My first guest: Patricia Scott (50)
Ultrarunner, Mother, Wife, Full-time NannyYou can listen to the interview on iTunes, watch the video on YouTube or read it here on my blog.
Heike Yates: Hi everybody, Heike Yates here. I’m so excited to welcome a new guest to my show, Patricia Scott. We’ve known each other for 10 years and met through running. Patricia is a single mom who moved from France to the US and is also a full-time nanny. That’s an unusual job, and we’ll talk about that a little bit later in the show, but she’s also an ultra-runner. So welcome to the show Patricia!
Patricia Scott: Hello! Very happy to be here.
HY: So tell us, why did you move out of France, and when?
PS: I moved in 1988 because I wanted something new. More challenges, adventure, and to be on my own a little bit. I’m the fourth of six kids, so I wanted to be me instead of just a middle child.
HY: Cool! When you came here, what year was it?
PS: In 1988, I came for one year originally. That was the plan as an au pair, but I ended up staying for over 30 years.
HY: So when you first moved here, where did you go first?
PS: Arlington, Virginia. I was a little shocked because I was surprised it didn’t look like New York City, but I acclimated really well. Then I started as a nanny and moved from family to family. I even lived in LA for six months before I came back to Virginia.
Mother and Athlete
HY: You also have a daughter, Rochelle. How old is she?
PS: She is now 23. She’s the best and I raised her on my own; a single mom.
HY: How did you do that, being a nanny full time and having a daughter that you raised on your own? Was she part of the family, or how did that work out?
PS: I brought her with me to work, so that was perfect. That’s why I’ve been a nanny for so long. It was a struggle at first because not a lot of families wanted to hire a nanny with a child, but it ended up working out. She also fits right in with my workout after work. I bought myself a treadmill, and I bought her a little tiny one-pound dumbbell. So I was running on the treadmill for an hour or a little over an hour. It was anywhere from five to seven miles almost every day.
HY: Wow, five to seven miles. Now that’s a lot of mileage for most of us. Being on the treadmill can be really boring, but I think it’s really fun that you have your daughter, Rochelle, and have her work out there next to you.
PS: She loved it. She was jumping, pretending to run, it was a great time. Then a little further down the line, when she got older, she was following me with little tiny bikes.
HY: Tiny little bikes! How cute is that? Were you active as a kid?
PS: Yes. We had to in France, especially in my family. My dad was not the type of dad who’d drive us everywhere, so we had to manage to do it. We walked to school twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon because we came home for lunch. After lunch, since I have half an hour, I would jump rope.
Interview With The Ultra Runner
HY: Oh my gosh.
PS: Yep, 30 minutes.
HY: Talk about the athlete over here. Most of us would eat lunch and take a nap.
PS: I would also bike to the store or walk to basketball practice and back again. We walked to the lake, which was about six miles.
HY: That’s a very European lifestyle. We’ve both been here a long time, and we both find that, a lot of times, people drive too much. People don’t move enough, but in Europe, everybody walks or bikes everywhere.
PS: Yes. My mother didn’t drive, so we didn’t have a choice but to use our legs or whatever we had.
HY: Now since you have legs and your legs have carried you a long distance, what started your interest in ultra running? Or let me back up a little bit. There’s casual running, then there’s marathon training, and then there are ultras. Explain to us the difference between those types of running.
PS: I got into marathon running because of my younger brother, who I ran the Paris Marathon in 2004. He dared me to run the New York City Marathon if he came to the States. I didn’t know what the marathon was, so I asked him how many kilometers, and he said 42 (26.2 miles). I’m like, “What!?”
HY: It’s definitely a long distance.
PS: Then, after that, I joined the Montgomery County Roadrunners Club, which is one of our local running groups, and from there, I started to train, and I met you in the First Time Marathon training program.
My first 12 miles I was on top of the world because it was like “Wow, I did it.” I wanted more of that and I really enjoyed it. Then I ran my first marathon. I didn’t like it when I finished, but a week later, I was like, “Okay, what’s next?” Then a couple of marathons later, I heard in the group there were a few runners who were talking about the JFK 50 Miler. So I asked what was the interest behind it. I’m like, “Hmm, why not? That’s a challenge.” I asked about the training. They basically told me, “Not much. You do two marathons back to back at most, and then you add a longer run.”
A Woman With Determination
HY: Okay. So you run 26.2 miles and you go, “whoop I just add another 10, 20 miles on top of it and you’re done.” The JFK foot race is one of the very well-known 50-mile races here in the Washington, D.C./Maryland area. Simply, Patricia took on the task of doing this race by putting her mind to running another set of miles.
PS: There you go. I did another extra-long run on the weekend and then went from there.
HY: That’s very interesting. How long would it take you to run that distance? Most of us are familiar with shorter distances in mileage, but how long would a marathon take?
PS: For me, I really wanted to do at least four hours. If I could do under, that was even better. Since it was my first marathon, our coaches said, “Don’t worry about the time.” But I’m a very competitive person.
HY: Yes, she is.
PS: I really wanted to do four or under, and I did 3:56. Not bad for a first marathon.
HY: Very good for a first. This was a road race on cement, right?
PS: Right. Which is very different than a marathon on trails.
HY: On trails meaning what?
PS: No concrete. It’s dirt and roots, and it’s basically an obstacle course. It’s hilly. You may walk for some of the hills, and that’s okay. If a road marathon would take me about four hours, a trail marathon would take me about five hours.
HY: An additional hour.
PS: Right. Depending on how technical. When I say technically, I mean by roots and river crossings. It depends on all that and how familiar I am with the trail. The more you practice on it, the more you run on it, the faster you can go, and the faster you can finish.
HY: Nice. Can you think of one training example that was just very different than all the others that you would say, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I did this?”
PS: That’s funny that you mentioned that. From the 50 milers, I went to the 100 milers, of course.
HY: Just another step up. Double up the mileage.
PS: For that, I went to friends who had run at least one or two 100 milers because I really wanted to hear their feedback. Of course, advice varies from one person to the next, but one person in particular who ran a few advised me to go beyond 30 miles as training. So I had run 20 miles the day before for my marathon training, and the next day I ran 40 miles.
HY: Jeez, can you imagine that?
PS: My daughter biked alongside me for 30 miles, which was helpful.
HY: So Rochelle had not become an ultra runner.
PS: NO.
HY: She’s just looking at her mom, shaking her head. She would rather play soccer. She is as competitive as her mom, but running is not her cup of tea.
PS: No, it’s not her cup of tea whatsoever. But that day, I almost quit a couple of times because I was on my own. At mile 30, she said, “Mom, you do your last ten miles on your own.” I would kind of cry at some point, but when I finished I was like, “Okay, I think I’m ready. Mentally I think I can finish my first 100 miles.”
HY: You made a good point. The mental toughness that you need; I cannot imagine. My longest distance was the JFK 50 miler, and that required not only solid training but the mental toughness to suck up the pain, to ignore the blisters, to maybe throw up by the side of the road because your nutrition is not sitting well. These things happen.
PS: Yeah. That day we started at 8 AM, and I was on the trail until 5 PM. It was a long, long day, but it was worth it. I was ready when the race came along.
HY: So, how does it work to work as a full-time nanny? How do you squeeze in these long days of training?
PS: I usually reserve those long runs for the weekend. 20 and 30 miles would be Saturday and Sunday. During the week, when the girls were at school, I was just doing it as much as I could when they were in school. So first thing in the morning or while they were at soccer, for example. I would actually do my first run in the morning while they were in school, and then I would pick them up and go to soccer. While they were practicing for an hour and a half, I was going on the trail for that long. I would have two workouts done that way. When I couldn’t do it because the girls were sick or because it was summer vacation or spring break, then in that case it was before they got up or after they went to sleep. That was challenging because at 7 PM, nobody wanted to go out to run.
HY: When you think about that you’re out there for hours and hours on end, what time would you be trying to finish a 50 miler in?
PS: A 50 miler, you have 12 hours to finish. The first time I finished it because I had no clue what I was doing, it was 10 hours 45 minutes and it took me three tries to break ten hours finally.
HY: Break ten hours. Holy smokes. Then as you go to 100 milers, what then?
PS: You have to finish it in 30 hours.
HY: 30 hours.
PS: When you go to an aid station, there are cut-off times. They weigh you, which really made me paranoid.
HY: Oh. Why would they weigh you?
PS: They weigh you the day before the race starts, in the afternoon, and then randomly at certain aid stations. If you lose ten percent of your weight, then it’s a red flag, and you might be disqualified, and they pull you off of the course. If you gain some weight, that means your kidney is not functioning properly, and that’s another red flag, and you might be pulled off of the course as well. The first 100 miler I did was Vermont and my husband, who’s my crew (that means he carries my bag from aid station to aid station. We do not sleep. I do not. I don’t want him to sleep either.
Nutrition Is Key
HY: When you train for a 100 miler, we’re talking ultras. Let’s talk about 100 milers because this lady is doing nothing else but marathons and 100 milers. How do you train food-wise for a race like this? As we all know, the carb load. We eat lots of pasta.
PS: Right. Which is my thing? I try to eat as much as I can during my training run, which is very little, and I’m still struggling with it. I’m really only eating bananas because they sit well in my stomach. I try to have crackers and peanut butter; pretzels are also good. Chips for the salt are good as well. Gu, which, after 20 miles, I don’t even want to hear that word.
HY: For our listeners who don’t know, what is Gu?
PS: Gu is an energy product that gives you a little sugar, electrolytes, and caffeine.
HY: So the body can metabolize it easier because it comes in a gel-like form. You can just squeeze it in your mouth.
PS: Or you can use the chewable version.
HY: Okay, so for the preparation, you don’t really eat anything different than what you normally do. You don’t pack on pounds before the race. You are a certain weight when you start out.
PS: No, I never bothered to do any of that. I don’t really change my diet much except a week prior, I cut out certain foods like fruit and vegetables. Not as much the week prior, and then two days before the race I will not eat any because I don’t want to go to the bathroom.
HY: As you’re running the race in the middle of nowhere, and your husband is at one of those aid stations. What do you eat and drink then?
PS: Oh, I have a hydration backpack, which I carry. I put a couple of chips or pretzels in little tiny bags. In my last 100 miles that I didn’t finish, I tried a new thing. Instead of eating chips or pretzels, I ate pieces of French baguettes, but that didn’t do me too much good. Usually, I carry a couple of bananas in my backpack too. The aid stations are usually an hour and a half apart.
HY: But you have food when you get to the aid station. They have all kinds of stuff.
PS: Oh, it’s fabulous. You can sit down, and it’s everything and anything you want. From burgers to the soup. Who does that? Not me.
HY: I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches personally. That’s my favorite.
PS: Funny that you mention that. That second 100 miler was about two hours before the finish, so I had been on my feet for more than 25 hours. I was tired of bananas. I was tired of Gu. I was tired of chips. But there was peanut butter. That was the last aid station, and I’m like, “Why not?” And that gave me that kick I needed to finish.
HY: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on white bread are the kicker for me, too.
PS: Right.
HY: When you are out there, you have food stations and places to get Gatorade and whatever else. But being out there for 30 hours, what do you wear when you go on a trail?
PS: That depends on the weather. If the weather is going to be close to 60 degrees at the end or toward the middle, then I make sure not to overdress. My first 100-miler was in July. I wore shorts and was perfectly fine. We had a little bit of rain, but I never changed. I was fine except for my shoes. My husband had a couple of pairs of shoes with him for me to change into. It had rained a couple of weeks in Vermont, so the terrain was extremely muddy. I had just changed my shoes, and as we entered the trail again, I got mud all the way up to my ankle. It’s heavy, so I had to change it again. In my second 100-miler, I wore the same shoes. If it doesn’t bother you, if you don’t have any blisters, then don’t touch anything. Leave it be.
HY: They have aid stations, too, if you have blisters or are getting chaffed or any other issues. Most of the aid stations have first aid.
PS: When I did The Mohican 100 Miler, they didn’t have any aid stations, so you were basically on your own. Because it was on trails, and if something happened, then you’d be alone. I know a few runners who had to pop their own blisters! I got lucky and was fine. After a while, of course, you have aches everywhere.
HY: One question that I know a lot of women want to know. What do you do when you need to use the bathroom?
PS: Okay. For me, if it’s number one, I find a big tree. I usually go off-trail a little bit to be a little discreet. I have no problem doing that. Now I’m freaking out about number two. I have not yet had to do it. Fingers crossed, it stays like that.
HY: You never know. That’s why you’re changing your diet before your race.
PS: Right.
HY: So no fiber, or very little fiber.
PS: A couple of days prior to the start, yes, I do not have any fiber to minimize the likelihood of that happening. I do everything possible. You hear stories, but so far, so good.
HY: I’m just envisioning out in the woods. I have no problem putting my behind in the woods, but sometimes it can be a little touchy-feely, right?
PS: You go a little further, I guess, and then find a tree.
HY: Okay. Let’s move on. Tell me about some of the obstacles that you had to overcome in your training, whether they’re injury-related or weather-related, because you’re spending a lot of time out in the woods training. Let’s talk about what happens when it’s a big snowstorm, for instance. What do you do then? Shovel snow?
Nothing Can Stop You = Determination
PS: So weather-related, that could be an obstacle. If the roads are icy or there’s too much snow, that could be a problem. You can go to the gym and run on the treadmill. One year, I had to do a 20 miler, and in my neighborhood, someone had shoveled about a mile clear on the sidewalk. I back and forth for twenty miles. It took me over three hours. My neighbor was a little worried, so he came out and wanted to know if I wanted anything. My daughter thought I was insane. I felt good afterward, sat on my couch with my hot cocoa, and watched a movie.
HY: Up and down. 20 miles. Oh my God. Well, that is incredible.
PS: I went into my head; it was just me and my thoughts. I went completely into my zone.
HY: Do you run with music on the trail?
PS: No, I do not. Not on the trail at all because I want to be aware of safety. Safety is a big concern.
HY: We both see a lot of women runners that ignore that and run with headphones in.
PS: Oh yes. And I’m already in a zone by myself with no music, so if I add music I’ll be completely out of it. I actually stopped running with music for almost ten years when I heard stories.
HY: Especially when you’re out in the woods too, there’s not a lot of people there.
PS: No, there’s not. I did 12 miles on the trail by myself last weekend. I only encountered a family biking on the trails, but other than that, there was nobody. I know the trail really well, but it can be kind of isolating.
HY: So injuries. You must have some injuries.
PS: Unfortunately, I do. I’m just recovering from tendonitis. If you cannot run that many miles, then you’re on the bike cross-training. Elliptical is another one because there’s not as much pounding on the legs, but it doesn’t give you the “runner’s high.”
HY: Do you support your ultra running with other types of exercise?
PS: Try to yes. I try to lift weights twice a week, and I take a spinning class as well. Sometimes I don’t when my mileage increases and I have to run twice a day. When that happens, instead of doing twice a week of lifting, I do it once a week. If I cannot go to the gym and do that, I try to do push-ups. Anything on the floor with my own body weight, basically.
HY: Ah. No equipment is needed. You don’t need to go to the gym.
PS: Yes. Your body. Yes.
HY: Now. One question I have. So there she is; she’s running hours and hours. She has a daughter. She is a full-time nanny, and she has a hot husband. How do you manage all of this, and how do they support you?
PS: Starting with my daughter when I started ultrarunning, she was a teenager. She was finishing high school, then she went away to college, so that was not really a problem. Will is a former bodybuilder and an exercise physiologist. He spends as many hours at the gym lifting as I am outside running.
HY: Oh, that’s very convenient.
PS: Right. So he does one and a half hours in the morning and one and a half hours in the afternoon. We each have our passion, which I would advise for anybody who wants to keep up with what they like. It works. As a full-time nanny, I just work around it. It was early in the morning, so I was up at 4:00. I met a group at 5:30 AM on Thursday and ran for 10 miles with them. I do it on my own as well. Pretty much every morning around 5:00 or 5:30, I’m out the door and do that. If I don’t have time in the morning, then I’ll split it into two separate runs so I get all the miles run that day but don’t feel rushed in the morning.
HY: That’s one of the questions I sometimes get, too. If you run long distances, is it okay to split it?
PS: Absolutely, yes. I would advise even sometimes, it’s better than trying to squeeze 10 miles and risking injuries. When I’m training for ultras, which is very different than training for a marathon, the pace is much slower. You don’t want to rush it, and if you cannot run 10 miles that morning, then six in the morning and four in the afternoon, and sometimes you can go beyond, which can happen. You end up having more than you had planned. So splitting is okay.
HY: What is your personal biggest challenge while running long distances? What is it that you have to do to get better at, or to learn better, to do more?
PS: Oh. Nutrition is a big thing. Hydration as well. I’m not a big eater, to begin with, but I try to be better at it. I’m working on it, and it’s not easy, but I was told by you, my great advisor, that the more you eat, the more energy you have. Multiple times I encounter runners in those long races, especially young women, who are on the course of finishing under 24 hours, which is huge in an ultra.
HY: Wow. And that was a 100-miler, right?
PS: It was a 100 miler. Because she didn’t eat properly, she got sick and couldn’t keep anything down, and she had to quit at mile 80 or 85. So it’s very important to eat properly to keep your energy up because you will eventually hit the wall.
HY: That means you run out of glycogen.
PS: Then you need something to pick you up. Another thing that I like to do in an ultra is to drink a Coca-Cola. The full sugar one, no diet. I don’t drink it at all in my regular lifestyle, but it really hit me during those ultras. So that’s a must for me.
HY: Coca-Cola I found it too when it’s flat. There are no bubbles.
PS: Right. They leave it on the course in little tiny cups, and I just drink it.
HY: That sits well with my stomach too. Now you have some goals that are coming up. I’m so excited because I’m hoping that if we get to those goals, I can help you.
PS: You did promise me that if I get into Western State 100, you would be pacing me after mile 70.
HY: So I’ll be running next to her for 30 miles.
PS: Right. But to get to that part, I have to run a 100 miler that will qualify me to enter the lottery for Western State. I’ve done two of them. Unfortunately, I was not lucky and because last year I tried to finish the Massanutten Trail, Virginia 100 miler and I bonked completely at mile 54 and decided to quit. I’m back to square one. That’s not for this one. I’m going to sign up again for Massanutten Trail 100 in December. The race is in May. This time I will train properly. Meaning I will go to all the training races, which I did not do.
HY: Lesson learned.
PS: Lesson learned. Again enter for the Western State, crossing fingers, hoping. Then my biggest, biggest, biggest one is UTMB Ultra Montblanc in Europe. It starts in France. We go to Italy, Switzerland and back to France. This one, it’s really out there and you need to have points. Even when you apply all these points through the lottery in the likelihood. I’m hoping to get in before age 55.
HY: So Patricia hit her 5-0 not too long ago.
PS: 50, yes. Last month.
HY: She has so far not dealt with any hot flashes or any menopausal side effects, but that’s also a little tricky because, as endurance athletes, we oftentimes don’t notice when we’re changing, when you may have a hot flash because we’re running. We’re hot all the time. We’re sweaty all the time. We are often times fatigued from the races we do or the training.
PS: Right. So we don’t really associate both of them. But so far so good.
HY: Well, we’ll keep you posted on Patricia’s progress as she hopefully gets to the Western States or even Montblanc. But I want to finish today and ask you, I’m sure a question everybody wants to know. What would you tell other women who are considering getting into ultra training?
PS: Work for it. I really must say, it’s really a man’s world out there still. We’re very limited on women. I would say ten percent of the field is women, but be prepared and don’t be afraid. You have to put the work in. You need hours and hours on trails. And be prepared for anything – mud, crossing of any streams. Some days it will be fun. Some days you will hate it. But it’s okay. It’s okay to walk. It’s just another approach, and you’ll love it. It’s just a different training by far.
HY: Yeah. Being out in nature, on the trails. People are so super friendly I find. Everybody.
PS: Oh camaraderie that is so different than the road races.
HY: Yeah. It’s not about flashy clothes. It’s not about fancy shoes. It’s about hitting the trail, persevering, friendship, helping each other out.
PS: By far, everybody’s willing to give you the best advice. There’s competition. Don’t get me wrong. Competition is out there, but they are willing to give you advice just to help you to go further. So women, go out there.
HY: I agree. We need more women in ultra running. I can only wholeheartedly agree with everything you’ve said about the training and the nutrition, and it does take time. Women our age, and I’m 56, we’re changing things as we move along. Our lives are changing. I find the kids may have moved on, like in our case, and we have more time to do something new. It may not be an ultra, although we both encourage you to check it out.
PS: Yes.
HY: But we have an opportunity to do different things in our lives, to explore something that we may have just heard about. Whether it’s ultra running, skydiving, traveling the world, cooking a new meal, or learning a new skill.
PS: The sky’s the limit.
HY: So I want to thank Patricia for being here today. This was a lot of fun.
PS: It was. I loved it.
HY: So Patricia is also a certified running coach. I will leave her contact information in the show notes so you can contact her if you have any questions about ultrarunning or need ideas or advice. She knows her running inside and out, from a short distance to a long distance, and how to approach it with her loved ones in mind. So with that, we’re outta here.
Shoes Patricia swears by:
Asics Nimbus 18 shoes for road running
Cascadia Brooks for trails
Patricia’s top picks for clothes:
Nike, Asics, and Under Armor (short and singlet)
If you’re ready to take your fitness to the next level in midlife (it doesn’t have to be an ultra-marathon), then reach out to me so I can help.