The Wild Dog Blog

Tag: training

  • “What Do You Think About When You’re Running?” – Dunes 50K, April 26 2025

    Dunes 50K – 6 hours & 25 minutes – 3rd Overall Female, 13th Overall

    “This is what I’m good at” I keep repeating to myself as I push to the finish, imagining I’m a freight train, legs unstoppable at the end of a race. While most people are starting to walk and wish for the day to be done, I’m coming alive.

    “I’m not the fastest, but I might be the strongest” so I know that if I stay focused, my legs will have no problem with a big effort in the last 6 miles of the race despite the fatigue from hours of running sand dunes in the south Florida heat.

    “This is why I train the way I do. To back down now would be a waste of all of those hours I spent hiking on the treadmill and under a heavy barbell.” By the last few miles of the race, I’m sure I’ve created enough of a gap between myself and the 4th place female that I’ve secured a podium finish, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is finishing knowing I gave my honest best. I don’t want to finish on cruise control, just because I’ve guaranteed myself a spot on the podium. I want to finish right on the edge of what I’m capable of, because that’s why I’m out there. To find out how deep I can dig when it seems impossible that there could be anything left.

    I think about Jasmin Paris who was the first woman to finish the notorious Barkley Marathons. I think about how race director Gary Cantrell aka Lazarus Lake described what she achieved as a “mathematical impossibility.” On paper, she was not capable of doing what she did. She tapped into a reserve that couldn’t be measured and did the impossible.

    I round the final corner of the trail and sprint the last stretch to the finish. “What’s possible for me if I continue to explore?”

  • A Test of Mindfulness

    When I first started ultrarunning, I relied almost entirely on grit to get to the other side of long training runs and tough races. I found myself drawing from a deep well of stubbornness and determination to not be a quitter. 

    This is a strength in its own right and I certainly still play to this side of my mental toughness. But to tap into the next level of performance I’ve found myself focusing less on what I want to avoid – quitting – and focusing more on what I want to cultivate – presence. 

    At the start line, I used to ask myself how gritty I would choose to be and now I ask myself how present I will choose to be. Can I allow the ebb and flow of discomfort and accept and move with whatever comes my way? Can I be so focused on each step that the finish line becomes almost obsolete, a forgotten byproduct of the day?

    The gritty side of mental toughness is useful and has its place no doubt, but to make an ultramarathon a test of mindfulness has brought a new layer of meaning and fulfillment to the adventure.

  • Choose Your Perspective

    At the start of the year, I pivoted from owning a gym and coaching strength and endurance in person to moving my business, Wild Dog Athletics, entirely online and only providing coaching and programming remotely. Even though I was 100% confident in my decision, I found myself feeling a little fear and uncertainty around losing what I had always considered to be one of my coaching “superpowers” – my ability to connect and relate to others. 

    Putting effort into cultivating a personal relationship with each athlete I work with has long been foundational to my coaching philosophy. While this wouldn’t change as I moved online, I was concerned about the organic opportunities for connection and bonding that would be lost when I was no longer seeing an athlete in person on a weekly basis.

    As I moved forward, I realized that not only was this fear unfounded as I came up with new ways to stay connected from afar – but that I could also replace my fear with curiosity. How would my “superpower(s)” evolve in the next iteration of Wild Dog Athletics? What new potential would I discover? How would I be able to serve others in completely new ways? 

    I didn’t have to deny that things were changing to escape my fear – I had to embrace that things were changing because it’s precisely through change and uncertainty that new possibilities make themselves known. That’s not something to be afraid of, that’s something to celebrate. 

    When things change, you can either take the perspective of everything you stand to lose or take the perspective of everything you have to gain. Which perspective will you choose as we enter the second quarter of the year?

  • Raise Your Floor

    At the start of last summer, my goal for running was to “raise my floor.” Living in south Florida means accepting a performance drop over the summer due to the extreme heat. But how much better could I make my hardest days in the hardest conditions? They may not come close to my best performances in cooler weather, but I believed there was still improvement to be had. 

    I was right. I surprised myself with the paces I could sustain in 90+ degree temps while keeping my effort and heart rate under control. I had improved from the previous summer and continued to improve all summer long. I successfully raised my floor. By the time the weather started cooling down in October, I felt physically and mentally fit and prepared to spend the better weather of the winter season raising my ceiling with faster efforts and bigger miles. 

    Surrendering to a challenging season doesn’t mean we lay down in defeat. It means we make the most of what we’ve been handed so when the better weather eventually rolls in, as it always does, it finds us ready and willing. 

    If you’re not in a season of raising your ceiling, how could you be raising your floor so that you’re ready to level up when the time comes?

    Wild Dog Athletics offers individualized remote strength and endurance coaching to help you stay on track toward your goals, in all seasons of life. Go to: https://www.wilddogathletics.com/ to learn more about who we are, what we do, and how we do it.

  • Friction Creates Traction

    Friction creates traction and traction is necessary for propelling forward. Have you ever tried to run or walk on snow and ice? Without enough friction between the sole of your shoe and the ground, it’s almost impossible to push off without your foot slipping backward and away from you. The power of your gait becomes limited, and moving forward happens slowly and gingerly.

    We often resist and resent the challenges that show up in our lives without realizing that the friction they create can provide the necessary traction for propelling us forward.

    What challenges have you endured in the past that in hindsight you can acknowledge led to a larger lesson or greater growth? Reflect on this now and as you face new challenges in the future. Doing so can be a reminder of your ability to endure, and of the possible meaning to be discovered if you keep moving forward.

  • Like Kids Playing on a Playground

    Play must be a part of movement for it to be sustainable and for it to actually change who you are. For all the talk of goals – where is the talk of play? I don’t mean it’s always “fun” – although it certainly can be and maybe is often. By “play,” I mean playing the way a child plays – doing the thing for no other reason than the doing itself. 

    At what point did you lose your recognition of the joy in the doing? At what point did you start judging the value of a pursuit solely based on its outcome? I’ve said it a thousand times and I’ll keep saying it: outcomes are fleeting, uncontrollable, and unpredictable – making it impossible for them to be lasting sources of fulfillment. 

    But the doing is not fleeting and is within our control. The doing is forever and never has to end. The doing is a bottomless well of fulfillment – you can draw as much joy, excitement, and inspiration from it as your intent allows. 

    To move and train and compete like kids playing on a playground means that as good as achievement feels, it doesn’t really matter. You show up and play regardless. Because getting to put your heart into something is the cake and anything that follows is a cherry on top.

  • Honor Your Curiosities

    It’s 2023 and I’m on the edge of my couch, with my face in my hands, watching my alma mater Florida Atlantic University lose and get knocked out of the championship in their first ever trip to the Final Four. I’ve never been a basketball fan. But the hype of watching FAU beat the odds all season long got me hooked. The let-down of their loss starts to sink in as I spoon the last of a pint of ice cream into my mouth and watch the camera pan across the players’ faces of despair and disbelief. I’m depressed – but at the same time – another familiar feeling starts to rise to the surface.

    That night, I type into Google “basketball coaches near me.” I’m 27 years old and I’ve decided I’m going to take a basketball lesson. When I tell my friends and family, they laugh and ask me “why?” The best reason I can come up with is because I watched March Madness, which doesn’t make it any more logical, and probably makes it less logical. But the truth is, I can’t tell them why because there is no reason why. It’s not logical. It’s curiosity.

    While the basketball lesson did not, shockingly, lead to a WNBA career – it did lead me to think about how often my actions are driven by curiosity without reason, without needing to know where something will lead or why I’m doing it, and how my life has unfolded with possibility in ways I never could have predicted as a result.

    In 2018, I ran a 7 mile trail race and saw other runners at the same race completing 50 miles and 100 miles. I thought that looked like a pretty cool accomplishment and adventure – so despite 13 miles being the longest I had ever run at that time, I came back and ran the 50 mile distance the next year. I’ve been traveling the country running ultramarathons ever since.

    In 2021, I was watching Katie Ledecky dominate swimming at the Tokyo Olympics. I thought the swimmers looked so beautiful and free in the water, and suddenly felt drawn to being in the water myself. I had no swimming experience and had felt no interest in swimming up until that exact moment. I signed up for a local masters swim team that week to learn, and have been swimming ever since – competing at Masters Nationals, in local triathlons, and in long distance open water swims.

    When I made the decision to try both ultrarunning and swimming on somewhat of a whim, I was predictably asked “why?” by my friends and family. And early on, I didn’t have an answer for them or even for myself. All I had was that little spark of curiosity and interest, and an unrestrained instinct to act on that spark – no matter how seemingly small or illogical. In fact, if I look back on my life, the most meaningful and transformative pursuits started without a clear “why.” The why was something I slowly pieced together over time once I was actually out there doing the thing. In a culture that constantly preaches the importance of “knowing your why,” it turns out knowing your why, at least initially, is not all that important and life changing.

    What’s important and life changing is honoring your curiosities and interests by taking action. Giving yourself permission to not know why in order to try, to not need to make your actions logical to other people or even to yourself. If you wait for an obvious and logical reason to act, I think you’ll be waiting your whole life. Some people do wait their whole lives and will always wonder what could have been. Some people wait until their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and wish they would have started sooner. As a strength and endurance coach, I hear that story all the time.

    Take the basketball lesson. Tune in and act on that spark of curiosity you’ve been dismissing just because you can’t come up with a clear why. It might lead to very little, like my basketball lesson did, and that’s okay. But it also might lead to adding surprising new chapters to your story that you never could have written while sitting on your couch waiting and wondering. In my experience, you’ll find that when you act, the why you’ve been waiting for has actually been waiting for you.

    Ready to act on your curiosities? Wild Dog Athletics provides online coaching and programming to help you reach your goals and embark on new adventures. Go to: https://www.wilddogathletics.com/ to learn more.

  • Life is Like an Ultramarathon

    When I show up at the start line of an ultramarathon, I expect to be challenged and tested. I expect obstacles. I expect to get tossed around a bit and I don’t expect everything to go my way.

    Life is like an ultramarathon – some days we get handed triumph, and some days we get handed tribulation – and which one we’re handed on any given day is completely out of our control. Most people know this, but still don’t expect it, so when things get tough they’re surprised and unprepared.

    To approach life like an ultramarathon means expecting and preparing to face challenges so that when they arrive we’re able to endure them and make use of them. I’ve run enough ultras to now know that struggle is either a price I have to pay or something that can pay me. I can fear it and resist it, or I can accept it and be curious about who it’s asking me to become.

  • Focus on Your Own Lane

    When I first started swimming on a local masters team I learned very quickly that focusing on what someone else was doing in their lane – how fast they were swimming or how many laps they were doing – distracted me from my own pursuit of getting better. In an effort to try to keep up with the person next to me I would swim frantically and lose control of my technique which obviously didn’t help me swim any faster and only reinforced bad habits. It took a lot of discipline to learn how to focus on my own lane and trust that with patience and intentional effort the rest would follow. 

    How often do you get distracted by what someone else is doing in their lane? It’s easy to get caught up in what other people are doing and where you feel like you’re falling short. But this type of comparison only leads to rushing the process and frantic decision making which will slow your progress in the long term. To stay focused on your own lane is to do the hard thing of accepting the part of the process you’re in and seeking satisfaction in the work itself.

  • Prepare to the Best of Your Ability

    Prepare to the best of your ability so that when you win, you can take pride in knowing you’ve earned it. 

    Prepare to the best of your ability so that when you lose, you can take comfort in knowing you did everything within your knowledge and power to give yourself a shot. 

    I’ve been on both sides of the table. Backed by months and months of relentless preparation and work, I’ve won and felt the satisfaction of the outcome matching the input. Conversely, after allowing some gaps in my game to go unaddressed, I’ve lost and felt the disappointment in reflecting on all of the ways I could have prepared better.

    What does preparing to the best of your ability mean to you? To me it means not cutting corners or leaving any stone unturned – in my sport, in the gym, in my lifestyle choices, and in how I’m training my mind. I try to pass this along to my athletes because winning and losing will always be outside of their control. But how they prepare will determine how they feel about themselves when they stand on top of the podium or walk away empty handed. And isn’t that what matters most?

    Wild Dog Athletics has 1 new athlete spot open for March. Go to https://www.wilddogathletics.com/ to learn how I go beyond the program to help you prepare for your big goals and wild adventures.