Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Your Best Days Are Ahead of You | Ultra Runner, Hillary Allen

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

This week’s conversation is with Hillary Allen, an endurance athlete and one of the best mountain ultra runners in the world.Hillary’s career as an endurance athlete has not been straightforward. Through injury, setbacks and unexpected challenges, Hillary’s had to re-think what she considers impossible. Early in her career, Hillary earned the nickname “Hillygoat” when she proved her ability to run fast on steep, technical mountain terrain – a style of running known as Skyrunning.  Since then, she has raced all over the world, racking up wins and course records, establishing herself as one of the best mountain ultra runners in the world. In 2017 she had a life threatening accident, where she fell 150 feet off of a ridge-line during a Skyrace in Tromsø, Norway. She was told she would never run again. After several years of rehab and recovery, Hillary made a full recovery and returned to elite level racing, racing some of her longest and most challenging events post-accident. She maintains the belief that ‘your best athletic days are ahead of you, if you’re willing to work hard for what you love.’_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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She is an endurance athlete and one of the best mountain ultra runners in the world. Hillary's career as an endurance athlete, it's not been straightforward now. She's had to work through significant injuries, massive setbacks, unexpected challenges. So it's easy to say this conversation is about resilience, which it is, but in many respects, it is about gaining perspective. So with deepening your perspective about something, the downstream effect of that is resilience. So this is going upstream and she talks about how she had to rethink what she considers impossible. So early in her career, she earned the nickname Hilly Goat and she proved her ability to run fast on steep technical mountain terrain. And it's a style of running that's known as sky running. Since then,

she has raced all over the world, racking up wins and course records and establishing herself as one of the best mountain ultra runners in the world. And then in 2017, she had a life-threatening accident. She fell 150 feet off a ridgeline during a sky race in Norway. She was told she would never run again. After several years of just working through it, physical, psychological recovery, Hillary made a full recovery and returned to elite level racing, racing some of her longest and most challenging events post-accident. It's an awesome conversation. She shares this really beautiful insight that your best athletic days are ahead of you if you're willing to work hard for what you love.

And with that, let's get right into this week's conversation with Hilary Allen. Hilary, how are you? Hi, I'm so good. So happy to be here. How are you? I feel it in your voice and I'm excited to have you as well. This conversation, we have, how many times have we rescheduled to try to make this work? Oh man, I don't know if I want to say. It's been a lot. I'm so happy to be here with you. What you do. Yeah. Thank you. What you do. It's rad.

And so can you start with helping people understand what sky running is? Yeah. So, okay. So I'm a, I would like to say like trail running, right? So I'm, I'm a trail runner and I'm an ultra distance trail runner who specializes in sky running. So trail running and ultra'm an ultra distance trail runner who specializes in sky running. So trail running and ultra running, the main definition, I think people are familiar. Ultra running is anything more than a marathon.

Typically the barrier, the entry level is a 50K. It's about 31 miles. And trail running is anything off of pavement, right? It can literally be even like a rail trail, just a crushed gravel path. It's just something that's different than being on the pavement and the asphalt. Um, but I am based in Colorado Boulder and I like to add mountains to the mix. So my form of trail running is a bit steeper than most. And that's where kind of sky running this other specific niche of trail running kind of gets a little bit, even spicier. Um, sky running is probably specific niche of trail running kind of gets a little bit even spicier.

Um, sky running is probably some of the steepest and most mountainous terrain that's out there. So a typical 31 mile race, which I do has about, um, 11,000 feet as a minimum, um, of elevation gain, um, kind of the, I've done a 57 kilometer race, which had about 14,000 feet of elevation gain. And you have to descend those 14,000 feet as well. And they can kind of take all different forms of distances, but it's usually the steepest and most technical and mountainous style of trail running out there. Okay. So of all the choices that you had growing up, why did you choose trail running, sky running in particular? Like what led you down this path? You know, this is, this is so funny because as a kid, I, like I said, I grew up in Colorado. I grew up pretty much, you know,

walking bare feet on a, you know, on a, on a path, you know, out of the camper van that my parents would take my sister and I around the United States. So, I mean, I like to- Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, I got to interrupt. So, okay. Pause there for just a minute. You and your sister. So older or younger? She's older. Okay. And your parents, it sounds a little hippie. It sounds a little adventurous. Tell me about that a little. In my mind, quickly, I'll say how I mapped it is that my parents threw my sister and I in the back of a van and we traveled across the country when I was probably in

like second or third grade. I mean, Hillary, this was a van that didn't have seats. We were in lawn chairs in the back of our van. Oh my gosh, this is amazing. Yeah, right. Literally, it was lawn chairs, my sister and I, and we're across the country. And I remember so much of that because it was foundational to doing it differently, to exploring.

And the image of one of those nylon lawn chairs, do you know what I'm talking about? I mean, I grew up sitting in the nylon lawn chairs that were like folded under each other and then they'd get embers in them and part of the plastic would melt. Yeah, yeah. That's exactly. Okay. So I did cross country in that. No seatbelt. I mean, it was different times, right? This is like in 1978 or something. And so, yeah. Okay. So that flashed quickly for me, but I want to hear your story about this moment in time with your parents.

Well, it's not too different. I mean, my father, he is, they're both, they're both, this relates to my story too. They're both university professors. So my father- Not my story. Not my story. Well, but they're both, my father is British. He moved here from the very London and he was just enamored with the American West. And so he wanted to explore everything. I think his first purchase in the United States was a pair of cowboy boots. And so he wanted our childhood to be different than what his was. You know, and his was growing up at a boarding school, you know, in, you know, the countryside of like rainy, dreary, you know, England. And so that's kind of where we started.

I mean, it's, it was, I guess, like not necessarily like the hippie lifestyle. We had like a, like a pop-up trailer that we would go to have visited almost all of the 50 States. But, you know, that was my childhood growing up. Just like, I feel like outside, you know, feet in the dirt. I feel like, I think I took my first steps on a trail. Um, and, but then also coming from this background of this scientific background, um, you know, my dad, we had, we had the summer to do it because he was teaching, he was running his own research lab.

My mom also had to get back to that. And so when I was a kid, I wanted, I wanted to be like them. I wanted to get my PhD and I wanted to be an entomologist. So that's someone who studies bugs because I was enamored with the outside world, uh, from a scientific perspective. And that's kind of this, this curiosity in the physical world is what put me on this trajectory, um, towards pursuing science. But it wasn't until I was in graduate school, actually, in a PhD program for neuroscience and physiology that I discovered running. I had been an athlete my whole life because growing up in Colorado in the childhood that I had, I'd always used the outdoors as a form of expression and stress relief. But I played tennis in college, but it wasn't until graduate school where I started

running and kind of being more time efficient. And, uh, you know, I needed this break to, you know, let my mind breathe, so to speak, to get creative for the science experiments that I was trying to work on and that it was just a way for me to stay healthy. Um, but the coolest part about this is that this curiosity that I've always had that put me down this path to science is what actually completely switched my trajectory from a career standpoint to pursuing running. And it was because I was curious about where my body could take me. When I first started running, I loved it because I could work so hard at it and I could see

that it was leading to progress and getting better. And then when I started racing, it was this whole other world. Then when I started running on the trails, I discovered this whole world of trail running, which I didn't even know existed. And I had spent my whole life growing up in the mountains and on the trails. And so this spark of curiosity led me to question, huh, like where, what can I do with trail running? What, what do I want to do with this? Do I want to use it as a form of expression? Do I want to challenge myself physically? And all those

questions were yes. And the coolest part about it was that it led me to rediscover these places that I visited as a kid in, you know, my, my parents pop-up camper. And then I was able to re-explore it on my own two feet as an adult. And I think the more I leaned into that, the more it became something bigger. And I mean, I would have never have guessed that I would have had, you know, a career as a, as an ultra runner, as an athlete, you know, given my, my background and what I had spent 25 years of my life doing. So. Okay. So let me go through some frames here yeah so dad mom and dad they want to do it differently dad kind of take the took the lead on trailblazing you then kind of fast forward you're out in nature a bunch you said he didn't want to raise you a particular way the way he was raised

what did he want and this is the really interesting point And I want to add to my mom was a big influence in the, in the trailblazing sense. She, you know, she, she decided to have kids, but later in life, she went, she was in the peace corp and she actually went to Nepal when for two, for two years and lived there. And that's how she got her specialty in microbiology and parasitology. And that was at a time when women didn't go places like this by themselves. What were the conversations? I ask this often, like what were the conversations on the breakfast or dinner table or like, let's do dinner. Like, what did you guys talk about? All science things. I mean, it was, it was so science, science heavy.

Give me an example though, because it can be, it can take so many tones, right? Like very academic high brow. And then it could also be curiosity. I heard you mention that word like three, four or five times. So maybe just twice. I exaggerate sometimes. So like you mentioned a couple of times, was it more curious based or more scientific rigor based? Yeah. So I think one would be, I couldn't get away with anything, right? Like I couldn't, I couldn't get away with my dad from growing up in the UK. Like if I didn't

know something about us history or world history, my dad would just be like, what is this? Like your education is like ridiculous. And so I was like, oh my gosh, you know, you feel like you can't kind of, so it would, it would, but it's very academic focused, right? Like knowing your current events, knowing your history, having that shape your future and not being almost, you know, ignorant. It does not surprise me at all hearing this bit of it, that you were on an academic path. And it doesn't surprise me that you figured out, because I can hear that you have a lot like a sequential processing in your thinking pattern, right? There's like, you follow a logic pretty tightly. So the part I want to pull apart for just a moment is,

I don't know if you finished your PhD or not. Nope. You did not. So you, okay. So that's, this is trailblazing again. You actually let that path go. Okay. We're going to pause that. We're going to come back to that. But you talked about, I had curiosity and I asked myself a set of questions. Can we pull that apart and unpack that? Because I think that that is fundamental to what we're probably going to get to later in the conversation is about how you've re-imagined yourself post, can we call it tragedy? Yeah. Okay. So, so now we're pre-tragedy and you're doing a re-imagination. So can I hear how you did that re-imagination when things were really good in your life? Right. And I think I am a very, you know,

I'm a very logical person. I love to plan. I love to go on a linear path. I like to make a plan and stick to it. But for the first time in my life, I was faced at a crossroads and it wasn't just, you know, a slight left or a slight, right. It was a complete one 80 and I was torn. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I was almost petrified at the, the thought of pursuing a passion and a dream, which had become trail running. Because as I mentioned, I'd started-

Wait, wait, wait. This is critical. Yeah. What you just said is critical. This is what I want to understand from you. Because this is how I'm hearing what you just said. I was terrified. That's when you know that it's real.

It's not an academic evaluation of where I want to go. It's not an intellectual evaluation. It's like a full embodied experience. Like, oh my gosh, I'm compelled by this thing called running in trails, maybe in mountains for my whole life. But I've got this 20 some year history of my parents influencing and me having authentic interest in filling the narrative science. So that junction, most people, first of all, never get to that junction.

I don't know if you know that. But then if they do, they take the safe route. And that's just kind of human nature at play is safety first for most of us. So I love this. Can you just talk about that heartbeat? Can you talk about how you nurtured it to actually bring that thing alive and how you took the steps? Yeah. And I think it became something that I couldn't ignore looking back.

I think I could recognize steps that I took. Um, but that, when I came to this moment of being terrified, I was terrified of this thing that I felt so drawn to, and I was terrified to take the chance, but I was terrified of not taking the chance and every which way I was scared of, but then at the same time, I was scared of staying in something that I knew my heart was not in it any longer. And so that is the final point, but before then I can, I can think of it as kind of a slow burn. It first started as when I started doing more trail running and I felt more and more fulfilled and I kept on wanting to do more of it. So I started, I thought about it as prioritizing things that I wanted to do. So of course it like science

and trail running were really important to me. So it would take up a lot of my time. So I would sacrifice other areas of my life to prioritize these two things. And sometimes it was my social life, right? Like I would just prioritize not going out and getting enough sleep so I could get up and run in the morning before I went to the lab because I knew I would have, that would make me feel fulfilled. But then the more, when it started to come out in a different way, I actually moved out of the city of Denver to be closer to the trail. So I could run every, every morning before I had went into work, um, went into the lab, but then this, there became this like nagging feeling. Um, and it started, you know, infrequently where I was like, oh, I'm kind of dreading to go into lab today. But when the frequency of that increased, I knew it was something that I couldn't just ignore and go to, okay, this is just, you know,

it's a hard period in work. Like you just got to keep on, you just got to keep on grinding through it. Like this is grad school. This is what it's meant to be. When it started to become more frequent and that voice and feeling became louder, then I knew it was something that I had to pay attention to. And of course, but I was really compelled to stick on this path because it was something that I had, like you said, a 20-year history with. And I didn't know what it meant to want to give that up. And for, for the, for the longest time, I would, I would acknowledge this feeling of not feeling motivated in lab and feeling very more motivated on trail. And I had started to race at this point and, and win and being offered sponsorships, which I, um, I wasn't accepting because I wasn't willing to kind of, to, to entertain that. But I think the turning point for me is when I finally let myself just visualize

what my life would look like if I decided to not continue down the scientific path and to pursue my PhD. And I would start to research ideas of like, okay, what would this look like if I decided to master out? What would this look like? I started to entertain that idea and see how I felt. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentous. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission,

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Tell me about the imagery and the visualization. How was it? Did you go train yourself formally on it or did you just close your eyes and use your imagination? Did you do something else? Yeah. I wasn't trained in visualization, but in a PhD program of neuroscience, even though I was studying more biochemical pathways and mechanisms to disease. I still understood the power of the brain and the power of visualization and, you know, thinking your way through problems. Um, I think we use visualization more than, more than we think we do, even if it's not, you know, formalized training.

Um, but I would just, I would literally run this experiment on myself. Like I would say, okay, one day you're going to pretend that like it was normally on a weekend when I didn't have to go into lab that like this, you know, this was my life that I could, that this is what I had to prioritize for the day, this being trail running and this lifestyle. Um, or I would do this when I was at, um, a race over, you know, a weekend when I was traveling to go, to go there. And, you know, I would visualize and, and try to picture my life on how I would structure my day and weeks if I didn't have to go back to lab on Monday morning. Um, and the biggest thing with that is I would journal about it I've always been a fan of

journaling and writing things down I think that's my scientific background but the biggest thing that I would examine and write down was how I felt um I'm a big fan of um Oliver Sacks and he would always do these experiments um and he you you know, he was a, he was a early psychologist and he would do these experiments on himself and he would write notes on how he would feel. And I think that that is scientific observation, even if it's not, you know, it can seem a little bit fluffy in this science because you want like these hard, these hard answers, but that's what I would do. Yeah. Super influential on neurology meets psychology. Okay. Point taken is that you would use a process from him and take, take me back to that, the process that you're using.

Right. So I would just visualize, visualize what I would want my life to look like. But the main thing that I would record is how I felt. And this it's so hard because for me as a, as a, like a hard scientist, as a chemist, I like black and white answers. I like, okay, this is the reaction and this is not the reaction. There's no in between, but the beauty of neuroscience and the irony of me in a neuroscience program as someone who's so, who can be so, you know, black and white, right or wrong is that the beauty of the brain is that we don't really understand the majority of what's happening in it. And that to me, it gave me permission to explore these other areas in my life and give importance to them because they made me feel fulfilled. And that is what life is about.

And I finally was able to make, um, or make more steps towards pursuing this career. That was a complete 180 from what I was doing and have the courage to face that fear of the unknown because I saw the benefit of pursuing a life that made me feel a certain way and feel fulfilled, even if there was a chance of failing altogether. I love all of this for so many reasons. One is from a logical stepwise approach. You said, okay, I'm going to invest in a best practice to understand this experience that I'm having. I'm terrified. And I'm not quite sure if you're terrified of failure or you're terrified of letting go, going and failing or letting go and letting down. And so letting down your family, letting down the early dreams you had.

Let's pause that for a minute. But then what you did is that you used the best practice of imagery. Then you added to it by describing your feelings and you wrote them down, which made the invisible visible. So just to calibrate, emotions are physiological and feelings are the psychology of those physiological events. And what's really interesting is that your interpretation, whether non-conscious, meaning automatic, or conscious, meaning that you're actually aware and processing, is the filter that influences the emotional response and the psychological response to the emotions, the feelings. And I don't want to try to suggest that it's a top-down approach, like there are bottom-up

experiences, meaning we feel emotions that make sense of it. And oftentimes, the way we interpret something is what drives the whole thing okay not to get in the weeds but you you made the invisible which is feelings visible so that now you made it concrete and then i'm imagining what that that what that did for you is it decreased the overall anxiousness because you had something to actually put your arms around from a visual context, at least, and say, oh, this is what's happening. And I want to make an informed decision to go toward the thing that I love feeling a certain way. Does that sound close so far? Yeah. And it sounds incredibly close, but you put it in such a succinct way. It seems like I was, you know, I had done this before, but this is the, this is the first time in my life that I had ever experienced this. And I was trying to figure this out in real time. So, I mean, as I'm describing it or you're describing it, it might seem very straightforward, but this period for me took about a year. Okay. Yeah. That's, that is a long time to process now looking back. So I'd love for

you to respond to this. Don't look back maybe, but just respond to this living a life with passion. Okay. So this is at some crux here, making the decision to go towards trail as opposed to formal education. And I just love the artistry of trailblazing and carving a path. And I love all of that that's nuanced inside of this dilemma in your life. And I wonder how you would respond to the path of living with passion is not rooted in only doing the thing that brings you passion, but making a fundamental decision to live with passion anywhere and everywhere you go. So I'd love if you could respond to that because what I heard you saying was kind of the opposite is that I naturally felt passionate, alive, awake in, on the mountains running. And so I'm just

going to go to that because that's the easy path for feeling a certain way. And I'd like to add to that is that I felt this natural passion in pursuing science. I've always had that as well. I had it as well. So I felt, you know, I felt, oh my gosh, am I going to be giving something up? But I think the point, the point for me is, is going towards, uh, obviously any, any path that you choose, there's going to be some, something that you don't like about a certain job. Um, but it's, it's about being able to feel more fulfilled in daily life. And I felt that more, that weighing more on the trail side of things than if I were to pursue a career that I had thought I was going to pursue my whole entire life. And would you, as a forcing function, when you're using your imagination, were you imagining yourself 10 years in the future? Like if you're an esteemed, formally educated researcher or an esteemed, you know, trailblazer, trail runner, sky runner, like did you use like a 10 year out or a five year out?

Or how did you do the imagery to get to the clarity? For me, it was actually even more short-sighted than that, because at this point, even when I had, when I had rolled the dice and decided to pursue trail, I couldn't support myself fully, uh, by just racing as, as, you know, a semi-pro athlete, I knew that I would, I would have to get another job. And so the whole point, I mean, sure. Like there was this idea of like, you know, 10 years down the road, if I was able to do this full time and have sponsors that could support me as a more full time. But I, I did it a year down the road is that if I, I don't want to use the word wasted, but that was the word that came to mind.

If I wasted another year in graduate school feeling this way, I felt that life was too short to, to waste their time going, going into the lab to waste, you know, a year of my life of doing something that I felt like I was supposed to do, as opposed to doing something that I feel like I was made to do. So, okay. That's important because it's going back to that fogginess of how you're making the decision were you afraid of letting go and letting down either dad bomb family tree legacy your dreams whatever or were you more afraid of going and failing I think at first at first I was afraid of letting down I was letting afraid of letting down my family, letting down myself, but then I don't think that that's a good enough reason. And that's why I

continued asking myself the question and letting myself continue to visualize this potential career change, because I didn't feel like that was a big enough decision to shape my life. If I was afraid of letting other people down and then I was, you know, then effectively, you know, keeping myself prisoner in, in this decision and this, this lifestyle that I didn't feel completely fulfilled by. That's why I allowed myself to keep asking the question why eventually I decided to pursue it is because sure, I was afraid of failing. I mean, I'm a perfectionist. I don't want to fail. Um, but if anything taught me in the lab, like I learned some of my, like the, you know, scientific breakthroughs were

learned from the failure of experiments and the best discoveries in scientific history were learned from, from failure. And, you know, that can seem like a very easy thing to say. It's very different in practice because it's your life. But I, I just, I thought that I, I, I just had one chance to do it. And I, I was, I think I was more terrified of letting the, letting the opportunity slip away than I was at trying and failing. And so was the decision more about reducing the failure or the terror or increasing the vibrance and the excitement of life? Where were you at this stage? And I want to know the question that you're asking, because maybe I missed it, but you said I kept asking the question and maybe it's really obvious.

So can you answer both of those for me? Yeah. So I kept asking this question to myself. I mean, I think it was rooted in what if, like, what if I decided to pursue this path? What's the worst thing that can happen? And of course, the worst thing that I would answer to myself is you will, you fail, you, you, you won't make it. You're not good enough at being a professional athlete to do this full time. Um, you know, and then that brings about ridicule and self-doubt and, and all of these things. So it asked those questions, but for me,

it was all about increasing the vibrancy and the richness of life and the experiences that I know are incredibly valuable. I mean, this goes back to my childhood traveling. I mean, even traveling out of the state of Colorado and experiencing a different national park, those moments shaped me and they shaped me throughout my whole entire life. Even before I was at this pivotal moment, you know, traveling, I decided to travel and study abroad and I could see the value of these experiences and how that wasn't, you know, measurable and, you know, the sense of academia that we have today, but those

were just as, you know, worthwhile. And they, they shaped me as a human being and as a scientist and as an intellectual. And so for me, it was all about maximizing that. And even, and I told myself, even if it was for just a year, there's a whole lot I can accomplish in a year and learn from and become a better person. And then from there I'll make a new game plan. Okay, that's a good twist. Okay, that's a really interesting twist. And so the reason I'm kind of drilling down here is because I think all of us have a fundamental decision to make. And part of this decision is either I'm going to orientate my life towards approaching success

or avoiding failure. And it started with avoiding failure for you, but it swung to approaching success or avoiding failure. And it started with avoiding failure for you, but it swung to approaching success. And it is a micro decision that we're faced with with every decision. However, it becomes a fundamental first principle to choose one or the other. And it sounds like you're saying, uh-uh, it is about approaching success as opposed to avoiding failure as a first principle. Absolutely. And I think maybe I didn't know that at the time, but it's kind of like a snowball effect is that the more I made that decision to not make decisions because I was avoiding failure,

but towards reaching success, it became easier for me to make those micro decisions, you know, later on and continue to do so. Yeah, there you go. Okay. So you make the decision and anywhere in the decision to go for it. Did you imagine that you might fall off something from a very high place or was it more like I might turn an ankle like what is the most common injury and I'm obviously setting up the next part of our conversation the most common injury is probably something to do with overtraining right and rolled ankles and maybe some some knee stuff totally yeah yeah for I mean. For, I mean, running injuries, right. It's like you, you, you fear that if you start to run a lot, especially ultra distance races and on trail, you twist an ankle, um, you know, you have problems with like hips or, you know, anything

that happens with like your knees, it's usually like a hip imbalance. Um, so, you know, just overuse injuries, you know, that's always a, that's always the main, the main concern. No way did I, did I think that, you know, falling a tremendous distance, um, whatever be, you know, a possibility. Are you okay to talk about it? Like to bring that story, that experience alive without, I I'm assuming it was traumatic, but I don't know that. Are you okay to talk about it? Yeah. And I think it's important to talk about what scares us, what makes us feel human, what we don't want to talk about. Um, it's been an important process to allow me to heal. It doesn't mean it becomes any less difficult, but yes, I think because every time I talk about it,

it's, it allows me to, to, to heal from it. I think. Okay. Let's do it. Take us, take, take me right into the morning of that day. Yeah. So I do want to give a little bit of a background. I mean, we talked about sky running, right? And so, um, once I made this decision to, to go into, you know, trail running professionally, take a chance. Um, I started racing in Europe on the international stage and I started having some grand success. Um, in 2015, I actually, when I decided to, to earn my master's degree, I defended my master's thesis and I traveled over to France for my first international

race. And I placed third, um, amongst a really strong international field. And I remember that feeling of just being like, I made the right decision. Like, even if this lasts for a year, like this, this is what I need to keep doing. And so I structured my life that way. I got another job teaching at a small college. And then every year I would travel to Europe and race on the sky running world series now instead of the U S series. And it became one of my goals to win the U the world sky running series. And in 2017, I was doing it and I was ranked number one in the world. I was having an incredible season and I had on my race calendar, this iconic race. Um, it was called the Humper Rockin sky race.

It's in Tromso, Norway. Uh, it's a race right where that is. Right. Really? Yeah. Oh my God. I was like, this is too much. Yeah.

No, it's too much. It's meant to be, uh, where, where exactly is this? What's the, what's the terrain like? So it's really far North. It's in the Arctic circle. The race happens in August and you literally have midnight sun. So it's, it's just this it's it's in the Arctic. Um, but in Norway, the trail running there is next level. It's granite. Um, you're yes, you're at sea level,

like, you know, running across fjords, but then when you run on these mountains, they rise vertically, you know, 3000 feet, but straight up. And, um, this race, um, which Killian Jornet and Emily Forsberg put on some two, you know, icons in the trail running community. Um, it was very, it's a very technical race. Um, and so, so technical that there's ropes, you know, you're sliding down some snow fields. Um, you have to work through this like third-class terrain, which, you know, you're hiking, but putting a hand down to like stabilize yourself as you're kind of climbing up this Ridge. Um, and this Ridge is called Humparock and Ridge. It's a very famous Ridge as you can see from the town of Trumso. And it looks like a dragon, like rising

from the, um, the fjords. And you can see this, like the peak in the distance. Um, and this is about the halfway point of the race. And so, um, like I mentioned, I was, I was winning the sky running series. And so even a poor performance at this race, I had one more race left. It wasn't going to do anything for my ranking. And I was there to just enjoy it because I love using running as a means of exploration. And I had never been to Norway, never been to this part of the world. And so I was just taking it all in. And I remember race morning, um, just feeling tired, but feeling excited to be there. Um, and I remember, I remember feeling a bit homesick. I think I remember having a conversation with my mother, like the, the week before of, cause this was like the last race where I traveled back home to do

my final race of the season. And, you know, she's like, Oh, I wish I could be there. Like, you know, it's gotta be beautiful. Like just go out there and enjoy it. And so that's kind of the energy that I started the race with is that I'm going to use it for what I love the most using running to explore. And, um, as I kind of got into the race, I was feeling better. I was feeling excited. Like the competitiveness was flowing. And as we got to the, the Ridge, the Humper Rock and Ridge and the technical part, which I enjoy the most, um, it changed in an instant. And the last thing I remember is I saw a friend of mine, a photographer who was waiting for me to take my picture as I rounded this corner. And he calls me smiler because I'm always smiling even when I'm in pain. And I remember

saying, hi, Ian. And then like, he's like, just smile for me big around this corner. And as I crossed the corner and I remember stepping on a rock and one minute I was running and the next, the horizon literally had flipped on its head. And then the world went into slow motion and I realized that I was falling. And I remember just hearing my own voice. And I remember it, me telling myself to take a deep breath that this was it, that you're going to die, but do your best to like stay calm and like, it'll all be over soon. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery

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I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. When you tell the story, what's happening? Like I'm just watching and listening and you're changing as you're telling it. Changing what? My demeanor? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's still, I mean, it feels like it happened yesterday. Okay. It's still a dream that I have. Like the falling dream. I think many people have that, but it's, it's, it's, it's visceral. It's really real. I can almost like feel the feeling of falling and like hearing my, my words in my head.

What is associated right around that? Is it, is it fear, sadness? Is it, there's another narrative that encompasses it. And what is that part of the story? It's a defining moment in my life. My life is different from this point on. It's just that this one instance and my life is completely turned on its head. And it's another crossroads. And so every time I describe this story,

it just represents that in my life. Right. I mean, yeah, I, I I'm on record saying there's no such thing as a defining moment and you're making me, yeah, you're making, you're making me rethink that right now as you're, as you're talking about it. So, okay. Keep, keep, yeah, keep going, please. Yeah. And so, um, and to be honest, like at first there had to be a period of time in my life where I couldn't tell this story without, you know, bursting into tears because it's still that real. Um, and it, and that's not the case now. Is that right? Or do you still have connection to the emotional part of the experience oh absolutely and where where is it in your body when you tell the story shortness of breath like I get tense

um almost like that that's that feeling of like you know you're bracing yourself for impact I know that feeling all too well oh yeah okay so then what are you doing right now to manage it? I think, well, breathing is an important part. Cause I think if, if I get tense, I tend to not breathe. So I have to take time to take a deep breath. Um, to say I'm standing right now, because I feel like that helps me stay a little bit more grant grounded. Um, and I think I use my, I try to use my senses. So like the breath, I don't, I mean, I think that's also a feeling, but like grounding myself and then I like to, to touch. So keeping. It would make sense because you weren't able to touch anything in that moment. It was the grasping, you know, the empty hand grasping. And so what do you say to yourself when you're reliving it in a micro dose way,

like telling the story? What are you saying to yourself to manage yourself in this moment? I think in telling it, like I said before, I know what happened. Um, but every time, every time I tell it, I understand, although I don't remember every aspect of it, I, I'm trying to come to terms with how intense this accident was, how extreme it was. And yes, how, how lucky I am to have survived, but then also trying to draw upon this wisdom and this, this strength that I had, but I, I wasn't aware of it at the time. Um, because I feel like, why didn't I not panic when I was falling? But instead I clearly remember my own voice telling me to stay calm that although this, I thought this was it, that, you know, stay calm. It'll all be over soon. Like just what I see in that is just like relax, um, and kind of accept the reality of the

situation, but still, you know, fight like hell to, to survive. And I feel like every time I tell the story, I'm reminded of that strength. And I think that's therapeutic. Yeah, for sure. Okay. And you're doing something that this is the part I'm getting at. I want to finish the story because it's just getting started. But the part that you're doing right now is the part of the story that most people don't focus on because part of the story is I

came through it. Yes, we're going to learn all about it, but you're living it right now based on the tools that you're using to manage, let's call it high stress. High stress is totally relative, but it's stressful from an emotional standpoint, reliving it. So retelling it. And your management of it is part of what you learned. And I'm watching it and listening to it. And that's the part that I'm like, okay, how is she doing it? Oh, she's breathing.

She's grounding. She's using tactile sensations to remind herself that she's here right now. And what is she saying? What is she saying to herself? Oh, relax. Just the same thing you said at that moment. Okay. All right.

I love this. Sorry. Okay. Keep going. No, I mean, it's great because I think I wasn't able to learn all of these things until I'm able to unpack all of it until afterwards. And so as I, as I was falling, I do remember several of the impacts and it was more, it's more of just like, I remember the sounds, I remember the rustling and,

and grabbing for rocks and kind of the franticness. But then as soon as I was in the air again and falling, which is not a good sensation in, in itself, it's, I hate the feeling of falling, but that calmness would return to me. And that was on repeat until, um, sometime when the next time I came to, um, there was someone, uh, next to me who was the, who initiated the rescue, um, the subsequent rescue. How many feet did you fall? Uh, 150. With a series of violent collisions. It wasn't, it wasn't just a free fall. There was violent collisions on the way. How long were you knocked out?

Uh, I don't know that the duration of that, I do know that. I mean, it was, I was very lucky, um, because it happened during a race. If someone was able to see me, there was a racer who we had been exchanging positions and, uh, he had seen me fall. And so I was unconscious the time from when I fell to when he caught up to me and he was able to scramble down 150 feet to, to reach me. Um, so several minutes. Um, but I, I mean, I do want to add, and this is something that I, it sounds, it sounds, you know, harsh and it sounds, you know, awful to say, but it's something that reminds me of how serious this was, was that I, this, this person Manu Par who came down to me, he didn't even check for vitals. He was,

he thought that he was, he was recovering, recovering a body. He thought that a fall like that would have killed me. And I asked him this two years later when I saw him again. Um, but it wasn't until he was moving me from the edge that he actually felt my chest rise. Um, and then kind of initiated the, the rescue operation. Wow. So you're in bad shape. Yeah. Okay. When the official rescue unit got there, what were they looking at? Actually, I'm missing a step. What did he do for resuscitation? Right. So I think once he realized I was breathing, I was cut badly. He was trying to hold some of the cuts in my leg shut. Cause I

was bleeding a lot. He was trying to secure me because it was clear that my back was broken. Um, so he was trying to secure me in a way that I wouldn't move. Cause at this point I had woken up and I was in pain and I was kicking my legs. And, um, then the world at that point, I just remember it pulsing with pain. And so I was kind of going in and out of consciousness just because it was so painful. Um, and from that moment, it's a bit of a blur, but, uh, obviously there's other people that came to the scene. Um, the helicopter rescue was, was called with the race director, Killian Jornet. He came down there. Um, and from there, they, they couldn't land a helicopter because it was on a Ridge. So they had to lower the doctor

to the Ridge. He had to come down to me. And then I do remember them putting something up my nose, um, which I was told as a painkiller, but it didn't really help. And then, you know, them lower getting me onto a helicopter, like the cot, and then getting me up, which was terrifying, because I felt like I was falling all over again, as they were bringing me up to the helicopter and taking me to the hospital. Were you in and out of consciousness or were you, once you came back, you stayed conscious? I don't remember it as a stream of consciousness. I remember coming in and out. Okay. Yeah. And do you remember part of your narrative at that point to yourself well part of it was I do remember one part when I was in pain and like kicking my legs I do remember one part of thinking like okay I'm

not paralyzed um and then then it was just more of when the pain would come of just to get like to have it stop being so painful. But I do remember, I do remember that specifically. And then the other specific moment was when I was finally in the helicopter and I saw the doctor. I asked him if I was going to be okay. And then, you know, I think I was not conscious again, but that was the first moment, like when I felt like I was safe and going back to the hospital, um, like that's the first time that I, you know, was trying to, I thought more long-term I think, because in the immediacy of the accident and the recovery, I was thinking more short-term, um, cause I thought I because in the immediacy of the accident and the recovery, I was thinking more

short term. Cause I thought I was dying the whole time. Yeah. This just to pull out an insight really quickly is that when we're in pain, it is normal to look outside of us to see if we're actually going to be okay or if we are okay. And which is what you did is you look to the person who was the expert in that moment and said, am I going to be okay? Which is totally normal. And where it becomes unhealthy is when we're not addressing the pain that we can address. Call it emotional, fill in the blanks, it could be physical as well. And we're chronically looking outside to see if we're okay. Sometimes people are looking to social media to see if they're okay. They're looking to people

that don't even know them, people in an audience, you know, to check in to see if they're okay. And so what you just shared is a natural reflex and it is for those moments that it's that reflex. I'm a mess. Am I okay? Is this going to work out? Please give me some insight here. And the thoughtful person is going to say, yeah, yeah, we're going to manage this.

You're going to be fine. Right? I'm sure it was something along that lines. Yeah. So, okay. But you were not fine. No. I mean, I was alive, but at that point, you know, still kind of assessing, assessing the injuries. And so I do remember, you know, going to the hospital, then losing consciousness again, when they kind of roll me into the, like the CAT scan to see if I had internal bleeding and if my skull was fractured

and to see how many bones were broken. Um, and then when I came out of that, I remember the doctor telling me, um, how, how surprised she was that I didn't have a fracture of my skull, that I had no internal bleeding, like certainly bruising, but nothing was ruptured and that I hadn't broken my legs miraculously enough. What was the damage in total? The damage was 14 bones. So I had broken both of my wrists, like both bones. I had broken both feet. So like a couple bones in each foot, um, five ribs and, uh, two points in my back. Um, and I was, I was caught up. I was in really bad shape. Um, I think both of my legs were like just completely covered in band-aids and I had, um, obviously cuts on my head, but my skull wasn't fractured. Um, I don't

remember how many stitches I had, but I remember they had to staple my head because some of the cuts were so big. Okay. And then obviously you had a concussion if not oh yes yeah okay so where do you go from here your whole life was dedicated toward this thing you felt great joy and happiness and now here you are with what you had planned on and what you had in some respects, maybe taken some for granted that all be able to run tomorrow, which I'm saying to myself right now, you know, it's a sloppiness of how much I, I think we take tomorrow for granted. So here you are first psychologically, how do you approach this? Is it devastation, depression,

overwhelmment? Is it fighter? Is it acceptance? And I'm just giving some words, there could be anywhere in between. Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's honestly a little bit of a mix of everything. And it depends on who you are, what you land on first. Um, for me, I would have thought fighter right away, but I landed on despair because at, at this point I had never had broken a bone before I had, you know, taken a chance on this life and I had felt the most fulfilled I had felt ever in my adult life. And I was on, I honestly was in denial too. I didn't really, I think I was on so many painkillers in the hospital. I didn't really come to terms that the accident was me until, you know, two days later when my mom shows up in the hospital room in Norway, just, you know, crying and, and, you know, two days later when my mom shows up in the hospital room in Norway, just, you know,

crying and, and, you know, grateful to see me alive. Um, I would say that I was quickly, I was surprised how quickly I could fall into a depression so deep and vast and how important it was to have people around you to not let that happen. Um, I think it was probably, it was, I mean, it seems like quickly, but I think the first, the first light of like the kind of fighting fire, uh, happened on day five when finally a nurse looked at me and said, you have to fight. You can't sit in this hospital bed and let your life slip away. She's like, it starts now. And you, you have to make that choice. She didn't make it for me, but she, she, um, she kind of provided the ignition and the, the fuel, and I just had to get the match lit. And that match happened the next day where it was as simple as literally

moving from my hospital bed, which I haven't, hadn't been able to move from to then having breakfast in the chair, literally right next to me. From being literally a world leading athlete in your sport to the next still making goals feeling the despair having a cool little spark that you talked about or the catalyst to say no you need to fight and you're like okay right mini goals right yeah when you Okay, right. Many goals. Right. Yeah. When you look back and you put together, because I know that you have written and done deep thinking around this. And when you put it together and you're thinking about people who are going through radical change in their life when they are scared, when they're overwhelmed, and life is fundamentally different for them.

And this could be people right now that are going through so much in our modern experience, loss of job, loss of loved ones, loss of future, lots of autonomy, loss, loss, loss. How do you share a set of best practices to help people through that process? So for me, it's about perspective. And I learned this early on in being in my scientific training that if you zoom out and you try to take a step back and look at the problem as a whole, it can seem insurmountable. I mean, that's exactly what I was experiencing when I was injured and I had no idea what steps I had to take to reach this goal of, you know, would I run again? Could I run again? Did I even want to run again? So if I took a step back and it seemed impossible, I didn't

know how to get there. But if I zoomed in and I kept zooming in, this idea of mini goals is something that was incredibly helpful. And sometimes depending on how I was feeling, it's zooming in as close to getting through each hour, linking together certain hours of a day. If I, if it was, it was painful or I just didn't really know how to get through it or, you know, one day at a time, um, a week at a time, I think as I, you know, as a healthy athlete, I had taken for granted this idea of a training block, you know, breaking down my year in, you know, months or blocks of training to prepare for a certain race that was X number of months away.

So I would do, you know, this training during this three month block, you know, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, I couldn't do that anymore. And, but if, if I kept on zooming in and, you know, I've had this magnifying glass and, and breaking down even my day into certain goals, it allowed me to, to, to see that progress and then to actually feel accomplished. Like I got through this hour, this hour was really painful. I, you know, I got through this hour without taking a pain, extra pain medication, or I got through my PT session, which was an hour long. Um, you know, I got through whatever that

goal is that I had to do, or, you know, a week at a time. Um, that's something that really helped me to not only see progress, but appreciate the progress and then to see how that could lead to something bigger. And when it comes to putting yourself in risk environments or even putting yourself dramatically back on that trail or a trail that smells or looks or has a hint of steepness to it. You can talk about generally or specifically, how do you, how are you managing that now? So it's a great question. And it's, I mean, I think people are familiar with PTSD and so post-traumatic stress disorder, and that takes many forms and it's, it can be,

you know, from just a single stressor, it doesn't have to be a huge stressor in your life. Um, but something that can bring you back and it's usually associated with, you know, hearing something and bringing back those feelings, um, or, you know, feeling something and bringing back an experience. Uh, and so it's something that has continued. I continue to work through it. Um, you know, it's been four and a half years since this accident. And, you know, sometimes there's moments that still bring me back to that moment. Um, I remember early on, I was running in a local trail here in Boulder. Wasn't, it was a flat trail, wasn't any, anything steep to it. And we were, there is a, some, a rescue operation kind of the practice they're practicing, you know,

using a helicopter off kind of in this field where I was running. And I remember just hearing the sound of the helicopter and I just immediately fell to the ground and started crying. Um, I had to use the physical kind of sensations. Like I was telling myself I was okay. Like, and, you know, not judging myself for it and saying like, this is honestly a normal response. Um, cause it was the first time I'd heard, you know, a helicopter that close to me since the, the rescue. Um, but it's, for me, it's, then it kind of can be zoomed out into this concept of, of fear. If I'm in kind of a fearful situation, um, you know, like on a Rocky Ridge, if I'm trying

to practice, um, you know, some, some terrain that might bring me back there of using techniques. And usually for me, it's, um, things I say in my mind to keep me calm and focused in the current moment, like not thinking in the future or thinking in the past, but being immediately in the present, which allows me to, um, I visualize it as I see fear as this big, scary monster. And instead of letting him control where I go, I can acknowledge fear and I can, he still is scary, but I can walk past him without letting him kind of deter me or scare me off of, off of my path. And I feel like that's really fun. And then, but then, and you're also using, um, deep focus on the here and now. So like listening to your breathing or feeling the foot under your, or feeling the rock under your foot or foot strike,

maybe, or arm strike something along those lines. I think for me, bringing, bringing myself back to the current moment. And I think the easiest way to do that is relying on your senses. Um, that's something from, for me, that's helps keep me focused in the here and now, because if not, it's really easy to get drawn into how this happened to me. So therefore I can't do this or living in the future of saying, I'm afraid of this happening again. So, yeah. So no, no joke. I don't want to zoom over this because we kind of skipped a few steps, which is you're in the hospital making micro goals. You're out of the hospital into PT making micro goals. And you're staying in that approach success.

Let's call it the athlete mind of getting better. And you don't have to be an athlete to have that mind, but just shorthand it. And then all of a sudden you're back running, you know? So there's a gap in there. Like I want to say congratulations. I don't think that's the right thing to say but it's like me wanting to acknowledge like you know like falling from 100

and some feet banged up as you can get and here you are and so like there's a celebration here somewhere it's not for me to celebrate it, but like, I just want to honor that. Pretty rad. Well, I mean, thank you. But I also, I want to push back and say that I'm not special in, in this recovery. Sure. Like this incredible thing happened to me. It's for me, it's a, you know, these, this defining moment. And I guess I challenge you on that. It's a, it's, it can be a these, this defining moment. And I guess I challenge you on that. It's a, it's, it can be maybe a pivotal moment is the, is the more correct word. Like life is, is not linear. It's full of twists and turns.

And this was one of those turns for me. But I'm not special. I feel that, and I want to push back and I want to use anyone hearing this story or my story that this allowed me the opportunity to discover strengths that I already possessed. It just allowed me to uncover them. They might've been, you know, buried deep down somewhere inside of me, but this is what allowed the opportunity for me to uncover them and use them and then to continue using them throughout my life. And so I hope that it encourages other people who are challenged,

you know, they don't have to fall on 150 feet. I really don't recommend it, but they can, they can use whatever pivotal moment they are at in their life and use it as an opportunity to do set those mini goals to discover how incredibly strong they are as a as people and how resilient we are as a human race to make it to that next step and then to set bigger goals. I think you're working from one of my first principles as well, which is everything that somebody else, but everything you need is already inside you. And how do we discover that? A lot of hard work. And that hard work needs to come for or from somewhere.

And oftentimes it comes from pain. And so some of, a big part of my job is to help people face their pain, to feel their pain, to acknowledge their pain. I call it the dragon. To meet their dragon, get to feel their pain, to acknowledge their pain. I call it the dragon, to meet their dragon, get to know their dragon, then exercise the dragon, and then have a relationship with it. And so that it's the dragon, the scary monster in your case, right? Like the dragon is not either so dormant, locked in a cage that it's forgotten how to breathe and have fire, and or it's so scary that we're

afraid to get near it. But to actually like, okay, this is my suffering. This is my pain. I can have a relationship with it. And then from there comes this upspringing of adaptations and eventually leads to these micro choices, which leads to micro actions, which leads to call it mini goals. And then eventually over time, when you stack and stack and stack, and you start to optimize towards the human you want to be that you know you're capable of,

but it's been dormant because of the pain has been blocking it, the dragon's been protecting something, right? Is that I'm reminded of a second first principle, which was introduced to me by a special warfare operator, a dear friend of mine, Pete, who says, he says it kind of glibly and he says, people have no fricking clue how much they're capable of. No clue. I saw it all day long for years helping seals become navy warfare operators become because people have no clue until they get really tested and pushed so um yeah so anyways there's a couple first principles that we're relating to yeah i love that so much and and i love that you're also connected to the dragon as well. I like it.

Yeah, totally. The dragon, it's awesome. Yeah. So, all right. So there's some best practices that we've been talking about that have been meaningful to you. And I love the fact that you're like, I'm not special. Well, you actually are. You're doing some really special.

We're all special in our own ways, right? Not everyone gets a trophy, but we're all very special. So let's zoom way out and say if there was one or two or three things that I could pass on to folks to become their very best, what would you say those practices or insights or perspectives would be? So one thing I would say is the more you practice being uncomfortable, the easier it becomes. And that's something I had to, you know, get used to. It sounds cliche, but an easy way for athletes, I think can practice it too. If it's like, you know, we had snow in Colorado, I'm out there running in a five degree temperature. That's not the most comfortable, but a way that people can do it, even if it's outside of sport is writing things down. I think that there's a really important visualization that happens if you write your fears down, because it can become this big, scary thing in your mind, the dragon, right? But then as soon as you write it down or you draw the dragon on a

piece of paper, it's like, oh, this thing, like it can seem a bit less scary. So I think that's something that is like a practice and it can be even a daily practice. It's something I do every day. Mechanically, what do you do? You pull out the journal, you got to, is it pen and paper or is it digital? Pen and paper. I prefer pen and paper. Yeah it digital pen and paper i prefer pen and paper yeah yeah i do too and so then you write on that um but what do you are you answering a thought stem like my fears today are or are you are you just free flowing how do you mechanically how do you do it for me it's honestly just a check-in right some days it's easier if i'm if i have something on my mind and writing allows me to actually pinpoint what that something

is. So it can really start like with, without like an agenda or an objective and just writing down how I'm feeling in that moment. Um, and this is also relating to kind of my second, um, this is, I really am a fan of positivity and the power of self-belief and positive self-talk. And this has come in the form of mantras that I wrote down during my recovery and I've taken them with me today. And something that I always write is believe that your best athletic days are ahead of you. And I think you can even take out the athlete part and say, believe that your best days are ahead of you. And it's a way to keep striving for being a better person, no matter how old you are, no matter what obstacle comes your way, it's timeless. And, um, it's something that I still believe. Um, and it's something that's

allowed me literally, if that, if, if anyone is wondering, you know, how did I, how did I do it from, you know, being broken to racing and competing again, that's how I did it is believing that my best athletic days were ahead of me. And that's what got me out of bed every morning and kept, I kept trying when I was re-injured and when recovery was not linear because it never is. That's really what got me through. And I think it can be applied to anyone, athlete or not. That is the applied science of optimism that you just, and you practice it by saying that. So you write it or do you say it? Like, how do you exercise that thought pattern that you want to make automatic? First, it starts by writing. I think there's, there's even neuroscience studies that

have shown just the act of writing something down. Someone is, I think, at least two to three times more likely to complete the task, even if they don't go back and revisit the sticky note. So writing it down is one thing, but even when you read something, you are saying it out loud in your head. So then I would take it one step forward to say it out loud. Very cool. And then is it once a day, twice a day, a thousand times a day? I know I'm down in the weeds with it, but I think the practice, your practice is uniquely yours. And, um, I'm trying to see how I might be able to adopt it for myself. Yeah. I mean, I think the, the frequency of it, uh, I would say at least once a day. That's what I do.

And the frequency increases the more struggle that I'm experiencing. So repeat as needed. And then are you, did you, so you did, you had medical expertise, you had physical therapy, kind of movement expertise. Did you have psychological support as well? Did you do internal work? You did. So you, you put the fullness of the best, you put the sciences together, psychological,

emotional movement, and then mechanics from a, from a medical perspective. Okay. And then I would add to your uncomfortableness. When you do it, you get better. I just add one thing. One way to practice it is I always talk about the emotional aspect. So you're saying do it privately. And then you're saying maybe by exercising it through writing. And I'm saying you can talk about emotionally challenging things with safe people. And that's one way to do it. And a third way that is pretty mechanical available to most people is a cold shower. And it's not emotions, but you learn about yourself in that cold shower, even

walking to the cold shower, I have to gear up for it. So I'm speaking to myself about myself, about the situation. And then when it's cold, am I trying to escape or am I working to be okay in it? And so all of that is work, deep work at play. And so, okay. Are there other best practices for you? I think it all relates to visualization for me, like that believing your best days are ahead of you. Right. I was, I always think about this. It's weird, but I was doing this, this visualization of when I was really kind of deep in the recovery process of me building a house and that it was a brick house and that every brick represented a day. And even if that brick had a crack in it or was imperfect, I would still lay

it down in the foundation knowing that each day after that, I'd put that brick around the broken one, it would reinforce it. And that I was building this house and that I didn't know what it looked like, but I knew that that foundation was going to be a strong one. Um, and I think the practices to that, that to me is like having faith, not in like a greater picture or in fear of failure, but, you know, pursuing something bigger and keep on going towards success. Because even if I do fail, I know that I have the tools to handle it. Amen. That's another first principle, which you hinted at before, which is like, we have the ability to adjust. It was almost like a throwaway comment.

You said like, if I go for it in this first year and it doesn't work out, I'll adjust. So the ability to be able to adjust to anything provides, and I know what I just said is big, provides this deep safety. So listen, whatever's going to happen, I have this fundamental belief that I am going to be able to work towards figuring it out. I didn't say figure it out, but I'm going to be able to work towards figuring it out. And so, all right, listen, thank you. I feel like I have a better sense of who you are. Sharing your story has helped. I know what you've done. It's incredible. And then who are you working on becoming?

The simple answer would be the best version of myself. And I think about it as a recipe. I know, I know certain things that bring out the best in myself and it's, it's not even running. It's just movement surrounding myself with a community. And for me, that can be as few as, you know, one person, um, that, you know, I can fully be myself with. Um, but I mean, maybe that sounds like a cop out, but literally breaking it down because I mean, I know that tomorrow is not guaranteed.

And so really focusing on how do I get the most out of myself this day and like, you know, adding a pinch of that, or, you know, a cup of this each day. So I know that I'm being, I'm putting my best foot forward. And I'm, you know, trying to get the most out of myself each day. And did have you written down like, I'm at my best, or my best is my the best version of me is have you written that down so that it's like a bullseye that you're have a target toward? And it's also too, when I noticed myself feeling off, um, that I'm, I need to, you know, scale things back on one section and add a little bit more, you know, I'm a, I'm very much of an introvert.

And so when I feel myself feeling imbalanced, it's like, I might need a little bit more alone time. And for me, that means maybe being outside on the trails more. So yes, absolutely. I've written this down. Constantly reevaluating how to get the most out of myself each day. And when I'm feeling like I'm not at my best, what is it that I can shift? Because you said I'm trying to get the most out of myself as opposed to be my best.

So I don't want to take us into the weeds too much, but it's an interesting nuance. It is. And so how do you think about it? Like I'm trying to be my very best or I'm working to get the most out of myself. I think one brings about the other. So you're working to be. Isn't that interesting? Like I wrestle with this and I'm sorry to get into the nerd weeds with it, but I wrestle with it because sometimes I think that I just need to clear away and then it emerges. And other times I feel like I have a bayonet and I just need to hack away like stuff and

I'm working my ass off to clear a pasture to finally get to. And then I go, no, no, no. My best is when I'm actually hacking away and like I'm work. So it's not like I have it completely clarified myself, but the idea of becoming your very best is a first principle as well. You've hit on five first principles for me. And so- I didn't study beforehand, don't worry. No, I didn't. You know what I think is that most people that are in this space share a very similar language.

I think so too. And even on that nuance, I think being is so important because I've, I mean, as an athlete, I can focus so much on doing, right? And that in itself isn't fulfilling. And that actually doing more isn't what makes me the best version of me. You're killing me right now. I know people listening to her are like, say it, Mike. Are you going to say it? So yeah, I'm going to say it.

All right. So it's like doing more, being more. It's like another fundamental principle, which is the whole idea is not to do the extraordinary to be extraordinary that will flip that whole model which is i need to be more and let the doing flow from there as opposed to do more and try to to try to be someone so um hillary well i think i think we got to do a project together i think we've got to get some first principles together and do something. I would love that. Carving your own path.

You know, there's something in here that I think is eloquent. And then, so what are you doing that's exciting you, that's pushing your thinking? What are you excited about that's really pushing your thinking? Oh, so many things. Um, I guess I can speak kind of acutely to, to the trail running world. Um, community, uh, can take so many different forms, but to really trying to build on, on community and what that means for my immediate community, obviously here in Colorado, but then, um, I'm speaking of like career, like in the, in the world of ultra running, but then also in the world of women's sports. Um, I started a podcast with a couple of my friends and we kind of talk about the science behind,

um, you know, how to train as a female athlete and also, um, what that means from, you know, existing in female athletics. So trying to create community around that, but I feel like it sounds silly, but it has so, so much power to it. Um, and being around like-minded people and who practice the same ideas and whose goals are aligned in the same way as yours. I think about it as building a future, something that makes me really excited because I mentioned my mother at the beginning of this podcast and she is part of, you know, she's 68 and her high school class was the first class in her high school that women were allowed to do track and field. And she has a daughter who is a professional athlete. Uh, so what I'm doing

now, building this community, especially around women in athletics, I think, and really focusing on, you know, you're stronger than you're, you think you are, and you're more capable than you think you are. I think that's kind of building an incredible momentum and power moving forward to the future for, you know, women pursuing these less than mainstream careers. Awesome. We've had some legends on the podcast, Rebecca Rush and folks that like, so I'm sure you're connected with all of those folks, but if there's anyone in our community that we can put you guys together, it'd be really fun for us as well. That being said is where can we drive folks to learn more about what you're doing, to pay attention, to be part of your community. Yeah. Thank you. So my website's a good one-stop shop for it. HillaryAllen.com and kind of all the things that I've involved in there

are linked there. And then Instagram is always a good place to find me. I'll post all about the things I'm doing there. It's Hilly Goat Climbs. So Hillary Allen, you'll find me there. Hilly goat is a nickname. Billy goat. Absolutely. It's a good one. Yeah. So listen, you are an emblem for so much of what I've been working to try to help people understand how to live. And so thank you for being an emblem. Thank you for your time, both the insight, the clarity. Could I just maybe spend a minute and share with you how I've experienced you? Yes, please. I'd love to hear it. Okay, yeah.

So the introversion, extroversion is really interesting because you described introversion but you like community, which is probably indicative of or an indication of a healthy balance between the two for you. I think that you are very tactile, you lead with your senses, maybe that's now, maybe more than before because before maybe you were more intellectual, not saying that you've lost that capability, but you've grown this other part of you. So you've got this yin-yang of both introversion, extroversion, sensory, and let's call it intellectual engagement. And then I think you plan well and you think forward in a logical, sequential way. And so you're probably relatively structured, but I don't

know that to be the case. That's a little bit of a leap in there. I think you've got a nice balance as well between the external stimulus that comes in and the awareness of the internal stimulus. I think that you probably get overstimulated by the internal. Maybe you rabbit hole and thinking more than you do. And that's why you use Mother Nature and trails to clear your mind because left to your own devices, you'd go internal and rabbit hole and maybe get circular and thinking. You're craving that counterbalance over rotation because your parents were intellectual, you didn't get away with anything so that you've explored the emotional part in a meaningful way by writing, by talking, and by processing. And so I think

you've got a balance there that's really intriguing as well. Definitely a risk taker. You're supportive of others. So you'd be a leader that leads with positivity. I would imagine people love being around you because you make them feel safe and you make them remember that much is possible for you, for them. And then I think that you probably, on the self-critical part, you're probably pretty sensitive to it. I didn't hear you say that you beat yourself up or whatever, but I think that you're probably pretty, the perfectionist aspect of it, you're probably pretty critical in that way on your self-talk. So that would be an interesting place to understand more. But all that being said, yeah, very cool. Yeah, very cool. Your commitment to

self-discovery, your fundamental optimism, high agency, meaning that you as an agentic person have power in your life. And I think you've used a whole host of mental skills to be able to have command of your inner life. And so I'm wondering where I'm off, but that's my take of you in the last 90 minutes. I think you're pretty spot on. Yeah, it's pretty fun. I guess like, well, maybe, yeah, like I said, I do love community, but I think for me, it looks maybe smaller than for most and true to the introvert form. Like, I love big groups, but they can be exhausting, right? I need to, you know, be nurtured. But absolutely, that's something I've really had to work on for, you mentioned this, the harshness on self-talk. That's why I focus so much on positive self-talk because I can easily rabbit hole and it's, I'm surprised how quickly it can happen if I don't, if I'm not, you know, forthcoming with, with resources and positivity. Yeah. Very cool. Awesome. Well, listen, I'm wishing you the best. I can't wait to keep following what you're doing to see what's next for you, but let's see,

I'm serious. Let's explore if there's a project because you are absolutely the bright beacon for becoming. And so thank you for sharing. Oh, thank you. I would, I would love that opportunity. So yes, let's stay in touch and thanks for taking the time and having me on. It's been such a pleasure. Awesome. Okay. More to come. Okay.

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until next episode be well think well keep exploring