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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I thought it would be good to end the year with someone who had a mind-blowing 2024. Mary Denholm finished it off at the JFK 50-miler, where she was the second female with a time of 6:04:15, which was faster than the previous course record. Her summer in Leadville really stood out. She won the very difficult marathon under four hours. Due to the schedule shift this year, the Silver Rush 50-Mile was just one week later, but Mary breezed to a 28-minute victory, good for fourth overall. She capped the summer off by winning the Leadville Trail 100 by three hours, which was ninth overall. Her time of 18:23:51 was second-fastest in history, only 16 minutes behind legendary Ann Trason. In this very informative episode, hear the mechanics of how Mary pulled off this impressive year. She also shares very essential keys to her overall success, including how she executes her high-caloric, mostly plant-based diet, has added strength training, and how she has preserved having a menstrual cycle. There is a treasure trove of great knowledge in here. Finally, Mary shares a fantastic account of her JFK 50, which featured an inspiring comeback from a very bad place she was in during the race, stayed calm, turned it around, and closed with a 6:00 mile. A lot to learn there. Mary has some big plans for the upcoming year that will be sure to further fire you up for your own epic goals for 2025.

Mary Denholm
Instagram @eatrunandbemary
Strava

Bill Stahl
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It’s time for our annual tradition started by David of Sober F*cking Christmas.  As you may know, in his book Out There, David describes how on one Christmas Eve, on one of his usual stumbling drunk days before he got sober, he was attempting to wrap his kids’ Christmas gifts, but was so hammered that all he could do was crumple newspaper around them and bind it up with duct tape before passing out.  Christmas morning, the kids opened the embarrassing messes while he nursed his hangover. That would be the proverbial rock-bottom that caused him to finally pull out of the abyss of addiction he had been in to eventually become the motivational wonder that he became. So this episode has become a staple that always rates among the most-downloaded episodes year-in and year-out.

As we wind down 2024, thanks again to all of you for listening to the WASP.  Please make sure you subscribe so you can load all new episodes onto your phone.  If you enjoyed the podcast, the best thing you can do is share it with your friends or on social media, and please do me a favor and take 60 seconds and give us a five-star rating on whatever platform on which you listen to us.  I would also be humbly honored if you would write a review as well.  These five-star ratings and reviews really do help!  Again, Happy Holidays and Sober F*cking Christmas to you.  Until next time, always be positive!

Gary Stotler
garystotler.com
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Instagram @_garystotler_
Find his latest book, "Success is Spelled Action" on Amazon

Chad Prichard
Instagram @rn_leadman_chad

Ed Barnette
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Instagram @ed.barnette

Bill Stahl
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Meghan Hunter was an eight-time state track champion in Utah at Provo High School, including 2018 when she swept titles in the 100, 200, 400, and 800 meters, an almost-unheard-of spread of talent. Her impressive times included a blazing state record of 52.59 seconds in the 400. She earned herself a berth on the U.S. Youth Olympics team and got to compete in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her natural progression took her to her dream of competing collegiately at BYU. Then on July 4, 2019, she and her brother Morgan were on the way to volunteer at a race when Morgan swerved to avoid hitting a deer on the road, and rolled their car five times. Meghan broke the C3, C4, and C5 vertebrae in her neck and doctors told her that she would probably never again run at the same level she had. Naturally, Meghan wasn’t satisfied with that answer, and began the arduous process to get back to running and competing at a high level. Nineteen months later, Meghan was back with her BYU teammates, but still had to confront another nemesis caused by the crash, PTSD. It’s something she still continuously has to work through, but by this year, the results have been coming around. She was third in the 800 meters in the NCAA indoor championships, got her time down to 2:00.75 at the Portland Track Festival, and got to compete at the Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon. She was named a finalist for the Honda Inspiration Award, and has just signed an NIL deal with Nike. Quite the whirlwind of a year! What I love about Meghan and her story is her relentless positivity in the face of these struggles. Even in her neck brace in the hospital with her family, she was sporting a huge smile. At the same time, she graduated from BYU with a degree in communications disorders, and is aiming to work in the field of speech, language, and pathology. How cool is that? I hope you enjoy this chat with this delightful young woman with an inspiring story and become a fan of hers like I am as she ascends a very promising ladder in the track world.

Meghan Hunter
Instagram @meghan_annne

Bill Stahl
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I have one more great guest with an awesome story who ran the American Heroes Run this year. James Gaa completed 36 laps, or about 37 miles, of the 9 hour and 11 minute run. Pretty darn good for a guy who only began running a little more than a year prior. James had been primarily spending his time in the weight room before deciding to start to run in 2023, and has done so every day since. It’s launched him on a journey to help him overcome the traumas of an abusive childhood and the drug-related death of his mother. His first goal was to run a marathon. Check. Then an ultramarathon. Check. Both of which almost didn’t happen after a heavy table base fell on his head in a warehouse at his job. James has a very well-developed perspective on how all of these events have shaped his life as well as on his journey to discover how far he can test himself, so I think you’ll gain a lot listening to this chat. I really enjoyed learning a bit about his story at the AHR, and a lot of it more here. I’m excited to see how far James will venture on this personal adventure.

James Gaa
@jamesgaa
MapMyRun James Gaa

Bill Stahl
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Just in time for Thanksgiving and the holidays, I am very excited to bring you this chat with Leah Garcés, the CEO of Mercy for Animals, which is promoting a campaign to Pardon a Turkey. The idea is to celebrate the holidays in a kinder way by sparing the life of a beautiful, intelligent animal, and instead substituting other delicious and healthy dishes. Tens of millions of turkeys are artificially gorged to an insane weight and then killed each year for Thanksgiving alone. To help the meal preparers in your family, Mercy for Animals has created an impressive downloadable cookbook that has easy-to-follow directions and videos for a dozen very tasty-sounding recipes for vegan apple-cranberry stuffing, vegan mashed potatoes, vegan sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, and a crispy vegan turkey roast. Yum! The cookbook is totally free on their website, mercyforanimals.com Mercy for Animals has been at the forefront of trying to create a more humane world that ensures the health of everyone on the planet by specifically trying to move us away from factory farming, which not only perpetuates shocking, cruel methods, but endangers our health in many ways, whether through the pollution it causes to deadly outbreaks of e.coli, salmonella, etc. It is also an enormously inefficient use of the Earth’s rapidly shrinking arable land that needs to feed an ever-growing population. One particularly innovative program is called Transfarmation, that is helping chicken farmers that are caught up in the grind of subservience to massive conglomerates to convert their farms to growing plants and thus achieving a better balance in their lives, and get this, more profitability. Don’t be turned away from this episode if you are a dedicated meat eater, which is fine. Leah does a fantastic job of educating and making it easy to make a small difference in the world. Did you know that Americans on average eat 30 animals a year?  Even one meatless day a week can spare several animals from the torture of factory farming, and you know what? You will be healthier, too, which is a nice benefit. So enjoy this lively chat, and Pardon a Turkey this holidays!

Leah Garcés
MercyForAnimals.org
[email protected]
Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn  Mercy For Animals
Threads and YouTube @mercyforanimals
TikTok mercyforanimals_us

Bill Stahl
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Despite the beginning of more focus now on mental health, especially after the well-publicized battles that were brought forward by gymnast Simone Biles and tennis player Naomi Osaka, there is still a stigma for men to seek assistance, unless you count the omnipresent TV commercials by the affable, mustachioed Dr. Rich Mahogany for mantherapy.org Soleiman Bolour has tapped into his own journey to assist men in their personal growth to find greater clarity, confidence, and intention. Whether the individual is in addiction recovery, dealing with unresolved trauma, or just trying to identify a focused sense of purpose, Soleiman mentors men and guides their journeys by tapping into his studies in psychology, tantra, tao, NLP (neuro linguistic programming), and much more. He both does one-on-one coaching as well as leads groups, where they explore, among other things, how to balance productivity vs. mindfulness. The basic elements that they build upon include 1. Building a foundation, 2. Creating a vision, 3. Identifying what needs to change, and 4. Execution. I see some real opportunities here for men if you are dealing with being unable to set boundaries, holding yourself back because you are always trying to please other people, and those who want to improve their relationships to thus unlock the doors to personal growth. Soleiman can explain all of this a lot better than I can, so I think you’ll get a lot out of this chat, as well as checking out the blogs and other information on his website, soleimanb.com, and perhaps engaging with him either one-on-one or in his men’s groups. By the way, he limits the size of each one to 12 men, so you develop a more focused relationship with others who have a common purpose.

Soleiman Bolour
www.soleimanb.com
[email protected]
Facebook and LinkedIn Soleiman Bolour
Instagram and YouTube @soleimanbolour
Tik Tok soleimanb

Bill Stahl
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I met Chaiwen Chou on the trip I took in March to the Atacama Desert of Chile that was led by Tyler Andrews of Chaski Endurance Collective. Two things immediately stood out about Chaiwen: one was her gorgeous purple hair, and the second was the boot on her foot. As you know, this was no tourist cruise, we were going to be climbing several very tall summits, the highest at almost 20,000 feet, on steep, loose terrain. You see, Chaiwen had broken her ankle a few weeks before the trip, and her doctor and physical therapist told her that the trip was out of the question. Undeterred, she came on the trip, at first thinking she would just walk around the beautiful landscape while the rest of us took on epic challenges. That thinking didn’t last long. Chaiwen not only conquered all of the climbs in her boot, but she crushed them! Despite those achievements, when she got home to NYC, those professionals still told her no running for several more weeks. Which was a problem because this veteran of epic races like the Formosa Trail 104k in Taiwan and the Tahoe 200 was registered for her dream race, the UTMB, in August. Chaiwen talks here about her long injury recovery, her crash training regimen which totally blows me away, and her experience running in the “Super Bowl” of 100-mile races. So, so impressive! She is tremendously fun, so I think you’ll get a kick out of this chat as much as I did.

Chaiwen Chou
Instagram @aehrwyn

Bill Stahl
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Our guest today is a local running and coaching legend here in Colorado who is also well-known worldwide. Junko Kazukawa came late into the running world, but has been a prolific endurance athlete, while exuding tons of positive energy. This year alone she completed the Leadwoman challenge – all of the Leadville running and biking races – which included her 10th LT100 run finish, then finished the very difficult Tor des Géants 200-miler in Italy, ran rim-to-rim-to-rim in the Grand Canyon, and currently has the NYC Marathon on-deck. In 2015, she became the first person to complete Leadwoman plus the 100-miler Grand Slam – Western States, Leadville, Vermont, and Wasatch – all in the same year. She did this on the heels of a second breast cancer diagnosis. This has given her the wonderful perspective of if there is something you want to do, don’t wait, just do it, you never know what will happen tomorrow. And then her philosophy that cancer takes away a lot, but it gives you so much more. Junko also talks here about the interesting topic of how suffering through a tough ultramarathon makes her feel more alive. Her infectious positive energy has created a huge following for her both at her races and in her coaching, and Junko Mountain Training is not only the training regimen for many of her athletes, but has become an Internet sensation, too. Junko with her running and coaching has also generously supported the Susan B. Komen Foundation, the Leadville Legacy Foundation, and several individuals battling cancer themselves. I know you’ll enjoy this chat with this relentlessly energetic and positive dynamo.

Junko Kazukawa
boundless.com
[email protected]
Instagram @runjunkorun

Bill Stahl
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We have had some uplifting performances by young runners in American Heroes Run. Last year, we had the formerly overweight high school freshman who completed the marathon. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago a freshman cross country runner named Bobby, who normally runs 5K, who completed 50K. And then we have 19-year-old Steven Sampson, who completed 35.7 miles in the 9 hour & 11 minute run. One thing that sets Steven apart is that he considers himself a hybrid athlete because he devotes probably more of his time to weightlifting and bodybuilding than he does running. Some of his inspiration comes from the likes of David Goggins and many notable competitive bodybuilders. So like the young marathoner last year, it was cool to see a guy with a jacked body hammering out long distance miles. One of his drivers, too, has been overcoming surgery to remove a brain tumor, which has left him with screws in his skull and he also hopes doesn’t prevent him from someday becoming a Navy Seal. He’s a super nice young man who is passionate about his athletic pursuits, and is just getting started in finding where these will take him, so I think you’ll enjoy our chat.

Steven Sampson
Instagram @camopants_steve

Bill Stahl
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