Corrine Malcolm: What It Takes To Run A 100+ Mile FKT


About This Episode:

In this week’s episode, Hillary talks with CTS coach Corrine Malcolm about her recent FKT on the 275K Tahoe Rim Trail and her tips for runners looking to tackle their first 100 mile and 100+ mile ultramarathons.

Episode Highlights:

  • Inside look at Corrine’s Tahoe Rim Trail FKT
  • What training for a 100+ mile event looks like
  • How to deal with sleep deprivation during long events
  • Focusing on the things you can control

Guest Bio – Corrine Malcolm:

Corrine Malcolm is a professional ultrarunner for Adidas Terrex. She’s a CTS coach, an exercise physiologist, and a science writer. Since starting ultrarunning in 2016, Corrine has finished in the top 10 at Western States twice, fourth in TDS at UTMB, and most recently she’s at the women’s supported FKT on the 171 mile Tahoe Rim Trail in a time of 44 hours and 51 minutes.

Read More About Corrine Malcolm:

 

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Episode Transcription:

Please note that this is an automated transcription and may contain errors. Please refer to the episode audio for clarification.

 

Speaker 1 (00:17):

[inaudible]

Hillary Allen (00:19):

Hello and welcome to the train right podcast. Today’s guest. We have Corrine Malcolm. Corrine Malcolm is a professional ultra runner for Adidas Terrex. She’s a coach, an exercise physiologist and a science writer since starting ultra running in 2016. Corrine has finished in the top 10 Western States, twice fourth in TDS at UT MB. And most recently she’s at the women’s supported F Katie on the 171 mile Tahoe rim trail in a time of 44 hours and 51 minutes. Current struggled to write this intro because she thinks her affinity for cheese is far more interesting than running around in the woods when she’s not running for Frank or frankly, eating cheese curd, enjoys exploring outside on her bike or skis hanging out with her dog PD and making a mean pie. Hi Corinne. Thanks for joining us. Hi, thanks for reading my really, really awesome introduction.

Hillary Allen (01:20):

I really love it. It’s it’s so you, so, um, so I’m super excited to chat with you because I mean, we’re friends and, um, well, you’re also a coach with CTS, so we have a lot in common in that way, but, um, you recently just crushed a super awesome fastest known time on the Tahoe rim trail. And, um, yeah, I’d like to kind of dedicate this episode to talking about what it takes to run a 100 plus mile effort. Um, so from there, I mean, let’s dive in because this record tell me about it. It’s been, it’s been around for however, how many years it was set by Chrissy Mo. Yeah. So the Tata rim trail supported women’s time has been around since 2015 when Krissy mole was the first woman to go under 48 hours, which was pretty huge at that point in time.

Corrine Malcolm (02:15):

I think it was the second or third fastest overall. Um, so it was a pretty big accomplishment when Chrissy said it. Yeah. Then the men’s time’s been lowered, um, the toddler and took, got a ton of attention this summer with women’s unsupported time being broken, the men’s unsupported time being broken and the men’s supported time being broken. And then finally with me, um, just a couple of weeks ago, breaking the women’s support at a time, we have reset the record books on the Tahoe rim trail in 2010. And so correct me if I’m wrong, but your time is the fourth fastest, um, supported record time. It’s the fourth fastest all time the even supported in supported. Yeah. So the men’s there, the gentlemen, Jamie Curtin who broke gentlemen, that seems very proper. Um, Jamie, the men’s sup unsupported record this summer on the TRT. And at one point he was ahead of Killian’s supported time and he faded a little bit. And so he set a blistering pace, um, for unsupported time in July, which was kind of anchors and mindblowing. Um, so it’s yeah, it’s mine with his time included in there as the fourth fastest.

Hillary Allen (03:29):

Oh my gosh. I love that. I mean, so fastest woman, obviously, and then the fourth fastest time overall, that’s like super impressive. I mean, I think that, um, I mean, we actually shared the same coach Adam Saint Pierre, and he’s always telling me that, you know, like, you know, women can, the longer, the longer the distance is the kind of closer we get to the men. So I love seeing this in action.

Corrine Malcolm (03:56):

Yeah. And I think there’s probably a couple more hours to be taken out of the women’s FK tee time on there right now. It’s um, I think we’re, I think I was eight hours slower than Adam Kimball’s time on the trail. And so I think, I think that can come down a little bit more. He ran an amazing run. I mean, he broke Kilian journey’s record by like 80 minutes or something, which is pretty, pretty impressive. Um, when he’s actually local to the area and he came out actually to kind of emotionally support my crew. It was pretty fun to bring him out there in the middle of the night. Um,

Hillary Allen (04:33):

So I guess, so tell me, where did, where did you get the idea from? Um, and I mean, with that, like the desire to run farther than 100 miles.

Corrine Malcolm (04:43):

Yeah. So there are a couple of factors in like in play there. I, the tier T has been on my radar for a couple of years now. Um, kind of shortly after Chrissy said it, um, I’ve, I’ve looked up and admired Chrissy for a very long time. Um, you know, kind of having a, a different entry into the sport, getting to see, I mean, she came in at a pretty young age, particularly at that time of ultra running. Um, she was like unusually young to be in the sport. She’s got the grants like the youngest ever grand slam finisher. Um, so I thought that was like, I noticed that when I was coming into ultra running, um, cause I was, I started alternating when I was 26 and that was the, the, that is how old Chrissy was when she was the youngest ever grand slam finisher.

Corrine Malcolm (05:32):

So kind of mindblowing. Um, so I’ve been following, I’ve been following her and following, um, just kind of what she was up to. So saw the record there and then had the great privilege, um, to help crew Magda. Um, her F Katie attempt on it last fall basically a year before I went and ran my own attempt on it. Um, and watched her, you know, her way through a hard day, you know, figured it out ahead will hard, two days started out kind of low fade. There’s a lot of walking involved. Um, what are the people in your estimate? So, um, got to be a part of that crew last year and paced her for a little over 40 miles of her attempt. Um, and actually it was on my radar for this season. Independent of COVID. It was kind of a thing that I was thinking about doing at the end of my season. I’m assuming we had a weather window. Yeah,

Hillary Allen (06:25):

Yeah.

Corrine Malcolm (06:29):

I guess the other part too, is that I’ve got a lot of, I’ve had a lot of athletes who run crazy long races, you know, who trained for, you know, the, like the youth, like races in the Yukon that are, you know, 200 plus miles long and the, you know, Moab two 40 and Bigfoot 200, and these races, I’ve been an athlete doing a race, um, called California untamed. Who’s supposed to do it this year, but we’ll do it next year, which is 330 miles in California. So although I hadn’t run further than 102 miles, I’ve been working with athletes training for these mega long events. And so, you know, seeing these athletes go out there and put together, you know, 60 hours of running and hiking, um, makes it seem much more approachable, I think as well.

Hillary Allen (07:18):

Yeah. And so that actually leads me to my next question. So, I mean, obviously you have experience coaching, uh, other runners to run these super long distances. Would you say, um, that it’s necessary to have an experience or kind of a comfort with running hundred miles or like winning a hundred mile event or, um, a hundred mile race, um, before you start kind of attempting bigger distances.

Corrine Malcolm (07:44):

I think there’s a natural progression there. Um, you learn a lot every time you take a step up in distance, right? If you go from 50 miles to a hundred miles like that, that’s a big jump and it’s, um, it’s one that, you know, you kinda only get to make once to experience that big change. Um, so I do think, and, you know, you get comfortable running a hundred mile races, you know, you’re using a 50 mile races, a training run and a lot of ways, right. Ostensibly, and so I think the same can be said for kind of these ultra ultra long distances, the a hundred plus mile adventure runs or races where, um, you know, all of a sudden you can use a hundred mile race in the buildup to that, which is kind of wild to think about. But I think there’s, you know, some logic of having to be out there for that long to be on your feet for that long, you know, maybe it’s not super close to your event, but I think having to do that in the year, leading up to your big adventure is important because it allows you to work through things that you might not be able to work through in training otherwise.

Hillary Allen (08:48):

Yeah. And so, so for you, I mean, can you tell us about your background with hundred mile races? Yeah,

Corrine Malcolm (08:56):

So I started running ultras in 2016 in part because I had done about a year of trail running. Um, prior to that, I come from a Nordic ski background. So we, you know, we spend our summers and falls training in the mountains going on long runs, so very natural transition. Um, and my dad kind of encouraged me to run longer. He thought that I would be better if I ran longer. Um, just kind of a very dad thing to say, no. Um, we were moving from Montana to the Pacific Northwest, um, for Steven my partner to train on the mountain bike more efficiently and for myself to go to graduate school. And, um, you know, all of a sudden I was looking at the ability to run your around, you know, there wasn’t going to be snow there. Wasn’t going to be this season, like the seasonal shift to another sport, which I do still crave.

Corrine Malcolm (09:47):

I crave seasonality, but you know, open up this window where I was going to be a time crunch, graduate student running through a very wet Pacific Northwest winter. And so having something kind of big and scary to train for seemed like a really great idea and Gorge a hundred K happened to be on my 26th birthday. So getting to run two miles on my 26th birthday, it was pretty awesome. Um, and that was my intro into ultra running. And then the following year, 2017, I got into Leadville and that was gonna be my first hundred I’d actually, I found out that I got into CCC. Um, one of the TMB races and Leadville, I found out like within a couple of days of each other. And if you know my running style, you would think that I would want to go

Hillary Allen (10:34):

UCC. Yeah.

Corrine Malcolm (10:36):

I heard that I was getting into Leadville and I was so much more excited about that. I know it like, you know, it was a very runnable course it’s I was living at sea level and it was at altitude like that made me so much more excited than the idea of going to Europe to race CCC, which now I think is kind of funny, but, um, so did Leadville in 2017, um, and had a qualifier for the Western States lottery then. And so put in for the Western States lottery, um, for the second time, I guess, and got drawn on the wait-list. So all of a sudden I went from running Leadville to being on the Western States waitlist and then getting to run Western States in 2018, finishing in the top 10, running it again in 2019, finishing in the top 10 and then electing to not run it this year because I needed to do other things warm, the whole 2020 kind of canceled everything. Um, but kind of like

Hillary Allen (11:33):

So funny because I mean, like you say, I mean, I think you and I also have a similar running style. We like, like the mountains, we like the steep elevation gain. And then you’re like doing these hundreds that are like super runnable.

Corrine Malcolm (11:44):

Why did I run Leadville in Western States? No one knows. Um,

Hillary Allen (11:48):

But I mean, you did pretty well. I think it makes sense. It’s okay. I mean, this is, I mean, this, this goes to show that like mountain running is transferrable,

Corrine Malcolm (11:58):

Who would have thought yeah. And honestly, coming from a ski background, I very comfortable running very slowly, um, which probably, you know, serves, serves me well when it comes to being in the mountains all day, because I do have a slower pace that I feel very comfortable in as opposed to like a very high running pace. Um, but doing Leadville and doing Western States was actually a really good learning experience for me to have to run flat, to have to train on like runnable terrain, um, and work on my like running economy and just becoming more efficient because otherwise you put me out on the trails and I like naturally want to run 10 minute miles all the time. Um, and so cause it’s like low aerobic, you know, easy movement. It was good. It was good for me, but I am so excited to have graduated from that phase of my training and getting to deeper like slower, big mountain things now.

Hillary Allen (12:46):

Oh, I completely agree. I mean, so this, actually, this is perfect segue into like, how did you actually prepare and train for the Tahoe rim trail? Like, was it, I guess kind of just like walk me through, it was like, was it different than how you would approach a hundred mile training, you know, um, training block. Yeah. So it was kind of,

Corrine Malcolm (13:06):

It was interesting. So this was supposed to be like tacked onto the end of the season. You know, I was supposed to do, um, TDS this year at UT MB. Um, so there’s kind of going to be a natural training block that would have led me to, you know, TRT fitness as well, just, you know, long mountain days. Um, but that was kind of the warranted. Um, and so we kind of shifted to just, uh, and we like didn’t feel comfortable traveling. Um, we did go to see family in Washington in June, um, kind of in like the safest manner possible, but you know, uh, I was training in San Francisco a lot. And so that led to, um, an EverString project and I ended up choosing the least efficient EverString route possible, um, everlasting being where you go up and down the same Hill over and over again until you climb 29,029 feet.

Corrine Malcolm (14:01):

Um, and I chose Mount Tam in our backyard and there’s a route up Mount Tam, like the traditional Tam Hill climb from town, which is a little over three miles to the top. And it gains like just about 25,000 feet or something like 125,021 last 12, 12 laps. Um, and it was almost 30,000 feet total going up and down the same route. And so I did that in July, end of July. So that was an 80 mile effort with almost 30,000 feet of climbing. So to your team, you know, a hundred more miles with, um, no more climbing. So I felt like that was a good long day on my feet. And we also had some kind, we, we, that rolled into fire season for us, which is also like threw a wrench into a lot of plans dealing with smoke. But I had a couple of weekends where I was able to go up to Tahoe, um, and put in some like big days on the Tahoe rim trail itself, just to see the sections that I hadn’t seen yet.

Corrine Malcolm (15:10):

So I did like a, I did a 40 mile day in 20 mile day. Um, so just kind of stacking some of that. I did two weekends like that, um, which was great. And I think, you know, what I have a lot of athletes do and what I would have done in maybe a more normal year, um, with more travel capabilities would be doing a little bit more fast packing. Um, so going out and doing, um, you know, a 60 to 80 mile, like two day, um, you know, carrying a light set up, you know, eating cold food, but carrying a, you know, a little sleep set up and going out just so that you’re, you know, there’s not really training for sleep deprivation. That’s not really, you know, necessarily super specific to a supported F Katie where you’re not going to be carrying as much weight, but it’s just really good trail time. And so for my athletes who are doing like Moab two 40, um, or big foot where they’re going to be carrying asleep, set up potentially and some more safety equipment, cause they’re out there on their own, um, that those fast packing weekends, I feel like are super specific and are really practical. Um, I wish I’d gotten the opportunity to do some of that. I did one fast packing trip the weekend before to your T. So I don’t think it had any influence on the actual outcome.

Hillary Allen (16:25):

Okay. Well, I mean, yeah, cause I was going to ask this, like, what do you think is most important to help an athlete prepare for? Is it, is it like training for the sleep deprivation or training for kind of having a strategy for how you manage sleep out on the trail? Or is it kind of how you manage food for kind of longer efforts or all day, all day moving efforts when you’re not necessarily eating like a meal, but you’re kind of a like, you know, doing, um, I mean, yeah, like what, what like your nutrition plan for me, it’s like, I would use like rice cakes or, um, either the little scratch gummies or stuff like this supplemented with some like real food. Um, but yeah. Do you think that those like kind of longer trail times is, is better to manage the mental aspect or the actual kind of like strategy for, for quote unquote race day? I think it’s

Corrine Malcolm (17:11):

A little bit of all those things. Like it’s like, that’s why I send athletes to FastPack because they need to be comfortable sleeping by themselves overnight on the trail and sleeping, you know, from like midnight to 4:00 AM or 5:00 AM. You’re not getting a lot of sleep out there for racers who are doing, you know, 60 plus hour events. Um, I actually didn’t sleep at all during my SKT. Um, yeah. Went straight through

Hillary Allen (17:38):

How is this possible? Cause like I’ve heard so many different strategies of, you know, sleeping for 20 minutes at a time, like every few hours and then doing like a longer sleep cycle. So

Corrine Malcolm (17:50):

I think if you’re going for over 48 hours or closer to over 60 hours, that stuff becomes much more important if you’re going to be, if you’re going to be done within that 48 hour window, um, a lot of people can push through that. Um, and so I took advantage of that and I knew, I knew on the second day that there was a chance that I was going to need a trail nap. Um, and I told my crew like, Hey, if I need a trail nap, like we’re gonna set a timer for 15 minutes and you’re going to wake me up. Like you’re not let me lay there and, you know, wake me up. Um, but I never needed one. We just kind of kept moving the whole time. Um, and I didn’t take in copious amounts of caffeine. It just, it, I never got a case of the Sleepy’s.

Corrine Malcolm (18:31):

Um, I had some really fun visual hallucinations, but I never got a case where I was like, I really need to, like, I need to close my eyes. I need to like lay down. Um, but I think practicing for most 200 re most people running 200 plus mile races are going to be over 60 hours. And so for them, I think practicing, um, sleeping out on the trail by yourself, cause it can be a spooky experience is really important. I really want to be comfortable, um, feeling safe, feeling confident in your little sleep, set up, all that kind of stuff. Um, I think that this, like, you know, if you’re going under 48 hours or if you’re going over 60 hours, I think in the, you know, the two weeks leading up to the race, um, there’s been some good research on sleep banking, which just means like trying to get as much sleep as possible in that time leading up can be helpful.

Corrine Malcolm (19:20):

Um, for the event itself, just having extra sleep in the banks. And maybe if you normally sleep seven hours trying to get nine hours, um, just trying to go to bed a little bit earlier and trying to stay in bed as long as possible, which can be hard if you have a puppy or children or, you know, work, you know, a job that requires you to be up at a certain time. Um, definitely a little bit, you know, can be difficult. Um, so I definitely like did not go on some early morning rounds with friends and that kind of stuff in the, in the time leading up to it cause I wanted the sleep, but I was also in a weird position where I set four different dates for this. Um, I, um, I joked that I was incredibly well tapered because my initial date was the 29th of August and then got smoked out.

Corrine Malcolm (20:09):

And then my next date was the 11th of September and that the forests were closed, so it could not run. Um, and then I was going to go unsupported with my really good friend Devin Yanco on the 7th of October during the full moon and that got smoked out. Um, and then, um, I, when, um, I, we realized we had this window coming like clearing and to all of a sudden, you know, on Tuesday afternoon we decided that I could start on Sunday. No, it was like, you know, four or days notice and getting the, getting a small crew together. I had planned to have two Pacers for every section so that I wouldn’t have to stop to get stuff out of their bag. They’d be able to carry everything for me, you know, minus like me being able to put a water bottle on myself. Um, and so that got paired down to one, basically one pacer for every section, except for the desolation where I had both my roommates, um, out there with me, uh, which is good, cause it’s a very, very long section and it was very in the, it was from mile one 22 to one 56.

Corrine Malcolm (21:17):

So it was good to have them both out there. Um, but so there’s lots of different strategies that are important and it’s important if, you know, practice eating different things because it’s not, I actually ate not too differently than I normally would in a hundred. Um, I relied primarily on sports, sports, nutrition products. Um, you know, I was using a combination of actually so products from GU, um, their new liquid gels are really easy for me to eat, but also like I utilize the spring oatmeal. Oh yeah. The spring energy oatmeal packs, they’re like 300 calories and they taste so good. So I ate a ton of those, but I also had like Snickers bars with me and I had ramen at my aid station, like my crew stops and I had a bunch of liquid or not liquid. I had a bunch of mashed potatoes and it comes to mashed potatoes when I saw my crew.

Corrine Malcolm (22:10):

And then they were also mixing, um, bottles of, uh, Gourock tan recovery drink. Half of those were mixed with like a Oatley coffee, like into like to go product. So I was getting some caffeine there. So I was, you know, a little bit different. I, I do drink some recovery drink during hundreds, generally speaking. Um, when I, and I’ve got a good crew stop, um, you can a bottle of that cause just different, different tastes, different calorie coming in a little bit more satiating cause it’s got some fruit. Um, so I did that, you know, every 20 miles essentially when I saw my career, I’d get, uh, like a bottle of recovery drink mixed to go. Um, so it was kind of a, you know, it was pretty similar to how I eat during a hundred, but a little bit different in the sense that like, um, I was taking in more recovery product and also just like some other re more like I saw my career a bunch. So I got to have a bunch of instant mashed potatoes. Um, but eating got really hard cause it was so dusty that my throat hurt really, really badly. Um, so towards the end I was also just like sticking gummy candies, like in my cheek looking on them until they would like dissolve to keep bigger up because it was like kind of crashing. And, uh, I, I did that so much that actually had like little sores on my tongue, um, afterwards, but tongues healed really quickly. So it wasn’t too bad.

Hillary Allen (23:38):

Yeah. I mean, I think like what I hear you saying is just, it’s important to be able to practice this in real. So I mean you’ve had experience from hundred mile races of like what, you know, works for you. And so it’s either important to have obviously like a designated either race to practice this or like training runs to be able to practice these strategies, whether it’s sleeping or eating. Um, but I mean, for you, like, do you think the fact that you were kind of like faked out several times, like several times before, like attempting this a FKC that it helped you like you, that you weren’t like tired or kind of over-trained going, going into it. Do you think that you would have maybe done too much or been more tired if you hadn’t kind of had to like be like overly tapered, I guess like, yeah,

Corrine Malcolm (24:28):

That’s good. I think I was physically Pret like prepared really well. Like I was very well rested. Um, and my training, my training during that time period was kind of funky and all over the place because I was like, is it the off season? Is it not the off season? Like, what am I love off season? So I like was kind of like, the wind is out of my sails. I’m done, I’m pulling the plug, I am taking a break. And so I was definitely not overtrained going in, but I think so physically my body was in a really good spot. Yeah. Ultimately, you know, it was very beneficial. My mentally, it was really hard to like have the wind taken out of my sails. I mean all of 2020, right? Like every single race cancellation, um, you know, we had to postpone our wedding, like all sorts of craziness this year.

Corrine Malcolm (25:18):

And so this, you know, I was like, I felt like I had constructed this super safe, satisfying adventure for myself and to have it canceled by, you know, the effects of climate change and raging a very, very early start to our fire season here in California. Um, that was mentally really hard to like, you know, keep stepping up to the plate. And so I think that was, that was a struggle. Um, so it was kind of, you know, a blessing in disguise maybe that I was so well rested, um, because mentally going into it, I was like, Oh, what do I do? But honestly, what really helped, what really, really helped was, um, my teammate Abby hall, um, went out on the game T and had kind of a solo vision quest on an unsupported JMC attempt, you know, and just missed it. And I thought it was really cool.

Corrine Malcolm (26:15):

And then they put together a great video and just like listening to her, talk about like her experience out there. I was like, I really want my own vision quest. Like, how can I, I can still do this. Right. And so that was actually like seeing other people get to adventure, like fired me up just enough, you know, to see Megan Hicks and Sabrina Stanley go kind of back and forth on NOLA. Like that stuff fires me up and gets me excited. And so it felt so good to attempt it, but my mindset going into it wasn’t, you know, initially my mindset was like, we’re taking Chrissy’s record. Like I am going for this thing. Like, like, you know, Adam’s initial splits for me, had me like five minutes behind her record. And I was like, Adam, why am I running this then? Um, like I wanted, and so my initial like mindset going into my first attempt was like, like we are taking this record.

Corrine Malcolm (27:09):

Yeah, yeah. Fast forward to it being canceled three times. And my mindset going into it was I want to complete the TRT. Yeah. Which is like probably more indicative of my natural tendencies when it comes to big challenges is like, I need to go do what’s best for me, not necessarily a results oriented. Um, and so maybe that was a blessing too, to go into it being like, I’m going to go run my best. And if like we get the record awesome. But my, my main goal is just to like, get this thing done. Um, so maybe that was a blessing in disguise too, to have reset my, like my mind frame going into it with that. But, you know, I put together a really conservative splits for my crew, like five minutes under Chrissy’s record, like where we go. I was like, we’re going to take it by five, four and a half minutes or something. So it was definitely surprising to be ahead. I knew we were gonna be ahead early, but I didn’t know that we were going to hold that much ahead for the entire thing.

Hillary Allen (28:06):

And can you remind me, I mean, you, Chrissy was the first to go under 48 obviously. And her, the previous record was 46. I believe

Corrine Malcolm (28:14):

Her record was 47, 29,

Hillary Allen (28:16):

47, 29. So you took a sick, like 44 minutes, 51, 44 hours. 51 minutes.

Corrine Malcolm (28:22):

Yeah. So I took two hours and like 36 minutes or something off the record.

Hillary Allen (28:28):

I mean, yeah. Like I was talking about it, like with Adam, so obviously Adam’s our same coach, but I was just like, man, I’m so impressed with you because I mean, I, I know of mentally speaking, like to do these big events, you have to like hype yourself up and like get psyched to do it. And so to have it be kind of postponed on three separate occasions, like to be able to just be focused, to even start it and then continue to push through, like, even when you hit highs and lows throughout the entire event like that. I think to me, regardless of the impressive time, I feel like the mental, the mental things that you had to tackle and continue to tackle on this attempt or just it’s, it’s just so impressive. And I mean, yeah, like how did you, how did you keep going? Like, did you experience a lot of lows? I still cannot believe that you didn’t sleep.

Corrine Malcolm (29:25):

Um, I, so it’s interesting and this has always been how I am and I don’t understand it and I don’t know if there’s a way to fix it, but I, when I pin a race bib on and this, you know, although I was not wearing a bib, you know, in like very much was like pinning a race bib on, um, I can handle all of the little things that go wrong so well. Um, I think, you know, this is kind of ingrained in me when I used to do biathlon. So shooting and skiing, I was kind of in, you know, re like, you know, reiterated over and over again. Like you can’t control the things that you can’t control. Um, you know, you can’t control when you come into the shooting range and it’s really windy. Like you can’t control the wind. I’m sorry. And I think that is a mentality that I’ve brought into ultra running with me is like, I can only control the things that I can control.

Corrine Malcolm (30:17):

Like I can control what I eat for dinner. I can control what time I go to bed at night, I can control, you know, continuing to feed and drink and all that kind of stuff. So like, my attempt was not perfect. Like, I beat my crew to the 41 mile Mark. Like they were not there when I got there. And luckily they were only five minutes out or 10 minutes out or something, but it’s like, you know, and I left and the boys were like, Oh my goodness, like, Oh, Corinne, wasn’t angry. Like that’s good. And Devin who had just paced me for 41 miles was like, Oh, just you wait if she misses this record by 10 minutes, I don’t think she’s going to be very happy with you. So, um, but that’s just how I am when I race. Like, I’m really, like, I’m really compliant. I joke that I’m like a compliant. Three-year-old like, you tell me what to do and I’ll do it. And I’m not that way in normal life at all. Like Google to like adapt to like things that I can’t control, which is insane that I pin a raised bubble. And I’m like, I am in complete control right now.

Hillary Allen (31:21):

Exact same thing for me. Like, I hate uncertainty. I hate it. But then exactly when you’re on, when you’re in a race and something to do with like, just your constant forward motion, like, you feel like you’re in control. And even if like hits the fan, like it’s, it’s, it’s okay. Like, yeah,

Corrine Malcolm (31:40):

You have a mission. And like, my, like, so it’s like, I, my crew was late getting to mile 41. And then at mile like 52, I like projectile vomited. And then like, I lost Patty for a while. Cause like we, we separated so he could go filter water. And then he thought that I like, and I was like, I’m just gonna go continue up the trail. Like, so I don’t waste time. And he like realized when I left him. He’s like, Oh no, I don’t know if she has a headlamp. And it was getting close to like sunset. And so he like tried to come find me and couldn’t find me. And so he sprinted back to get water. And then he like sprinted up the trail to try to find me again. And so I was on my own for like six miles or something and it did get dark, but I had a headlamp on me and I had gloves and I just like, you have to, you know, and I had half a, you know, half a soft flask of fluid.

Corrine Malcolm (32:29):

And I was like, well, I’ll just keep going until I get to my crew. You know, like hopefully that he didn’t die. Like he didn’t all or get eaten by a bear. Like he has no thought, hopefully it’s fine. So come on Patty and Patty, like all of my crew panicked thinking that he had misplaced me. Um, and truthfully, I was just like walking up the train, you know, running up the trail and then, um, the new pacer and he stopped to filter water at one point and I kept going and then my headlamp did die. So I had to like stand in the cold by myself for like 10 minutes with, uh, you know, in the dark waiting for him to catch back up to me. And then, yeah. So there’s just kind of like this, like, you know, this weird, you know, it was not perfect by any means. Yeah. I felt like I could handle it all, which is pretty cool.

Hillary Allen (33:18):

Oh man. I love that because I think like half of the things for, I mean, ultra running any distance, it is a matter of problem solving. And I mean, you’re a scientist, I’m a scientist. Like that’s kind of one of my favorite things about, about running and running in the mountains in particular, because like nothing ever goes to plan.

Corrine Malcolm (33:38):

No, never. That’s kind of the fun thing about it because

Hillary Allen (33:42):

You’re going to just problem solve as, as they come. And it’s like, I feel it’s like those little like accomplishments that you’re like, okay, I figured this out. Like I can, I can keep going. I can go like, you know, Howard to meet my next crew. Um, or I just feel like every little thing, problem that you solve, it gives you a little bit more energy. Um, but still I’m going to have to call Patty man, he’s my teammate. And like, come on, he’s got to like do better than that.

Corrine Malcolm (34:09):

It was so cool to like

Hillary Allen (34:10):

Watch, uh, watch the whole community. Like every little city has their own little community of runners, but the San Francisco, like the Bay area has a really unique and like tight knit community. So it was really cool to be able to watch, um, like virtually like kind of follow your, your supported effort and, you know, see my friends like running with you and like, it was so cool.

Corrine Malcolm (34:32):

Yeah. It was, it was an awesome, like for things not going perfectly, it, you know, in a lot of ways, which see, this is gonna sound crazy and people are gonna be like, Oh, Korean such a Dick. But it felt, it felt easy. It felt, you know, like I had had runs in the weeks going up to that were like running eight miles felt really hard. And we like, you know, blasted through 41 miles really like in quotes very easily. Um, and so I don’t know what, like, I don’t know what it is about going out and doing these big attempts for me, but I just, like, I feel really at home doing it. Like I’m a very fast Walker. Maybe that’s what it’s like, maybe that’s advantageous, but you know, it was, I, I, yeah, I sound like a Dick saying that it went like that it was easy, but it, I just, I had a really good, you know, two days of not having to have any responsibilities, not having to like have my phone or my email and just like getting to like do this thing felt, you know, in 2020 felt so good.

Hillary Allen (35:40):

Oh man. I mean, one of the things, um, that I was so impressed at too is like watching you coming to the finish line. I was like, Holy crap. She looks like she’s moving really well. Like she doesn’t look like wrecked at all. Um, and so, I mean, I don’t think you’re a Dick. I think it’s, it’s a Testament to how like mentally and physically strong you are. So, um, that’s awesome. But then do you, so do you have any more of these kind of longer a hundred plus mile events on kind of in the back of your mind? Any projects or races?

Corrine Malcolm (36:12):

I don’t know right now. I mean, ultimately like I would love to do like TDG and that kind of stuff. I kind of joke with it and that’s my retirement plan. I’m just going to go slow.

Hillary Allen (36:24):

That’s my retirement plan. Let’s do it.

Corrine Malcolm (36:26):

We’re going to retire together. It’s going to be bliss. Um, so nothing like on the horizon right now, imminently, like I still don’t know what 2021 is going to look like racing and, um, you know, personal project type of things. Um, you know, there are some other MKTs that I think are really interesting in the sense that, you know, they are very long, but they’re generally tackled in a way where, you know, you run maybe a hundred K a day, which is not easy. That might be more than running straight for 44 hours. It turns out it does not get easier. Like sleep is great, but it does not get easier to go run again. So there’s things like, you know, the Washington or Oregon section of the PCT or, um, the superior hiking trail in Minnesota. Um, I grew up in Wisconsin, so it’s like, those kinds of things I think are really appealing, but they’re, they’re still very different than running straight. So it’d be a different challenge, but still, you know, a lot of miles, 300 to 500 miles, which seems, I don’t know. That seems far,

Hillary Allen (37:33):

Yeah, that seems far. Oh my gosh. Um, but I guess like, so, so to kind of wrap up into, I have one final question for you. Um, so what’s your best advice for someone who’s thinking of doing and who wants to train for a 100 mile plus event?

Corrine Malcolm (37:52):

Okay. So kind of my advice to anyone to like, you know, racing who wants to, who wants to take a step up and distance, be it from, you know, a marathon to ultras or, um, you know, a hundred miles to something further and scarier theming is to just not count yourself out, to know that, like, I think that part of the reason why I go into these crazy, you know, seemingly crazy things is that I just have this total, you know, misconception of, or like misunderstanding of my own limitations. Like I, I don’t know. I’ve always been that way. Like, Oh, why can’t I get a PhD? Oh, why can’t I go run very far? Um, I think that you, you can like, not count yourself out. You can believe that, you know, it’s going to be hard and you’re gonna put work in, but you can do that.

Corrine Malcolm (38:42):

Like you can, you can run further if you want to run further, if there’s something that you were excited about, like you can, you can make it happen. Um, and so I think that if you, particularly, if you, if you have not yet run a hundred, I would encourage to do, to do that. Like kind of as a prep prep phase, but in general, it’s, you know, keep dreaming, like dream, dream bigger. Like if there’s something that excites you, be it a link up or a route in your backyard or the TRT T or something, you know, akin to that, the like the Kokopelli trail or the Arizona trail, all these really cool long things. Like there’s no reason that you can’t do it. Like, that’s kind of what my, like my advice is. There’s no reason why you can’t do it. So if there’s something that you want to do, go for it, you know, it’s gonna be hard work. You’re gonna have to do the training. Um, you’re gonna go get to spend lots of time outside, but no reason why you can’t do that. It’s not, it’s not crazy. It’s not insane. Um, it’s totally possible.

Hillary Allen (39:45):

Oh man, I love that. You’re inspiring me too bad. It’s like winter now, but it’s good for planning. So I’m going to, I’m going to start doing that, doing that now, but I love that to dream bigger and don’t count yourself out because I feel like, yeah, that mentality is, I feel like what got you through all, like solving all those problems when things didn’t go perfectly. And yeah, it’s just really cool to see that attitude and I’m not able to crush something as big as the TRT, so, well, yay. Yeah. With that. Um, it’s been such a pleasure talking to you, Chris. Thanks so much for taking the time and telling us about your hundred plus plus mile adventure.

Corrine Malcolm (40:31):

Thanks. It’s been, I mean, I will always talk to you, but it’s a pleasure to get, to have other people listen to us.

Hillary Allen (40:38):

Okay. Perfect. Well, so with that, I mean, maybe we’re going to have crude out in the future again, so, you know, start planning for the next one.

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