Courtney Dauwalter is an athlete of epic proportions! She is an ultra-runner, skier, and an all-around awesome person. She took a few minutes off the trail to answer some questions for us.
You went to school with a scholarship for cross-country skiing. Was running always part of your training and journey? How did you get into not only running but ultra-running?
“Growing up I played a lot of sports and always loved the running part of it all. I guess running came before skiing! I decided to pursue skiing in college and had a great experience training with and competing for the University of Denver. Snow is only around part of the year, so we used running as a way to keep our endurance up during the off-season. After college, I decided to try a road marathon. I couldn’t believe I survived 26.2 miles and instantly wanted to know what other challenges were out there. This led me to ultra running and it has sort of snowballed since then.”
What’s your most memorable race or run you’ve ever been on?
“That’s an impossible question. There are way too many amazing memories of sunrises, or shared miles with friends, or beautiful views to choose just one. Sorry!”
Running the distances that you do, we would imagine fueling before the run, during the run, and after the run is incredibly important. What’s your go-to product to keeping the momentum going?
“Yes! Fueling is huge and takes some time to dial in for each person. I made a lot of fueling mistakes before nailing it down. For me, I knew I needed my fueling to be both easy and delicious in order to make sure I actually did it. Tailwind is the perfect solution because it sits well with my stomach, I get to drink my calories, and the flavors are really refreshing.”
Now, we have to ask… if you were to run a Ragnar race, who would you pick to be on your team?
“Oh, great question! How about a women’s team with Maggie Guterl, Des Linden, and Jessie Diggins.”
What’s next on the list for you? Are you currently training or gearing up for an event?
“We’ll see! If races happen this summer, I am looking forward to doing Hardrock 100 and UTMB.”
