Two (More) Amazing Women

Living your life to it's best has always been a thing for me, however it's only recently it's surfaced to my consciousness. That's why I'm now blogging about, LOL

Courtney Dauwalter: Step inside the 'pain cave', where rules are remade

I don't know this woman, the sport itself is out of my realm of knowledge, and even reading her story I'm only mildly interested ... until the end, I love how she has battled and survived and is now totally thriving.

"I'll just head out in the morning and run however far I feel," says Dauwalter. In a world of disciplined, straight-faced sports in which athletes ditch the joy in pursuit of marginal gains, Dauwalter often has the air of an adult who never grew out of her skateboarder phase. 

"I want to eat and drink what sounds good. I want to hang with family and friends, and I want to sign up for these 100 or 200-mile races and push myself as hard as I can," she says 

[..]

"My husband and I are trying to live this life as fully as we can. My hope is that I'm collecting all sorts of memories and moments that when I'm old and sitting on my rocking chair with my husband reflecting on life, we are laughing and smiling fondly about," says Dauwalter. 

"This is our one go at life. So let's squeeze everything we can out of every single aspect of it."

I also love learning about the stats about long distance running

"It seems 195 miles is the magic number where women become faster than men," says Jovana Subic, head of running research at Run Repeat, a website that analysis running shoes and the sport in general and which released a State of Ultra Running Report in 2020.

Statistics above this distance show that women are, on average, 0.6% faster

‘Obsessive? This is who I am!’ How Lesley Paterson funded her 16-year Oscar dream – by winning triathlons

Like Courtney Dauwalter, Lesley Paterson's story is one of highs, lows, battles, and never giving up for one bloody moment.

This story, whilst from 2023, is still quite the inspiration, never give up and go for it. Of course it all could've gone to shit and we'd probably never had heard it, buuuuttt it didn't ...

In off-road triathlons, competitors ride the course in advance, so they know the terrain. In her pre-ride, she broke her shoulder. “I didn’t know it was broken, but I couldn’t lift it up. I had this big chat with Simon, like: ‘What the fuck are we going to do?’” By now, Marshall, who co-wrote the sports psychology book The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion with Paterson, was also helping with the script for All Quiet. “How am I going to swim, how am I going to hold on to the bike? So I tested it on the bike and I could kind of prop my hand up on the bar. Running was easy. Swimming? Nah, not a chance in hell. He’s like: ‘Well, you’re really good at the one-arm drill. And I thought: ‘You’re right, and I’ve got a good kick, and I think I can get through this with one arm – it’s only a mile.’ So I started, and I took a lot of painkillers.” 

When she came out of the water, she was 12 minutes behind the leader; by the end of the bike ride, she was in second place. Eventually, she won the race. The $6,500 prize money was again put to renewing the option, which cost between $10,000 and $15,000 a year. 

In 2018, she won two more world titles, with the winnings again used to keep the film alive. She and Marshall also remortgaged their house. All in all, they spent about $200,000 over 16 years to maintain the option. Finally, in 2020, it was announced that All Quiet on the Western Front was going into production as a Netflix original film; it would be made in the German language and directed by Berger.