excellence, actually25 Des 2025

Best Of: Courtney Dauwalter — Inside the (Joyful) Mind of an Elite Ultrarunner

Merry Christmas! We're taking a little break, so we're bringing you an episode with an all-time great athlete, Courtney Dauwalter, whose interview, two years later, still delivers some all-time great advice on excellence. Here's the original intro...

01/04/24: Last summer, ultrarunner Courtney Dauwalter did something that had never been done before. She ran three of the sport's most iconic 100-mile races... within 10 weeks of each other... and won all three. (She also set the women's course record on two of them.) It was an incredible achievement, even for someone who has long established herself as one of the greatest ultraunners of all-time. How does she do what she does? Through a rare mixture of joy, curiosity, and intensity that will change how you think about competition and ignite your own self-belief. Here, she talks about what she calls "the triple," why she goes in search of the pain cave, the unique visualizations and mantras that she uses to help her solve problems on the trail (like the time she went 98% blind), and how she manages to always keep "joy in the front seat."

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