The Trail Mindset Podcast

Neal Palles, LCSW, CMPC
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Mental Health

The show takes a deep dive into the mindsets of athletes doing hard things on and off the trail. Here we'll interview ultrarunners, mountaineers, rock climbers, and the coaches, therapists and mental performance specialists. who work these athletes.

Episodes

  1. 114 Hours in the Desert: Kelsey McGill on Grit, Discomfort, and Why We Need It

    6d ago

    114 Hours in the Desert: Kelsey McGill on Grit, Discomfort, and Why We Need It

    In our first episode of The Trail Mindset, we sit down with Kelsey McGill — founder of Alpenglow Endurance in Bend, Oregon — just weeks after she finished the Cocodona 250, a 250-mile race through the Arizona desert that took her 114 hours to complete. Kelsey wears a lot of hats: ultra runner, running coach, race director, high school cross-country coach, and licensed counselor, with five years as an Outward Bound instructor woven through all of it. We trace her path from a chance meeting with ultra runners on the PCT in 2017, to her first 100-miler, to the moment she decided to build a life and a coaching practice around this sport. Then we get into Cocodona itself: the climb out of Black Canyon City, the toll of four days without real sleep, and the mile-225 low point where dehydration and altitude left her disoriented and lying down mid-race — talked back from the edge by her crew. Kelsey shares the mantra that carried her through the hardest stretches ("you don't have to want to keep going, you just have to keep going"), and what she learned pushing her body through Burrito League, an unofficial 940-mile, 26-day challenge run on a two-block segment in Tempe. We also dig into the throughline connecting all of her work: how her years teaching in the wilderness with Outward Bound shaped the way she coaches ultra runners and high schoolers alike, what grit actually means to her, and why she believes putting yourself in a hard, uncomfortable place on purpose teaches you something you can't get anywhere else — a lesson that doesn't stay on the trail. This is a conversation about endurance as a mirror: what 250 miles of desert can show you about yourself, and how to carry that back into ordinary life. You can find Kelsey on instagram at @alpenglow_endurance and on the web at www.alpenglowendurancecoaching.com/

    57 min
  • 1 Episode

About

The show takes a deep dive into the mindsets of athletes doing hard things on and off the trail. Here we'll interview ultrarunners, mountaineers, rock climbers, and the coaches, therapists and mental performance specialists. who work these athletes.

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