Ultra-runner Sally McRae won the Badwater 135 while limping across the finish line. She reframes obstacles as solvable situations, prepares through quiet morning reflection, and warns against chasing big goals too fast. McRae says hard work fuels growth and humility, not guaranteed wins.
Chapters
Remember, it's, it's your journey and it's not supposed to look like anybody else's except yours. And what you have to bring to the table is unique to you. And that comes down to your family, your career, what motivates you, what your dreams are. Appreciate the fact that you are unique because that's going to help you enjoy the journey better. So take care of yourself. I can't stress that enough. I think sometimes when I talk to new athletes and beginners, they are so stressed about reaching all these goals right away. You know, they're like, I want to get into ultra running. I want to run 100 in 3 months. I want to do that. I need to do— like, you don't need to do any of that, but you do need to appreciate and respect the journey because there's so much that you're going to learn. So enjoy it. Take it one day at a time. When those storms come, appreciate them because you're going to get stronger. But don't ever stop going after that dream. I've always been reminded that just because you work hard, it doesn't mean you deserve to win. But the hard work is where the most growth happens. The hard work and that humbling and just being reminded of humanness, that success is not defined by a smooth and luxurious life. That's not how— what is defined by it. It's how we respond to every single situation. So the fact that I limped into that finish line as the champion was very profound to me, and it gave me a lot of hope and, and again, humbled humbled me, you know, because again, it wasn't the way that I hoped to win, but I won. And I think that that's more relatable to most people than had I had this great, you know, run from start to finish, and I'm so strong and I'm so great, you know, this is because I trained so hard. And, and a lot of people would say that I followed your training, you deserve to win. I'm like, but I didn't deserve to win. I'm so grateful I got to win. Yeah.
And that is indeed, you say that so well, like we sometimes envision the line from A to B to be like this even progression line where in real life it goes up and down and all of that. Like we were joking earlier, like you're coming over here to my place and we're scraping off the macaroni off the wall. Like it's real life happening over here. But, and I think it's just more, how do you adjust to all of these challenges that come across in your way?
When I talk to people about mindset and as it pertains more specifically to racing. So you're going to hit those patches in your training and your racing, and you're going to have critics. Know what you're going to do before all of those happen. And I think the power of, of quieting your mind, whether it's out on a long run, um, you know, as you get up in the morning, you have those, those quiet moments, you know, go over those things. I know for me, I, before I started, you know, before I even stood on the start line at Badwater, I had things that I knew that I would tell myself. And one of the most powerful things was that every problem that arises actually isn't a problem. It's just a situation that needs a solution. It's just something that I need to take care of. But nothing is more important than that goal that I have. It doesn't matter how much, you know, I'm— whatever it is that I'm feeling or how big the problem might seem. The most important thing for me is getting to that finish line and really going after that goal with my whole heart, because that's the story that I want to tell. I don't want to tell another story about how bad my legs cramped. At the end of the day, it's so important that we first know who we are, and it's something that we have to remind ourselves of every single day. When you look in the mirror, you have to remember who you are and realize that there's only one of you, and everything that you feel, your dreams and your goals, nobody cares about them the way that you do, and nobody ever will. There's no— all these people that have opinions about what you can and can't do They don't get up and actually think about your goals and whether or not you're working toward them. They're too self-focused on themselves.
Yeah.
And so when you remember who you are and you understand that only you can make something possible and no one else can do that for you, that's really powerful. That should give you the confidence. That should show you how valuable you are. You're this precious jewel that, like, there's not a lot of you. There's just one of you. But I think also following up with that, It's understanding that failures, letdowns, mistakes, flaws— they do not define your value. In fact, those were never supposed to be limiting factors. All of those things are supposed to help propel us to something better, almost like a stepping stone to the next stepping stone. And I think that we have been conditioned to believe that if I fail, that's humiliating. Everyone's gonna know, everyone's gonna see. And if I fail Oh, that's the message that I need that says I'm not supposed to be doing it. It's like, no, it's just saying that you just need to get better. You need to work at it. You need to train. You need to really consider what it is that you're doing.
