Distance To Empty

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Meet the Mammoths — Bailey Gripshover: The ICU, the PCT, and the Potato Lifestyle
Today's guest spends her working life in a cardiothoracic ICU in Seattle, with patients having the worst days of their lives. When she's not there, she's choosing to suffer on trails — a contrast she says keeps everything in perspective when a race doesn't go the way she hoped.
Bailey Gripshover finished top 10 in her 200-mile debut at Cocodona 250 this past May, and held the lead in the inaugural MBA at Mingus for a while after sinking a shot she fully expected to miss. This October she's back for a second crack at the distance at Mammoth.
We talk about what it's like running these races with a medical background: knowing when to pull the plug on an Arizona Trail FKT attempt because of a swollen Achilles, and also completely botching her own electrolytes at Javelina despite managing electrolyte imbalances at work every single day. She also makes a strong case for being the best-prepared person in the field on sleep — 12-to-14-hour ICU shifts, flip-flopping between days and nights, operating at a high level while exhausted because there isn't another option.
Plus: how hiking the PCT in 2019 introduced her to the idea that people race these distances at all, why the Eastern Sierra is family terrain (her grandpa did the JMT, and she summited Whitney with her mom and sister for her mom's 60th), and her Mammoth 200 video game result — currently second on our leaderboard at 68 hours, after a first attempt where she DNF'd because her feet disintegrated on the pumice. She is now, genuinely, reconsidering gaiters.
In this episode:
Perspective from the ICU, and why it's "just running"
When medical knowledge helps, and when it doesn't
Shift work as accidental sleep-deprivation training
Four hours of sleep and almost no hallucinations at Cocodona
A virtual DNF by foot destruction, and a potential gaiter conversion
Making a basket at Mingus and riding the high
Her prediction: this will have the best aid station food in ultrarunning
Peter's preferred potato orientation
Mammoth 200 kicks off Friday, October 2nd in Mammoth Lakes, California. Catch live coverage on the Mountain Outpost YouTube channel, and follow @Mammoth200 for updates and tracking throughout the race.

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Kevin and Peter break down the 2026 Mammoth 200 course, just days before race weekend. Kevin ran the race last year and shares his memories of each section, while Peter, who hasn't run it, serves as emotional support co-host. They cover what's changed for 2026 and go through the course section by section, with difficulty ratings, crew tips, and where things get tough.
What's new in 2026
Start time is 9 AM, an hour later than last year, and the race is a week later in the calendar
The course is now billed at 218 miles (up from 214), and the cutoff has been extended to 109 hours
GU Energy Labs replaces Never Second as the nutrition sponsor, and all aid stations are cupless
Duck Pass (mile 17) is now water only
The first crew-accessible stop is now CRC at mile 24, about 8 miles sooner than last year's Sherwin Creek
The longest gap between aid stations is now 15.4 miles (CRC to Convict Lake)
Crowley Lake has moved to the ball field
Green Church is now Watterson Summit
Lee Vining has moved to Gus Hess Community Park, with an outdoor sleep station
Runners now pass under Highway 395 at the Rush Creek Overpass instead of crossing with a crossing guard
Walker Lake is now a full aid station
There's a new water drop at the bottom of the Parker Bench descent
June Lake Junction replaces Obsidian Dome, and Upper Deadman (Glass Creek) replaces Inyo Craters
The indoor Main Lodge aid station (mile 207) replaces Minaret Vista, followed by a steeper, shorter climb to the summit
The course by the numbers
218 miles, roughly 31,000 feet of gain and loss
High point of 11,053 feet, with an average elevation around 8,000 feet
A loop around a caldera roughly 760,000 years old
Section-by-section highlights
Village to CRC: the Dragon's Back descent is the most technical part of the course
CRC to Crowley Lake: a hot valley-floor gravel road, then the Convict Lake loop at sunset
Crowley Lake to Watterson Summit: sandy, punchy double track and the Lion's Den tunnel
Watterson to Sawmill to Taylor Canyon: some of the hardest miles on the course, with pumice, exposure, and a non-crew aid station
Taylor Canyon to Crater Mountain: fast, runnable double track through Jeffrey pine forest
Crater Mountain to Lee Vining: moonscape views, a long descent, and one easy-to-miss turn
Lee Vining to Upper Deadman: Parker Bench, an overgrown descent, and a steep climb out of June Lake
The final push: Main Lodge, the summit, and a 3,000-foot descent to the village
Kevin and Peter also share crew logistics, including a reminder to double-check driving directions to Watterson Summit and Crooked Meadows, since Google Maps often gets them wrong. They wrap up with advice for the weekend: be ready for anything the Sierra weather throws at you, and keep troubleshooting.
Important: Always verify details against the current official race and course manual, since changes often happen after recording.
Also mentioned
The Canal Corridor Hundred on October 10, where Kevin and Peter are running
The free Oregon Trail-style Mammoth video game (link in show notes)
The Meet the Mammoth series and last year's course preview with Hillary
Sponsors
Janji: Order, choose "podcast" then "Distance to Empty" on the post-purchase survey, and send us a screenshot for free Distance to Empty swag.
Mount to Coast: Use code DISTANCE for 10% off.
Support the show: Check out our Patreon for coaching options (first link in the show notes).

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Play The Mammoth 200⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Video Game!

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Meet the Mammoths — Amber Weibel: Second Place, and Back for More
Amber ran her first official 200-mile race last year at Mammoth and finished in 55 hours and 40 minutes, second place female. She holds fastest known times on both the Tahoe Rim Trail and the John Muir Trail. And with one week to go until the 2026 race, she's back.
Amber Weibel joins us to talk about picking Mammoth because it let her kids finish out their school week before driving down to crew — a genuinely practical reason that says a lot about where she is in her life right now. She describes what a race feels like after years of unsupported FKTs, where nobody is waiting at the next aid station and the energy bump of seeing family simply doesn't exist. Mammoth, she says, was strangely hard, and her husband had never seen her in a low quite like the one she hit on night two.
We get into the question that's been nagging at us since we researched this episode: she's run the Tahoe Rim Trail both supported and unsupported, and the crewed version was only 22 minutes faster. Her answer is about what a level playing field actually looks like, and why she'd rather be in the wilderness on her own.
She also explains the lie she told herself all the way around the Mammoth course last year, her path from cyclist to Ultraman world champion to trail running, why she'll happily spend four minutes changing shoes to avoid blisters, and her Mammoth 200 video game result — which she'll admit came after a first attempt she describes as embarrassingly slow.
In this episode:
Picking a race that fits around an 8- and 9-year-old's school week
Unsupported FKTs versus a supported 200, and what changes
Twenty-two minutes: what a crew is actually for
The lie she kept telling herself at Mammoth last year
Four pairs of shoes, zero blisters
A 105-hour first attempt at the video game, and a much better second
Her non-placement goal: showing her kids what working through hard things looks like
A weather prediction from someone who got caught in lightning on the second summit
Mammoth 200 kicks off Friday, October 2nd in Mammoth Lakes, California. Catch live coverage on the Mountain Outpost YouTube channel, and follow @Mammoth200 for updates and tracking throughout the race.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Play The Mammoth 200⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Video Game!

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Meet the Mammoths — Gabe Joyes: 200-Mile Curious, Properly Intimidated
Today's guest has raced almost everything this sport has to offer. Gabe Joyes has been top 10 at Hardrock, runner-up at HURT 100 this past January, and finished the Dragon's Back Race, the 240-mile stage race across Wales. He's a coach at Uphill Athlete and a race director himself. What he's never done is a continuous, single-push 200 — until this October.
Gabe joins us to explain why he's been "200-mile curious" for years but properly intimidated, and why the Mammoth course was the one that finally got him to sign up. He also has a compelling theory about what these races actually are: not eating competitions, but problem-solving competitions, where the plan holds for some unknown number of hours and everything after that is jazz.
We also get into something few runners have had to reckon with. A few years ago Gabe fell on his trekking pole while running downhill fast, nearly bled to death on the trail, and was helicoptered to a hospital. He talks openly about how long it took to move past that, why he still uses poles, and the one rule he's never broken since: he does not run downhill with them out. Ever.
Plus: sleep strategy after a 47-hour unsupported Wind River High Route push that went sideways past hour 40, a refreshingly honest answer about having six shoes still in contention a month out, and the single best homework excuse of the series — Gabe outsourced his Mammoth 200 video game playthrough to his 11- and 14-year-old kids, who ran five or six attempts, posted times between 88 and 96 hours, and logged exactly one DNF.
In this episode:
Why Mammoth was the course worth breaking the 200 seal for
Plans, chaos, and treating a race as a problem-solving competition
The trekking pole accident, and how he uses poles now
Caffeine, hallucinations, and what happens past hour 40
Six shoes, one month out, zero decisions made
Homework delegated to the kids (a 100% honest disclosure)
His non-placement goal: making sure his crew has a good time
A prediction about the stories that'll come out of race weekend
Mammoth 200 kicks off Friday, October 2nd in Mammoth Lakes, California. Catch live coverage on the Mountain Outpost YouTube channel, and follow @Mammoth200 for updates and tracking throughout the race.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Play The Mammoth 200⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Video Game!

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Meet the Mammoths — Jake Jackson: Round Two
Today's guest is no stranger to this distance. Jake Jackson finished the inaugural Mammoth 200 last September, has run Cocodona more than once, and is a husband, a father of three, and a UPS driver — who is, for the record, recording this episode from his truck on his lunch break.
Jake joins us to talk about what it's like standing on that start line the second time, knowing exactly what the course is going to do to you. He also had a front-row seat to one of Kevin's worst falls in ultrarunning, around mile 11 coming off Mammoth Mountain, and describes watching the whole thing unfold in slow motion.
He's honest about last year: stomach issues on night one that wrecked his nutrition plan, running the whole thing solo without crew or pacers, and seeing Mono Lake and Obsidian Dome entirely in the dark. He finished — but says he's yet to complete a 200 and feel like he actually nailed it, rather than dragging a dead body across the line. This year he's going solo again, and the goal is to finish feeling accomplished instead of just finished.
Plus, the best homework story of the series: Jake emailed his game result at 3:52pm, then emailed better game results four hours later after knocking it down to sub-70 — and admits it was eating at him at work all afternoon. He also discovered that running as an influencer is faster than running as an elite athlete, mostly because he refused to stop for photos.
In this episode:
Knowing too much versus knowing nothing on a start line
Kevin's slow-motion fall on the Dragon's Back descent
Night one stomach problems and a solo race in the dark
Why he's never finished a 200 feeling like he got it right
A training block he's honest about, and why that might be a good sign
Three game attempts, two emails, and a sub-70 finish
H1s last year, M1s this year
A prediction squarely aimed at aid station food
Mammoth 200 kicks off Friday, October 2nd in Mammoth Lakes, California. Catch live coverage on the Mountain Outpost YouTube channel, and follow @Mammoth200 for updates and tracking throughout the race.