The mindset of adventure and fun
My guests this week are Lauren Beihoffer and Bud Lamonica. They are ultramarathon runners, adventurers, and have a podcast called Run Wild With Lauren and Bud.
Bud started running after going to a dark emotional place because of the death of his mother. He started running because a friend of his did an Ironman, and he decided he wanted to try that as well. He pushed himself hard and often ended up injured. He saw a meme about how runners often replace emotional pain with physical pain. He realized he might be doing this, and began to reach out to others who were going through the same kind of grief.
Even before he completed his first triathlon, he had started hanging out with trail runners, because they seemed like the bad boys of the running world. Eventually he settled on being a trail runner.
Lauren started running because she wanted to have something that she did for herself. She was raising two special-needs kids at the time. She could just go out her door and run. The exercise and endorphins helped her feel better, and it was a time to be alone and let her head clear. She found out about trail running, and that was a natural fit for her because she always like being out in nature. On a whim she signed up for and ran a short trail race. She had no idea what she was doing, but she loved it.
Lauren and Bud met in college as chemistry majors in Chattanooga. Bud says he was intimidated by her intelligence, he didn’t think he was a good enough student to talk to someone as smart or successful. It was around 2016 when Bud was training for his first Ironman that they both showed up for a group run and connected.
They reconnected along the way and ended up running a lot together. They undertook some big things on trails. And they had already talked about doing a podcast early on, and they started it in 2019. Lauren says the podcast was more for them, it was a way for them to remember and document their adventures together. They didn’t think people were going to listen to it, but they found an audience who were asking them to do more.
When races were canceled, they decided to do SCAR: Smokey Challenge Adventure Run, a 75 mile section of the Appalachian Trail. Runners compete for FKT: Fastest Known Time, or take it on for the challenge alone. They planned to do it as a self-supported run in about 24 hours. In the night, they ran across a group of bears, and one was particularly aggressive. They did have bear spray, but only used flashlights to shine in the bears’ eyes. They walked backwards for about a quarter mile to a hiker’s shelter. The bear encounter sucked the life out of them, and the remaining miles were more difficult because their mindset was focused more about imagining bears all around.
Lauren ran her first 100 mile race in 2020. It was a DNF, but it was a good learning experience for her. When she was at mile 60 the weather was horrible, and she was feeling hypothermic.
Bud says that the mental and mindset for running 100 miles is the key to success. The body is tired and in pain, and the aid stations have plenty of chairs and food. Lauren helped him get going again, and he finished.
For Lauren and Bud It’s important to trust your partner because if you get injured, who are you going to trust? They prefer to have the other one as pacer in a race. It’s always a risk to have a stranger volunteer to pace for you. You don’t know if you’re going to be out there with someone who doesn’t know what to do or if they’re going to fail and then you have to carry them back .So you have to trust your partner’s abilities. Lauren says after the 50 miles of the run, you have to treat them like a little kid, they’re a little kid, they’re going to whine, they’re going to cry, they’re going to throw the game, you’re going to have to tell them no, they can’t quit. What matters most to them is that they’re successful together on the road because they know each other, they trust each other and they’ve been on the road together for a long time.
Lauren loves being in the mountains and signed up for Bigfoot 200. It was very appealing to her because they were going to be dropped off and be in the mountains for 4 days. And she thought it was an awesome idea since she was at her 100 mile peak fitness. She loved that race even though there is a lot of elevation gain. There were long 20 mile stretches between aid stations, which really brought a little bit of that self-supported feeling to the race.
One of the training methods they use to build strength and endurance is Rucking. This consists of putting on an extra sturdy backpack and then loading it up with 20 to 30 pounds of weight. Bud says that this exercise strengthens your lower body and gives you better balance.
When asked about stretching and whether to do it before or after a run, Lauren admits that in the last few months she hasn’t stretched. But she loves yoga, so she assumes it counts as stretching.
Bud stretches before and after and says that a long time ago he was in charge of a running group and led them in stretching before and after. Iit was like a religious thing he did in his high school when he played soccer and stuff but he thinks most trail runners are lazy in this regard.
For Lauren, her philosophy of life is that she’s here to have a good time.
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