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Speaker 1
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Tina’s Arena. If you are just joining us now for the first time, welcome to the show. If you're returning, last week, I got some comments and feedback on the episode that I posted, so I am really appreciative of you guys leaving comments for me. It helps me feel like I'm not talking to myself like this show is for somebody

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Speaker 1
and really all I need is for it to have an effect on one one person and I'll be okay.

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Speaker 1
So if you just let me know that you resonated, if it helped you in some sort of way, I would so, so love to hear about that because it makes me feel like all of this work is for something. Somebody is listening. So on this week's episode, I wanted to talk about Courtney Dauwalter, who is a 38 year old woman, American, and she is an ultra runner, which means she runs distances longer than marathons

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Speaker 1
So Courtney Dauwalter was talking about her first marathon, and she hadn't been running for a long time. She was not a born runner, despite what it might look like now as an ultra runner for her, she.

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Speaker 1
Let's say it was ten years ago. I don't know what it actually was. You can listen to the podcast if you want the full stats, but let's say it was ten years ago when she did her very first road marathon.

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Speaker 1
she didn't know if she was going to finish it because she was,

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Speaker 1
afraid or just unaware of her own ability

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Speaker 1
It sounds hard to run a marathon 42 kilometers and it definitely feels hard to run 42 kilometers. I haven't run 42 kilometers personally yet. I've hiked 25,000 feet. I have not run 42 kilometers, though. And what she said was that she didn't know if she was going to finish it. And this is the best ultra runner of all time right now,

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Speaker 1
She regularly places first in ultrarunning competitions

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Speaker 1
She is amazing. So if you look at her Wikipedia page, I can like cap it on here. If you're watching on YouTube, you look at her position, it's all first. I mean, I'm sure there's lots of races missing in this table, but she places first a lot and sets, of course, records.

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Speaker 1
so when I heard her say that,

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Speaker 1
for her very first road marathon, she didn't know if she was going to finish. So I was like, wow. Courtney Dauwalter didn't know if she was going to finish her first marathon. Are you kidding? And she goes on to say that it kind of flipped a switch in her,

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Speaker 1
She said,

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Speaker 1
finishing the marathon was so hard that it kind of made her wonder what else she could do

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Speaker 1
the marathon was so hard, but she could do it. So now she was wondering, Wow, what else am I capable of?

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Speaker 1
the definition of an ultra run is just anything longer than a marathon. So our first ultra was probably 50 kilometers, just five miles more than a marathon. And she did that. So she added on another five miles and was able to complete that. And she just kept going after that. And that's just so incredible to me because it's the best ultra runner, one of the best ultra runners in the world.

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Speaker 1
Did it know if she was going to be able to finish her first marathon maybe a decade ago? Because her race results don't appear on Wikipedia until 2014? She wasn't born running. She wasn't born racing. This all started a decade ago for her. And I just think that's so incredible because you don't know what you're capable of. And I mean, she says this on the interview as well.

00:03:59:10 - 00:04:18:06
Speaker 1
we so commonly underestimate what we are capable of. So I resonated with that clip. It was a one minute clip that I posted on my Instagram, Tina's underscore arena underscore. You can see it there, or you can watch the entire Rich Roll podcast on his YouTube

00:04:18:06 - 00:04:35:21
Speaker 1
it's maybe it's like a version of the midlife crisis where you just kind of like, I don't know what to focus on now. So I'm just going to do something physically hard and then you realize that you can do it, and then after you realize you can do it, you're like, okay, well, what's next? What's next?

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Speaker 1
So last year I did 29029 Everesting, which is a 29,000 feet hike. It's not one hike all the way up. It's multiple little hikes. You take the gondola down and then you go up. So the actual increase in altitude for me was not 25,000 feet. The altitude that I climbed was just about 3000 feet. But I did it over and over and over.

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Speaker 1
I did it 11 times. And I was supposed to do it 13 times to complete the event. But it was a timed event and I ran out of time. I couldn't finish.

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Speaker 1
the first hike up, the first 3000 feet I climbed was like, okay, yeah, I could do this, I could do this. My piece was actually really slow, but by the third or the fourth one, I was like, I don't know if I can do this.

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Speaker 1
I don't know if I can do this. I was I was in Utah by myself climbing a mountain. And I was just thinking to myself, like, why am I here? Why did I sign up for this? Why did I put myself through this? I was hating that decision at that time, but I kept climbing.

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Speaker 1
my biggest take away from that event was that I could do hard things because I had never done anything like that before. I never hiked before. I just started hiking as training for that event.

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Speaker 1
And the biggest hike that I did was maybe a thousand feet because there's nowhere to hike around where I live. So

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Speaker 1
I was just going to the gym and practicing doing that all the time, and it really paid off because I'm the type of person that I became in order to do that event was the person that I wanted to be.

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Speaker 1
So I started going to sleep earlier so that I could rest better. I was eating better. I was going to the gym all of the time so that my body would be physically capable of completing this hike even though I didn't finish the hike. So that was my big, big event of last year.

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Speaker 1
so this year I got introduced to the Spartan races and their big event is called a Trifecta Weekend, where people can do a 21 kilometer run, a ten kilometer run and a five kilometer run all in one weekend. So what is that, 36 kilometers in two days? But they're all obstacle course races. So there's monkey bars and everything that you have to do while you're running the race.

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Speaker 1
So that is going to be my big event for this year that I'm training for. And it's my goal to do all three runs in one weekend. So again, I have my training schedules that the actual event is not too far away. It's at the end of the year and I need to work on my pull ups, my grip strength, my monkey bars.

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Speaker 1
So I've got all of that programed into my workout. And I guess my point is like the type of person that I want to be is the kind of person that would finish, be able to finish that race, or at least have fun doing that race. Right. And that kind of sounds ridiculous for me to say, because I've never, ever been any sort of athletic person.

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Speaker 1
But I think if people look at me now, they would consider me athletic, even though I still don't consider me athletic.

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Speaker 1
you never know what you're capable of.

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Speaker 1
Me the slowest girl in track and field. The girl that,

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Speaker 1
would duck if you threw a ball at her because she didn't know how to catch. If I could learn to start to love, exercise and running

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Speaker 1
Anybody can. You just have to find the thing that you love and after my experience last year with 29 or 29, I learned that I love having an event to train for.

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Speaker 1
for my 20 or 29 climb, which was 36 hours long and an accumulative 29,000 feet of elevation which turned out to be a 30 something mile hike in distance that you actually cover instead of just vertical altitude. It was a 30 something mile hike in 36 hours so that I had to train for. And I knew that if I didn't train, then I would not finish or I would not come close to finishing.

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Speaker 1
So I had it on my calendar three times a week. I went to the gym a couple of times a week. I was doing cardio and I was actually going to the gym multiple times a day because I was trying to train myself to workout tired.

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Speaker 1
it was that disciplined coupled with the event that really was the winning combination for me.

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Speaker 1
The actual event was brutal and I think that's just going to be a pattern of every event that I do.

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Speaker 1
The anticipation sucks.

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Speaker 1
Doing the event sucks, training for the event sucks, but afterwards, for some reason it's like,

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Speaker 1
that was fun. I could do that again. Even though every single step leading up to that point sucked.

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Speaker 1
but just the fact that you did something incredible, it just changes the memory of it and makes it fun and like, I want to do that again. So I'm doing it again. This year. I'm doing the trifecta weekend at a Spartan race.

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Speaker 1
So back to what Courtney DeLaughter said

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Speaker 1
you don't know what you're capable of until you do it. I didn't know I was capable of climbing 25,000 feet in

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Speaker 1
30 something hours.

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Speaker 1
No idea. And I thought that was pretty friggin cool. So I think it's going to be my thing from now on to choose a big event every year for me to train and do because I just love the person that I am when I'm training for something. I love that there's a goal. I love that there is a process and it just makes everything else easier because if my number one priority is the event, then everything else has to make way for the event.

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Speaker 1
Am I going to go out every weekend and dance the night away because I love dancing? No, because I have to train for my event.

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Speaker 1
Am I going to eat like crap all the time? No, because I need to fuel my body and I need to feel good because I need to perform at my event.

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Speaker 1
that's been probably the biggest game changer for me last year and going forward was deciding to do 29 or 29, which seemed impossible when I signed up for it.

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Speaker 1
I was so scared. But the moment that I felt scared, I was like, I need to do this

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Speaker 1
And I guess that's kind of been a theme of my life lately, where I feel fear.

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Speaker 1
and I'm just like,

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Speaker 1
let's go for it, Let's do it.

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Speaker 1
Do you know what I'm saying? It's like something that you want to do, but it's so scary and it's so scary. It's so personal. You don't know if you can. You don't know if you should.

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Speaker 1
when I feel that feeling, I'm like, okay, I know what I need to do and I I'm going to do it.

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Speaker 1
I'm going to do this.

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Speaker 1
I don't think I back down from the challenge too often anymore,

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Speaker 1
I love the challenge and I'm here for it. So if you need a buddy, if you need someone to challenge you, hold you accountable. I do have a free Facebook group.

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Speaker 1
it's called Tina's Arena Holistic Coaching Community

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Speaker 1
I get so excited when I talk about this stuff. I think you can tell this is probably been my longest episode so far. I'm talking about 29 to 29 and being physical and growth and pushing yourself.

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Speaker 1
This is such a common theme in life

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Speaker 1
is to get comfortable with the uncomfortable and run towards the fear. The fear is telling you something.

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Speaker 1
The fear might be pointing you in the direction of your desires and you're just too scared to go after it. But if you run towards the fear, then you don't know what you can accomplish.

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Speaker 1
You might be the next Courtney Dauwalter. You know, she didn't know if she was going to finish her first marathon, and now she's running ultras and beating all the boys. That might be you. So if you don't know, just do it and see what happens. You don't know what the result is going to be until you do it.

00:13:12:01 - 00:13:34:07
Speaker 1
Yeah, like I said, I just. I just love this stuff. I could talk about it all the time. If you need a body to keep you accountable, you know, to do hard things with you, then I might be your girl. I have a free Facebook group and we do monthly habit challenges. If you want the link to it, it's on my link page which is Tina's arena dot com slash links.

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Speaker 1
T i and a s a r e and a dot com slash links and you can find client request form if you want to work together there. My monthly community calls

00:13:46:20 - 00:13:52:02
Speaker 1
and just more of me there that's what you'll find on my links page.

00:13:52:08 - 00:14:14:22
Speaker 1
More access to me if that's what you so desire. Anyway, I appreciate you so much for listening today. If you're still here, please remember to like comments. Subscribe rate the podcast, Do all of the things because it helps with reach, helps with engagement, lets me know that people are paying attention and lets me know that I should keep posting more.

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Speaker 1
So again, I appreciate you,

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Speaker 1
I love you.

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Speaker 1
I hope you do something really uncomfortable today.

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Speaker 1
I'll see you next week bye.