Let’s start off 2025 with someone who had a breakout 2024, and like the final episode of last year with Mary Denholm, in which there is a lot of great information from which to learn. I met the impressive Kat Edwards while on a mountain-climbing adventure with Tyler Andrews’ Chaski Endurance Collective in Chile’s Atacama Desert. This was the now-25-year-old’s first trip outside of the U.S., and in fact, she had barely even left the Eastern time zone before. It was part of a year in which she not only got out of her comfort zone, but she walked right up to the ledge and jumped off. Kat grew up in an athletic family and was always very active herself, and dabbled in high school and college running, but didn’t take it seriously until 2021. Kat has always had a lot of drive, both for herself as well as for the athletes she coaches, so down in Chile she set FKTs for the ascent and roundtrip on Nevado San Francisco, the highest peak we climbed, which tops out at more than 6000 meters, or just under 20,000 feet. Without a ton of ultramarathon racing experience under her belt, Kat soon after experienced some hard lessons competing in the Petzl Trail Plus 80k in Ecuador that probably added to her arsenal when she won the Sedona Canyons 125 this past spring in 30:21:16. In October, she took third-place in her first 200-mile effort, the Moab 240, where she battled the heat, sleep deprivation, and very tough foot issues. In between, Kat married her long-time partner and fellow endurance junkie, Jason Anderson, who has now been enlisted as Kat’s forever crew leader. As young adventure-seekers without big endorsement dollars at this point, you’ll hear about how they engineered the logistics to get to Moab in the first place, which was not always assured, and how their strong faith in God helped them overcome the many obstacles it took for Kat to score such an incredible achievement. Kat also generously shares many of the techniques she has employed to see such amazing early success in her career, including her devotion to strength training. There’s lots to gain listening to this Kat chat. I think also that if you are a young, aspiring endurance athlete, you might do very well to connect with Kat as a coach at the Chaski Endurance Collective at chaski.run

Kat Edwards
katedwardspt.com
Instagram @kat.elizabeth_
For coaching inquiries: www.chaski.run

Bill Stahl
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