Episode 440: 603 Miles in 6-Days | Megan Eckert
Megan Eckert is a World Record holding ultramarathon athlete for Mount to Coast, teacher, and coach. She recently broke the women's 6-Day World Record, by completing 603 miles. She holds the women's Backyard Ultra record with 87 laps for 362 miles, qualified for Team USA's 24-Hour World Championship Team, and much more.
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Timestamps/Topics:
00:00:00 Introduction to Alyssa and Ultra Running
00:06:50 Journey into Ultramarathons: From Childhood Inspirations to First 50k
00:12:56 Navigating Career Uncertainty: From Education to Professional Running
00:19:30 Balancing Athletic Career with Future Planning
00:26:09 Evolution in Ultra Running Distances
00:32:30 Ultra Running Strategy: Deliberate Race Selection
00:39:42 Optimizing Running Economy for Speed
00:46:05 The Importance of Enjoyment in Recreational Training
00:51:46 Breaking the World Record Unexpectedly
00:58:13 Overcoming Nutrition Challenges in Ultrarunning
01:06:07 Optimizing Nutrition with Electrolytes and Black Currents
01:12:32 The Polarizing World of Supplements
01:19:27 Shift to Fruit-Based Sports Nutrition
01:26:19 Fueling Strategies in Ultramarathons
01:32:48 Managing Energy Levels in Race Preparation
01:40:06 Where to Find Alyssa on Social Media and More
01:41:50 How Zach Uses Podcast Sponsors
Episode Transcript:
I did want to talk to you a bit before we kind of dive into the big news, the new news, the world record news is, you know, you're not just out there running all the time. You are actually, if I'm not mistaken, I'm a middle school special education teacher and coach. That's correct. Yes. I coach high school, and then I teach at the middle school level. Awesome. Yeah, that caught my eye. I was a teacher a long time ago at this point, but I did seventh grade special ed for two years, and then I did high school. I was dual certified. So when I moved into the high school age group, they kind of had me doing both. I had like a caseload of I think it was like 15 students and then did some kind of regular ed classes as well. So it was an exciting, exciting day for sure. Oh yeah. There's never a dull moment. And we're so good, as I'm sure you know, from your experience, just adapting, like being spontaneous and just taking things as they come. Yeah. It was kind of funny because like when I went to school and decided I wanted to teach, I went in with the idea that I probably wanted to teach either middle school or high school. And my first thought was history and broad field social studies. So I got all the history and social studies certifications like the econ, the poli sci, this psychology, all that stuff. Then I taught, but I graduated mid-year, so I didn't really have a good opportunity to get a job at that point. So I just started doing long term subbing. And one thing I learned right away with that is like the jobs that you could get basically every day were oftentimes in the special ed room. So I would just take anything that was open and I was like, after probably about a month of it, I was like, I think I'd actually want to teach special ed because it's just like a lot of times, small group, you can really make an impact on the students because you're working. You're not just like, okay, I got 45 minutes to touch base with 25 kids, and then there's another group of 25. And then at the end of the day, you've done like minimal inputs, probably for over 100 students versus, okay, I, I was with this student for a good chunk of the day and I could actually see that progress, see that growth and stuff like that. So it was really exciting to kind of get that experience. So then I went back to school, got the special ed license, and then I was dual certified, which pretty much gave me access to almost any district in the state. Heads of dual certification. That's wonderful. Yeah, and it is. It is nice that you really get to know your kids so well. because I am in fourth through eighth grade. So I'll have, like, my eighth graders I've had for five years. I know them, I know, I know them, I know their families. I know their cats and dogs. You learn every little aspect of their life. and so it's nice you get to know them on a deeper level than you do. when you are cycling through, like you said, 25 students at a time for an hour. Yeah. Yeah, it's an exciting, exciting world. I definitely miss teaching. It was kind of one of those things where when I stepped away, I was like, oh, I've got like a couple really good options here, and I know that I'm going to miss whichever one I don't do. And going after the running stuff felt like a shorter term opportunity. So I talked to the principal and was like, hey, I've got this opportunity. And she was like, just chase it. You can always come back. And I did, and I haven't gone back yet. But I always do think about how much fun it was teaching and, that, that that world is a lot of excitement. So, I did want to ask you, I think I asked some people that follow me on social media after I was just posting a lot while you were doing the record, because it was just so exciting to watch you, because just the way you raised it, it was just like it was kind of like it was that 600 number was just like there the whole time. And there wasn't really any indication that you were going to slip. And it was just like, you're just waiting. We're just like waiting. And like, I would check in every few hours and be like, okay, still they're still they're still there. And. So I so I was. I had a lot of people that were following me. Some that probably were loosely even aware of six day stuff and are just into sports and fitness and things like that. So like I, I asked him, I'm like, well, what kind of questions should I ask? Ask Meg when she comes on the podcast. So they sent me a whole bunch of stuff, and one of them that stuck out to me because I remember very, very clearly how this went for me was just training, like during the school year, because it's like one of those things where you do have time in the summer. I'm not sure what it is, maybe you are more involved than I was, but in the summer I had basically 12 weeks where I could live like a professional athlete. but when I got to the school year, part of it, you know, you're on, then there's like, not a lot of wiggle room. It's like, you get up, I would run, I would go to school. Sometimes I would run again or coach, and then you basically go to bed and you do it all over again. So how does one prepare for a six day world record while teaching full time? So I definitely have the same summer schedule you're describing where it's like, you have that nice. I think it's nine weeks off now. They keep kind of shortening it. but it's about nine weeks where you get to live like a professional athlete, and I, I live out of my Jeep and I travel around the US, and I show up at these races and crew for people and pace and do my own races that I can fit in the summer. But then you're right. When you get to the school, you're limited on time. and you still have to get the miles in. And I honestly think for me, that's actually been more beneficial to try to squeeze it all in than having all the time to train as a professional athlete. because I get up in the morning, I run to work, I run, commute to work, I do my seven and a half, eight hour workday. I try to squeeze in about an hour run before I go coach track or cross-country, whatever season it is. And then when I get done with them a couple hours later, I go out and I run until pretty much the sun sets. so I'm, I'm pulling. I mean, between running and work, I'm probably pulling 12 hours, 13 hours, days. So it is like you described where they are long days. It's a lot of time on my feet. It's a lot of, just mental, training to when sometimes in the morning, you know, you want to hit that snooze button and you're like, no, I'm. Or at least for me, I'm like, I don't feel like I start my day off right if I don't go in with a run. and actually post six days, I haven't been able to run/commute to work up until today because I had a real, tight knot in my right calf that I've been, or my right thigh that I've been trying to work out. So today was just a wonderful day because I got to run and commute in. so it's about finding that time. But it is very time consuming. Yeah. It was. I think I was talking to Joe just a long time ago when he set the men's American record for six days, just about the six day event. And I'm pretty sure it was him who told me this. He said, like, it's really not a question of if you're going to get an injury or something nagging from the experience itself. It's just, what is it going to be? So it has been that way. I mean, you've done you've done like a lot of long multi-day stuff now. So like, is that kind of the reality where you're going to have something kind of flare up a little bit that you have to sort of manage for at least a little bit afterwards? Usually, yes. Usually I bounce back quickly. So usually what I have is less than a week and I'm running again. this one's been a little bit more. More angry. but yeah, my experience has also been very much the same where in the six day stuff or in these longer distances, there are things that can pop up. There are things unexpectedly that can pop up, pop up in my first six days. On day two, I had an issue with my abductor and my right leg, where my leg was just giving out, and I would have to catch myself on the inside of the track because it felt like I was going to stumble and fall. I couldn't feel my foot for a second. It was the oddest. I've never had it happen since, but it was the oddest situation and it lasted. I don't know. Maybe 12 hours. And then it went away for the rest of the race. So there. Yeah, there's stuff unexpected that pops up that you just kind of deal with and hope that it's not major, I guess I wouldn't say always run through an injury, but at that point, I didn't feel like it was getting worse. It just was bad at the moment. Yeah. Like someone like yourself or anyone who's does well at these multi days, I imagine you just get really good at kind of knowing what things are a problem, but maybe not, like you said, severe enough where it's like if I keep hammering on this, I mean there's some guesswork I'm sure. But like you probably pretty tuned in where you kind of know, like, okay, I'm gonna have to deal with this, but it's not something that's going to make me quit this race or drop out or something like that. I most definitely, yeah. There's, there's a listening to your body component that a lot of coaches and a lot of athletes talk about all the time. It's much easier said than done. I will say, because some things are guesswork. Also, you're kind of hoping that it's not that bad, but, Yeah, yeah. How long is the commute to work when you do that? The shortest route I can take is about two and a half miles. I usually try to go a little bit longer. Okay. So you're getting. Yeah. That's the other thing that I was always trying to decide what was the best setup I had. I actually had a roommate at the time who was one of my college, cross-country and track teammates. We ended up at the same school district and shared a house for a while. And, he would always be training for, like, marathons and sub ultra stuff. but he was putting in quite a bit of miles for that as well. And he would always do his training after school. He wouldn't run before school pretty much ever, from what I recall. And I would like, usually gravitate to getting up really early if I had to like 4 or 430 and just get a good chunk of the training in before the day, and there was a few times kind of usually in the spring when like the weather was maybe a little bit nicer because I was in Wisconsin. So it was like we got quite a bit of variability where I would just start kind of moving things to the second or to after school and do more volume there. sounds like you maybe have like a little bit more of an even split or skew it towards afterwards. I definitely have more afterwards. I'm not a big morning runner. I really struggle in the morning. my morning runs, even can be challenging at times. I don't think about my body, I am a morning person. I don't think my body wakes up to the morning run as well. So I do find that if I'm going to have a harder run or a more challenging run, that feels a little bit more like more effort. It's going to be in the morning. So I do try to put in more mileage in the evening when I'm feeling better and it's just more of a natural rhythm for me to run in the evenings. Yeah, yeah. I always wondered about why, like, the body responds differently with that from one person to the next, because like I did track in cross-country in high school and college, and those were always like 3 p.m. or right around their practices. So you would think that I would have gravitated to that schedule afterwards. But for whatever reason, I always found myself at the start of the school year doing most of the stuff in the morning, and that would usually be the direction I'd go. But, if I would switch it to the afternoon primarily after a few weeks, I did start to like it, and I would tell myself, like, all right, this is the way I'm going to do it. Then summer would happen and I would go right back to the same formula. By the time school started. That's how I am about my morning runs. You know, we're about to hit summer here. I think I have about a week left. And, what's going to happen is, my morning runs will be later and later in the morning as, as summer starts, it'll, you know, maybe I'll get up at seven and then it'll be okay. Well, I'm, I'm still up at five, but I'm not going to run until nine. And eventually those become ten, 11 in the morning that I get out. Yeah. Closer. Do you. Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. No. You're fine. I was just going to ask. Do you like it? Do you look a look at your training with enough foresight where you're like, all right, I'm going to do this type of training in the summer because I have a little more flexibility and then lean on that a little bit during the school year, when maybe you have a little more tight window to train. not at all. I'll say, in the summer I am lucky enough to get in the mountains more, but I don't think that's something that I really think about. It's more that I'm traveling. The mountains are right there, so of course I'm going to go running them. and of course, here in Santa Fe, I just have more time to go to the mountains. But it's nothing like, I'm gonna train up for a race. particularly in the summer, and focus on these skills. no, I and honestly, most of my training is not any foresight. I lace up my shoes and go out the door and decide where I want to go that day and how far I want to go. Yeah. And then do you sew or do you have days where you're like okay I feel good, I'm just going to run a little faster and try to get speed working. Or are you just logging in volume basically. Oh no. I do have days where I will go and I'll try to run a little faster because I'm feeling good. The body's responding, well, I won't do, I'm not one who will do speed work if the body is telling me, hey, no. Not today. but if I'm. If I'm on the run and I'm feeling good that day. Yeah, yeah, that'll become a speed work day real quick. It's not like you need to, Walter. Okay. Yeah. It sounds like you and Courtney to Walter had kind of a similar approach where it's like, hey, I'm gonna run a lot, but I'm just gonna. If I feel good, I'll run faster. If I don't, I'll run slower. And then, clearly there's a path for that, because both of you, I mean, you two, you can make an argument. You two are like, two of the best ultra runners in the world on the women's side of the sport. So, Yeah, I always have a laugh about it just because, like, the sport is, like, growing a lot. And we're seeing a lot more professionalization and, like, you know, philosophies about what's the right way to train or who's doing it right, who's doing it wrong, and all that sort of stuff that kind of gets into the weeds with it. But, we still see quite a wide range of stuff. And it's it's really hard to argue against an approach when, when someone like yourself goes and runs 603 miles in six days and it probably opens up the conversation around, like we're sort of trying to, like, identify a process and apply it to something that would be similar to us trying to apply a similar process to a bunch of different sports. When we get into kind of what it entails running, say, like a 50 miler in the mountains versus a six day on the track and things like that. Right. There's so many different components, I think, to ultrarunning. Right? There's different races, different trains, different styles that when we're actually training for an ultra run, it is very different for each one, like a marathon training, you know, you're training for a marathon. It's kind of like a block, right? There's a there's there's been it's been studied. There's a traditional block. And this is, this is kind of the best way to train for the X, Y and Z marathon. But when you're training for an ultra, there's so many different variables that you're looking at even within distances. If we're talking about 100 K or 100 miler, like, the conditions, the altitude, the terrain, the the weather, I mean, there's so many different aspects that go into training that, I think it makes it hard to find, more of a cookie cutter method when it comes to ultra running. It's so individual. yeah. Yeah. And I'd be curious too, because, like, where you live, you kind of have access to a lot of variety of terrain. It sounds like you do get out on the trails and the mountains and things like that. Do you find that that's helpful in terms of just kind of maintaining durability on the flatter stuff and just having some variety in there so you're not just kind of hammering the same thing over and over again. I think it is. I think it's beneficial, physically, but I think more so for me, it's beneficial mentally. the roads become very monotonous. I love mountain running. And so when I'm able to get the time to, like, get out on the trails, and climb up the mountains, get on the rocky terrain, stream crossings and so on. it's also kind of a, a heart day, you know, of running where I'm just. I'm just all in, like, it doesn't matter the pace. It doesn't matter. Like the speed. How quick I make it to the mountaintop. If I even make it to the mountaintop. It's just. It's just a day where I can just love every minute and not think of anything. Yeah, I definitely missed that about Phoenix when we lived there. We've been in Austin now for a little over three years. And there's good running in Austin too. But Phoenix had everything. Like if I wanted a flat Canal Path could run forever on that. Obviously there were tracks everywhere. And then there were all these mountain preserves in town that you could run out on the trails. And if you wanted to get on a bunch of mountainous stuff. You guys go a little bit out of town and or up to Flagstaff or something like that. So I can appreciate that. That whole process of just. Yeah, the physical aspect of having variability is good, I think. But then I always found if I would do, if I would target, say, a flat track 100 miler or just a flat 100 miler in general, for too long, I would start to kind of lose a little bit of that, like last edge that is most is required to kind of hit a PR when you've done it a few times already, or just to be motivated and excited to do it as much as you were the first time. And then I would usually just sign up for a trail race and spend some time doing that for a while, and then come back to it and be like, okay, now I'm ready to do this again. Yes, yes. And I agree entirely. Like it's beneficial to do both. When I get sick of the roads and I hop on the trails like I'm happy to be on the trails when I get. Not that I really get sick of the trails, but when I need something different, I need to feel fast, let's say. And I hop on the roads like I just, it's, it's fun to bounce back and forth. I really enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah. Are you targeting a certain amount of volume you're trying to hit with your, with your training or is that a little more kind of. I'm guessing you just end up hitting probably a minimum. But do you think of it through that lens at all like I want to make sure I log x number of hours per week or anything like that. So through the years of training, I've kind of found my sweet spot. so anywhere from like 90 to 110 miles is kind of my sweet spot when I'm training up for a race. Anything more is usually not beneficial. I end up too fatigued, right, to train the following weeks. and anything less, I kind of feel sluggish. So, like, for me, I've kind of found my sweet spot, and I try to stay there. when I'm training for a race. If not, it's whatever. kind of wherever I fall that week. So yes, I guess I would say yes. Weekly mileage is something that I do consider. because my muscles, my tendons, my ligament, everything has to take that beating in order to withstand the duration or distance of the upcoming race. Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting because there is, there's, there's, there's a, there's like a floor where you kind of, you don't really want to go below that and there's going to be some individuality here. But yeah like you said, you know you're out there for six days, you're out there for six days. And that's a lot of pounding. So if you can have that cumulative. 100 ish mile training weeks. That's probably what's going to keep that stuff durable and ready to kind of perform on it. But yeah, you don't want to cross over that too. There's that point where I think people have run long enough. They finally get to that point where they see a spot where like, okay, this spot is kind of where thin ice starts. And then beyond that, I'm just not doing myself any favors. I'm getting miserable. I'm getting injured. I'm getting fatigued, the quality is dropping. And then you just start to learn like, all right, it isn't necessarily better. Right, right. Exactly. And maybe that's also considering all those other aspects of life. Right. Like if I was a professional athlete doing this full time, maybe, maybe I could withhold like 120, 130 mile weeks, 140, but I'm not. I have other things that I do on a day to day basis and other responsibilities. And so if I, if I don't quite hit, you know, even 90, I'm not going to beat myself up over that, that's just life. you know, so I but but I do think these little aspects also that the, the rest of our lives, play a role in what we should be getting or what works best for the individual, on a weekly basis. Yeah. And you touched on this earlier too. And I definitely want to probe a little bit here because it's something I've been really interested in is there's the mental side of the sport. And when you get into the six day stuff with a multi-day stuff, it just seems like that's I mean, it's just a long time to be on and be focused. So there's that mental training of just knowing, like you can wrap your head around just being on point for 12, 13, 14 hours in a day. So you can't really train. You can't really do the activity that long on a regular basis, maybe in a week, but like to go out and just do like 14 hours of running and training. It's going to be counterproductive. So physically you get what you need in a couple hours in most cases. But how do you train the mind to be able to tolerate that longer stuff? And I always wonder about that with the professionalization of the sport too, is are we going to start seeing people looking for things or finding they're missing things when they don't have, like this block of obligation that kind of forces their mind to stay on and train their brain to be focused for longer periods of time and build up that sort of durability and robustness of just your mental focus side of things. You know, I think for me, as I had a personal goal, I always have a personal goal. It doesn't it doesn't matter what other people are doing at the race. It's what I want to come and bring to the table. and so that's my focus going in. and you can break any race down into smaller blocks, whether you're running a 50 K or running a six day. Like, you can break that race into smaller blocks that have many goals for yourself. whatever. Like for me, what my major goals for the six day race was to really have a strong day too, I blew by day two in my first six day race. I had poor mileage, a poor day, lots of sleep, lots of whining and complaining. And I said my big thing, like, my first goal of this race is to have a strong day so I know I can do day one. Let's focus on day two. And so all of those little goals along the way, they make a difference in maintaining that focus over the six days. Because if you can check one of those off as you're going along, it just empowers you even more. Yeah I always explain this to my coaching clients. It's like using the things you have in your life to your advantage. And the more intuitive it becomes the easier it's going to be able to do that without burning a bunch of mental bandwidth during the race. So like you know, we all get like projects and like to do lists essentially in life. And over time you start realizing if it's something that's larger, has multiple steps to it. You know what those steps are, but you don't start thinking about that last step when you're on the first one because, you know, you have to get the first step done first anyway, and we just get good at doing that. And if you can apply that to the race the same way, you're really leveraging something you've probably been practicing for years, if not decades. So I always kind of think like where, where can I, like, train my brain to help me do the things in the race that are going to be hard for me to actually practice in training to that same degree? Most definitely, yes. And having those little little things is important. Like those little goals along the way. Yeah. So going into the six days this time was 600 miles, a number you were considering, or was it something where you were like, hey, I'm going to just go for the world record here. we'll worry about anything else as it comes. Or was there a reason for you to believe that 600 was something that you were going to be able to achieve? So I got to tell you, the first six days I went into the dome, the very first six days, like not even a track runner has a track background. I think I ran on a track a handful of times before going to the dome, and I went into the dome and I'm like, I'm going to hit 600 miles. Like, I come in and I'm like, this is what I'm going for. This is exactly what I want. and I knew, like, I didn't go in thinking, you know, this is going to be easier. I'm going to get it on the first try or I. But I went on, this is my goal for six days. This is exactly what I want to do. I may not get it this time. But this is. This is what I'm working towards. and I didn't get it the first time. I did, like, 526 miles. had a ton of learning curves. Like bunches. Like, day two was a bad day. I learned about sleep. learn not to sleep on the floor, because if your air mattress deflates, you can't get up. You know, all of these little little tidbits here and there. It was just a huge learning curve. So then I have all this knowledge, and I'm going into six days in France, and I still have that same goal because. Right, I didn't get it the first time. And I had set this and I want it. And, it was more important for me to get 600 than it was, the world record. Like, I want it, that 600 mile mark. And even if another woman had done 620, I just wanted 600, you know? So going into this one, I applied for my husband's crewing. He was crewing me for my first six days. So we both had that learning curve, and we applied what we had learned from those first six days. We used a very similar model and tweaked it to make those little accommodations. And we went after 600 again. I mean, that was the goal from the very, very start. Did you have it broken down too? Like, I want to hit this many number of miles on each of the days, or was that that kind of a loser target that that was a much looser target? Yeah, that was a much looser target. I knew I needed a very strong day. One, just because of fatigue over time. and then also knowing that later on in the race, I would need a bit more sleep here and there, to maintain. So I knew I needed a stronger day. One. and then focusing on days two and three and improving those mileage there. And I knew based on the dome, I had had a really poor start to my race and a very strong finish. so I had that working in my favor, knowing if I could hold on while I was fresh in the race and have a good first three days, I could rely on my experience hopefully, and hold on to the last three also. yeah, I was thinking about that too, because it's like there's there's there's all sorts of conversations I did dove deep into kind of like, how should you pace an ultramarathon? And I think this probably varies to some degree from one person to the next, but then also from one event to the next. But when you get into something like a six day where you know there's going to be some sleep component, that. Allows you to go further than you would if you didn't sleep at all. You sort of do have that little bit of extra buffer on day one because you're going in there rested versus say, like, you know, day three or day four, where some of that 24 hour cycle has to be rest and sleep and making it sustainable. Is that another reason why you kind of frontload a little bit of the miles for an event like a sex day, in your opinion? somewhat. Pace is still comfortable. It's comfortably fun. on the first, on the first day. But yes, I am out there, longer on day one, than I am on day 3 or 4. Because, yeah, sleep does become a thing and your body is fighting you for its normal. Its normal circadian rhythm. Yeah. It's like, what are you doing to me? Yes, exactly. Oh, and especially early on, it really, I find for me, like night two, it's really, really battling, trying to get me to sleep. Like I said, I fell asleep while running, on the second night, and that's the only night that that happened. so it really becomes quite a battle early on, and then eventually it's almost like it gives up. Time almost becomes irrelevant later on in the race. Yeah, that's been something that I've been told a bunch of times with multi-day stuff. I've had quite a few, like, runners who've done things like the TransCon or Appalachian Trail and things like that, and they've said sort of that same thing where it's like you kind of hit those those first few days can sort of be this weird, kind of like drop down where your mind sort of is playing weird games with you, where it's still trying to get you to give up or still trying to talk some sense into you probably is the better way to put it. And and then eventually kind of it kind of says, okay, well, this is the reality. Let's just make do with it. And I found that really interesting too, because it's like you get this mindset in these races. Sometimes I think where you start to see this dip in energy or this dip or this, this accumulation of fatigue. And the first thought is always like, well, if this continues linearly, there's just no way I'm gonna be able to sustain this. You start thinking too far ahead. And then eventually that kind of misery sort of just plateaus a little bit. And it's like, okay, I can tolerate this if it doesn't get worse. Is there a lot of ebb and flow after that point for you, or is it like, do you feel great at some point on like day five and just like, okay, I'm going to ride this while it lasts? Or is it kind of just like managing suboptimally as best you can? Oh no. There's definitely some random great like you feel wonderful moments. you feel like you can run forever. and nothing's going to stop you. I remember at some point thinking, you know what? If they close the course, I wonder if I can just keep going to 1000km. You know, I wonder if they'll, like, keep counting. and it was some point on day five, you know, I was like, I bet, I bet they'll let me keep going. but it's really funny how the mind does go in and out of. Okay. I don't know if I can do this anymore, I could do this forever. Yeah. It's the runner's high and you can have multiple ones in the day. but, but you're right in the sense of like your, your mind starts to try to kind of make you stop. you're not going to quite make it. You're, you know, early on especially I find, like cruise, really important. and that sense kind of, Day two, I was asking, well, what's my pace? What's my pace? Cause I was worried I was falling off. I was really worried about day two, and I was worried I was falling off pace, and I kept running by my crew asking, am I okay, am I good? I can't see the time clock. I don't know where I'm at. And they kept saying, well, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine. And I'm like, well, what does fine mean? Just fine means I'm okay. Does fine mean I'm too slow? Does fine mean you're just telling me I'm fine? Like I was convinced they were lying to me. so your mind does these crazy things where just even sometimes, you. It seems like you're running in quicksand. Like you're not going anywhere. but yet you're cruising at a decent pace, so it tries to trick you in every way it possibly can. Yeah. Yeah. Do you like one question? I have got. I've got no perception of what it's like to be out there that long. But one question I'll get from folks just about like ultra races, especially the more monotonous ones. Like, if I do like a track hundred miler, someone will ask me, well, what are you thinking about the whole time? And I never have a great answer. I feel like I it's always like, I don't know, because when you get into these like controlled type of settings either, I'm like turning my memory off from it or getting into, like some sort of like rhythm or flow where whatever was passing through my mind or that I'm thinking of in the moment is just like kind of out one ear or in one ear and out the other sort of type of thing. And I don't recall that afterwards or sometimes, I mean, there'll always be like a few things I distinctly remember. And then I'm just asking myself afterwards, was I just thinking about that the whole time on repeat, or was that just what I recalled and things like that? So what's it like for six days? There are things that stand out like a bunch of stuff that you're like. I wish I remembered what I was thinking about for those 12 hours on day three. Or, you know, if somebody asked me what I was thinking about the whole time, I don't know. I really couldn't tell you either. It's almost like you get in a meditative tunnel. this is the only world that exists at that point. One of the crews on day five left with their backpack to go to the grocery store to get things. And I looked at him like, you're going on an adventure because you forget that anything. It's like I had forgotten that a grocery store even existed. You know what? What existed to me was this loop that I was doing. And, you know, sometimes you're thinking of, oh, I wonder how so-and-so is doing at that tent that I'm just passing. I haven't seen them in a while. I wonder if they're sleeping. I wish I was sleeping or, you know, I wonder what they're like. At one point there is a gentleman who had Phantom, and I'm like, that sounds delicious. So I spent a few loops until I remembered to tell my crew, I want it to, you know, it's like these random random thoughts sometimes. but I don't. It really does become a meditative state because it is so repetitive. You learn every, every speed bump, every little crack in the track, every. Yeah. Very monotonous. Yeah, yeah. It's miserable, but it's not right. Yeah. No, I understand what you're saying, too, because you sort of, like, build this alternate world for a period of time that you're existing in. That's separate from the real one. And then you finish and you're back in the real one, and you're just trying to like, how do I reconnect to that other one that I was in and explain what was happening there? And it's really difficult to do, you almost just wish, like, the person who's asking the questions could just get in your head and dig it out of there themselves. Yes. Yes. Because I don't know the answer either. Okay, good. I'm not going crazy, then. I'm glad to hear that. What is that like, coming back afterwards? Is it really difficult for a few days to sort of just reconnect with everything? Does it? I'm guessing it just feels very distant. It does. You know, and honestly, I experienced it after Biggs, and I have experienced it after this one, too. and even after the dome, I'll say it's kind of depressing. I mean I really I it's, it's exciting, but it's also I don't know why I have reacted this way, but I have a few days where it's just kind of sad. sad that I'm not on the track. Sad that, you know, I'm not, with the people I just spent six days with. And we experienced all this stuff with, It's a shock, almost, to go back into reality. And then then, of course, you readjust and life returns to normal and everything's fine. But it does take a few days. And I've actually experienced post-race depression after these longer distances. Yeah, yeah. The way I always think about it is when I was a kid, my family would do every other year we'd have this family reunion where my dad's side of the family was, was big. He had seven brothers and sisters, so they all had a bunch of kids. So I had like over 30 cousins on that side. And we'd go up to this, this, kind of camp. There's like these cabins and this place up north in Wisconsin. And for a week that whole side of the family would just hang out. And then when it was over and we'd go back, it was just like it felt like we were gone for years. And then it was like, I'm going back to something completely different. And I was like, yeah, I was just there seven days ago. It wasn't that long ago, but for whatever reason, just that reintroduction to the thing that should feel normal feels awkward. Yeah. Yeah, very much so. So. Yeah. Well. And then on top of, on top of, you know, being done with your normal routine for six days or whatnot, you also have, just all the post-race, healing happening to which, the night sweats or the odd sleeping hours and like, you would think you would crash, but, my experience has been I, I can't crash after a race for about 12 hours at least. And then it's only like limited sleep for a few hours at a time. Yeah. So all this readjustment for sure. Yeah. You'd think you would just be able to pass out for like 24 hours straight and sort of reset. But yeah, the body has another mindset that you've already convinced it through day two, that you're doing crazy stuff. And then it's in that world versus the normal world. Yes, yes. It's like, well, let's just if we're gonna do this, let's just keep going. Yeah. It really doesn't know when to stop. And it honestly takes about a week to return to normal, sleep schedule and even eating everything takes at least a week, if not longer. Yeah. What is the fueling strategy that you use for a six day period? Are you looking at it through the lens of I know I'm going to need to eat a lot, but I'm also probably going to need to respond to what my body's asking for or what I'm craving. Or do you have a pretty specific set of things that you tend to focus on? You know, on the sixth day, protein intake is extremely important because of the number of hours that you're out there. and days. Right. So I really focus on getting protein in, especially with those main meals, because I still try to keep those, those three main meals of some sort in there, along with the midnight snack. But, so the protein is extremely important, but the rest, kind of boils down to like, whatever my body is craving. so it can be anything from gummy bears to pasta to, I'll do scrambled eggs, chips. lots of liquid calories in multiple forms. so it's pretty much whatever. Yeah. Free for all. And are there any calculations you're doing to make sure you're getting in enough, or is it sort of just I'm going to eat as much as I can tolerate and then see how that goes. I know, like with the shorter ultras, it's gotten to a point where now people are like, okay, I need to get x number of grams of carbohydrate per hour. And people are kind of building these plans around that strategy. Is it a little more loose for something like this where you're probably not going to stay on top of calories? My guess is you lose weight during these things. So, like, at what point do you. Yeah, I guess maybe just. Did you put any thought into that, or is it just like, I know I need to eat, so I'm going to try to eat as often as I can and not worry about any sort of totals or anything like that. Yeah, I'm definitely even in a 50 K, not a mathematical runner. so I am just eating as I feel like eating, knowing that I need to take in more. So the one thing I do in these is I make sure I have a larger meal before I go to sleep. So I'm getting, it's a bit more calories than you would if you were, like, continuously running, and getting them hopefully more well digested and put to good use. but no, I don't calculate anything. We literally are calculating, so I'm going to hand you a handful of something. I'll give you two options. I'm going to give you a handful of something. Something salty, something sweet every 30 minutes, 45 minutes. And you just have to grab one. And that's literally my husband and I are calculating calories. It would be awesome if there was an insane amount of money in the sport, to the degree where you could have someone there that was just tracking that stuff for you. We did have. So my first six days we had an amazing couple, Jeff and Joanne, who came out to help the crew, because we weren't sure what that was going to look like. And he just sat there and just calculated. He wrote down how much of everything I ate and the estimated calories. And he was so. So we have a log, actually, from my first, first six days on day two. Day four and day five and day six. I think of what I was eating, which was just a great reference going into this one to look back on, to see how often I ate and how much I ate. Yeah, yeah. No kidding. Because even if it's a loose target, from there, at least you kind of have an idea of like, this is the amount of volume of food that should be going to you and not coming back versus. And then your crew can maybe adjust if you're not taking in as much. with, with that. That's what's interesting. Yeah. That'd be cool. Do you have a blog or anything where you publish that stuff too? no, no I haven't. People are going to be asking for that. Well, it's just fair warning. It's gonna have Oreos and gummy bears and bunches of Fritos. It's gonna look like one of your students, like sleepover parties or something like that with just a bunch of. Yeah. Got the candy bowl and. Yeah. It is. I do remember when I had Pete Castleknock on to talk about his trans con record. He had, one of his, his crew chief was very, very dialed into the nutrition side of things and she had it all kind of pre-planned and just knew kind of like through this section, you need to make sure you get this many calories in. So I think this was like something in the neighborhood of like right around 10,000 calories a day. but, you know, you start getting into that sort of stuff where, you know, Pete's out there for six weeks, then I think you maybe have to be a little bit more calculated with it, perhaps. But, you know, six days. It sounds silly to say this, but six days is like you can still go a long way on a bit of a deficit, I would imagine, before trouble starts coming your way. Right. And you can kind of like in any race you can kind of feel that deficit coming. And on the sixth day you do have enough time to go. Oh, I feel like I'm just kind of starting to bonk here. I'm not feeling great. I'm gonna step off the track for a minute. I'm gonna take in some good calories. You know, I'm gonna drink some things and I'm gonna get back out there. So in a 50 K where you might just have to keep going and kind of push through and try to get some shoes down or gels or whatever to make it to the end. And the sixth day you can kind of troubleshoot, you can take those extra few minutes, which will benefit you in the long run. Yeah. Yeah. Is it similar to hydration? Are you just sort of drinking to thirst then? Or do you have a certain amount of fluid when you're out there to make sure that you don't get dehydrated and have to dig yourself out of that hole? Yeah. We're, I'm, I'm really horrible about hydration. I'm. I'm a runner. Even when I'm training, who will go out without a water bottle and do a 20 mile run and think nothing of it. So I will say, this is not my strong suit at all. my husband yells at me all the time. He'll hand me the water bottle, I'll do my half a loop. I'll finish maybe half of the handheld at most, and then I won't pick it up for another 30 or 45 minutes. And he's going, it's hot. You're out here for six days. You need to be drinking. so it's something I could really improve upon. It is definitely a weakness of mine. that I think if I could get my hydration, and my electrolyte intake a little bit more balanced, I could improve in that area because the heat, the heat we had days four through five or days two through five were nothing to mess with at all. you didn't want to get behind out there? Yeah, that's a whole topic in and of itself, too, is like with a single day ultra. Assuming it's not the Pettit Center, where that's kind of a nice thing about the Pettit Center is you know exactly what you're into for the whole time. But, yeah, you have not just changes in heat from day to night. You could have like, extreme days versus non extreme days, or if I remember right. You got some rain even though I didn't think you would, during this event. So you have to know what to do and respond to that. So for me it's part of it's like obviously you don't want to get really terrible weather. But to some degree when it rained it was like, hey, this is kind of something different. not really, because it rained on day one. Okay. so it rained within the first five, six hours of the race and the course flooded and our shoes were soaked. And of course, this is in France, so I only brought two pairs of shoes. So going okay, I hope this doesn't do it the whole time because we'll be using the dryers and, so and then it was hot like it was hot until day six. Day six in the morning. The last eight hours is when the storms came in. So we really kind of bookend it with storms. but the whole rest of the time the weather was clear and hot. at night, at night people said it, it got cold. I tend to run very hot, and never had to put anything more than a short sleeve on. I was still in shorts and yeah, I didn't. I didn't think the nights got very cold at all. but the days were extremely hot. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, the more I hear you talk about this, the more I think, like, man, I wonder how far you go in optimal conditions with that performance or how far you will go in the future. You know, I don't know if I would thrive as much in optimal conditions, only because part of the fun of it is like those adverse conditions coming in. I think, mentally it's a little bit of a relief to have something different. and rather than the same, I don't know. Maybe I'll try the dome again. Yeah, I was gonna say you kind of have two very, like, polarizing experiences with the dome versus Francis. You know, the dome, obviously, that's exactly 55 degrees the entire time. And the lights are the same. And very little things change from an environmental standpoint. So, yeah, it's weird. You think of optimization as like control, but your mind may not respond the same way to that. And even if it's something where it's like, it's raining now, it's not going to rain the whole time, presumably. So you have something to look forward to in the sense that, okay, I'm just going to look forward to when this rain stops versus trying to think about day five on day one and things like that. Yeah. And I will say, I live in Santa Fe. So when the rain came, both times it was very welcome. because we don't have a lot of rain here, it's not very often I get to run in the rain. Yeah. So I did actually appreciate that until the second time the rain came and it got cold. Then, I didn't appreciate it as much. But it is nice to know, you have these conditions and you, you go through them and then something else is coming, just like you have the days. and then the sun will set. It'll become night while at the dome. You don't have that. And I remember at the dome trying to, like, just getting really tired in the middle of the day. So I would step outside in the mornings to wake myself up, to let myself know it was sunrise, it was daytime. And then I would go back into the dome and continue running. but you don't have to worry about that outdoors. Yeah. Event. That's interesting too. And yeah, someone told me I was going to ask you about this. They said you wore the same pair of shoes the entire time. Is that true, or did you have more than one pair? I wore a black pair of runners, through the rain. So on day one. from noon until probably 8 or 9 p.m., I wore one pair of shoes. And then, after the rain stopped, the course had cleared. It had drained. I wore the same pair of. I switched into a white pair of R ones and wore those till the end of the race. Okay, so you had two pairs for 603. That's a great plug for, for the amount of cost that you were able to put basically exhaust two pairs of shoes probably in the buy at the end of it. but they held up. Well. I've been doing shoe reviews this year and Mount sent me all three of theirs, their originals, and that R1 like I knew they had. I kind of had an idea from just talking to them what they were trying to do with that product line. And my first experience with it was just like, I can see what they're doing here, like the shoes. Like it's got this really unique type of stability that would just. In my fear from what I would imagine would just be like a really welcome place to be putting your foot over and over again. If you're out there for multiple days, it sort of cradles your foot in a way where, guys, we're because we're thinking like, you know, feet have to be like one of the bigger concerns for something like this, I would imagine. So having the right shoe for the job is going to be the difference between having a performance like you did or having to deal with something for days. In some cases, probably that ends up taking quite a few miles off the end total. Right? Right. And yeah, I wore mountain to coast for my first six days also, and did most of the miles in a single pair, I think like 480 or so. and that's before I had any experience with them. I just didn't have a shoe for the race, and they had sent me this pair and they said, hey, these are meant for long distances. These are meant for ultra runners. I'm like, this is great because I don't know what I'm gonna wear for this race. And, they ended up, I thought for sure I started them. I thought for sure I would switch them out, and I did, but only for maybe like ten, 15 miles at a time. And then I would switch right back into them because for me, nothing felt as good on my feet as they did. And so I've done all of my distance races in them since. Awesome. Yeah. I think like when people think of ultramarathons, I think one of the questions I often get is like, should I change my shoes? Or sometimes it's like, when should I change my shoes? Should I have like multiple pairs spread out over a course to switch into? And you know, I usually tell people it's like, you know, like it's good to probably have that option, but if your feet are feeling good because you found a shoe that works really well for the course or the train or whatever you're on, and with your gait pattern and everything that's going on. I don't know what it's like to change just for the sake of changing. It makes sense. If you have something that's bothering your foot and the shoe can fix it, then yeah, that's great. Or like in a situation like you had where it goes from wet to dry and by switching out the wet pair, you're in dry shoes and they're not just going to get wet again. Those sort of situations I think make a ton of sense. Right, right. Or even a later feeling. Feeling an overuse injury or, you know, overuse something coming on. Like sometimes just switching the shoe can completely, completely make the difference. Yeah. I was wondering if you had maybe switched from the R1 to like the P1 for that reason. Just because there was a little bit of a different feel in those two models. If you had a, if you were ever like all right, I just want a different experience for a little while, maybe load your foot a little differently. But it sounds like you just found comfort in that R1 for six straight days. I did, I did just write in our ones. Did you have any issues with blistering or anything like that that you had to sort of manage along the way? I had one blister. I had one blister, the whole time. and it was from the first day when our feet got wet. I wasn't even in the shoes. It was, you know, toes how they tuck under and they. Yeah. So just one. Yeah. There are some blisters that hold up pretty well. Okay, so that's a strength of yours. probably one of the reasons why you're good at this long stuff. But, yeah, sometimes blisters are just gonna. It doesn't matter what the shoe is. It's just like you said, like your toes are going to rub against each other, and then you get the wet environment, and that just complicates things a little bit on top of it, but, Okay. That's cool. Yeah, I saw that someone said, like, I think she wore the same pair the whole time. And I was like, okay, I gotta ask about that. And, Two Shoes is in my mind impressive for 603 miles of running. but yeah, interesting stuff I did. I did want to kind of go back to what we were talking about before about sleep because. One thing I always think about is, is it worth planning to sleep to have some structure there where you think like, okay, I'm going to try to take a nap at this point, like I have a benchmark to look forward to. But the other part of me thinks like your body may not be receptive to that. And I think the worst scenario in my mind would be, all right. I plan to take a nap at, say, 2 p.m. and then I go lay down. I just lay there and don't fall asleep, and then you feel like you wasted time. So are you doing that pretty intuitively to where it's like, okay, I feel like I could lay down and take a nap anywhere. And that's how you're planning it or how is that kind of structured? So I kind of learned from my first six days when I tried to push to 3 a.m., to get more miles. I learned that your body does kind of tell you this is when you need to sleep. so at this one, I went in and said, okay, you know, I'm not I'm gonna I'm gonna push through the night until the point where, like, I the first night till the point where I can go to sleep, and the point where I went to sleep was midnight for me on the first night. And so I kind of tried to keep that 12 hour cycle of sleep. so midnight noon, midnight noon. I would go down for a certain amount of time and that was predetermined by myself and my crew of how long I needed it to go down for. And then we would also discuss it, and some of them ended up being shorter than planned. Some of them ended up being longer, just based on how hot it was outside getting out of the heat for a little bit or how fatigued I was. But I don't think there's any benefit in lying down if you're not going to sleep. And there were a couple of times that I did go in at midnight and not. It took me too long. Like I was too wound up, to go to sleep. So I probably lost a few miles. They're staring at the ceiling instead of doing them of course. but it's really hard to tell because sometimes you lay down and you're out instantly. And you don't think that's going to happen either. So yeah. Yeah, I always wonder about, like, just the signs your body sends you because it's like, it probably wants to sleep, but like we were talking about after the race, you don't just pass out and fall asleep for a full day or anything like that. So sometimes I wonder if it's like the fatigue is there and you, you're just craving stopping for one reason. Well, for obvious reasons I guess. But it doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna fall asleep. So you think, like, okay, I could lay down and take a nap, and then you lay down and you're like, okay, you gave your body what it thought it wanted in the moment, which is just to stop the behavior of moving forward. And yeah, that one is one where I always think, like when I do a multi-day for the first time, like it's going to be an experience. I have to try to learn a little bit on the fly, at least about how to navigate that side of things. Well, there were some times that I was out there and my body was wanting to sleep badly and I and like you're saying, it really just wanted to stop for a minute. It just wants it not to be running. And so my solution was to pull off the track, take a five minute nap sitting up in a chair and get up and get going again. And a lot of times that's all it needed was just a quick reset. And I didn't do that too often. But, I did find those to be helpful when I got to the point of just being really, really tired. Yeah. That's actually an interesting aspect to ultras in general too, is when you're out there, even if you're in a bit of a flow, there is this like level of focus that just doesn't get interrupted. That is just what is required, I guess, to move forward, because I've noticed this in track events in the past where I'll pull off to use the bathroom real quick, and when I go back out there, it's super refreshing. I was like, oh, I just needed to for like 30s completely be able to disassociate from the act of making another loop. Making another loop. I just needed to turn that off momentarily. And then when you go back on there, it's almost like you kind of reset that. And really, you didn't do any resting for the most part, but you just gave yourself that little bit of a mental break I guess. Yes. And that, that can also be a very dangerous game too. Yeah. You start taking it too often. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Or you don't go back. I've had that experience. I speak from experience there. Where? Oh, I have to use the bathroom. I'm just gonna just take a couple. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going to the bathroom every 15 minutes after a while. Right. Oh. That's funny. Yeah. There was another question. Oh, you know, what I was going to ask you about was caffeine. Because obviously that's like a super potent performance boosting piece of the equation here. But it's also something where there is a margin of diminishing returns. So were you following any sort of structure with that, or was it sort of like I'm going to have this or maybe I should just ask, do you some people don't respond to caffeine. Do you respond to caffeine? Oh, I completely respond to caffeine. yeah. I don't drink a lot of caffeine on a day to day basis. So when I, when I do an ultra, yeah, it's a pretty significant response. Okay, cool. And are you trying to plan that for certain parts of the day? Because I would imagine, like, you probably want to break through some sleep fatigue and stack some miles. But then at a certain point, are you ever thinking like, maybe I won't take caffeine now because we're getting to a point that would maybe make sense to take a nap. And I don't want to, like, interrupt that by introducing caffeine. Definitely, definitely. As we get closer to those sleep points. I'm avoiding caffeine a couple hours before, I try to not take and I don't. I think I made it to about maybe 40 hours this time before taking caffeine. I try to keep trying to go into day two or day three, like late day two. early day three, before I even introduce caffeine into the equation. I know this one was a little bit earlier than I normally do. and then because when she started, there's a sort of maintenance thing going on there, too. so minimal amounts. we're talking an energy drink is normally my, my go to. I have a monster or a Celsius or something sitting on the table, and I take a couple swings and then I'm off. So it's just it's minimal amount. Luckily, to keep, to keep it going. it just becomes more frequent as time goes on. yeah. That is always interesting because a lot of the caffeine research is done with a performance dose of like 3 to 6 mg/kg of body weight. But I always tell, like my ultrarunning clients and people are asking about it just like. You don't necessarily want a performance dose when you're going solo forever, like you probably want just enough to keep you focused and then not feel like you're shot out of a cannon. And find yourself in a situation where you feel great for, you know, an hour and then also feel miserable after that. So, I'm always interested in the way people kind of leverage that side of things. Oh, yeah, I'm definitely for the smaller amounts. and then of course, in increasing in frequency as the race goes on and, you know, I don't even know, honestly, if those smaller amounts make that much of a difference, like caffeine dose wise, as much as they do, maybe placebo effect and the fact that you're tasting this and you know, it's energy, you know, it's caffeine and, it also tastes different than water, which is just wonderful. You know, you get like the bubbly and you get it's just a nice, nice little reprieve from everything that you've been doing. so it might be a little bit of that to a little placebo. Yeah that's a great point. And are you getting a lot of palate fatigue for certain things after a while where you're just like I can't have that anymore. it goes through cycles. So I'll go through, where I want something for a good 36 hours or something, and then I'll, I'll avoid it for 24 and suddenly I'll bring it back up again. so my poor crew always have to test to kind of be ready with that item in the, in the, on the back burner. and then sometimes, you know, he, my husband will make a joke that I just think you go out there and you come up with the most random things you possibly can come up with, and we don't have it, but you just want you want to see me, you know, front around to try to get it made. So yeah, that is the whole other side of it too, is like to do these things optimally. You need a crew. And it's like that crew is there for six days to and or I mean, what was your husband there the whole time? I'm guessing just like I'm sure he's taking naps as he can as well. But how does that work? Did you have more than one person out there helping out, or was it just your husband, trying to fight off sleep fatigue as best he can the whole time? So pretty much my husband screwed the whole time. He was able to take naps because they were sharing with another crew. They were sharing a porch. So the other crew member would jump in when he would take a nap, and vice versa. So sometimes, my crew, my husband Joe, would be crewing two people at a time just so that they both got sleep. However, he, I will say, is horrible about getting sleep in these things. Day five I, I, I had more sleep than he did. I'm positive about that. And he was exhausted. Like, he was probably more fatigued than I was running all the miles. And I think it's because the crew has to go through so much mental stuff on top of just the physical aspect of running. Like, we're doing the running part, but they're trying to pre-plan all this, prepare the food, keep us moving, figure out what we need. Because of that, especially later in the race, like we're not. Most of us are not thinking completely clearly. And so there are brains too. At that point in time. Yeah, crewing is such an interesting experience because, you know, especially if it's someone like your husband, like Joe, like he's obviously got like, you know, there's a whole nother element there where like, he's concerned for you. Not that other crews aren't, but there's like a whole nother level of attachment. I'm like, I know, like when I crew for Nicole and I'm sure when she cruises for me too, it's like it's almost worse because you have this, you have all the stress and anxiety, but you don't have any of the feedback other than what they tell you. But like when I'm out there running, like I, I know when I feel bad, I know when I feel good and then I respond to that. But when Nicole is coming in, I'm like, does she feel good? Is she saying she feels good and doesn't feel good? And then you just have all that kind of working rhetoric in your head kind of spinning around in there too. So I imagine like for six days, like, yeah, it would be hard to fall asleep because you've got all your just like, just like stress and anxiety will keep you awake in your day to day life. When you're out there in an event like this, that's just a constant. Most definitely. Most definitely. And he, Oh gosh. The first two times we tried to run together, they were they were they didn't go too well. He was so concerned and there was some worry there going on. And, we actually laid down for an hour and it was a 34 hour event. We lay down for an hour and a half. and that nap ended up taking six hours. so, you know, there was a huge learning curve because he was worried about me and so on. And, over time, I think we've really developed a really good crew runner relationship. even being husband and wife, we are able to separate that aspect of our relationship when we're when we're crewing and running and, remove some of the emotions from it and make it very black and white, like there was there was one point in the race, I'd been drinking a pink drink And it was night four. And so I thought I had been robbed. And I'm like, freaking out. I've already put in all this time and I'm going, I'm gonna get pulled from the course and I'm telling my husband all this and I'm like, I don't know what I should do because I feel fine. Like everything else feels fine. Like nothing feels like it's shutting down on me. Everything else feels fine. And so we go through all of this stuff together, and then he's like, you know, I bet it's the pink drink. Let's remove that. You keep running. And if it's still. And it was like, it totally was and everything was great, but he was able to think so clearly in that moment. and just be a crew. And I know as a husband internally, he must have been flipping out, you know. but with, with, he, he, he was set on the goal just like I was. And neither one of us wanted to be removed from the course. So I'm grateful that he's able and we're both able to kind of separate that aspect of our relationship when we're out there going for these things? Yeah. No doubt. Yeah. I'm sure. Yeah. Like you said, there's a lot of learning that goes into doing things like this before you get to an event like you had in France, where you break the world record and have like, such a probably a to some degree, a career defining experience out there like that. But, I mean, for someone like you, I mean, there's the six day world record that just happened, but it's not like you're going out here. I think when people think of athletes, a lot of times they think like, oh, well, you know, like a marathon or runs marathons or like A5K, ten k person probably kind of gravitates towards those distances. But in ultrarunning there is a little bit more diversity of events and things like that. I think what maybe the big question is, is like, how good can you be at a wide variety of stuff? And you're actually quite good at a wide variety of stuff where like, I think back to just like Desert Solstice this year, the women's field at Desert Solstice. Was just amazing. And I mean, just to think of a race where you have multiple people coming down to the last hour where we don't know who's going to be first, second, third or fourth, essentially, in a race like that, where you've been working that hard and then it's that close. yeah. So what is it? What is it like even picking events for you? Is it something where you just kind of have an intuition, where it's like, I really would like to do this next, and then that's what you decide to go for. Oh, yeah. I pick events based on what I want to do, and whatever I'm drawn to. yeah, I, I don't I don't put a ton of thought into it. It's just sometimes a beautiful location. sometimes it's the distance of the race, sometimes it's the possibility. Like, I had never done it before. So Desert Solstice was. Let's just see what happens out of 24. yeah, it's very random, but it's it's whatever. Whatever my heart's drawn to. That's where I'm going. Does the 24 hour just feel really short to you now where it's like, all right, this is going to be like a heightened sense of just urgency versus the slightly more relaxed approach. You would almost have to have something for as long as six days. Yeah, definitely a different feeling. on the 24th. Definitely more urgency. Definitely more, maintain that consistent pace. There's a little bit more structure. I feel like I wouldn't say structure because there's structure to six days, but there's a little bit more speed based and a little bit more, less room for error, let's put it that way. On 24, we're in six days. You can make a mistake and make time up later, figure out how to fix that later. But on the 24th, I don't feel like there's any room for error. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of one of those things where I feel like when you get to these longer ultras, you're it's sort of like a question of when something's going to happen you weren't able to plan for, and you're going to have to adapt. And then the longer you go, I think the more comfortable you have to be where there's just too many variables, there's no way you can account for all of them. So you have to be comfortable enough to know, like we're going to respond to things when they happen, but we won't know what they are. And then for someone like you who's done so well at these multi-day things coming down to 24, I would think would just feel like, all right, I can maybe control a little bit more or I can account for most of the variables, and then there's just fewer things that that you're going to be both get away with, not doing. And then also fewer things that could maybe pop up that would, would potentially derail you, that you didn't at least have an idea of being there before you got started. Correct? Correct. And I feel like even, even in these longer distances. Right. The more you do, the more the more possibilities you're exposed to and the better you get at troubleshooting. Yeah. Yeah. You also have, I guess from my understanding, a decision to make in terms of future events because you've done the backyard stuff, the six day stuff. the 24 hour. You've done well at all. Very well at all of them. So you're on the 24 hour team, for the women's world 24 hour this fall. But you're also in Big's backyard, which I think are really, really close in a timeline. Have you decided if you're going to do one or the other yet, or are you still trying to make that decision? They're actually the exact same day. Oh, are they? Okay, so you do have to make a decision that same day, so I'm gonna be forced to make a decision. I have thought about it, and I haven't made that decision yet. Both are really incredible opportunities. and I thoroughly enjoyed France, so it's going to be a really tough decision to make when it comes down to it. And I think I have a few weeks left until I have to start really, really thinking about which way I'm going to learn. Yeah. Is it? Obviously nothing's guaranteed, but is there one between the two where it's, like, more realistic that you'd be able to do in the future if you or maybe they both are that way, and that makes it hard because it doesn't necessarily make it an easy decision then. I think the individual years, I mean, are going to get harder and harder to get into at bigs. You know, they have 75 people who can enter. I mean, we just saw the world record drop a few weeks ago. 116 yards is now the standard the the max the world record for backyard. So I think it's just going to get harder and harder to get into the individual. However, I mean, like I said, 24. It's got it. You got to be on point the whole time. You have to be, on your paces and so on. So, I think I could qualify, I don't know, for, for either. I don't, I don't know. So that's the thing. It's going to have to be a roll of the dice, and I hope that I can. I might just have the other coin. Yeah, yeah. Flip a coin and hope that I get to do the other one at some other point in time also. Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I'm sure it's obviously difficult for you, but as a fan, it's like I want to see you do both of them. So it's like when you make a decision I think it's just always going to be you'll always have in the back of your mind like maybe a little bit of what if. But also, you know, to have opportunities like that is pretty cool to be good enough at both those disciplines to have qualified for that and things like that. So, whichever one you do, I'm sure it will be a blast and memorable. Thank you. Yeah, I'm. I got some thinking to do for sure. Yeah. No doubt. Well, Megan, it's been awesome to chat with you. I know, like. I do want to make sure before I let you go that the article that they did on your profile on iRunFar was great because I think it highlighted just kind of your unique experience with the sport and just kind of like your trend. I, I don't want to spoil the article, but at one point you decided to not do A5K because you didn't think you could do it. And now you're the six day world record holder. Do you look back at that and think, like what? What changed in me from the day I didn't want to do the five K to the day I was wrapping my head around being out there averaging over 100 miles a day for six straight days? I feel, you know, I was so afraid of that 5KI was so afraid of that five k, I was so afraid of failing, I think, is what it boiled down to. I was so afraid of failure. And, I think over time, as you have more experience in life and as you age, I've just realized that failure is not the be all, end all. It's an opportunity to go back to the drawing board and try again. And so as I've gotten older, you know, I've thought, well, people are going to go for this. Why can't I go for this? Why can't Why can't I fail and get back up? so it's it's, I don't know. My mindset has changed, as I've had more life experiences. Yeah. I mean, it's just such a powerful example of mindset and how that can evolve. I mean, to such an extreme with that too, because obviously, like the, the, the amount of things that go into what you did in France versus what most people would assume for A5K are worlds apart. And if they have the same mind, kind of shift that. I mean, just because when you said in the beginning of the beginning of the practices, we were like, well, I wanted to do 600in the Pettit Center. It's like that. That same mind at one point didn't want to risk the five K, and it grew. It grew to the point where it got so confident and curious, I guess is probably another way to look at it that it was like, yeah, I think I can do this. And I just think that's really interesting because when people are trying to decide if they want to kind of take a risk or do something new and they get that kind of initial fear or anxiety of like, what if I fail and things like that? I think your, your story there is about as powerful as it gets in terms of like making people think, well, I'm going to try it, because if Megan can go from that wanting to A5K to running 603 miles in six days, then, you know, whatever my hurdle here is, is, is going to be pretty trivial at that point if they try to make a comparison. Yeah. Failure is never the be all, end all. it's just an opportunity. Yeah for sure. And then, yeah, you amass more of those and you figure out like, you know, sometimes the failures teach you so many things, and then you have a day like you did in France. I'm sure you think back to like multiple other events where, had I not done that and failed there, I wouldn't have had the tools to be successful here. So you just it's almost like a 180 in how you view it. And that's probably what really drives that mindset change. Yes, yes. Awesome. Well, I'm definitely going to link the iRunFar article into the show, notes listeners. So the or so the listeners can check that one out and dig into some in inbetween of the five K to the six day. If they want to kind of go over and check out our friends that I run for, and learn a little bit more about you there. I do also want to give you a chance to share. If you have anything you want to plug from, like social media or things like that. If you want people to follow you on Instagram and things like that. If you have any websites or channels like that. Yeah. So I can be found on Instagram at, at underscore mag Eckert and then also on Facebook. Awesome. I'll also link those into the show notes too. So if any of the listeners want to go and follow along for the next journey. Yes. Awesome. Megan. Well, thanks a bunch for taking some time to come on the show. It was, it was an honor to be able to chat with you and hear a little bit more about what went into everything. for breaking the six day world record. Yes. Thank you so much for having me on.