Rebecca Rusch, Lessons from the Queen of Pain | Koopcast Episode 47

trail and ultra runners what is going on welcome to another episode of the KoopCast as always i'm your host coach Jason Koop and on this episode of the podcast i've got a good one for you we have none other than the incredible the incomparable the queen of pain rebecca rush rebecca's athletic accomplishments and exploits are absolutely legendary and they could fill an entire library but for the uninformed here's just a quick sample she has won the leadville trail 100 mountain bike four different times she's a seven time world champion across a multitude of different disciplines in 2019 she was inducted into the mountain bike hall of fame she has summited mount kilimanjaro by bike and in one of the craziest absolutely amazing things i have ever heard of she is the first and only person to swim the length of the grand canyon in winter i said swim not raft not run alongside not fly over swim the length of the grand canyon in winter and she did it over the course of 18 days and to top it all off rebecca has an emmy for the incredible film blood road all of you guys should go check out that documentary after this podcast if you've not

already done so it's really neat absolutely amazing incredibly inspiring rebecca's moniker the queen of pain really goes down to who she is as an athlete she is renowned for being able to dig deeper and go further into the well than any of her peers and i wanted to find out exactly how she does that during the course of this podcast i had a lot of fun with it i'm gonna get out of the way let's get right into it here's my conversation with the queen of pain rebecca rush it's kind of funny you're like well it's a running podcast i'm like i know it's a running podcast and it's like i run and ultra is a sponsor so actually they'll be really stoked that i'm on coops podcast talking about running you did a lot of running back in your adventure racing days you know i think you probably well i started running it was my very first sport was high school cross-country running and so like it's it's what shaped me so it'll be cool to talk about that cool um it's my first love i i did want to well so you're obviously way more renowned on the mountain bike side of things for doing all this stuff but running was your first love but i actually want to talk a little bit about adventure racing for a little bit since the eco challenge is now all the rage being streamed on amazon prime have you watched any of that yeah i did watch all the episodes and you know i had to

of course and it was so cool to see um a bunch of old friends you know some new people but it's fiji was the last eco challenge they had and so they chose that same location and the course was very similar and like all these locations i'm like oh i've been there i've been there so it was really cool to watch it and sort of go down memory lane i mean i do believe it's it's one of the most amazing sports in the world you know i feel like i have a you know 15 year master's degree and teamwork and just kind of you know when the going gets tough and navigation and all different sports like it was it was a really cool period of my life to travel like that and and spend time adventure racing so yeah i never thought it would come back so i have been watching it on tv and you know definitely of course i'm the armchair critique like oh why did they do that those guys don't know what they're doing and so it was it was pretty cool and um there's absolutely part of me it's like hmm i think i could still do it oh that's interesting rebecca so you're looking for teammates now because they're doing another one they are doing another one so i'm not gonna say no okay yeah i i think we can facilitate that so listeners out there rebecca rush is looking for teammates for her second foray into eco challenge i mean you definitely saw there there were i mean the winning team with nathan from uh new zealand you

know he's there's there's a lot to be said as we know in endurance sports and altered endurance sports um experience goes a long way more than just how big your quads are how big your lungs are you know after 24 hours 48 hours into any sort of big long expedition um you know suddenly the the physical prowess is stripped away and it becomes a lot more emotional game and a mental game and a planning and strategizing and pacing and so you know really ultra endurance sports i do you see it in mountaineering you see it everywhere you know it's not that you need to be 25 um to do well and sometimes you actually do well better in your 40s and where you have the life and sport experience so when you were part of the group that helped pioneer eco challenge and adventure racing to the world i mean it started out kind of like from the get-go like with this big tv broadcast and so a lot of people got exposed to it very quickly if experience is one of the things that you have to like lean on the most like how did you compensate for that in the early days when you guys really didn't have like there was no experience to be had really yeah and you saw the teams that did well were just really gritty people so it tended to be mountaineers or um you know ultra runners do well people that are used to being cold being outside um climbers you know slotted in pretty well um and no offense to try athletes but it you know

it's like the outdoor athletes were were the ones that that did really well and yeah there wasn't experience but you know the people who are used to navigating using a map and compass finding a route and that's why i say climbers and mountaineers because one they're on their feet they're carrying a big backpack so they're used to wait and they're used to navigating and they're used to suffering and being cold and and and keeping it together for long hours at a time so you found a lot with the sort of entry point for a lot of people came from climbing and mountaineering um you know and i came from a climbing background and was lucky that i'd already paddled i was a runner and i was a climber so i had sort of three out of the five things i was not a cyclist it was absolutely my worst sport um and i didn't really i didn't really enjoy riding a bike i'd often throw my bike curse at my bike i hate bikes bikes are ridiculous and i would always say right like it's like running is so much more pure you just throw on a pair of shoes like you don't need all this confusing equipment and i was that person and so yeah i my entry into adventure racing was really through rock climbing um a bunch of experienced racers came into my climbing gym that i was managing in santa monica california and they came in and you know rock climbers are a little more casual group of people and these guys came in all lycra and tights and super tight fitting clothing and came in and they're like we want to learn how to repel and i was like dude this is a climbing gym we don't repel like repelling is like how to get

down it's like taking the escalator down after the real stuff and like well we need to learn to repel for this adventure racing thing i'm like i don't know what you're talking about but i'll take your money i'll teach you dorks how to repel and it turned out it was like the legends of the sport john howard ian annison kathy sass and robin benicasa like these people's names but they they didn't really have climbing skill and so and they didn't fit in you could tell at the moment they walked in the door but i took their money taught them uh taught them how to repel i taught them how to streamline their climbing systems a little bit better um and then of course got recruited because they're like oh hey you're female oh hey what do you do oh you run you paddle and you climb hmm and so i got roped in really just from those people walking in the door and you know to answer your question how do you get experience in a sport that is was kind of new um you know how to add a lot of the ingredients are ready um but really i surrounded myself with people like the folks who walked in that day who had a few years under their belt and they had experience and you know they saw potential in me and and took me along for the ride and that was you know 10 years of managing my own team and putting together sponsorship and you know going around the world and filling two passports and it was definitely a big leadership growing amazing experience for me and it it changed the trajectory of of my career which was really cool you know i left that job i had a great job a dream job running climbing gyms

you know um and i had a business degree and so i was like using my college degree and then this whole eco challenge stuff came up and i was like you know i'll just go on this one trip it's a trip to australia you know i we won the first race we'd ever done and i hadn't in malibu and i was like what so um ended up you know getting a free entry to australia and honestly i thought that was going to be you know one trip go do this thing you know try not to get bitten by a snake in australia and and then come home and get back to a regular job but that really was the um catalyst that started you know 30 years of being a professional athlete you know and now turning into a mountain biker which was my worst worst sport i'm not even joking i was so bad at it that is so that is so hilarious so you'll love this so yesterday i recorded a podcast with one of my athletes who was in this most recent rendition of eco challenge his name's cory woltering you might remember him from team onyx um and he was your client so the person the person that came into the climbing gym and they needed to know how to repel just to like get this thing done that was him i mean he got pulled into this thing that whole team came together really at the last minute like a lot of those teams yeah and he had an endurance background right good triathlete good ultra runner good trail runner but no rock climbing skills no water skills like kind of like nothing and so he had to take all these like crash courses and doing

these things and he got it you know he got it done and um he he he he he did the best he could with the time frame allotted because as you mentioned like those skills take years not just days yeah to develop right but like hearing you describe the people coming into the gym going hey we need to learn how to repel like yep that's kind of what we were having to do like it's just the situation it was you know and cory wouldn't mind bitching at a coach and i mean it's funny you you and there was stuff that i didn't know how to do either you know i was pretty new at navigating and and you just sort of follow along and you're humble enough to ask for help which it sounds like cory did for you and the beauty it could be the beauty and the curse of working in a team is that hopefully somebody on your team you know is a little better in this area you shine in this area so that collectively you're stronger but yeah hopefully they weren't all for getting a crash course in seven different sports at the same time no their team leader had a lot of experience the last piece of advice i left him with i was like dude you're just gonna have to figure it out you're gonna be staring at something and you've never done it before and it's gonna be a whole day's worth of stuff and you're just gonna say okay i'm gonna figure this out and i'm gonna figure this out with my whole team and you know they did they they they definitely had a good time out there um i've got a rumor before we go off of adventure racing that i want you to clarify for me this has been like burning for probably like

the last 15 years so yeah i know a long time and i i keep every time every time we're in the same place at the same time i want i've wanted to mention this story but i've never kind of gotten around to it so way back before we even met we have a mutual colleague who i'm gonna leave anonymous to to protect the innocent also to protect my source here but we're happy he's one of my colleagues and from your from the old adventure racing days kind of from the heydays and we were having this conversation revolving around in these ultra endurance events is there a certain point where the women get better than the men and you know this conversation is kind of revolved in circles for decades right in the cycling community and the like the old even in the ultra man community and the running community and being uh being an adventure racer he's like well let me just tell you this he's like i i know this woman rebecca and after about the second or third day she was taking all the weight from our packs she was the best person on our team and aside from the bike throwing which i can i i can definitely back that story up aside from the bike throwing she was the strongest person on the team and then she started bossing us all around true or false yeah that's true that's totally true 100 true so the the tag when you're gonna ask me is there a pivotal point in any adventure

race and instantly i was gonna say day three day three is where you know and and i think you saw it in the eco challenge coverage day one and two everybody's fit everybody has prepared their best and you you know any good athlete can hang in there for a couple of days um but what happens on day three is whatever you've done for day one and two you know either you let your nutrition slide or you've gotten frustrated or you've gotten lost or you're getting really tired day through is like day three is kind of the truth serum where you can no longer rely on your physical prowess because everybody's tired you've been going for 48 hours and sort of the defense layers are stripped away and that is really where you know the experienced athletes and the really good athletes and you see it in an ultra run to people you see it in any event people go out hot you know and then all of a sudden in the middle of the race is really where the race starts i think for me and adventure racing was no different and and yeah i have been accused of being bossy and uh you know or a good leader um you can flip it however you want it to be um but there's what's so cool is that you know people need to take the lead in in situations like that in whatever sort of team situation you're in you're like if you're feeling strong you you give it and you you step into a leadership role if you're feeling like you need help and this is the hardest part for most type a strong athletes you ask for help to ask for help and say

my pack is really heavy can you help me that's so hard it's for big strong burly people to ask for help and that was one of the biggest lessons i learned in adventure racing is that everyone's willing to give help if they feel good the real challenge comes is when you're feeling bad and you've got three people there who you want to move faster and you know it and you're beating yourself up feeling like the weak link and just say hey i need some help um and it's really powerful to be able to do that and you know it's a life lesson for sure and the second part of that story that this person mentioned was the initial reluctance of the men on the team to give their weight up to the women on the team that were stronger at the time and what he was telling me was the teams that just got over that faster did better they were like fuck this we just want to win like yeah if you're stronger than me right now doesn't care man woman black white whatever you know skill we're on right now if you're better than me right now take all my stuff the ones that like got over that the quickest ended up doing the best it's so true your teammate is your teammate it doesn't matter what gender it doesn't that doesn't matter at all and you're exactly right the good teams really get over this sort of stereotype you know and adventure racing it was you know there was mandatory equipment you had to have a headlamp you had a medical kit and you had to have a female was kind of the joke and most teams were were three men one woman um you even see it you even saw it in the new you know revitalized eco

challenge um and you know one of my proudest you know something i'm really proud of and that i learned and i went into adventure racing too thinking i'm a female i'm smaller than these people um and it was really empowering to learn you know in endurance sports that that you know the distance is this great equalizer um and all of a sudden people are just people and i learned a lot from that and i did one of my proudest races was uh eco challenge patagonia and he put together a three woman one man team and we finished fourth and we were in the lead for part of it we were right up with the best teams in the world with three women and one man and that was really groundbreaking i mean that was 15 years ago or more and it really kind of showed the endurance world that like hey no this really is true women once a race gets long enough um this sort of gender differences really do get minimized and it's really cool to see that you see it ultra running you see it endurance swimming you you see it in mountaineering um and i'd say the only thing that you know women have that really doesn't get equalized is you know is body size and just you know me carrying a 40 pound pack versus you carrying a 40 pound pack it's different you know the the weight percentage is different for you and so that really was the only thing otherwise it's an equal playing field did you have any and women are better asking for directions so maybe maybe you know we do have a

leg up once the race gets longer i think there's something to that for sure did you have any sense that that's the way that that is an element of the way that it was going to go down when you started to get into that sport did you have any sense of that no i thought like i said i thought it was oh i won a free trip to australia i'm gonna go do this thing one time um and that's that but you know we didn't finish i didn't finish the first eco challenge i did um you know our team sort of crashed and burned with you know someone getting blisters someone getting a stomach um a stomach flu and i was left you know sitting there feeling good and wanting to keep going forward and just being like you know getting pulled out from the race you know three days in basically that magic three days um we were that rookie team and we didn't make it and i just remember sitting there going you know team sports are dumb like i feel great and my whole team and now i have to stop because of these people because because they couldn't do it and maybe i wasn't very empathetic but i was also like i don't know but it just really highlighted um the importance of of of you know it takes years to build a really solid team of the right personalities right skill base people you want to hang out with people that you can cry on their shoulder um but no i had no idea this was gonna launch you know a multi-year career and it's pretty magical i mean i find now what's really cool is my bike riding and

the stuff that i want to do is coming back to the expedition the ultra long the multi-day and so i feel like i'm coming full circle back to adventure racing days but now more on a bike um and or on foot you know i'm doing a lot of big sort of bike packing things and backpacking things and using a map and compass and just feeling like i'm coming full circle so i'm i'm really grateful for that experience when i want to kind of keep digging into this like this third day phenomenon that you mentioned because because i've heard it before right and i wanted i wanted to like hear it directly from the person who has the most experience with this or has one of the people that has the most experience with this and that's you do you ever was there ever like some sort of revelation when you're in the moment like in one of those races where you look around you're like i'm the strongest person here i'm the strongest person on my team yeah there were multiple times which kind of shocked me was like oh i'm doing okay and my teammates suffering and you know can i help your your initial thing is like can i help you're not like sweet i'm the strongest one um of course everybody's happy if you're not the weakest link um but but initially it's like you know your team you're like how can i help and you feel i remember feeling really grateful when i could help instead of just there were also times where i'm just barely hanging on myself and i'm like i couldn't carry a feather

for you i'm just hanging on and you're like oh please let this pass one of the one of the first bits of advice i got from kathy sassen who was a veteran adventure racer and one of the first people i met that first year of australia you know she said to me and i've used these words in running bike racing everywhere is that you know no matter how good or bad you feel it won't last and i've i think about that all the time like when you're on you're a multi-day thing or a long thing and you're like i could do this for 40 hours i'm i'm superwoman and it's like no no okay this is not gonna last endurance racing is a roller coaster and so it's like okay don't let your nutrition go don't don't get too cocky because this won't last um but also knowing if you're in a big trough that that won't last either and anyone who's done even a one hour run knows that like you feel terrible in the beginning and then you feel good and then you feel bad again and then you feel good again um and so i think about that all the time that roller coaster effect and you know the three-day phenomenon or feeling super strong like there's no reason to be arrogant in a team of like i'm the best one i'm gonna take everything because you have to be really careful that then you're not gonna send yourself sooner into that next trough that you're ultimately gonna have and so it's a very fine balance of like i have energy to give oh how much of it can i give but make sure i don't crater myself um and it i mean it really is it's more of a mental game than a physical game of like how many you know

how many chips do i have to spend that i want to give to my team and people do that they'll give too much and carry too much stuff like no no no i got it i got i feel great i feel great and then an hour later they've got blisters and you're like oh we shouldn't have done that because it's an ego boost right like you when you're strongest person on the team you're like yeah i can conquer everything i'm gonna take everybody's weight and brah and then they screw themselves yeah it's absolutely an ego boost and i think there's no room for ego in endurance sports you learn that pretty quickly i've had this conversation uh with several colleagues over many many years around are women going to be better than men past a certain distance and they've tried to slight they like the scientists and the coaches and the pundits and things like that have tried to slice and dice it several ways right i mean they look at the physiology and then they'll look at statistics and all these regression equations and things like that but to be honest with you the most like the most compelling argument that would indicate that women can get better than men past a certain distance are the anecdotes from adventure racing i always look back to that because i'm like if if there if there is a compelling reason we're probably not going to be able to like find a mathematical model there's always going to be holes in the physiology and things like that the performance when the athletes are actually doing it is that's all that's always where the proof is right that's the proof in the pudding or the

performances and so those types of stories and those types of anecdotes i've always thought is like the most compelling argument to to support that idea i mean i would love to know i would love for science to be able to actually break it down but you're exactly right we sort of know that we've seen i've you know i've experienced it firsthand of you know some big 180 pound huge guy you know giving me his backpack after a few days um because he can't carry it and so you know i have that experience and that's not saying i'm extra special um but the gender difference is really interesting and i would love for the scientists to explain it um i have a feeling that you know they can explain the physiology of it i have a feeling there may be an emotional or mental component to it that we cannot measure um and we don't understand and guys out there i'm not saying women are better than men or we're just saying that we're different yeah and you know that's the beauty of a team is knowing your teammates and at what point somebody's shining at what point somebody needs help and then it flip-flops um and so yeah i'm not saying women are better at endurance sports but i would love to understand that phenomenon too well everybody would but the limitation of science is it tends to look at isolated singular variables and that's the scientific method right you test something and does it work or

does it not work then you test something else does it work or does it not work performance integrates all of those and it's almost impossible to integrate all of those in science because you don't know the weight of all the proportions and things like that and so those things that you mentioned like the psycho emotional component of it and maybe there's some physiology like who knows what concoction of all of that makes it work and how would you ever test for it and explain it and things like that so i always just go back to the performance will dictate whether or not that's going to be true and if we see enough performances that's good enough for me so what other sports other than events racing i mean i know you've seen this like i mean i've seen it in endurance cycling but where where is this like at what distance in running or other sports do you feel like is that day where you know is it day three that it flips or is it 100 miles or is it where do you see it i don't know i mean on the running side of it we don't have enough performance data to compare and contrast i mean there's always these stories of women outright winning ultra marathon races 100 mile distance 200 mile distance and things like that in my opinion there's not enough of those performances to paint a good context of is this actually true because the field kind of dictates what goes on there but yeah that's why i said adventure racing is the great is the great context and especially when you were racing because you guys had fantastic competition top to bottom all the teams were really good they were high quality athletes and when you're putting

lots of high quality athletes together in the same environment that's what creates a performance context to actually look at and say okay what's like what's going on here so i don't know i mean i don't know if three days is the magic day or not but it's definitely a cool it's definitely a cool anecdote from adventure racing and it's just fun to talk about as long as you don't get too wrapped around the axle about it which some people tend to do oh yeah yeah it'd be fun to take you on a adventure expedition one of these days and see what happens i mean bike packing is and that's gotten really popular right now too and it's kind of fun to see people going out exploring and and doing multi-day adventures um you know in their own backyard i think we're seeing that on foot and on two wheels um that's been kind of an interesting sort of trajectory that i think it's not just covid related it's not just 2020 that sort of exploration has been coming for a while and you see it in the explosion of ultra endurance events and people you know getting away from typical cross country or cyclocross or and they're wanting to go a little further and deeper into the woods and i think that that's a really cool thing that's happening right now well further deeper that's gonna be our next topic because that that is that is that is your thing i mean you you are known for being able to dig deeper than anybody else find that reserve of whatever you have and like come out the other side of it i'm gonna link some pieces of your bio

into the show notes and whenever i read it i just get a chuckle because it's like some of the stuff that you've done is just hilarious like it's like really people sign up for this stuff like like voluntarily people will like do this to themselves and i am in an ultra endurance and i think it's hilarious so that that says a lot but kind of what i want to what what i want to get to know a little bit better and i think what the what will resonate with the listeners is that when did you figure that out like when did you figure out that you had an aptitude for going to the well for being able to dig deep in these ultra endurance incredibly arduous events i figured that i got an inkling of that and started to figure that out in high school my very first sport was was running and um you know my family was not athletic i didn't grow up with that kind of um experience and i joined the cross country running team my freshman year um because my next door neighbor was a little bit older i kind of like looked up to her um she said you know if you join the cross country running team one you'll never get fat and you get a free sweatsuit and i was like okay no going into high school that age of a girl like you know your body conscious or whatever and they were like those sweet cotton sweatsuits you know that like same color top and bottom the hoodie like um and so i joined the cross country running team not because i was really attracted to sports or anything else but it really did change my life and

you know as part of the cross country running team then you were also expected to run track in the next season which so i had this direct comparison of like i loved running through the woods and every course was different and like i don't know what's around the next corner and then you have to do the track season which you know i quickly learned that the longer the race was the better i did and the more i enjoyed it and the more varied the race was you know going around a circle making left turns really was not that inspiring to me and so i've always known i have this sort of adventurous spirit and that i do better when it's longer and you know those races were only two miles you know which seemed like an eternity when you're in high school um and then i remember i went to college and then the races were three miles you know and it was like oh my gosh i don't think i can run that long um it's so hilarious to talk about now three miles is so long it was and it was like what college athletes run three miles and so that was kind of a big deal but i learned early on that yeah i wanted to adventure and i and i the longer it was the better i did um you know i really in track i really wanted to do hurdles and like the hundred yard dash and the long jump because i was like well the you know they're not as painful as the two mile you know running a two mile around a track i'm like i want to do the fun stuff but i wasn't any good at it you know and so i kept trying to do hurdles and long jump and all that and coach is finally like no no you gotta run the two mile you you just stay where you need to be and we we find our path and and

eventually you know that two miles became seven day ten day you know 24 hour mountain bike racing um ultra endurance stuff and i think what i started to discover you know people have asked me you know what is your relationship with like going and doing these really painful hard things and you know really it's it's that that's my teacher the trail is really my teacher and who i am you know when all of the everything's stripped away all my defenses are stripped away that happens out on the trail on a really long adventure when you have some one of these big adventures in front of you you tend to do a lot of planning in advance especially i don't know what it was like kind of in the earlier part of your career but i know that when you've like taken things on like more recently like in the past 10 years or so like you look at it you're very thoughtful you're very deliberate you're very conscientious about what you're doing do you look at that and go okay i have to get myself ready to like go to the well to like dig into this you know part that i might not you know ever touch again for until the next time i try to do one of these things is that like a conscientious part of your preparation when you do these things yeah it's probably a bit of a you know lack of self-confidence in myself of like you know i'm not the kind of person who's just gonna like grab a knife put a knife in my teeth and go out into the woods i'm like oh i need to make sure i have everything i'm really prepared like control the controllables because um i probably you know don't have a ton of confidence in myself i mean i know i can

go long i know i can be out there but i also i hate being hungry i hate being cold i don't like when things don't work um and so maybe that's that you know there's a controlling virgo side of me that wants to make sure i'm prepared um because i know it's going to be scary i know it's going to be super hard and i don't want it to be like oh i forgot to bring batteries like what an idiot um and it's i mean the cerebral part of a you know a big exhibition planning it's something i actually really like um because it's like i said earlier it's more than just how big your legs are how strong your lungs are it's can you be smarter and i've always felt like i'm not the most you know my physiology is not the most gifted out there but i'm a good planner i'm you know thoughtful and that oftentimes you know that can win a race or that can be success or failure in an expedition is is if you take care of the planning and and there's so much cool equipment initially like i said i didn't like that part about the bike of like there's too much equipment there's too much stuff to figure out i just want to throw on a pair of running shoes and i still feel that way there's days where i'm just like i just want to go out and throw on some shoes um but there's so much cool equipment of like can this be lighter can this does this work a little bit better um and that's kind of the fun part of planning an expedition and getting all the maps together and all this stuff and in adventure racing days i mean i learned that from my adventure racing teammates is when you're carrying everything on your back you

are carefully evaluating each piece of equipment down to your socks like do i take one pair of socks or two do i take this one pair is this going to be the perfect pair for every situation um and we were cutting labels you know out of our clothing and cut taking zippers off of things and you'd end up with this pile of stuff that you know weighs 12 ounces and you're like okay that's 12 ounces less i have to carry and so i learned that early on this meticulous from my adventure racing teammates some meticulous preparation and it's kind of the fun part of an expedition i think and it can make or break you your equipment really can make or break you especially when you're being self-reliant you're carrying it on your back um and no one's gonna come you know there's no cell phone coverage there's there's no rescue you're you're you know you're your own first responder and i do really like that sort of commitment um of big expedition planning but it's interesting to me rebecca that the fuel for all of that the fuel for all of like the hard physical work that you do in training the fuel for all of the meticulous planning that you just went through comes from a lack of confidence like with all with with all of the success that you have had which is a lot you're more than anybody that i've ever had on this podcast not that's the best litmus test but you've had it's fair to say like as an observer of endurance sports rebecca that you're one of the most successful athletes period male male female doesn't matter team

sports individual sports successful absolutely despite all that whenever you go into an expedition or you go into training you still have this thorough meticulous i'm going to train hard i'm going to do everything i can and it's fueled by lack of confidence it's maybe yeah it probably is you know will gad is another really good athlete he's a well-known climber um i really look up to him and he gave a speech one time to a bunch of red bull athletes which i'm a red bull athlete and he talked about the power of pessimism and i know that sounds really weird um but in my training or you know you think about well what are my what are my competitors doing are they training harder are they are they doing more am i doing everything i can be doing and no i could be doing a little bit more and i think maybe it's not potential you know maybe lack of confidence isn't the best way to describe it but the fact that like i could be doing more it's a lack of arrogance really like you know the best athletes i know in the world think they could be doing better and they think there's another one percent that they could get um and i think that's that's where it you know it's not lack of confidence it's lack of arrogance um because you know i don't i know that i have had a lot of success in the athlete i know i'm i can do a lot of things that other people can't do but i'm also know that there's more that i can learn i can train harder i can do better i can stretch more i can plan a little better and so i

know that's exciting to me is that maybe i've reached some sort of pinnacle but i'm not done evolving as an athlete or a human i don't doubt that one bit like knowing you just just just very briefly and in the way that we know each other you're going to be improving for forever um is your training is there training harder is the racing harder because you do a lot of hard stuff but you also train hard is there one like can you put a thought can you put a pin on if one is harder than the other the training's harder for sure it's always been harder for me to have that day-to-day commitment it's raining you don't want to go you know your coach says you're supposed to do this you're supposed to do that that is this long-term commitment thing um whereas when you get to a race that's the icing on the cake and there's so much energy there's so much excitement you plan for it for a year you really want to get to the finish line you really want to see what's out there and that's the easy part that that really is the icing on the cake and that's what that's what has to fuel somebody when they're training for years in the middle of the winter and all that to get on their trainer or go you know do something they don't want to do um is really thinking about that goal of a race and that's why people like well why do you race or you know race is a four-letter word for a lot of people and for me events are important because that's what gives you the commitment in that day-to-day grind of putting in the time and we all know you know i've showed up to races where i'm not

fit and i'm not trained and it's dangerous and it's awful and it feels terrible um if you go some somewhere and do something big and you're unprepared for it it's it's a terrible feeling and so um yeah training works but it takes this ongoing commitment that that is really hard none of us are perfect every day and i have sort of this what i call the 80 percent rule you know with my coaches is that i've never done 100 of my training 100 of the time it just doesn't happen with life and illness and lack of motivation or whatever else is happening um you just never get everything that's on the paper you probably know this from your clients and you're like oh i'm gonna like tell my coach i did that oh i forgot my heart rate monitor but yeah i did it you know um there's all sorts of games we can play but you know i never have done 100 of what my coaches asked me but um i i usually hit about 80 percent 100 of the time and that's pretty good and that works pretty well and i'm not saying it's okay for people to not do what's prescribed or not do their training but consistency is really what is key you know and if you miss a day here well then don't miss the next day and give yourself a break because i you know i'm here to tell you even world champions olympians nobody's perfect and you don't get it all in so 80 percent rule is kind of where i'm like okay i'm doing all right and and it's enough but i don't know maybe you don't want to share that with your client no i i think it's better i mean

we say this cliche a lot right where it's it's better to be great at being consistent versus great at being great like you have those big peaks and these awesome you know one workout days i'd rather take the athlete that just is slowly clips along every single day very few highs and lows just kind of how you mentioned 80 80 that consistency is worth a whole heck of a lot especially in ultra endurance events um you mentioned that uh before we got on the air that uh you you recently had a virtual event where you kind of like let everybody into rebecca's like personal bubble with all the you know things the things that you do and you also just mentioned that you know you've got coaches and you're a red bull athlete and you're one of these athletes that has access to some of the most brilliant minds in physiology and coaching you're a red bull athlete they've got a lot of tools and toys and you can go to them and say hey listen this is what i want to do you can zap my brain and take my blood and you know find all this you know really interesting super scientific stuff up but at the same time you do a lot of things that go like outside the bounds of what we study in like normal sports science types of settings fair statement like what you do is outside the bounds of normal sports science uh i would say yes and no i mean what's interesting is is is um yes we can measure people's blood we can measure you know um sort of how many watts they're putting out we can measure that kind of physiology and

it's been really cool to be a red bull athlete because they do have their um athlete performance center so we get access to some really cool testing and some some really interesting stuff but we you know the part that is people are really wanting to measure sort of the last holy grail um is it's what's going on in your brain and what is your mind doing and we all know it's like your mind and your brain can either be your your you know biggest asset or your biggest enemy and we did some a really cool um camp that was gosh five or six years ago now or maybe more um with a small group of people and a bunch of neurologists uh red bull training camp and they were really trying to figure out what quits first the mind or the body and so we were you know loaded up with brain stimulators and they were literally stimulating our brains some were placebo some were not um to see if you could basically tell yourself tell your brain to shut up and keep going um and so i'd say you know some of those things have been real eye openers of can you measure that and and not quite yet we can't but what's really interesting to me and i'd say this probably happened you know i i became aware sort of of meditation and mindfulness and some of those things about five years ago i went and did um the ho chi minh trail and rode through vietnam laos and cambodia so 1200 mile expedition and went to

find a place where my dad's plane was shot down in the vietnam war and he died there and during that process we filmed made a movie called blood road but i was required to journal and voice record every day as part of the film process and what was really interesting to me on that month-long journey is to it's the first time i had journaled or really gotten into meditation and so in the years following that i started to really explore my own brain and like what is going on out there after three days in adventure race and you know or you know 1200 miles on the ho chi minh trail and it's the first time i started to articulate maybe what i feelings and sensations and thoughts and i really do think that that's a really interesting part of performance that people are starting to latch on to now and you're seeing it with apps like headspace you're seeing you're seeing people you know you know doing more you know stretching yoga but sitting there and being quiet and i've i've always thought that endurance sports were sort of a moving meditation where you do get into this flow state and you lose track of time and all of a sudden your legs don't hurt anymore um but learning to do that sitting still has been an interesting process that that sort of the last five years or so i've i've dabbled in um but anyone who's an endurance athlete knows that you get to a different sort of a state um when you're

out there in the middle of the night you know hear the owls or you hear other things and it may seem new but it's it's ancient it's like a vision quest for native americans or you know buddhist monks who um fast and then meditate i mean you could you could take a lot of similarities between what we do as endurance athletes into some of those ancient practices that are really getting to know yourself as a human and going back to your question yeah i you know i did just do rebecca's private idaho which is uh year number eight of a big cycling event i do obviously we couldn't do it in person for for safety reasons um but i didn't want to give up on you know being a resource for people and as we know our sports community is essential to our health and wellness and you know if you can't go to an event how do you still stay connected to your community how do you still stay motivated to train for something so you know it's like how do you still take care of yourself and connect with your community and i knew people still needed that including me my coach was like what's it going to take for you to get off the couch and get back to your training i'm like i don't know i need an event i need people i need my people and so that's where the motivation to keep private idaho in a different format happened and so i basically made an eight week program for people to have access into my world to my coach you know a mindfulness person a lot of the red bull you know people that i have access to professional athletes and we all train together for private idaho and people designed

their private idaho courses at home so they're exploring their backyard they're learning how to plan a route in their garment they're learning how to stay committed to training they're connected with the community and it was so cool to one i needed it but it was so cool to see what happened for people of like i really needed this because this is a really hard time in our world and you let your personal fitness go and you lose your community like those are two pretty big things and to be able to create that um in a digital way you know and get people outside their own back doors it was cool it was i didn't think it would work um but it did and it was amazing and it gives me hope for for all of us but it also reinforces the fact that we need to move as human beings and we need to stay connected and that's what private idaho was about this year yeah and a lot of people are struggling with that in the endurance community right now yeah i mean just left left right and center and a lot of what we've been finding just with our athletes is the duration of how long this pandemic has lasted and it looks like it's going to last yeah that disruption you know endurance athletes can handle because we're you know we're we're good at adversity right but once it gets to like six months nine months 12 months 18 months and we start to lose the fabric that binds us together it's just i just get the sense now is really grading on people well and like an endurance event you go in like iditarod alaska i know it's 350 miles i know it's gonna take me between four and eight days um but you know there's a finish line

and i think and we can wrap our heads around that and keep going i think that's what's really hard about this is we don't know where the finish line is yet and so that's why you know almost like that adventure racing it's like take care of yourself right now in this moment because we don't know how long we're in it and so you better be your best self because we're in it for the long haul but that's a hard mindset to not know where the finish line is have you ever been i'm gonna go back to the racing a little a little bit because i don't want this to turn into covid 2.0 because everybody's sick of it by now have you ever been in a point where you're just like i just can't do this because we've got this like image of you like you're always the toughest you're the you know you're gonna come out the other side like you're the one taking people's weight after day three and stuff like that have you ever just been like i just can't i just can't do it it's too hard yeah i many times i cry all the time i'll let you guys know that um it's hard all the time and you know people often think that the more fit or the athletes that win that it's easier for them um it's not guarantee we're going through just as much pain it may be for just a shorter duration of time um but yeah there's one memory that really sticks out in my head and um it was the first raid galois i did which was another version of eco challenge the original adventure race was called the raid galois um it was a french organization and this particular race was in um tibet and nepal really high elevation really high altitude it was my first race with an experienced team we were the only american team there

and i was the rookie like pretty new you know i'd had a flash in the pan some early on success and so i got invited on this pretty good team and was like oh you know um mike closer was on the team patrick harper like a bunch of names that maybe you've heard of and and i was the rookie of course the only female in a five-person team um and i'd never really been to super high elevation and the race started at 14 000 feet and went up to 19 000 feet and so there was this whole acclimatization process before we even started but first day in the race we're doing great we're in like seventh place with you know the top american team an american team had never placed well in uh in the raid galois and so yeah we're all charged and having a good time um day two comes around and we're going higher and higher in elevation and i'm basically getting pulmonary edema um you know because i'm going too hard trying to keep up with my male teammates and digging myself into a pretty severe uh medical hole and situation and we got to you know literally crawling on my knees dragging myself up to 18 000 feet and got to that checkpoint there and the medics um you know they heard the coughing they you know basically saw the state i was in and stopped us and wanted to pull me out of the race they kept us there for a number of hours evaluating us and well you know many of my teammates were like this is only two days and they're like come on you know they didn't want to be pulled from the race

because of me and of course i'm feeling guilty i'm feeling terrible but it's also the first time in my life you know as a climber and an athlete that i felt like i might die like i'm i'm really hurting myself physically and i was really scared and it's like i i don't do this to you know wreck my lungs and have you know long-term physical um physical challenges and i was really scared that i was hurting myself um and didn't care about the race at that point and the medics wanted to hold me there hold me there and we finally convinced them that look the safest thing for me to do is get down and the course was dropping way down to the river next and so we convinced them like what we faster if i just get out of here and and so they let us leave after a number of hours you know my team's all excited they start charging ahead and i'm literally taking one step at a time leaning on my poles one step at a time leaning on my poles crying and i just you know and i couldn't do it and one of my teammates came back um he's still one of my best friends and he i just i said to him i don't i don't know if i can i can't do it and what he said to me like the other guys were like come on rebecca you know don't quit you know it's a little bit different type of motivation and all patrick said to me he said if you need to stop i'll stop with you and like it was basically like a hug he gave me a hug and said it's okay if

you quit and that was all that i needed not to quit was for somebody to say it was okay you don't have to beat yourself up i'm with you as a friend no matter what happens and we went on we finished seventh overall which was the highest american ranking ever in that race um and you know that five days later and and cross the finish line and that was a moment where i just realized the power of love and you know taking a minute and like letting somebody heal um and staying with them and that you know our bodies and our friendships are more important than any finish line and ultimately that got me to the finish line was just saying it was okay if you have to stop it's okay and that was i mean you mentioned that was pretty early on in your career did you ever use that as like some sort of framework for future expeditions and things that you did to say okay if i'm ever in this situation this is how i'm going to kind of approach it it definitely softened me to realize that you know most of us if if you're an athlete most of us are pretty hard on ourselves most of us are our own worst enemy we work really hard um and you're not describing anybody that's listening by the way nobody's like that we work super hard and we never cut ourselves a break and so and i'm that same way too but it made me realize as a teammate um and for myself as my own teammate to cut myself a break you know and that we're doing the best we can and if somebody's on their knees because they can't breathe and they've got

pulmonary edema you know beating them up really isn't going to be the solution to help them um and also that a finish line you know that's not the most important thing it's the thing that got us motivated like i said to do that day-to-day training to take control of our physical health but really does the race really matter no the journey it's the journey and the process and if you're if you're hurting yourself then then that is time to call it quits so rebecca you're a long ways off from hanging up your bike and hanging up your shoes and hanging up all of your other adventure equipment that i've got that i'm that i'm just envisioning is sprawled out across your home up in idaho what's it going to take to convince you to get into a big 100 mile ultra marathon like the led ultra 100 or western states or UTMB i'm gonna put you on the spot here because there's gonna be people that are like craving for this craving for rebecca rush to get into ultra running in a proper way and i'm gonna tell you i've thought about this for probably 10 years um thought about i really need to do a big ultra i really need to do a big ultra um it's i think it's in my future and because it's been nagging at me and been like oh that looks really interesting and i'll tell you um i have a really good friend emma roca who is an amazing runner and has done done a lot of those events and she's come to visit me every you know couple summers or something and it was a a big revelation when i

learned that ultra runners don't run the whole time and that they walk up the hills that was where i was like i can totally do that because i was this i'm i'm thinking back to high school like two miles is hard for me to run like i don't know if i could run 100 miles and emma's like no no no you don't run the whole time i'm like what nobody told me this and so that was the first revelation that like okay i could do one um because i had this vision that like you know all these super like skinny people are all just like running up the hill and then when i go on trail runs i walk sometimes or i scramble or and so there is one in my future and i have to thank emma for letting me know that like everyone's not running the whole time i had no idea well okay so here's what i'm thinking i'm i'm thinking hard rock super high what makes you pick that one because it's a hiker course you hike up the hills i need a hike course yeah you hike up the hills and then you run down now you got to get a qualifier for that but we can we can take care of that okay i'm thinking tour de giant which is 330k in the italian alps super hard there's hardly any running on that there's you know lots of good technical stuff there's a lot of things that would be like perfect in your wheelhouse and you would love i think that that's really cool i mean it's just like me choosing cross country versus track in high school is you you find this the things that attract you that you're like that sounds really exciting to me and there's so many different races and you can choose if you're more of you want a flat runners

course you could choose that if you want like a scrambly rock climber course you know um i could choose something like that so it's cool to know that there's i'll have to i'll have to come and maybe do some research there is one in idaho that's that is i've really wanted to do called the stand hope i don't know if you know about that one and it's in my backyard i know the terrain there's no reason i shouldn't just go out and do one of those and i work with ultra running now because they they know that i mean i trail run all the time i just have never trail run 100 miles so maybe i should start with like a 60k or something no screw that just jumping in the deep end rebecca you can handle it like yeah don't like dip your toe in the water come on now like you're like what what would you be doing doing a 60k like what why not just like jump in and do a 200 mile race because like we talked about it's that power and pessimism i'd be like no i should prepare i should make sure i could do it you know make sure i'm fit enough but you're right i mean sometimes you just have to jump in and not wait till you're perfectly prepared for something i think if you signed up for a 50k or 60k no matter how hard it was you'd be like that's it like i don't want to do this sport anymore that's why i think you should jump in the deep end because i want to get you hooked so you like keep coming back and the way to get hooked is just to do something super gnarly what is it about 100 miles that like like turns this corner this flip that really becomes ultra running um yeah that's a good question right

because it's it does have this um it does have this like gold star on it like you're not a real ultra runner until you run 100 miles it's far different than doing a 50 or 100k i mean in the in the in the uh adventure racing world it'd be the difference between a sprint and an eco challenge right those aren't even the same sport at that point okay and i really view once you get up to the 100 mile distance in particularly like harder 100 mile distances it is a completely different sport than marathon running than trail running than even ultra running because of the just because of the duration of it and i just think that for like for you the proposition of doing a really hard one which would take you know 24 hours or more or something like that like once you did it you'd keep coming back i'm not going to say you're going to give up cycling and all these other things like but you just like keep coming back because there's just like the all of the things that you like mentioned and that like make you you that you're so renowned for are exemplified in ultra running i'm trying to make a compelling case here challenge accepted we're gonna find one i'm gonna do one all right you and i we're gonna get off we're gonna offline we're gonna brainstorm some ideas all right and you can be help me and be a pacer a crew member for me i'll tell you what any any ultra marathon that you do rebecca hit me up i'll pace you 100 if i can keep up i might have to give you my pack

you're used to that though we talked about that that's so much at the beginning of the podcast i'll be giving you my pack facing you all right rebecca i appreciate your time we're gonna let you go um i want you why don't we leave listeners with a little bit of a better description on rebecca's private idaho in a non-covid year hopefully it'll come back next year you want to tell everybody about that yeah i mean typically it's a it's a uh a gravel bike ride a big giant gravel bike ride everything from 20 miles to a three-day stage race um and you know the goal of it it's one of my biggest fundraising rides of the year for the be good foundation um and you know it's typically a four day five day long uh celebration of of people place and purpose and i will tell you i've been uh toying with the idea of adding um a running event to it so i think in the future we could have um you know cycling slash running event going on at the same time because i think that'd be really cool you guys have badass trails around there i'd do that we do we have we have really great trails um and a lot of open space and so i could i could see having a running aspect but you know i and i know that like running is your thing but i don't know any athlete that like only does one sport you know everyone i know runs bikes skis does does a lot of different things and so you might consider that you know oh i'm not a cyclist the beautiful thing about gravel road riding is that it is really accessible for

anybody and it's a really cycling is a really great way you know to have some off days from running you know every single day and so for any of you out there thinking of dabbling in it um gravel is a great way to get into cycling um it's not intimidating there's dirt roads everywhere there's not a lot of traffic on those roads and it's i guarantee it will help you running um if you do a day or two a week of cycling gravel riding is getting more and more popular in ultra running circles it's like the right yeah it's like the right combination where it's like not too technical so people aren't intimidated by like riding their bike over like ridiculously gnarly terrain and it's not on the road where there's a lot of traffic and they can kind of go wherever they want to so it is becoming bigger there's a lot of ultra runners that have done uh dirty kanza right which you're quite quite familiar with so they just jump right in you know it's the same thing it's like we're just gonna pick the hardest stuff to do well and i think the key to longevity and sport and being a lifelong athlete is that you do mix it up a little bit and that you're not only doing one sport and it's the reason i don't only cycle because it'd be terrible for my back and my posture and you know and so i think it really is important to mix it up and have a little bit um more in your repertoire than just your main course for it well i hope you mix it up on the ultra running scene rebecca rush 2021 2022 hard rock utfb tour de yacht i'm telling you we could fight it a bit for you thanks coop and i'm gonna make you're gonna i'm gonna take you up on that uh being my pacer uh for one of those you can hold me to it i'm down

and there you have it there you go thank you rebecca for coming on the podcast today that was really fun i want to bring you back on the podcast once you start your ultra running journey for all the listeners out there go out and hit rebecca up on social media let's poke that fire a little bit and let's get her into some freaking ultra running it would be absolutely awesome appreciate the heck out of all of the listeners today thank you from the bottom of my heart if you have not had the chance skip on over to apple podcast and give this podcast a rating or a review that means a tremendous amount to me or if you like it just hit me up on social media and say thanks i really like it when i receive those messages and as always you guys we will see you out on the trails you