Episode 41: Andrea Larson on Adventure Racing, Ultrarunning and Motherhood
by Nikki Parnell — January 29, 2021
This week we talked with Andrea Larson – a mom of 3, a Wisconsin cheesehead, an ultra runner, adventure racer, nordic skier, and mountain biker. She also is the executive director for IRONBULL, which is a non-profit that promotes outdoor recreation and adventure racing in central Wisconsin. We get to hear about what makes up adventure racing – from map and compass navigation to seeing the woods from a new perspective off trail, to learning the true meaning of teamwork and trusting each other. Overcoming adversity with a positive attitude is critical and you can see how Andrea takes what she’s learned from this sport and applies it to all areas of her life.
Andrea’s running history and accomplishments are very impressive too! She has set course records, she’s podiumed at Leadville, she won the Marji Gesick 100 miler and she just recently ran Bandera 100k where she got 4th place female even after driving 22 hours solo to get to the race and having no crew there to help out! Andrea trains with a skier’s approach, instead of logging miles she bases training on the hours she accumulates each week and she incorporates a lot of cross-training into her workload as well (all the many sports she loves as listed above, roller skiing and bike commuting – which is basically a sport the way she does it!)
We also get to talk about real mom life and the challenges and beauty of being a mother and still racing – especially in those earlier days when nursing! It’s not always glamorous, you miss the awards ceremonies sometimes, you’re “tied” to your kids physically and emotionally but the reward of watching your kids turn into such cool people outweighs the hard parts by a hundred fold. Andrea lives her passions and instills a healthy lifestyle with her kids, one example of that being the massively impressive garden that her family grows together – they’re still pulling carrots out of the garden…in January…in Wisconsin! So cool!
Give this episode a listen by clicking the link below or searching Run Hard Mom Hard on all podcast platforms! Don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast, leave a review, and share with your mom tribe!
Show Notes:
Andrea is the Executive Director for IRONBULL
Andrea’s Favorite Race: All her races are important to her but The Race of Life and Motherhood takes the cake!
Andrea’s Favorite Meal: Banana Pancakes! She talks about cottage cheese pancakes on the podcast which will be posted on the IRONBULL website soon and we’ll add that to the show notes!
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