Dirty Chain Podcast Episode 27: Hillary Allen - Professional Ultra Runner
Professional UltraRunner and endurance athlete, Hillary Allen, joins the podcast to share about her life as an athlete, her incredible story of perseverance and recovery through serious injury, and about her new book, "Out and Back" out in early 2021.
Trevor Gibney:
I first heard of Hillary and her story from another podcast. Strava released a podcast a few years ago and she was the inaugural episode where it told her story about injury and kind of getting through that, so it was very exciting for the both of us to have the chance to talk with her personally. And Sheldon, did you have any hesitations because she's a runner? I mean, does that-
Sheldon Little:
Yeah, I'm pretty sure my knees were aching just hearing her story. The more she talked, the more my knees hurt, but holy crap, what a badass.
Trevor Gibney:
I mean, and I don't want to give it away, she does dabble in the gravel world a little bit. Not just dabble, I mean, she raced DK and all this and you'll hear about that.
Sheldon Little:
She and I share a frame. She also rides a Boltcutter. Well, it's being built up right now in Boulder, but she's part of the Boltcutter Collective. I don't know I feel being on the same page as her. I mean, it's a little daunting.
Trevor Gibney:
Well, to be clear, you should not be on the same page.
Sheldon Little:
No, no, I should not.
Trevor Gibney:
You are not on the same level.
Sheldon Little:
I just do stuff on bikes and she's a true athlete, where I just do dumb things and drink beer.
Trevor Gibney:
Even if it wasn't for the gravel cycling that she does, man, was this a great conversation and is she such an amazing athlete and person to talk to about, not only sports and athletics, but just perseverance and getting through traumatic events and injury and yeah, there's little that I can say, so I think we should let Hillary say it all.
Sheldon Little:
In our first true, international episode, she talked to us from France, where she has quarantined in the mountains and we're in mid-Michigan.
Trevor Gibney:
Right, our first internet, that's right, fantastic. So let's hear from Hillary Allen, ultra runner, ultra-endurance athlete, author, science nerd.
Sheldon Little:
Teacher, she's a teacher too.
Trevor Gibney:
And newbie gravel cyclist...
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, I mean, I could show you the mountains, probably a better view of them. Maybe you can see them in the reflection of the...
Trevor Gibney:
A little bit. Let's just see them real quick. Is it easy to do? Is it a laptop?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah.
Trevor Gibney:
Just for me. This is just for me personally, just so I can... Oh, my goodness!
Hillary Allen:
Yeah! There, I'm in. Actually, I can show you a better view. It just snowed, let's see, last night? So up there.
Trevor Gibney:
Well, we're still kind of waiting on Sheldon, my co-host.
Hillary Allen:
Okay.
Trevor Gibney:
What time is it there for you?
Hillary Allen:
It's 3:00 PM.
Trevor Gibney:
3:00 PM, so it's 9:00 here. It's not super early, but with the quarantine and everything, I don't think there's really any real reason to wake up early.
Hillary Allen:
Oh, I know, I mean, it's the same thing here. I live in Annecy, actually just moved there, but then now I'm in the south of France because this seems a lot better than living in the city, so I would get up, be running at 6:00 AM and here I'm just like, "No, I'm going to start running at 9:00."
Trevor Gibney:
Are you technically living in France now? I thought I read that you were from Boulder or you lived in Boulder.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah.
Trevor Gibney:
So is France home base now?
Hillary Allen:
Well, I mean, it's become more of a home base now because I literally can't go home. Well, I mean, I can but it's more complicated, so I used to live in Boulder. I'm from Fort Collins but I basically just switched it up. Usually all my big, major running races are here in France and so I switched bases to come live and train here, because over the past five years I've lived probably three or four months out of the year in France, so I actually have a long-stay visa for four years, so I can live here for at least that long.
Trevor Gibney:
Very similar to a pro cyclist schedule, sounds like.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, exactly, so in fact I have this thing, it's called the passeport talent and I'm pretty sure that they have that just because the Tour de France is here and so many professional cyclists come and live here, so it's one specifically for professional athletes or they say people of national recognition which, I don't know if trail runners really qualify for that, but I did, so I think the people who are training in the United States, they can do the same thing. It's one of the loopholes of the long-stay alternatives that you can find.
Trevor Gibney:
I apologize for my ignorance, but the only big trail running race in France that I can think of, is it UTMB? Is that ...?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, that's not ignorant. That's awesome actually, so that's the big race that's in Chamonix, France, goes through three countries. You basically do a circumnavigation of the Mont Blanc massif and so actually I did a race there last year. It was 150 kilometers on foot and you actually climbed... 10,000 meters is what I climbed, just strive it. Those are the types of races I like to do on foot, but yeah, that was actually the big race they had planned this year, but it might not happen.
Trevor Gibney:
Is it a whole weekend kind of thing?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, so it is, it's the whole week. Basically they have race that are starting as early as Monday, in fact, and then they have that big race that I just told you about, it was actually on a Wednesday, so it was so random.
Trevor Gibney:
Oh, really? Okay.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, and then the big race, the UTMB is a Friday night. It starts at 6:00 PM and then you go for this two-day cutoff.
Trevor Gibney:
Oh boy.
Hillary Allen:
It's insane and then obviously, I mean, I got into gravel bikes because they're amazing so I've been like, "Holy crap!" I have, place where I'm at, I'm literally on just a hill. It's 15% grade to go down, 15% grade to go up, so it's insane. There's no recovery rides, like yesterday I went on, wait, the day before, a ride that was literally 19 and a half miles and I gained 3300 feet.
Trevor Gibney:
Holy cow!
Hillary Allen:
And it was on this gravel road. It was gnarly, so I mean-
Trevor Gibney:
Yeah, around here 19 miles is like, I don't know. You wouldn't even think about it as a ride, but gaining all that-
Hillary Allen:
I know, that's what I thought. I was like, "Man, is this even worth it? It's not even that many miles," but it was so steep. It was pretty cool, though, actually.
Trevor Gibney:
I think to establish this pretty right away, well, first off we got in contact through Ryan from Boltcutter.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah.
Trevor Gibney:
Do you ride a Boltcutter or are you looking to ride a Boltcutter? Is that your rig right now, or what's ...?
Hillary Allen:
The rig I have right now here in France is specialized, but I was supposed to be back in the United States to race Rasputitsa and then Dirty Kanza-
Trevor Gibney:
Oh, yeah?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, so I literally got a Boltcutter bike and I built it out but I haven't ridden it yet because it's in Colorado.
Trevor Gibney:
Oh, no!
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, like Ryan made all of the... I mean, it was right at the beginning of the COVID and he got this frame. He got everything and it was going to be ready for me to ride a few weeks, a month before Rasputitsa to get used to it. Then everything happened with COVID and it's in Colorado and I haven't ridden it yet.
Trevor Gibney:
Oh, that seems very much like the way things are going right now to have a beautifully built-up bike and not even be able to access it.
Hillary Allen:
I know. I know, and he sent me a picture of the frame and then Gav... What's his last name? Mike Gavigan, he's a pretty famous, popular I guess, Norwegian of Boulder. He's the mechanic for all the pros. He built it out for me so he was sending me pictures and updates and like, "Goddammit, I can't... I just want to ride this thing." But it's okay, I mean, I think I'll be back in maybe June so I'll get to ride. The cool thing is, is I can travel to the US without a bike and then I can ride my bike, and then I'll have to come back with it here.
Trevor Gibney:
Yeah, for sure. Sheldon, who is having trouble connecting in, so anyways... But he has a Peacemaker frame that-
Hillary Allen:
Nice.
Trevor Gibney:
And he's getting ready to build that up and it's going to be sweet. You mentioned Dirty Kanza. I was scrolling through Instagram because apparently that's just what you do now. You have so much time. I just go through Instagram, but we just talked to our friend, Jill Martindale, who did the Iditarod 1000, the Iditarod Trail invitational 1000.
Hillary Allen:
Oh, cool.
Trevor Gibney:
And I was looking through her feed and I saw that she was on this speaker panel for Dirty Kanza and you were on it as well. Was that last year?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, last year.
Trevor Gibney:
Did you race last year?
Hillary Allen:
Actually yes. Get ready for it, that was my very first bike race ever, was Dirty Kanza.
Trevor Gibney:
That's a good introduction.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, and the 200-mile event, so not the little DK but the full thing, so that was my first experience with gravel bike riding and actually I had only been physically riding my gravel bike for two months outside before I did DK and I was doing it on the dirt roads in Colorado, which are basically like pavement, so it was a real surprise.
Trevor Gibney:
Well, first of all, real surprise in terms of probably the technical aspect. Did you fare well in that side of things, or was it-
Hillary Allen:
Yes.
Trevor Gibney:
Good, good, good.
Hillary Allen:
I didn't fall. I didn't fall and I had this thing where I literally was like... and then actually two weeks after the event I did the Oregon Trail gravel grinder and that was a whole nother experience. I had to learn how to ride through sand, but those two races, I'd feel my hands get tight and I was like, "Okay, Hill, stay loose, not too loose," just trying the whole thing. But no, I was really proud of myself I didn't fall, but I was pretty surprised how technical the roads can be out there.
Trevor Gibney:
So no mechanicals. You didn't flat or anything like that?
Hillary Allen:
Oh, I did have one flat and I was so proud of myself. I remember it was Mile 140, literally five miles before the last [een 00:29:21] station and I flatted the back tire, and of course it was the sidewall so I was like, "What the hell?" I had never really... I mean, I was running tubeless so it was [inaudible 00:29:35] everywhere.
Trevor Gibney:
Oh, what a mess.
Hillary Allen:
I know, but you know what? I actually remember this other guy, he was there at the side of the road before me and I pulled over next to him and I started removing the whole thing. I had a little repair kit. I had to put in a Skratch Labs little wrapper to just use a little hole because-
Trevor Gibney:
Yeah, it must have really blew out a little bit there.
Hillary Allen:
It was big and I did all this and I put in the tube and I held up... I was doing it with my hand pump and I remember I actually changed all that while he was still on the side of the road and I'm just like, "Yes! I know what I'm doing." The thing is that was the first time I actually changed a flat [inaudible 00:30:20] gear.
Trevor Gibney:
Was that an official Skratch Labs-
Hillary Allen:
Well, no, they're my sponsors, so they're the ones that got me into the race. I know the other people have used the tube, but that's literally the [inaudible 00:30:35] the truth, what I used. Allan Lim, I don't know if you know over him at Skratch Labs. He actually gave me a call. I was in the gym, in my PT gym rehabbing an ankle break and was just able to run outside. This is April. Dirty Kanza is in end of May and he calls me, he's like, "Hill, I've got you into Dirty K. Do you want to do the big one? What about 25 or the 50?" I was like, "No, isn't it 200 mile race?" He's like, "Okay." It's like, "Yeah, I want to do that."
Trevor Gibney:
Did you find being well-suited for the long, ultra-distance running, fitness-wise for the DK what was that like, kind of transitioning to a bike?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, I think, I mean, I definitely know how to hurt, and I know how to go to a pain cave and I know how to go for long amounts of time, but I will say my longest endurance event before Dirty Kanza was a 17-hour foot race. It was 110 kilometers with some insane elevation gains. It took me 17 hours to do but that was actually in 2016, so that was three years prior to this race, the Dirty Kanza. So I mean, I knew I could go for long, but on a bike it's different than running.
Hillary Allen:
I think I was prepared for it, but the main thing that's different in cycling versus running is the use of your muscles. It's basically the opposite group of muscles, I mean, the opposite way that you use them. In running, it's more of a spring motion. In cycling, it's more of you have to contract and push and pull, and so that's what fatigued me in different ways. The other thing I would notice on a bike is I wasn't sure when I was hungry. Running, I could tell if I was about to bonk, but on a bike it was so interesting.
Hillary Allen:
All of a sudden I'd be feeling great and I had just topped this climb and then I'd descend and I'd start another one and I would literally... It would be panic mode. I'd be like, "Oh, my God! I have to eat something now. I am dying." But I remember I actually went on a big 10-hour ride before Dirty Kanza, just to literally practice fueling and condition my butt to see if I would fall off after that long on the saddle, and I think it was one of the most fun training days I've ever had in my life and I basically just got to ride my bike and eat all day and then after that I was like, "Dirty Kanza's going to be awesome."
Hillary Allen:
And I think I covered 150 miles for that one 10-hour training ride, so I was like, "All right, I can do this." I don't know, for me it was never about winning the race. I'm definitely a competitor and I want to do really well, but for me cycling was just a way for me to get outside and just to push myself in a new way. I had never done something this long before. I had no idea if I could do it, and it was more about just completing the journey and the process than trying to go after a podium position or something, and I think I ended up finishing 17th and I finished in 14 hours and change, even with the flat, so it wasn't horrible.
Trevor Gibney:
Man, I'd say, jeez. Has cycling been an important part to your recovery after your injury?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, so I mean, I've had many injuries so basically the one before Dirty Kanza in 2019, I had broke my ankle. I slipped on the ice and I broke my fibula. I had to get surgery, a plate was full of screws. It was pretty full on, but before that, a year ago, two years before that, so 2017, I was running this pretty technical running race in Norway and I fell off of a ridge line during the race, and I fell 150 feet off of a ridge line. I literally would bounce off the side of the cliff five times, so 20 feet at a time. It was pretty bad.
Hillary Allen:
I mean, I almost died but not to [inaudible 00:35:23] in. Obviously I'm here, but I was told I would never run again, never compete again at an elite level. I broke 14 bones, I broke my back, some pretty major bones in my foot, a ligament in my foot. That was actually one of the first ways I was able to kind of enjoy long periods outside was through my bike. I learned how to walk again as soon as I was cleared to kind of do weight-bearing activity. I got on a bike. Actually, I diverge.
Hillary Allen:
Actually Allen Lim, he's my neighbor in Boulder and he went with me to the store and he's like, "Okay, they have a bunch of bikes. Which one makes you feel good?" I was like, "Okay." And I remember I started just riding, but I was too scared to take my bike out kind of on any gnarly terrain so I stuck to kind of just back roads or [inaudible 00:36:35] roads, but then I pretty much got back into running and I started competing again. But it wasn't until I broke my ankle in 2019 that I actually really embraced the bike.
Hillary Allen:
I would strap a tennis shoe to the pedal basically. Before that actually, I had my boots. Basically it's like a boot where [inaudible 00:37:05] I would have that and I'd strap it to the bike and then I'd pedal on the bike, and then I'd progress to a running shoe and then finally I'd actually clip the shoe and pedal and I would do workouts, and it was the way for me to kind of build my fitness. Then I just started discovering this world of gravel bike riding and I had heard about Dirty Kanza, kind of right after my accident.
Hillary Allen:
And like, "Oh, that would be cool to do someday, but I don't know if I can do it on gravel roads because it seems super technical," and I didn't really want to fall again just because of that big, traumatic injury but I just kind of got hooked and it's amazing. Then now, I can't even imagine a week without me riding on my bike. I love cycling and it's like now I can combine cycling and running. It's my favorite thing to go on a backpack, put my running shoes in the back and then maybe a [inaudible 00:38:11] of clothes, ride my bike to a trail head and then go run up the mountain and ride my bike home. It's like, "Yeah."
Trevor Gibney:
That's fantastic. I would say that not in those extremes, but I'm a recovering runner. That's how I would consider myself and I know Sheldon is, too. Actually Sheldon, I think he's going to join us here.
Hillary Allen:
Oh, sweet!
Trevor Gibney:
Let's see what happens here, but I know I use the bike as kind of a way to recover as I was training for marathons and such and then it's done a total 360 and I stopped running completely and now I'm just into the bike. Sheldon! Okay, I thing he's there.
Sheldon Little:
Hello.
Hillary Allen:
No, that's awesome. Hey.
Sheldon Little:
All right, finally.
Trevor Gibney:
All right, Sheldon, we just established that you and I are recovering runners and mostly cyclists. To fill you in, we talked Dirty Kanza, gravel cycling, Boltcutter connection. Sheldon's the one with-
Sheldon Little:
You guys covered everything.
Trevor Gibney:
Not everything, and we saw the mountains. She's looking at mountains. I'm looking at a dirty basement.
Sheldon Little:
I'm looking at backyard.
Trevor Gibney:
A very, overcast Michigan-
Sheldon Little:
Typical Lansing area overcast.
Hillary Allen:
Oh, yeah. It was really windy yesterday actually. I lived in Iowa, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, don't ask why. It was for undergrad. I played tennis, it was stupid, but I lived in Iowa and it was really overcast and I learned what ice storms were. It was horrible. I will never go back there.
Trevor Gibney:
Oh, that sounds like this.
Sheldon Little:
Well, when I moved out I lived in Fort Collins and it was just so shocking, sun every day. I was like, "What is this?" Then when you want to be lazy one day and just stay inside and watch TV, you just can't. You look outside, you're like, "It's nice out. I can't ..." And then you're eventually like, "I just want a rainy day so I can do nothing."
Hillary Allen:
Well, that's so funny. I'm from Fort Collins, Colorado.
Sheldon Little:
Really?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah.
Sheldon Little:
I lived at [Kafton 00:40:22] Elizabeth right across from the King Soopers.
Hillary Allen:
I know exactly where that is. Oh, my God!
Sheldon Little:
What is it, Buffalo something apartments. I lived-
Hillary Allen:
Oh, my God! I know where that is. I probably have some friends that live there because it was pretty close to campus. Did you go to CSU?
Sheldon Little:
No, I went to Front Range Community.
Hillary Allen:
Dude, I used to teach at Front Range Community College. What?
Sheldon Little:
Yeah, I took some marketing classes there before I moved to Maine, but my apartment building was right behind the KFC there, and we used to get drunk and steal shopping carts from King Soopers and we'd climb up on the roof of the KFC and line it, and then we'd wake up the next morning to the sound of shopping carts getting pushed off the roof of the KFC.
Hillary Allen:
Oh, my God! Oh, my God, this is hilarious! Such a small world. I lived, well, my parents at Harmony. Basically it was south Fort Collins but Harmony and Lemay, around there.
Sheldon Little:
Oh, I used to drive right past there because I'd ride my bike to Front Range.
Hillary Allen:
Oh, my God! But that's so funny, oh, my God! Well, I taught science, so I have a Masters in Neuroscience in structural biology, so should I go like this? Just pretend these are glasses. My undergrad was in Chemistry and then I'm just such a big science nerd and then I discovered ultra running and basically endurance sports in grad school as a way for stress relief. And then I found out I was pretty good at it and I was like, "Well, screw this, I don't want to work in a lab all the time. I want to just ..." So then I was teaching part time and then running.
Trevor Gibney:
You were originally a collegiate athlete, though. You played tennis, correct?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah. I had a scholarship to play tennis in college and ironically that's when I kind of started running more. I had this ridiculous record in college that... Tennis is best two out of three sets. It's complicated but basically two out of three sets, first to win six games... Six games is one set, and these matches could go on for hours, but every time it went to a third set, I never lost it. I always just had this endurance. I would run down every ball and so the girls were just like, "Oh, my God, I'm just going to give up. She won't quit." I think that's when I learned I had some endurance.
Trevor Gibney:
You used running as a stress relief and kind of an escape I would guess, but there is a big difference between going out and running a couple miles to ultra-endurance running for 17 hours like you said, that one race. How do you get from there to there?
Hillary Allen:
I don't know. I would say by accident. I'm someone who really likes to work hard so something that's difficult or it doesn't really scare me. I mean, it's something I loved about science. Science, you have a problem, you kind of lay out the questions that you have, design the experiment, and you approach it in a very methodical way and then you find your answers or basically find out what doesn't work, and then you try to deduce what might work.
Hillary Allen:
But running is kind of the same way. If you run every day, you can see yourself progressing, you can see your muscles become more comfortable with the action. You can see yourself able to run longer, kind of the more you practice this activity. You can go faster, if you do intervals and you train your body correctly. I really liked that, that I could literally see myself progress as an athlete and specifically as a runner, and to me it was just fun. Everyone says running is uncomfortable and I don't know, maybe I experienced that a little bit but not really, because I've always been an athlete, so that discomfort and pain that you feel in an interval, I knew would always end.
Hillary Allen:
I knew there had to be this summit of a peak somewhere. It will end. You just have to get there, so the more I practiced it, the more comfortable I became. And then I just realized I had this knack for it and it was just fun, so I just wanted to push myself further and further and see kind of where I got, and apparently it led to ultra marathon running.
Sheldon Little:
Which was your first event that you did as a competitor in ultra running?
Hillary Allen:
Let's see, 2012 was when I first started running endurance. 2013 was my first 50K, and then I was super busy in grad school. I had to kind of take a break from running and that 50K was abysmal. I think I walked pretty much all of it and I was just so happy to finish. I was like, "Why do people do this? This is weird." It was cool but like, "I don't know if I want to do this again." But then I just noticed the courses were cooler the longer they were, because you could see more things.
Hillary Allen:
And so I kind of started adventuring on my own and doing a bunch of my own kind of ultra marathon adventures, basically running across Zion National Park, which is 53 miles. That was a weekend that I did that was super fun, but the next competition I did wasn't until 2014, and that's when I kind of linked together a bunch of different races in a year. I did my first 50-mile race and I competed in the US skyrunning series and actually won that, and then from there is when I kind of signed with the North Face and started competing more primarily in Europe.
Trevor Gibney:
Will you explain for us what exactly skyrunning is?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, so I have a nickname. I'm called Hillygoat. It's a play on words, but basically I have this knack for uphill running because I love it and basically one of these first runs that I went on, it was like we picked this super steep run in Boulder. It was one of the tallest peaks and this gnarly climb and I was just like, "Okay, just keep going and you can't get lost. You just kind of put your head down and go." And by the time I reached the top and I turned around, my friends were behind me and I was like, "Oh, okay, well, I guess I know what I'm doing."
Hillary Allen:
I wanted to pick these races that would bring me to the top of these peaks because I climb a lot, so skyrunning is exactly that. The term comes from... It was started in Europe because generally speaking the mountain ranges are a bit lower in elevation so you start from the sea. A lot of these races, you can literally toe into the sea and then you climb to the sky or climb to the tallest mountain range, so that's skyrunning. But the thing is, is you usually climb to the top of these peaks by the most direct route possible, so they're steep, they are super gnarly, technical.
Hillary Allen:
An average ultra marathon, which is a 50K, so 31 miles, you would gain about 13,000 to 14,000 feet and then you have to descend that as well, so they can get pretty technical. [inaudible 00:48:25] involves a little bit of scrambling but it's the stuff that I just love. You get to see so much country, it's so beautiful. I mean, you literally just get to explore the mountains.
Sheldon Little:
What year did you start racing primarily in Europe?
Hillary Allen:
2015 was my first race in Europe. It was actually in Chamonix. It was the Mont Blanc 80K which is actually a 95K. [crosstalk 00:48:56] No, no, literally I looked at my watch, I was like, "Oh yeah, 80K, all right, cool. Where's the finish line?" I was looking around, I'm like, "Oh, my God! I still have a long ways to go." 2015 is when I started racing in Europe and from there I kind of entered the World Series and I've been racing primarily in Europe since then.
Sheldon Little:
Okay, are you now living in Europe or do you bounce back and forth?
Trevor Gibney:
We established it, Sheldon, thanks. You're late to the game.
Sheldon Little:
Yeah.
Trevor Gibney:
We got all this.
Hillary Allen:
I mean, I'm back and forth but this is definitely... France is my main base just because all of the major races that are usually here in this place. There's no better way to train for a steep race than the Alps than to be in the Alps.
Trevor Gibney:
I want to get back to the steep race thing because years ago, when I was a runner, I did a-
Sheldon Little:
You said years ago. It was literally last year.
Trevor Gibney:
Well, I did a marathon last year and then I swore it off, but this is a few years ago. I did this trail race, it was actually in the Dolomites. My brother was living in Italy at the time. He's in the military, but we did this race together. It was only 10 or so miles, it wasn't very long, but it ascended up and then you ran on the ridge, and then you came down.
Hillary Allen:
I was going to say, that's my favorite place on earth. I love the Dolomites, they're so amazing.
Trevor Gibney:
It was incredible.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, you usually go straight up, traverse and go straight back down.
Trevor Gibney:
My legs were trashed, completely trashed and it was only 10 miles. Your Garmin said 10 miles, my legs felt like I ran 45 and I think a big part of it was the down, descending not the ascending. How in the world do you get used to the descending? I mean, going up is hard enough as it is, but going down I mean, I think you are susceptible to injury for sure, but then just you are trashing your muscles in your legs.
Hillary Allen:
I mean, it's all about specificity, it's all about just the frequency of how much you practice that. I mean, you know the feeling of your legs can feel trashed after just a road marathon, but for sure, it's just literally a matter of practice. It's the difference between cycling and running. I think actually it's probably more difficult what you did, is being... Wait, you were a runner, then a cyclist? What?
Trevor Gibney:
Yeah, I was kind of both/and.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, I mean, but I think going from, I mean, cyclists coming to running, I think they have a harder time because of the basically how hard it is on your muscles. Cyclists aren't used to that because you really get beat up and for sure, I mean, it's like uphill it's basically just an engine. Usually cyclists, they're pretty fit. They can run uphill with the best of them, but it's like the downhill pounding motion that you really have to... I don't know. I've just gotten better at it from practice, because literally I'll run trails almost every day and so it has some sort of elevation gain and my muscles would get used to that feeling. It's really a matter of the eccentric contractions. You just have to get strong.
Sheldon Little:
Stop being a wimp.
Hillary Allen:
Oh, no!
Trevor Gibney:
I've found and I think you're correct, but I feel like some people are built for running, some people are built for cycling. Some people are built for both but I just realized I'm not built for running. I am built for maybe sitting in the basement and talking on the microphone, but-
Hillary Allen:
You got to me.
Trevor Gibney:
You told a story about your big injury and falling off the cliff. 150 feet? Is that what you said?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah.
Trevor Gibney:
At the time, you're in Europe, you're competing in Europe, you're competing at the highest level, and then at what point in that time frame did this injury occur then, this accident?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, so it happened in August 2017, so I was literally towards the end of my racing season because the season was in the summer because you're in the mountains so you have kind of a window. I was actually winning the world skyrunning series, the ultra division, going into this race, and I had two more races left on the calendar, this one and one more back in the United States in Montana. I was literally in the best shape of my life and there was no pressure for me to win because it was kind of a bonus race. I just was doing it for fun. [crosstalk 00:53:40] Yeah, I mean, that happens.
Trevor Gibney:
Now, you explained what happened. Do you have much of a memory of things happening as it was going on?
Hillary Allen:
I do a little bit. It's funny because I went back to the place where I fell, into that race this past year actually, this past summer 2019, and I remember visiting the place and going up... It's an amazing forest. It's this mountain called Hamperokken Ridge and it's just like this really aesthetic find. From the city of Tromso you can see it just rising over the horizon and then these pinnacles of peak. It just looks gnarly but you want to go there, and so I remember ascending this part onto the ridge, and the ridge is third class.
Hillary Allen:
You kind of have to pick your line. It's not really scrambly. It's stuff that I'm really comfortable training on, but the weather in Norway is quite fickle and it's rainy a lot, and so the days we had the race they had a lot of rain and so I think that led to kind of this instability of the rock. I remember going up onto the ridge, seeing people that I knew. I remember I was feeling great, I was gaining position, feeling really good. And then all of a sudden the horizon was upside down and I was tumbling in the air. I do remember time slowing down and I remember my voice kind of just telling me "Okay, this is it. You need to prepare for impact. You're going to die. Let's try to stop your momentum."
Hillary Allen:
It was really matter of fact, this dialogue in my head. And then that was on repeat every time I hit the ground. Have you ever been punched in the stomach or had the wind knocked out of you? I didn't really feel pain when I hit the ground. It felt like someone was compressing me, sitting on my chest, and then obviously could feel that my bones were breaking. I could hear it and feel the sensation but at that point adrenaline was rushing so I wasn't really feeling the pain. And then at some point I passed out and then the next thing I remember was different people around me kind of initiating the rescue operation.
Sheldon Little:
Now, were there witnesses to you falling so they got to you pretty quick, or were you in kind of a solo area?
Hillary Allen:
I mean it was really lucky because actually one of these runners who had been kind of passing back and forth throughout the day, he was behind me at that point and he saw the whole thing happen, as well as the photographers, because you're on an exposed ridgeline. You could see me falling off the cliff, so the various photographers saw me. This guy, Manu, behind me saw me, and he was actually trained in first aid and mountain rescue, so he actually scrambled down to me and was the first one on the scene.
Hillary Allen:
And then from there the rescue operation began. They had to fly in a helicopter to get me, but I was so lucky because literally this race is notorious for clouds, and notorious for just bad weather, and so this was a year that was actually clear so they could actually get a helicopter to me. Other years it would have been a different situation. They would have had to fireman-carry me out of there, which was obviously impossible because I had broke my back, but I mean, it would have been very difficult. I mean, overall it was pretty quick, maybe two and a half hours from when I was there to when I was in the hospital.
Trevor Gibney:
We had talked about you then using the bike to kind of help your physical recovery, and I'm sure there were many other things in terms of recovering physically through this injury, but I'm wondering, just on a bigger scale, just the mental hurdle that you had to go through post-injury and from probably wondering whether or not you would walk or compete or run ever again to now, I mean, you're sitting here in France training and still a very high-level athlete. How mentally did you kind of get through this giant hurdle?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, I mean, that's not a straightforward question because I mean, honestly, before it happened, if someone would have said to me, "Okay, this is going to happen to you and you're going to find a way through it and come out the other side a better person," I would have laughed in their face because for me as an athlete, I associated myself with being strong and independent and the epitome of being strong is being able to take myself to the top of these gnarly mountains on my own leg power and my own determination.
Hillary Allen:
But then, after this accident, I was the complete opposite of that. I couldn't even get dressed without the help of someone. I couldn't even bathe myself because both of my arms were broken, my leg was... I couldn't bear weight on it. The one ankle that I did have, was badly sprained and I couldn't bear weight on it for more than 15 minutes, so it was just the complete opposite of strong, of what my view of strength was, what my existence was before this point.
Hillary Allen:
So there was a lot of depression, a lot of questioning why this had happened, and a lot of kind of searching for the reasons why, even though probably there's not really an answer to it. A lot of questions of self identity, but I mean, I think it was kind of a necessary process, because within all of that turmoil and within all of that just feeling lost, I actually found why I liked to run. I found it again. I found the reason why I liked to push myself, I found the reason why I liked to be outside and identified myself as an athlete.
Hillary Allen:
That had nothing to do with me winning races. It had nothing to do with me being at the top of a podium. It had everything to do with me pushing myself and being the best version of myself, and I think without discovering those super low moments and having the injury, stripped me of everything that I associated with strength. I had to kind of rediscover what strength looked like for me and I think to me it's like the ability to be vulnerable and look within yourself and really evaluate who you are and why you want to do something.
Hillary Allen:
For me, I was able to fight for something that I loved, again, not for sponsorship, not to prove to anyone that I was fast, not to prove to a brand that I could still run, but to prove to myself that I could be there for myself when I wanted to run again because I wanted to do it. And it's something that I loved and I think that I learned how resilient the human spirit is, even though I never think of myself as a courageous or brave person, but I guess I had some of those things, because I was able to kind of show up every day and show up even though I didn't want to, even though my ankles hurt.
Hillary Allen:
I didn't know if I was going to run again, but I kept on showing up because I believed in myself and I think it's still an ongoing process. Again, I mean, two years later when I broke my ankle, I kind of experienced these things again, just self-examination. But I think it's a really healthy thing to do. I know that's a lot, what I said, but I think overall the whole things that are hard and that are difficult are always worth doing and I think the reason why I love sport and athletics is because it's uncomfortable.
Hillary Allen:
It doesn't always feel good, but you're so damn proud of yourself after you do it, and you have this sense of accomplishment, and you feel like a stronger version of yourself for facing that adversity. I think that, that's the biggest lesson that I learned through injury and through my recoveries and what athletics means to me today, is that you're stronger than you think you are, and if you actually endure a little bit of something that's uncomfortable, you can learn a lot and you can come out the other side a wiser person. And I think that's why I'm so grateful that this whole process, I was able to actually learn something through all of it instead of just biding my time and being angry that I fell off a cliff.
Trevor Gibney:
Wow, that's [crosstalk 01:03:34]
Sheldon Little:
Now have you had any lingering injuries or pains from the fall or have you been able to recover from everything pretty much completely?
Hillary Allen:
Well, I mean, I'm racing again and I've won races and someone was like, "Oh yeah, she's 100%." But again it's learning to trust yourself again and that's actually really hard, the mental aspect of it. That's still ongoing because my ankles are both really badly twisted from it, so I definitely still have some aches and pains from that. They certainly aren't the same. I still have to stay on top of PT to make sure my glutes and hips are okay. I had a Lisfranc injury in my right foot so it was a pretty major... basically the Lisfranc is a series of ligaments that make up the integrity of the arch in your foot so pretty important and I had surgery.
Hillary Allen:
I still have part of a screw in my foot, but on humid days I feel like an old lady, like "I can feel a storm coming," but I can. On days where it's a little bit more humid or just different weather front coming in, my foot feels definitely sore and depends on the shoes I wear, if I'm training a bunch, but that's also why I'm so grateful to have my bike because it's a really cool way to get outside for hours and hours and it's really, really nice on the body.
Sheldon Little:
It is interesting how many cyclists you'll talk to that got into cycling, a lot of them from being runners and they're like... because I had a lateral meniscus injury and I'd just get slaughtered growing up and I just do not have great knees. And I went from running to triathlons and then I was like, "Oh, I kind of like this biking thing. It doesn't hurt my body much," that what got me into cycling.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, I mean, that's what Trevor said, too. It's like, I mean, some people are meant for cycling, some people are meant for running, some are meant for both, but absolutely, because for some people it's pretty daunting. They don't ever get past that feeling of... They don't get to the runner's high because they're just like, "This is awful." And I totally sympathize, but one thing I would say is, try trail running and you might change your mind because in trail running, if you get super steep, you just walk so it's fine, but no, I totally agree. Sometimes there's certain days where I'm like, "Why do I love running so much? Blah, my body doesn't feel good right now."
Sheldon Little:
Did you have to change the style of shoes that you ran in after your injury, because you mentioned that you injured the ligaments that hold the arch of your foot together? Did you have to change what kind of shoes you run in?
Hillary Allen:
Well, I had to be just more careful, so some people can put a bunch of miles on their shoes before having to change them out. I would notice that once my shoes started to get kind of crushed out, I had to change them or else my feet would get sore. The shoes yes, but I had to kind of more change the lacing system because there's some weird scarring on the medial side of my foot, so yes.
Trevor Gibney:
I mean, you definitely went through a very traumatic event and you came through it and now you're on the other side of it, and just like you did so well, you can kind of communicate how it's helped you overcome. It's helped you become, not only a stronger athlete but a stronger person. The whole world is kind of going through a traumatic event right now and I can't help but draw some parallels between your story that you're telling us and where we are.
Trevor Gibney:
In terms of your story, we may be falling down the cliff right now, or we're going to the hospital right now, but we're going to have to, as a society, kind of build our way back up. And I don't know how, if you've thought of that or if you have any words of wisdom for us. What do you think we all need to do to kind of help each other get through this, just as you have gotten through your own individual thing?
Hillary Allen:
That's a really good question. It's actually this period, the pandemic in general. I mean, over in France like you know, it's a little bit more strict as far as the confinement goes but it feels weirdly reminiscent of a period of injury. This time last year I was recovering from my ankle break and I feel similarly to that period when I was injured. And I'm not injured now. I can still go out and run. However, these different rules, you can't go out, you just feel constricted. You can't go out with friends and running is hugely social for me, bike riding too, and it feels like you're just constrained and that's how I felt when I was injured.
Hillary Allen:
I felt like there was all these things I couldn't do, and it just seemed endless and I didn't know when it would end. I didn't know the answers, so could I race this? It's like my living nightmare of I really like to plan, and then when someone just like, "Meh, we'll see," I'm like "Uh, I don't like this. I want to know." But it's definitely another lesson. I mean, I should have this recovery thing and be like this Zen master, right, but I'm not. I'm not perfect at it. I still have to have adjustments but the one thing that I did in my recovery and the one thing that I'm doing here is that I'm taking it one day at a time.
Hillary Allen:
I'm still training because I want to be adventure ready, and I still want to have a routine and do things that make me feel good and make me the best version of myself. For me that involves doing something else, some sort of physical activity like cooking or spending time with friends even if it's right now virtually. But the one thing I did and this is this mantra that I did, "Do what you can today" and it's like you're kind of laying the bricks for tomorrow.
Hillary Allen:
I always think about... I would picture building a house and kind of why I would think of bricks because this childhood house that I had, it was this ranch-style house and it had brick outerlay and it's like every day that I could do something positive for my recovery like this PT stuff, even when I couldn't walk I was like, "What the hell? What should I do?" I had this PT routine and I was like, "I can do that," and so I thought about it. It's like "Okay, I can do this today," and that represents one brick." And I can put it down and lay it in the foundation of this house that I'm building. Don't know what the house is going to look like, but each brick that I lay is progress," and so that is how I figured out.
Hillary Allen:
It's like even if some day isn't perfect, even if I feel out of control and upset one day, there might be a little crack in the brick or it's chipped, but it's like you put it in the foundation and then you build the other bricks around it and it becomes strong, and eventually that leads to a house. And that's what I think about confinement is that you have all this period. It will end. Maybe we don't know when but every day that we can do something positive for ourselves or one another, the greater community, the health of our community, that's progress and it will add up to this awesome house that we get to live in and celebrate and have huge parties in once everyone can get together.
Trevor Gibney:
I thought the whole point was getting out of the house though.
Hillary Allen:
Well, yeah. No, the whole thing is getting out of the house into someone else's house to get other people.
Sheldon Little:
Are you seeing a big difference in your friends on social media in the US versus your friends on social media in France? Are you seeing a big difference in the way the societies are handling the quarantine?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, and it's actually, it can be a point of contention. Sometimes it drives me crazy because I mean, definitely here in Europe, I mean, I think places like New York I've maybe seen it as a better example because it's such a dense population of people. Here obviously in France and in Europe and so it's like do you strictly enforce some sort of confinement or social distancing? That's where the whole confinement is and the rules have taken place, they've had to kind of have stricter regulations.
Hillary Allen:
And I mean, the French are like the Americans. They don't really like to follow rules, but the government has kind of had to crack down just to make sure that people... They understand why we're doing this, why we don't want you around big groups of people. You need to have a special paper to go out of your house, to go to the grocery store or you can only run a certain distance from your house. That to me is mainly for people living in a dense city where you can't just have it be a free-for-all and everyone running together and limitations on your travel.
Hillary Allen:
For instance, in Paris it's an epicenter of the virus and you don't want people leaving Paris and fleeing to other parts of the country and then spreading it, right? That's something that could happen in the United States, but I mean, it's different in each place and also the complicated thing is, the United States is so huge, so it's not like you can have the same rules for a rural area in Montana or Colorado and a big city like New York or Chicago.
Hillary Allen:
Here, where I am, the nearest hospital is an hour drive away, a serious hospital, so it's like something happens, COVID-related, this village... I'm 10 kilometers away from this city of 3,000 people, but if there is an outbreak here, it would be a big problem so that's also the issue in the United States. If people are just moving around freely, spreading the virus to these rural areas which are secluded, yes, but then they don't have the proper facilities that can... Yeah, it can cause problems.
Hillary Allen:
Obviously we're athletes, but the whole thing is I'm not, I mean, I should cover the mountains but not really going up in them because doing these epic runs because if something were to happen there's really no medical resources for me. I'm being smart. I can maybe be a little bit more flexible with the one-kilometer radius that I'm allowed to run. I can do an out and back on the frontage road here where I'm not the only one, but again, it's a side road. It's not like this little track mountain trail 100K away where if something happens I'll need to call search and rescue. That's not happening at the moment.
Sheldon Little:
Yeah, and you don't want to risk those injuries because then you're utilizing the resources in the hospital that potentially could be used towards somebody that might contract the virus.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, and my sister is also a nurse, so I try to keep that in mind so I can make her work day a little easier.
Sheldon Little:
She's watching you. She's like, "Don't do anything stupid."
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, exactly.
Trevor Gibney:
Well, Hillary, we appreciate your time and I'm so glad we got to talk. Before we go, can you tell us a little bit about your book that you've been writing? And I know it was supposed to be released soon, but did I see that it's pushed back a little bit?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, but I did write it. So we were talking about the mental recovery, writing for me has always been super cathartic and I thought kind of an opportunity not to really say... I wrote this book. It's called Out and Back. It's going to be published and pushed back to April 2021 so hopefully we can gather and do group runs and book tours and gather together and celebrate, but the whole premise of the book, it's about kind of my story of recovery.
Hillary Allen:
But it's not really a how to guide to recovery. It's more of, okay, what I said before, that you possess more strength than you think you have and that if you are able to endure a little bit of something that's uncomfortable, you can achieve anything. It's just a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and of course I use my example and my experience through my injury and my recovery, so that's kind of the premise. And I think it's really great to be an athlete who is struggling with an injury recovery or someone who's just dealing with a hard time in life. I mean, it would be really awesome if it was out now so people could read it during the COVID pandemic.
Sheldon Little:
Right now is the perfect time for it.
Trevor Gibney:
Yeah, no kidding.
Hillary Allen:
I know. But I mean, still the COVID pandemic at least we know it's going to be around for a while, so I think we're going to be constantly adjusting, adjusting our new kind of reality for the months and years to come, so I think it still will be relevant in April when it comes out.
Sheldon Little:
In April, it's going to be published? Are we going to be able to find it online? Where's going to be the place to purchase?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, so actually I have a website, hillaryallen.com, and there's a link to the book there. You can actually pre-order it through Amazon at the moment, so there's various ways. It will be actually in circulation, a physical copy of the book, in April.
Sheldon Little:
Awesome.
Trevor Gibney:
Fantastic.
Sheldon Little:
Well, I think that's going to be plenty of time, because I think we're going to be recovering from this for, like you said, quite a while.
Hillary Allen:
I know, but there's hope. There's hope at the end of the tunnel. That's what I want to say. There is hope. I'm an example of that, and it might be hard right now, but it's okay. Hard is good and will lead to something better, to learn something new about yourself after this.
Sheldon Little:
The helicopter's coming to get us off the side of the mountain.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, eventually.
Trevor Gibney:
Thank you so much, Hillary. This is a great conversation.
Sheldon Little:
All right, this is the first half. Now I have to wait for Trevor to get it all processed so I can hear what I missed.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah. Thank you guys so much, and it was such a pleasure. Hope to meet you in person some day soon.
Trevor Gibney:
The Dirty Chain Podcast is a Michigan Midpack Media production in partnership with KOM Cycling, the source for your bike accessories and necessities.
Sheldon Little:
Connect with us on Instagram and Facebook at Dirty Chain Podcast. Email dirtychainpodcast@gmail.com and don't forget to have your chance to win a trainer block from our partners at KOM Cycling by calling our hotline at 616-522-2641.
Trevor Gibney:
If you are enjoying the podcast, please leave us a rating and review on whatever platform you use to listen.
Sheldon Little:
Audio editing and original music by Trevor Gibney.
Trevor Gibney:
Sheldon Little handles the social media, graphic design and of course, bad decisions. Thank you to Hillary Allen for taking the time to talk with us from all the way over in France, and thank you all for listening to the Dirty Chain Podcast. And as always, keep your chain clean.
Sheldon Little:
But get your trail shoes dirty.
Trevor Gibney:
We'll see you in the Midpack.
Leave a comment