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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?

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⁠⁠https://janji.com/pages/distance-to-empty⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and be sure to select 'podcast' > 'Distance to Empty' on the post purchase "How did you hear about Janji" page. Thank you!

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Trish Corbett came to Cocodona 250 in 2026 with unfinished business. After a DNF in 2022 the Flagstaff-based nurse spent four years watching the race from the sidelines before finally lining up again for redemption.

She got more than she bargained for.

At mile 109, descending Mingus Mountain in the dead of night, Trish fell and dislocated multiple fingers on her left hand — also sustaining an avulsion fracture where bone separated from the joint. Rather than quit, she improvised a splint from a race flag, found KT tape from fellow runners, hiked 15 miles to Jerome, and talked an ER doctor into reducing the dislocations without systemic pain meds so she could return to the course. Four hours later, she was back running — without poles, with a hand swollen to twice its size, still ahead of her husband's finishing time.

Before all that chaos unfolded, Trish had already made her mark at the Mingus Basketball Association — Kevin and Peter's mid-race shooting contest — draining two corner threes at 107 miles in, in the dark, wearing her pack, to win the women's division and take home a prize pack including a John G gift card, Ultraspire gear, Bollé sunglasses, and Mount to Coast shoes.

In this conversation, Trish talks about nursing as the reason she started running, the emotional weight of returning to a race after a DNF, how her medical background helped her triage herself mid-race, what it felt like to want to quit on the Hangover Trail, why a missing slice of cheese nearly broke her, and what David Goggins' "never volunteer to quit" mantra meant to her in the hardest moments. Plus: her coach Kaleb Stevens' reaction, her husband's very colorful response to a photo of her hand, and what that finish line buckle means now compared to what it would have meant on a clean run.

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⁠https://janji.com/pages/distance-to-empty⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and be sure to select 'podcast' > 'Distance to Empty' on the post purchase "How did you hear about Janji" page. Thank you!

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Zach Hauer joins Kevin Goldberg fresh off his first-ever 200+ mile race — the Cocodona 250 — where he finished in 69 hours after spending much of the race in podium contention. A former University of Arizona track and cross country runner turned competitive ultrarunner, Zach brings a unique perspective to the 250-mile distance, drawing on experience from UTMB's CCC and golden ticket races that set him apart from much of the field.

In this episode, Zach breaks down the full arc of his race: the unexpected mental fog of running in a lead pack, a costly navigation blunder through the Fain Ranch section, a "hero dose" creatine experiment that left him feeling like he was having an out-of-body experience, and a deeply emotional low on the climb to Schnebly Hill that had him questioning everything — followed by one of his strongest sections of the race. He also reflects on sleep strategy (or lack thereof), the difference between giving up and quitting, and what it means to voluntarily choose suffering in a sport where so many face it without a choice.

We also get his inside look at how Cody Poskin, Joe McConaughy, and Courtney Dauwalter race these things, a quick breakdown of his training approach and what he'd do differently, and why he'd come back and do it all over again.

Plus: basketball at mile 107, OpenFuel's mission to reduce plastic waste in the sport, and the manifesting of future MBA podiums.