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Every day I wake up and after drinking coffee I’ll figure out what I'm doing that day. There's no plan going into a week. When races come, I will know when I can go hog wild with training and when I should pull in the reins a little bit and be smart because there's a race coming up or I should focus on something specific like climbing in the mountains or trying to run a little bit faster so I’ll know those things, it's not totally winging it in that way. But every single day it's deciding how I feel physically and mentally to determine what the run will be

I grew up with fantastic coaches. In high school and in college I worked with some amazing people, and I think they showed me all the types of workouts that you can be doing. It wasn't for ultra running but I’ll still draw on that and use some of what I learned from them to decide what I might do

- People get really into the graphs, and the heart rate, and the power output, and all these data points around sleep performance and all of that and get mired in that in terms of trying to figure out how to crack the code on training.

- Yeah, that's exactly what I don't want.

I think that without a plan I do much better actually listening to my body

If it's fun and I'm enjoying every day, and I'm still getting in the miles and the workouts that I'd like, then I'm gonna stick with it for now. I can see tons of benefits of having a coach but for now I would Keep it this way

I do think that happiness piece is a big part of your secret sauce. You're able to find the joy in all facets of this and that seems to be your fuel

No matter how hard the race is or whatever you're enduring internally, you always have a smile on your face, you always have a moment to give a high five to a little kid, or to say a nice thing to a volunteer on the course, and that takes a conscious effort. There's a certain disposition that you have that seems to be unwavering

I like how you don't seem to overthink things too much

I enjoy that place that we get to go to in these ultras where it hurts really bad, I think that's pretty cool and not avoiding it but wanting to get to it has got to be factored in

- Tell me a little bit more about what that is when you reach that point or that limit or that place where you feel like you can't put one foot in front of the other, what is the lesson that you find for yourself in that?

- So I call it the pain cave. And probably four or five years ago I viewed the pain cave as this place that you should try to put off as long as possible in a race, make your pain cave be as far away from you as you can, and if you arrive to it then you just sit in it, and you try and survive the pain cave. But in the past couple years, I mean it's just a mindset, right? It's like all in our heads, and in the past couple years it's been the place I want to get to. So like changing it to a place where I get to celebrate that I made it there, and then that's where the work actually happens. So making the pain cave bigger, instead of pushing the pain cave away. And I think that our minds are so powerful, so even just like changing the story line makes it a whole different game

It's just telling myself a different story about that place where it hurts so bad. Before it was surviving it, and now it's – this is so cool we made it here and now we work

You're just embracing life and all its colors and have figured out this thing that works for you. But it's welcoming to people because you're saying – look, I'm doing this, you can do this too

You're creating space for other people to see greater possibility in themselves because of that relatability

It's gonna come down to who's gonna crack mentally when the tough gets going

- How do you keep a smile on your face and tell jokes and do all that stuff when you're so freaking exhausted?

- (Courtney laughs) Jokes help everything

The longer the distance is the less of a difference sex makes. I think as the distance increases, it becomes a little more equal for sure because then it is a lot in your head and it's about persistence and problem solving and some stubbornness

I grew up as a swimmer and after college I moved to New York city and my roommate this guy [Matt Nance] was a teammate of mine, very good swimmer, much better than me, and he decided to do the race around Manhattan, which is a 28-mile swim around the Island of Manhattan. Jeez. And at this time, I had no interest in it. He ended up getting second place, and this was like 1990, I think he broke the course record, but he got beat by a 15-year-old girl from Australia

You can't really make an informed decision about what's going on or how you feel based on the moment cause it changes

Your mental toughness will forbid you from stopping

The longer the race gets or the longer the challenge you're taking on gets, the more puzzle pieces there are that get involved. And I think just playing around with those pieces, every time, it makes you better at doing the puzzles, but also it's just a fun game to me

If you're surrounded by 10 people, it feels less crazy than if you're surrounded by one person

I was just like really embracing the robot mentality of “don't think about anything, just do, and stay right where your feet are”

If you project too far ahead, how much farther are we gonna be going, are you kidding we have to run until sunrise, or you start thinking about how the other person is looking and they'll never quit. Then it can get into your head and spiral pretty quickly

We rarely look and see what five minutes feels like when we're just in normal life. But when you're in this format, five minutes is really important, and you need to use it fully

So there's the famous story of in the Moab 240. You got one minute of sleep for the whole thing, but you felt like you slept for hours or something, right? Yeah, fully recharged after one minute. Is it really one minute? It was. It was. That's so crazy. So crazy. I thought my pacer had tricked me. I thought he let me sleep for 45 minutes, but it really was 60 seconds

You don't think about it. (both laughing) That's it that's my answer for everything. Well, it's working for you, so don't think about it

I think that just learning from all the problems that come up. You do these long races, inevitably there's problems that come up, and then you've experienced those problems. So then you have this filing cabinet in your brain where you can say “here's all the things that I know of already that can go wrong” and that can help you better prepare for the next one where maybe those things happen again

How do you measure crazy?

I just stumbled upon the ultra-running world. I had no idea they existed. There was a 50k at a Local Park, so I signed up for that and was intrigued by it. But I wasn’t hooked on the sport right away. And then I did a 50-mile race a little bit later that year and that got me hooked all the way. And then I just wanted to know what else was out there and what could I try

I did a road marathon and surprised myself by finishing it. I didn't think I'd actually get to the finish line of 26.2 miles. I thought my legs would shatter. I thought I would die on the side of this road. And when I finished it, it kind of flipped a switch for me of just wondering “if that sounded too hard, but I did it, what else is there that sounds too hard that I could try?”

It's just about being present in the experience and tackling things as they're thrown at you. It's not about anyone else other than you

If you're not enjoying yourself then you're putting a shelf life on your career

I expect from myself to give it everything I have. So what someone else is expecting from me is not part of the equation. I'll do my very best no matter what

Just exploring with your feet the places you end up in with just your body carrying you there. That is pretty cool, and it feels special to be in the middle of nowhere and to have gotten yourself there on purpose. I think it's the most welcoming community. My the first 50-mile race I did, one of the things that hooked me was how awesome the people around me were. We were in hail and sleet and just awful weather, and people were wearing garbage bags as their raincoats because it kept them a little bit warmer, and all signs pointed that we should be hating life right now, but people were just making the best of it, they were hoping and hollering, splashing through puddles, finding all the joy they could in this miserable situation. And they're also the most helpful, because in that same race I face planted in a mud puddle, and a person who was 15 yards ahead ran back, offered their hand, and pulled me out of this puddle to keep running together, where does that happen? You went out of your way to help me, it's not just that I was conveniently in your way, like they turned around and came back for me. Yeah, that is something really unique about the community. And I find that in every race, everyone's ready to help if you're on the side of the trail having trouble, everyone who goes by is going to ask “what can I do, how can I help you to get back on track?”

It was a 100-mile race, and about 12 miles from the finish. My vision was just getting really foggy on the edges. I thought it was my contact lenses, I thought it was my headlamp dying, I couldn't figure out what was going on, but I noticed that I was seeing less and less. And by 10 miles out from the finish line, it just had closed in all the way where it was pure white in my field of vision. I waved my hand in front of my face and I couldn't see my hand. But there were 10 miles left. So it was like problem solving, figuring out what solutions I had as options to keep moving forward. I didn't ever feel like it was permanent because it had crept in, it didn't come from falling and hitting my head. It had just slowly happened over time. So I determined it was safe. And then if I just stared down at my toes, I could see this tiny arc of the trail in front of them to keep moving as quickly as possible

I think it's possible in every area outside of running. What it's shown me is that people are selling themselves short and setting their bars too low of what they could actually do if they went all in on something whatever they're psyched about to just see what happens if they invest a little more time and energy into it

I think you should be you

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