In this episode we take a trip down under to the Land of Oz and have a talk-about with the spirited Katie Visco. Katie is on a mission of self-discovery and self-love, which is interwoven into her passion for running and community.
She joins the program to share her recent adventure in Australia, participating in the 1000 Miles to Light, a 1,000-mile relay race to raise awareness and funds for youth mental health services.
You’ll also hear about Katie’s cycle-supported run across Australia – a 2,210-mile endeavor over a four-month period. Kate is also the second-youngest female ever to run across the United States.
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Podcast Transcript
Scotty Sandow:
Coming up on the UltraRunning Magazine Podcast.
Scotty Sandow:
Bandana showers, the Australian Outback and a donkey, stay tuned.
Jeffrey Stern:
Hi, this is Jeffrey Stern from Santa Barbara, California. I’m currently training for Nine Trails, this episode is supported by Soar Running.
Scotty Sandow:
This month, we’ve teamed up with UK Soar Running for a chance for you to win one of their new trail packs Pacific UTR tops. Soar engineer’s high-performance function focused running apparel from impossibly lightweight race kit to groundbreaking wet and cold weather gear, the new UTR top is the first of its kind, designed specifically for optimal functionality with a trail pack. That’s right, it was built for your pack. What? It’s light weight, durable and anti abrasion. Yes, no more red spots. It’s completely redefined, built for those long days on the trail, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Head over to global.soarrunning, that’s S-O-A-R, running.com/ultrarunning for your chance to win. Good luck.
Speaker 1:
You’re listening to the UltraRunning Magazine Podcast.
Scotty Sandow:
Hey guys, welcome to the UltraRunning Magazine Podcast, I’m your host Scotty Sandow. This week on my shower run, I learned that I need to take better care of myself when it comes to chafing prevention. Ooh, that was not a pleasant experience. Thank you so much Squirrel Nut Butter for your existence. In today’s episode, we’re taking a trip down under to the Land of Oz and have a talk about with the spirited Katie Visco. Katie is on a mission of sorts of self discovery and self love, which is interwoven into our passion for running and community. Katie joins our program to share her recent adventure in Australia, participating in the 1000 Miles to Light, a relay race to raise awareness and funds for youth mental health services.
Scotty Sandow:
You’ll also hear about Katie’s cycle supported run across Australia, get this 2,210 mile endeavor over a four month period folks, no easy feat. And she’s no stranger to these types of things, she’s also the second youngest female ever to run across United States. How cool was that? My trail running brethren, give it up for the wonder from down under Katie Visco. Katie Visco all the way from the Land of Oz. Katie, how are you?
Katie Visco:
Yes, the Land of Oz. I am so good, I’m so excited to talk about the event that we just did 1000 Miles to Light, I’m still in Australia, loving it. And we’ve got a lot to talk about Scotty, so thanks for having me.
Scotty Sandow:
Yeah, I’ve got my notes, I’m ready to go. So yeah, let’s begin. To begin, you have that multi-day fresh scent still, that little glow about you because it just ended yesterday in Australia. So tell us about the event. What is it and why is it important to you?
Katie Visco:
Okay, great. So it’s called 1000 Miles to Light, and yes we did just finish yesterday. So what this event was and still is, it is a relay race across Australia between team Australia and team America. However, because of the situation with COVID, the project took lots of different, it just changed a bit. So what ended up happening is that team Australia were, there are four ultra runners from Australia and the four of us from the United States, we’re running 1,000 miles over 10 days all over the Singleton Military Area in Australia. So we were confined within an army base instead of running across New South Wales in Australia.
Katie Visco:
So what it’s for is raising awareness and funds for youth mental health in Australia and I just think it’s super important right now. Everyone on the team would agree that so many people, especially youth are suffering from whether it be self doubt or fear or uncertainty in these times, and so youth mental health is just a really important issue right now. And so we’re raising funds for that and you all can still donate, but yeah, it was a multi-day, 10 day run.
Scotty Sandow:
And thank you for doing this, and we definitely… A consistent theme in this podcast is just our mental health, our mental well-being and how we can nurture ourselves and each other and provide resources for one another to get us through what has been such a trying time for us all, no matter what your age. So I’m really so thrilled and heartened to see that you guys are making a concerted effort towards the young people of Australia. So kudos to you guys, everyone who did it. So give us a breakdown of the logistics of this event. Is it you guys are all running, four people from US, four people from Australia running gun goes off go or it’s a relay event? So describe that to us.
Katie Visco:
Oh my gosh, every single day honestly Scotty, it changed. It’s just such an interesting time to be doing an ultramarathon or any kind of event whatsoever. And so the way it ended up working is that 10 days, day one, you’ve got one person from team Australia, one person from team USA starting when the gun goes off. And so we were carrying a message stick and it was made by an Aboriginal artist. And he basically-
Scotty Sandow:
Wait, describe the message stick, what’s that? Yeah, can we pause right there? What’s a message stick?
Katie Visco:
Yeah, totally. I’m not terribly well-versed in this so pardon me, but a message stick is basically us saying we respect the land that we are running through and on and over and in, we just respect the indigenous culture and people of this place. And so by carrying a message stick, it shows our respect for exactly that for the indigenous culture. And so that’s why this was carved out of, I think myrtle wood and ingrained by indigenous artists of Australia. So that was the sentiment of carrying the stick. You can think of it like the baton but it was a message stick.
Scotty Sandow:
I love it. Yeah.
Katie Visco:
Yeah, it’s really important. On day one, you had team Australia and team USA on the starting line. You have one person from each team on the starting line, and so each of them held a message stick and the gun goes off and they go. And so what ended up happening is that instead of just one person from each team running at any given time because team Australia was so much faster than team USA, because team USA is just long slow distance ultra runners we ended up doubling up. So you can think of it as four teams essentially running at one time because two people from each team were running throughout the day, just to be able to get the miles done under 10 hours each day. And so each day was about 25 miles per runner or a 100 miles per team.
Scotty Sandow:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), got it.
Katie Visco:
Per team of… yeah, mm-hmm (affirmative). And it’s really interesting that this event was supposed to be across New South Wales from the center of Australia, Broken Hill, to Byron Bay on the east coast of New South Wales. And so because of COVID, we were inside a military base and so every day we ran a different 5K loop eight times. So we were basically running in circles, it’s just far different than what the event set out to be, which ended up being just fine because every day was a different loop. So logistically that’s kind of how it looked.
Scotty Sandow:
Right. And what’s the terrain like for you guys at this military base?
Katie Visco:
Oh yeah, so the military base is called Singleton Military Area and it is New South Wales and it is 40,000 acres. So the terrain honestly vary quite a bit, you had gravel roads going through eucalyptus forest or you had bitumen which was rolling, lots of hills or flat or you had stuff that was literally around buildings within the base. So you got to see the infantry doing their PT exercises in the morning or you got to see elements of the army doing their thing when we were running closer to buildings and such. Other than that, it was very, very quiet and beautiful, we were out in the country. It wasn’t necessarily the outback, actually it was not the outback in the sense that there was no red sand, no crazy hot temperatures, pretty verdant, I would say.
Scotty Sandow:
Got it. Yeah, because I have a picture in my head and maybe a lot of other people do too, is the movie Mad Max and just how-
Katie Visco:
Oh right, not like that.
Scotty Sandow:
That sort of wasteland of just this one infinite horizon.
Katie Visco:
No. I’ll tell you, I’ve definitely had experience out running in that situation and this was not like that. There were so many trees everywhere and it was just so pretty, yeah.
Scotty Sandow:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And how’s the temperature there? How’s the heat? Is it a 100 degrees? Was it…
Katie Visco:
From my opinion, just kind of not an issue just because it’s winter here right now, so the temperatures were high 40s in the morning and 70, high 60s each day with some sun or some clouds. So pretty nice temperatures for running, thankfully, especially in the morning.
Scotty Sandow:
Oh, I forgot it’s in Byron, that’s right, you guys have winters there right now.
Katie Visco:
Yeah.
Scotty Sandow:
That is so very cool.
Katie Visco:
So super nice.
Scotty Sandow:
Yeah. So how’d the run go for you?
Katie Visco:
Wow, what a big question. I think maybe I’ll just start with the physical or break this down into some parts, because there’s the mental, there’s the emotional, there’s the physical and maybe even more parts. But physically I’ll just speak for myself, I think the event was absolutely wonderful. It was interesting to see how personally, I went into this event erring on the side of low mileage training, and so I did not train to my fullest potential for this event because I was relying on… Oh, there’s a donkey. This was nice for your listeners.
Scotty Sandow:
Yes, our first donkey. That’s amazing.
Katie Visco:
I’m glad we got that out, okay.
Scotty Sandow:
Yeah, same here.
Katie Visco:
But yeah, I was just really relying on my mental strength and emotional strength to get through this because I just, yeah, didn’t really train all that much going into this. So physically the event went really well, and I don’t know if any of you all listening could relate to this, but when you do a multi-day event or anything of the like, sometimes your body just gets a major… You start and your body’s like, “Whoa, what am I doing? Everything hurts, I’m still sore.” But then after five, six, seven days, it’s almost like your body gets stronger, maybe because it’s used to what it’s supposed to be doing now which is running 25 miles a day, and so that was my experience. I was very surprised, relieved and also not necessarily too surprised at the same time to have that experience. So by day six I felt like, “Mm-hmm (affirmative), I can definitely keep doing this, I’m sore but I’m getting stronger at the same time.”
Scotty Sandow:
Well, you’d think that wouldn’t happen to be counterintuitive to how most of us feel like?
Katie Visco:
Yeah.
Scotty Sandow:
Okay, yeah. Okay.
Katie Visco:
Yeah. And I spoke with a couple of the other runners and a few of us had a similar experience towards the end of the 10 days, yeah. And then there’s the mental and emotional side, if you want me to get into that as well.
Scotty Sandow:
Absolutely, yeah.
Katie Visco:
Let’s start with the mental side. This whole project is, I’m just totally honest with you, it was completely complex because we’re in the middle of a global pandemic. And the biggest thing that I think any of the athletes really had to deal with was the ability to roll with the change and be adaptive and just take things as they come because literally every day something big change. For example, while we were in quarantine for two weeks, we arrived in Sydney and had to quarantine for two weeks in a hotel room, each of us on team USA.
Scotty Sandow:
Are you guys in a lockdown there?
Katie Visco:
Yeah. And we currently are and we were when we arrived three weeks ago. So during lockdown, to my surprise and I only learned this recently is that the event was canceled and then the next day the event was back on and then the next day it was canceled and the next day it was back on. So it’s just really navigating how to do this safely within the context, and so that really plays with someone’s mind. For me personally, I felt some guilt, I felt some just confusion around why am I here doing this? Why fly across the world to-
Scotty Sandow:
Yeah, it’s a long way to go to have this sort of turn on, turn off again, turn on, turn off.
Katie Visco:
Yeah. And when that happens, I found that I was really digging into my personal motivations for being here, like “Why is this so important and why now?” And for me mentally, what really got me through this event is just my love for people, because when was the last time me or you, listener really had a community, a live community, especially over the last year and a half. And for me just, I wanted to be with people, I wanted to be on a team and go through something really challenging as part of a team. So that was my personal motivation for continuing to be a part of this event, even though everything around us was changing. And then also I felt personally connected to the mental health side of things, so that was a noble cause too.
Scotty Sandow:
Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about some of the people who were on your team?
Katie Visco:
Yeah. Actually, Sam Pruitt is the other female on team USA. She just came outside if you actually want to ask her a couple of questions, she’s roaming around here and then we have two other guys on team USA, Dean Karnazes and Shan Riggs.
Scotty Sandow:
Okay, so you got a lot of experience on this team. And is this your first time ever representing USA in this sort of capacity?
Katie Visco:
Yeah.
Scotty Sandow:
It is? Okay.
Katie Visco:
Yeah, absolutely. It’s just such an honor to represent your country, yeah.
Scotty Sandow:
And thank you so much for representing the red, white and blue there.
Katie Visco:
Sure.
Scotty Sandow:
And so you said you weren’t prepared physically for that. So can you talk about a little bit, what was your training like going into it?
Katie Visco:
Yeah. I enjoy talking about this because I asked myself why I didn’t prepare to my capacity ahead of time. And partially or mostly it’s because I was kind of burnt out on running. A couple of years ago I did run Australia with my husband on a push bike or a bicycle and a trailer but carrying all our stuff-
Scotty Sandow:
And we are going to get in to that a little bit, yes.
Katie Visco:
Yeah, okay. So I had just completed this really important run for my personal development and it was a huge toll on my body, and then the pandemic happened and just my motivation to get out there and run just completely catapulted down. And so I was having a hard time finding the fun and the joy in running over these past couple of years, and so when asked to be a part of this event, I thought, “Oh, the last thing I want to do is go run big miles across Australia again.” But there was something in my heart that was really convincing that said, “Don’t ever pass up the opportunity to go on an adventure for a worthwhile cause with other beautiful people.”
Katie Visco:
And so, I think just at the end of the day it was my motivation that really I gave into in a sense to say like, “Okay, I’m not really going to train for this.” And so my biggest mileage week was 40 miles in training for running 25 miles over 10 days. And I just decided to bank on my mind and my spirit to get me through, and whatever would happen out there over 10 days I knew I could get through it physically unless I broke something. So yeah, I just decided to take that risk.
Scotty Sandow:
And how did your body hold up during the multi-day event?
Katie Visco:
My body’s good. I would say that everyone has their niggles and I had my niggles for sure starting on day three, four, five. And then I decided, “Mm-hmm (affirmative), I’m just going to not focus on my niggles so much and just run,” and that’s when I started to feel stronger, that’s when I started to feel less pain or another way of looking at it is like, that’s when I decided to not call it pain and just call it normal for doing this kind of thing. And just a form of acceptance, I would say, of the feeling in my body, and so because of that transition of the way I thought about things my body held up great.
Scotty Sandow:
Yeah, you almost have to make a friendship with the pain.
Katie Visco:
Yes. And I got to tell you, just the people around me, the other seven athletes I could see on their faces, they’re in pain or they’re pushing, they’re just pushing, pushing, pushing. And it was really contagious to be honest, I have no choice but to accept my pain if all these others around me are doing the same, so it was just for the team.
Scotty Sandow:
Oh yeah, well, you can’t look uncool to the cool kids.
Katie Visco:
Exactly, there’s peer pressure.
Scotty Sandow:
Absolutely. “They’re sucking it up, I’m going to suck it up too.”
Katie Visco:
Yeah.
Scotty Sandow:
So what would you… Because, I mean, you do multi-day events so well, I mean, you’re no stranger to this, you’ve run across the US, you’ve run across Australia like you said. And what are some keys to success would you give someone thinking about wanting to run a multi-day event?
Katie Visco:
You sure as hell got to know your why, you sure as heck have to know why you’re going to go push yourself that hard for days and days on end. And so for me, I’ll just give a little bit of background, when I did the US crossing I knew what my why was and that was to inspire passion, and purpose, and service, and service in the sense, how can you live true to yourself within the hearts of people across the nation? So I wanted more than anything to spread that message and so that’s why I ran. And then 10 years later doing Australia, the reason for that was to go on a personal pilgrimage into, it’s like the most desolate place I know. I wanted to see what I was made of and if I still had it.
Katie Visco:
And so going into the Outback, it’s like, “You got no comforts out there, let’s see what’s in my heart to get me through something that hard,” and so that was absolutely my why. So if you’re thinking about doing something that’s going to push your body to its limits, really get real with yourself. Maybe think about things that are outside of your ego, why deep down do you want to struggle? Why do you want to feel this pain? So for me, I have to know what that lie is before I put myself through any of that.
Scotty Sandow:
Wow, that’s one hell of a question to ask yourself, why do you want to struggle? And I don’t think that’s an easy answer to have. I mean, you really need to spend a lot of time meditating on that question.
Katie Visco:
Yeah. I mean, there’s struggle and then there’s pain. And undoubtedly, I would think that there’s probably moments of struggle within multi-day events, there’s definitely going to be pain, but when you connect with your why maybe the pain doesn’t have to be a struggle because you’re fueled by something really important to you so in a sense you might not end up struggling. I feel like struggle is coming from the mind and pain just exists.
Scotty Sandow:
Right. And that’s so well said. So after you kind of learn your why, you have this conversation like, “All right, I’ve got this established.” What are some training elements that you would suggest to someone wanting to take on a multi-day?
Katie Visco:
Sure. Well, are we talking multi days like multiple months or like six days [crosstalk]?
Scotty Sandow:
No. Yeah, we’re talking, I want to do a three to four to seven day multi-day event, that sort of thing.
Katie Visco:
Oh, okay. Well honestly, I feel like I’m not the best person to ask because I just have so much self-belief that I don’t have so many strings attached to my training. But the basic tenants that I follow is working backwards. So let’s say you have a three to four to six-day event, work backwards, in the sense, you’re going to be running multiple days of high mileage for that event. So perhaps practice that in your training and it doesn’t have to be every single week, maybe there’s three days out of a couple of weeks where you do 20 miles each day just to practice what you’re going to be doing in your event.
Katie Visco:
Well that said, I also fall in the low mileage camp because over the course of your expedition or your event that might be your training. But at the same time, I’m kind of thinking out loud here, if it’s only three to six days, that’s not too long for your body to train itself, so training before then is probably best. I definitely have more to say when it comes to multiple months, if you want to do an expedition of high mileage each day, I can definitely speak better to that.
Scotty Sandow:
Okay. Do you want to give us some cliff notes on that? Because I would love to hear it, really would.
Katie Visco:
Sure, yeah. And I think that there’s a growing interest in doing crossings, running across America or running across the state or just that kind of stuff. And so-
Scotty Sandow:
How about running across my living room, will that count? No? Okay, I’m just checking.
Katie Visco:
No, you can’t do that. That’s a big crossing, Scotty. So I feel like maybe multiple weeks crossing, what I was saying earlier definitely stands true, practice what you are going to be doing over the course of that expedition. So for myself in training for America and also Australia, there would be some weeks where I would do three days of back-to-back 15, 18 miles just to get my body used to a very little recovery. And at times I would also do doubles, so 10 miles in the morning and eight miles in the evening and do that for two, three days in a row. So again, that’s just the whole concept of practicing the format ahead of time.
Scotty Sandow:
So I think that’s a good segue to your running event that you did across Australia. There you ran, it was 2,210 miles across Oz and running between what? 28, 30 miles per day.
Katie Visco:
Exactly, yap. It was average of 28 to 30, yeah.
Scotty Sandow:
This is just mind blowing what you and your husband, right? He was kind of your crew through this, but it was self-supported, self-sustaining, you guys carried everything, well, he carried everything on-
Katie Visco:
Yes, he did.
Scotty Sandow:
So let’s talk about that, kind of give us just the broad strokes of that.
Katie Visco:
I would love to talk about that. So like I mentioned, that event, that was just a dream that I’ve had for God, ever since I was in college. So this is decades of training about going into the Outback to have my own runabout there. And so when coming into this event or this adventure, I’ll call it, there were a lot of strings attached to it because I had been dreaming about it for so and I wanted it to be something that would just peel back layers of myself so that I can just be myself even more than I am, so that’s the pilgrimage aspect of it.
Katie Visco:
So what it was like was, if you can just imagine staring off into the distance and you see absolutely nothing, nothing, I’m talking nothing, nothing except for red sand on either side of you or maybe a bush, a really short three foot tall bush, maybe every once in a while, maybe some rocks that glisten in the sun, tons of flies crawling all over you all the time. No comforts whatsoever, you’re camping every night and you’re sweating a lot because the sun beats at you every day, the wind is blasting in your face every day. Just every imaginable terrible thing.
Scotty Sandow:
So you said this was a dream, not a nightmare, right? Just checking.
Katie Visco:
It ended up being more of like, it was so tough. I don’t want to call it a nightmare or completely horrible but it was so, so, so, so hard, but that’s exactly what I wanted. So it’s just one of those things, sometimes we choose our pain, we choose our… Yeah sometimes we choose our pain and sometimes we want to suffer. And part of me feels a little guilty for putting myself, choosing to have pain when so many people have pain that they don’t elect in their lives but this is running and at the end of the day, I decided this is absolutely worthy of my time and I do want to have pain because I want to grow as a human being. Anyway, it was a four months journey.
Scotty Sandow:
And you compare this to, I’m sorry to interrupt you but you compared it to an Aboriginal rite of passage.
Katie Visco:
I want to be really careful of that because I don’t know too much about an Aboriginal rite of passage but I will speak loosely about that. And at the beginning I had always called this my runabout, because in Aboriginal culture a walkabout is a coming of age experience where one goes into the bush with only themselves and just only themselves and comes back mature in some sense. And I’m not speaking accurately exactly, but that’s the basic tenant and I wanted to have that for myself. So between myself and I, I would always call it a runabout because I wanted my own form of walkabout. So there’s the reason why I call it a pilgrimage in a sense.
Scotty Sandow:
Okay, got it.
Katie Visco:
Yeah.
Scotty Sandow:
Okay. So here you are and you guys are ready to start out, and just the logistics of this is just mind melting. Talk about the equipment you had to take with you and how you’re going to do it.
Katie Visco:
In order to plan for this expedition, we were just thinking about how the stakes are really high for crossing Australia self-supported. By that, I mean, there’s very, very few stops for supplies, for food, for water, you really have to know exactly where you’re going and so my husband was on logistics. He’s got a bunch of experience in wilderness expeditions and just self-supported expeditions, and so he was on logistics and he did a lot of Google Earth mapping just to make sure there were water pumps or that towns, we would call the grocery stores in tiny little towns in the Outback just to make sure that they actually had food. So that kind of stuff, the really small things could be big, could have big consequences if we didn’t cover our butts in that way, so a lot of planning went into the logistics of this trip. And honestly we planned this trip for about five years on and off. So-
Scotty Sandow:
Wow. So the stakes are high, the margin of error is pretty small here and you’re going into a massive unknown both with yourself, I have to imagine to a degree with your relationship because I mean, what do they say? If you really want to get to know someone early on in relationship go on vacation them. And so I’d imagine like this has got to be just like the gamut of emotions for both of you just trying to stay positive, be supportive but also being honest with each other and going, “This is hard, this is daunting physically and mentally.”
Katie Visco:
Absolutely, it’s a big test. And to be honest again, this is exactly what I wanted, I wanted all forms of tests. And when you’re in it, you just curse the test like, “Oh my gosh, what did I get myself into? I don’t want to do this anymore,” but at the end day, you deep down want that kind of test. And in terms of our relationship, I just a 100% trust my husband, and I think I know that we can get through pretty much anything when it comes to physical suffering or mental, emotional pain, we just have a way of communicating with each other that gets us through.
Katie Visco:
And so going into this I never thought it would be a test of our relationship, I only trusted that it would be a confirming of our beautiful relationship. And so, there were times where I saw my husband just struggle to the point of tears and he just… I just never really have seen that in my husband before. And I thought it was beautiful and also just heartbreaking at the same time to see sides of your companion, of your partner, that to be frank, we’ll carry with us forever, this trip and what we saw in one another, so yeah.
Scotty Sandow:
And how long did this trip take you?
Katie Visco:
Yeah, it was four months.
Scotty Sandow:
Whoa.
Katie Visco:
Yeah.
Scotty Sandow:
Whoa okay, so talk about that. So I mean, are there days where you’re like, “We’re not running for a couple of days here just to give the body a chance to recover?” What was that like?
Katie Visco:
Yeah. So we definitely planned for some rest days. The plan was about like every six, seven to 10 days, there would be some kind of rest day. We had to adapt though because a rest day out in the bush is really not comfortable because you’re out in the middle of nothing under the sun, what are you going to do? Just lay around and sweat? So that’s what our rest days ended up being and they were kind of uncomfortable. So we just decided let’s go longer without rest days and just get to some kind of, I don’t know, just, I forget what they’re called but they’re kind of like tiny little trailer parks. You can pull up and camp in your car or go into some kind of little, gosh, what are they? Shipping containers.
Katie Visco:
There were very few towns that had anything of the sort but we would ahead in order to do that or we would push ahead literally when we thought that there would be trees. So if we saw a creek bed on the map, we would just push ahead another couple of days or another few miles just because we hoped that the creek bed would have some trees that would provide some tree shade. So you just kind of have to adapt with the country itself, but yeah, we did have rest.
Scotty Sandow:
That’s amazing. And it just comes into survival mode at some point, right?
Katie Visco:
Yeah.
Scotty Sandow:
Wow, what an adventure. So what are you guys doing for food? I imagine you can’t take a lot of perishables with you out on this trek.
Katie Visco:
Yeah, right. We barely took any perishables. So what we did is pretty much the first half we were going 15 to 17 days without resupply. So can you just imagine in the United States you can’t go anywhere without coming across some kind of resupply. So imagine 15 days of not coming across any kind of store or building or anything related to food. So what we did is we shipped a big box, a lot of through hikers do this but we shipped a big box to a small community kind of in central of the Outback or center of the Outback. And we picked up that box of all this non-perishable packaged food, it was just the best that we could do. So we’d carry 15 days of food with us on the trailer or Henley would do that, I didn’t carry a thing. So yeah, we had to be really calculative about the food.
Scotty Sandow:
Yeah. I saw photos of his bike rig and just how loaded up it was. I mean, having to just to like… It feels like you got the easy part on this gig.
Katie Visco:
I know, I did. There’s no way I could possibly have done what he did.
Scotty Sandow:
Oh what? 350 pounds of gears that he had, oh boy.
Katie Visco:
Yes. So most of which was water, 250 pounds of water.
Scotty Sandow:
250 pounds of water. Were there any moments where you thought, “We’re getting kind of low here,” or did you guys have that pretty planned out pretty well?
Katie Visco:
We had it pretty planned out. So he was incredibly calculative about our water, so for example, most days we were able to take a shower and that shower consisted of a small cup with about half a cup of water in it and a bandana. And I’d put my bandana, soak it in the water and just wipe myself, that’s what we did and some days we weren’t able to do that because we needed that water for drinking and cooking. So every drop counted.
Scotty Sandow:
Every drop, wow.
Katie Visco:
Yap.
Scotty Sandow:
So it sounds like that was a luxury for you to have that, your bandana showers.
Katie Visco:
Yeah, it was.
Scotty Sandow:
So what did you learn about yourself in this trip? I mean this is your self discovery, self-love run. What did you learn?
Katie Visco:
Yeah. There’s the saying that I still think about, we say, “Tedious but brief,” is that there’s a lot of things in life that really you could complain about them but at the end of the day, what does it really matter? So when something’s challenging or when something just hurts, it’s one thing to really address it and then it’s another thing to really ask yourself, “Okay, does this have substance, does this matter or is this just something I need to get through?” And so my husband and I have this saying, “Tedious but brief,” because some things are just tedious in life and some things are just hard. And when things are just hard, at the end of the day it’s brief, it really is brief, you’re not going to suffer the rest of your life unless you’re in a terrible situation, which would be really sad.
Katie Visco:
But I would say that most hardship doesn’t last forever, and so that’s one thing I will always take away from this trip, is that, you just have to go through these things because life is hard. It’s like running across the country is hard, yes, but life is also hard. And it’s also these moments that we have are so brief, whether they be of pain, of joy, of suffering, of anything, it’s just all so brief. And so that’s the biggest thing that I took away from this trip. And it’s also funny because it’s not necessarily something I learned about myself, it’s something I just took away and now have that kind of sentiment towards life and not necessarily towards myself but towards life. So, and just to have shared the experience with my husband is something that we will have forever. We will absolutely have this forever and so that really is the biggest takeaway, to have a shared experience of joy and pain with someone that you love, whether it be your husband, your friend, your sister, whatever, it’s priceless.
Scotty Sandow:
That’s beautifully said. One thing that it’s been impressed upon me about you is that your sense of community. And I like how you kind of wrap that into who you are as a person and your personal pursuits in life that are meaningful to you. And one of those things is your work with the organization Girls on the Run. And I was hoping you could take a minute, just to talk to us about what that organization is about, and why it’s important to you.
Katie Visco:
Yeah, absolutely. So this was when I did the USA crossing, I raised some money for Girls on the Run, because I knew deep down that running has built me as a confident young woman and also has provided so much community and friendship in my life, and so I just wanted to give back. And so I do have a heart for young girls, young women who might have self doubt, we all have self doubt, but just really learning coping skills and learning the skills to be a brave young woman is something that Girls on the Run is doing.
Katie Visco:
And so, they take young girls, mostly elementary and middle school age and do after school running programs and also go through curriculum like, how do you deal with bullying or what is self belief mean? Or just like really empowering concepts. And so I was able to run and meet a lot of Girls on the Run clubs across America back then. And I’m currently not involved with the organization just because of life, but I will always support that organization and encourage anyone out there to get involved in their local chapter. So I love what they’re doing.
Scotty Sandow:
Yeah. And it’s such an important organization, so I will include a link to the organization in this podcast description. Another thing that-
Katie Visco:
Thank you.
Scotty Sandow:
Oh, of course. Another thing that is close to your heart and in mine too is food.
Katie Visco:
Yes.
Scotty Sandow:
And so, I couldn’t go without spending moment talking about that. And so can you share with us how food is a big part of your life?
Katie Visco:
Yeah, it is. I think I’ll just start with the fact that my very first business when I was a little girl was a cookie company.
Scotty Sandow:
Wait, did you have a name for your cookie company?
Katie Visco:
It was just Katie’s Cookies.
Scotty Sandow:
Cute, I like it.
Katie Visco:
Yeah. And then I moved into creating a soup business when I was in my 20s and I still have that going. It’s just nutrient dense food is what gives so much of us life, and if I can do anything to help people with their nutrition, it would just be actually making food that is of fresh ingredients and just nutrient dense is what I always like to say. And so absolutely, I take food very seriously and also have a lot of fun with it, so a lot of my time and my livelihood has been around food, to be honest, that’s been my career the last 10 years of my life, is just feeding people good stuff. And the most important thing about food to me is that it also builds community. So like with that soup business that I have, it was important to me to bring people together to have community soup parties every month.
Scotty Sandow:
Wait a minute, community soup parties? You got to tell me more about that.
Katie Visco:
Yeah. That started in 2009 or 2008, and every month, I would bring people over, anyone I knew, just to feed them soup. And the point of that was to connect people, I just really believe we need more connection, real live connection and community in this world, in our country, in our communities. And so I just invited people over for soup, and that went steady every single month for eight years. The last couple of years, I haven’t been doing it just given the pandemic and moving to new places, mostly because of the pandemic. But that is the thing that I’m most proud of in my life, is having soup parties every month for that amount of years, and just people have met each other and gotten married because of soup parties, it’s just such a joy.
Scotty Sandow:
That is so wonderful. I want to hear about the balls.
Katie Visco:
Oh yes, balls. Okay, so it’s called Good Juju energy balls and it’s just a side company that I have. So I’ve been doing that for about seven years now. And so I make these high calorie balls that are meant to be taken out on the trail or out on a long run. I bring with me pretty much every long run I go on, and so it’s based in nut butter, oats, honey, and then every flavor is something unique, like spirulina and hemp seeds, or lemon and ginger, or good old fashioned chocolate chia seed. So yeah, and I’ve been shipping them all over the country for the past seven years if anyone wants to buy, so.
Scotty Sandow:
Oh no, you can put me down for an order of the lemon ginger, please. Yeah.
Katie Visco:
Oh nice, yeah. People have become quite the balls fanatics, I will say, just a lot of happy customers.
Scotty Sandow:
Quite the balls fanatics.
Katie Visco:
Yeah. And just it’s fun, it’s playful. I mean, who doesn’t like good balls?
Scotty Sandow:
I’m not even going to touch it, I’m not touching it.
Katie Visco:
There you go.
Scotty Sandow:
So we’re going to come back all the way back around to the event that you just did, the 1000 Miles to Light. And what did you learn about yourself now that you’re one day from finishing this event?
Katie Visco:
Oh, what did I learn about myself? It’s funny that… I might need to process that a little bit more. I don’t really feel like I came away from this trip learning things about myself, because I just feel like I’m very confident in who I am. And what I took away from this trip is just the power of having something that’s important to you and acting on it. For me like I mentioned earlier, it was about building relationships and being a team, doing something hard as part of a team, and that is absolutely what got me through this.
Katie Visco:
And so what’s my takeaway is that, it’s more of a confirmation that I thrive on community and I thrive on real connection. So I don’t know if I’ve learned anything about myself, I think it was just a really nice confirmation about the power of the human spirit, and that we are all just… I don’t know, we’re just all connected in some way. If you take the time to figure out how we’re connected, there’s always a connection point. So I find that beautiful and it fuels me, that’s something as of now I’ve taken away from this trip.
Scotty Sandow:
Katie Visco from down under, you’re a beautifully wonderful person. And I’m so glad that you came on the show to share with us just who you are, and I hope that there’s, I know there are so many takeaways from this and I can’t wait to go back and listen to it again, and again, and again.
Katie Visco:
No.
Scotty Sandow:
And I will. So is there anything else that you want to share with us before I close?
Katie Visco:
Ah yeah, I do. So thank you, Scotty, this has been super fun and thank you everyone for listening. I just wanted to put out there, so we are still really inviting people to donate to Youth Mental Health in Australia, the organization is called ReachOut Australia. And so, if you go to 1000milestolight.com there’s a Donate button, and we’re really trying to meet our goal of $250,000 for this organization. And I think the deadline for donating is in a week or two, I’m not sure, but we just really encourage anyone to donate anything that you have even $1 to support this cause. So that’s the last thing I wanted to say.
Scotty Sandow:
And you can count me in for that, so my donation is coming eminently. So thank you so much.
Katie Visco:
Thank you, thank you so much.
Scotty Sandow:
Absolutely. What a great cause and you guys are shining a light on such an important topic and helping a lot of kids that need it, and so, I have to talk to you guys.
Katie Visco:
Yeah, we are and have, I so agree. Thank you.
Scotty Sandow:
I cannot wait to see what you and Henley do next, it’s going to be fun, it’s been fun to watch.
Katie Visco:
Thank you.
Scotty Sandow:
You got it.
Katie Visco:
Oh, one more thing.
Scotty Sandow:
Of course.
Katie Visco:
So there’s some movies. If you all want to watch movies, there’s a movie coming out about this 1000 Miles to Light adventure. And I’ll have to let you know when that comes out, but it might be maybe a month before it comes out into the USA, and then Henley and I also have a movie about our trip across Australia, it’s called 2112, A Human-powered Adventure Across Australia and it’s on Vimeo. Yeah.
Scotty Sandow:
Why 2112?
Katie Visco:
2112 is just the number of miles that we covered across Australia. Yeah.
Scotty Sandow:
That not [crosstalk].
Katie Visco:
Scotty, no.
Scotty Sandow:
All right, we will post put that link to that film when it’s ready to roll up on this podcast description, so keep checking back for that folks. Okay Katie, thank you so much, all my best to you guys and the donkey.
Katie Visco:
Oh yeah, I’ll tell the donkey you said hi.
Scotty Sandow:
Thank you so much.
Katie Visco:
Thanks Scotty.
Scotty Sandow:
You got it.
Katie Visco:
Bye.
Scotty Sandow:
Bye. Special thanks to Katie for your spirit and enthusiasm. I cannot wait to see what happens next and I am excited to order my lemon ginger Juju balls. We’ll provide links to everything mentioned in this episode and we hope you’re able to support Katie’s mission to raise funds for ReachOut Australia, where one in four young Australians are experiencing a mental health difficulty. I also have an update for you guys. Do you remember my rescue at Bigfoot episode with Duane Konyn?
Duane Konyn:
All of a sudden I got really dizzy and I vomited. And I just dropped to my knees and I was in extreme pain and my bladder kept convulsing, and all I could do was curl up in the fetal position and just try to get it to stop.
Scotty Sandow:
Yep, he was medevac during his attempt at Bigfoot 200 because of a life threatening issue with his bladder. Oh Duane, well, I’m happy to report that Duane finally completed his goal and finished this year’s Bigfoot 200. Congratulations Duane, your determination and never say die attitude is a true inspiration, way to go buddy. All right my friends, it’s time for me to go, but the team here at URM is cranking out content like Sabrina Stanley cranks out negative splits, fast and furious. Head on over to ultrarunning.com for articles reviews, our race calendar and past issues and more. Alright, you’ve been listening to the UltraRunning Magazine Podcast, live long.