Becs Gentry Recaps Her Extraordinary Journey Running 7 Marathons on 7 Continents in 7 Days

Episode Transcript
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Rob Simmelkjaer (00:00):
New York Road Runners is a non- profit organization with
a vision to build healthier lives and stronger communities through
the transformative power of running. The support of members and
donors like you helps us achieve our mission to transform
the health and well- being of our communities through inclusive
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(00:21):
Learn more and contribute at nyrr. org/ donate.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Thank you, New York. Today, we're reminded of the power
of community and the power of coming together, athletes, on
your mark.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
The first woman to finish for the second straight year
here in the New York City Marathon is Miki Gorman, a smiling
Miki Gorman, and why not? 2

Soeaker 4 (00:53):
Look at the emotion of Shalane Flanagan as she comes
to the line. Pointing to his chest, pointing to the
USA, he's so proudly wears across his chest. A great
day for (inaudible) McCluskey.

Hey everybody, and welcome to another edition of Set the
Pace, the official podcast of New York Road Runners. We
are presented by Peloton, and I'm your host, Rob Simmelkjaer.
I'm the CEO of New York Road Runners. With me
here, still recovering, I've got to imagine from her unbelievable
world adventure, Becs Gentry from Peloton. Hi Becs, how are you?

Becs Gentry (01:32):
Hi. I am doing very well, thank you. Aside from
calling myself a bear who wants to be in hibernation
with this gray sky right now. Otherwise, I'm rolling.

Yeah, we finally got some rain around here the last
few weeks. It'd been so sunny for so long, but so
dry. So the rain's a good thing, but yes, it
can definitely lead to some days that make it hard
to get up and motivate hard even to get up
and motivate to run. I'm really curious, Becs, to hear
about what you've been doing since the Great World Race.

(02:06):
And by the way, today's the day that we're going
to really go in deep with Becs to hear all
about this incredible adventure. That's right. Becs is our interview guest today,
so I can't wait, Becs, because there's so many questions
I've been wanting to ask you about that trip, about
those runs, about just how you feel coming out of

(02:28):
that. So a little bit later on in the show,
it's going to be all about Becs and the Great World
Race. I can't wait to hear it. Are you ready?
Are you ready for me to grill you?

I am, actually, I feel like I am. It's starting
to become something that is being processed in my mind,
so of all the people to ask the questions first,
this is the best podcast for it to be on.

Appreciate that. Thank you. And I know our listeners are so curious.

They are. And we have a little extra as well, Rob,
as well. We are not just going to be hearing
from me today, though, a little surprise for you. Joining
us later in place of our usual member moment interview,
we are going to be joined by the woman who
claimed the crown in this year's Great World Race, my

(03:13):
wonderful friend Hillary Kupish will be joining to help with
this debrief.

Wow. Can't wait to hear from her and what it
took to beat you and so many others over those
seven marathons in seven days on seven continents. So that
sounds awesome. So we'll talk to Hillary a little bit
later on as well. And then Meb will still be with
us later in the episode for our weekly Meb minute.
Today's tip from Meb is all about hydrating during those

(03:40):
winter runs, whether you're up here in the northeast or just
running in temperatures colder than you're used to. That's actually
something I sometimes have to remember is just because it's
cold doesn't mean you don't need to drink water. So
Meb will give us some tips on that. Before we
dive into our conversations with Becs and Hillary, this past
Saturday, we hosted the Ted Corbitt 15K in Central Park

(04:02):
honoring one of my predecessors and the first ever president
of New York Road Runners, they call him the father
of American long- distance running Ted Corbitt. We were joined
by more than 4, 000 runners who braved a very
cold morning to celebrate the life and legacy of Ted
Corbitt. And Becs, we thank them every week, but this week, I
think a special and big thank you to our staff

(04:24):
and our volunteers who went out in some very cold
temperatures and they didn't get to run. And I went out
and I ran just to frankly stay warm, Becs. And
that really did help, although, it took a while. But
thanks to everybody out there because it was a chilly
day and we had a nice crowd on hand. But
thanks again to all of our folks who helped put
this race on. Big congrats to our winners, by the

(04:46):
way, from last Saturday. For the women, it was Erin
Gregoire with a time of 53:02 from the Brooklyn Track
Club. The non- binary winner was Abdoulaye Sow from the
Bronx Burners and the men's winner was Owen Ritz with the time of 46:
53. Owen hailing from the New York Athletic Club.

Wow, what incredible times on that cold day, I was
thinking of you all whilst I was here teaching my
Peloton class in the warmth of the Treads studio, but
it did look like everyone was smiling and had the
festive fun with them in those miles. So yes, big
thanks to those volunteers. It's something that I always say
to runners whenever people ask me about tips for their

(05:28):
first races, no matter what distance, one of the things
I always tell them is thank the volunteers while you're
running. If you forget while you're running, thank them at
the finish line. Just make sure you get a thanks
out there because those people show up, they stand in
the cold, the wet, the hot sun, and they make
sure that we're all safe to do the runs. So
big (inaudible) .

A 100% our head of volunteers at New York Road
Runners, a woman named Donna Finney always says, " When you
see a volunteer, thank a volunteer." And that was definitely
a good day to thank them on Saturday and those
frigid temperatures.

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Well, we've been talking about it for months here on
Set the Pace. And so if you listen to us
here or you follow her on Instagram or take her classes, you know
that my true beast of a co- host, Becs Gentry,
has just completed an incredible physical and mental test, seven
marathons in seven days on seven continents. And now, we

(07:09):
finally get to hear all the skinny on Becs's incredible
adventure. So, Becs, first of all, again, congratulations.

Thank you.

I'm so in awe of you. I have been ever
since you even said you were taking this challenge on.
And so the first question I want to ask you
is why, and I don't think we really ever dug
into the why you decided to do this and take
this on. So when you were first approached about it,

(07:36):
what was the thing that made you want to do this?

I was essentially inspired by David Kilgore, who we had
on as a guest on Set the Pace a while
ago to discuss the Great World Race. So he was
my kickstarter of, can I do this? Should I do
this? But my why is I'd say twofold, Rob, it

(08:00):
is my daughter. I want to be able to tell
her the boundaries that were put in place for women
before my time and the boundaries that were broken through
during my time as a female athlete, as a female
in this world. And to show her that no matter
how you identify, you can do anything that you put

(08:22):
your mind to, but you have to work for it.
And this to me was a prime example. It hit
my other why, which was me. And some people may
say that's selfish, but in order to inspire other people,
to light up other people, I have to make sure
that my light is still bright. And in order to

(08:43):
do that, I am not necessarily somebody who goes shopping
and that fills up my cup. I want to adventure,
I want to experience things. I want to create personal memories
and anecdotes and experiences that I can share with my
family and friends and beyond. And weirdly, it's running. And

(09:04):
so I've always loved adventure running. That's where I started
going around the world to do funny races here and
there, unheard of races. And so I thought, what better
than the Great World Race to go around the world
in seven days and take on the challenge of running
a marathon in every single continent?

Becs, we sometimes have guests on the podcast, female runners,
moms who run marathons and do it really well. And
one of the challenges I know is just fitting all
this stuff in, the training, the actual race. I'm curious what
it was like when you first brought this idea home

(09:45):
to your husband, to your young daughter, like, " Hey, I'm
going to do this crazy thing." And not only obviously
the time you'd be traveling for the race, but I
mean, the amount of time you have to be training.
How much of a team effort did this have to
be to even get ready for this for you and your family?

Oh, golly. This was a huge team effort. So Austin
was actually the nudge to my acceptance of doing this
race. I wanted to do it, but he is my
biggest cheerleader. He believes in me more than I believe
in me most of the time. And he was so

(10:24):
encouraging for me to do this race. And we sat
down and I said, " You understand that if I do
this for most of this year, I'm going to be
stepping back from parenting duties on an equal level to
you. You're going to have to do a little bit
more for me to be able to succeed in the training.
I can't half- ass this in the long." That was the long and short of it.

(10:48):
And he's super dad, he's an absolute super dad. He's
born to be a father. He's incredible with Tallulah. So at
the start of the training, it was difficult. I hate
missing wake up time. I hate missing bedtime. There's the
two things in my life that I think are going
to disappear very soon. She's going to be an independent
woman who doesn't want me to wake her up, doesn't

(11:09):
want me to cuddle her and read her books to
bed. And so I cherish those times and even missing
one a week really plagues me with guilt. So I had
to get through that by myself of it's temporary, this
is something that's going to be a very good example
for her in the long run. And then Austin just

(11:30):
is a very good at getting up early, which is
fantastic. So the days when I went out even earlier,
he's great at getting up, getting himself his coffee and
starting his daily routine before Tallulah wakes up because thank
whoever above this child loves to sleep. So she goes
down easy and more often than not, she will sleep

(11:52):
till 7
eight o'clock.

Wow. Wow. What a gift.

Yeah, we can actually get some work done. We can
actually both start our days relatively well before Tallulah's normally
up. And there were days because I trained through spring
and summer in New York, there were days where actually
I'd got my workout done by the time she was up
and running so I could still drop her off at
school or spend an hour with her before our nanny
arrived. So the daylight being longer hours was really in

(12:23):
my favor to still be a mom on a level that
made me feel happy.

Yeah, that's a good time of year to be able to do this in the fall
when you've got those long summer hours to work with,
it's so much harder to train over the winter months
when there's no light.

It is.

So before we even get to the start backs, the
journey to the starting line, I always tell people the
hardest thing about running a marathon is getting to the
starting line. You had to get to seven starting lines.
And I'm just wondering, and I know you had some bumps
along the way in training, you had the incident with
your bed post.

For the natural bump.

Yes, where you banged your foot on the bed and that
set your foot back quite a bit. But how many
doubts did you have along the way as to whether
you could pull this off?

Oh gosh, at the start, there was a lot, because
I had sort of said yes to it along the
same time that I ran Tokyo Marathon, should I say,
and I got my six star medal and I felt very
good about it. However, I didn't enjoy running the Tokyo
Marathon. I don't know whether I was just falling out

(13:31):
of love with marathon road racing or whatever was going
on. Also, I've admitted this on many of platform, I
didn't train to the extent I'm used to training for
Tokyo Marathon. I went into it in my personal opinion
rather undertrained, so therefore underprepared, which leads me to understand
why I didn't enjoy it. So I think once I

(13:53):
started getting into the routine, I sort of felt like, "
Oh my gosh, this isn't enough because this is what
I should be training for one marathon, not seven, as
you said." And I think just as the mileage started
to increase and I was really tired or I was
searching for ways to just add in mileage in my
day, it was quite overwhelming at the start. And I did

(14:17):
have to sit down and just think, okay, what can
I do to make this " easier" for myself? Even though
it's going to get harder, I just had to make
it more manageable, more doable because the more obstacles that were
in the way, the easier it is for me as
an Aries to just go, I'm good, I'm just going

(14:38):
to step back and not do this because it's not
the way I want it to be. So I sat down and I looked at my
work schedule, I looked at my social schedule and I
carved out ways to add in miles. Now, I'm very
lucky, I live in New York. New York is one
of the most highly populated cities for runners. Everyone runs,

(15:02):
and I know a lot of our listeners might be
based in locations where it possibly isn't that safe to
run to work, to the grocery store, to whatever appointment.
I am very lucky, I choose to live here, so
it's not all luck, but I am able to redirect
my commute to foot and that's what I did. I'd

(15:23):
send my Peloton outfits or anything I needed for the
rest of the day. I used to send my laptop
here in an Uber car on a Tuesday morning. So
I'd run here, set up my laptop, then we'd record
the podcast. And it was all very manipulated for my
success. And I don't mean success is in my win,

(15:43):
but in my success to me in that time was
just happiness and feeling that I had done what I
could do the best I could do day by day,
week by week to get my training in. And that's
where it had to be on a sort of daily
basis. I wanted to make sure when I went to
bed and I looked at my Coros app that I

(16:04):
was like, " Yeah, I made the most out of that
day." And that was a really good lesson for me to
learn in the long run of, okay, make the most out
of your day really, especially in summer in New York
City, nobody cares if you turn up sweaty because everybody
is turning up sweaty. So again, train for ultras in summer.

I couldn't agree more. All right, so you get on
the flight, you get yourself to South Africa, Cape Town, which
is your first staging ground for the first race in
Antarctica, and the first race started a day early, so the
whole thing started a day early.

Yeah.

Why did that happen and how did that affect you?

Oh my goodness. So let me just say the flight from
New York to South Africa was so daunting. Austin literally
stayed at the security on the other side in LaGuardia
until I had gone around the corner. I think he
was so worried that if he left, I would just
run back out and be like, " I'm not doing it. I'm not doing
it." He stood there like a security guard watching me

(17:04):
go through. And so once I got there and I
had all of this idea that I was going to go
sit in the Delta lounge and have a glass of
champagne, and then I was like, no, I'm so nervous. I can't even, no.
I just sat there with a glass of water, sort
of shivering with nerves. And then I got to South
Africa. I had a wonderful flight. I actually ended up
meeting about four other runners from the US that were

(17:27):
on the flight from Atlanta to Cape Town, which was
lovely because that immediately got the conversation flowing. I think
people's nerves were relaxed. I had a wonderful air hostess
on the flight who she could not believe what we
were all doing. I was, I think, the only mom
and I was by myself, and she was a mom

(17:49):
of two I think as well, older kids. She just
took me under her wing and she kept just bringing
me over the nicest champagne to drink. I think I
had about four glasses of champagne and was like, " I
got to stop." I do not normally. I don't normally drink
that much ever and be on a flight. I was like, "
Oh geez." But it was a 15- hour flight. So I

(18:12):
watched the movies. I had a good cry because we
all know we cry more when we're in altitude. That's
my excuse, anyway, and I slept and woke up and
I was in South Africa and felt, thank goodness, fine.
We all got off the flight, got to the hotel, we
were supposed to have... So the next day was going
to be briefings, and then we'd have Thursday as a

(18:33):
free day to organize ourselves. And then Friday morning was
takeoff to Antarctica. So I have family in South Africa,
my mom's side of the family reside there. I was so excited
to see my aunt, my uncle, my cousins who I
haven't seen in 10 to 15 years, something like that. So we
went for the briefing, and David Kelly, the race director
just says, " Okay, great, got some updates for you. We

(18:55):
will be leaving for Antarctica at 4
Silence. The whole room went from this buzzy, excitable hum
to dead silence, and I think I definitely burst out
laughing because I thought it was a joke, was like, "
Yeah, a way to crack the ice, David, hilarious." I

(19:16):
think everyone else was like, " Ha, ha, ha, great joke." And he was like, "
No," this is Irish guy. He's very straight down the
line. He was like, " No, I'm serious. We're going to
Antarctica in the morning. We have to leave early." So there was
a huge weather front that come into Antarctica, a huge
storm coming in that would've meant if we'd have gone

(19:36):
on Friday, we would've risked having almost whiteout conditions for
running. But that wasn't the worst. It would've been potentially
getting stuck in Antarctica, which is the worst, or the
options were pull it forward a day or push it
back by five days. So the logistics team of the Great
World Race took the good idea of pulling it forward

(19:59):
a day. And so that was it. I mean, I
don't like change like that, but honestly, it was probably
since having Tallulah who arrived three weeks early, I've really
had to come to terms with the fact that life
does throw you curveballs and you have to be able
to pivot quite quickly. So thank goodness, the past two
years I've really honed that skill in and I just

(20:19):
sat there like, " Oh, this is going to be insane.
The rest of my afternoon is going to be awful."
Yeah. But I think in hindsight, having lunch with my
cousins and my family was a good distraction for a
couple of hours. And then once they left, I was
in my hotel room just organizing everything, I had packed,

(20:40):
organized and ready to go, but we just had to
get one bag ready for Antarctica, and then we had
to have everything else ready because once we arrived back
from Antarctica, we had a few hours sleep, literally two
hours sleep. We ran the Cape Town leg and then
we were leaving, then we were going. So everything had
to be organized and in its place. So that was

(21:03):
just, yeah, it was pivoting, it was going with the
emotions and getting it done.

So you get to Antarctica, good conditions?

Perfect, absolutely beautiful. You know what? It was sunny.

Sunny, beautiful, the pictures looked amazing.

Blue sky, it wasn't even that cold.

Like what?

When we landed, it was minus 12 Fahrenheit when we landed, so
it was pretty cold. So below zero for everybody, let's
say, let's just call it that, it was below zero
for every, whenever you measure your weather in.

Temperature in. Yeah, that's pretty cold.

Yeah, it was pretty cold, but there wasn't wind, which was the
scary thing is that you could have 40, 50 mile per
hour freezing winds in your face. So we were layered
up and I definitely took off my outer shell layer
within the first two miles of the race, and I took off
my huge thick gloves within the first four miles of

(21:59):
the race.

And you're running on an ice road basically?

Essentially, yeah. Half of it was actually the runway that
we landed on with the plane, and then the other
half was groomed around the White Desert. They were the
organization company that took us to Antarctica around their sort
of base camp because they do expeditions there. And so
half of it was, as you say, ice, the runway,
it was compact, the other half was running on sand

(22:23):
in snow. It was uneven, it was deep and it
was not enjoyable. So yeah, that was about a mile.

And you're running laps back, I mean, is it a bunch of laps around a track, four laps?

Four 10K laps of that, and I say about a mile and a half of
it was unpleasant and the rest was pretty good.

And you felt good about your race in Antarctica? I mean, I don't know what-

I felt okay.

... your expectations were in a race, in an environment like that, wearing I'm sure not normal running
shoes, right?

I did actually run in my Vaporflies.

Wow.

Yeah.

In the snow?

In the snow. Yeah.

You had enough traction with those?

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because it was groomed and it's
compact ice. I mean, it's just ice. There's nothing underneath,
there's no tarmac anywhere. It's all ice. So it was
hard. And they were great. They were absolutely great because
it wasn't windy. My feet didn't get that cold, but
I did have the layers on, the base layer sock
and then the wool sock and then the shoe, and

(23:18):
I felt good. My only issue with Antarctica was that
it was very difficult to hydrate because when they poured
us water, it froze immediately, and I hate drinking cold
water even on the hottest of days. So I found
it very difficult to take on board hydration. I normally
run with my hydration in my hand, but obviously you
couldn't do that because it would freeze. Even taking gels

(23:39):
was just like, this is so different to everything I
know about running. I struggled to take on it, I should
have taken on more gels and I got a slight cramp.
My stomach, I had GI issues, so that was a
lot going on, but I was pretty happy with finishing.
I think it was around a 3
like that, which is great.

Which is unbelievable. Yeah, it was incredible. And so Antarctica
is a day trip, right?

Yes.

You finished that thing, you're right back to Cape Town, night
in Cape Town, and then what's the route you're running
in Cape Town for day number two?

So we got into Cape Town at around 3
in the morning. We got back and we went to
bed and we were starting the South Africa race at
around 7

Wow, so very little sleep.

It was six loops on the waterfront outside of the
Winchester Hotel, basically in Cape Town. So it wasn't down at
the waterfront in front of the Victoria and Alfred, but all
of that, it wasn't anything that you would know really unless
you know South Africa, Cape Town very well. But it
was fine. It was great. It was unfortunately all on

(24:46):
cement, so it was quite a lot of impact on
the body, especially after Antarctica. So I sort of felt
a little bit of that hamstring cramp effect, the pulling
of my muscles. I felt it a little bit in my foot
that day, but just sort of brushed it aside as, "
Hey, you're running another marathon within 24 hours. This one's
on concrete. You're used to running on tarmac, blah, blah,

(25:07):
blah, blah, blah." There's so many excuses in your head.
But that race was pivotal in my understanding of the
friendships that I was going to make on that race.
I was already good friends with David Kilgore. You all
know that. And for him, he had for him a
rougher race. He wasn't blazing it. I can't quite remember

(25:30):
what the cause was, but the girls, we'd formed a
bond in Antarctica, and we sort of cemented it that
day and we picked him up because he was sort
of flagging a bit, and I was like, " Kilgore, come on,
join us, join our group." Then we had another awesome
Irish guy called Jeff Pendergrass. He was running with us
too. So there were seven of us running in total

(25:51):
in that group, and we stuck together. We pulled through
when we all really had moments in that race where
we were like, "Oof, okay, maybe this isn't going to be
as fun or as easy or as whatever we thought
it would be on day two," and we got each other
through, and that was when we came over the finish
line, all seven of us holding hands in the air

(26:12):
and really, really did make me understand, okay, you can
be friends with somebody. I don't see David and his
wife, Molly, a lot in New York. We all travel,
we all have very busy lives, but when we're together, I
can actually say he's a very good friend, and especially
after that day, and then that included Hillary, Shereen, Ash,

(26:33):
Jenny, it was just, that was it, the ball was rolling on those
really deep friendships.

I love it. I love it. So cool. If you're going to bond, that's a pretty good way to
bond with someone is traveling around the world with them
running marathons, seven straight days, so I can only imagine
you're all going through the same thing. Okay. Right after
that, you're off to Australia and that's got to be,
I'm guessing, is that the longest flight of the race or-

That was the second longest.

... no, maybe second longest? Yeah.

Yeah. It was the second longest. So very similar. It was about a 15
or so hour flight. We were all really excited to
get on that flight.

Sleep?

Yes. It was also the first time we were seeing our jet, the charter
jet. It was a commercial jet, but a charter jet,
the one that the Rolling Stones had used for their
last world tour.

Wow.

I was really excited to get on this plane to
find our home for the rest of the week as
well. We all coined the phrase our rowmies, whoever we were in
a row with, that was our rowmy for the week,
and it was kind of cute. I felt really like
a kid who'd run away from home and I've got
my little backpack, my snacks. It was just all surreal. So we all got

(27:42):
on that flight, we all passed out, all of us
in our different recovery boots and face masks and noise-
canceling headphones. Everybody had their jam that they had worked
for them in training and was there, and then yeah,
we got to Australia and it was just so quick.
That one to me was the quickest. It was, we

(28:05):
landed, and I'll tell you, when we landed that day,
I felt awful that it was a really bumpy landing
and we were on a very big plane, so it
felt like I was at Deep Sea fishing boat coming
into land, or I've never been on one. That's how
I imagine from watching lots of movies. And I felt
nauseous, I felt just really off and was like, " Oh God, this is

(28:30):
going to be a terrible race." Just thinking in my
head, you're starting a marathon again in the next couple
of hours.

Right off the plane.

Right off the plane. We had a 15- minute journey, so we grabbed our bags,
we got on buses and it was all very quick,
straight through customs at Perth Airport. We got on the
buses, we drove 15 minutes to the track near a
stadium in Perth. I completely forget the name of the
stadium. Beautiful. It was beautiful. And I will say the

(28:58):
people there, the track, the athletics club were incredibly welcoming. They
were so vibrant and funny. The Australians are just such
funny people and so, so sweet. They had everything laid
out for us, and it was all set up wonderfully.
There was some Peloton members there, which surprised me, and
they came and brought me my favorite Australian biscuits, which

(29:18):
are Tim Tams. And so it was all like, I was like, "Okay, I'm starting to feel good, starting to feel
better." And then we got to the start line and they changed
the course. So it was supposed to be six laps.
They turned it to 12. So it was essentially a mile
and a bit out and backs, which was the first
time that we faced that. And it was difficult to

(29:38):
wrap my head around. I'm not a track girl. I
like running a long way in a straight line. That's my favorite
thing to do. So doing these repeats was a little
bit concerning, but with the help that was on hand,
had an incredible Peloton member called Nancy who worked for
the Athletics Club, and she's an ultra runner out there
in Perth, and just a big shout- out to her.

(29:59):
She was my savior that day. Anything I needed, she
was just there with it. She almost like she could read
my mind. She knew when my hydration was running out
and she grabbed my bottle and go and fill it up for me
and put my hydration sachet in. And again, the girls,
we stuck together. So Hillary, Ash, Shereen, and I, we

(30:22):
always took the first few miles to find our grooves
individually, and then there was never a handshake or whatever you
want to call it, an agreement. It was just, let's
see how we all feel. If we end up together,
great. If not, we're all going to still love each
other and have a great run. This one, we stuck
together again, and we actually got quite professional, Rob. We were
doing flying formations, getting in the front, swapping each other

(30:44):
in. It just turned into so much fun and as much as I didn't...

Like the Peloton.

Exactly, exactly, like the Peloton. And as much as I
didn't want to love the 12 out and backs or
10, I can't remember, it was a lot. It was
really fun to go through the start and finish that many
times and see the people and also to see the
other runners. We got to high- five 57 of us,

(31:09):
all running together. We got to high- five each other
hundreds of times, and that made it really sink in
that we are a big team doing this. We're a
bunch of individuals who agreed to it, but we've become this
team who are doing it together. And yeah, it was
really, it was kind of wild. The room that the
Athletics Club had us in looked like a housing, like

(31:31):
what's they called? Natural disaster housing area. It was just
mess, suitcases a mess, and people laying on the floor
after the race recovering. But it was just part of
the adventure.

And as I recall from your results, you started to get
better too. I mean, Antarctica was hard obviously, but I
think you did quite well, if I recall, in Perth, which is
surprising given the flight you just got off of, you
turned around right after this race and flew to Istanbul, right?

Exactly.

There was no night spent in Australia, am I correct?

There was nothing. Yeah, no. So we literally were, as soon as everyone was
done, I honestly think the last runners ran from the
finish line onto the bus, and we went to the
airport, we got straight on the flight. That was the
quickest I have ever gotten to an airport. They handed
us our boarding passes and we got straight through customs and
straight onto an airplane, and we flew to Istanbul. So

(32:22):
again, that was about a 14- hour flight. Again, sleep,
and Istanbul, we had Asia and Europe, and I would
say that was just probably the worst arrival was Istanbul
when we got there, it was raining, it was dark, it
was nighttime. The course looked like a jackhammer had been

(32:43):
taken to the pavement. The fishermen who were doing what
they do every day, fishing for their food, didn't want
to move understandably, but it was unsafe for us all
to be running because they were sort of blocking the
pathway. So we had to wait, and then it got
really cold and it was just a logistical nightmare, not just for

(33:04):
us as runners, but for the team as well, the
logistical team for David Kelly and everybody. They were trying
their best to make it function quickly, but every minute
we delayed, the start was time away from sleeping. So
obviously, there's runners. The girls and I were running around
three hour marathons at this point, but you have to
remember, we had eight hours to complete the race, and there

(33:26):
were runners using every single second of that eight hours.
So the longer we delayed the race, especially for those
runners, they were then risking having little to no sleep
at all before their next race. So it was a
little bit stressful. Again, the race had to be cut

(33:46):
short, so we were... Not the race, the route had
to be cut short, so we were doing multiple.

More laps.

And this one was the shortest, Rob, it was, I
think, a kilometer out of that.

Oh my goodness. So you're doing over 40 of those?

Yeah, it was wild. It was really wild. Yeah, 22
times we saw the start finish, I think before, it
was just so much, and then again, we started together.
I had terrible GI issues for this one, so I
spent quite the last, I'd say five plus miles running
by myself, which again was fine because we had the

(34:20):
camaraderie of all the other runners. We were high-fiving.

You've seen them. Yeah.

Yeah. So it didn't feel like I was by myself, but
in my head I was like, " Oh my gosh, I
haven't got my girls, this is suddenly got more difficult.
I'm tired. I was wet, it's cold." And then I
saw Ash on one of my last turnarounds and she
was like, " Go catch me up. Catch me up." And
I did crack out a 6
was. I think we had 6

(34:44):
told me to catch her up, I ran a 6:
12. I caught her up and we ran the last
couple of loops together and finished together on that race,
which was really nice to just finish again with one
of my girls side by side. An hour or so
later, we got to the hotel in Istanbul, maybe two. It was

(35:04):
probably two hours from when we finished, and just, yeah,
it's just weird. You're arriving at a hotel in the small
hours of the morning knowing you've got to get up
and run a race early the next day, but you
want to have a shower. Ash and I shared a
room and we were just getting our kit out. It
was just like being at camp again. We didn't eat

(35:25):
that night, which was really not good. We didn't eat
after the race. There wasn't food there, and it was so late.

That's tough.

That was really tough. But we were in a hotel,
so we knew the next morning there would be breakfast
at the hotel. So I think we were all really plowing in the field.

Must've gone crazy for that breakfast, absolutely.

Yeah. But again, knowing you've got to run another marathon pretty quickly
after you eat.

On the other side of the Bosphorus to get the Asian leg in. And was
the route any different, any better over there or more
or less the same?

It was longer. It was a little longer. I think
it was back to being about two miles out, so
maybe it was 10 laps of that one, which was
better. But this is the one where my foot really started to give me some
pain. So I started...

Your foot, you'd banged on your bed?

No, the irony being it was other foot.

Other foot, interesting.

This is I'd got cramp in my right leg or just
verge on the edge of cramp in Antarctica and what
the physio and the doctor on the trip thought was
that the posterior fascia in my right leg had tightened
up so much in this cramp situation that it had
pulled all the way up because I felt it in my hamstring, but

(36:31):
I'm used to feeling it in my hamstring. What I'm
not used to feeling, it is in my foot. And
so that fascia underneath, which is on the outside of
your muscle, was pulling, if you imagine this is the
underneath, your fingers are underneath of your foot and you clench your fingers
up, and that was what was happening, with every step
I took, it was just jarring it back, which actually
feels like a shooting pain. It feels like someone's stabbing

(36:51):
your foot. So in my mind, I'm thinking, " Oh my
gosh, I have plantar fasciitis." I've never had this. People
talk about it's debilitating. Oh my gosh, I'm freaking out.
I'm just like, " This is awful. I've got to do
more races."

That can be a game ender right there, absolutely.

Game ender, yeah. And so in my mind I'm like, " Oh, I have
to get a cortisone shot in my foot in Turkey,"
or I'm like, " No, I can't do this." So I
never take any medication. I'm very much a believer that
if your body is... You have a headache, lay down,
if you can, just weird mindset. And when I asked

(37:25):
Ross, one of the physio on the team, he was
riding alongside on the bike and the girls had left
me and he looked at me, he was like, " You're not
okay." I was like, " I'm in so much pain. I
can't even explain to you, worse pain than childbirth right
now." He's like, " Oh, okay. What's going on?" I explained
to him. He gave me some anti- inflammatories and some
pain relief, and they kicked in and thank goodness. But

(37:45):
I did run about half that race by myself, mainly
because I didn't want to hold up the girls. They were so
sweet. They were like, " We'll stay, we'll run with you."
I'm like, " No, no, no, no, no, you go, you go, you get there." Hillary and Ash,
I think ran a sub 3 in that race. So
there was no way I was staying with them. But once
the painkillers kicked in, I actually felt pretty good and

(38:05):
managed to pick up the pace a little bit more
and finish well, I mean, I think I ran a 3
in that race.

Incredible, incredible.

But then the fear was there, Rob, to be honest,
that was the first time I just thought, " Okay, I
got through that using pain relief, but I need to
be a mom. I need to be a Peloton instructor.
I don't want to break my foot. I don't want
to leave this race in Miami, not able to walk
or relying on cortisone injections to get through my job."
I was spiraling a little bit. I had a very

(38:33):
emotional FaceTime with Austin just crying my eyes out of
like, "This is a mistake. I shouldn't be doing this." And you
go to the bad spots in those moments. I got
some work on my foot. I rolled it with a
ball, and then we got on that really long flight, 19 and
a half hours, that included a stopover and refueling in
Madrid, and we flew from Istanbul to Cartagena, Colombia. When I

(38:57):
tell you I got in my bed, well, my chair,
I made it into my bed. I put my recovery
boots on, we landed and took off in Madrid. I
did not move, no idea. I woke up with about
three hours to go on the flight. I slept. I
was gone, out.

I'm not surprised. I am not surprised. I could totally
see it. Okay, Becs, I watched that race in Cartagena and it looked really,
really hot. How hot was it?

Well, the real fear was around a 100, 101 degrees, but
it was the humidity rub, it was so high humidity,
I think it was 95, 96% humidity. It was really that
kind of you lift your pinky finger and you are
drenched with sweat. So we got on a bus from the

(39:51):
airport, which took us to a hotel lobby where we
got ourselves situated and ready. We had the whole day
actually in Cartagena. So the race organizers had booked out
a certain number of rooms for groups of people to
drop their bags off in so we could shower after.
So we sort of dumped our stuff in rooms about
five of us per room and headed out. And it

(40:15):
was a short walk from the hotel to the start
line. And already by the time we got to the start line, you
could just see everybody was drenched and the sun was
out. So sometimes you can kind of handle it, especially
in New York, if it's a little overcast, it's humid,
and it's hot. If the sun is not also beating
down on you, you feel a little bit more ready

(40:36):
to handle it. But when you then feel the seer of
the sun on your skin too, you're like, " Please, no, this is just torturous."

It looked brutal. It really did.

It really was. The saving grace was that we did run
along water, which was lovely. There was no breeze whatsoever,
but psychosomatically, you look at water and you're like, " Okay,
this is a little... I can calm myself down. It's not through
a city." Again, a heinous amount of repeats of this short one
mile course. And as the irony went, I ended up

(41:11):
getting not quite sunburned, but the most drastic sports bra
tan line on my back. But then I got ice burn
on my chest because I was putting ice down my
sports bra. I was like, " This is just a juxtaposition
right here."

Too hot, too cold, run back.

Yeah. But it was all about working together. Even the whole
logistical team of the Great World Race, people who weren't
medical, just people who were there pitched in to help
throw ice on us, throw water on us, make sure that there
was enough salt tabs. They went to get some extra
salt tabs to make sure people were having enough. And
they were also, the medics were running up and down

(41:48):
being like, " Only take three, no more than three." You
can't take a salt tab every time you come past
because you're going to get hyponatremia. So it really was a big
team effort to get through. And that's why I say
sticking with the girls with Hillary, Ash, and Shereen on
that one. The conversations we had were so linked to
each other's mental strength on that one, points where some

(42:10):
of us were just really struggling there. All of us, apart
from Hillary on that one, had really bad GI issues
and there was nowhere to go. So it was quite
a moment to say the least.

Gosh, I'm so sorry for the GI issues, it just
sounds like that was a theme of this whole event
for you.

It was.

And that's not a theme you were looking for, I doubt.

No, no, no.

But you battled through, truly battled through.

We get through. We get through.

So you battled through Cartagena. You said it was one of
the hardest races of your life.

Yeah.

And then it was a relatively short hop over to
Miami, and that's where Becs' cheering section was in full
effect. You had Becs Beasts, I believe they were called.

We did.

There to cheer you on. That must have felt great
to see everybody in Miami.

Oh, my gosh. The anticipation of getting to Miami was obviously
there from the minute we got on the flight to
Antarctica. So it's building up and it feels like a
lot longer than seven days since we got there, actually,
it was six days really. And leaving Cartagena was sort
of wild because we were all really drained after finishing

(43:18):
that race. But we had, as I said, the whole
day in Cartagena. So I rallied the troops and said, "
When are we going to be back here? Let's go
and see the old town. It's supposed to be beautiful."
So we all trudged off and did a little bit
of sightseeing that day, which I'm really happy we did.
But in hindsight, probably should have slept a little bit
somewhere because the flight to Miami was slated to be

(43:40):
only three and a half hours. It ended up being
only two and a half hours. We had some big,
big tailwinds, which any other flight you take to any other
place, you're like, " Yay, I got there quicker." This one
where you're like, "No."

Yeah, but that's your sleep time. That's your sleep time.

That was a sleep time.

Yeah. Yeah.

So we landed in Miami just before 4
Rob, there was no... The airport was empty. We flew
through customs and it was just like a ghost town
and we're standing there, okay, we're not running till 7:
00, so what are we doing? And the race organizers said, "
If you have a hotel room, feel free to go
to your hotel room." And I was like, " Well, I can't

(44:16):
rock up at 4:00 AM, and wake up my daughter and Austin."
And also, if I step foot in that hotel room,
you think I'm coming back out?

Pandemonium, of course, it'd be nuts. And you would not
want to exactly say goodbye to your family.

No, I see massive king- size bed and I haven't
seen that in days.

Absolutely.

So I hung around the airport. Some people stayed there.
A lot of people did actually go to their hotel
rooms who didn't have family members there yet, or if
they had an Airbnb, and they got a little rest. And
it took me about half an hour of just standing
around in Miami airport and getting stressed. I was just like, "

(44:53):
I'm getting angry and tense." I said to Hillary was like, " Do
you want to just come to my hotel? We'll organize
our bags. We'll sit in the lobby, we'll get a
coffee, and it'll be fine." So we did that. We
just jumped in an Uber. We went to my hotel and just
honestly, there was no one really around. It was quiet
and we organized our bags, we threw things out. We

(45:16):
got ourselves ready, brushed our teeth, had a coffee. Austin
did pop down, so I was happy I got to
see him before the race. My uncle appeared out of
nowhere. I just suddenly look up and my uncle's standing there.
I was like, " What are you doing here?" I didn't
even know he was staying in that hotel. And they'd
changed their hotel last minute. So I got to see my
uncle who actually sponsored me to do this race. So

(45:38):
I'm really glad we did that. And then just getting
to the start line, the start line location was changed
with 20 minutes to go before the race started. So there
was a complete pandemonium chaos. Everyone's like, " Where are we
going? What are we doing?"

I don't even understand how that can happen and still get
the right distance, but that's another conversation. So Miami, all
I can ask you is how focused were you on
during that race on trying to quote win? Were you
and Hillary competing at that point, or was it just
finish and see your family?

It was finish. It was finished, see our family, I
put up on Instagram earlier this week, a video that
somebody caught of the first time I saw Tallulah and
it brought me to my knees. I was so, so
tired to the point where I hadn't allowed myself to
feel it. And you'll hear more from Hillary on that

(46:34):
actually in the message with her. We sort of block
ourselves from the true emotions when you're doing something like
this, and then when you see your true loves, it
comes out because you are your most vulnerable in front
of the people you love and care about the most.
And I fell to my knees when I saw my
daughter and the tears just came. I was just suddenly

(46:57):
really sobbing because I was so tired. But looking at
Tallulah, she's like, " Mommy crying." I'm like, " No, mommy's fine.
I'm fine." I didn't want her to see this as
a mommy sad or mommy's upset. I was like, " Mommy's fine.
She's just a little tired, but she's fine." And then
really it was true chaos. That start line. I don't
know if any listeners out there who've ever been to

(47:18):
the boardwalk of Miami Beach, it's narrow. It's busy. It's
a very active place down there. It's gorgeous weather. People are
always out exercising in the morning, walking, running, cycling, roller
skating. There's everything going on. And then there's 57 runners
plus the crew, plus all of our now supporters, family
and friends. It was wild. As a CEO of, and you got Road

(47:44):
Runners, Rob, I think if you'd have seen that at the start to
finish, you would've just been like, " Ted would've been losing
his mind as a race director." There would've just been
so many red flags. But that was the theme of
this race. We just got on with it and off
we went. Hillary, Shereen, and I stuck together. Ash was
unfortunately feeling some really bad hip pain after Cartagena and

(48:06):
into Miami, and she just said, " Don't wait for me.
I'm going to be really pulling the pace back. I
don't want to hold you guys back. It's going to
be significant change in pace." And so we all hugged
and we're like, " All right, let's do this." Jenny had
also had some issues after Cartagena, I think some norovirus

(48:27):
or something hit her. So she was sort of walk
running the last race, unfortunately. So it was Hillary, Shereen
and I set out with a couple of other guys,
actually, really cool guy, Anders, who runs the athlete blog
and then a very fun Italian dude who fast and
few silly if you find him on Instagram. Very, very

(48:47):
great runner. And we sort of stuck together. And another
really fantastic runner called Santosh for a while and then
dropped off a little bit, and then it ended up
the three girls again, and then Shereen had to drop
back. She was feeling a little bit of the GI issues,
and then it was just Hillary and I. and we

(49:09):
just said to each other, " Are we finishing this together?"
And she was like, " Yeah." And neither of us wanted
to leave the other one. We'd got so far, not
just the seven days, not just that race. It was
just like we progressed so far in our lives individually
that neither of us was going to break away from
the other one. It just felt like a bad juju to do

(49:32):
that. So we said, " All right, mom, stick together right
here. We're inspiring three kids between us, A, to be
bad asses, but B, to commit." You committed to running
this thing together, and I'm not just going to leave
you in the dust for glory. It wasn't either of
our vibes. So we stuck it out together and ran

(49:55):
all the way in. And again, you'll hear a funny story from
Hillary about that moment.

So cool. All right, so Becs, to wrap this unbelievable adventure up, here's what I want
to know. How is Becs Gentry different now than she
was before starting this? Whether it's as a runner or
a Peloton instructor or a wife or a mom or
anything? How are you different now or can you even

(50:24):
process that yet?

I'm starting to really, in the past few days, it
started to settle in to me that without sounding dramatic,
it was a hugely pivotal point in my life. And
I do have to accept that I have changed, not
in a big way. You're not going to look at me
and be like, " Well, she's so different these days." But

(50:48):
internally, since becoming a mom, a parent, I not lost
some of my vibe, but it changed shape. And I
think I needed to reformat what my vibe truly is.

(51:10):
And before Austin, before Tallulah, before being a Peloton instructor,
travel and running were huge parts of who I was
and how I filled my cup up. And definitely, since
becoming a parent that has gone, when you travel with
a kid, you just relocate your life somewhere else. It's
not a vacation anymore.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
No, we call it a trip, not a vacation. Yeah.

Yeah, it's just a trip. So I really needed to reset and refill my cup
because I was feeling like my cup was almost empty.
I didn't feel I was that inspiring as a Peloton
instructor. So goodness knows, I wasn't inspiring as a partner,
as a parent. So doing this trip really did give
me the opportunity to relight my fire and allow that

(51:58):
bright, bubbly, motivated, inspired human to flourish again. And so
by doing that, I truly hope once it really does
settle in, I'm going to be able to be a
better mom, a better partner, a better friend, a better
instructor, and just thrive how I used to thrive. And

(52:18):
I know that may sound selfish to a lot of
people, but I think we forget and then my job
is a lot about giving to other people and making
sure other people are doing well. And they get to a
point where you think like, " Oh, goodness me, I'm not
doing that well, what do I need to do?" And
yeah, slightly off the realms of weirdness when you say, "

(52:39):
Okay, I'm going to run seven marathons in seven days in just one week
to do that," but that's who I am. And we're
all different. We're all different. Someone may go and buy
a really expensive handbag. That's (inaudible) .

Well, I think that these things are so relative, and
I think what you're saying about how you feel different
doing seven marathons in seven days on seven continents is
how a lot of people will tell you they feel
after running one marathon in their mind.

Exactly. Yeah. It's a challenge. It's pushing yourself again and realizing what
you are capable of by yourself, whether that's one mile,
whether it's seven marathons, it doesn't matter what the actual
quantitative distance time is, it's the feeling, it's the pride,
it's the going to bed at night and being like, "
I did that. I did that." Yeah.

100%. I think you nailed it. I think that's what
it's all about. And you did do that. You did
it, and man, it was a thrill to watch you do
it. It was a thrill to talk to you about
doing it. And again, we're all so proud of you.

Thank you.

And just thrilled to have had a chance to share
in this journey with you, even if it was from afar.

Thank you so much.

So Becs, thank you for regaling us with these stories. They're amazing. And
once again, congrats. Can't wait to talk to Hillary and
hear what she says about how you did out there.

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(54:21):
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Okay. Joining us now, again, in place of our usual
member moment, we are being joined by one of my

(54:43):
fellow Great World Race finishers from this year. She's not
just a finisher though. She's actually the top person to
finish this challenge this year. By day, Hillary is a
brand strategist, and by night, weekend, and whenever else in
between she can, she's a badass mom and an incredible
runner. I'm honored to now be able to call her

(55:04):
a friend. And aside from being running moms in common,
Hillary and I have also have one more bond following the challenge
where we both finished she first, me second overall, we
decided to get matching seven tattoos to commemorate this crazy
bond that we forged over one week and 183. 4
miles. So Hillary, welcome to the show. It is so

(55:25):
good to be reunited with you virtually.

Hillary Kupish (55:27):
Yeah, thanks for having me. So glad to be here.

We were just talking through my debrief of the race
with Rob, and obviously your name comes up a lot
in it because we spent a lot of time and
miles together with Ash, Poulsen, with Shereen, with Jenny and
other runners on our trip. But we thought it'd be

(55:53):
fun to have you on today to just talk about
you and your life as a runner, because what a
week, 10 days before was New York City Marathon for you.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, Jenny as well.

And Jenny as well. Yeah. But outside of the elite
professional running world, there is Hillary who comes in with
a steaming 2
then hops on a flight home and then hops on
a flight to Cape Town. So Rob, should we ask
Hillary some questions about how this happens?

Yeah. I'm really wondering, first of all, how this all
came about, Hillary, I asked Becs this question, how'd you
first get roped into this incredible Great World Race?

Yeah, it's a great question. I actually was thinking back
on this, and I think I was initially targeted with something
on social. I saw it came up and I think I
had probably a similar reaction to what I hear most
people of being like, " That's wild, that's interesting, that's exciting."
And in my mind I'm like, " That's for sponsored athletes or people

(56:59):
with a certain amount of dollars," I had these reactions
to it, but it popped up multiple times. And then
honestly, I was on the Tread, it was I think
the first week of August, and Becs started talking about
it and I was like, " Oh no, she's doing this."
And I was like, " Why?" It's one of those things, there's

(57:20):
moments in life where certain ideas or things come into
my purview and my mind, and they just have this
tug. And this was one of those where I'm like, " It's not
leaving me alone and I need to look at why."
And so that's what led me to saying yes and
the first week of August. So it was a short
runway for me coming into the race.

Did you guys know each other before this?

No.

No, no, no, no. I knew Becs because I run on the Tread. I am
a very loyal Peloton member. I have the Tread, it's
a part of my training routine. I live in a
beautiful place where I can do a lot of outdoor
running, but also, I have smoke in the summer and
I have ice in the winter, and I have a three- year-
old and a six- year- old. So when you have
them full on as a single mom, there's moments where

(58:06):
it's like, it's time for a movie and I hop
on the Tread. And so yeah, that's how, I knew
of Becs, of course, but we had never met or chatted.

I love that. I love that story. And honestly, I
think it was the funniest and sweetest moment ever was
on Miami when you told me, I'm like, " We were
two laps from the finish together," and we'd stuck together
literally through that whole race of like, " Okay, let's do
this together. We're going to finish, we're going to be

(58:36):
moms who finished this." And there was a point when I was like, " Hillary,
David's dropping back, I think we're actually going to win-
win this race together." It was just a lot going on. And I had
a bit of a moment where I just had a
breakdown of tears and emotions overcame me. And Hillary was like, "
Too soon, too soon, we've got more laps. Hold it together, Becs."
And then the next lap in almost the same spot,

(59:00):
she was like, " I got to tell you something." I was like, "Oh no, here we go.
We're both doing it." And that's when she said...

I saved my fangirl moment. Yeah.

Yeah, right till the end, which was hilarious. And then
I'm like, she's there having a nice honest moment and
the roles had reversed. I was then laughing and giggling
and just like, " Yeah, but now, we're friends for life."

Tell them about that officially.

So Hillary, and this question is really for both of
you, but I'm curious, Hillary, what did you learn about yourself?
You're obviously a very accomplished marathoner, you're running amazing times
in New York and other places. Do you see yourself
differently now as a runner having been able to complete
this and not just do that but win it? Are

(59:44):
you thinking, wait a second, maybe this should be a
job for me, maybe I should get some sponsors and
quit my day job and do this for real?

Speaker 3 (59:52):
That is a great question and a very interesting one. I will
say one of the things that surprised me about this
trip, other than my own performance, how my body held
up, the relationships and the connections that were built during
this, and one of the most interesting thing about that is
the type of people that this brought were people that
obviously were in for a challenge for themselves, but really,

(01:00:12):
really spoken to each other's lives. And I had a
lot of great challenges kind of come my way and
push me and pressed me to think about what do
I really want this to look like? And so am
I going to go for the Olympic trials? No, I've
been asked that. I was like, " Absolutely not." I know
where my strengths are and I don't know if that's

(01:00:33):
what I want to do and where I would want to play. But absolutely,
I mean, I'm not done with being competitive. I love the
trail space, I love the adventure space. And even seeing
runners like David, I'm like, " He's doing it differently." He
has these incredible sponsorships and his thing is these stage
wild races. And so there's areas I definitely want to explore. Also,

(01:00:56):
I love my day job and I think there's something,
the other thing that surprised me about this was the
community that reached out to me, the amount of DMs,
the amount of people were like, " How are you doing
this as a normal person, as a mom with a
job?" And I think there was something that really landed
for me there. One, I hadn't posted on social for
two years before New York. So, all of a sudden, I'm like, "Oh, I'm starting to understand

(01:01:20):
the value of social in a different way," and thank
you to everyone that did send messages because it meant
a lot to me. But it was just like there's
part of me that I do want to show that these are
things you can do and still pursue other passions. It
doesn't have to be one extreme. And so absolutely looking
into what does sponsorship look like, especially for some of

(01:01:42):
these big ambitious races that require a lot of travel
time, funding, et cetera, but still having some conversations or kicking
off some conversations and we'll see how that unfolds, but
I don't think I'm going to be quitting my day
job anytime soon.

Becs Gentry (01:01:56):
Love that. But that's how it should be, I think,
the way you've started is an inspiration, and to change
that would be kind of strange in many ways. So
fingers crossed, I'm so excited for you.

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
Freed out my authentic self, and there's different facets of
me of my life that I really want to love
and honor, running is a really big part of that and
has been for a while now, but I don't want
to just take one route because it's the path that I've
seen forged the most. I think the beauty of what
I saw through this experience is there's really creative ways

(01:02:35):
to live your life and have meaningful impact in the
different areas of passion that you want to pursue.

Absolutely.

Rob Simmelkjaer (01:02:41):
Hillary, what do you think it was that allowed you to win
this thing? I mean, this is not a normal race.
This is an endurance event on many levels, running endurance,
sleep endurance, GI endurance, I'm sure, I mean, so many
things can go wrong over a week with your body
and something like this. What do you think it was

(01:03:02):
that spelled the difference for you?

Hillary Kupish (01:03:04):
Gee, there's so much complexity and this whole race, seven
days of teetering on the edge. And I will say,
I actually made a call (inaudible) messages to Becs
yesterday because we listened to the Rich Roll podcast with
David Roche. I am a massive David- Megan Roche fan,
and they really do a deep dive into all these
different areas of fueling... They're really focused on the ultra

(01:03:29):
field, and I've nerded out with them for years. And I think
I really trained for this in an ultra mindset. It definitely
wasn't any sort of traditional marathoning. And I would say
some of the differentiators were definitely fueling. I really practiced
a ton of fueling. I think I had more during races
than most people, and that definitely left me maybe a

(01:03:51):
little bit more recovered in some ways. But I will
say I looked down at my legs every day and I was talking to them like
they're my kids. I'm like, " You look so good today. I'm
proud of you." And to rip off that, I think the
other part of it that I spent a lot of time
around was mindset and how I think people don't realize
how their self- talk impacts them or even what their self-

(01:04:14):
talk is. And I spent a lot of time in my
training reframing, and I think one of the biggest game
change, things you can do is I can, I get
to, and I'm grateful for, and if everything is framed
with I can do this, I get to do this,
and I'm grateful I get to do this, it changes.
Of course, throughout the first six races, there was not

(01:04:35):
a moment where I was like, " I'm over it, I'm
done, I can't, I was tired," but when I felt
tired, I knew what to do because I had practiced
it. I'm like, " This is when the work starts, so
let's go, you can," and I say six because the
seventh, I remember that morning I woke up after two
hours of sleep and I was like, it was the
first time I had cried. I was just in the chair by myself. I'm like, "

(01:04:56):
Not enough. It's not enough." It was rough morning for
me, and it was the first time that I was like, " I
don't want to run today." But then I was also like, " Okay,"
there were so many days where I staying with the pack,
running smart, holding back enough, and that was another part
of this, just like if I would've pushed harder and maxed sooner,

(01:05:19):
things could have fallen off. And that's again what you're
always teetering with. And so being able to hold some
of that back and get to the point where, thank
God, it was just the last day that I was like, "
No, this is a struggle." And then I happened to be on Miami with Becs'
entire fan club who I'm just like, "I'm going to ride this wave.
I know you're cheering for Becs, but I'm pretending you're
cheering for me too." So long- winded answer, but there you go.

Amazing. Congratulations. It's phenomenal. Are you going to come back and
defend it next year? Is this something people defend or do
they just check that box and move on?

Becs is not somebody that does races twice. I'll do races
twice. Something like this, I was like, " I would want
to, I'd probably run with a different purpose maybe to
get people..." I mean, I'm happy to go up against
someone just if they want it, I'm like, " I'll give you a
run for your money or try to." But also, I really, really
believe in what David is doing in building here from

(01:06:14):
a business standpoint. And if I can support that and
if being a part of it helps that, then absolutely, I will.

I love it.

There we go. Funding part, we have to have.

Sub 3, it's all the way, please.

Oh my gosh, yes. We could go lower. We could go
lower, but we'll see.

Yeah.

Wow. Well, I'm in awe of both of you, but
Hillary, congrats, amazing to meet you and can't wait to
see what you do next.

Thank you. Yeah, really appreciate it.

Thanks again, Hillary. Now, it's time for today's Meb minute.

Meb (01:06:48):
Thanks, Rob. Cold weather training and hydration, in the winter,
it is easy to forget about hydration, but it's just as
important as a warm month is. Cold weather can mask
thirst, but your body still loses fluids when you run.
Make sure you hydrate before, during, and after your runs,
even if you don't feel thirsty. Also, don't skip your

(01:07:11):
fueling. Your body still needs energy to perform, carry an
energy gel or snack for longer runs, and make sure
to eat a balanced meal afterward to help you recover.
Remember, it is not what you do only practice time,
but how you take care of yourself for the next
22 hours. Hydration is something you can control. Make sure

(01:07:31):
you get your rest and have fun.

And that does it for another episode of Set the
Pace. Thanks, Becs, for telling us all the great stories
of the Great World Race, and thank you to Hillary
as well for walking us through her incredible and victorious
World Race experience. Thanks as always to Meb for some
great insight as well. If you liked our episode today,
please go ahead, rate it, subscribe, leave a comment. We'd

(01:07:54):
love to hear from you. Hope you guys are having
a great, great holiday season. Enjoy the miles. We'll see
you next week.

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