Real Life Runners with Angie and Kevin Brown

421: Running Up A Mountain

• Angie Brown

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Today we share our recent hiking adventure in Tahoe — and the very real mental battles that came with it. From the moment we started running uphill at high elevation, the physical strain was obvious, but the mental strain was even louder.

We pull back the curtain on our internal monologues — the negative thoughts that crept in, the moments of self-doubt, and the “why are we doing this?” questions — and how we worked through them in real time. One of the biggest takeaways? How powerful it can be to say those thoughts out loud instead of letting them fester. By sharing our struggles with each other, we were able to shift the energy, laugh about the hard parts, and turn a grueling climb into something we genuinely enjoyed.

We talk about the importance of communication, endurance, and mutual support — and how facing hard things together not only builds resilience, but also strengthens our connection. In the end, the challenge wasn’t just about getting to the top of the mountain. It was about proving that we can push through discomfort and still find joy in the journey.


00:00 Introduction to Overcoming Negative Thoughts

01:45 The Tahoe Hike Story Begins

03:51 Planning the Mountain Run

05:11 Starting the Challenging Hike

13:14 Facing the Uphill Battle

21:17 Struggles on the Trail

22:32 Negative Thoughts and Self-Doubt

25:43 Communication Breakthrough

29:58 Enjoying the Journey Together

37:36 Reflecting on the Experience

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Angie:

Have you ever been on a run or a hike or some challenging activity and those negative thoughts started creeping in? Well, that's what we're talking about today because last week Kevin and I were up in Tahoe and went on a hike together, and there was a lot of negative thoughts that started to creep in for both of us. So today you get the story of that, what we did about it, how we dealt with it, and how we did not let those negative thoughts ruin our hike together. So stay tuned. What's up runners? It's good to be back. We haven't recorded a dual episode in quite a while because last week we had a guest episode. The week before that was your solo and the week before that was my solo, right?

Kevin:

Yeah. My solo was super swimmingly smooth. There was no technical issues at all.

Angie:

That's totally fine. And you know what? People loved it though, and I think that that was really fun. So I think we've. Might have to start doing some more solo episodes in the future. I think it's fun for people to kind of hear me and then you, and then interviews and kind of a mix of things.

Kevin:

I don't mind doing solo episodes, it's just figuring out where to push all the buttons because you run the magic of the technology here and I'm, it took me as long to to click record for the first time as it did. You record the entire episode.

Angie:

Well, you did. Good. All right. And the more you do it, the better you're gonna get. So practice makes competent. That's excellent. Right? Practice

Kevin:

makes competence because

Angie:

there's no such thing as for perfection. So, alright. Today we're gonna take you guys on a little journey with us and it's gonna be a fun one because, or maybe not so fun, but it, no, it's gonna be great. It ends fun, right? Like the journey itself I think is fun. The beginning of it was, was quite interesting. So like I mentioned in the intro, uh, we were just. Out in California and we spent some time in Tahoe and we, when we go out to Tahoe, we go to a place called Olympic Valley and it's beautiful and it's where Western States starts. So if you have been following the podcast for a while, you know that Kevin runs ultra marathons. He runs 100 mile races, and his big goal is to do the Western states 100. And that is where the starting line is, was like right. In Olympic Valley where we were staying.

Kevin:

Yeah. We actually start our hike right at the starting line of the race.

Angie:

Right. And so, well, I didn't really know which hike we were going on, so let's, let's backtrack a little. Yes, of course. So talk about like, so last year we stayed in this same area as well and you went and ran up this mountain.

Kevin:

Yeah, I ran like the first. Four miles of the race and then turned around and ran back down thing.'cause once you're into it, it's like, well okay you have to pick me up 20 miles later. So I ran up and then I ran back down and that was, that was great. It was very exciting for me.'cause I'm a little off in the head.

Angie:

Well this is a goal you have And so I think it's very cool when you get to experience at least a piece of that.

Kevin:

I mean, it's like runners that have, have really been pushing to ever do like. Boston just visiting the marathon course and seeing the finish line.'cause that finish line is permanently painted on the ground. You can see it. There's a yellow line that runs through, like you can see the course. So that's super cool. It the Paris Olympics over the summer, they had. A people's marathon on the night between the men's and the women's marathon. Yeah. Which was super cool that people could just show up and run the actual Olympic marathon course. Mm-hmm. So being able to just be at any of these places just seems super cool to me. Like, like I know what the starting line looks like. There's nothing there, but that's the starting line.

Angie:

Yeah. Welcome to Running Nerds at their finest. Welcome to the Real Life Runners podcast. So. I had it, this idea, so Kevin did this last year, and then when we went out to Tahoe, our trip was a little bit different this year. It was a little shorter. Things were, I don't know, did did you feel like the trip was like more rushed this year? It,

Kevin:

it was shorter, yeah. And so everything kind of seemed all, I think we

Angie:

were, I think we were actually there the same amount of days though, like actually in Tahoe, I think we were there the same amount of days, not in California, because normally we have a little bit more time on the front end and the back end. But it was like, at least for me, like you had an extra day on the front end, and then I flew in from Nebraska on. What day was it? Thursday and then we left Friday morning for Tahoe. We're in Tahoe until Tuesday. Drove back to San Jose and then flew out the very next morning. So it was just like, I think the front end and the back end felt more rushed.

Kevin:

It was quite rushed for you because there was no like relaxing point at my parents' house. Like I had the day before we left for the, the drive where my mom and, and our older one were driving around to all the stores to do the shopping.

Angie:

Sounds relaxing. It was.

Kevin:

I mean, it wasn't the most relaxing thing, but it was just nice because, you know Right. Like my mom's asking us all these questions, like, what else are we gonna always sit on the couches and have all these conversations? Yeah. Like we were in a car driving around. Right. And we still had just had all the conversations, so it was, it was fine.

Angie:

Yeah. So anyway. It just was an interesting kind of trip in general this year. So I had, I got it in my mind that I wanted to run up a mountain and we've gone to Tahoe the last couple of years and we've gone on hikes. And the hikes are really fun, but usually we go with the family. Kevin and I went with his dad last year on a hike and we were able to really like. Power Walk that one because we didn't have all the kids. And when I say all the kids, we have our two teenage daughters who don't love hiking. And then also that's

Kevin:

one way of putting it.

Angie:

And, and also, um, our niece and nephew who are, who are even younger. And so they're little and they also don't love hiking. Our, our nephew does, like, he, he could hike all day. Um, but our niece definitely likes to be carried very quickly into the hikes

Kevin:

Very quickly. Yeah, very quickly into the hike.

Angie:

Right. And so hikes are fun. I like going on hikes, but I also thought, you know, I would really like to try to run up a mountain. Like I would like to try, like it sounded really cool what Kevin did last year and he's like, yeah, it was only four miles up. And I'm like, I can run four miles, no problem, right? Like four miles I can do this. And so like I had it in my head that this was gonna be a really fun thing, but I didn't wanna do it by myself for safety reasons, obviously. And so I wanted to. Basically get up the courage to ask Kevin if he would do this with me. But even in that, but like before I even asked him, my brain started. Giving me lots of negative thoughts, things like, you know, he's not gonna wanna do this with you because he's so much faster. Like, I know that Kevin is much faster than I am and I don't know, like when he told me he ran up a mountain, I was like asking him all these questions. I'm like, well, did you like run the whole time? And he's like, well, you run some of it and then you kinda walks certain parts. If it's like really, um, like a high elevation or a not elevation incline. Right. And I'm like, okay, okay. I am like, I think that, I think we might be able to do this. And so I went ahead and I asked him, I'm like, Hey, I really, really would like to run up a mountain. Would you like to come with me? And what was your thought when I asked you that?

Kevin:

My thought was, I have to find a trail that this is gonna work on. Like, that was my immediate thought. Like I, it wasn't like yes or no. My, my immediate thought was, yeah, this is gonna be great. I just need to find the right trail. Mm-hmm. That we can go do what visually is running up a mountain and has the appropriate difficulty level that we're gonna be able to run it. And there's gonna have to be some beautiful views in it. Because look, like I don't have to tell you there's waterfalls at the end, like we do with, with our kids and the, the niece and nephew like, no, no, no. Trust us. There's gonna be a waterfall. You just, yeah. Over the next incline, the view's gonna be amazing.'cause sometimes that. Moves them along or you have to keep up with me'cause I have the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but it's still gonna be beneficial if it was gonna be beautiful at the top. Like if the, if the trail was gonna be enjoyable, maybe even some beautiful sites along the way. Like that was my thought is I have to find the right trail for us to do on this. I always, yes. I was like, this is gonna be great. We'll go on this thing. But then I started trying to figure out exactly which trail we were gonna be able to go.

Angie:

Right. And so I didn't know that really any of this was happening, but I just told him, I wanna run up a mountain. You know that I am much slower than you are. So please make sure like you can pick the trail. I'm happy for you to pick the trail, um, but I just wanna make sure that it's something that I can do and that it we can do together and it won't just be miserable the whole time because I don't wanna feel like I'm holding you back and he. Reassured me and said, no, this is gonna be great. And he said, okay, we're gonna, I, I've got a trail. It's gonna be, we've got a mix of like double wide and single wide and a nice paved trail. We're gonna be able to run some and walk some. It's, it's

Kevin:

double track and single track double wide and single wide are the size of trailers.

Angie:

Okay. I don't know. See, well, there you go. First, first evidence of how much more educated in the trail running than Kevin is, uh, than me.

Kevin:

Trailers versus trails track,

Angie:

single track. There you go. It's double track. So that's ba basically, for those of you that don't know like me, uh, that's the width of the trail. Can you fit two people? Is is the tra trail wide enough for two people to go like side by side across it or is it wide enough like a single track is just one person, like a single file line essentially, or

Kevin:

I'm like a running snob. So sometimes if you're off on your own, single track is great and it's beautiful and you can just kind of scamper up and down mountains and whatnot. But I. Fire roads are the best, where they're wide enough that like trucks can drive on'em. Those are great. Yeah. And they're so smooth to run on. Mm-hmm. And you can just fly up and down them. They're the vanta. Very fantastic.

Angie:

Okay, so talk about the trail you chose.

Kevin:

So I chose because the, the one that I ran last year. I'm not sure. I think after Western States happens, they shut parts of the trail down for like trail renovations and you know, there's still snow on parts of these mountains. Like it's late July and there's still snow on this thing, and so there's water going down in parts of it. And they don't want people in certain areas because it's all, it's perpetually trail renovation, like it's skiing in the winter and then running in the summer, but then you gotta maintain the trails and allow nature and stuff so. I spent all night trying to find the appropriate trail, and I finally decided, look, well, basically, we're gonna do the same thing that I did last year, but I'm gonna pick a slightly different trail. But I know at the end of it we'll get to what they call high camp and there's a shuttle. It's like a, I mean, it's not a ski lift. It's like a massive. Tram that can take people back down the mountain for free. If you get up to the top, if you, if you want to take the tram, you can pay for it to take you to the top and then it'll come back down. But if you just show up at the tram at the top, it will take you back down to the bottom. So I'm like, well. If the run is not going great, we could at least get to the tram at the top and that should bring us back down. And so I was like, this is gonna be the trail. We're gonna do this thing. I did part of it the day before, and the part that I did seemed like it was a lovely run, but I did a mile of it and it was about three or so miles to get to the top

Angie:

right. And I don't think that you actually were on the trail. Either, like when you said you did a mile of it, I don't think you were actually on the trail. So we show off. Kevin's over here laughing. Okay. So we show up that morning and we get ready and it's supposed to be about three miles to the top. That's what we figured, right? Three to three and a half miles was supposed to be. And I'm like, okay, no problem. Three miles, no problem. I can do three miles in my sleep. I obviously have never done that running up a mountain, so that's going to be the challenge here. But I was fully prepared to run up this mountain and run back down. I'm like, it's would count as my long run. Six miles. Sounds great. And you, you know, the way back down is gonna be easier than, than the way up. So I'm ready. So we get, we drive over to the start of the trail and we get to the start of the trail. And like Kevin said, it's like this big road, very wide, where trucks can essentially go up and down and then we're looking at the signs and there's a big sign. Right where the big wide road is that says, do not use this road. Like this road is only for trucks, runners, and hikers should not be using this road. And then it gave us an arrow, if you wanna be on the Thunder Mountain Trail, which was the trail that Kevin chose, the Thunder Mountain Trail, which is kind of funny'cause that's the first rollercoaster I ever went on at Disney World. It's over here. So it's, we're like, okay, well we're gonna follow the signs over to Thunder Mountain Trail.

Kevin:

Right. And that was my plan. I'm like, all right, this is the trail that I was on yesterday. This is gonna be great. I think the day before I missed the first sign of Don't go this way if you're a pedestrian or cyclist. I definitely missed that one. I caught like the second sign and I took a different start of this thing, which was a wider trail. Not the road trucks were driving up, but I definitely got up a mile in a completely different direction and suddenly we are going across like a field and it's like, is there, is there a trail there? Um, I think Okay, but before the

Angie:

trail. Okay, I'm not even done because my negative starts, my negative thoughts started right away. Um, basically we start running up this wide. Path. Yeah. Okay. Right. So we're starting to run up this wide path and it's basically straight up the mountain. I mean, I, it's not straight up, straight up, but it was a pretty significant incline, don't you think? Or am I just making this up in my head? Like it was hard? Yeah. No, that.

Kevin:

That very beginning part is you're, you're moving, you're moving like, and you're

Angie:

going basically straight uphill. And so I'm running. I'm like, oh, yes, at, so at first I'm like, yes, I'm gonna run up a mountain. So then I start running up a mountain.

Kevin:

She has three steps on me at this point, like she is dropping me. We're a minute and a half into it, and she is starting to increase the gap on me. This is a poor

Angie:

choice.

Kevin:

I'm like, this seems interesting, but she is strong so. Let's see how this plays out.

Angie:

I thought you were just being kind and like, just letting me go ahead.

Kevin:

I was pacing myself because we were running up a mountain,

Angie:

right? And so about a quarter of a mile in probably less, I think it was maybe like 200 meters. And I'm like, what is happening right now? Like, why are my legs not doing anything? And so I, I wanted to walk like a quarter mile and I'm thinking, in my head, I'm thinking, oh my God, this is one lap of the track. Like what is happening? Why? And I'm out of breath and not to mention, okay. We Floridians normally run at sea level. Okay? Zero. Elevation gain?

Kevin:

No, no, no. We are at 10 feet above, above sea level. 13

Angie:

feet, according to my Garvin. Okay, so 13 feet of elevation. So we are at sea level, and so to start a run at base camp was 6,200 feet of elevation. And then to run up to high camp was 8,200. So there was 2000 feet of elevation gain in this. Run as well, but even starting at 6,200 feet, like you are more than a mile in the air, the air is different there. And I don't think I fully understood how that, and because I, I've done some running in Tahoe before, right? Like even during this trip I went out and I did a couple runs. The first run that I did by myself, there's a, a paved path and so it was essentially all flat with a couple little, like little small hills, um, in it. And it felt harder than normal, but I figured, okay, well I've been traveling, I'm dehydrated. I got a headache pretty quickly into it. Also thinking, okay, dehydration. But I think that some of that was also the altitude.

Kevin:

No, that was definitely the altitude because there's no oxygen. We're a mile up. Yeah. And I mean, there's actually lots of oxygen, but there's definitely less than there is here. Yeah. And. You also showed your Florida quite a bit there, because that paved path does not have any hills on it like that. No. Yes

Angie:

it does. No it does not. There are little ones.

Kevin:

Th those are not hills. Where are they? There's there the path undulates. It goes

Angie:

up and down.

Kevin:

Sure. It's not a sidewalk that's just completely straight. Like when, talk about how flat it is in Florida. The overpass that two of us do hill repeats on has an an elevation that my last watch didn't notice. Yeah. Like my last watch was not like the highest end of Garmin that you can get to. It's, it's still not, but I have a much nicer watch now, but my last one literally didn't acknowledge any elevation change when I got to the top because there, there wasn't enough clearance. And that's the biggest tool we have. Yeah. So, no, the, the path that you had done to the day before, I would not refer to any of that as, as a hill.

Angie:

It was essentially flat. Yes, I know. But there was little undulations that I had to undulations go up and down. Sure. But anyway, so here I am about a quarter of a mile in and my legs are already feeling like lead. I'm like, why am I feeling like I'm working so hard and not getting anywhere?

Kevin:

I watched your stride length decrease. Yeah. Like it. You were cruising and suddenly when you're like, I feel like my legs aren't moving forward, I watched the stride. It went from like, you don't have a huge stride to begin with, but suddenly your stride length was like six inches or so. I'm like, yeah, you're not moving up the mountain very much. No, I

Angie:

did not like, I don't know if that was just lack of oxygen also and fatigue. I don't know what was happening, but I was like, oh my gosh. And so I had to walk. I stopped and walked for like a little bit there, and I just felt this. Immediate sense of defeat. And I was like, oh my God, this is not gonna go well. And so then those negative voices really started creeping in, like, you're not as in, you're not in as good a shape as you think you are. And I'm like, I'm already huffing and puffing. This was a really dumb idea. I shouldn't have asked him to do, do this. I am so slow. He probably wants to run ahead of me. I'm holding him back. Like all of these negative thoughts just started creeping. Into my thoughts and I'm like, I'm sorry. I just started apologizing right away. I was like, I'm sorry. If you wanna run ahead, you know, you please feel free to run ahead of me and then you can wait, or you can run ahead of me and then run back to me. If you wanna get more mileage in. I know it's only three miles and that's really not a lot for you. And my brain would just, was starting to churn in all the ways.

Kevin:

Yeah. I mean, we had been running for a couple of minutes and you were apologizing. Yeah, and I knew, I knew like. Once we got up this versatile thing that it was going to flatten out. And so I'm like, look, just walk this section right here and then it's gonna move to a, a part where we can kind of jog because it's gonna flatten out on us. And, and you did like you crested that we walked together up that thing and it crested and you're like, oh, and then we can jog again. And I think at that point you were slightly. Revitalized that maybe this is how it was gonna go. That there was gonna be some real steep parts and then it was gonna flatten out and you could jog along on the flat parts. Mm-hmm. And I tried to explain like, that's how we're gonna go up this thing. We're not going to literally run straight up the face of this. We're gonna, we're gonna walk when we need to walk, we're gonna jog on the nice flat runnable parts. This is gonna be a great combination of things. It's gonna be fine. In my head. Those are the words I was saying out loud. Yeah. In my head I was like, okay. It's a good thing that I brought water and the snacks that you didn't wanna bring, because I'm not sure how long this is gonna take. Hopefully this goes smooth because I, I'm already thinking did I pick the right path? And you're already apologizing to me. So this is already a tricky thing. So we get up to this flat part and that's where. The signs direct us to not go the one direction, but to go the other way. And I kinda started running ahead a little bit the wrong direction. I'm like, I went this way last time.

Angie:

You're like, I was on the other side of the creek the entire first mile of this.

Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah. So, and we

Angie:

didn't cross the creek at all.

Kevin:

No. We like crossed back over the other direction. Yeah. Suddenly, yeah. Yeah. So we go off and we start on what could at best be described as single track and was really more described as like, I don't know, bush whacking for like the first

Angie:

very overgrown

Kevin:

because it's, it's a very small, seldom used trail. Essentially everybody takes the other path. Mm-hmm. But this is in fact a trail up the mountain. Yeah. But it was quite overgrown and so we're going through and very rocky and not like. Little rocks that like you're running on pebbles, but like big rocks that you can't really run on because it's a big rock and then a big gap between it and then another big rock. And in my head this is now like, oh God, you picked the worst thing. She said you wanted to run that. She wanted to run up a mountain, and you picked a path that is un runnable. You're getting whacked by branches in the face and there is no footing. It's muddy because the rocks have like a, a. Trickle running between them as snow is still melting off the mountain. This is the worst trail you could have possibly picked. And

Angie:

we both have road shoes because we don't have trail shoes. Like neither one of us have any sort of trail shoes or any sort of traction. And not only that, I have worn out running shoes. I have my running shoes from like two seasons ago.

Kevin:

Right, because you didn't wanna bring like your newer ones, right. And get them. Filthy. Right. And I, I don't have newer ones, so I have no heel, like there's no rubber left on from like the heel back on mine, I've completely worn that part of the rubber out. So this is what we're going up the mountain with. So anytime it's like. Like a really big bear rock. Neither one of us have gripp to, to go on that. So that's just like all fours to go up. Any of those things.

Angie:

Well, it wasn't all fours. Like that's very much an exaggeration. There were, there

Kevin:

were two sections where I had to put both hands on the ground in order to get up the rock.

Angie:

You were behind me, so I didn't even see that. So, but I mean, it was definitely like slow and concentrated in intentional foot placement, right? Mm-hmm. Like that's what I would say is there was definitely sections where you had to be very intentional and part of me then was like. I'm looking down this whole time, like I'm not even looking around at the beautiful views, right? And so going back to kind of where I was as I ran up this mountain and then, and then Kevin's like, no, he's reassuring me. Everything's fine. Then I'm like, okay, this is the flat part that he was talking about that I'm supposed to be running on, but I'm too out of breath. I can't run. I just have to keep walking. And so I was like, then I was beating myself up because I'm like, I should be running right now. Like this is the runnable part. Angie just start running and I'm like trying to catch my breath. And so it was this combination of my breathing was trying to figure out what was going on. My lungs were, were not sure what was happening with the lack of oxygen at altitude. My legs were feeling really heavy from. Running up the incline, actually running up a mountain and TR V versus a highway overpass that we're used to for hill repeats. And so it was just like this combination of all sorts of negative things in my head, and we got to this point. Where I actually did decide to stop'cause I I, and take a picture and take a breath and just take it all in because part of me really wanted to just keep running because again, I didn't wanna hold Kevin back. In my mind. I was holding him back and I was so slow and he was probably hating this. I don't know why I ever asked him to do this with me. Like these were some of the thoughts that were coming through my head, like he's probably regretting saying yes. And then my brain went to a. The most ridiculous place. I remember like standing, looking out over this gorgeous view of the valley and my brain says he's probably regretting even marrying me and not someone else that could just run up this mountain, carefree with him and keep up with him the whole time. And I was. What in the actual f Like what is my brain telling me here? Like, he's regretting marrying me because I am having a bit of a hard time running up a trail. Like what a ridiculous thought that my brain was offering me. I, I

Kevin:

think that's finally when, when things got far enough. Yeah. That. You actually like spoke up. Yeah. And at this point, like you were struggling. I was trying to reassure that there was gonna be runnable parts and so then Yeah, you were then beating yourself up. You couldn't run the parts that visually you're looking at it and you're like, this is flat. This should, this is flat enough. This should be runnable. Yeah. But I can't breathe. Yeah. And I can't pick up my feet. So

Angie:

because we had just climbed up those huge rocks.

Kevin:

Yeah. Runnable my. Foot? I don't think so. Right. Is like, that's,

Angie:

it was really my butt because my butt was like real. I was like, Hey, this is, if nothing else, this is one heck of a, of a glute workout. This definitely counts as leg day.

Kevin:

Right? And so while you were keeping your eyes fixed on the trail, I made sure that you were always in front. Because the worst thing that I could do, I thought, was to take the lead and just run away from you. Like I didn't want to be in front and be like, oh, this part's doable, and suddenly get like 10 steps on you. So that was awful. So, but I

Angie:

was totally fine with that because then I felt like I wasn't holding you back, that you could just like go off and run free the way that you wanted to, and then at some point you would realize it. Or if you got too far away from me, then I would say, Hey, hello, I'm back here.

Kevin:

Right. But I thought that the better move was to go behind and let you control the pace. Yeah. So that if you wanted to take a walking break, you could take a walking break. Yeah. You on the other hand, were like, all right, I'm supposed to be running at this part so I'm not gonna take a walking break. And I'm like, she is hyperventilating over there. Either way, neither one of us were enjoying like the views of the valley. I was enjoying the view from being behind you for like the first mile and a half up the up the mountain. Mm-hmm. You are thinking that I wanted to marry somebody else. Meanwhile, I'm just enjoying the view running right behind you, which seemed like an appropriate view to be enjoying as we go up the mountain. And we'd been going for, I don't know, 20 minutes maybe? Yeah, almost 30.'cause we were over a mile. Mm-hmm. And then you finally like mm-hmm. Said it

Angie:

well. Said what? What do you remember me saying?

Kevin:

I don't remember. I just remember a lot of thoughts suddenly came out. Yeah.

Angie:

Well, so I think that part of that was triggered by I, I think I just said that. I said, oh my gosh. Like my brain is being so mean right now. And I think I even said like, I'm even thinking that he's probably wishing that he married someone else right now. And you came back with a classic Kevin, like Kevin loves to bring the humor to every situation just to lighten the mood. And you made some sort of comment of, of enjoying the view from behind. Yeah. Yeah. You're like, I'm just sitting here very much enjoying the view here. Um, and so I just started laughing. I was like, okay, great. Like, so he likes looking at my butt. Fantastic. Um. That's a good sign. He actually, maybe he doesn't regret marrying me, and I think that's when it just kind of opened up and I'm like, my brain is being so mean to me. And I just started telling him all of the thoughts that I, well, I shouldn't say all of them, but I started with that one. And then you said, my brain's actually being really mean to me too. And I was like, wait, what? Like this is okay. Let's just tell each other what we're thinking.

Kevin:

Yeah. And that's when I was like, I picked the worst trail we could have gone up. Like we're not running anything and we're not seeing the valley because like you have to be so careful about where you're putting your next step, that we're not able to enjoy any of the views. We're it's single track, so we can't even run next to each other. We're running in a single file, so we can't really even carry on a conversation if we even had the ability to talk. But yeah, like that's, that's not happening either. Was

Angie:

it hard for you at all? Or not really. I mean, and I don't think I ever asked you that.

Kevin:

The, the first part where I was trying to keep up with you is you were dropping me in the opening 20 meters, like 200 meters.

Angie:

200 meters. That's, that's about the, the length of it.

Kevin:

That's like you took off. Yeah. Like you were gonna like. Yeah, I'm, I'm holding 10 minute pace up the mountain. No, I had

Angie:

to look'cause I felt like I had to hold my own with you. Like this is where my brain was at. Like, I'm gonna run, I'm gonna show him that I'm a runner too. And

Kevin:

before we started, like the night before, I'm looking through to try and find the right trail. At this point I've already accepted that we are run walking up this mountain and we'll run parts that we can, but we're basically gonna like power, hike it up the mountain.

Angie:

I wish you would've.

Kevin:

Expressed that a lot earlier in the process, relayed that

Angie:

message to me.

Kevin:

Yeah. Well you, you were so gung-ho that you wanted to run up a mountain and that's why I was trying to figure out, like, I just

Angie:

meant that I wanted to run parts of it because like when we go with the kids, we don't really get to run any of it. Right. Where and when you're on some of these hikes, you are, I mean, I know, I think to myself like, this would be really great if I just were, was able to run this part and like, I think that, you know, that's really what I wanted to do. Like I. Didn't want to run straight through up this mountain. That was never my goal.'cause I prefer run walking anyways. Especially if you're going up a mountain. I knew it was gonna be rocky. I really like hiking. I know you like hiking less than I do because I, that is true. Right? And so to me it was just gonna be a really fun way for us to spend the morning together, see some beautiful things, accomplish a really cool. Task. Um, but then there was this competitive side of me. Not that I, I definitely didn't wanna beat you by any means. I just wanted to be able to like, keep up with you enough that it was fun, still fun for you and.

Kevin:

I knew it was going to be fun for me before we started.

Angie:

Yeah. See that communication would've probably been helpful between us. Yeah. You know, the night before,

Kevin:

but then, so now we're like 30 minutes in and all of this starts coming out. Right. And it completely changed the rest of the way up the mountain. Yeah. Because we still were nowhere near the top, like from where we were. We were like tucked in so you couldn't even see the top of the mountain. But it just completely changed how both of us. We're able to do the rest of it. Like that was before we got to the part where it was so rocky that you couldn't even tell where the trail went because yeah, that was, it was just big rocks everywhere. Mm-hmm. Like, thank God we had had this conversation before that because that would've killed me because the view, if you turn to the right, was beautiful. But I would've just been staring at these rocks pissed off at myself that I had chosen this trail, instead of at least having enough of a clear mind to be like, oh, well the path goes that direction.

Angie:

Yeah. Well, and I actually liked, and so the Kevin said it, some of the negative thoughts that he was thinking were in regards to choosing the wrong trail, and I told him, I actually love this trail because I love doing this kinds of. The hiking, like, I like when things are really hard and there's rocks and it's really technical. I think that's really fun. And like where you're actually climbing rocks up a mountain. We

Kevin:

were definitely scrambling for part of it. Yeah. For

Angie:

part of it. You definitely, and like you did have to put your hand down at, at some parts to kind of get yourself up, but I was really enjoying the actual trail. I just felt bad that I wasn't running more of it to, and, and slowing him down. But then my brain said, well, this tr. Isn't really that runnable, like it would be really hard to run this portion, and that's when you expressed how. You were disappointed in the trail that you chose. Yeah,

Kevin:

because you couldn't run it because the footing was not very great. Especially the fact that we don't have actual trail shoes. Like neither one of us have enough lateral support in our shoes or traction on the bottom of them. Mm-hmm. To run the parts that were even all that runnable.

Angie:

Right. And so I thought that this basically. It kind of helped to level the playing field in a way between the two of us because I knew I was good at hiking. I know I'm strong. I know I'm not fast like you are, but I know I'm strong and I can just keep going. Even when my breathing was hard, even when my legs were feeling really tired. I knew that I could just keep going. And that's one of the, the thoughts that I started telling myself is like, just keep moving forward. And my breathing, I was like, oh my gosh, I have to stop again. Like I feel like I,'cause I don't wanna get lightheaded or dizzy. Like that was the other thing is I didn't have the electrolytes with me and I, you know, we had one bottle of water, a smaller bottle of water between the two of us, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I need water already. Like it was all these things that kept coming in. But I think that when I found out that Kevin was also having negative thoughts about this, that were not the negative thoughts that I thought he was having, right? Because I, I expected, like I think that this is important, right? Like in my brain, like my brain was telling me that you were probably having negative thoughts, but it was going to, all of your negative thoughts were around me. Like, she's so slow. Why did I agree to do this? This sucks. I wish we were running more. I wish I would've married someone else, right? Like, these are all the things that I thought you were thinking, and in reality it was you. God bless Spandex, spandex.

Kevin:

I was like, wait, what? Ah, didn't see that one coming. Oh, I've completely thrown her off track. But. I had negative thoughts. They just weren't centered on you. They were centered on me. That's where most of our negative thoughts go. Yeah, we, we are constantly beating ourselves up in the middle of all sorts of different run. Forget this particular instance, but I've had so many times I've put myself through workouts. The negative thoughts are all I am this. And you talk about the I Am thoughts all the time. Yeah. And when you can reframe. I am. And I, my thoughts weren't, I am, I mean, I guess it was, I am a bad trail chooser, but like, it was, it was very personal to myself is I chose the wrong trail.

Angie:

I did this to,

Kevin:

I, I put us in the wrong, I didn't. I didn't pick the trail that makes her happy because I can tell that something's off and it's because I picked a stupid trail.

Angie:

Yeah. And it was not that I actually really like the trails like that. And so I think when I expressed that and I was like, I actually really like this trail. And you were like, oh, here I am thinking I picked the worst trail. I'm like, no, I actually really like this trail. We're just not able to run as much as I thought we were going to, but I'm totally okay with that. Yeah.

Kevin:

And so then we just started actually. Taking in, you know, each other.

Angie:

Yeah.

Kevin:

Which was nice. Mm-hmm. Like then we started being able to actually talk to each other. Yeah. And,

Angie:

and then we started making fun of ourselves too. I think that was part of it too. And I think that this is definitely a technique that you can use because some of the thoughts, some of the negative thoughts that our brains give us are. Absolutely ridiculous. Of course, they

Kevin:

are

Angie:

so ridiculous. And so we just started making fun of ourselves and like, oh, I, I, I thought this thing, this thing came up, you know? And it's just like, oh my goodness, this is so crazy.

Kevin:

Yeah. And, and then the trail was much more enjoyable and it didn't change. It was still really hard. It was still rocky. It was still single track the entire way, almost the entire way. And we made it up the mountain. Yeah. And we paused when we wanted to, and we would stop and take pictures if we wanted to. It was fine. Like we could stop and catch our breath if we wanted to. Mm-hmm. And literally stop and catch our breath, but. The part where we started talking to each other is where mentally we were able to actually just stop and catch our breath and communicate to each other what's going on. And suddenly the negative thoughts, they just weren't necessary anymore because they were silly once you told them to the other person and realized that that's not what that person's thinking at all.

Angie:

Yeah, and the other thing too, like yes, we could stop and catch our breath more, but I noticed for me that. All of a sudden my breathing got easier, right? Like once I finally communicated those negative thoughts to you and I wasn't putting all of this pressure on myself and negative judgment on myself, then I just moved up the mountain at my pace and I didn't have to stop. And I, if I needed to stop, if I felt like I was getting a little outta breath and I stopped for a second, and then I kept going, but I felt like that was a lot less necessary versus. That, that first 30 minutes of the trail where I felt like I was supposed to be running up this trail and powering forward, and it was so much harder. But now that I was just able to release all of that, then my brain started going to. Wow. Like what a beautiful morning. I love that we get to do this together. We are so fit. We're just going to keep going even when it's hard. We're just gonna keep going. We have each other, we've got each other's backs. And it just became this really fun thing. And we didn't talk the whole time, like there was a lot of silence on our hike. But I think, at least for me, I knew we were in this together. We were both enjoying this together and no matter what we were gonna make it to the top.

Kevin:

Yeah, of course we were making it to the top. And then part, well, I don't know. We still had. 15, 20 minutes to the top and you were like, I think, I think we take the tram back down. Or what do you think about taking the tram back down? Is it was, no,

Angie:

I said that like time-wise,'cause I, we looked at the clock and how long it was taking us because it was taking us longer than we thought it was going to. And so I said, well, if we want to take, if we wanna take the tram back down, we're gonna basically be making it up around that time because we. You know, weren't sure time-wise if we were gonna have to wait a really long time, so then it would've been worth it to just run back down. But based on, you know, the, the quality of the track and how long it was taking us, it was gonna end up that we weren't gonna have to wait that long for the first tram.

Kevin:

We were not gonna have to wait that long. And it was gonna be way faster to take the tram back down than to try and reverse it. Yeah, we could have gone down faster than we went up, but it still would've been very time consuming to go back down.

Angie:

I mean, and I totally was on board for that. I think it would've been fun. I would've just essentially. Uh, refilled our water and then gone back down. We just didn't wanna hold up the rest of our crew Yes. That day, because we didn't really know what other people wanted to do for the rest of the day.

Kevin:

Yeah. I think, I mean, it was better that we took the tram back down and you get some amazing views from the tram also. Mm-hmm. But we got such amazing views at the top, along with the sense of satisfaction. That we overcame the trail and our thoughts and had some better communication by the time we got to the top of the mountain also.

Angie:

Yeah.

Kevin:

Which probably would've been better if I opened some communication the day before.

Angie:

Well, you know, so be it. This was the experience that we had and it made for a good podcast. And I think that this is one of those podcasts that we obviously come at you very real. And I was talking to some of our members last week. We do. A monthly coffee chat with all of our team members, anybody that wants to come, of course. And I was just starting to tell them about this experience, and I'm like, yeah, I think we're gonna do a podcast. And everyone was so excited about it because they wanted to hear the real and raw, unfiltered version of this, because. It's really important for everyone to know that we're all the same. Right? Like we all have negative thoughts and it's about how we deal with them that makes the difference.

Kevin:

Yeah. We should have gotten, and the problem is that neither one of us were in the right head space, but we needed better pictures from the start of the hike that we could have shared, uh, on, on social media to follow up the podcast

Angie:

with like making nasty faces.

Kevin:

Yeah. Like neither one of, like, you are still, but you're

Angie:

not in the place to do it then. No. Yeah.

Kevin:

I. Until we gotta the part where we were actually able to talk to each other. I don't think we took any pictures up until that point. Maybe I took

Angie:

one at the start.

Kevin:

At the very, very start.

Angie:

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Kevin:

But from the very start, you couldn't see the, the little trail that we went on to. We were still on like wide road at that point in time. I know. Yeah. That was before my negative thoughts really started going.

Angie:

Yeah. I probably, I don't think I really got any. Good, uh, photos or videos of like the, like the, how thin this drill actually was at certain points in time. I took a picture of us when we got to that super rocky section. Yes. Um, but yeah, I don't think I have any real good ones. No,

Kevin:

there's not really any pictures of the early parts and that's fine also because a lot of this,

Angie:

I have them in my head.

Kevin:

I know. But that's the thing is a lot of this trek up the mountain was so much growth between the two of us. Yeah. Like that's why it was. Like the smiles at the top of the mountain were, were for what we just did, but so much that we were able to do it together and be smiling at the top, because if we didn't have that conversation halfway up, I don't think we would've been as genuinely smiling at the top. Mm-hmm. Like we've been taking pictures, there would've been smiles, but. Both of us would've still had this internal monologue. Yeah. That was not helping us interact with the other person. It could have just literally derailed the entire rest of the day. Mm-hmm. Instead, after like 30, 40 minutes, we're just laughing as we're continuing to, to pound up a mountain. So it was, yeah, it was great.

Angie:

Yeah. Absolutely. So what do you think was one of your takeaways from this experience? If you could kind of wrap it up in a bow.

Kevin:

Um, it's always better to have more communication with you. Mm-hmm. Always at all times. Yeah.

Angie:

And let me lead.

Kevin:

Well, yes, and of course let you lead up the mountain.

Angie:

Um, yeah, I agree. I think that that was, that was a really interesting turning point I think when we just decided to start saying all the negative thoughts out loud. And again, it's always, you can't stop the negative thoughts from coming, but you. Control where you take them, like if you let them continue, if you let them spiral, if you let your mind spiral or you can change your focus to something else, something more productive, something more positive, something that you actually wanna focus on, like, yeah, that trail was hard. I'm not telling myself that this trail was easy, that trail was definitely not easy, but it was still enjoyable after. We kind of cleared the air and, and got on the same page with each other.

Kevin:

Yeah. It was way more enjoyable at that point. Yeah. Which was great

Angie:

because I like doing hard things.

Kevin:

I know. Yeah.

Angie:

Like I, when I posted after, like that day after the hike, someone messaged me and said, but the question is why would you do that? And I said, because I can like, and that is really one of the. Reasons. I think all of us do what we do. When, when, when it comes to running. It's to see if I can or because I can, because we want to use our bodies and celebrate how strong we are, how we're able to move the, the gift of what these bodies are. And I think that that's really. What that day kind of encapsulated too.

Kevin:

Yeah. I mean it was a lot of knowing physically and mentally, what am I able to bring to this situation?

Angie:

Yeah. Super fun. So hopefully you guys enjoyed our little recap, and if you did, I would love to hear your thoughts. If you wanna come over to Instagram at Real Life Runners, if you like this episode, please share it on Instagram or share it with a friend so that we can reach and help more runners and uh, help people. Conquer those, what is it? Seven inches between your ears is like the, the farthest space you'll ever run or the hardest journey you'll ever run is those seven inches between your ears. Something like that.

Kevin:

That sounds exactly perfectly quotable. It was probably Lincoln or Confucius. Maybe Churchill. Maybe Benjamin Franklin,

Angie:

possibly. All right guys. This has been the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 421. Now, get out there and run your life.