Katie Schide Pre-2024 UTMB Interview

Megan hick of I run far I'm with Katie Shide it's a couple days before the 2024 UTMB um here we find ourselves again Katie how are you I'm doing well yeah happy to be back well we've been here a bit but it's always nice to be back yeah um were you or weren't you a surprise starting entrance on this entrance list as of late or is this something that you've been planning but we didn't know about um it wasn't too much of a surprise we were required to register in January and I registered um but I did take the runner's Insurance okay um just in case it canel that's how like kind of I wasn't sure I wanted to wait until after Western States and and just put everything on Western States and then decide after if I had the motivation mentally if it made sense if I felt okay um if I really wanted to do it so uh I I guess it's a semi surprise yeah yeah a planned unplanned plan yeah exactly um so it it has been close to seven weeks since we saw you on a hot afternoon at the finish line of Western States talk us through what these weeks have looked like I think you have traveled a lot you've rested a lot and you've trained a bit yeah I haven't traveled too much I went home I came back to to the south of France uh like two days after the race after Western States and then um spent three weeks at home um in the South and then we came up here the end of July um so yeah we've been here for just over a month now um and that was always the plan um because yeah Jal was my partner Jal was always sure to do ucmb so it was always the plan to come and okay yeah whether you were going to do a long race a medium race or not a r no race or yeah so um yeah straight home after West States a little bit of time at home and then now you've become a shaman Valley local yeah almost well we were staying uh at the end of the valley a bit removed but yeah no we we came in a lot to enjoy the the food and coffee and see a few people and how about the sort of the recovery and conversion of the body and mind from All Things Western States now to All Things UTMB how's that been for you yeah it's been really cool actually because I I was really I mean I had a lot of fun taking on this challenge of Western States but it just felt so nice to come back and be in the places that I prefer a little bit more and um yeah get the poles out wear a real backpack again uh it kind of just felt like starting a new sport uh um and I was lucky to not have any like big injuries or anything uh coming out of Western States um so that made it like relatively smooth I guess uh I think last year I played it pretty safe everyone told me don't do UTM after Western States and I listened and I did OCC and really enjoyed that um and it turned out well for you yeah it was great and I'm really happy I did that and this year I knew more or less like how it feels to do Western States how it feels to train for it how it feels to come back um so I just had a bit more experience with how everything felt yeah um and yeah so you I think you sort of mentioned the mind there like you felt like the difference between the sport of Western States running and the sport of UTMB running was enough of a transition that this feels fresh to you yeah yeah it does feel pretty fresh especially because I took a year off UTMB and I I've already done three UT MBS so taking the year off kind of gave me the chance to miss it a little bit um and it also made me feel like it's not something I have to do not that I ever really felt that but I sort of put it on myself that it was my biggest focus of the whole year which it is I would say I mean basically everyone on the start line I'm in kind of a unique position that I did already um finish the race that was really my focus 100% well finish and do really good at you yeah and that's a bonus for sure um and now I'm just yeah I'm super happy to be here knowing that I I yeah just like having the paast to look back on and just see like what western states training can bring me towards this race yeah I really enjoyed a social media post you said the other day about how um you have a new confidence about the parts of this course that you were less confident about in the past the more runnable stuff courtesy of a couple years of focused time on Western States um yeah just talk about that for a second yeah it's the thing that always I think it scares most of most of the French Trail Runners is the the fast or like the fastpac of of Western States how much do you have to run um yeah you're really running almost the entire race and that's pretty rare in Europe to find a race uh so long that's like that uh so it's something that also scared me because it's yeah it's more how I came into the sport was not from a traditional High School cross country running or high school college cross country track background um but more from the side of hiking and yeah so I feel like I really focused on my weaknesses for for for 2 years now and yeah I might miss some of that specificity that I had coming to the race in the past but yeah I'm just interested to see like where that puts me um interesting for me is that somebody like you who's already had like a career defining performance or like kind of all you could ask for at a previous UTMB before but you're back you know for either more better different something something along those lines just looking back at your prior UTMB experiences like what do you take from those that you're like oh I want to just press repeat and do something I did really well again or something like hm let's try that different yeah um I've had some complicated moments on this course and some great ones such a European way to say that yeah I'm picking up the French English um yeah I know I've had some pretty bad bad moments on on this race course but I think that's also what always made me the most proud at the end was like just continuing even when things were really bad uh and it's something that helped me a lot in 2022 was just being at these points where I felt good and saying oh wow like I feel so much better than the last two times I was here and it's something when I did have a pretty low moment in 20122 that got me through it because I was like hey I felt this bad for like 100k in the past and I made it so I can feel like this for for an hour or two um but yeah no this year I think the thing that's really motivating me is it's something that ultimately made me the most interested to do it again was just the female start list is looking so good and so good I really want to be be here for it uh we had such a great um yeah just such a great group of women at Western States and we saw what that brought to all of us Y and I want to be part of yeah this this group of women I think it's going to be it's going to be similar to western states with just the whole you know top 10 the whole top group of women is just really going to bring those times down um not that the course is ever exactly the same uh there are lots of little changes but in general um yeah I think it's going to be a really fast seeing the times get yeah just objectively faster and faster yeah and not just for the first one or two but for everybody yeah yeah for me that it comes to the women's competition that's the new Dynamic that all of you are playing with in these races is that there's really no room for much more than a little blip or a little problem like if you drop you know quite a ways back you know say 5 years ago in Ultras you could still make your way forward like through the pack I think that those days may have come and gone for women's like ultra running at a race like this yeah we're still not quite unfortunately don't have quite the density to be like the men quite yet but um soon it's coming and yeah it's it's exciting to see that it it makes us all bring our performances to a new level knowing we don't have this space to to mess up too much yeah um it's an interesting race you had a funny social media post the other day about like oh we're going to go around the mountain and do all these climbs and descents and never Summit anything um however it's a it's an extraordinary course in just so many different ways you know it well you've run it a couple times you've trained on it are there like certain yeah just like landscape aspects or geography aspects that you're thinking like I can't wait to do that again you know I don't run at night in training um very often like pretty rarely uh that's always something that's the biggest you you're yeah you it's pretty rare in training you would go out and be and run for the entire night um for that long and so that's always the sort of cool part where you're like wow we're out here and you see the everyone says you see the line of headlamps it's it's really those are special moments um other than that I know the Landscapes pretty well at this point so it's not usually new but yeah sometime I do try to like take a moment to look up and just be like wow this is this is really beautiful um unfortunately some of the best parts will hopefully be at night for me fingers crossed they happen in the night time yeah and missing uh tetto Von the last two years has been unfortunate CU that's also pretty great spot but we'll be in the trees this year yeah just like brief glances of the terrain as you're climbing it's funny to hear you also mention the night as being one of your favorites it seems like that's just a favorite of everybody um I'm I wouldn't I would say it's my favorite thing it's sort of the thing that makes ultra running more special to me than just going out for a long run cuz I wouldn't normally choose to do that it's also kind of like different here because you simultaneously do the night during the more remote part of the course too so it's like you have this really wild and crazy evening for 40K and then you go to dark in relative like Trail emptiness and Then daytime comes again it's wild and crazy all day long it's just I don't know that that interplay of day and night and like people and not people is just interesting yeah the course I mean the yeah the race for me is really those sections between contamine and Cor and then cor May and champe luck it's completely different than when you see your crew every couple hours at the end so yeah it's a lot of things to manage and always stressful when you're going through your plan at the last minute trying to put the right things um and never really knowing how it's going to turn out yeah well I I have a feeling it's going to turn out just okay for you or better than okay let's say best of luck to you on your what is this your fourth lap my fourth UTMB yeah best of luck thank you