Courtney Dauwalter : Live and Run with Joy | Chris Lieto Podcast

okay I want to know more about you not because of just your success in your sport but truly like what makes you tick and why you still full of joy how do you normally approach a race like that I wouldn't change it for anything because of that accomplishment in that feeling chance today - as far as go for a run so we went for a little run and look up Mountain Lookout Mountain Lookout Loudoun yeah so I was a good run then we got to go to one of your your pubs yeah went to a brewery mountain toad it was fun that was good yeah got some pizza yeah we've had a big day big day right the tail and the Sun is just about to go down but one of the things that I have noticed about you even before I met you today was how much joy and laughter and smile that you have so I want to say you not knowing you and just seeing you and how you present yourself it is very opening and welcoming and a great just a great add you know it's a great piece if you like okay I want to know more about you not because of just your success in your sport but truly like what makes you tick and why are you so full of joy and why are you so happy and and what brought you to that point so I'm excited to learn a little bit more about that yeah well thank you yeah thanks for coming yeah absolutely so back at that so what what why are you so full of joy let's train in there because it's not just a smile right like it's it's yeah I think it's just yeah just the joy that you have it seems like it's just part of who you are yeah it's for sure actual joy I think I don't I just feel really lucky like I right now I'm running that's my job and I love running and I love being outside and exploring trails and I think my husband and I have just tried to kind of make a conscious effort to like do things because we love them and and follow that thread you know and see what happens and and so I don't know that I have renal reasons not to be filled with joy every day like yeah it's so cool to you know we get this one life and like to get to navigate our way through it however we want is it's pretty fun it's a fun ride absolutely and have you do you find that or when was the earliest that you remember that you were full of joy and happiness and laughter or having that attitude always be grateful for for what you have always been part of you I think so I mean I think for sure I was raised that way and like my family and my parents and there was always a lot of joy around and and you know finding the the silver lining of any situation you know so that it something that could be an awful story turned into you know this fun experience that we get to share together instead of getting down about it so I was raised that way and I've I think just kind of found my stride with it in the past probably like five years of like navigating life and following what that looks like with joy like finding the joy in all of it yeah totally and what helps keep that rolling just like is like what's most important to you family for sure family and friends and I think like I love doing all the things that come with ultra running and traveling to these places but making those memories with people so that you have a shared experience together so when I travel to races you know to take in the community and to make these connections with people so that all of the memories in that place are associated with you know sharing those moments with people yeah I think that's important and I love it yeah and it's kind of like you said it's a choice right like you have a choice every day to wake up and go is this gonna be a happy day this is gonna be not right yeah like what am I gonna make out of what happens to me today yeah you know and you've had things where you've had days I haven't gone great yeah I'm sure oh for sure just in life and in racing yeah what's been the most difficult challenge that you've had in a race Oh in a race I I guess my first 100-mile race that I attempted it was my second year of running ultras I had done a 50k I had done a 50-mile race so I jumped into a 100 mile race as my next thing and it got really physically hard and quickly then in my head I spiraled into this just negative self-talk and like dark place of doubting myself and thinking you know I'm not made for a hundred miles ear like you're a joke out here you know just call it and so I did I ended up dropping out of that first hundred mile attempt because I convinced myself that I wasn't capable of it and I think that was the hardest like I've been you know physically hurting worse or had to drop out of a race because of injury but like to be in such a dark place in my head where I convinced myself to stop and that I was incapable of doing this thing was probably the worst one yeah but it also was the coolest because then after the race you know really quickly I could assess like what happened there oh I just you know spiraled into this death zone and you know talked myself into it and then I got a fire lit under me where I was like that's not how this is gonna play out how the story yes and so now you you have a solid mindset I think going it well I think that taught me about the power of our brains and so if it starts to spiral like that where you know doubts creeping which of course they do you know it always gets hard it always is gonna feel like there's no way to keep going but if you let it spiral into that negativity you're I mean it's gonna go quick yeah like it goes down and it goes fast but if you can just flip the script even if you're faking it and you know you're faking it say something different and change you know the whole storyline you're our brains can overpower a lot I think and it has that taken a lot of practice like you have to practice at that to be able to turn it because it still comes doesn't it yes sometimes it still comes I practice by racing basically so I just do more and more races to accumulate more evidence that I can survive whatever you know thing is happening and then I just drawn that every time but those things that you're you're doing are always something new that you don't really know if you can finish yeah yeah as it seems like like we talked earlier is like you're always you're looking for the next challenge or the next thing that you can see how far you can push yourself right yeah so every time you go and race you don't know if you can finish it like you believe you can right yep but you haven't been proven like it hasn't been proven yet no but I can take each little piece of it and small things happen you know your stomach turns and you can draw on the past experiences where you haven't taken in food for days you know racing or whatever it was or or you're not sure you can make it another step because you're so tired then you can draw on those experiences so like piecemealing it into these small things not even thinking of the total distance that I'm gonna cover but each problem along the way that's gonna get me closer to the end so when you're in it when you're in the race you're only looking at what you can see or what you can grasp either in your mind or see with your eyes or whatever yeah so you just break up each pieces you go and not look at the next 36 hours you're looking at the next hour maybe or small of a piece to you break it it depends I mean sometimes sometimes you can you know feel confident about the next 50 miles or sometimes it's you know the next aid station which maybe is 15 miles away and sometimes if it's getting you know really hard then it's the next tree or the next you know five steps or whatever it is just to keep pushing yourself forward and eventually what I've found is like you're in this dark place and maybe you've gotten to the point where you're only able to realize the next five steps you know everything else feels too daunting eventually it turns over and you're flying high again soon yeah have you had a race that has been the most challenging but the most rewarding like where you've hit more of those spots that you have to get your mind through to break through barriers that you saw yourself or surprise yourself at the end yeah none that stand out as like like for sure the tahoe 200 it was a really tough one I was mentally in a rut almost the whole race and 200 miles is a long ways to you know be faking it so well when I guess would be the hardest just cuz I kept not finding the other side of the dark patch I don't know what was going on but you made it through yeah and you did really well yeah it was a it was a fun one because I was in a mental rut so I never was experiencing those you know feelings of like bliss out on the trails that was mostly just like grinding out the miles because the finish line was 200 miles away you know and I had one way to get there and so that was a really cool experience to like build I think my arsenal of experiences to draw on in the file cabinet in my brain you know yeah totally when I asked you that question like or I said that you did really great you pause for a second do you do you believe that you did that race great like where are you satisfied with that race or you look now go yeah no I could tell but you want it right like you won you won that race I am I can't actually think of a race that I've done that I felt like fully satisfied with it no matter what my place was at the end I think there's always like something you can tweak especially in the ultras like the amount of hours you're out there there's so many and the number of miles that you're putting together or so many that there's always things you can do to you know keep you wanting to to try and do it better which i think is one of the draws of the sport to me like there's no perfectly run ultra for me I don't think right no I totally get that because for me doing an Ironman it's eight hours plus or something and and even in eight hours which is short for you yeah there's tons of little moments yeah like you were saying you're 15 seconds or ten-second drinks of water or whatever you know things that were adding up yeah and so I think it's important like like I think about like what makes a successful athlete or what makes someone great in the sport or driving to keep doing better and one of those would probably be not being I don't want to say not being satisfied but always wanting more right yeah so how much of it is for you always wanting more or also being satisfied with in the moment of what you've done like do you reward yourself or do you do you let yourself rejoice in what you've accomplished in that even if it wasn't perfect because know I'll never be perfect right yeah oh for sure and I'm not beating myself up like when I say I'm not satisfied after a result it's not like I'm you know wallowing or you know kicking myself over a mile that I you know didn't put together well but it just keeps me dreaming of you know like all if I can get on that course another time like here are the things I know I could control and then ultras are a lot of things you can't control like the weather or sometimes your stomach like just randomly doesn't take in the food that it normally takes in fine you know or you get lost or you know whatever it is but then to piece all of those things together the the parts in your control and then how you react to the ones you had no control over yeah - you know like what could a perfect Dan that course look like or or not perfect day about how could I make it smoother throughout absolutely yeah but I love I love how you think because you're always like processing and thinking through you're like all right I'm gonna just this next time I'm gonna tweak this little thing yeah and how much better can I go right and even though that day wasn't great for the beginning you didn't turn around and go up today's not my day because I I see athletes like that all the time and have race against athletes all like that a lot where they'll be an hour and a half into the eight-hour Ironman yeah on the bike and they're like my legs I just don't have them today and they'll just be like it's not my day and they'll just stop right and I've seen a lot of people that feel the exact same if not worse and do it you did where you just process and go through and reframe and just keep pushing and sometimes the legs come good you don't know what's gonna happen yeah next hour you can run the best you've ever run yeah but you don't know unless you get there right so always keep going yeah love that yeah I'm so excited for you to do okay 100 miles pig's backyard one at a time yeah I would like to do one for sure like I mean we talked earlier we didn't talk on the podcast about how you know watching ultra racing just kind of inspired me not only watching it but meeting people I think that's probably the biggest piece was I've always heard it and I've seen it and I've seen results and I've known about western states and all these other races around and stuff and it was always intriguing but I never had the desire to be like oh I'm gonna go do that right but it wasn't until I met people that that do it that you start to understand like what the pet what the passion is yeah and I felt that for me being a professional athlete in the top of the sport in an Ironman racing I always felt like there's an expectation I should perform that's my own thing right and so I've finally come to a point where I feel like with the people that I've met and with your sport that it's open to anybody yeah and there's no expectation of like that you should perform a certain or go a certain pace or if you did this here you should be able to do this here yeah you have to compete which is more than joy I've just wanted to go through the adventure and yeah meet everybody yeah what does a hundred K look like when you're out on the trails in beautiful scenery you know yeah yeah pretty cool yeah yeah I'm gonna finish it and get to hang out with all these people who either did it themselves or out supporting you know one of their runners it's a really cool community yeah and you talked about support and support crew that like Ironman it's it's a solo sport you're doing it on your own but you can't do it without a team but more so in ultra like it's critical your team like yeah you can't do anything without your team and so many people come around and support you yeah I think that's one of the coolest parts I have found the sport is that the community is so welcoming everyone's you know ready to to lend a hand or in my first 50-mile race a guy ran back on the horse when I tripped it in a mud puddle and picked me up like grabbed me by the hand and then you know we went off running together came back on the course not may I please do that I've seen a few stop and helpful flash yeah but yeah that's cool yeah well this was a like that was my first glimpse and uh oh you we're all out there and like your rate may be racing or you know you're pushing your own time challenge you've made for yourself or your goal is to finish this race for the first time ever but no one out there was bad and I at stopping the help another person yeah front to the back like you're having issues how can I help here are the things I'm carrying you know what can I do to assist you or or get you going again so that you can complete this adventure and the first thing that I think of as you're sharing that is like I wish we did that more just in life in it yeah right yeah and then yeah it's sharing it with crew members so you have these crew people in ultras who will meet you at aid stations and like Kevin is often my crew for the longer races my husband and he'll have at the aid station you know bottles for me that has you know the drink I like or food restock or gear change if I need it but then it's awesome because at the finish line you celebrate together like a team like you know we did this we made it even though it's my feet and you know my body that's actually traveling the course I have these people who have done a ton of ultros with me just by being there yeah and being part of it I says I've listened to a lot of your of your podcast for interviews and stuff and I honestly and I started to look for it because I saw a theme and I heard a theme and that anytime anyone asks you about your race you would always refer to we and you never refer to as I like you weren't like I did this race it's like we did this race or we're looking at this and we're trying to do this and approach it this way yeah and it was it was it took me a few times to hear but I heard I was like hey like you you genuinely feel like I mean it is it's so much of it is is a team yeah and your family and your support crew yeah if you could pick three characteristics that either you have or a successful athlete would have what would those three characteristics be what would be at the top of the list any athlete any sport yeah yeah I think like persistence mm-hmm I think I think patience is different than persistence I would think so yeah yeah I think patience is important and I think like an internal drive not not doing it for external reasons oh can you can we go through each one and go a little bit in these ones of persistence so what about like what is persistence to you like it's not gonna go smoothly and you're gonna get knocked on your backside you know in this pursuit and and you have to just keep clung forward I think in any sport yeah you keep at it even when it feels hard or you feel like you've reached you know the maximum you could ever achieve or you know whatever the thing is or you're I don't know getting like turned down my teams or you know however it works in every other sport but you're hearing no a lot to just keep at it did you find that in training as well like yeah for sure yeah and I think patience plays a lot into training for me like it doesn't happen overnight but if you're clawing at it every single day like slowly it's gonna and you have to be willing to wait for that yeah you can't just rush right into it yeah yeah or like if you're gonna do an ultra like let's say a triathlete is gonna try their very first hundred K for instance okay tomorrow they wouldn't do a 40 mile training run like well maybe you can get to that yeah I've got a loop you already got one yeah you go me Val's asking about it today Ron golden sounds fun actually yeah when when I'm ready for it yeah yeah okay all right we'll do a 40 I can't wait for the updates on how it's all building all right yeah um I may have to pick your brain along the way this is yeah yeah I'm not an expert but I can at least you know share my personal experiences with it ya know I'd appreciate that yeah so we have persistence and patience mm-hmm I think the internal piece is like if you're doing it for external reasons you're gonna I don't know I just I guess I don't know but it feels like the fire wouldn't always burn as hot if you're just doing it for like a medal or a social media like or something you know yep feels like it has to be something you actually want to be pursuing in order to be persistent and patient with it to get to where you want to go yeah and why why is it that you want to be successful or why do you why is it that you do ultra running what keeps you going uh for me it's just curiosity with what's possible I'm like I don't know I I'm just so amazed by our bodies and and then mentally what our brains can help us do that like that's what I'm looking for is pursuing that and following that as far as I can and see where I see where it lands me and I'm gonna go a little I'm gonna go one more layer or maybe a few lair but likewise why do you why are you curious how far you can go and why are you curious what the potential is I think I found this thing that I love a lot which is running and have started to you know dive down this hole of how far we can go and and what humans are capable of and I and it just feels like why not go a hundred percent on something you know like I think there's too many things being done part way or like people are stretched really thin you know so you can do be good at you know you can do things 50 percent and do a lot of things and I think it would be really interesting if more people did things a hundred percent and did fewer things and like what can humans as a species and accomplish yeah it would be cool why is it important to to go 103 percent I think because I'm like this is the life I'm getting to live and so this is the thing I'm doing I want to do it full gas you know otherwise if I'm not gonna invest myself fully and this thing then I should you know turn and go down a different Lane and find my next passion or whatever but like while I'm here and while my body is able and I love it so much like why not just dive full on and see I don't want to be you know sitting on my rocking chair when I'm 95 like wondering what if or what could have been if I just given it a little more yeah I think the part of the power of like pushing yourself and the power of like knowing why you want to do something and I think it's it's an exercise I've done in the past where you keep layering the reasons why and keep going a little bit deeper yeah I'm just going okay like why is it important to you to go full gas right and then the deeper that you can go and the reason why you're doing anything any of those that are doing the job that they're doing or pursuing a new career or a relationship or a sport the deeper you can go on that why this the stronger that reason is to go yeah right so when you hit those walls or it gets that difficult you have more a draw from yeah right you have those things are gonna carry you through and it gets difficult yeah what are the three traits that you've heard most common or that you would say that an athlete needs yeah mine would be I think team would be towards the top I think it's super important to have those around you that support what you're doing that believe in what you're doing and that will support you no matter if you win or lose well right like to be there no matter what and because we can't anything we do in life you can't you can't do it on your own right I mean theoretically you could but in the end you really can't and if you do it kind of sucks yeah you should make those shared experiences so write those stories together I think absolutely but it's like if someone were in iearnt doing they were interested in doing an Ironman and their family was like no way dude like you could never do this Ironman and they weren't his team he could find his team yeah you can find you can find support somewhere else yeah right I ideally the ones that are closest to you are the ones that you're gonna draw the most energy and love from and right right or maybe they join the team late when they like come around to it right and that was a challenge that I had when I got involved in the sport I had a lot of people that just looked at me and said really yeah you're crazy yeah what are you doing because I also came from this would be another aspect or characteristic that I would say would be as far as belief or mindset okay right so yeah believing and you've talked a little bit about this like you-you-you don't know if you've accomplished it yet but you're going in believe in it you're gonna do it right so for me it as far as belief and that's something when I got when when I first got in the sport I already had a goal before I did first race that I wanted to be world champion really yeah and a lot of people would look at and go and they did they looked I know you're stupid like yeah you don't even ride a bike yeah you know or you ride a we're a biker no I didn't start riding until I think you were the best biker and that shows that what you're born with or what you do when you're young doesn't determine what you can that's so cool right wait will really bust out at first I enjoy cycling a lot so I really like I found a good team around me that I rode with and they were willing to teach me okay and I asked questions yeah so I'm always a question yeah person like I want to understand like if I'm learning something I want I look for someone who's better than me and go okay how are you doing or what made you so successful yeah and then I picked their brain because I want to understand because I want to get there quicker right right so I would go on these bike rides and and this group would teach me how to ride and I would ask them questions and they would show me how to do it and then I just enjoyed it so I always just kept pursuing and pushing that's cool and and I really believed in it and I really set it forward but I didn't know for sure and sometimes you just have to take that risk and so that's something else that a few athletes have said is sometimes you need to take that jump yeah leap right leap of faith of go I don't know yeah if I want to make it or not might as well try Michael try it yeah exactly yeah and then persistence as well just when I've heard a lot and one that I for sure believe and I see that in the things that you've done and the stories that you've told and also some of the races you've had I mean you had one race that you were literally you went you went blind or you didn't see like just be brief I know we don't have a lot of time but I would love to hear just a little bit about your persistence and that's a I think a great example uh yeah it was a hundred mile race in the mountains of Colorado and I was on my way towards the finish line I was like twelve miles out from the finish and there was like this blurriness creeping in on the sides and I really thought it was my contact one this or that it was foggy or you know I thought it was an environmental thing and I slowly it crept in where it was just pure white like I held up my hand in front of my face and I couldn't see my hand but I noticed if I stared straight down at my toes I could see like that little arc right in front of them so that was my solution to the problem and then it was just running as much as I could to get to the finish line by staring straight down at my feet were you afraid I wasn't afraid no and like being afraid wasn't going to help me solve this problem so for me it was like a very here's your problem here's a solution that you found and now we go like so there wasn't tons of emotion in it it was just like let's get to the finish line yeah you know and that was the only solution I had found to do it now if it happened again I think depending on the trail I was on there for sure our reasons to be afraid I'm like I did fall down because if you can't look in front of your feet at all you can't predict the rocks and roots yeah you know what the trails gonna do so I was tripping everywhere so just belly-flopping you know like falling on everything and one of those times I did land and smack my head on this rock well and like that could have gone poorly for sure but during there was like zero emotion attached to it and so I think if it happened again like I would recall you know the things that couldn't go wrong if you're running without your eyesight and you're not used to that but maybe I would you know have a little more emotion attached to it yeah and you found out that it wasn't something that was long-term or anything that was gonna be a problem yeah well yep so when I finished then they whisked me off to give a scan on my head and check out my eyes and I had my sight by that evening and my head was fine so it turned out okay and how long he wasn't it like 10 miles or something that you ran where you can see yeah to the finish yeah so great it was inspired I heard it I heard you talk about it before and I know you've talked about it probably a lot but I I want to be clear I don't recommend it yeah right a disclaimer yeah but like yeah I mean that was the solution and the finish line yeah ten miles away still so but you were still clear enough to assess what was going on mm-hmm assess like okay how bad is it am I losing it okay it's foggy but so you assess it along the way it made the choices that you could choose to that you could control within the moment you still couldn't just stop you had to get to wherever you're going right me crew or do whatever yeah and then did was there a stop along the way to the finish that you did stop and see your crew and then how to assess again as a team um there was a stop six miles out from the finish that then put you on a fire road and so the whole way to the finish line is a fire road after that so like a wide dirt road easier a little easier to navigate and at that stop they also got permission to send me with a volunteer and so this volunteer woman bless her heart was running next to me navigating with her voice the trail for me so she'd be like we're turning right here there's some big rocks on your left you know she was giving me some auditory cues yeah so that I would fall less which was really wonderful and uh and then my husband got wind of all of this happening so he ran up like I think two miles or a mile up the trail and took over for that volunteer at that and the finish yeah and you couldn't do that without a team yeah exactly supporting needy people yeah so what would be what would be three things that you would want to teach people through your experiences or if you only had a year left as far as to live what what three things would you want to teach people in sport or out of sport yeah your experiences I think the biggest one for me I think is that people are capable of way more than they give themselves credit for and so if people could you know believe that about themselves and then pursue whatever the thing is that you know they want to pursue with that belief you know but there is no ceiling and they can they can do whatever they're trying to do and do it even better than that I think this world would you know be such a cool place with so many new amazing things and hopefully maybe more you know human interaction you know I were all pursuing these greater levels of it well I should say someone who like hears that and goes yeah I would love to do that like that sounds amazing and I've been thinking about it for the last year or ten years but they're they're afraid of making that step like how would you what would you say if you had someone right here right now yeah I'd like 500 or a minute to do like how would you help encourage them Oh in that part well I I think it there's a lot of situations you know so I don't want to try and like speak for everyone can do everything you know but I think you start small and like and you keep in mind that like you're the driver of your own life and so you get to make these decisions and you get however many years on this planet that you've got left and to make the most of those and so sometimes jumping all in is the thing to do if like you want to see if it's gonna happen try it you know and then if it fails then you know you go on a different line tangent yeah totally like you have to reassess or assess along the way yeah that's still where you want to go if not it's okay to move yeah by the same time I think we're in a were in a culture today that we're like want it now like a media like we want results like you said like I'm gonna go do you know a 50-mile run race or whatever like I'm not gonna go out and do a forty mile run right tomorrow right so there's also like a process of like going okay if I want to go do this maybe find someone who's done it before what is real plan to get there and maybe put out a calendar like okay I start here yeah we're not trying to just dive in because then one you could get hurt or two it's too big of a risk so start smaller yeah so yeah yeah you can't like taking abrupt right turn but you can turn like a cruise ship you know or you like start to get your bearings on what you want way off in the distance and like gradually ease your way over there and what you said about earlier when you're talking about how you're doing new races and you're moving forward you took the things that you did at one distance and they were reinforcing your belief that you could do it so then when you went to the next one you can just you know rethink about that yeah and so going forward it's like you just take small steps you encourage yourself with like okay I did accomplish this right now I can go right bigger a little bit bigger so I think that's one of the things it's like being patient for the yeah what are your three things they're gonna be patient for the long haul yeah that's really what you want commit but be patient yeah one last question what is something that you're grateful for right now in this moment what are you most grateful for uh family always yeah yeah I hear that across the board really yeah I just know how important that is have you ever walked up to someone in a restaurant or a coffee shop and asked them that question what are you most grateful for yeah right now that's a really good challenge it could be fun I could be really you might get punched or you might like meet someone new and have a great conversation you could probably assess some people if they're gonna fight you or not I'm sure most people want I would like if like whoever it is you ask them that and they just answer you without you know a big long explanation and go back to living their life yeah like it's not even a weird thing to be asked well I don't think we ask ourselves that enough yeah every day right like we talked about it's a choice every day to be full of joy and be happy it's the same thing like what are you grateful for yeah and you can always find something yeah I tell my kids trying to teach that right it's like fine find something small right before today they're gonna be big yeah some small and the more you find the small things then you start realizing that there's bigger things yeah before that's cool so thank you for this time thank you on the run yeah and come back again yeah absolutely yeah I just want to say again thanks for being for being a great role model so a lot of athletes that are out there in your sport and out of the sport and inspiring people to try out new things and try to try and ultra hopefully someday soon thank you well thank you very much thank you well thank you for joining us and listening to this episode with Courtney do Walter if you enjoyed it please go ahead and share it on your social media and make sure to tag at Courtney do Walter also tag myself at Chris Lee arrow too as far as promote this show and don't forget to go check out the show notes look at the links to the YouTube channel with the video that we did as well as making sure that you get the links and the coupon code for your discounts for a today and any other products that are there so check out the show notes thanks again for joining us and we'll see you in the next episode Aloha [Music]

Channel: Chris Lieto

Views: 42,278

Keywords: ultramarathon, ultrarunning, courtney dauwalter, dauwalter, courtney, run, running, trail running, trails, utmb, westernstates, western states, tahoe 200, tahoe trail run, chris lieto, Ryan Sandes, Kilian Jornet, Pau Capell, Jim Walmsley, Barkley Marathon, barkley, Rory Bosio, Spartathlon, Everest Trail Race, everest, back yard run, backyard ultra, backyard run, moab trail, rim to rim, ultra run, ultra marathon, ultra race, ultra running, health, fitness, energy, love, joy

Id: K8uu4-Nglo8

Length: 39min 8sec (2348 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 04 2020

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