One of the key elements to be successful at 100 minors is to know yourself.

When we talk about mental health, it's like physical training.

It's just training for the brain.

It's positive.

It's not weakness.

The people who understand that are going to go further, they're going to go faster, they're

going to go longer.

It's essential. Welcome to the trailhead of trail runner nation. We go on weekly trail runs with you and With a guest that are gonna help us become better runners healthier athletes and maybe just better human beings. And today, the topic we're going to discuss is fear. We're going to turn it around on its head and look at it in a completely different way. Is it something to run away from or is it something that can help us move down the trail? You know what I love about this whole clarity on the trail thing from to Fosioptics? Trail runners are basically wilderness muggivers with hydration packs. And we get this gym from listener Katie Johnson in South Carolina. She says, I refuse to start any run without a bandana or a cotton handkerchief. It's an all purpose tool that mops wet wipes running noses or even band bandages a knee when I follow the trails, which happens more often than I'd like to admit. That's such a trail runner answer. She didn't say you need a carbon plate, she didn't say that you need to work on your VO2 max, no, a sweaty little square piece of cloth held together with grit and questionable decision making. And honestly, Katie's onto something. Clarity on the trail usually comes from experience. Sometimes painful experience. Better clarity isn't just about seeing the trail better. It's about those little lessons that make running more fun, more efficient, and maybe slightly less catastrophic. So send us your clarity on the trail tip via Instagram. This time we're looking for the tips on busting a bonk. What tips do you have to pull yourself out of a bonk? A trail hack that made you a better runner. Take trail runner nation and to foe sea using hashtag clarity on the trail. Or you can text us from the US at 916-235-3928. And each week we'll feature one of our favorites and hook someone up with a pair of those to Fosi sunglasses because Wisdom deserves better optics premium. And don't forget, you can get 20% off all of your to Fosi optics sunglasses, prescription glasses, or blue light glasses. Go to our deals page at trailrunnernation.com and get 20% off their entire store. Don, I finally realized something. Every protein powder out there claims to be the perfect formula, but none of them are actually built specifically for me. Exactly. One's too sweet, another one wrecks your stomach. Another has ingredients that sounds like spare parts from a lawnmower. That's why I've been using true nutrition. You literally build your own blend. You can choose your protein source. You can choose the flavor. You can choose add-ins. True nutrition has this beta thing that they're testing out called the coach, and you answer a few questions and it builds the formula that it thinks is the best for you. It's all customized for your training and your recovery goals. I added extra electrolytes and collagen to mine, and the crazy part, it actually tastes smooth. Go to trunetrition.com slash trail runner and use the code TR-SUMMER. This is a temporary code that will give you 25% off for their memorial day sale between May 22nd and May 25th. It's only good during those three days. The code is T R Summer at Trunetrition.com slash trail runner. Welcome to another edition of trail runner nation. My name is Don Freeman. I'm Scott war. Have you ever been out on the trail or out there racing or maybe even it's it's even before you've gotten out on the trail and wondered is this fear that I'm feeling right now holding me back or is it actually helping me? Today we're going to discuss the perspective that might change how you think about those moments entirely, about fear and what you think about fear. Today we have a special guest, an author, a runner, a contributor at Ultra Running Magazine, and he has, I think, a fairly easy pronounceable name, but I've been trying for about a week now to pronounce it, and I'm gonna try again, and he's going to correct me and actually say the correct pronunciation. Let's see how close I come. Don, if you want to give it a try, you can give it a try before he reveals exactly how it is pronounced. No, I'm waiting for the nickname and that's what I'm going to roll with. So go ahead Scott. Give it a go. You're one for the team. Hit it. Okay. Our guest today is Gael Dutugni. Can I interact? Yes. Oh yeah. Tell us exactly how it's pronounced. Welcome to the show. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Well, that was very close. Gael Dutini. Yeah. Dutini. Yeah. You got it. I cannot pronounce the first name. I know I apologize And we found out earlier before you hit record that his wife just calls him honey or baby and Don says that's what he's gonna call you throughout the rest of the podcast. So Anyway, and this episode we're gonna talk about fear because in the latest ultra running magazine edition, he wrote a really good article about that. Now, we need to make it clear that Gail is not a doctor, he's not a clinician, he's just a really, really good writer and journalist. So Gail, tell us a little bit about, first of all, how did you come up with this topic,

the title of the article is Fear Isn't a Weakness. What cued you to write that article? That's a very good question. I think Fear, I've been doing a trial running, particularly in hostile environments, whether its mountains, jungle and deserts for 20 plus years, and I very often have been afraid of many things. And as a child, as a young man, as a 50-year-old man today, I'm still afraid of stuff. I think fear has marked my life for the better. Hmm. Well, at first probably, but then for the better. And it's really something that is deeply within my experience of life. But I think I'm not the only one. I've done a lot of psychoanalysis. I've done eight years of psychoanalysis as a patient. So I'm able to talk about what's going on inside myself. And so I have no problem talking about my own fears, my own problems. And I think that I wanted to give that opportunity or that gift to the runners, to the readers, to be aware, to get more knowledge, more understanding about what's going on within themselves when they practice the sports of ultra-try running, especially in the mountains, which is the main focus of that issue. It's the April May issue of ultra-try running magazine. The one thing that is incredulous to me, Gael, is you've run UTMB four times. Arguably one of the most mountainous difficult runs in the world, or one of the most popular mountainous runs in the world. It's very, very difficult. And you mention that you're afraid, or you have fear of running 100 mile mountain race. I don't understand that you have the experience which you would think would give you the confidence to run 100 mile mountain race. But you are vulnerable enough to say, I'm afraid of running. I think you mentioned Hard Rock 100, which is a mountainous race. Tell us a little bit about why the four times didn't create confidence, but still, you still have that fear in your mind or in your heart. Yeah, I mean, again, I've also done the, you know, the marginal this ab in the Sahara, 10 times, that doesn't mean that I'm not afraid every time I'm at the start line. And actually, I touched on it. It's one of my questions in the magazine back in the 90s and the 2000. There was this Southern California brand. They only had one slogan and there was written in big in the teacher. It was no fear, right? But I think in 2026, the brand would be fear, not no fear, but fear because fear is very positive, actually. And I think that's the idea behind the article. It's not a weakness, okay? Being aware of yourself, your own weaknesses, your own fears, your problems, your own questions, that strength. So if you found yourself entering an erase that in the past you've had fear, but you weren't experiencing any fear, would that concern you? Is fear a superpower? I don't know. I don't know if fear is a superpower. What I know after talking to those experts is that it's okay to be afraid. If you're not afraid, that's the problem. You know, that's the problem.

You're either lying to yourself, lying to others, and you're potentially going to die, because you don't know what you're doing. This is where an accident happens. But I mean, it's a thin line. It's a very thin line because fear can also be kind of a handicap. You can also make you freeze and not be able to do anything. So I think it's the mix of fear and aggression and knowledge and it's all of that that comes into play. But you know when it happens most of the time you don't have the tools to put it in front of you and analyze it like those researchers doing the article. You know, you just live with it and then its personality experience. It's who you are who comes into play and I think most people manage it pretty well to be honest. But fear is just it's a fundamental aspect of our sports and I think it's it's it's fine to recognize it like other sports,

like surfing, like, you know, whatever,

outdoor extreme sports.

Because I think ultra-training is an extreme sports,

you know, and this is a trend today

and I'm taking this opportunity to say it

because it's really one of my bad

or with 2026 and social media is ultra-attrend running is difficult. It's hard. It is really something to finish a hundred K, a hundred mile, no matter the environment. It is a hell of an achievement and there is a trend today where people, and I'm not against both races, like 300 miles, 200, and people do that every weekend. I'm exaggerating a little bit, you know, and they brag about it on social media. Well, I mean, good for you, but I don't know if that's really, I don't know if you know what fear is, really. I don't know if that's healthy. I'm not supporting that. I would not try to advertise those, It's kind of the opposite. Like, do 100 miles, do 100 games. Most people can't.

Most people want, for most people, it's a life achievement. And we gotta respect that. And this is why in other sports, because accidents in ultra-trainering are pretty rare compared to other extreme sports. But this is how accident happened. This is how people end up in a wheelchair. So people die. It's media pressure. And before we were starting this talk, I was mentioning, there's a great documentary on Netflix about Dean Potter, a climber, Dean Potter, Dean Potter. He had fear. Like you see it in the documentary, the way that he climbs without any safety net, without any rope, free solo, before Alex Hano did it. Very different personality. Like Hanoch, we can argue that Alex Hanoch doesn't feel fear. It's been debated, right? This guy does, and you see it in the in the in the images, but it goes beyond. And it requires such knowledge of your self. He cried. He go through all those very strong, weird emotions that we all have. Like it's very intense. Let her only lie behind the end ends up dying. Okay. So it's a it's a very sad, very touching story that if you bring it to your own level, you understand it. Like, I love this environment, but it's also a dangerous environment. It has to be respected. And in the end, it's accessible, but respect the environment, respect your fear. It's perfectly, it's very healthy to be afraid. And so, I'm not afraid of talking about my fear, because it's healthy. You know, if you can't talk about your fear, I'm not going to hang out with you. You know, let me, you mentioned something at the beginning that I want to explore a little bit that there's a thin line between fear paralyzing you so that you freeze, I think you said, you freeze, something that paralyzes you. So let's say that I've never run 50K and I'm fearful of running a mountain 50k. What is the thin line between it paralyzing, meaning I'm not going to sign up or show up or try and having that fear be a healthy fear and motivating you to see what's possible? Did you learn something from the experts on that or in your personal experience? Yeah, I think it's another thin line to answer your question about a thin line. It's, I think it's personality is why are you getting in both sports, you know, or why are you not? I think some people don't want to venture into the unknown and some

people are drawn to it. In the end, what it comes to is training, is experience, you know, and that's why I mentioned my own, you know, inner soul eight years of psychoanalysts experience because that helped me a lot in my ultra running.

And it's basically the hardest it comes to this the hardest you train the hardest you meet your fears in training in in training you you have a safety rope probably you have a buddy you have a car waiting for you you have you know you train where you cell phone works things like. The harder it is than the easier you're gonna be able to not deal with your fear, I would say, but live with your fear. And be okay, have your fear be your friend, you know, almost like a guide. Let's take UTMB. You've rented four times, you've completed it four times. Did you experience fear on each one of those races at some point, from the point of signing up to somewhere through the completion of that race, was fear an ingredient in that process? Of course. Or every step of the process. So from the time of making the decision, I'm going to run again to completing the finish line. At what point in there did you experience the fear? Is it mostly in the beginning? The start line, where is it that fear is expressed? I think it's constant. It varies. Like so much comes into play, right? How well you're feeling that day. We're touching on it in the article like peer peer pressure. It's even worse today. Like I ran the UTMB at the beginning when they started in 2003, 2004, and etc. As social media was, and that big at the time. So that's before the race. Like why you have to understand the wise to be able to process the house, right? And I think that's also very fundamental. And this is the first question is why. Why do I want to do this? You know, is it to prove something to my girlfriend? Or is it for me? And if it's for me, I may not have the answer to the why, but it's like a calling, but fear is there. Yeah, for sure. I mean, again, it's just the distance, a hundred miles, right? And you, you, you mentioning UTMB, but you're hard rock or any other mountain, you add to that the elevation. I mean, I just came back a week ago from the UTMB in Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. Man, it was brutal. It was 17,000 feet of elevation, 52 miles. It took me 99 hours and 59 minutes. Okay, it was hell on earth.

I keep... It was brutal. It was 17,000 feet of elevation, 52 miles. It took me 90 hours and 59 minutes. Okay. It was, it was hell on earth. I kid you not. I was miserable for a good 10 hours. So, those races, and I'm a nobody, I'm just a random guy who barely finishes all those races. But I'm sure, even elite athletes, like the guy who won the race in Porto Réad, I finished in eight hours.

I'm sure he has fears.

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