meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Singletrack

What It Really Takes to Go Pro in Trail Running — with Sally McRae

Singletrack

Finn Melanson

Wilderness, Trail Running, Sports, Sports News, Mountain Running, Running, Ultrarunning, Ultra Running, News, Ultramarathon

5897 Ratings

🗓️ 24 June 2025

⏱️ 62 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Text us your thoughts about this episode or ideas for future episodes! Sally McRae joins the Singletrack Podcast live from our Olympic Valley, CA studio in the days leading up to the 2025 Western States 100 for a powerful and wide-ranging conversation. In this episode, we explore what it really takes to go pro in trail and ultrarunning—beyond the podiums, Strava segments, and sponsorship deals. Sally shares the lesser-told story of building a sustainable career in the sport, from early sacri...

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is year two of what's become a tradition having Sally in studio with us, Western States

0:06.0

Week. Last year was a great conversation. We got into all sorts of topics. We were just talking

0:10.1

offline about like everything. Come for 12 topics. The kids have been.

0:14.8

Then do this thing. Yes. Well, I'm actually fascinating. We were talking about the current scope because your daughter's running in college at NAU.

0:23.5

And we were talking about what it's like to be a collegiate athlete right now and how different it is than even just like five or six years ago.

0:29.0

Yeah.

0:30.1

It's like NILs.

0:30.8

And I know it's not really trail related.

0:33.5

It'll definitely turn into it because we're talking about the sponsorship landscape.

0:37.1

But what has it been like to navigate or to help navigate that that scene that's still so new and

0:44.4

there's doesn't really seem like there's much for like rules i know i think we're all still

0:49.0

trying to figure out i mean i think something was just passed a couple weeks ago as far as no more scholarships,

0:55.5

but teams can give out money.

0:57.5

Yeah.

0:58.1

And more scholarships.

0:59.8

Yeah, it's like, but teams can give money to the athletes, but I think teams are like getting smaller.

1:06.7

I'm still navigating it.

1:07.9

So I'm sure there's probably people online that you're saying it wrong.

1:10.7

But like it's there's so much changing right now that it just doesn't, it doesn't

1:15.7

feel like what college athletics were. That's what we were talking about was just, you know,

1:20.1

you commit to a team and you're there and you grind for those four or five years with the team.

1:23.8

And it's like now it's just how can we stack this team to look like a pro team

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Finn Melanson, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Finn Melanson and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.