Emily Keddie
Primary Outdoor Sports: Running, Backpacking, Mountaineering
2024 Vert Goal: 2 Million Feet
Favorite Beverage: White Russian
Sunrise or Sunset: Sunset
Non-Outdoor Hobby: Cooking
Go-To Trail Snack: Baguette
Favorite Season: Fall
Guilty Pleasure: Wandering Aimlessly around the Grocery Store
Longest Race: 240 Mile
Three Words to Describe You: Authentic, Brave, & Kind
“When I was little, I did some recreational sports. In high school I did sports, but mostly just because my friends were doing it. It was social. I desperately wanted to be an amazing soccer player and amazing basketball player. I tried hard, but I just wasn't the star and I knew exactly who the stars were. Then, I dropped out of track in my senior year because I was just not motivated.
I went through college and I remember in undergrad my brother invited me on a backpacking trip with his guy friends. I was so honored, as the younger sister, to be invited. So we went to the Smoky Mountains and did some backpacking.
And then In graduate school, I found the Adirondack Mountains in New York and really got hooked on those. There's this challenge to climb the 46 peaks and when you finish it, you get a number and a certificate. That is my jam, very motivating if I can get a certificate or a patch or something. So I was doing that a lot.
In 2016, I had some big life shifts. I had been married. got divorced, moved away, and then hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. The PCT was incredible. It was heartbreaking. It was hard. It was fulfilling. It was both the good and the bad at the same time.
After that, my friend Ella encouraged me to try my first ultra. A lot of thru-hikers after their first through hike, they either do another one or find another way to spend a lot of time outside. That experience just unlocked my love of the outdoors and wanting to be outside more. There’s something about my personality and who I am that really loves and connects with nature and feels very at home outside. So I ran my first ultra, a 50k and then it escalated very quickly to longer and longer distances.”
“My first 50k took me six and a half hours or so, maybe longer than that. Then 50 miles, you're done the same day. I skipped the 100k distance and went from 50 miles to 100 miles because the race that I had picked, Javelina, is notorious for being super fun.
That was a big jump. I think historically I have always done that though, taking the big leaps. That's par for the course in other areas of my life and things that I've done. I'll just really go for it and pick the biggest thing or the hardest goal and I'm not only gonna do it, but I'm gonna do it really fast, or I'm gonna find a way to make it really exciting and really big. I’m not half-assing anything.
After 100, obviously then you do a 200, and I just decided to do the longest one there is, the Moab 240. It seemed really beautiful, really diverse, and the route was one huge circle, so you don't see anything twice. It seemed like a really good one.”
“At the Lake Tahoe 200, I had some wonderful hallucinations. You go through all this sleep deprivation. You can choose when you sleep and how long you sleep for, but I was really trying to push it.
I was doing well, I finished second and I was in that place most of the race so I was trying to not take too many breaks. I think it was my brain's way of self-preservation. Your brain can't keep functioning at a high level without sleep for that long so I think it was kind of short circuiting or just going on autopilot. The hallucinations were just part of that.
My friend and pacer Alex videotaped me describing a dinosaur. It was a brontosaurus or a brachiosaurus standing in a bunch of trees just munching away. I knew it was a hallucination, I wasn't out of my mind, but I could see it. I shook hands and said good morning to a small tree. I saw a famous ultra runner dressed as a paperboy with a newsboy hat. I saw dolphins swimming in the ground.
I just had a feeling that I was losing my hallucinations and as soon as I lost them, I knew I'd get tired. That's exactly what happened, but it was great while it lasted. I was delighted. For as long as they lasted, I felt like a superhuman. I wasn't tired at all.”
“Do I like ultras or do I just like the thought of being an ultrarunner? I'm not sure. I sure do like being outside, but I don't always like pushing myself really hard. I do like the discipline though that that requires. When you're racing in some capacity, I do like having a focus that makes me get uncomfortable and step out of that comfort zone and try hard. Because you work hard at this and you deserve to see what you're capable of.
I think there have been times in my life when I felt very undeserving. That is part of what ultra running gives me. It is a gift. You deserve to see how far you can go and to feel the success of improvement.”
“I had a relationship that was really not good, the kind of relationship you think, ‘I will never get caught in that situation. That would never happen to me.’ And, it did and it does. It happens to people all the time.
o proud of getting past that, getting through that, and turning my life into the beautiful and privileged and fortunate and strong, powerful life that I live now.
Part of me doesn't like to give that so much attention, but that that stuff is hard. Abusive relationships can keep people bogged down for years or lifetimes. I am in a very healthy relationship in such a better place, but still really proud of all the steps that I took to get out.
I did my first ultra when we were still in a relationship, but then I kept going once that ended. I found such freedom and power in being on my own and independent and able to go explore.
I did camper life for a year and a half, lived on my own in the National Forest. Bounced around, learned a lot, would go on road trips, just me and my dog.
I almost felt like the further I could run, it was reclaiming my power in a way. And, the further I could run, the more powerful I was. Don't think about messing with me, because this is what I can do. I know my power now.
I think that really fed into these further and further distances and being like, ‘It doesn't matter that I'm a woman. It doesn't matter what's happened before. I can. I will. And, I'm going to do it.’”
“I feel empowered, like I could do anything I really wanted to do because of how far I've seen myself come in my 30s. It is so cool to learn any new skill as an adult because you never have to stop learning.
It's hard sometimes, and it's so much time outside. It's so much time alone. I am not scared to be alone in the wilderness. I'm not scared of people, or scared of the dark, or scared of bears. I'm a little scared of mountain lions. But, I feel empowered and strong and very capable. I know that this sport and these activities aren't the only thing that can make you feel that way, but for me, that's what delivers.”
“There is a wonderful community in trail running. Experiencing aid stations and volunteers, people who are there to help and to cheer for you and feed you and take care of your feet and see you succeed, people who aren't even runners themselves, it's incredible.
Sharing an experience with other runners, whether you're competitive in the race or not, the camaraderie that is present almost always in ultra running, how other runners lift each other up and cheer for each other and just want everybody to succeed and have their best race, that is a great reason to keep racing.
I've had some really stellar crew. People pacing and meeting at aid stations, taking care of me. You become kind of a helpless child at some point, especially in these two hundreds. You just need someone to take care of you when you get to the aid station and I've had the most amazing crew members. It's so selfless because they don't get the award at the end and they're spending their time helping you realize a goal.”
“My goal this year is to climb up two million vertical feet. Human powered, so on my feet, running, skiing, mountain biking, and a dose is on the stair mill at the gym.
At the beginning of this year, I was just thinking about the new year and what I wanted to do with myself besides some more races. I thought, I'll set some kind of an overarching goal that I can focus on.
I read that the mountain athlete, Hillary Allen, her friends called her Hilly Goat because she does so much vert. Last year she had done 1.2 or 1.3 million on Strava. That was what she had recorded. And I just thought, I wonder if I could do that. I think the most I'd ever done was five or six hundred thousand, nowhere near. Then, I had a friend who suggested I just do 5,000 a day, a 5k a day.
It sounded good, but the math didn't add up to a nice number. It was like 1.825 something and that was just too close to a round number for me not to just bump it up to 2 million. The difference in those two numbers is very significant, but two million is roughly 5,500 a day, which to me is a South Sister and a Pilot Butte.
Also, what was really important to me was that I got to do a lot of fun things. I wanted to keep racing. I wanted to see if it was possible to do that much vert and to still race. I wanted to still have time in my life to do the things that are also important to me. I didn't want to have to sacrifice cooking dinner at home. I wanted to function well as a friend and make sure that I could still go running with my friends and that they wouldn't say, ‘Oh, she doesn't want to come with us because there's not enough vert on our run today.’ I wanted to make sure that I still was able to do fun things with my partner and spend time with his kids, like going snowboarding and going to soccer games and things like that. So, it really became, ‘How can I do this and have balance? Is that possible?’
It feels like the goal in and of itself wouldn't mean so much to me if I lost track of certain people or didn't get to spend quality time with the people who have made my life so much better. So finding that balance was a required part of the goal for me.”
“Feeling like an imposter is an ongoing, lifelong process for me. I'm sure you've heard this before. It is such a common thing, feeling like an imposter. You're making excuses like. ‘I did really well, but the field wasn't very strong.’ ‘You should have done better.’ ‘You could have been faster.’ ‘You're not that special.’ Goofy things that we all tell ourselves that become complicated when you're trying to get better and you want to excel or you want to improve and get to the best that you possibly can be.
I love having conversations with friends and with other athletes about that kind of stuff because we all feel it. It is just across the board. So when you're talking to someone that you greatly admire and then they're telling you that they feel the same things, it's just this shared experience.
There's so many amazing athletes in this area. There's endless people to look up to that I see as role models, that I want to be more like. If I'm doubting what I am doing, there are people also looking at me that way so I should just shut up and stop doubting myself because that is what we all give each other. That is part of the reason we all do it.”
