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Laura Rambikur didn't grow up an athlete. Told in middle school she wasn't good at sports, she chose the arts, became a musician, and didn't find running until her mid-thirties. This year, she crossed the finish line at Heritage Square as a Cocodona 250 finisher. 250 miles from Black Canyon City to Flagstaff, completed in 123 hours.

In this episode, Laura sits down with Kevin and Peter (Kevin also happens to be her coach) to unpack the journey from a four-year dream sparked on a couch watching the livestream to the start line of her first 200-plus-mile race. With a light ultra resume and a hard DNF at High Lonesome behind her, she put together a training block Kevin calls one of the most impressive he's ever seen.

But this conversation goes deeper than splits and cutoffs. As a clinical mental health therapist who has spent years working with trauma survivors, Laura brings a rare lens to suffering, resilience, and what it means to keep moving forward when you can no longer trust your own mind. We talk about going off course near Goldwater Lakes, the respiratory struggles that nearly ended her race on the Coconino Plateau, the brutality of the Mount Eldon descent at 5 a.m. on day six, and the family crew — her mom and sister — who carried her to the finish.

Along the way: why fear can be an asset instead of something to burn down, the power of accompaniment, cinnamon roll waffles at Jerome, and the case for trekking poles when you can't stop throwing up.

Oh, and Laura opens the episode with an AI roast that gets genuinely spicy. You've been warned.

Have you found your distance to empty?