Performing with Death Cab for Cutie at the Brooklyn Paramount in New York City in 2025.<\/span> (Photo: Sacha Lecca\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nYou were already a famous musician when you started ultrarunning. Did any of the skills or habits from your musical career transfer?<\/strong><\/p>\nI don\u2019t know who first said this, but I heard my friend Britt Daniel from Spoon once say, \u201cinspiration likes to find you hard at work.\u201d I spent a month or two writing for our [2005] record Plans<\/em>. I had been writing without getting anything that I was really proud of or that I felt was up to snuff for the record. [And I was] starting to get really discouraged and having all of those dire thoughts that creative people have, like, \u201cMaybe I\u2019m done.\u201d The next day, I just walked into my studio and wrote, \u201cI Will Follow You into the Dark\u201d in like 15 minutes. And I say that not as a flex to be like, \u201clook at how great I am, that I wrote this song that is our most popular song so quickly.\u201d No. It took months of failure to get to that 15 minutes.<\/p>\nAnd that\u2019s a principle that I\u2019ve certainly followed as a creative person, but also something that I\u2019ve really leaned into as an athlete. When I finished my first 100-miler ten years ago, I had a friend write a blog post about it, and I took mild offense at how she chose to start it, which was \u201cBen is my friend for whom everything is easy.\u201d I was like, \u201cNo, this is not easy for me. I\u2019ve just put the time into it.\u201d And when you put time into something, when you spend so many hours honing a craft, the hope is that you will make it look easy.<\/p>\n
Is there anyone from your world that you\u2019ve looked up to as a role model, combining music and athletics, like you do?<\/strong><\/p>\nAs a Gen Xer, we were kind of taught erroneously that we had to keep certain things separate and that you had to choose an identity and be [only] that. You had to be a jock or a punk or a metalhead, or a nerd, or whatever. You weren\u2019t allowed to cross-pollinate. I think one of the places in which it seemed that was drummed into my head\u2014and I\u2019m not even sure how or why\u2014was that being an athlete and being an artist were not two tastes that went great together. Off the top of my head, there wasn\u2019t another musician or artist, other than Haruki Murakami, who really opened me up to that. And so I\u2019ve been kind of just charting my own course.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your training regimen like? Do you have daily or weekly mileage goals?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nI\u2019ve been working with my running coach [Gary Robbins] for some years, who\u2019s a longtime friend of mine and really accomplished. Years ago, when we started working together, he took me off of miles and put me on time. There\u2019s a school of thought, which I have come to be a firm proponent of, which is that your body doesn\u2019t register miles. It registers time. My training\u2014and my writing, too, for that matter\u2014has really been based on trusting the process.<\/p>\n
There are moments I think, \u201cI really should run more this week. I really feel like it would be helpful to me if I did another ten miles this week,\u201d like that\u2019s going to push me over the edge. That\u2019s going to give me the confidence. That\u2019s going to make me feel like I\u2019m building properly into this event that I want to do. [But] if Gary says, \u201cRun three hours,\u201d I run for three hours. I\u2019ve experienced the results of that meticulous training. And that\u2019s a similar process I take in writing.<\/p>\n(Photo: Ryan Thrower)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nDo you or your running coach track your physical data to plan your training?<\/strong><\/p>\nNot to my knowledge. I don\u2019t have any heart rate monitoring or anything like that. And to be honest, I\u2019m slow as fuck. One of the things I love about ultra is that I just go out, and the course dictates how fast I\u2019m going to go. If it\u2019s a really mountainous course [with] a lot of climbing, or if it\u2019s at altitude, or if it\u2019s hot that day, I\u2019m running to finish. I\u2019m running for the experience.<\/p>\n
I have some running goals as I get into my fifties. I would like to get at least one more sub-24 100-miler. I\u2019ve only done it once. I\u2019d like to do it again. I think it\u2019s possible. I know it\u2019s possible. One of the things I love about ultrarunning is I very rarely run the same race twice, so I don\u2019t have anything to compare it to, and therefore, I can\u2019t be disappointed if I don\u2019t do it as fast as I thought I could.<\/p>\n
How do you find the time for your running and your music?<\/strong><\/p>\nI think what\u2019s of paramount importance is to mention I live a very charmed life. I do not have the stressors that most people have in their lives. And I think that\u2019s really important for me to acknowledge. I don\u2019t commute to a job every day and sit in a chair for eight hours. I love children, but I don\u2019t have them. I don\u2019t have the economic insecurities that a lot of people have. So I think whenever we talk about this kind of stuff, like, how can this person take such great care of themselves? There\u2019s a reason they can take such great care of themselves.<\/p>\n
Last year, as a fundraiser for Protect Our Winters, you let people donate money and pick songs for your New York City Marathon playlist. Do you always run to music?<\/strong><\/p>\nI tend to do podcasts on long runs if I\u2019m by myself, or audiobooks. And usually that\u2019s some political stuff, you know, or baseball stuff. I usually try to start just rawdogging it when I\u2019m by myself up in the mountains, just to kind of be present. But there\u2019s inevitably a point in a training cycle [when] I\u2019ve just really got to listen to something. Nature being amazing just isn\u2019t doing it for me anymore, and then I listen to music.<\/p>\n
I do listen to music during races sometimes, but only as a treat. For example, at Western States last year, I rawdogged the whole thing until mile 50 or something like that. After I left Devil\u2019s Thumb [a 1,600-foot climb at mile 47], I was basically having an electrolyte or heatstroke kind of thing. I put in some music on the way back down to the river. I needed something to make me stop thinking about how bad I felt. And that just gave me this incredible boost.<\/p>\n
As you approach your fifties, what have you noticed about your body? Are there things you\u2019ve learned or ways you might treat yourself differently now than when you started ultras?<\/strong><\/p>\nYou know, I\u2019m very superstitious about talking about my health as a runner because whenever I say something optimistic, something bad happens. As soon as I express gratitude about something like that, the universe just has a way of teaching me a lesson. So, I\u2019m not going to comment on that right now because I\u2019m going to a race in like three days.<\/p>\n
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed. It\u00a0is from the Summer 2026 issue of Outside magazine. To receive the print magazine, become an Outside+ member here<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n
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