Episode Details

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Meet the Mammoths — Jill Dennes: Thirteen Hundreds, and Now the Next Thing

Today's guest is a personal trainer and ultrarunning coach out of Nashville who has quietly built one of the more impressive résumés on the Eastern trail circuit — a runner-up overall finish at the Black Hills 100, a start at UTMB last year, and wins and podiums up and down the East. She's run roughly thirteen hundred-milers. She has never gone 200 miles in a single push. That changes this October.

Jill Dennes joins us to talk about why, after that many hundreds, the 200 felt like the only thing left to try — and the refreshingly honest reason she picked Mammoth: it had the shortest waitlist, so she got in first. (Naturally, she then got off almost every other waitlist she was on.)

We get into what UTMB taught her, including a race that started in light rain and turned into a full blizzard, and why a Pennsylvania upbringing on "Rocksylvania" trails still didn't prepare her for Chamonix. She also talks about practicing what she preaches as a coach: consistency, strength training three to four days a week, and the simple rule of getting the race on the calendar so the training actually happens.

For a first 200, her approach is proudly loose. She barely studies the course, doesn't have a sleep plan, has never really hallucinated, and is heading from Nashville's roughly 500 feet of elevation to the Sierra. She's winging it on purpose — and explains why expectations can do more harm than good.

Plus: a former high school point guard enters the Mammoth Basketball League, asks whether made shots come with time bonuses, and reveals a sweet tooth that may be the most dangerous thing in her crew bag.

In this episode:

• Thirteen hundreds, and why the 200 was the natural next step
• Picking Mammoth for the shortest waitlist
• UTMB, a mid-race blizzard, and preparing for anything
• Coaching consistency, strength work, and getting it on the calendar
• No sleep plan, no hallucinations yet, and a sea-level runner heading to altitude
• Homework not done, and a point guard ready for the MBL
• Finish-line firsts: pizza, a burger, sour candy, and a shower
• Her non-placement goal: keeping her gut happy for 200 miles

Mammoth 200 kicks off Friday, October 2nd in Mammoth Lakes, California. Catch live coverage on the Mountain Outpost YouTube channel, and follow @Mammoth200 for updates and tracking throughout the race.