Sally McRae

About this Episode

This week, Skipper chats with Sally McRae, a pro runner for Nike and NordicTrack among others.

Based in Bend, Oregon, Sally starts off by talking about how she often gets mistaken for a bodybuilder, a cross fitter, and even a cage fighter. She also gets into many more details of her life, including growing up in a family of seven, playing soccer and starting to run because "she knew she had the speed" and then as a way to stay in shape and cross-train, running her first marathon, discovering ultrarunning, running Western States 100 in 2014 (as captured in the short film "Western Time" — linked below), the importance of crew in ultrarunning, and what she thinks is at the heart of the sentiment, "I'm not a runner, or I wasn't made for running, or running is stupid".

We also talk about some of the assumptions that people have about being a pro runner, the power of the community around running and ultrarunning, how running long distances with people can get past the polite and light social conversations, dispelling the common thinking that Skipper's name came from Gilligan's Island, why running is painful, needing to take care of yourself first and foremost, how on a 100 mile race that you will stir up something deep, and how some of the events locally and in the world might mirror some darker moments in our lives.

Stay tuned after the outro music to hear Sally's joy about relocating to the mountains with her family.

Episode Links

• Western States 100-mile endurance run
• "Western Time" — In 2014, Sally McRae ran the Western States 100 — the world’s oldest 100 mile race — for the very first time. This short film by Billy Yang documents her story.
• "The Run-Walk-Run Method" by Jeff Galloway
• Justice & Mercy International — JMI is a faith-based, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that exists to make justice personal for the poor, the orphaned and the forgotten of the world.
• Intro and outro song: "Zombie Nation" by Jose Travieso