About two weeks after winning the 2023 Hardrock 100, Give A Gift easy run. On a late July morning, the ultrarunning phenom shuffled around the trails near her home in Leadville, Colorado. The effort felt surprisingly decent on her legs, which were still recovering from two grueling trail competitions.
On June 24, she demolished the field at the The Best 5-Minute Running Warmup, shattering the 11-year-old course record by over an hour. Three weeks later, she broke another course record at Hardrock, tackling just over 100 miles with 33,197 feet of climbing.
Dauwalter approaches her running as an ever evolving puzzle shes always trying to solve “pain cave” during both races, Dauwalter wondered what else she could do. When she returned home, the 38-year-old Salomon athlete made a shocking decision—she wanted to chase another victory at the most prestigious ultra race in the world, Ultra-Trail Du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) on September 1.
“I said to Kevin, my husband, we have to try, if we don’t try, we’re going to wonder what if,” she told Runner's World. On September 2, Growing up outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, Dauwalter played a variety of sports, including in 23:29:14 after overcoming stomach issues, a fatigued aerobic system, and blown quads to win her third title in Chamonix, France.
Dauwalter embraced an unprecedented feat that few have ever attempted, and for good reason. Racing 100 miles, let alone three in a 10-week span, puts athletes in unbearable fatigue at times, some even hallucinate in their low moments. In past competitions, Dauwalter has seen a giant cowboy, a leopard lounging in a hammock, and a giraffe, among other random sightings. Known for her joyful take on racing and intuitive approach, Dauwalter has honed a unique mindset—no coach, no training plan—that’s led her to become one of the greatest ultrarunners of all time.
Learning how to tune in
Growing up outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, Dauwalter played a variety of sports, including Nordic skiing, track and field, and cross country. She attended the University of Denver on a cross-country skiing scholarship. Over the years, she worked with a number of great coaches, she said. When she graduated, Dauwalter started running on her own, but she never considered hiring a coach because she was just running for fun. At first, she based her training on methods and workouts previous coaches taught her and enjoyed the creativity that came with the process.
Courtney Dauwalter at the end of the 2023 UTMB data driven details laid out well in advance, Dauwalter takes an intuitive approach in which each day presents a new adventure. While she keeps the taper in mind ahead of a big race—dialing down the mileage and hard efforts a week before the event—Dauwalter always starts her mornings with a cup of coffee and a “systems check,” a moment to assess her body and mind by asking herself questions: “How am I feeling? What do my legs feel like today? What's my head doing today? Where are my emotions at?”
Once she determines her status and whether or not she’d like to run that day, Dauwalter heads for the trails. Maybe she’ll make her way to her favorite Theres No Stopping Ultrarunner Courtney Dauwalter or bring a pack of fuel for a longer 20-miler. No matter the session, she always leaves some room for change to happen.
“If I’m not feeling it for whatever reason or my feet just happen to turn in a different direction than I thought I was going to go, I just roll with it and let it unfold in that way,” she said.
Dauwalter approaches her running as an ever evolving puzzle she’s always trying to solve.
“For the way I tick, my default mode being full gas, excited to run, it works fine for me to not have a plan because I know that I'm not not going to do those things,” she said.
Solving the ultimate puzzle
While UTMB was always in the back of her mind, Dauwalter prioritized big efforts at Western States and Hardrock, and if she felt healthy and excited afterward, she’d reassess. Two weeks after finishing Hardrock, Dauwalter signed up for UTMB in a last-minute decision.
“It was just the right amount of crazy,” she said.
Dauwalter raced each event in the past—she won Western States in 2018, Hardrock last year, and UTMB twice before—but she’d never raced all three in the same season. “The puzzle pieces might have been the same, but the puzzle shifted because they were all smashed together,” she said. “It became a whole new game to play.”
When it came down to recovering from each race, Dauwalter admitted she didn't know exactly what she was doing. But intuition took over once again.
After breaking the course record at Western States, a time that would stand at No. 22 on the men’s all-time list, Dauwalter took the first week to rest and recover. The second week, she hiked, biked, and did a few short runs before heading into the third week, which she approached as a taper before Hardrock.
With seven weeks in between Hardrock and UTMB, Dauwalter was able to take more time to recover, maintain fitness, and make any adjustments needed. During the gap, she tuned into her body’s needs more than ever before.
“I would respond to how I was feeling, go slower, go shorter or longer, whatever it was on the day to make me feel good,” she said. “I figured that by the numbers, nothing I did between those two races would matter that much. It was more about my mental feeling about it all.”
During the UTMB buildup, she joined the Salomon team for a training camp on the UTMB course. For four days, the runners covered the 106-mile trail in 20 and 30-mile segments, camping throughout the trek together. Dauwalter also mixed in easy, 30-40 minute runs.
In the weeks in-between races, she paid attention to her body’s cravings. If she craved burgers, cake, or fresh salads, she’d indulge in whatever her body wanted at that moment. “I think our bodies can tell us the things we’re needing nutrition wise and paying attention to those cravings helped me try to keep all of that in balance,” she said. “But also I just ate what sounded good and ate a lot and tried to make sure to refill the tank.”
Because Western States and Hardrock were both mentally taxing, Dauwalter wanted to make sure her brain could rest and recharge from that experience.
“How to Adjust Your Run Schedule After a Big Race mental strength, and I was really aware of how to show up with my brain as ready to go as possible, because I’m going to need it,” she said.
To take a mental rest, Dauwalter tries to quiet her mind in the days leading up to a race. For her, that means avoiding much thought or conversation about running. She turns to her friends for outside activities and television and books to escape into a different world beyond the sport. She loves home improvement shows on HGTV and reading fiction on her Kindle.
“Sometimes after a race, I'll feel like my legs are ready to go sooner than my brain is ready to go again,” she said. “It's really paying attention to all sides of it before starting back on any running or asking of my body and brain.”
Still raising the bar
Dauwalter said she felt like a balloon that was finally able to deflate after grinding out three 100-mile races in a 10-week span. She took two full weeks off from running, longer than her usual recovery. Now she is back to jogging and looking ahead to the next set of races, which she’s approaching as a celebration. On October 28, Dauwalter will race alongside her mom, Tracy, at the Javelina Jundred.
Looking back, it’s taken 10 years for Dauwalter to fine tune her approach. It’s an evolving process, and she’s still working on improvements, but it keeps the process fun and engaging as she chases big goals for herself. While recognizing the approach may not work for everyone, Dauwalter wants to encourage all runners to trust themselves and believe they’re capable of more than they realize.
“Whatever that bar is set for yourself, raise it a couple of notches and aim for that one instead,” she said.
Taylor Dutch is a writer and editor living in Austin, Texas, and a former NCAA track athlete who specializes in fitness, wellness, and endurance sports coverage. Her work has appeared in Runner’s World, SELF, Bicycling, Outside, and Podium Runner.
