{"id":27444,"date":"2023-09-28T07:47:13","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T13:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/winddrinkers.org\/trailhead\/?p=27444"},"modified":"2023-09-28T07:47:13","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T13:47:13","slug":"you-must-know-who-courtney-dauwalter-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/winddrinkers.org\/trailhead\/you-must-know-who-courtney-dauwalter-is\/","title":{"rendered":"You Must Know Who Courtney Dauwalter Is"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cYou are fine…everything is fine…Keep moving!\u201d These are Courtney Dauwalter\u2019s mantras as she navigates all the challenges of long mountain races. She is so refreshing, simple and almost naive! She also says it works great, and I don\u2019t think she was joking! Here\u2019s a familiar photo which shows her undaunted enthusiasm!<\/p>\n

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Beer and Tailwind …a winning combination? Via runninginsight.com<\/em><\/p>\n

I have to make sure every reader of this newsletter knows about Courntey, if you don’t already. She is such a positive development in the long distance running community. She\u2019s unaffected by all her success and this encourages me to get back in shape to \u201cgo long\u201d once more. I\u2019m basing much of this article written by Brian Meltzer, who I too often mistake for Karl \u201cSpeedgoat\u201d Meltzer. Brian is the founding editor of Trail Runner Magazine and “invented” the Speedgoat HOKA trail running shoe, which was named after him. He’s also known foe his amazing string of winning 100-mile races; he\u2019s won at least one a year for over 20 years, and for your information, wearing my own Speedgoat HOKAs does not make me 100-mile material!<\/p>\n

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Courtney smiling as she runs the 240 mile Moab race via gearjunkie.com<\/em><\/p>\n

Back to Courtney: what first caught my eye was her winning Western States 100 (going 77 minutes faster than the record, she ran a 15:29:34) and Hardrock 100 (setting a new record there as well) three weeks apart from each other. After that, she signed up for the Ultra Tour du Mont Blanc on September 2-3. And that she won, setting a women\u2019s course record as well. At 38 years old, she\u2019s broken just about everyone\u2019s records wherever she goes. I can\u2019t help but be impressed with her Western States 100 record; her time would have beaten all the overall winners (meaning men) going back 20 years.<\/p>\n

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Courtney thanking the crowd at the UTMB via scmp.com<\/em><\/p>\n

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So, how does she do this \u2013 a question asked by mane others as well? She has no coach and just does what she \u201cfeels like\u201d every morning she wakes up. I love that. Heck, that\u2019s exactly what I do too (okay, I\u2019ll stop trying to compare myself with her). She\u2019s been living in Leadville, CO near where I spent 20 years running up 14-ers. Living above 10,000 feet can\u2019t hurt it seems. She almost brags about her diet, eating stuff I thrive on too (ooops, stop it David): pastries, pizza, beer, jelly beans, Mike \u2018n Ike\u2019s, Snickers, gummy bears, nachos, pancakes. And along came Tailwind, the drink Megan DeHaan championed for the Ridge Run. I tried drinking it, and it just tasted awful. But Courtney swears by it. Maybe I\u2019ll try it again.<\/p>\n

The best part about Courtney is her simple lifestyle and simple joy shown in all interviews. She keeps saying that she just loves running, and keeps figuring out ways to make it happen. When she crosses a finish line, she\u2019s thinking \u201cWow, I really finished this\u201d \u201cboy that was fun\u201d and goes around thanking all the support crews. I mean, that\u2019s exactly what I do whenever I finish a race.<\/p>\n

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What Courtney drinks at aid stations! via pinterest.com<\/em><\/p>\n

A list of Courtney’s accomplishments<\/a>, via Wikipedia.<\/p>\n

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Yes, Courtney uses poles in the tricky parts of the UTMB! Via runandtravel.pl<\/em><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help but include our own Nikki Kimball\u2019s accomplishments as she won three Western States 100 (2004, 2006, 2007) and won the UTMB in 2007 as well. She was undefeated in seven years of competition. And she held the BRR record for many years, constantly encouraging Kristina Trygstad-Saari to beat her record (which did eventually happen!).<\/p>\n

And speaking of former BRR winners, there\u2019s Jim Walmsley who won BRR several years ago, had some foot soreness and wore a pair of HOKA\u2019s at the last minute. Then his UTMB attempt; he came in fourth last year, and true to his dedication to winning, he moved to Are\u0302che-Beaufort, France, near the start of the UTMB in Chamonix, so he could train to his heart\u2019s content. I did read he ran into some problems with his Visa \u2013 you can\u2019t stay longer than 90 days without being asked to leave. I believe he had to solve some issues so he could continue training this year! Anyway, he did win this year, and established a new record (19:37:43) – way to go Jim \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t stop this article without mentioning that there is a new USA mile record by Yared Nuguse, who ran a 3:43:97 to erase Alan Webb\u2019s 3:46:91 set in 2007. That record stood for 16 years! The new record happened at the Prefontaine Classic at Hayward Field, Oregon. The current world record is still held by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco (3:43:13). So Americans are now only 0.84 seconds away from mile glory.<\/p>\n

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Nuguse is on the left, winner Ingebrigtsen (Norway) is on the right and won in 3:43:73. Via runnersworld.com\/news\/a45172962\/yared-nuguse-breaks-mile-american-record<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou are fine…everything is fine…Keep moving!\u201d These are Courtney Dauwalter\u2019s mantras as she navigates all the challenges of long mountain races. She is so refreshing, simple and almost naive! She […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":27446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,14,55],"tags":[201,202,50,173,54,203,190,196],"class_list":["post-27444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-news","category-newsletters","tag-blog","tag-courtney-duwalter","tag-david-summerfield","tag-mature-runner","tag-newsletter","tag-trail-running","tag-wind-drinker","tag-world-records"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/winddrinkers.org\/trailhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/winddrinkers.org\/trailhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/winddrinkers.org\/trailhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winddrinkers.org\/trailhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winddrinkers.org\/trailhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27444"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/winddrinkers.org\/trailhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27498,"href":"https:\/\/winddrinkers.org\/trailhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27444\/revisions\/27498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winddrinkers.org\/trailhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/winddrinkers.org\/trailhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winddrinkers.org\/trailhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winddrinkers.org\/trailhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}