rachel because it was like mile two um and they're like oh Rachel's hallucinating already and then a bat swooped them and I was like ah it was real I know like don't you pretend like I'm crazy yet um yeah I mean like you'll see stuff darting in the woods or whatever trippy but like I don't care about I mean you don't get like paranoid could be not real yeah I don't really care okay um and then there was a spot when I was it was nighttime and I had a crap headlamp because it had died yeah and um the rocks were white and they looked like skulls but I knew that they weren't spooky it wasn't even spooky because it's like this isn't a skull this is a rock but then the fact that you were thinking that is still so weird it was a little weird yeah yeah it was a little weird yeah yeah it was a little weird yeah yeah it was a little weird yeah yeah it was a little the ones you see at the mall i guess i don't know that's funny but so i didn't have anything like that i'll take a keychain thank you one please um how did your body feel during the race any minor injuries no i was pretty good i have a 20 minute rule where if something starts hurting i give it 20 minutes and nothing lasted more than 20 minutes holy crap you're a freak yes um what was the strangest thing you ate during the race i don't think i had anything really strange you don't really eat strange things okay you're running what what was what what did you normally eat during the race um mashed potatoes oatmeal and rice and broth were my real foods and i had like chews and stuff yeah yeah you had like the goos and a billion gels so how many do you think you ate oh dude that's a great probably at least 150 i mean probably i don't know i don't know well they do they do yeah precision precision is my yay they sponsor my sports hydration okay gorge yeah but i was like the goos need to sponsor you oh no they don't no they don't no precision PR what's something ultra runners do that's normal to you guys but very insane to an average human sleep 19 minutes while running 250 miles like that's pretty i think dan green won the race last year and he only slept like 20 so it's like all right so now you set the record for most sleep deprived probably is there a record for that no but that's true um no there's probably folks who i don't know if there's anybody who hasn't slept but i did a 214 mile race last year and i didn't sleep at all but i was planning to not like i don't need if it's if it's less than i was thinking if it's less than 50 hours like i don't know i'm good i went to college i got this she's like i'm a doctor yeah we've done worse yeah all right be honest how was the chafing not bad um is there like a life hack to prevent chafing i think don't people like their nipples and shit i do not i wear bras for that men maybe i don't know i had my friend uh one time was chafing on his nips real hard yeah i gave him my chapstick i was like you can just keep it no i don't think i really chafed that much sometimes my knees like the inside of my knees and that was what like like each other armpit oh yeah which do you run with your legs that close together i don't i don't know interesting okay um but no i don't think there was it wasn't too bad okay it's pretty dry i think humidity is when you chafe so it's pretty fair fair enough okay how are your feet well i lost a toenail yesterday finally lost a toenail yesterday okay yeah it was gross um i think i'm gonna lose two toenails two more toenails oh my god which is a record that's freaking crazy i don't actually i mean oh god i kicked a rock and it was awful you kicked a rock on your run yeah at mile like late in the life oh shit yeah and it and it's funny because um my i was being filmed by one of the precision folks yeah and he just got it all on film and i was like cussing and just like my foot of course yeah my golden foot i know um but it was i mean it was like this is the last thing i need right now but that i i was like my toenails yeah coming off um but yeah they were fine i mean they were swollen and you switched shoes uh i switched to the same type of shoe i was wearing changed to you only went through two different pairs of shoes yep two pairs and they were the unreleased zero five fives from norda shout out they're the best shoes ever oh best shoes ever are they like hiking boots or running shoes they're running shoes but they're pretty like durable they're durable they're kind of like merrell or like solomons where they're like they have like the grip on the bottom so you can hike yeah they've got the what's it called i'm terrible at shoe parts like all terrain whatever yeah they're sticky okay so they're they're fantastic but yeah i switched i i didn't switch shoes for 140 miles and then switched because i got my feet wet okay and then once those dried out i switched back and then didn't change again okay last and final question what was your most intrusive thought killian's gonna pass me probably but then i was like no you're like no bitch do it for the girls yeah we don't care about that oh i'm so happy i got to sit with you this was so fun yeah i'm like you answered some of your questions no we literally could i mean like you answered all of them like we could gap for hours like just you're so easy to talk to and you're so fun you have so many cool stories like you're gonna be that sick ass old lady on a like rocking chair one day with like a scroll of stories i yes i've lived a lot of lives yes you're like a cat yeah well thank you for coming on yeah thanks is there anything else you want to say before we close out gosh i don't think so i think i'm okay well i'm really excited to keep following along seeing all the incredible races that you're doing and maybe next interview we'll do one where i'm on a bike and i interview you running or you could run or i could run with you i hear that you're supposed to do a half marathon or something it's sold out already oh well there's more i know there's i really wanted to do this los angeles i know one every weekend but there was one it was the nike after dark one and i don't know if it's like so below you but like it's at the nike after dark and it's women's only that's sick and i was like that's so fun and so on brand that's sick i know i really wanted to do it but it's in hermosa dang i know so i'm gonna try to reach out to nike and be like would you guys let me run yo you should i know give me the worst things i know please let me run plus that was like for years that's what i did was like i want to do your race and really get no sometimes shoot your damn shot sometimes you get yes that's how we got you on here so i just shot my shot sometimes you get yes i was brave yep i said be brave come be on my podcast and i'm so glad we got to do this okay well i love you guys so so much thank you for tuning in and i will see you next wednesday