Courtney is Possessed: The Interview Courtney is Possessed: The Interview

Hello, Courtney Dauwalter.

Hello!

Someone on Reddit said this about you: 'She's eating nachos and candy and beer. The woman is living her best life out there—and that's her secret.' Is that your secret?

[Laughter]

Well, I highly recommend nachos, candy, beer, or any other things that add joy to your life. I don't think that's a secret, but for sure, my husband and I are trying to enjoy life as much as possible, and part of that is eating delicious foods, having a beer with friends sometimes, and making sure to soak it all up.

When it comes to candy, though—and what I'm about to say could turn the interview sour—

[Laughter]

Okay.

Well, I'm from Australia, but I lived in the States for years.

Yeah?

I gotta say, I just don't think the candy in America is so great. What do you think of that?

Wow.

[Laughter]

What's your go-to candy?

My go-to is all the fruity candy, so I love jellybeans, Mike & Ike's, gummy bears, gummy worms, any of that. But I have eaten the Party Mix from Australia.

You've had Allen's Party Mix?

Yeah! You know Party Mix?

Of course!

Oh my gosh. If I could ship suitcases of that to myself every month, I would be in hog heaven. It's so good.

Have you had musk sticks while you were in Australia?

No, no.

They're pink, musk-flavored sticks, and they're crack-like.

Are they like licorice-y or hard or...

They're sort of soft and hard. They're kinda made out of the same crumbly, sugary stuff they make Peeps out of.

Okay, I'm going to look those up.

Okay, that's the interview. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

[Laughter]

One last bit about candy: I imagine you've sampled it from every corner of the globe. Do you have a favorite?

Well, I don't discriminate, but I definitely try to always peruse the candy aisle every time we're in a new place, just to see what it's all about. Most recently, I was racing in Japan and we tried, I think, every single bag of candy at the gas stations there. It's part of the fun, y'know? I'm exploring the trails with my feet, but also want to explore with my stomach.

[Laughter]

Okay, let's talk about running and how you got into it, beginning with your childhood in Minnesota. You're a Minnesotan, right?

Yeah, I grew up in Minnesota in a really active family. I have two brothers, and we played all the sports—

Right.

We had to run the mile in gym class every year, and I loved it. I loved that feeling of pushing really hard, and I couldn't believe that I could run a whole mile! And that led to me joining the cross-country team in junior high and high school, and I fell in love with everything about it from then on. So, I loved mentally how it made me feel to go for a run all by myself; I loved it as a social activity—my best friends were the cross-country team, and they're still some of my best friends—and I loved it for that ability of, like, you and your feet just pushing as hard as you can.

Cool!

So, I found myself running in the mornings before school or before work after I graduated because I liked how it started my day off, and I liked how it made all my systems kinda link and feel like they were functioning better, y'know?

Right, so this was from high school all the way through college?

Yeah, and then after college, I kept it going because I loved it, and I was randomly signing up for 5ks or 10ks just to have something to do on the weekends, and then I decided to try a road marathon, because everyone was doing road marathons, and it sounded absolutely insane that people could run 26.2 miles! And before the race I was basically saying goodbye to all my friends and family, like, 'This is probably going to kill me.'

You thought you were going to die?

Yeah, so I'm like, 'Nice knowin' ya.'

[Laughter]

That introduced me to the ultra world. I ended up finishing that road marathon—I didn't die—and it triggered this thing in me where I began to wonder what else was out there that sounded too hard or impossible, but I could give it a shot and just see. I didn't know that ultra marathons were a thing but I discovered them after that, and it's just been sort of snowballing ever since.

It's interesting, I've spoken to a few ultra runners, and a lot of them have said that before they got into it, they didn't even know ultra marathons existed.

Yeah, yeah. I didn't grow up ever hearing about them or seeing them. I look now at finish lines or aid stations at the races I go to, and when I see families and kids at them, I think it's just so special that these kids are getting introduced to this really cool sport so early on, and even if they don't decide to run an ultra-marathon themselves, what they're seeing is people trying something really difficult, and whether they make it to the finish line or not isn't the point. It's like the whole journey of going after this big goal.

That's very cool.

Yeah.

I was just thinking, you know who else is from Minnesota and was a big cross-country runner as a kid?

Who?

Prince.

Wow! I knew he came from Minnesota, but I didn't know he was a runner!

Yeah, I think he was an all-around amazing athlete.

Really? I have to look into that. I didn't know that he was athletic.

Yeah. He was great at basketball and baseball, but a lot of people don't know he was actually a really good runner, too. He was quick.

We're talking about Prince the artist, right?

Yeah, yeah, the musician. Love Symbol.

Okay, I'm gonna read up on that later. I love Prince.

There's lots of famous Minnesotans besides you and Prince.

Oh yeah, me and Prince [Laughs]

Okay, here's a really dumb question: You don't have a job, right? Not a regular job. Like, your job is to be a professional athlete.

Currently, yeah, I'm full-time running.

What did you study in college?

I studied Biology in college and then got my teaching degree, so I spent nine years teaching science.

Oh, I knew that. High school, right?

High school and middle school.

Do you miss it?

Well, it was a really cool chapter, for sure, but I think with the way Kevin and I live—which is to fully live the chapter we're in—I'm really enjoying this chapter. Because I didn't know that this one would exist in my life, so it's been really fun to just embrace it; and then when we turn the page, we'll see what the next chapter holds.

How has ultrarunning changed your life, or how does it inform the way you live out other areas of your life? Because the stuff you've done, most people don't do. So, I wonder what ultrarunning has taught you, what lessons you've learnt.

I think ultrarunning keeps reminding me that we're capable of way more than we think, and the bar we set for ourselves is usually two notches too low, and we should throw caution to the wind sometimes and just raise it up and go after the thing that sounds too difficult. I think it also reminds me to stay in the moment and do each moment as best I can, and sometimes not think of the big picture, like, just do this moment as best you can; don't be overwhelmed by all of the millions of other moments to come, but be right here and just do what you can with what you have right now—

That's very Zen.

—and always have snacks on hand.

[Laughter]

Okay, now, I can't really do an interview with Courtney Dauwalter without touching on the ol' Pain Cave. I originally thought it was just an expression used to describe the most difficult points in a race, but you actually visualize it, right? Like, you have an idea of it in your mind when you're there.

Yeah. I'm a very visual person, but I didn't invent the term 'Pain Cave'; that's been around forever, and there's all sorts of terms similar to it, like Struggle Bus or Hurt Locker, but for some reason, Pain Cave really resonated with me because I could see it in my mind and I could see how it was part of the experience that I was in.

What is it for you exactly?

So, it's when it physically becomes too difficult, like, how can I possibly take another step forward? That's when I'll go to the Pain Cave. And I used to just try to survive the Pain Cave; I sat in the entryway and braced myself for the storm and hoped to get out of it as quickly as possible, but now I've found it to be a much more productive visual to think, like, I want to go to the Pain Cave because this is where I get better for the next time. So, when I arrive at it, it's like, let's put on our hardhat, let's grab a chisel, and let's get to work making that cave even bigger so that my capacity for pushing in the next visit is even bigger than it was before.

That sounds so psycho to me. I mean, marathons make me want to cry.

[Laughter]

I can't even begin to imagine what it's like for you covering the distances you cover. The Pain Cave must be supernaturally horrible.

It is. But it's also so amazing because you have to be doing something pretty special to get there, like, you can't just snap your fingers and arrive at the Pain Cave, y'know?

Yeah.

So, now it feels like a celebration of productivity and progress to me when I get there. The reason I'm signing up for these really long races and big challenges is that I want to keep going in that cave to see what happens if I keep chiseling it out—is there an end to this cave? Does it eventually stop being able to grow? Do I, at some point, refuse to go back into it? Like, what will happen if I keep visiting this cave and making it bigger?

You sound like you're addicted to the Cave.

[Laughter]

I don't think I'm addicted to the Cave, but I'm really curious about it because... I don't know. I don't know the answer, and I don't know that anyone else knows the answer to just what is possible. So, it's fun to be part of exploring that.

It must be so odd when you're at mile 120 of a 200-mile race and you're in the Cave but you're also surrounded by this breathtaking—but contradictory—natural beauty.

Yeah, yeah. It really is. And I always try to still notice and appreciate all those beautiful sights, or even jokes with friends or enjoy the aid station people I see out there because that's all part of it for sure. But then, when I get back to chiseling by myself, it gets pretty tunnel-visioned, and it's a little bit harder to see the beauty.

How do you go with the aid stations and your crew when the going gets tough? Like, is your fuse shorter? If it was me coming into an aid station at mile one hundred and whatever, I think I'd be easily annoyed by people.

Oh, no. It's such a boost to arrive at an aid station because, depending on the course, you might've been out in the wild by yourself for hours! So, to arrive at a little tent set up in the middle of the mountains with these amazing volunteers who have given up their weekend to help you get to that finish line, that gives you a huge boost of energy. I don't know, I think if you were grumpy on the trail, you wouldn't be grumpy anymore arriving at that kind of scene, you know? It's just so welcoming. So, I always love getting to those aid stations and getting to share some words with the volunteers, and then if Kevin is able to be at the aid station because he can crew at it...

Even better.

Even better. He and I don't have to exchange many words anymore, like, we have a pretty dialed system of what happens at these aid stations, and we know what information to quickly pass back and forth, and he can really just look at me and look at my eyes and get a clear understanding of where I'm at and how it's going.

What's it like for Kevin to see you put yourself through what you put yourself through? It must be a conflicting combination of concern for your welfare and pride?

Yeah, he has said something along the lines of, you know, watching this person you love suffer is weird, but when you know how much they love it, you just want to help them do it as well as they can—or suffer as well as they can.

[Laughter]

Okay, let's touch on my favorite ultrarunning subject—and you're the queen of this—hallucinating. Famously, you hallucinated a leopard in a hammock, but you've also seen domestic cats?

Yeah.

So, what did you see? Hundreds of cats strewn about the trail?

Yeah, they were all over this section of the trail, and I was running through and trying not to step on any of them.

Were they blurry, dream-like cats, or did they appear as regular cats?

They looked real; they were pretty vivid. Like, I can usually see details of the hallucinations.

Wow.

Now that I know hallucinations are a thing, I try to note everything about them and remember them so I can share it afterwards, because they're usually pretty funny. Like, one time it was Mickey Mouse on a big stage and he was throwing t-shirts out to this crowd, and I was running past thinking, 'Why isn't he throwing a t-shirt towards me?' Like, 'I want to catch a t-shirt!' Y'know?

Jesus.

[Laughter]

I mean, that's madness! Do you think you're putting yourself in any sort of psychological danger if you're hallucinating at that level?

I don't know! I just think of them as friends now.

So, I guess you never have sinister ones, then; they're always just fun things like Mickey Mouse with a goddamn t-shirt canon?

[Laughter]

Well, luckily, mine are always friendly, but I do know some runners who have had scary ones before.

Oh.

Yeah, and I've never encountered that and hope not to. I like to keep them in a friendly realm.

You're obviously a very special human being to do what you do and to achieve what you've achieved, but I wonder how much of that is nature and how much is nurture? Like, were you born the way you are, or are you the product of parenting and teachers, coaches...

It's gotta be some of all of that, but I don't know. For sure, my personality and how I am, how I was born is part of it, but then I was really fortunate to be surrounded by an amazing family and amazing parents. I had really wonderful coaches all through high school and college, wonderful teammates, and just, like, friends and Kevin and the people in my life who... I mean, everything shapes us, y'know?

Yeah, of course.

So, I'm very fortunate to have that combination.

By the way, congratulations on the triple crown last year! Three ultras in 10 weeks: Western States, Hardrock, and UTMB.

Thank you.

It's phenomenal. Do you think you can hang up your shoes now, or do you feel like you need to top that? Like, what could possibly be harder?

[Laughter]

I don't know, but I'm not interested in hanging up my shoes yet. And I don't think we need to make challenges that are harder combinations of things; I think going after whatever fires us up is perfect. That was my goal this season: figure out what was drawing me in, what sort of challenges are interesting to me right now, and what should we try this season. But I wasn't trying to combine four races instead of the three, y'know?

Right, right. Did you know you were gonna do it? Like, was it an accident that you did these three major races back-to-back?

Well, kind of. I didn't set out to do it. My original intention for the summer was Western States and Hardrock, which were three weeks apart and really different 100-mile races; one is hot and fast and runnable—and the other is in the big mountains of Colorado with a lot more hiking. So, my original plan was to combine those two and see what that double felt like and see if I could get myself to the finish line of both of those. But after Hardrock, I was really tired and sat on the couch for a week, and then I went out for a little jog and it felt okay, and I decided I didn't want to wonder, 'What if?' So, I thought I should sign up for UTMB and go give it a shot to see if I could squeeze just one more hundred-mile race out of my legs.

And you did! But then you hit the wall at mile sixty or something, right?

Oof. Yeah.

Tell me about that.

Yeah, well, it was one step at a time to get to the finish line after that.

But for forty more miles? What was going on in your head at the time? I'm assuming this was the hardest thing you've had to do.

It was really difficult. I was for sure in that cave chiseling away, and I was also just repeating a mantra over and over in my head; I use mantras quite a bit in races, and the one that came to me in UTMB was Robot, Robot, Robot.

[Laughter]

So, I just kept saying that over and over as reminder of, like, Just do the thing you can do. Keep swinging your legs, keep landing your feet under you, keep doing the thing that you trained for, hoping to somehow keep moving toward to that finish line.

Did you just say, 'Robot, Robot,' or did you make robot noises as well, like, 'Robot, Robot—Beep-Boop-Boop!'?

[Laughter]

Yes, and then I did the robot dance, too.

[Laughter]

So, you're up on the mountain, you're body-popping and doing the robot, then what happens?

[Laughter]

Seriously, though.

So, I think mantras are helpful in taking up space in your brain so that it doesn't whirlpool into that negativity. If I'm taking up space in my brain just saying Robot, Robot, Robot to myself, it's not letting my mind get carried away with how hard it is, how far away the finish line is, how impossible those forty miles in front of me seem to be, and it kinda just calms all the systems. 'Robot', by itself isn't necessarily a super-positive word, but it's also not negative, you know? It's just, like, stay calm and do the thing.

What was it like when you finally reached the finish line at UTMB 2023?

Oh, I was so thankful to get to town and to get to that finish line. And the most special thing was Kevin was right there, right when I finished, and my parents had made the trip over and my brother and his wife had made the trip over, so right away I was getting to bearhug these people that I love so much, and that made it extra special for sure.

That must have been so cool. Plus, it's a tunnel of cheering spectators for a couple of miles at the end, isn't it?

Yeah, it's insane. The energy of the people out on that course and at that finish line is unlike anything else.

Beautiful. Okay, what's next?

This summer, I have Hardrock 100 as my big race that I'm going after. Middle of July here in Colorado.

I'll get some Allen's Party Mix sent out to you from our Prime Minister.

[Laughter]

Oh, that would be so good. Powered by Party Mix would be amazing.

Last question: If you could impart one piece of wisdom to the world, what would it be? I guess you kinda already answered this when you said we're capable of much more than we think we are.

For sure, that would be the message, I think. And that our mindset is really important. The things we tell ourselves in hard moments are important.

Right.

So, we should be positive and believe.