August 7, 2025 • 43 mins
Today we share our recent hiking adventure in Tahoe — and the very real mental battles that came with it. From the moment we started running uphill at high elevation, the physical strain was obvious, but the mental strain was even louder.
We pull back the curtain on our internal monologues — the negative thoughts that crept in, the moments of self-doubt, and the “why are we doing this?” questions — and how we worked through them in real time. One of the biggest takeaways? How powerful it can be to say those thoughts out loud instead of letting them fester. By sharing our struggles with each other, we were able to shift the energy, laugh about the hard parts, and turn a grueling climb into something we genuinely enjoyed.
We talk about the importance of communication, endurance, and mutual support — and how facing hard things together not only builds resilience, but also strengthens our connection. In the end, the challenge wasn’t just about getting to the top of the mountain. It was about proving that we can push through discomfort and still find joy in the journey.
00:00 Introduction to Overcoming Negative Thoughts
01:45 The Tahoe Hike Story Begins
03:51 Planning the Mountain Run
05:11 Starting the Challenging Hike
13:14 Facing the Uphill Battle
21:17 Struggles on the Trail
22:32 Negative Thoughts and Self-Doubt
25:43 Communication Breakthrough
29:58 Enjoying the Journey Together
37:36 Reflecting on the Experience
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Angie (00:00):
Have you ever been on a run or a hike or some
challenging activity and thosenegative thoughts started
creeping in?
Well, that's what we're talkingabout today because last week
Kevin and I were up in Tahoe andwent on a hike together, and
there was a lot of negativethoughts that started to creep
in for both of us.
So today you get the story ofthat, what we did about it, how
(00:21):
we dealt with it, and how we didnot let those negative thoughts
ruin our hike together.
So stay tuned.
(00:50):
What's up runners?
It's good to be back.
We haven't recorded a dualepisode in quite a while because
last week we had a guestepisode.
The week before that was yoursolo and the week before that
was my solo, right?
Kevin (01:03):
Yeah.
My solo was super swimminglysmooth.
There was no technical issues atall.
Angie (01:07):
That's totally fine.
And you know what?
People loved it though, and Ithink that that was really fun.
So I think we've.
Might have to start doing somemore solo episodes in the
future.
I think it's fun for people tokind of hear me and then you,
and then interviews and kind ofa mix of things.
Kevin (01:21):
I don't mind doing solo episodes, it's just figuring out
where to push all the buttonsbecause you run the magic of the
technology here and I'm, it tookme as long to to click record
for the first time as it did.
You record the entire episode.
Angie (01:33):
Well, you did.
Good.
All right.
And the more you do it, thebetter you're gonna get.
So practice makes competent.
That's excellent.
Right?
Practice
Kevin (01:41):
makes competence because
Angie (01:42):
there's no such thing as for perfection.
So, alright.
Today we're gonna take you guyson a little journey with us and
it's gonna be a fun one because,or maybe not so fun, but it, no,
it's gonna be great.
It ends fun, right?
Like the journey itself I thinkis fun.
The beginning of it was, wasquite interesting.
So like I mentioned in theintro, uh, we were just.
(02:02):
Out in California and we spentsome time in Tahoe and we, when
we go out to Tahoe, we go to aplace called Olympic Valley and
it's beautiful and it's whereWestern States starts.
So if you have been followingthe podcast for a while, you
know that Kevin runs ultramarathons.
He runs 100 mile races, and hisbig goal is to do the Western
states 100.
And that is where the startingline is, was like right.
(02:25):
In Olympic Valley where we werestaying.
Kevin (02:27):
Yeah.
We actually start our hike rightat the starting line of the
race.
Angie (02:30):
Right.
And so, well, I didn't reallyknow which hike we were going
on, so let's, let's backtrack alittle.
Yes, of course.
So talk about like, so last yearwe stayed in this same area as
well and you went and ran upthis mountain.
Kevin (02:43):
Yeah, I ran like the first.
Four miles of the race and thenturned around and ran back down
thing.
'cause once you're into it, it'slike, well okay you have to pick
me up 20 miles later.
So I ran up and then I ran backdown and that was, that was
great.
It was very exciting for me.
'cause I'm a little off in thehead.
Angie (03:00):
Well this is a goal you have And so I think it's very
cool when you get to experienceat least a piece of that.
Kevin (03:05):
I mean, it's like runners that have, have really been
pushing to ever do like.
Boston just visiting themarathon course and seeing the
finish line.
'cause that finish line ispermanently painted on the
ground.
You can see it.
There's a yellow line that runsthrough, like you can see the
course.
So that's super cool.
It the Paris Olympics over thesummer, they had.
A people's marathon on the nightbetween the men's and the
(03:28):
women's marathon.
Yeah.
Which was super cool that peoplecould just show up and run the
actual Olympic marathon course.
Mm-hmm.
So being able to just be at anyof these places just seems super
cool to me.
Like, like I know what thestarting line looks like.
There's nothing there, butthat's the starting line.
Angie (03:43):
Yeah.
Welcome to Running Nerds attheir finest.
Welcome to the Real Life Runnerspodcast.
So.
I had it, this idea, so Kevindid this last year, and then
when we went out to Tahoe, ourtrip was a little bit different
this year.
It was a little shorter.
Things were, I don't know, diddid you feel like the trip was
like more rushed this year?
It,
Kevin (04:03):
it was shorter, yeah.
And so everything kind of seemedall, I think we
Angie (04:05):
were, I think we were actually there the same amount
of days though, like actually inTahoe, I think we were there the
same amount of days, not inCalifornia, because normally we
have a little bit more time onthe front end and the back end.
But it was like, at least forme, like you had an extra day on
the front end, and then I flewin from Nebraska on.
What day was it?
Thursday and then we left Fridaymorning for Tahoe.
(04:25):
We're in Tahoe until Tuesday.
Drove back to San Jose and thenflew out the very next morning.
So it was just like, I think thefront end and the back end felt
more rushed.
Kevin (04:33):
It was quite rushed for you because there was no like
relaxing point at my parents'house.
Like I had the day before weleft for the, the drive where my
mom and, and our older one weredriving around to all the stores
to do the shopping.
Angie (04:48):
Sounds relaxing.
It was.
Kevin (04:51):
I mean, it wasn't the most relaxing thing, but it was
just nice because, you knowRight.
Like my mom's asking us allthese questions, like, what else
are we gonna always sit on thecouches and have all these
conversations?
Yeah.
Like we were in a car drivingaround.
Right.
And we still had just had allthe conversations, so it was, it
was fine.
Angie (05:06):
Yeah.
So anyway.
It just was an interesting kindof trip in general this year.
So I had, I got it in my mindthat I wanted to run up a
mountain and we've gone to Tahoethe last couple of years and
we've gone on hikes.
And the hikes are really fun,but usually we go with the
family.
Kevin and I went with his dadlast year on a hike and we were
(05:27):
able to really like.
Power Walk that one because wedidn't have all the kids.
And when I say all the kids, wehave our two teenage daughters
who don't love hiking.
And then also that's
Kevin (05:37):
one way of putting it.
Angie (05:39):
And, and also, um, our niece and nephew who are, who
are even younger.
And so they're little and theyalso don't love hiking.
Our, our nephew does, like, he,he could hike all day.
Um, but our niece definitelylikes to be carried very quickly
into the hikes
Kevin (05:54):
Very quickly.
Yeah, very quickly into thehike.
Angie (05:56):
Right.
And so hikes are fun.
I like going on hikes, but Ialso thought, you know, I would
really like to try to run up amountain.
Like I would like to try, likeit sounded really cool what
Kevin did last year and he'slike, yeah, it was only four
miles up.
And I'm like, I can run fourmiles, no problem, right?
Like four miles I can do this.
And so like I had it in my headthat this was gonna be a really
(06:18):
fun thing, but I didn't wanna doit by myself for safety reasons,
obviously.
And so I wanted to.
Basically get up the courage toask Kevin if he would do this
with me.
But even in that, but likebefore I even asked him, my
brain started.
Giving me lots of negativethoughts, things like, you know,
he's not gonna wanna do thiswith you because he's so much
(06:39):
faster.
Like, I know that Kevin is muchfaster than I am and I don't
know, like when he told me heran up a mountain, I was like
asking him all these questions.
I'm like, well, did you like runthe whole time?
And he's like, well, you runsome of it and then you kinda
walks certain parts.
If it's like really, um, like ahigh elevation or a not
elevation incline.
Right.
And I'm like, okay, okay.
(07:00):
I am like, I think that, I thinkwe might be able to do this.
And so I went ahead and I askedhim, I'm like, Hey, I really,
really would like to run up amountain.
Would you like to come with me?
And what was your thought when Iasked you that?
Kevin (07:12):
My thought was, I have to find a trail that this is gonna
work on.
Like, that was my immediatethought.
Like I, it wasn't like yes orno.
My, my immediate thought was,yeah, this is gonna be great.
I just need to find the righttrail.
Mm-hmm.
That we can go do what visuallyis running up a mountain and has
the appropriate difficulty levelthat we're gonna be able to run
it.
And there's gonna have to besome beautiful views in it.
(07:34):
Because look, like I don't haveto tell you there's waterfalls
at the end, like we do with,with our kids and the, the niece
and nephew like, no, no, no.
Trust us.
There's gonna be a waterfall.
You just, yeah.
Over the next incline, theview's gonna be amazing.
'cause sometimes that.
Moves them along or you have tokeep up with me'cause I have the
peanut butter and jellysandwiches, but it's still gonna
be beneficial if it was gonna bebeautiful at the top.
(07:56):
Like if the, if the trail wasgonna be enjoyable, maybe even
some beautiful sites along theway.
Like that was my thought is Ihave to find the right trail for
us to do on this.
I always, yes.
I was like, this is gonna begreat.
We'll go on this thing.
But then I started trying tofigure out exactly which trail
we were gonna be able to go.
Angie (08:16):
Right.
And so I didn't know that reallyany of this was happening, but I
just told him, I wanna run up amountain.
You know that I am much slowerthan you are.
So please make sure like you canpick the trail.
I'm happy for you to pick thetrail, um, but I just wanna make
sure that it's something that Ican do and that it we can do
together and it won't just bemiserable the whole time because
(08:37):
I don't wanna feel like I'mholding you back and he.
Reassured me and said, no, thisis gonna be great.
And he said, okay, we're gonna,I, I've got a trail.
It's gonna be, we've got a mixof like double wide and single
wide and a nice paved trail.
We're gonna be able to run someand walk some.
It's, it's
Kevin (08:54):
double track and single track double wide and single
wide are the size of trailers.
Angie (08:57):
Okay.
I don't know.
See, well, there you go.
First, first evidence of howmuch more educated in the trail
running than Kevin is, uh, thanme.
Kevin (09:06):
Trailers versus trails track,
Angie (09:09):
single track.
There you go.
It's double track.
So that's ba basically, forthose of you that don't know
like me, uh, that's the width ofthe trail.
Can you fit two people?
Is is the tra trail wide enoughfor two people to go like side
by side across it or is it wideenough like a single track is
just one person, like a singlefile line essentially, or
Kevin (09:28):
I'm like a running snob.
So sometimes if you're off onyour own, single track is great
and it's beautiful and you canjust kind of scamper up and down
mountains and whatnot.
But I.
Fire roads are the best, wherethey're wide enough that like
trucks can drive on'em.
Those are great.
Yeah.
And they're so smooth to run on.
Mm-hmm.
And you can just fly up and downthem.
They're the vanta.
Very fantastic.
Angie (09:45):
Okay, so talk about the trail you chose.
Kevin (09:48):
So I chose because the, the one that I ran last year.
I'm not sure.
I think after Western Stateshappens, they shut parts of the
trail down for like trailrenovations and you know,
there's still snow on parts ofthese mountains.
Like it's late July and there'sstill snow on this thing, and so
there's water going down inparts of it.
(10:08):
And they don't want people incertain areas because it's all,
it's perpetually trailrenovation, like it's skiing in
the winter and then running inthe summer, but then you gotta
maintain the trails and allownature and stuff so.
I spent all night trying to findthe appropriate trail, and I
finally decided, look, well,basically, we're gonna do the
same thing that I did last year,but I'm gonna pick a slightly
(10:30):
different trail.
But I know at the end of itwe'll get to what they call high
camp and there's a shuttle.
It's like a, I mean, it's not aski lift.
It's like a massive.
Tram that can take people backdown the mountain for free.
If you get up to the top, ifyou, if you want to take the
tram, you can pay for it to takeyou to the top and then it'll
come back down.
But if you just show up at thetram at the top, it will take
(10:53):
you back down to the bottom.
So I'm like, well.
If the run is not going great,we could at least get to the
tram at the top and that shouldbring us back down.
And so I was like, this is gonnabe the trail.
We're gonna do this thing.
I did part of it the day before,and the part that I did seemed
like it was a lovely run, but Idid a mile of it and it was
about three or so miles to getto the top
Angie (11:16):
right.
And I don't think that youactually were on the trail.
Either, like when you said youdid a mile of it, I don't think
you were actually on the trail.
So we show off.
Kevin's over here laughing.
Okay.
So we show up that morning andwe get ready and it's supposed
to be about three miles to thetop.
That's what we figured, right?
Three to three and a half mileswas supposed to be.
(11:36):
And I'm like, okay, no problem.
Three miles, no problem.
I can do three miles in mysleep.
I obviously have never done thatrunning up a mountain, so that's
going to be the challenge here.
But I was fully prepared to runup this mountain and run back
down.
I'm like, it's would count as mylong run.
Six miles.
Sounds great.
And you, you know, the way backdown is gonna be easier than,
than the way up.
(11:57):
So I'm ready.
So we get, we drive over to thestart of the trail and we get to
the start of the trail.
And like Kevin said, it's likethis big road, very wide, where
trucks can essentially go up anddown and then we're looking at
the signs and there's a bigsign.
Right where the big wide road isthat says, do not use this road.
Like this road is only fortrucks, runners, and hikers
(12:19):
should not be using this road.
And then it gave us an arrow, ifyou wanna be on the Thunder
Mountain Trail, which was thetrail that Kevin chose, the
Thunder Mountain Trail, which iskind of funny'cause that's the
first rollercoaster I ever wenton at Disney World.
It's over here.
So it's, we're like, okay, wellwe're gonna follow the signs
over to Thunder Mountain Trail.
Kevin (12:35):
Right.
And that was my plan.
I'm like, all right, this is thetrail that I was on yesterday.
This is gonna be great.
I think the day before I missedthe first sign of Don't go this
way if you're a pedestrian orcyclist.
I definitely missed that one.
I caught like the second signand I took a different start of
this thing, which was a widertrail.
Not the road trucks were drivingup, but I definitely got up a
(12:58):
mile in a completely differentdirection and suddenly we are
going across like a field andit's like, is there, is there a
trail there?
Um, I think Okay, but before the
Angie (13:09):
trail.
Okay, I'm not even done becausemy negative starts, my negative
thoughts started right away.
Um, basically we start runningup this wide.
Path.
Yeah.
Okay.
Right.
So we're starting to run up thiswide path and it's basically
straight up the mountain.
I mean, I, it's not straight up,straight up, but it was a pretty
significant incline, don't youthink?
(13:29):
Or am I just making this up inmy head?
Like it was hard?
Yeah.
No, that.
Kevin (13:33):
That very beginning part is you're, you're moving, you're
moving like, and you're
Angie (13:37):
going basically straight uphill.
And so I'm running.
I'm like, oh, yes, at, so atfirst I'm like, yes, I'm gonna
run up a mountain.
So then I start running up amountain.
Kevin (13:45):
She has three steps on me at this point, like she is
dropping me.
We're a minute and a half intoit, and she is starting to
increase the gap on me.
This is a poor
Angie (13:56):
choice.
Kevin (13:57):
I'm like, this seems interesting, but she is strong
so.
Let's see how this plays out.
Angie (14:05):
I thought you were just being kind and like, just
letting me go ahead.
Kevin (14:08):
I was pacing myself because we were running up a
mountain,
Angie (14:11):
right?
And so about a quarter of a milein probably less, I think it was
maybe like 200 meters.
And I'm like, what is happeningright now?
Like, why are my legs not doinganything?
And so I, I wanted to walk likea quarter mile and I'm thinking,
in my head, I'm thinking, oh myGod, this is one lap of the
track.
Like what is happening?
Why?
And I'm out of breath and not tomention, okay.
(14:32):
We Floridians normally run atsea level.
Okay?
Zero.
Elevation gain?
Kevin (14:38):
No, no, no.
We are at 10 feet above, abovesea level.
13
Angie (14:41):
feet, according to my Garvin.
Okay, so 13 feet of elevation.
So we are at sea level, and soto start a run at base camp was
6,200 feet of elevation.
And then to run up to high campwas 8,200.
So there was 2000 feet ofelevation gain in this.
Run as well, but even startingat 6,200 feet, like you are more
(15:04):
than a mile in the air, the airis different there.
And I don't think I fullyunderstood how that, and because
I, I've done some running inTahoe before, right?
Like even during this trip Iwent out and I did a couple
runs.
The first run that I did bymyself, there's a, a paved path
and so it was essentially allflat with a couple little, like
little small hills, um, in it.
(15:26):
And it felt harder than normal,but I figured, okay, well I've
been traveling, I'm dehydrated.
I got a headache pretty quicklyinto it.
Also thinking, okay,dehydration.
But I think that some of thatwas also the altitude.
Kevin (15:37):
No, that was definitely the altitude because there's no
oxygen.
We're a mile up.
Yeah.
And I mean, there's actuallylots of oxygen, but there's
definitely less than there ishere.
Yeah.
And.
You also showed your Floridaquite a bit there, because that
paved path does not have anyhills on it like that.
No.
Yes
Angie (15:55):
it does.
No it does not.
There are little ones.
Kevin (15:57):
Th those are not hills.
Where are they?
There's there the pathundulates.
It goes
Angie (16:01):
up and down.
Kevin (16:02):
Sure.
It's not a sidewalk that's justcompletely straight.
Like when, talk about how flatit is in Florida.
The overpass that two of us dohill repeats on has an an
elevation that my last watchdidn't notice.
Yeah.
Like my last watch was not likethe highest end of Garmin that
you can get to.
It's, it's still not, but I havea much nicer watch now, but my
(16:23):
last one literally didn'tacknowledge any elevation change
when I got to the top becausethere, there wasn't enough
clearance.
And that's the biggest tool wehave.
Yeah.
So, no, the, the path that youhad done to the day before, I
would not refer to any of thatas, as a hill.
Angie (16:37):
It was essentially flat.
Yes, I know.
But there was little undulationsthat I had to undulations go up
and down.
Sure.
But anyway, so here I am about aquarter of a mile in and my legs
are already feeling like lead.
I'm like, why am I feeling likeI'm working so hard and not
getting anywhere?
Kevin (16:54):
I watched your stride length decrease.
Yeah.
Like it.
You were cruising and suddenlywhen you're like, I feel like my
legs aren't moving forward, Iwatched the stride.
It went from like, you don'thave a huge stride to begin
with, but suddenly your stridelength was like six inches or
so.
I'm like, yeah, you're notmoving up the mountain very
much.
No, I
Angie (17:12):
did not like, I don't know if that was just lack of
oxygen also and fatigue.
I don't know what was happening,but I was like, oh my gosh.
And so I had to walk.
I stopped and walked for like alittle bit there, and I just
felt this.
Immediate sense of defeat.
And I was like, oh my God, thisis not gonna go well.
And so then those negativevoices really started creeping
in, like, you're not as in,you're not in as good a shape as
(17:36):
you think you are.
And I'm like, I'm alreadyhuffing and puffing.
This was a really dumb idea.
I shouldn't have asked him todo, do this.
I am so slow.
He probably wants to run aheadof me.
I'm holding him back.
Like all of these negativethoughts just started creeping.
Into my thoughts and I'm like,I'm sorry.
I just started apologizing rightaway.
I was like, I'm sorry.
If you wanna run ahead, youknow, you please feel free to
(17:57):
run ahead of me and then you canwait, or you can run ahead of me
and then run back to me.
If you wanna get more mileagein.
I know it's only three miles andthat's really not a lot for you.
And my brain would just, wasstarting to churn in all the
ways.
Kevin (18:09):
Yeah.
I mean, we had been running fora couple of minutes and you were
apologizing.
Yeah, and I knew, I knew like.
Once we got up this versatilething that it was going to
flatten out.
And so I'm like, look, just walkthis section right here and then
it's gonna move to a, a partwhere we can kind of jog because
it's gonna flatten out on us.
And, and you did like youcrested that we walked together
(18:30):
up that thing and it crested andyou're like, oh, and then we can
jog again.
And I think at that point youwere slightly.
Revitalized that maybe this ishow it was gonna go.
That there was gonna be somereal steep parts and then it was
gonna flatten out and you couldjog along on the flat parts.
Mm-hmm.
And I tried to explain like,that's how we're gonna go up
this thing.
We're not going to literally runstraight up the face of this.
We're gonna, we're gonna walkwhen we need to walk, we're
(18:52):
gonna jog on the nice flatrunnable parts.
This is gonna be a greatcombination of things.
It's gonna be fine.
In my head.
Those are the words I was sayingout loud.
Yeah.
In my head I was like, okay.
It's a good thing that I broughtwater and the snacks that you
didn't wanna bring, because I'mnot sure how long this is gonna
take.
Hopefully this goes smoothbecause I, I'm already thinking
(19:14):
did I pick the right path?
And you're already apologizingto me.
So this is already a trickything.
So we get up to this flat partand that's where.
The signs direct us to not gothe one direction, but to go the
other way.
And I kinda started runningahead a little bit the wrong
direction.
I'm like, I went this way lasttime.
Angie (19:33):
You're like, I was on the other side of the creek the
entire first mile of this.
Kevin (19:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, and we
Angie (19:39):
didn't cross the creek at all.
Kevin (19:40):
No.
We like crossed back over theother direction.
Yeah.
Suddenly, yeah.
Yeah.
So we go off and we start onwhat could at best be described
as single track and was reallymore described as like, I don't
know, bush whacking for like thefirst
Angie (19:54):
very overgrown
Kevin (19:55):
because it's, it's a very small, seldom used trail.
Essentially everybody takes theother path.
Mm-hmm.
But this is in fact a trail upthe mountain.
Yeah.
But it was quite overgrown andso we're going through and very
rocky and not like.
Little rocks that like you'rerunning on pebbles, but like big
rocks that you can't really runon because it's a big rock and
(20:15):
then a big gap between it andthen another big rock.
And in my head this is now like,oh God, you picked the worst
thing.
She said you wanted to run that.
She wanted to run up a mountain,and you picked a path that is un
runnable.
You're getting whacked bybranches in the face and there
is no footing.
It's muddy because the rockshave like a, a.
(20:37):
Trickle running between them assnow is still melting off the
mountain.
This is the worst trail youcould have possibly picked.
And
Angie (20:44):
we both have road shoes because we don't have trail
shoes.
Like neither one of us have anysort of trail shoes or any sort
of traction.
And not only that, I have wornout running shoes.
I have my running shoes fromlike two seasons ago.
Kevin (20:55):
Right, because you didn't wanna bring like your newer
ones, right.
And get them.
Filthy.
Right.
And I, I don't have newer ones,so I have no heel, like there's
no rubber left on from like theheel back on mine, I've
completely worn that part of therubber out.
So this is what we're going upthe mountain with.
So anytime it's like.
Like a really big bear rock.
Neither one of us have gripp to,to go on that.
So that's just like all fours togo up.
(21:17):
Any of those things.
Angie (21:17):
Well, it wasn't all fours.
Like that's very much anexaggeration.
There were, there
Kevin (21:20):
were two sections where I had to put both hands on the
ground in order to get up therock.
Angie (21:23):
You were behind me, so I didn't even see that.
So, but I mean, it wasdefinitely like slow and
concentrated in intentional footplacement, right?
Mm-hmm.
Like that's what I would say isthere was definitely sections
where you had to be veryintentional and part of me then
was like.
I'm looking down this wholetime, like I'm not even looking
around at the beautiful views,right?
And so going back to kind ofwhere I was as I ran up this
(21:45):
mountain and then, and thenKevin's like, no, he's
reassuring me.
Everything's fine.
Then I'm like, okay, this is theflat part that he was talking
about that I'm supposed to berunning on, but I'm too out of
breath.
I can't run.
I just have to keep walking.
And so I was like, then I wasbeating myself up because I'm
like, I should be running rightnow.
Like this is the runnable part.
Angie just start running and I'mlike trying to catch my breath.
(22:06):
And so it was this combinationof my breathing was trying to
figure out what was going on.
My lungs were, were not surewhat was happening with the lack
of oxygen at altitude.
My legs were feeling reallyheavy from.
Running up the incline, actuallyrunning up a mountain and TR V
versus a highway overpass thatwe're used to for hill repeats.
And so it was just like thiscombination of all sorts of
(22:29):
negative things in my head, andwe got to this point.
Where I actually did decide tostop'cause I I, and take a
picture and take a breath andjust take it all in because part
of me really wanted to just keeprunning because again, I didn't
wanna hold Kevin back.
In my mind.
I was holding him back and I wasso slow and he was probably
hating this.
(22:50):
I don't know why I ever askedhim to do this with me.
Like these were some of thethoughts that were coming
through my head, like he'sprobably regretting saying yes.
And then my brain went to a.
The most ridiculous place.
I remember like standing,looking out over this gorgeous
view of the valley and my brainsays he's probably regretting
(23:11):
even marrying me and not someoneelse that could just run up this
mountain, carefree with him andkeep up with him the whole time.
And I was.
What in the actual f Like whatis my brain telling me here?
Like, he's regretting marryingme because I am having a bit of
a hard time running up a trail.
(23:32):
Like what a ridiculous thoughtthat my brain was offering me.
I, I
Kevin (23:36):
think that's finally when, when things got far
enough.
Yeah.
That.
You actually like spoke up.
Yeah.
And at this point, like you werestruggling.
I was trying to reassure thatthere was gonna be runnable
parts and so then Yeah, you werethen beating yourself up.
You couldn't run the parts thatvisually you're looking at it
and you're like, this is flat.
This should, this is flatenough.
(23:57):
This should be runnable.
Yeah.
But I can't breathe.
Yeah.
And I can't pick up my feet.
So
Angie (24:03):
because we had just climbed up those huge rocks.
Kevin (24:06):
Yeah.
Runnable my.
Foot?
I don't think so.
Right.
Is like, that's,
Angie (24:09):
it was really my butt because my butt was like real.
I was like, Hey, this is, ifnothing else, this is one heck
of a, of a glute workout.
This definitely counts as legday.
Kevin (24:17):
Right?
And so while you were keepingyour eyes fixed on the trail, I
made sure that you were alwaysin front.
Because the worst thing that Icould do, I thought, was to take
the lead and just run away fromyou.
Like I didn't want to be infront and be like, oh, this
part's doable, and suddenly getlike 10 steps on you.
So that was awful.
So, but I
Angie (24:35):
was totally fine with that because then I felt like I
wasn't holding you back, thatyou could just like go off and
run free the way that you wantedto, and then at some point you
would realize it.
Or if you got too far away fromme, then I would say, Hey,
hello, I'm back here.
Kevin (24:48):
Right.
But I thought that the bettermove was to go behind and let
you control the pace.
Yeah.
So that if you wanted to take awalking break, you could take a
walking break.
Yeah.
You on the other hand, werelike, all right, I'm supposed to
be running at this part so I'mnot gonna take a walking break.
And I'm like, she ishyperventilating over there.
Either way, neither one of uswere enjoying like the views of
(25:09):
the valley.
I was enjoying the view frombeing behind you for like the
first mile and a half up the upthe mountain.
Mm-hmm.
You are thinking that I wantedto marry somebody else.
Meanwhile, I'm just enjoying theview running right behind you,
which seemed like an appropriateview to be enjoying as we go up
the mountain.
And we'd been going for, I don'tknow, 20 minutes maybe?
(25:29):
Yeah, almost 30.
'cause we were over a mile.
Mm-hmm.
And then you finally likemm-hmm.
Said it
Angie (25:35):
well.
Said what?
What do you remember me saying?
Kevin (25:39):
I don't remember.
I just remember a lot ofthoughts suddenly came out.
Yeah.
Angie (25:43):
Well, so I think that part of that was triggered by I,
I think I just said that.
I said, oh my gosh.
Like my brain is being so meanright now.
And I think I even said like,I'm even thinking that he's
probably wishing that he marriedsomeone else right now.
And you came back with a classicKevin, like Kevin loves to bring
the humor to every situationjust to lighten the mood.
(26:06):
And you made some sort ofcomment of, of enjoying the view
from behind.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're like, I'm just sittinghere very much enjoying the view
here.
Um, and so I just startedlaughing.
I was like, okay, great.
Like, so he likes looking at mybutt.
Fantastic.
Um.
That's a good sign.
He actually, maybe he doesn'tregret marrying me, and I think
that's when it just kind ofopened up and I'm like, my brain
(26:28):
is being so mean to me.
And I just started telling himall of the thoughts that I,
well, I shouldn't say all ofthem, but I started with that
one.
And then you said, my brain'sactually being really mean to me
too.
And I was like, wait, what?
Like this is okay.
Let's just tell each other whatwe're thinking.
Kevin (26:45):
Yeah.
And that's when I was like, Ipicked the worst trail we could
have gone up.
Like we're not running anythingand we're not seeing the valley
because like you have to be socareful about where you're
putting your next step, thatwe're not able to enjoy any of
the views.
We're it's single track, so wecan't even run next to each
other.
We're running in a single file,so we can't really even carry on
a conversation if we even hadthe ability to talk.
(27:07):
But yeah, like that's, that'snot happening either.
Was
Angie (27:11):
it hard for you at all?
Or not really.
I mean, and I don't think I everasked you that.
Kevin (27:15):
The, the first part where I was trying to keep up with you
is you were dropping me in theopening 20 meters, like 200
meters.
Angie (27:22):
200 meters.
That's, that's about the, thelength of it.
Kevin (27:26):
That's like you took off.
Yeah.
Like you were gonna like.
Yeah, I'm, I'm holding 10 minutepace up the mountain.
No, I had
Angie (27:32):
to look'cause I felt like I had to hold my own with you.
Like this is where my brain wasat.
Like, I'm gonna run, I'm gonnashow him that I'm a runner too.
And
Kevin (27:40):
before we started, like the night before, I'm looking
through to try and find theright trail.
At this point I've alreadyaccepted that we are run walking
up this mountain and we'll runparts that we can, but we're
basically gonna like power, hikeit up the mountain.
Angie (27:53):
I wish you would've.
Kevin (27:54):
Expressed that a lot earlier in the process, relayed
that
Angie (27:57):
message to me.
Kevin (27:58):
Yeah.
Well you, you were so gung-hothat you wanted to run up a
mountain and that's why I wastrying to figure out, like, I
just
Angie (28:06):
meant that I wanted to run parts of it because like
when we go with the kids, wedon't really get to run any of
it.
Right.
Where and when you're on some ofthese hikes, you are, I mean, I
know, I think to myself like,this would be really great if I
just were, was able to run thispart and like, I think that, you
know, that's really what Iwanted to do.
Like I.
Didn't want to run straightthrough up this mountain.
(28:28):
That was never my goal.
'cause I prefer run walkinganyways.
Especially if you're going up amountain.
I knew it was gonna be rocky.
I really like hiking.
I know you like hiking less thanI do because I, that is true.
Right?
And so to me it was just gonnabe a really fun way for us to
spend the morning together, seesome beautiful things,
accomplish a really cool.
Task.
Um, but then there was thiscompetitive side of me.
(28:50):
Not that I, I definitely didn'twanna beat you by any means.
I just wanted to be able tolike, keep up with you enough
that it was fun, still fun foryou and.
Kevin (29:01):
I knew it was going to be fun for me before we started.
Angie (29:04):
Yeah.
See that communication would'veprobably been helpful between
us.
Yeah.
You know, the night before,
Kevin (29:10):
but then, so now we're like 30 minutes in and all of
this starts coming out.
Right.
And it completely changed therest of the way up the mountain.
Yeah.
Because we still were nowherenear the top, like from where we
were.
We were like tucked in so youcouldn't even see the top of the
mountain.
But it just completely changedhow both of us.
We're able to do the rest of it.
(29:31):
Like that was before we got tothe part where it was so rocky
that you couldn't even tellwhere the trail went because
yeah, that was, it was just bigrocks everywhere.
Mm-hmm.
Like, thank God we had had thisconversation before that because
that would've killed me becausethe view, if you turn to the
right, was beautiful.
But I would've just been staringat these rocks pissed off at
(29:52):
myself that I had chosen thistrail, instead of at least
having enough of a clear mind tobe like, oh, well the path goes
that direction.
Angie (29:58):
Yeah.
Well, and I actually liked, andso the Kevin said it, some of
the negative thoughts that hewas thinking were in regards to
choosing the wrong trail, and Itold him, I actually love this
trail because I love doing thiskinds of.
The hiking, like, I like whenthings are really hard and
there's rocks and it's reallytechnical.
I think that's really fun.
(30:19):
And like where you're actuallyclimbing rocks up a mountain.
We
Kevin (30:22):
were definitely scrambling for part of it.
Yeah.
For
Angie (30:24):
part of it.
You definitely, and like you didhave to put your hand down at,
at some parts to kind of getyourself up, but I was really
enjoying the actual trail.
I just felt bad that I wasn'trunning more of it to, and, and
slowing him down.
But then my brain said, well,this tr.
Isn't really that runnable, likeit would be really hard to run
this portion, and that's whenyou expressed how.
(30:46):
You were disappointed in thetrail that you chose.
Yeah,
Kevin (30:49):
because you couldn't run it because the footing was not
very great.
Especially the fact that wedon't have actual trail shoes.
Like neither one of us haveenough lateral support in our
shoes or traction on the bottomof them.
Mm-hmm.
To run the parts that were evenall that runnable.
Angie (31:02):
Right.
And so I thought that thisbasically.
It kind of helped to level theplaying field in a way between
the two of us because I knew Iwas good at hiking.
I know I'm strong.
I know I'm not fast like youare, but I know I'm strong and I
can just keep going.
Even when my breathing was hard,even when my legs were feeling
really tired.
I knew that I could just keepgoing.
(31:23):
And that's one of the, thethoughts that I started telling
myself is like, just keep movingforward.
And my breathing, I was like, ohmy gosh, I have to stop again.
Like I feel like I,'cause Idon't wanna get lightheaded or
dizzy.
Like that was the other thing isI didn't have the electrolytes
with me and I, you know, we hadone bottle of water, a smaller
bottle of water between the twoof us, and I'm like, oh my gosh,
(31:43):
I need water already.
Like it was all these thingsthat kept coming in.
But I think that when I foundout that Kevin was also having
negative thoughts about this,that were not the negative
thoughts that I thought he washaving, right?
Because I, I expected, like Ithink that this is important,
right?
Like in my brain, like my brainwas telling me that you were
probably having negativethoughts, but it was going to,
(32:04):
all of your negative thoughtswere around me.
Like, she's so slow.
Why did I agree to do this?
This sucks.
I wish we were running more.
I wish I would've marriedsomeone else, right?
Like, these are all the thingsthat I thought you were
thinking, and in reality it wasyou.
God bless Spandex, spandex.
Kevin (32:22):
I was like, wait, what?
Ah, didn't see that one coming.
Oh, I've completely thrown heroff track.
But.
I had negative thoughts.
They just weren't centered onyou.
They were centered on me.
That's where most of ournegative thoughts go.
Yeah, we, we are constantlybeating ourselves up in the
middle of all sorts of differentrun.
Forget this particular instance,but I've had so many times I've
(32:45):
put myself through workouts.
The negative thoughts are all Iam this.
And you talk about the I Amthoughts all the time.
Yeah.
And when you can reframe.
I am.
And I, my thoughts weren't, Iam, I mean, I guess it was, I am
a bad trail chooser, but like,it was, it was very personal to
myself is I chose the wrongtrail.
Angie (33:04):
I did this to,
Kevin (33:05):
I, I put us in the wrong, I didn't.
I didn't pick the trail thatmakes her happy because I can
tell that something's off andit's because I picked a stupid
trail.
Angie (33:14):
Yeah.
And it was not that I actuallyreally like the trails like
that.
And so I think when I expressedthat and I was like, I actually
really like this trail.
And you were like, oh, here I amthinking I picked the worst
trail.
I'm like, no, I actually reallylike this trail.
We're just not able to run asmuch as I thought we were going
to, but I'm totally okay withthat.
Yeah.
Kevin (33:31):
And so then we just started actually.
Taking in, you know, each other.
Angie (33:35):
Yeah.
Kevin (33:35):
Which was nice.
Mm-hmm.
Like then we started being ableto actually talk to each other.
Yeah.
And,
Angie (33:39):
and then we started making fun of ourselves too.
I think that was part of it too.
And I think that this isdefinitely a technique that you
can use because some of thethoughts, some of the negative
thoughts that our brains give usare.
Absolutely ridiculous.
Of course, they
Kevin (33:50):
are
Angie (33:51):
so ridiculous.
And so we just started makingfun of ourselves and like, oh,
I, I, I thought this thing, thisthing came up, you know?
And it's just like, oh mygoodness, this is so crazy.
Kevin (34:00):
Yeah.
And, and then the trail was muchmore enjoyable and it didn't
change.
It was still really hard.
It was still rocky.
It was still single track theentire way, almost the entire
way.
And we made it up the mountain.
Yeah.
And we paused when we wanted to,and we would stop and take
pictures if we wanted to.
It was fine.
Like we could stop and catch ourbreath if we wanted to.
(34:23):
Mm-hmm.
And literally stop and catch ourbreath, but.
The part where we startedtalking to each other is where
mentally we were able toactually just stop and catch our
breath and communicate to eachother what's going on.
And suddenly the negativethoughts, they just weren't
necessary anymore because theywere silly once you told them to
the other person and realizedthat that's not what that
(34:45):
person's thinking at all.
Angie (34:46):
Yeah, and the other thing too, like yes, we could stop and
catch our breath more, but Inoticed for me that.
All of a sudden my breathing goteasier, right?
Like once I finally communicatedthose negative thoughts to you
and I wasn't putting all of thispressure on myself and negative
judgment on myself, then I justmoved up the mountain at my pace
(35:07):
and I didn't have to stop.
And I, if I needed to stop, if Ifelt like I was getting a little
outta breath and I stopped for asecond, and then I kept going,
but I felt like that was a lotless necessary versus.
That, that first 30 minutes ofthe trail where I felt like I
was supposed to be running upthis trail and powering forward,
and it was so much harder.
But now that I was just able torelease all of that, then my
(35:30):
brain started going to.
Wow.
Like what a beautiful morning.
I love that we get to do thistogether.
We are so fit.
We're just going to keep goingeven when it's hard.
We're just gonna keep going.
We have each other, we've goteach other's backs.
And it just became this reallyfun thing.
And we didn't talk the wholetime, like there was a lot of
silence on our hike.
(35:51):
But I think, at least for me, Iknew we were in this together.
We were both enjoying thistogether and no matter what we
were gonna make it to the top.
Kevin (35:59):
Yeah, of course we were making it to the top.
And then part, well, I don'tknow.
We still had.
15, 20 minutes to the top andyou were like, I think, I think
we take the tram back down.
Or what do you think abouttaking the tram back down?
Is it was, no,
Angie (36:13):
I said that like time-wise,'cause I, we looked at
the clock and how long it wastaking us because it was taking
us longer than we thought it wasgoing to.
And so I said, well, if we wantto take, if we wanna take the
tram back down, we're gonnabasically be making it up around
that time because we.
You know, weren't sure time-wiseif we were gonna have to wait a
really long time, so then itwould've been worth it to just
(36:35):
run back down.
But based on, you know, the, thequality of the track and how
long it was taking us, it wasgonna end up that we weren't
gonna have to wait that long forthe first tram.
Kevin (36:44):
We were not gonna have to wait that long.
And it was gonna be way fasterto take the tram back down than
to try and reverse it.
Yeah, we could have gone downfaster than we went up, but it
still would've been very timeconsuming to go back down.
Angie (36:54):
I mean, and I totally was on board for that.
I think it would've been fun.
I would've just essentially.
Uh, refilled our water and thengone back down.
We just didn't wanna hold up therest of our crew Yes.
That day, because we didn'treally know what other people
wanted to do for the rest of theday.
Kevin (37:09):
Yeah.
I think, I mean, it was betterthat we took the tram back down
and you get some amazing viewsfrom the tram also.
Mm-hmm.
But we got such amazing views atthe top, along with the sense of
satisfaction.
That we overcame the trail andour thoughts and had some better
communication by the time we gotto the top of the mountain also.
Angie (37:26):
Yeah.
Kevin (37:27):
Which probably would've been better if I opened some
communication the day before.
Angie (37:31):
Well, you know, so be it.
This was the experience that wehad and it made for a good
podcast.
And I think that this is one ofthose podcasts that we obviously
come at you very real.
And I was talking to some of ourmembers last week.
We do.
A monthly coffee chat with allof our team members, anybody
that wants to come, of course.
(37:51):
And I was just starting to tellthem about this experience, and
I'm like, yeah, I think we'regonna do a podcast.
And everyone was so excitedabout it because they wanted to
hear the real and raw,unfiltered version of this,
because.
It's really important foreveryone to know that we're all
the same.
Right?
Like we all have negativethoughts and it's about how we
(38:13):
deal with them that makes thedifference.
Kevin (38:15):
Yeah.
We should have gotten, and theproblem is that neither one of
us were in the right head space,but we needed better pictures
from the start of the hike thatwe could have shared, uh, on, on
social media to follow up thepodcast
Angie (38:27):
with like making nasty faces.
Kevin (38:28):
Yeah.
Like neither one of, like, youare still, but you're
Angie (38:31):
not in the place to do it then.
No.
Yeah.
Kevin (38:33):
I.
Until we gotta the part where wewere actually able to talk to
each other.
I don't think we took anypictures up until that point.
Maybe I took
Angie (38:41):
one at the start.
Kevin (38:42):
At the very, very start.
Angie (38:43):
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kevin (38:44):
But from the very start, you couldn't see the, the little
trail that we went on to.
We were still on like wide roadat that point in time.
I know.
Yeah.
That was before my negativethoughts really started going.
Angie (38:54):
Yeah.
I probably, I don't think Ireally got any.
Good, uh, photos or videos oflike the, like the, how thin
this drill actually was atcertain points in time.
I took a picture of us when wegot to that super rocky section.
Yes.
Um, but yeah, I don't think Ihave any real good ones.
No,
Kevin (39:11):
there's not really any pictures of the early parts and
that's fine also because a lotof this,
Angie (39:17):
I have them in my head.
Kevin (39:18):
I know.
But that's the thing is a lot ofthis trek up the mountain was so
much growth between the two ofus.
Yeah.
Like that's why it was.
Like the smiles at the top ofthe mountain were, were for what
we just did, but so much that wewere able to do it together and
be smiling at the top, becauseif we didn't have that
(39:38):
conversation halfway up, I don'tthink we would've been as
genuinely smiling at the top.
Mm-hmm.
Like we've been taking pictures,there would've been smiles, but.
Both of us would've still hadthis internal monologue.
Yeah.
That was not helping us interactwith the other person.
It could have just literallyderailed the entire rest of the
day.
Mm-hmm.
Instead, after like 30, 40minutes, we're just laughing as
(39:59):
we're continuing to, to pound upa mountain.
So it was, yeah, it was great.
Angie (40:02):
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So what do you think was one ofyour takeaways from this
experience?
If you could kind of wrap it upin a bow.
Kevin (40:09):
Um, it's always better to have more communication with
you.
Mm-hmm.
Always at all times.
Yeah.
Angie (40:15):
And let me lead.
Kevin (40:17):
Well, yes, and of course let you lead up the mountain.
Angie (40:21):
Um, yeah, I agree.
I think that that was, that wasa really interesting turning
point I think when we justdecided to start saying all the
negative thoughts out loud.
And again, it's always, youcan't stop the negative thoughts
from coming, but you.
Control where you take them,like if you let them continue,
if you let them spiral, if youlet your mind spiral or you can
(40:43):
change your focus to somethingelse, something more productive,
something more positive,something that you actually
wanna focus on, like, yeah, thattrail was hard.
I'm not telling myself that thistrail was easy, that trail was
definitely not easy, but it wasstill enjoyable after.
We kind of cleared the air and,and got on the same page with
each other.
Kevin (41:02):
Yeah.
It was way more enjoyable atthat point.
Yeah.
Which was great
Angie (41:06):
because I like doing hard things.
Kevin (41:07):
I know.
Yeah.
Angie (41:08):
Like I, when I posted after, like that day after the
hike, someone messaged me andsaid, but the question is why
would you do that?
And I said, because I can like,and that is really one of the.
Reasons.
I think all of us do what we do.
When, when, when it comes torunning.
It's to see if I can or becauseI can, because we want to use
(41:30):
our bodies and celebrate howstrong we are, how we're able to
move the, the gift of what thesebodies are.
And I think that that's really.
What that day kind ofencapsulated too.
Kevin (41:43):
Yeah.
I mean it was a lot of knowingphysically and mentally, what am
I able to bring to thissituation?
Angie (41:48):
Yeah.
Super fun.
So hopefully you guys enjoyedour little recap, and if you
did, I would love to hear yourthoughts.
If you wanna come over toInstagram at Real Life Runners,
if you like this episode, pleaseshare it on Instagram or share
it with a friend so that we canreach and help more runners and
uh, help people.
Conquer those, what is it?
(42:09):
Seven inches between your earsis like the, the farthest space
you'll ever run or the hardestjourney you'll ever run is those
seven inches between your ears.
Something like that.
Kevin (42:18):
That sounds exactly perfectly quotable.
It was probably Lincoln orConfucius.
Maybe Churchill.
Maybe Benjamin Franklin,
Angie (42:25):
possibly.
All right guys.
This has been the Real LifeRunners podcast, episode number
421.
Now, get out there and run yourlife.
Have you ever been on a run or a hike or some
challenging activity and thosenegative thoughts started
creeping in?
Well, that's what we're talkingabout today because last week
Kevin and I were up in Tahoe andwent on a hike together, and
there was a lot of negativethoughts that started to creep
in for both of us.
So today you get the story ofthat, what we did about it, how
(00:21):
we dealt with it, and how we didnot let those negative thoughts
ruin our hike together.
So stay tuned.
(00:50):
What's up runners?
It's good to be back.
We haven't recorded a dualepisode in quite a while because
last week we had a guestepisode.
The week before that was yoursolo and the week before that
was my solo, right?
Kevin (01:03):
Yeah.
My solo was super swimminglysmooth.
There was no technical issues atall.
Angie (01:07):
That's totally fine.
And you know what?
People loved it though, and Ithink that that was really fun.
So I think we've.
Might have to start doing somemore solo episodes in the
future.
I think it's fun for people tokind of hear me and then you,
and then interviews and kind ofa mix of things.
Kevin (01:21):
I don't mind doing solo episodes, it's just figuring out
where to push all the buttonsbecause you run the magic of the
technology here and I'm, it tookme as long to to click record
for the first time as it did.
You record the entire episode.
Angie (01:33):
Well, you did.
Good.
All right.
And the more you do it, thebetter you're gonna get.
So practice makes competent.
That's excellent.
Right?
Practice
Kevin (01:41):
makes competence because
Angie (01:42):
there's no such thing as for perfection.
So, alright.
Today we're gonna take you guyson a little journey with us and
it's gonna be a fun one because,or maybe not so fun, but it, no,
it's gonna be great.
It ends fun, right?
Like the journey itself I thinkis fun.
The beginning of it was, wasquite interesting.
So like I mentioned in theintro, uh, we were just.
(02:02):
Out in California and we spentsome time in Tahoe and we, when
we go out to Tahoe, we go to aplace called Olympic Valley and
it's beautiful and it's whereWestern States starts.
So if you have been followingthe podcast for a while, you
know that Kevin runs ultramarathons.
He runs 100 mile races, and hisbig goal is to do the Western
states 100.
And that is where the startingline is, was like right.
(02:25):
In Olympic Valley where we werestaying.
Kevin (02:27):
Yeah.
We actually start our hike rightat the starting line of the
race.
Angie (02:30):
Right.
And so, well, I didn't reallyknow which hike we were going
on, so let's, let's backtrack alittle.
Yes, of course.
So talk about like, so last yearwe stayed in this same area as
well and you went and ran upthis mountain.
Kevin (02:43):
Yeah, I ran like the first.
Four miles of the race and thenturned around and ran back down
thing.
'cause once you're into it, it'slike, well okay you have to pick
me up 20 miles later.
So I ran up and then I ran backdown and that was, that was
great.
It was very exciting for me.
'cause I'm a little off in thehead.
Angie (03:00):
Well this is a goal you have And so I think it's very
cool when you get to experienceat least a piece of that.
Kevin (03:05):
I mean, it's like runners that have, have really been
pushing to ever do like.
Boston just visiting themarathon course and seeing the
finish line.
'cause that finish line ispermanently painted on the
ground.
You can see it.
There's a yellow line that runsthrough, like you can see the
course.
So that's super cool.
It the Paris Olympics over thesummer, they had.
A people's marathon on the nightbetween the men's and the
(03:28):
women's marathon.
Yeah.
Which was super cool that peoplecould just show up and run the
actual Olympic marathon course.
Mm-hmm.
So being able to just be at anyof these places just seems super
cool to me.
Like, like I know what thestarting line looks like.
There's nothing there, butthat's the starting line.
Angie (03:43):
Yeah.
Welcome to Running Nerds attheir finest.
Welcome to the Real Life Runnerspodcast.
So.
I had it, this idea, so Kevindid this last year, and then
when we went out to Tahoe, ourtrip was a little bit different
this year.
It was a little shorter.
Things were, I don't know, diddid you feel like the trip was
like more rushed this year?
It,
Kevin (04:03):
it was shorter, yeah.
And so everything kind of seemedall, I think we
Angie (04:05):
were, I think we were actually there the same amount
of days though, like actually inTahoe, I think we were there the
same amount of days, not inCalifornia, because normally we
have a little bit more time onthe front end and the back end.
But it was like, at least forme, like you had an extra day on
the front end, and then I flewin from Nebraska on.
What day was it?
Thursday and then we left Fridaymorning for Tahoe.
(04:25):
We're in Tahoe until Tuesday.
Drove back to San Jose and thenflew out the very next morning.
So it was just like, I think thefront end and the back end felt
more rushed.
Kevin (04:33):
It was quite rushed for you because there was no like
relaxing point at my parents'house.
Like I had the day before weleft for the, the drive where my
mom and, and our older one weredriving around to all the stores
to do the shopping.
Angie (04:48):
Sounds relaxing.
It was.
Kevin (04:51):
I mean, it wasn't the most relaxing thing, but it was
just nice because, you knowRight.
Like my mom's asking us allthese questions, like, what else
are we gonna always sit on thecouches and have all these
conversations?
Yeah.
Like we were in a car drivingaround.
Right.
And we still had just had allthe conversations, so it was, it
was fine.
Angie (05:06):
Yeah.
So anyway.
It just was an interesting kindof trip in general this year.
So I had, I got it in my mindthat I wanted to run up a
mountain and we've gone to Tahoethe last couple of years and
we've gone on hikes.
And the hikes are really fun,but usually we go with the
family.
Kevin and I went with his dadlast year on a hike and we were
(05:27):
able to really like.
Power Walk that one because wedidn't have all the kids.
And when I say all the kids, wehave our two teenage daughters
who don't love hiking.
And then also that's
Kevin (05:37):
one way of putting it.
Angie (05:39):
And, and also, um, our niece and nephew who are, who
are even younger.
And so they're little and theyalso don't love hiking.
Our, our nephew does, like, he,he could hike all day.
Um, but our niece definitelylikes to be carried very quickly
into the hikes
Kevin (05:54):
Very quickly.
Yeah, very quickly into thehike.
Angie (05:56):
Right.
And so hikes are fun.
I like going on hikes, but Ialso thought, you know, I would
really like to try to run up amountain.
Like I would like to try, likeit sounded really cool what
Kevin did last year and he'slike, yeah, it was only four
miles up.
And I'm like, I can run fourmiles, no problem, right?
Like four miles I can do this.
And so like I had it in my headthat this was gonna be a really
(06:18):
fun thing, but I didn't wanna doit by myself for safety reasons,
obviously.
And so I wanted to.
Basically get up the courage toask Kevin if he would do this
with me.
But even in that, but likebefore I even asked him, my
brain started.
Giving me lots of negativethoughts, things like, you know,
he's not gonna wanna do thiswith you because he's so much
(06:39):
faster.
Like, I know that Kevin is muchfaster than I am and I don't
know, like when he told me heran up a mountain, I was like
asking him all these questions.
I'm like, well, did you like runthe whole time?
And he's like, well, you runsome of it and then you kinda
walks certain parts.
If it's like really, um, like ahigh elevation or a not
elevation incline.
Right.
And I'm like, okay, okay.
(07:00):
I am like, I think that, I thinkwe might be able to do this.
And so I went ahead and I askedhim, I'm like, Hey, I really,
really would like to run up amountain.
Would you like to come with me?
And what was your thought when Iasked you that?
Kevin (07:12):
My thought was, I have to find a trail that this is gonna
work on.
Like, that was my immediatethought.
Like I, it wasn't like yes orno.
My, my immediate thought was,yeah, this is gonna be great.
I just need to find the righttrail.
Mm-hmm.
That we can go do what visuallyis running up a mountain and has
the appropriate difficulty levelthat we're gonna be able to run
it.
And there's gonna have to besome beautiful views in it.
(07:34):
Because look, like I don't haveto tell you there's waterfalls
at the end, like we do with,with our kids and the, the niece
and nephew like, no, no, no.
Trust us.
There's gonna be a waterfall.
You just, yeah.
Over the next incline, theview's gonna be amazing.
'cause sometimes that.
Moves them along or you have tokeep up with me'cause I have the
peanut butter and jellysandwiches, but it's still gonna
be beneficial if it was gonna bebeautiful at the top.
(07:56):
Like if the, if the trail wasgonna be enjoyable, maybe even
some beautiful sites along theway.
Like that was my thought is Ihave to find the right trail for
us to do on this.
I always, yes.
I was like, this is gonna begreat.
We'll go on this thing.
But then I started trying tofigure out exactly which trail
we were gonna be able to go.
Angie (08:16):
Right.
And so I didn't know that reallyany of this was happening, but I
just told him, I wanna run up amountain.
You know that I am much slowerthan you are.
So please make sure like you canpick the trail.
I'm happy for you to pick thetrail, um, but I just wanna make
sure that it's something that Ican do and that it we can do
together and it won't just bemiserable the whole time because
(08:37):
I don't wanna feel like I'mholding you back and he.
Reassured me and said, no, thisis gonna be great.
And he said, okay, we're gonna,I, I've got a trail.
It's gonna be, we've got a mixof like double wide and single
wide and a nice paved trail.
We're gonna be able to run someand walk some.
It's, it's
Kevin (08:54):
double track and single track double wide and single
wide are the size of trailers.
Angie (08:57):
Okay.
I don't know.
See, well, there you go.
First, first evidence of howmuch more educated in the trail
running than Kevin is, uh, thanme.
Kevin (09:06):
Trailers versus trails track,
Angie (09:09):
single track.
There you go.
It's double track.
So that's ba basically, forthose of you that don't know
like me, uh, that's the width ofthe trail.
Can you fit two people?
Is is the tra trail wide enoughfor two people to go like side
by side across it or is it wideenough like a single track is
just one person, like a singlefile line essentially, or
Kevin (09:28):
I'm like a running snob.
So sometimes if you're off onyour own, single track is great
and it's beautiful and you canjust kind of scamper up and down
mountains and whatnot.
But I.
Fire roads are the best, wherethey're wide enough that like
trucks can drive on'em.
Those are great.
Yeah.
And they're so smooth to run on.
Mm-hmm.
And you can just fly up and downthem.
They're the vanta.
Very fantastic.
Angie (09:45):
Okay, so talk about the trail you chose.
Kevin (09:48):
So I chose because the, the one that I ran last year.
I'm not sure.
I think after Western Stateshappens, they shut parts of the
trail down for like trailrenovations and you know,
there's still snow on parts ofthese mountains.
Like it's late July and there'sstill snow on this thing, and so
there's water going down inparts of it.
(10:08):
And they don't want people incertain areas because it's all,
it's perpetually trailrenovation, like it's skiing in
the winter and then running inthe summer, but then you gotta
maintain the trails and allownature and stuff so.
I spent all night trying to findthe appropriate trail, and I
finally decided, look, well,basically, we're gonna do the
same thing that I did last year,but I'm gonna pick a slightly
(10:30):
different trail.
But I know at the end of itwe'll get to what they call high
camp and there's a shuttle.
It's like a, I mean, it's not aski lift.
It's like a massive.
Tram that can take people backdown the mountain for free.
If you get up to the top, ifyou, if you want to take the
tram, you can pay for it to takeyou to the top and then it'll
come back down.
But if you just show up at thetram at the top, it will take
(10:53):
you back down to the bottom.
So I'm like, well.
If the run is not going great,we could at least get to the
tram at the top and that shouldbring us back down.
And so I was like, this is gonnabe the trail.
We're gonna do this thing.
I did part of it the day before,and the part that I did seemed
like it was a lovely run, but Idid a mile of it and it was
about three or so miles to getto the top
Angie (11:16):
right.
And I don't think that youactually were on the trail.
Either, like when you said youdid a mile of it, I don't think
you were actually on the trail.
So we show off.
Kevin's over here laughing.
Okay.
So we show up that morning andwe get ready and it's supposed
to be about three miles to thetop.
That's what we figured, right?
Three to three and a half mileswas supposed to be.
(11:36):
And I'm like, okay, no problem.
Three miles, no problem.
I can do three miles in mysleep.
I obviously have never done thatrunning up a mountain, so that's
going to be the challenge here.
But I was fully prepared to runup this mountain and run back
down.
I'm like, it's would count as mylong run.
Six miles.
Sounds great.
And you, you know, the way backdown is gonna be easier than,
than the way up.
(11:57):
So I'm ready.
So we get, we drive over to thestart of the trail and we get to
the start of the trail.
And like Kevin said, it's likethis big road, very wide, where
trucks can essentially go up anddown and then we're looking at
the signs and there's a bigsign.
Right where the big wide road isthat says, do not use this road.
Like this road is only fortrucks, runners, and hikers
(12:19):
should not be using this road.
And then it gave us an arrow, ifyou wanna be on the Thunder
Mountain Trail, which was thetrail that Kevin chose, the
Thunder Mountain Trail, which iskind of funny'cause that's the
first rollercoaster I ever wenton at Disney World.
It's over here.
So it's, we're like, okay, wellwe're gonna follow the signs
over to Thunder Mountain Trail.
Kevin (12:35):
Right.
And that was my plan.
I'm like, all right, this is thetrail that I was on yesterday.
This is gonna be great.
I think the day before I missedthe first sign of Don't go this
way if you're a pedestrian orcyclist.
I definitely missed that one.
I caught like the second signand I took a different start of
this thing, which was a widertrail.
Not the road trucks were drivingup, but I definitely got up a
(12:58):
mile in a completely differentdirection and suddenly we are
going across like a field andit's like, is there, is there a
trail there?
Um, I think Okay, but before the
Angie (13:09):
trail.
Okay, I'm not even done becausemy negative starts, my negative
thoughts started right away.
Um, basically we start runningup this wide.
Path.
Yeah.
Okay.
Right.
So we're starting to run up thiswide path and it's basically
straight up the mountain.
I mean, I, it's not straight up,straight up, but it was a pretty
significant incline, don't youthink?
(13:29):
Or am I just making this up inmy head?
Like it was hard?
Yeah.
No, that.
Kevin (13:33):
That very beginning part is you're, you're moving, you're
moving like, and you're
Angie (13:37):
going basically straight uphill.
And so I'm running.
I'm like, oh, yes, at, so atfirst I'm like, yes, I'm gonna
run up a mountain.
So then I start running up amountain.
Kevin (13:45):
She has three steps on me at this point, like she is
dropping me.
We're a minute and a half intoit, and she is starting to
increase the gap on me.
This is a poor
Angie (13:56):
choice.
Kevin (13:57):
I'm like, this seems interesting, but she is strong
so.
Let's see how this plays out.
Angie (14:05):
I thought you were just being kind and like, just
letting me go ahead.
Kevin (14:08):
I was pacing myself because we were running up a
mountain,
Angie (14:11):
right?
And so about a quarter of a milein probably less, I think it was
maybe like 200 meters.
And I'm like, what is happeningright now?
Like, why are my legs not doinganything?
And so I, I wanted to walk likea quarter mile and I'm thinking,
in my head, I'm thinking, oh myGod, this is one lap of the
track.
Like what is happening?
Why?
And I'm out of breath and not tomention, okay.
(14:32):
We Floridians normally run atsea level.
Okay?
Zero.
Elevation gain?
Kevin (14:38):
No, no, no.
We are at 10 feet above, abovesea level.
13
Angie (14:41):
feet, according to my Garvin.
Okay, so 13 feet of elevation.
So we are at sea level, and soto start a run at base camp was
6,200 feet of elevation.
And then to run up to high campwas 8,200.
So there was 2000 feet ofelevation gain in this.
Run as well, but even startingat 6,200 feet, like you are more
(15:04):
than a mile in the air, the airis different there.
And I don't think I fullyunderstood how that, and because
I, I've done some running inTahoe before, right?
Like even during this trip Iwent out and I did a couple
runs.
The first run that I did bymyself, there's a, a paved path
and so it was essentially allflat with a couple little, like
little small hills, um, in it.
(15:26):
And it felt harder than normal,but I figured, okay, well I've
been traveling, I'm dehydrated.
I got a headache pretty quicklyinto it.
Also thinking, okay,dehydration.
But I think that some of thatwas also the altitude.
Kevin (15:37):
No, that was definitely the altitude because there's no
oxygen.
We're a mile up.
Yeah.
And I mean, there's actuallylots of oxygen, but there's
definitely less than there ishere.
Yeah.
And.
You also showed your Floridaquite a bit there, because that
paved path does not have anyhills on it like that.
No.
Yes
Angie (15:55):
it does.
No it does not.
There are little ones.
Kevin (15:57):
Th those are not hills.
Where are they?
There's there the pathundulates.
It goes
Angie (16:01):
up and down.
Kevin (16:02):
Sure.
It's not a sidewalk that's justcompletely straight.
Like when, talk about how flatit is in Florida.
The overpass that two of us dohill repeats on has an an
elevation that my last watchdidn't notice.
Yeah.
Like my last watch was not likethe highest end of Garmin that
you can get to.
It's, it's still not, but I havea much nicer watch now, but my
(16:23):
last one literally didn'tacknowledge any elevation change
when I got to the top becausethere, there wasn't enough
clearance.
And that's the biggest tool wehave.
Yeah.
So, no, the, the path that youhad done to the day before, I
would not refer to any of thatas, as a hill.
Angie (16:37):
It was essentially flat.
Yes, I know.
But there was little undulationsthat I had to undulations go up
and down.
Sure.
But anyway, so here I am about aquarter of a mile in and my legs
are already feeling like lead.
I'm like, why am I feeling likeI'm working so hard and not
getting anywhere?
Kevin (16:54):
I watched your stride length decrease.
Yeah.
Like it.
You were cruising and suddenlywhen you're like, I feel like my
legs aren't moving forward, Iwatched the stride.
It went from like, you don'thave a huge stride to begin
with, but suddenly your stridelength was like six inches or
so.
I'm like, yeah, you're notmoving up the mountain very
much.
No, I
Angie (17:12):
did not like, I don't know if that was just lack of
oxygen also and fatigue.
I don't know what was happening,but I was like, oh my gosh.
And so I had to walk.
I stopped and walked for like alittle bit there, and I just
felt this.
Immediate sense of defeat.
And I was like, oh my God, thisis not gonna go well.
And so then those negativevoices really started creeping
in, like, you're not as in,you're not in as good a shape as
(17:36):
you think you are.
And I'm like, I'm alreadyhuffing and puffing.
This was a really dumb idea.
I shouldn't have asked him todo, do this.
I am so slow.
He probably wants to run aheadof me.
I'm holding him back.
Like all of these negativethoughts just started creeping.
Into my thoughts and I'm like,I'm sorry.
I just started apologizing rightaway.
I was like, I'm sorry.
If you wanna run ahead, youknow, you please feel free to
(17:57):
run ahead of me and then you canwait, or you can run ahead of me
and then run back to me.
If you wanna get more mileagein.
I know it's only three miles andthat's really not a lot for you.
And my brain would just, wasstarting to churn in all the
ways.
Kevin (18:09):
Yeah.
I mean, we had been running fora couple of minutes and you were
apologizing.
Yeah, and I knew, I knew like.
Once we got up this versatilething that it was going to
flatten out.
And so I'm like, look, just walkthis section right here and then
it's gonna move to a, a partwhere we can kind of jog because
it's gonna flatten out on us.
And, and you did like youcrested that we walked together
(18:30):
up that thing and it crested andyou're like, oh, and then we can
jog again.
And I think at that point youwere slightly.
Revitalized that maybe this ishow it was gonna go.
That there was gonna be somereal steep parts and then it was
gonna flatten out and you couldjog along on the flat parts.
Mm-hmm.
And I tried to explain like,that's how we're gonna go up
this thing.
We're not going to literally runstraight up the face of this.
We're gonna, we're gonna walkwhen we need to walk, we're
(18:52):
gonna jog on the nice flatrunnable parts.
This is gonna be a greatcombination of things.
It's gonna be fine.
In my head.
Those are the words I was sayingout loud.
Yeah.
In my head I was like, okay.
It's a good thing that I broughtwater and the snacks that you
didn't wanna bring, because I'mnot sure how long this is gonna
take.
Hopefully this goes smoothbecause I, I'm already thinking
(19:14):
did I pick the right path?
And you're already apologizingto me.
So this is already a trickything.
So we get up to this flat partand that's where.
The signs direct us to not gothe one direction, but to go the
other way.
And I kinda started runningahead a little bit the wrong
direction.
I'm like, I went this way lasttime.
Angie (19:33):
You're like, I was on the other side of the creek the
entire first mile of this.
Kevin (19:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, and we
Angie (19:39):
didn't cross the creek at all.
Kevin (19:40):
No.
We like crossed back over theother direction.
Yeah.
Suddenly, yeah.
Yeah.
So we go off and we start onwhat could at best be described
as single track and was reallymore described as like, I don't
know, bush whacking for like thefirst
Angie (19:54):
very overgrown
Kevin (19:55):
because it's, it's a very small, seldom used trail.
Essentially everybody takes theother path.
Mm-hmm.
But this is in fact a trail upthe mountain.
Yeah.
But it was quite overgrown andso we're going through and very
rocky and not like.
Little rocks that like you'rerunning on pebbles, but like big
rocks that you can't really runon because it's a big rock and
(20:15):
then a big gap between it andthen another big rock.
And in my head this is now like,oh God, you picked the worst
thing.
She said you wanted to run that.
She wanted to run up a mountain,and you picked a path that is un
runnable.
You're getting whacked bybranches in the face and there
is no footing.
It's muddy because the rockshave like a, a.
(20:37):
Trickle running between them assnow is still melting off the
mountain.
This is the worst trail youcould have possibly picked.
And
Angie (20:44):
we both have road shoes because we don't have trail
shoes.
Like neither one of us have anysort of trail shoes or any sort
of traction.
And not only that, I have wornout running shoes.
I have my running shoes fromlike two seasons ago.
Kevin (20:55):
Right, because you didn't wanna bring like your newer
ones, right.
And get them.
Filthy.
Right.
And I, I don't have newer ones,so I have no heel, like there's
no rubber left on from like theheel back on mine, I've
completely worn that part of therubber out.
So this is what we're going upthe mountain with.
So anytime it's like.
Like a really big bear rock.
Neither one of us have gripp to,to go on that.
So that's just like all fours togo up.
(21:17):
Any of those things.
Angie (21:17):
Well, it wasn't all fours.
Like that's very much anexaggeration.
There were, there
Kevin (21:20):
were two sections where I had to put both hands on the
ground in order to get up therock.
Angie (21:23):
You were behind me, so I didn't even see that.
So, but I mean, it wasdefinitely like slow and
concentrated in intentional footplacement, right?
Mm-hmm.
Like that's what I would say isthere was definitely sections
where you had to be veryintentional and part of me then
was like.
I'm looking down this wholetime, like I'm not even looking
around at the beautiful views,right?
And so going back to kind ofwhere I was as I ran up this
(21:45):
mountain and then, and thenKevin's like, no, he's
reassuring me.
Everything's fine.
Then I'm like, okay, this is theflat part that he was talking
about that I'm supposed to berunning on, but I'm too out of
breath.
I can't run.
I just have to keep walking.
And so I was like, then I wasbeating myself up because I'm
like, I should be running rightnow.
Like this is the runnable part.
Angie just start running and I'mlike trying to catch my breath.
(22:06):
And so it was this combinationof my breathing was trying to
figure out what was going on.
My lungs were, were not surewhat was happening with the lack
of oxygen at altitude.
My legs were feeling reallyheavy from.
Running up the incline, actuallyrunning up a mountain and TR V
versus a highway overpass thatwe're used to for hill repeats.
And so it was just like thiscombination of all sorts of
(22:29):
negative things in my head, andwe got to this point.
Where I actually did decide tostop'cause I I, and take a
picture and take a breath andjust take it all in because part
of me really wanted to just keeprunning because again, I didn't
wanna hold Kevin back.
In my mind.
I was holding him back and I wasso slow and he was probably
hating this.
(22:50):
I don't know why I ever askedhim to do this with me.
Like these were some of thethoughts that were coming
through my head, like he'sprobably regretting saying yes.
And then my brain went to a.
The most ridiculous place.
I remember like standing,looking out over this gorgeous
view of the valley and my brainsays he's probably regretting
(23:11):
even marrying me and not someoneelse that could just run up this
mountain, carefree with him andkeep up with him the whole time.
And I was.
What in the actual f Like whatis my brain telling me here?
Like, he's regretting marryingme because I am having a bit of
a hard time running up a trail.
(23:32):
Like what a ridiculous thoughtthat my brain was offering me.
I, I
Kevin (23:36):
think that's finally when, when things got far
enough.
Yeah.
That.
You actually like spoke up.
Yeah.
And at this point, like you werestruggling.
I was trying to reassure thatthere was gonna be runnable
parts and so then Yeah, you werethen beating yourself up.
You couldn't run the parts thatvisually you're looking at it
and you're like, this is flat.
This should, this is flatenough.
(23:57):
This should be runnable.
Yeah.
But I can't breathe.
Yeah.
And I can't pick up my feet.
So
Angie (24:03):
because we had just climbed up those huge rocks.
Kevin (24:06):
Yeah.
Runnable my.
Foot?
I don't think so.
Right.
Is like, that's,
Angie (24:09):
it was really my butt because my butt was like real.
I was like, Hey, this is, ifnothing else, this is one heck
of a, of a glute workout.
This definitely counts as legday.
Kevin (24:17):
Right?
And so while you were keepingyour eyes fixed on the trail, I
made sure that you were alwaysin front.
Because the worst thing that Icould do, I thought, was to take
the lead and just run away fromyou.
Like I didn't want to be infront and be like, oh, this
part's doable, and suddenly getlike 10 steps on you.
So that was awful.
So, but I
Angie (24:35):
was totally fine with that because then I felt like I
wasn't holding you back, thatyou could just like go off and
run free the way that you wantedto, and then at some point you
would realize it.
Or if you got too far away fromme, then I would say, Hey,
hello, I'm back here.
Kevin (24:48):
Right.
But I thought that the bettermove was to go behind and let
you control the pace.
Yeah.
So that if you wanted to take awalking break, you could take a
walking break.
Yeah.
You on the other hand, werelike, all right, I'm supposed to
be running at this part so I'mnot gonna take a walking break.
And I'm like, she ishyperventilating over there.
Either way, neither one of uswere enjoying like the views of
(25:09):
the valley.
I was enjoying the view frombeing behind you for like the
first mile and a half up the upthe mountain.
Mm-hmm.
You are thinking that I wantedto marry somebody else.
Meanwhile, I'm just enjoying theview running right behind you,
which seemed like an appropriateview to be enjoying as we go up
the mountain.
And we'd been going for, I don'tknow, 20 minutes maybe?
(25:29):
Yeah, almost 30.
'cause we were over a mile.
Mm-hmm.
And then you finally likemm-hmm.
Said it
Angie (25:35):
well.
Said what?
What do you remember me saying?
Kevin (25:39):
I don't remember.
I just remember a lot ofthoughts suddenly came out.
Yeah.
Angie (25:43):
Well, so I think that part of that was triggered by I,
I think I just said that.
I said, oh my gosh.
Like my brain is being so meanright now.
And I think I even said like,I'm even thinking that he's
probably wishing that he marriedsomeone else right now.
And you came back with a classicKevin, like Kevin loves to bring
the humor to every situationjust to lighten the mood.
(26:06):
And you made some sort ofcomment of, of enjoying the view
from behind.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're like, I'm just sittinghere very much enjoying the view
here.
Um, and so I just startedlaughing.
I was like, okay, great.
Like, so he likes looking at mybutt.
Fantastic.
Um.
That's a good sign.
He actually, maybe he doesn'tregret marrying me, and I think
that's when it just kind ofopened up and I'm like, my brain
(26:28):
is being so mean to me.
And I just started telling himall of the thoughts that I,
well, I shouldn't say all ofthem, but I started with that
one.
And then you said, my brain'sactually being really mean to me
too.
And I was like, wait, what?
Like this is okay.
Let's just tell each other whatwe're thinking.
Kevin (26:45):
Yeah.
And that's when I was like, Ipicked the worst trail we could
have gone up.
Like we're not running anythingand we're not seeing the valley
because like you have to be socareful about where you're
putting your next step, thatwe're not able to enjoy any of
the views.
We're it's single track, so wecan't even run next to each
other.
We're running in a single file,so we can't really even carry on
a conversation if we even hadthe ability to talk.
(27:07):
But yeah, like that's, that'snot happening either.
Was
Angie (27:11):
it hard for you at all?
Or not really.
I mean, and I don't think I everasked you that.
Kevin (27:15):
The, the first part where I was trying to keep up with you
is you were dropping me in theopening 20 meters, like 200
meters.
Angie (27:22):
200 meters.
That's, that's about the, thelength of it.
Kevin (27:26):
That's like you took off.
Yeah.
Like you were gonna like.
Yeah, I'm, I'm holding 10 minutepace up the mountain.
No, I had
Angie (27:32):
to look'cause I felt like I had to hold my own with you.
Like this is where my brain wasat.
Like, I'm gonna run, I'm gonnashow him that I'm a runner too.
And
Kevin (27:40):
before we started, like the night before, I'm looking
through to try and find theright trail.
At this point I've alreadyaccepted that we are run walking
up this mountain and we'll runparts that we can, but we're
basically gonna like power, hikeit up the mountain.
Angie (27:53):
I wish you would've.
Kevin (27:54):
Expressed that a lot earlier in the process, relayed
that
Angie (27:57):
message to me.
Kevin (27:58):
Yeah.
Well you, you were so gung-hothat you wanted to run up a
mountain and that's why I wastrying to figure out, like, I
just
Angie (28:06):
meant that I wanted to run parts of it because like
when we go with the kids, wedon't really get to run any of
it.
Right.
Where and when you're on some ofthese hikes, you are, I mean, I
know, I think to myself like,this would be really great if I
just were, was able to run thispart and like, I think that, you
know, that's really what Iwanted to do.
Like I.
Didn't want to run straightthrough up this mountain.
(28:28):
That was never my goal.
'cause I prefer run walkinganyways.
Especially if you're going up amountain.
I knew it was gonna be rocky.
I really like hiking.
I know you like hiking less thanI do because I, that is true.
Right?
And so to me it was just gonnabe a really fun way for us to
spend the morning together, seesome beautiful things,
accomplish a really cool.
Task.
Um, but then there was thiscompetitive side of me.
(28:50):
Not that I, I definitely didn'twanna beat you by any means.
I just wanted to be able tolike, keep up with you enough
that it was fun, still fun foryou and.
Kevin (29:01):
I knew it was going to be fun for me before we started.
Angie (29:04):
Yeah.
See that communication would'veprobably been helpful between
us.
Yeah.
You know, the night before,
Kevin (29:10):
but then, so now we're like 30 minutes in and all of
this starts coming out.
Right.
And it completely changed therest of the way up the mountain.
Yeah.
Because we still were nowherenear the top, like from where we
were.
We were like tucked in so youcouldn't even see the top of the
mountain.
But it just completely changedhow both of us.
We're able to do the rest of it.
(29:31):
Like that was before we got tothe part where it was so rocky
that you couldn't even tellwhere the trail went because
yeah, that was, it was just bigrocks everywhere.
Mm-hmm.
Like, thank God we had had thisconversation before that because
that would've killed me becausethe view, if you turn to the
right, was beautiful.
But I would've just been staringat these rocks pissed off at
(29:52):
myself that I had chosen thistrail, instead of at least
having enough of a clear mind tobe like, oh, well the path goes
that direction.
Angie (29:58):
Yeah.
Well, and I actually liked, andso the Kevin said it, some of
the negative thoughts that hewas thinking were in regards to
choosing the wrong trail, and Itold him, I actually love this
trail because I love doing thiskinds of.
The hiking, like, I like whenthings are really hard and
there's rocks and it's reallytechnical.
I think that's really fun.
(30:19):
And like where you're actuallyclimbing rocks up a mountain.
We
Kevin (30:22):
were definitely scrambling for part of it.
Yeah.
For
Angie (30:24):
part of it.
You definitely, and like you didhave to put your hand down at,
at some parts to kind of getyourself up, but I was really
enjoying the actual trail.
I just felt bad that I wasn'trunning more of it to, and, and
slowing him down.
But then my brain said, well,this tr.
Isn't really that runnable, likeit would be really hard to run
this portion, and that's whenyou expressed how.
(30:46):
You were disappointed in thetrail that you chose.
Yeah,
Kevin (30:49):
because you couldn't run it because the footing was not
very great.
Especially the fact that wedon't have actual trail shoes.
Like neither one of us haveenough lateral support in our
shoes or traction on the bottomof them.
Mm-hmm.
To run the parts that were evenall that runnable.
Angie (31:02):
Right.
And so I thought that thisbasically.
It kind of helped to level theplaying field in a way between
the two of us because I knew Iwas good at hiking.
I know I'm strong.
I know I'm not fast like youare, but I know I'm strong and I
can just keep going.
Even when my breathing was hard,even when my legs were feeling
really tired.
I knew that I could just keepgoing.
(31:23):
And that's one of the, thethoughts that I started telling
myself is like, just keep movingforward.
And my breathing, I was like, ohmy gosh, I have to stop again.
Like I feel like I,'cause Idon't wanna get lightheaded or
dizzy.
Like that was the other thing isI didn't have the electrolytes
with me and I, you know, we hadone bottle of water, a smaller
bottle of water between the twoof us, and I'm like, oh my gosh,
(31:43):
I need water already.
Like it was all these thingsthat kept coming in.
But I think that when I foundout that Kevin was also having
negative thoughts about this,that were not the negative
thoughts that I thought he washaving, right?
Because I, I expected, like Ithink that this is important,
right?
Like in my brain, like my brainwas telling me that you were
probably having negativethoughts, but it was going to,
(32:04):
all of your negative thoughtswere around me.
Like, she's so slow.
Why did I agree to do this?
This sucks.
I wish we were running more.
I wish I would've marriedsomeone else, right?
Like, these are all the thingsthat I thought you were
thinking, and in reality it wasyou.
God bless Spandex, spandex.
Kevin (32:22):
I was like, wait, what?
Ah, didn't see that one coming.
Oh, I've completely thrown heroff track.
But.
I had negative thoughts.
They just weren't centered onyou.
They were centered on me.
That's where most of ournegative thoughts go.
Yeah, we, we are constantlybeating ourselves up in the
middle of all sorts of differentrun.
Forget this particular instance,but I've had so many times I've
(32:45):
put myself through workouts.
The negative thoughts are all Iam this.
And you talk about the I Amthoughts all the time.
Yeah.
And when you can reframe.
I am.
And I, my thoughts weren't, Iam, I mean, I guess it was, I am
a bad trail chooser, but like,it was, it was very personal to
myself is I chose the wrongtrail.
Angie (33:04):
I did this to,
Kevin (33:05):
I, I put us in the wrong, I didn't.
I didn't pick the trail thatmakes her happy because I can
tell that something's off andit's because I picked a stupid
trail.
Angie (33:14):
Yeah.
And it was not that I actuallyreally like the trails like
that.
And so I think when I expressedthat and I was like, I actually
really like this trail.
And you were like, oh, here I amthinking I picked the worst
trail.
I'm like, no, I actually reallylike this trail.
We're just not able to run asmuch as I thought we were going
to, but I'm totally okay withthat.
Yeah.
Kevin (33:31):
And so then we just started actually.
Taking in, you know, each other.
Angie (33:35):
Yeah.
Kevin (33:35):
Which was nice.
Mm-hmm.
Like then we started being ableto actually talk to each other.
Yeah.
And,
Angie (33:39):
and then we started making fun of ourselves too.
I think that was part of it too.
And I think that this isdefinitely a technique that you
can use because some of thethoughts, some of the negative
thoughts that our brains give usare.
Absolutely ridiculous.
Of course, they
Kevin (33:50):
are
Angie (33:51):
so ridiculous.
And so we just started makingfun of ourselves and like, oh,
I, I, I thought this thing, thisthing came up, you know?
And it's just like, oh mygoodness, this is so crazy.
Kevin (34:00):
Yeah.
And, and then the trail was muchmore enjoyable and it didn't
change.
It was still really hard.
It was still rocky.
It was still single track theentire way, almost the entire
way.
And we made it up the mountain.
Yeah.
And we paused when we wanted to,and we would stop and take
pictures if we wanted to.
It was fine.
Like we could stop and catch ourbreath if we wanted to.
(34:23):
Mm-hmm.
And literally stop and catch ourbreath, but.
The part where we startedtalking to each other is where
mentally we were able toactually just stop and catch our
breath and communicate to eachother what's going on.
And suddenly the negativethoughts, they just weren't
necessary anymore because theywere silly once you told them to
the other person and realizedthat that's not what that
(34:45):
person's thinking at all.
Angie (34:46):
Yeah, and the other thing too, like yes, we could stop and
catch our breath more, but Inoticed for me that.
All of a sudden my breathing goteasier, right?
Like once I finally communicatedthose negative thoughts to you
and I wasn't putting all of thispressure on myself and negative
judgment on myself, then I justmoved up the mountain at my pace
(35:07):
and I didn't have to stop.
And I, if I needed to stop, if Ifelt like I was getting a little
outta breath and I stopped for asecond, and then I kept going,
but I felt like that was a lotless necessary versus.
That, that first 30 minutes ofthe trail where I felt like I
was supposed to be running upthis trail and powering forward,
and it was so much harder.
But now that I was just able torelease all of that, then my
(35:30):
brain started going to.
Wow.
Like what a beautiful morning.
I love that we get to do thistogether.
We are so fit.
We're just going to keep goingeven when it's hard.
We're just gonna keep going.
We have each other, we've goteach other's backs.
And it just became this reallyfun thing.
And we didn't talk the wholetime, like there was a lot of
silence on our hike.
(35:51):
But I think, at least for me, Iknew we were in this together.
We were both enjoying thistogether and no matter what we
were gonna make it to the top.
Kevin (35:59):
Yeah, of course we were making it to the top.
And then part, well, I don'tknow.
We still had.
15, 20 minutes to the top andyou were like, I think, I think
we take the tram back down.
Or what do you think abouttaking the tram back down?
Is it was, no,
Angie (36:13):
I said that like time-wise,'cause I, we looked at
the clock and how long it wastaking us because it was taking
us longer than we thought it wasgoing to.
And so I said, well, if we wantto take, if we wanna take the
tram back down, we're gonnabasically be making it up around
that time because we.
You know, weren't sure time-wiseif we were gonna have to wait a
really long time, so then itwould've been worth it to just
(36:35):
run back down.
But based on, you know, the, thequality of the track and how
long it was taking us, it wasgonna end up that we weren't
gonna have to wait that long forthe first tram.
Kevin (36:44):
We were not gonna have to wait that long.
And it was gonna be way fasterto take the tram back down than
to try and reverse it.
Yeah, we could have gone downfaster than we went up, but it
still would've been very timeconsuming to go back down.
Angie (36:54):
I mean, and I totally was on board for that.
I think it would've been fun.
I would've just essentially.
Uh, refilled our water and thengone back down.
We just didn't wanna hold up therest of our crew Yes.
That day, because we didn'treally know what other people
wanted to do for the rest of theday.
Kevin (37:09):
Yeah.
I think, I mean, it was betterthat we took the tram back down
and you get some amazing viewsfrom the tram also.
Mm-hmm.
But we got such amazing views atthe top, along with the sense of
satisfaction.
That we overcame the trail andour thoughts and had some better
communication by the time we gotto the top of the mountain also.
Angie (37:26):
Yeah.
Kevin (37:27):
Which probably would've been better if I opened some
communication the day before.
Angie (37:31):
Well, you know, so be it.
This was the experience that wehad and it made for a good
podcast.
And I think that this is one ofthose podcasts that we obviously
come at you very real.
And I was talking to some of ourmembers last week.
We do.
A monthly coffee chat with allof our team members, anybody
that wants to come, of course.
(37:51):
And I was just starting to tellthem about this experience, and
I'm like, yeah, I think we'regonna do a podcast.
And everyone was so excitedabout it because they wanted to
hear the real and raw,unfiltered version of this,
because.
It's really important foreveryone to know that we're all
the same.
Right?
Like we all have negativethoughts and it's about how we
(38:13):
deal with them that makes thedifference.
Kevin (38:15):
Yeah.
We should have gotten, and theproblem is that neither one of
us were in the right head space,but we needed better pictures
from the start of the hike thatwe could have shared, uh, on, on
social media to follow up thepodcast
Angie (38:27):
with like making nasty faces.
Kevin (38:28):
Yeah.
Like neither one of, like, youare still, but you're
Angie (38:31):
not in the place to do it then.
No.
Yeah.
Kevin (38:33):
I.
Until we gotta the part where wewere actually able to talk to
each other.
I don't think we took anypictures up until that point.
Maybe I took
Angie (38:41):
one at the start.
Kevin (38:42):
At the very, very start.
Angie (38:43):
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kevin (38:44):
But from the very start, you couldn't see the, the little
trail that we went on to.
We were still on like wide roadat that point in time.
I know.
Yeah.
That was before my negativethoughts really started going.
Angie (38:54):
Yeah.
I probably, I don't think Ireally got any.
Good, uh, photos or videos oflike the, like the, how thin
this drill actually was atcertain points in time.
I took a picture of us when wegot to that super rocky section.
Yes.
Um, but yeah, I don't think Ihave any real good ones.
No,
Kevin (39:11):
there's not really any pictures of the early parts and
that's fine also because a lotof this,
Angie (39:17):
I have them in my head.
Kevin (39:18):
I know.
But that's the thing is a lot ofthis trek up the mountain was so
much growth between the two ofus.
Yeah.
Like that's why it was.
Like the smiles at the top ofthe mountain were, were for what
we just did, but so much that wewere able to do it together and
be smiling at the top, becauseif we didn't have that
(39:38):
conversation halfway up, I don'tthink we would've been as
genuinely smiling at the top.
Mm-hmm.
Like we've been taking pictures,there would've been smiles, but.
Both of us would've still hadthis internal monologue.
Yeah.
That was not helping us interactwith the other person.
It could have just literallyderailed the entire rest of the
day.
Mm-hmm.
Instead, after like 30, 40minutes, we're just laughing as
(39:59):
we're continuing to, to pound upa mountain.
So it was, yeah, it was great.
Angie (40:02):
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So what do you think was one ofyour takeaways from this
experience?
If you could kind of wrap it upin a bow.
Kevin (40:09):
Um, it's always better to have more communication with
you.
Mm-hmm.
Always at all times.
Yeah.
Angie (40:15):
And let me lead.
Kevin (40:17):
Well, yes, and of course let you lead up the mountain.
Angie (40:21):
Um, yeah, I agree.
I think that that was, that wasa really interesting turning
point I think when we justdecided to start saying all the
negative thoughts out loud.
And again, it's always, youcan't stop the negative thoughts
from coming, but you.
Control where you take them,like if you let them continue,
if you let them spiral, if youlet your mind spiral or you can
(40:43):
change your focus to somethingelse, something more productive,
something more positive,something that you actually
wanna focus on, like, yeah, thattrail was hard.
I'm not telling myself that thistrail was easy, that trail was
definitely not easy, but it wasstill enjoyable after.
We kind of cleared the air and,and got on the same page with
each other.
Kevin (41:02):
Yeah.
It was way more enjoyable atthat point.
Yeah.
Which was great
Angie (41:06):
because I like doing hard things.
Kevin (41:07):
I know.
Yeah.
Angie (41:08):
Like I, when I posted after, like that day after the
hike, someone messaged me andsaid, but the question is why
would you do that?
And I said, because I can like,and that is really one of the.
Reasons.
I think all of us do what we do.
When, when, when it comes torunning.
It's to see if I can or becauseI can, because we want to use
(41:30):
our bodies and celebrate howstrong we are, how we're able to
move the, the gift of what thesebodies are.
And I think that that's really.
What that day kind ofencapsulated too.
Kevin (41:43):
Yeah.
I mean it was a lot of knowingphysically and mentally, what am
I able to bring to thissituation?
Angie (41:48):
Yeah.
Super fun.
So hopefully you guys enjoyedour little recap, and if you
did, I would love to hear yourthoughts.
If you wanna come over toInstagram at Real Life Runners,
if you like this episode, pleaseshare it on Instagram or share
it with a friend so that we canreach and help more runners and
uh, help people.
Conquer those, what is it?
(42:09):
Seven inches between your earsis like the, the farthest space
you'll ever run or the hardestjourney you'll ever run is those
seven inches between your ears.
Something like that.
Kevin (42:18):
That sounds exactly perfectly quotable.
It was probably Lincoln orConfucius.
Maybe Churchill.
Maybe Benjamin Franklin,
Angie (42:25):
possibly.
All right guys.
This has been the Real LifeRunners podcast, episode number
421.
Now, get out there and run yourlife.
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