Chasing the Sky: Emily Keddie’s Oregon Volcanic Skyline FKT

In episode #152 we talk with Emily Keddie, who recently set the supported FKT on the Oregon Volcanic Skyline Route, climbing 15 of Oregon’s tallest volcanoes:

  • Navigating the challenging 416-mile route, with more than 85,000 feet of vert in 12 days, 17 hours and 12 minutes. 
  • Trail running, climbing, logistics, and enduring through pain and injury
  • Strategies for nutrition and hydration on and off-trail

Emily Keddie is an ultra runner, mountain athlete and former Pacific Crest Trail thru hiker, who resides on the West Coast of the United States. She runs outside to explore mountains, volcanoes, trails, as well as to experience views, the freedom of exploration, and to build and lean into her strength, independence, self-sufficiency and empowerment. Having moved between road, trail and ultra racing throughout the years, she has varied her training to focus on speed, endurance or adventure running. Most recently, Emily completed the FKT of the Oregon Volcanic Skyline Route, adding to her more than 30 other FKTs set since 2020, mostly unsupported. In 2025, beyond her incredible FKT in Oregon, Emily also took 1st at the Transylvania 100k in Romania in 2025, as well as the Ancient Lakes Trail Run 50 Miler and Siuslaw Dunes 50k, and 2nd place at the Lake Sonoma 100 mile Sufferfest.

She loves to backpack, camp, cook, watch movies, read, rock climb, skydive, go bowling, and is always striving to balance family and adventure. Emily loves her work as a coach, supporting her athletes so they can enjoy their own success. Emily lives in Bend, Oregon, with her family and dog, Jolly. 

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TRANSCRIPT

Kyla Channell (00:01.154)
Hello everybody and welcome back to the Nutritional Revolution podcast. We have for you guys, Emily Keddie. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Emily (00:09.983)
Absolutely, thank you for having me. This is fun.

Kyla Channell (00:12.846)
I’m excited. Emily just finished up what she said she was checking her emails for the FKT page. So we’re waiting. Maybe we’ll know something by the end of this episode. But we will dive into all things the Oregon Volcanic Skyline FKT that you just completed. But before we do that, we’re going to jump into your two truths and a lie I’m going to have you break those down for me. You’re going to hear me clickety clack and then the type.

The keyboard in a second.

Emily (00:41.451)
Alright, two truths and a lie. I’ve had a little time to think about these. The first one, let’s see, I’m trying to think like what word or should I say them in because that matters so much.

Kyla Channell (00:58.478)
Throw me off.

Emily (01:04.841)
grew up taking figure skating lessons. I am related to Lucy from I Love Lucy and I have been stalked by a snow leopard in the Himalaya.

Kyla Channell (01:08.555)
Okay.

Kyla Channell (01:18.379)
Okay.

Kyla Channell (01:25.579)
Okay, these are all good stuff that I wouldn’t find on the Google when we’re researching. Okay, grew up figure skating, taking figure skating lessons. Lucy from I Love Lucy. That would be cool. That would be a cool story. Stalked by a snow leopard in the Himalayas. That’s also a cool story.

Emily (01:29.963)
Yeah.

Emily (01:35.302)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (01:56.405)
Hmm.

Okay, I’m going to go with the… I don’t know why I’m leaning towards this one, but I’m going to go with the figure skating lessons as a lie. But don’t tell me the answer. I think the other ones could be really cool stories. So it’d be great if they’re true. Okay, so we’ll reveal those at the end of the episode for the listeners. So stay tuned to find out if she was stalked by a snow leopard in the Himalayas or not. We will see. Okay, so I want to dive into the recent FKT. And when did you get back? When did you finish?

Emily (02:09.821)
I’m sorry.

Emily (02:29.451)
I finished on July 19th. It was a Saturday. So like just over a week and half ago. Yeah, it’s been a while. I feel like a lot has happened since then.

Kyla Channell (02:36.066)
Wow, okay. my goodness.

Kyla Channell (02:41.761)
Yeah.

Yeah, my goodness. Okay, so for our listeners, can you explain the FKT, the route, the type of terrain you’re going to see, the distance, vert, what, tell us about it.

Emily (02:56.103)
Yeah. So, this route, it has been kind of forming in my mind for years. It essentially, in Oregon, down kind of the middle of the state, the Cascade Arc of volcanoes, geographically speaking, kind of travels down. So,

Kyla Channell (03:06.722)
Mm.

Emily (03:22.291)
It actually starts in Washington, but in Oregon starting at the North with Mount Hood and then going down Mount Jefferson and like the Three Sisters and all the way down the state in this almost in a straight line. just aesthetically, it’s kind of neat because when you look at, know, if you’re in different parts of the state, you can look down the line or like look left and right and see this whole like lineup of peaks. And it’s really unique because

Um, like in other places I’ve lived or in like the Sierra or up in, you know, the North Cascades, it’s these mountain ranges and we just have this kind of lineup of volcanoes. So it’s, it’s different. um, and so kind of over the years I, I’ve gone from like being a primarily like a endurance hiker to being a through hiker and then a trail runner. And then I started a kind of deep dive.

swan dive into like climbing and free soloing and like on low class five but on the volcanoes in Oregon and just really fell in love with that and being able to combine it with trail running. And you know like driving around Bend where I live and you can be on you know one of the main roads third street that goes through town and

sitting in a traffic light and just be staring at these peaks right in front of you, right outside of town. so when I moved to Bend back in the end of 2017, I just remember looking at the peaks from just right in town and being like, someday, maybe I’ll climb those. And I just had no idea that I would do that, but exponentially. And then,

Kyla Channell (05:12.235)
Okay.

Emily (05:14.247)
I met my partner because he had owned a local cider company and he started an offshoot of a hard seltzer company back when White Claw came out. And we didn’t know each other, but he kind of saw from some online forums that I was trail running in the mountains a lot and he pitched this idea because his seltzer company was going to be named Seven Peaks after the Seven Peaks in Central Oregon.

Kyla Channell (05:43.139)
Mmm.

Emily (05:43.215)
And he is like, you know, would you be interested in climbing them and taking the product with you and sharing it with people along the way? And, know, taking photos and all this stuff. And that was so exciting to me because I had never been sponsored for anything and had a reason to do a project beyond my own desire. So, so I did that and I, that was sort of like, I didn’t start climbing at a climbing gym. It was more of like,

I meant to go out to all of the peaks that I hadn’t done and scout them out and then have some friends who were like legitimate rock climbers, kind of helped like help get me to the top essentially, like be climbing guides for me. And, and as I was doing this and scouting, I just ended up climbing them myself. And it was just this like thing I never knew I had in me and

and just I loved kind of the risk of it and the excitement and the feeling of climbing the rock and making decisions and you know like the puzzle of all the different routes that I was just learning by myself. So that was that was really exciting and so that kind of segment I did and and kind of still developed my skills and climbed the other peaks over the years and then set

a bunch of fastest known times on a lot of those different peaks. And so I sort of merged that process with kind of my desire to redo parts of my 2016 PCT thru hike because I had the best experience. was definitely like kind of a duality of

Kyla Channell (07:14.796)
Well.

Kyla Channell (07:31.938)
Mmm.

Emily (07:38.467)
on the one hand, like I had hiked it with someone who wasn’t a great human or partner. And, it was also a very beautiful experience. And, and so just this notion of like, revisiting it and in a place like now Oregon, like this is where I live and a lot of these peaks are in my backyard and I’m very familiar with them. and so this idea of like, why don’t I do.

Kyla Channell (07:43.283)
Mm. Mm.

Yeah.

Emily (08:07.627)
you know, this Oregon whole section of the PCT. But then now I love to climb these mountains. So putting that together and then doing it all at once was just a very like that’s kind of the way my brain works. And it goes like, what is the biggest possible thing or how can I do everything at once? And so yeah, and just standing on my favorite of the peaks Broken Top from that one, you can see all the others as long as your day.

Kyla Channell (08:16.557)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (08:36.204)
Wow.

Emily (08:37.419)
And that I think is just meaningful and really cool to be able to see the entire route laid out. So yeah, so I started forming the route earlier this year and it turned out to be around 420 miles. For me, it was about 416. But I put it, I published it on the Fastest Known Time website as an open course. So meaning,

Kyla Channell (09:01.57)
Mm.

Emily (09:07.359)
You don’t have to stick to a particular route because a lot of the peaks don’t have trails right to them. So there’s off trail travel and, and, know, depending on who or, you know, how many people go forth and try the route. it would be just fascinating to me to see like what kinds of shortcuts people are able to devise and how to make it faster in that format.

Kyla Channell (09:12.045)
rate.

Kyla Channell (09:29.293)
Yeah.

Emily (09:32.915)
and the elevation gain, I estimated it to be around 69,000, but it ended up for me being about 85,000, 86,000, so quite a bit more. And my estimates were only based on Gaia mapping, and that’s not always the best estimate of mileage or vert, so yeah, it’s a beefy route.

Kyla Channell (09:52.95)
my goodness. Yeah. So, so there are sections that you’re trail running and there are sections that you’re pulling out climbing gear and climbing or are you wow.

Emily (10:04.811)
Yeah, yeah, the route to it’s I mean, it is real, real demanding. I’m still wrapping my head around it, you know, a week and a half later, but I am, you know, one of the one of the thoughts in doing an FKT, especially a longer one is to do it unsupported or self supported, where are you like stash gear or food along the way, which I could have done for this or to do it in a supported fashion and supported is anywhere from like,

Kyla Channell (10:11.0)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (10:27.135)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (10:32.866)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (10:34.859)
someone hands you a Snickers bar one time to like you have an entire crew, an army of pacers and friends and you could have like, you know, a physical therapist along the way like and sleeping, you know, you could even sleep in hotels if you wanted to. And I had never done a big route or I had never done a route this big or this long but I had also just not done much in that supported fashion. And I was really curious what that

Kyla Channell (10:37.304)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (10:43.043)
Right.

Kyla Channell (10:46.456)
Hmm.

Kyla Channell (10:50.862)
Mm.

Kyla Channell (11:01.507)
Yeah.

Emily (11:03.979)
what that would be like. And I mean, the answer is amazing. It was a logistical nightmare, I mean, like weeks, months, months of planning. But because of that specifically, meeting all of the gear, I had friends who like, as I was kind of like traveling down, they would like come in and meet me from other trailheads. And then like,

Kyla Channell (11:05.591)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (11:15.544)
Wow.

Kyla Channell (11:26.434)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (11:30.006)
Nice.

Emily (11:31.499)
You know, there were a few climbs that I did with a team for safety. And because the time of year that I did it, like another kind of interesting challenge of this route is there’s not one time when climbing all of those peaks is like lines up to be a good time.

Kyla Channell (11:38.158)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kyla Channell (11:56.76)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (11:57.663)
So I knew that going in that like, I’m gonna be trying to thread the needle on some of these. And, you know, some of them where I would prefer no snow, there will be snow, but things like wildfire season and then just weather wise, you really got to, you know, make some compromises. So, yeah, so needing gear like ice axe and ice tool and crampons, harness and rope, which,

Kyla Channell (12:10.253)
Yeah.

Emily (12:27.047)
I had soloed all of the peaks. had done them all by myself, all of that when they were dry and not all of it advisable. Either some of them are considered better when there’s more snow. I’m just less comfortable in the snow. And I think that’s mostly because my experience started on like the dry rock and I’m just still learning how to be comfortable on snow. And I don’t have, I don’t have very strong rope skills.

Kyla Channell (12:33.528)
Mm.

Mm.

Kyla Channell (12:40.12)
you

Kyla Channell (12:48.942)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (12:54.708)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (12:55.659)
It’s not something I do regularly and practice regularly. And so I just, don’t retain the little things that I pick up here and there. And so yeah, having a crew and climbing partners was pretty crucial. But then also, just, when I imagined doing it supported, I just thought how meaningful it would be to have.

Kyla Channell (13:03.72)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (13:10.839)
Yeah.

Emily (13:23.071)
people join me and how much more fun it would be to complete the route as like, this isn’t my effort, this is our effort and this is a team thing. So that’s really what it was. I did not do it by myself. There is no way that I would have been successful without the team. So it’s everybody’s route.

Kyla Channell (13:34.03)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (13:47.788)
Wow. And so with the 416 miles and you said 86,000 feet of vert like how, what were you thinking in terms of how long it would take you?

Emily (13:58.423)
I, gosh, I really didn’t know. I mean, I had mapped it out like 10 to 12 days. I had agonized over mapping out the route in different segments. Some of the mountains, really, especially in the Northern part of the state, it really made more sense to plan certain ways because for instance, like you want to climb Mount Hood early in the morning, like first thing, I think we started at 2 a.m.

Same thing with Mount Jefferson. You need to be up there when the snow is still firm, before the sun is being snow, before there’s like rock or ice fall. That was really important. And for this route, it’s like, you get one shot. And not that I couldn’t.

Kyla Channell (14:31.598)
Hmm.

Kyla Channell (14:35.543)
Yeah.

Emily (14:45.291)
there’s summit fever, right? Where people won’t turn around. And that was very, very different. And I can elaborate later about that, just psychologically speaking, but you really like to set myself up for having the best chance at summiting each one. So yeah, so the route dictated that I stay like for some of the peaks, right? Like as close to the summit as I could, you know, getting up high near the base.

Kyla Channell (14:48.354)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (14:56.461)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (15:02.689)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (15:10.958)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (15:13.929)
And then the distance between them then kind of dictated what my days would look like. So it wasn’t so much that I would just go as far as I could each day. that became pretty obvious when I, know, months ago when I was kind of designing the route that my mileage was going to be more limited, especially in the Northern part where the peaks are more difficult. There are like glaciers and steep snow shoots and traverses.

In the southern section where the peaks are more climbing or just scrambling, it was a bit more where you could go further. But again, having support, so I had my crew, I had our camper van, and that was where I slept most of the nights, I think all of it before.

Kyla Channell (15:53.656)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (16:03.34)
Nice. Yeah.

Emily (16:05.747)
Like that also dictated the pace because there were only so many places that the camper van would intersect the trail. And then I think there were maybe four nights where I had someone or multiple people hike out to the trail with my camping gear so that I could camp right on trail. Where it, know, even if it was two, three, four miles from the camper van, it saved me twice that distance the next day.

Kyla Channell (16:12.488)
Right. Yeah.

Kyla Channell (16:26.916)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (16:35.169)
Yeah.

Emily (16:35.403)
So yeah, was interesting like putting all those pieces together and figuring out why it made sense to do it supported like that.

Kyla Channell (16:39.246)
That’s great.

Kyla Channell (16:47.476)
Yeah, yeah. And yeah, like what a puzzle like you’re saying to try and map that out and coordinate and we’ll talk about nutrition and, you know, fueling in a second. But what was the highest peak up there that you crossed?

Emily (17:02.443)
The highest one was Mount Hood, the first one, over 11,000. That’s like 11,400.

Kyla Channell (17:04.791)
Okay.

Kyla Channell (17:09.314)
Wow, very cool. So cool. So okay, talking about nutrition and hydration, having the supported aspect I’m sure is super helpful. What was game plan going in with nutrition and hydration and then how did that actually play out?

Emily (17:12.607)
you

Emily (17:27.999)
Yeah. So I mean, I really took everything I’ve learned just over the years of like everything from thru hiking, like how I ate thru hiking and how I eat now, like as an athlete training for big events. And then also like while I’m racing, what I do. And those are all like a little bit different because

Kyla Channell (17:42.925)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (17:53.624)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (17:56.949)
Through hiking, you’re really just, taking as many calories as you can and trying to eat things that are like pleasing. But through hikers, I feel like there’s this reputation for like all we eat is drunk food. It’s not entirely untrue, but I also like, I just as a rule don’t have any like hard and fast nutrition rules or food rules for myself. Like food is fuel and like that’s just the main kind of overarching.

Kyla Channell (18:04.951)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (18:08.972)
Yeah.

Emily (18:26.411)
principle. I mean, you need to eat enough. And, you know, then as in a training scenario, when I’m preparing for, you know, something big or race, anything, I’m really making sure that I’m like eating a lot of fruits and veggies in whatever form I don’t fresh frozen. mean, right, I guess I like fruits and veggies. And then like protein.

Kyla Channell (18:48.32)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Emily (18:56.083)
I’m a huge proponent of protein. Last year, especially last year, I did a big vert project and I was just trying to rack up as much vert as I could in the entire year. And I saw just firsthand, you know, N of one with me, you know, just that having more protein and strategically placed in my day, like very soon after big efforts.

Kyla Channell (18:58.862)
Mm.

Emily (19:24.619)
I just had better recovery. I just was able to turn around day after day after day, and, and sustain the pace that I did, and, and not fatigue and not get injured. So, you know, I just think about that and the things that I was eating, like leading up to this project, but during the project too, like looking at the kinds of backpacking meals I was eating. So peak refuel just has.

Kyla Channell (19:51.691)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (19:52.477)
by far the most protein out of any other backpacking brand. So that was really a big deal to, they gave me a pretty good discount. So I was able to get a lot of those meals. And then, from racing too having a really good idea of when things get tough, when it gets really hot out, when I’m cold, when I’m exhausted.

Kyla Channell (19:59.747)
Nice.

Kyla Channell (20:04.216)
Awesome.

Kyla Channell (20:19.544)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (20:22.427)
when I get tired of eating or my mouth gets like this, a weird fatigue from just like too much, it can be like too much salt, too much sugar. You know, sometimes people talk about like the inside of their mouth, just getting, getting raw or funky what to do because I have to keep going and eating a lot. Like at that point it becomes your job. you have to eat because if you bonk, you’ve already, you’ve already messed up and it’s hard to, it’s hard to come back from that.

Kyla Channell (20:31.756)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (20:41.752)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (20:52.45)
Yeah.

Emily (20:52.563)
so, just having a variety of foods, that covered the gamut of like, this is what I eat when I’m, you know, backpacking and this is what I eat when I’m, running a race and having all of those things at my disposal. you know, I had, I had so much food. and then I, you know, also getting food for, for crew. That was a big deal to me is wanting to do this, and be able to.

Kyla Channell (21:11.063)
Nice.

Emily (21:21.845)
provide for everybody helping. that too. I did have also a friend who’s a race director had a ton of LMNT packets leftover from a race, like hundreds. And so that was one of the things like just electrolyte wise that I did take in. I used to not use any electrolytes at all in the first couple years of running.

Kyla Channell (21:23.799)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (21:33.736)
yes.

Kyla Channell (21:39.896)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (21:47.419)
And I think I got away with that because I was eating a lot of real foods and if you eat a lot of real foods that have salt, it gets you electrolytes. But I do find that like when I am, when it’s really hot out or I’m just doing like full day efforts, I do like to have some LMNT And one of my favorite things was when I would come on like a patch of snow on a hot day, I would just take out a little packet and I would scoop up snow and like,

Kyla Channell (21:51.392)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Emily (22:16.083)
sprinkle it on the snow, eat it like a snow cone. But yeah, the only thing that I kind of wished for a little bit that I didn’t bring was some, like electrolytes with calories, like tailwind, something like that. Just because it can just, that just makes things more simple. It’s one less thing you have to kind of reach in your bag for.

Kyla Channell (22:18.92)
Yeah, that’s great.

Kyla Channell (22:35.756)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (22:44.179)
or think about like you are constantly getting calories. But I think overall I did a pretty bang up job eating and getting enough at the end of the day. Like I would always have a huge dinner when I was done for the day, really make sure that I just filled up my stomach before I laid down or fell asleep. Because that’s just like the worst thing that you could, I don’t always like eat right before I go to bed, but in something like that, it just.

Kyla Channell (22:52.941)
Nice.

Kyla Channell (23:04.513)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (23:14.121)
you don’t wanna, and I would still wake up hungry, but, you know, just make myself get breakfast. Like I will always, I don’t care if I’m not that hungry in the morning. I know that I still have to, you know, have breakfast and start the day with calories because from there I’m off and running. So.

Kyla Channell (23:20.909)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (23:34.359)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (23:38.158)
What did a typical breakfast look like?

Emily (23:40.895)
I started, like I had some protein pancakes and I just dipped them in syrup the first couple days. I did a lot of peak refuel breakfasts and like mountain house. like their breakfast skillet, the biscuits and gravy is enormous. and, you know, the granola and berries and I would have, you know, my crew would, would get my breakfast ready for me. It’s so, it’s so nice to have someone like taking care of those things and make

Kyla Channell (23:44.524)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (23:54.224)
Mmm.

Kyla Channell (24:05.452)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Emily (24:09.807)
like for sure coffee. Like a mocha, I all these single serve packets of things. So definitely some caffeine and a good breakfast.

Kyla Channell (24:11.582)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Kyla Channell (24:20.288)
Amazing. so then you take off and do what I mean, what does your day look like? Because you’re some of its running, right? You said some of its climbing, trying to get to the peaks early. Are you wearing like a vest with hydration and like what are you what’s in there? What are you consuming? How are you transporting that?

Emily (24:38.781)
Yeah, so it kind of depended on how often I would see my crew. there was, you know, like, for instance, on day one, my partner drove the van and met like every almost every 10 miles that day. And, you know, I had I had my phone and my in reach and there were a couple of places where we weren’t quite sure that the van could get into so he would he would let me know like.

Kyla Channell (24:53.346)
Wow.

Kyla Channell (25:03.906)
Mm.

Emily (25:06.09)
hey, I can be there or no, I can’t. And then there were some that we definitely knew were okay. So that day was actually really nice. It was the longest mileage day, I think it was 55 miles, like by far the longest. And then I just carried like in the waistband of my shorts, just stuck a couple of snacks in there and then carried, you know, one water bottle. Generally there was quite a bit of water on the trail to fill up. And

Kyla Channell (25:08.194)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (25:18.126)
Mm.

Kyla Channell (25:32.12)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (25:35.327)
you know, there were some times where, so that was the only day I think I didn’t wear a running vest. And then I had like an eight liter vest and a 12 liter vest that I would just, depending on how much I was going to see the van that day, we’d kind of, we’d get up in the morning, just review some logistics, like, Hey, when am I going to see you next? And then we would just make sure that I had enough kind of snacks for that mileage and taking into account that at,

Kyla Channell (25:40.119)
Mm.

Emily (26:01.751)
point I wasn’t really running so much anymore. know at first it was like there’s a lot of blowdown on the trail or it’s really snowy on the trail and then it became like I had an injury that that flared up big time during this project and so it became like we’re walking and so yeah so just making sure for the mileage and the anticipated and unplanned hours that I just had a snack.

Kyla Channell (26:05.24)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (26:13.137)
Kyla Channell (26:17.623)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (26:26.398)
Yeah, so you mentioned, do you say gels in your belt or?

Emily (26:32.299)
Gels or like granola bars, candy bars, I mean, any like, you know, nerds gummy clusters, sugary things, just anything in a small package that sounded good in a little variety. You know, I don’t think I used any gels during this effort, maybe one. I have…

Kyla Channell (26:35.595)
yeah.

Kyla Channell (26:47.222)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (26:53.454)
Mmm.

Emily (26:57.571)
not traditionally been big on the running gels, but I did start to use them more in the past like year and a half or two because I started trying hard at shorter distances. And the reality is a gel is really easy to pull out while you’re running hard and just squeeze into your mouth and swallow the swig of water. It’s not enjoyable eating.

Kyla Channell (27:01.986)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (27:12.622)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (27:26.235)
And definitely like in my first, in my first ultras, I was like, this is great. I love the aid stations. I can stop and like eat a piece of pie and chat with people. And just when you’re, when your focus is more competing, you don’t do that. so yeah, I, I always have gels as a backup, no matter what, if I’m not using them for like primary nutrition. but for this, I was definitely eating a lot more.

Kyla Channell (27:39.202)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kyla Channell (27:48.887)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (27:55.839)
real food. There were a couple times like my partner brought out to us shakes and chicken tenders from Dairy Queen. My friend Ashley who crewed she also got some amazing pizza from Klamath Falls and thought that out. So like we had we had treats and good stuff to eat.

Kyla Channell (27:56.962)
Nice.

Kyla Channell (28:07.277)
you

Kyla Channell (28:14.262)
Wow.

Kyla Channell (28:19.016)
Yum. Yeah, that sounds great. So you mentioned an injury popped up for you. When did that set in and how did you navigate that?

Emily (28:29.471)
Yeah, it was so curious still. So actually I took like four rest days, like complete rest days before I started the route and I felt it flare up maybe like the day or two before I could just feel that there was something kind of funny in my hip. But really thought nothing of it. I’ve never had any issues there before. I mean, I was just having rest days. It felt like something twingy.

I could feel it kind of from the beginning and it just got slowly slowly progressively worse. It was definitely impacting my gait. Like the first week of the route, just, I kept telling people like, yeah, I feel it. But I was running anyway. And I just kept like throughout the day, I would just be like, have good form, don’t favor one side or the other. And it just got pretty obvious. I couldn’t deny it anymore that.

Kyla Channell (29:04.717)
Hmm.

Kyla Channell (29:16.728)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (29:25.474)
Mmm.

Emily (29:26.761)
I was favoring that side and it was starting to be painful. was taking like very low dose ibuprofen. I know that’s like a super hot button issue in endurance. And like all I can say is I’m like very, very judicious about taking it.

Kyla Channell (29:35.15)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (29:39.406)
Mm.

Emily (29:49.163)
But it’s not good to mask pain. You want to read the swelling, but you also don’t, you want to know what’s happening. that issue got worse to the point that I, one day I just was in tears on the side of the road because I couldn’t walk anymore. It was about halfway through.

Kyla Channell (29:52.482)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (29:56.782)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (30:08.526)
Hmm.

Emily (30:14.419)
my friend Ashley like put out a thing on social media, like is, there any mobile PTs who could help? I ended up having, you know, I, used an ice pack. I, I added Tylenol to my regimen cause you can kind of take both at the same time in a really safe way. And I was like, just telling everybody, I’m gonna take as little as possible because I don’t want to like mess up my, you know, my kidney or my liver. and,

Kyla Channell (30:19.862)
Hmm.

Kyla Channell (30:36.398)
Mm.

Emily (30:43.475)
I was still able to hike. It just really felt like was derailing everything. And then the day I went into Crater Lake, had my friend reached out to me over the phone and said, do you want to do a remote reiki session? He was in British Columbia and he practices with that and some different mind, body kind of Eastern technique. So we did that.

Kyla Channell (31:11.554)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (31:13.523)
and that helped immensely. and then the next morning I also had a phone consult with Blaze Physio, who’s a, physical therapist who follows the PCT through hikers each year and does in-person and remote physical therapy consults for them. And she does them like very low cost because her goal is for people to go to her before problems like force them off trail. And she likes to people good news.

Kyla Channell (31:18.072)
Wow.

Kyla Channell (31:28.686)
Mm.

Kyla Channell (31:33.73)
Whoa.

Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (31:39.95)
Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm.

Emily (31:43.081)
With me, she had less good news. She was like really, really concerned that I could have like a mild femoral stress fracture, a labrum tear. There were some evaluative techniques she did with me over the phone. Told me you need to get to bend and get an MRI. That was difficult to hear.

Kyla Channell (31:49.943)
shoot.

Kyla Channell (31:54.678)
Mmm.

Kyla Channell (32:02.104)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (32:06.818)
Mm.

Emily (32:09.427)
And so I did, I called the doctor and bend and while we were kind of playing phone tag, I just kept walking. And at that point the pain got, it had gotten a lot better. I was able to just walk and I was like, well, I guess, you know, I’m so close to the end. had maybe three more full days before I came back up to bend for this one section that I had skipped both.

Kyla Channell (32:09.766)
Yikes, yeah.

Kyla Channell (32:16.809)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (32:29.357)
Mm.

Emily (32:38.057)
because I needed some climbing partners who weren’t available till the 19th. And just to kind of move through Southern Oregon a little quicker because of all the wildfires popping up. So I just kept walking and we made a tentative appointment, which I then ended up canceling because I was able to walk without much pain at all. I was like, I am finishing this.

Kyla Channell (32:48.076)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (33:02.765)
Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Emily (33:06.569)
So, and at that point too, like the big concern was just, you know, a stress fracture in particular getting worse, which turned out to be like quite the back country issue. And so I had people basically join me for most of the rest of it. And just not only just, not so much for pacers as much as safety people, which was really incredible because they just walked with me and made it so much more fun and bearable.

Kyla Channell (33:13.656)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (33:21.676)
Mmm.

Kyla Channell (33:26.774)
Yeah.

Hmm. Yeah.

Emily (33:36.939)
Yeah, so that, ironically, I mean, the pain kept going down at that point. It had been the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life, like, you know, 14 out of 10. It just really bizarre. And I think that I had just all of the running had really exacerbated it. And when I slowed down, I was still doing like, you know, more than 30 mile days. But I just think that slowing down the pace made a made a big difference.

Kyla Channell (33:44.76)
Ugh.

Yeah.

Emily (34:05.843)
maybe in the way I was carrying the pain even mentally that reiki session I did. I mean, there’s a huge mind body connection there. So I think that was helpful. And then the last day was one of the most rugged days with the three sisters traverse. And I was really concerned how my hip would have hold up on that day. But again, I I moved really carefully and slowly. And I think that was, that was the key.

Kyla Channell (34:11.266)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kyla Channell (34:22.798)
Mm.

Kyla Channell (34:29.965)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (34:34.774)
Wow, awesome. And so you said you found out it was a, it is a stress fracture that you got or no? okay. Gotcha.

Emily (34:39.947)
I don’t know. I have an appointment now on the 11th. I haven’t been running. I did do a short backpacking trip over four days out in Eastern Oregon just a few days ago. And same thing, I just used my poles a lot, walked pretty carefully. There’s definitely normal walking on a sidewalk in the grocery store. There’s a limp, so there’s something. It’s not painful necessarily unless I

Kyla Channell (34:50.156)
Mm.

Kyla Channell (35:05.709)
Mmm.

Emily (35:09.771)
you know, like stub my toe and kind of it jerks my hip a little bit. But it’s like mechanically there’s something going on. So it’s a really weird injury. I’ve never. Yeah, I’ve just never had anything like it before. And we’ll see. Yeah, yeah. Oh, go ahead.

Kyla Channell (35:13.009)
Mm, mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kyla Channell (35:26.868)
Yeah, get a look in there. now that it’s been a week and a half, or actually let me back up, right when you finished, what did you do? Did you go somewhere to eat or what was the game plan right when you finished?

Emily (35:43.851)
So I ended up finishing pretty In a pretty special way because I was originally gonna finish at the southern trailhead for the last peak on the route But because I had skipped a little section I Had part of that section I had already like hiked in from a trailhead and gone to another mountain so the place where I closed the Closed that unfinished loop was not at a trailhead. It was in a basin

Kyla Channell (36:05.762)
Mm.

Emily (36:13.961)
between two of the mountains I’ve climbed more than any of the others. And so my friends and family, my partner, two of his kids, like all these friends of friends hiked in and some of them just like ran in and then left that evening and then a bunch of them camped overnight. So when I came down from the final peak, I descended into the space and my people were there. And it was like.

Kyla Channell (36:14.104)
Mm.

Kyla Channell (36:17.724)
cool.

Kyla Channell (36:25.07)
Mm.

Kyla Channell (36:38.062)
Aww. Aww.

Emily (36:40.477)
Also, like there’s not really cell service. So was just a really special place to end this and just feel like very peaceful about it and hear that moment. So that said, my friend Ashley had got, she got me cake, cause I love cake. She also had some rose bubbles for everybody who wanted to partake, which I also love.

Kyla Channell (36:54.366)
Yeah. Amazing.

Kyla Channell (37:01.62)
yeah.

Kyla Channell (37:05.813)
Mm. Mm. Yeah.

Emily (37:09.769)
And then we just, ate, you know, we had backpacking meals. So I ate another big peak refueled meal and, and just, and relaxed and kind of laid around just enjoying the moment.

Kyla Channell (37:16.302)
Mm.

Kyla Channell (37:23.092)
Yeah, amazing, amazing. And how did your body feel in the days following? Like how were you keeping recovery going?

Emily (37:33.035)
So a lot of hydration, just really hydrating water. mean, I don’t do a ton of post effort electrolytes. I mean, I’m not against it. think it’s just, it depends how you feel, but just drinking a lot of water and keeping things flush and moving, really just honoring my appetite. Like even though it’s over and I’m not moving.

Kyla Channell (37:46.232)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (37:59.714)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (38:02.185)
My body is doing so much recovering. know, just all kinds of things are happening that I’m not aware of. So I think it’s really important to like, to know that your appetite is telling you something. At the same time, you do develop, I mean, it’s this funny thing, right? Where your appetite, and I know this from through hiking, you get the like hiker hunger and then, you know, it changes your metabolism.

Kyla Channell (38:05.603)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (38:26.382)
Mm.

Emily (38:29.481)
Like when you do these big long efforts, your body is amazing and it adapts. Your metabolism changes, your needs change. So there are times where your appetite might be super high, but then like there’s an adjustment. so being attuned, like there’s, at times I feel very attuned to my body’s needs. And at times I feel like, yeah, I’m really hungry, but I don’t need to eat.

Kyla Channell (38:34.542)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (38:57.877)
the whole kind of ice cream kind of thing like, and just kind of figuring out and feeling out that interim, getting back to normal and knowing that like your body will change with that too. It’s like a rubber band that you’ve just stretched it way out and it needs to kind of like find its balance. That was a huge lesson again that I learned last year from just doing a sustained effort over an entire year and then figuring out what my

Kyla Channell (39:04.93)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (39:15.03)
Yes.

Emily (39:27.163)
normal was going into 2025. That took months to kind of readjust and my metabolism to sort out.

Kyla Channell (39:33.346)
via.

Goodness, I bet. Okay, so I want to be mindful of your time. So I’m going to jump to some of our kind of reflection stuff. For listeners who are dreaming of a multi-day hike like this, what single nutrition habit would you insist they nail in training before committing?

Emily (40:00.523)
gosh, the protein for me is a really big deal.

Kyla Channell (40:03.85)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (40:07.079)
Yeah, being able to eat a good dose of protein pretty soon after a workout to help your muscles recover, to feel better the next day.

But just like the discipline, okay, so this is technically two things. The discipline to eat even if you’re not necessarily hungry because I think your hunger can be masked by a lot of other things. Your emotional state, the heat, just again, how fatigued you are. And you really, you cannot wait to feel hungry. There were a couple times during the route that I would turn, I would say to whoever was with me, like, gosh, I just got hunger pains.

Kyla Channell (40:36.206)
Mm.

Emily (40:56.511)
That was a mistake. If you start to feel hungry, I feel like that it’s too late. Like you need to do ASAP, but my goal is to never get to that point where my stomach’s growling. I don’t, I don’t want to get.

Kyla Channell (40:56.75)
Mm.

Kyla Channell (41:02.498)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (41:07.85)
Yeah, that’s smart. Did you have one piece of gear that you felt like overperformed or any that you felt like failed?

Emily (41:16.551)
ooh, you know, my, my quiver that I have for my running vest, Salomon quiver, that’s for your poles, but I ended up using my poles so much when my hip started having issues. That quiver, man, I used it to hold my ice axe and ice tool.

Kyla Channell (41:25.186)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (41:38.749)
And it also converted into a snack, like an easy grab snack holder. When I had like a lot of stuff in like layers and clothing packed into my vest. that was just a convenient extra spot for stuff. I would say too, like my favorite shorts, and I know a lot of brands make shorts like this. Mine were just, they happen to be rabbit and I love them.

Kyla Channell (41:38.99)
Mmm.

Kyla Channell (41:43.31)
Cool.

Kyla Channell (41:47.736)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (42:07.337)
the waistband ones that have pockets. I had underestimated them. I had gotten them recently and it is just, it’s so good for putting your phone, for putting snacks, they don’t bounce. Or I ended up putting snow in the waistband pockets because it would help like ice my hip when I was moving. So those are good. Gear failures, I don’t…

Kyla Channell (42:09.934)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (42:19.842)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (42:24.616)
smart

Yes. Nice.

Emily (42:36.747)
I don’t know that I had any like catastrophic ones. I’m so happy my like my my Leki trekking poles I’ve had since like 2000 and 2000 maybe and they’ve been so far with me they used to be the hot pink and now they’re like this light pink just they faded but they have been on so much hard terrain and had so much weight thrown onto them and and they’ve really made it through I’m pretty attached to

Kyla Channell (42:43.042)
That’s good.

Kyla Channell (42:50.828)
Wow.

Kyla Channell (42:57.64)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (43:06.306)
That’s amazing. That’s awesome. What was the footwear like? what were your shoes? Were you choosing? Were you changing them out based off of climbing days versus running stretches? Like what did that look like?

Emily (43:18.219)
Yeah, yeah. So I am a speed land athlete. So they provided me with a full quiver based on what I told them I would like to use. But I mean, I really had all the terrain. You know, I had road on at the, you know, around Crater Lake. That was just one way to make that a little bit shorter. So I have my road shoes. I had

Kyla Channell (43:29.399)
Nice.

Kyla Channell (43:36.802)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (43:40.855)
Yeah.

Emily (43:45.623)
a pair a couple of pairs of like their GS model which is kind of an all really good all-around trail shoe really comfortable I use those the most and then I had some of their more aggressive tread shoes that I wore for some climbing things on snow I put in they have like carbon inserts that you can put into the soles to make them more rigid so

Kyla Channell (44:11.401)
yeah.

Emily (44:15.467)
In retrospect, like I have I have climbed because I’ve been on all these peaks in trail runners before that was my plan I’m gonna wear trail runners and I have used trail runners with with crampons Successfully and You know it the carbon inserts make them more rigid And also can can be like rock plates for like really really rocky terrain I’ll say that I think

Kyla Channell (44:23.256)
Mm.

Kyla Channell (44:40.012)
Mm-hmm.

Emily (44:44.501)
part of my struggle and feeling, you know, just anytime you’re using anything lighter weight, you’re usually sacrificing security. So like, you know, if I’m using steel crampons, you know, with really heavy duty boots, I’m gonna feel a bit more locked in on a really steep snow slope than if I’m wearing my lightweight aluminum crampons in trail runners.

Kyla Channell (44:56.546)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (45:12.437)
Yeah.

Emily (45:12.939)
So that was definitely a factor looking back and like part of, because some of the climbs were really like mentally and just like logistically, physically tough. And I think that that played a role, but you know, having heavier equipment brought into me. mean, the name of the game was like light and fast. yeah, that was all my footwear.

Kyla Channell (45:26.424)
Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (45:36.696)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (45:40.876)
Nice. Amazing. Okay, so and we have one question I wanted to ask from we had at McLaugh Kevin, I think. Yeah, he says, What’s your favorite place to get a whole pizza to eat and why is it crux?

Emily (45:49.693)
I’ll talk to your friend Kevin McLaughlin, yes.

Emily (45:56.843)
Yes, so Kevin and I met. I think we just like chatted online and we’re like, we could probably be friends. So like, let’s get together. And he was in Bend I lived in Bend we met at Crux, one of the local breweries. And we ordered food and we were, I was placing my order and.

Kyla Channell (46:16.395)
Nice.

Emily (46:21.899)
I ordered a whole pizza because I’m a trail runner and I had run that day and it doesn’t matter why I ordered those just like this is my intention to eat this whole pizza. And the guy at the register made a comment like, you know, are you going to eat that all or are you sharing it? And Kevin just quipped back in the way that he does so quickly immediately. And he was like, just do not ever underestimate this woman’s ability.

Kyla Channell (46:29.901)
Yeah.

Emily (46:51.595)
to order a whole pizza, to consume a whole pizza. And that just became like a theme in our friendship of like, do not underestimate this woman, period. But I like ate the whole pizza and I think we ate this whole pizza. But yeah, we’ve had a lot of friendship moments around that theme.

Kyla Channell (46:54.478)
you

Kyla Channell (47:02.488)
Yeah.

Amazing.

Kyla Channell (47:12.876)
That’s awesome. I love it. Pizza, good salty carbs recovery. It’s yeah, it’s one that you’ll go after too when you maybe appetites low. Yeah.

Emily (47:20.491)
It’s got the protein, the carbs, the fat, like it’s good.

Kyla Channell (47:25.016)
Got it. Yes. Okay. So jumping back to your two truths and lies. So you said you grew up taking figure skating lessons. You’re related to Lucy from I Love Lucy and you were stalked by a snow leopard in the Himalaya. I said the figure skating one was a lie. Is that correct? No. no.

Emily (47:41.853)
No, I have not been stalked by a snow leopard in the Himalaya

Kyla Channell (47:46.638)
okay, but you are related to Lucy from I Love Lucy.

Emily (47:49.707)
Lucille Ball, the Ball family name is the name on my dad’s side. And she’s like a distant something cousin removed. Yeah, I’ve known that since I was a little girl. Yes, I’ve never done that. yeah, no, was, you know, she’s definitely like along that family name line. My family was really

Kyla Channell (48:02.327)
Wow.

Kyla Channell (48:06.818)
before 23andMe are genetic. Yeah. Yeah.

Kyla Channell (48:18.008)
Cool.

Emily (48:20.714)
My grandparents and my aunt Riziane, they’ve been really into heritage and we have these amazing family trees that went way, way back. I remember learning about that from when I was little. I had dreams of being a figure skater as a kid and the lessons were really expensive and I wasn’t some standout out at it either.

Kyla Channell (48:27.874)
yeah.

Kyla Channell (48:32.226)
Cool.

Kyla Channell (48:37.076)
Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s fun.

Kyla Channell (48:42.506)
Yeah. yeah.

Emily (48:47.691)
but I just loved it. wanted to be like Nancy Kerrigan. And then I have been to the Himalaya, but I have definitely not been stalked by snow leopards. I’m right, you’re right. mean, maybe probably a little bit by mountain lions, but.

Kyla Channell (48:50.861)
Mm.

Kyla Channell (48:56.68)
Yeah, but you know of maybe.

Mm-hmm. Goodness. Yeah. Okay. Well, what’s coming next for you? What’s down the pipeline?

Emily (49:11.051)
I am I have a couple backpacking trips I was gonna do I was gonna do a big 200 miler It’s coming up in like two months, but with the hip I think that’s just not not realistic and then even when I was completing this last route I just I remember telling one of my friends during it like I am NOT gonna run that I just mentally this took so much out of me and

and I just wanted to have a little bit of a break from that and do some joyous things. So I’m going to backpack a little bit down in Desolation next week. And then I am hiking the John Muir Trail with my wonderful friend Ashley, who was one of my crew chiefs for the route. So we’re gonna do that together in September. And then a couple of all race I’m trying to…

Kyla Channell (49:42.796)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (49:51.854)
Mmm, nice, yeah.

Kyla Channell (49:57.506)
Mmm.

Kyla Channell (50:03.552)
Nice. Amazing.

Emily (50:09.739)
I would like to still be able to do. I have to get a Western States qualifier this year. So maybe a race in November. My favorite race, the quad dipsey, is near Thanksgiving. from that every year, I’m like, what is the sign up? It’s actually tomorrow morning is the registry and it fills up real fast. So yeah.

Kyla Channell (50:15.758)
Mm.

Kyla Channell (50:19.554)
Wow. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

Kyla Channell (50:29.566)
Yeah. wow. Goodness. Well, fingers crossed. And then where can people find you and follow you?

Emily (50:37.193)
Yeah, I am on mostly Instagram. I’m at Emily in dot the wild. Just Emily in and then a period the wild. I’m on Facebook, but it’s just the same thing regurgitated. So Instagram is where I do, it’s mostly just writing. It’s kind of like a, feel like I have a sub stack. I don’t have a sub stack. I don’t know why I don’t. It’s just too many things to maintain. But I usually like max out the captions.

Kyla Channell (50:40.471)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kyla Channell (50:50.946)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (50:58.114)
Mmm.

Kyla Channell (51:03.725)
Yeah.

Emily (51:07.157)
So that’s just where it’s like my like kind of like free and open diary that I just love to keep and write. So yeah.

Kyla Channell (51:12.622)
Mm-hmm.

Awesome. And you’ve been posting clips from and stories from your Oregon volcanic skyline.

Emily (51:23.889)
have I’ve started going back it’s I was like I should start at the beginning and do it in order but I’m actually writing much more long form into what might become a book about that experience and so I’ve been posting like snippets of memories and things that are really meaningful so yeah I’m in the process of sharing lots about

Kyla Channell (51:36.342)
Cool.

Kyla Channell (51:42.648)
Yeah.

Kyla Channell (51:47.265)
Amazing.

so fun. Well, keep us posted and we will link all that in the show notes for the listeners. And thank you again so much for your time today, Emily. This has been awesome.

Emily (51:56.267)
Thank you for having me.

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