Lindsey Dwyer Has Always Just Wanted to Run Long. Two Hundred Miles Later, Nothing Has Changed.

Lindsey Dwyer ran her first half marathon in seventh grade without telling anyone she was training for it. She just quietly did the work, then asked her parents for a ride to the start line. She finished, wrote her time and notes about what went well on the back of her race photo, and kept going.

That's basically still the whole story.

She's a two-time Cocodona 250 finisher, a teacher, a twin, a cat mom, and someone who will tell you with complete honesty that the reason she got into ultras is because she didn't want to do speed work. She just wanted to run long. The marathon started to feel too familiar — someone could say hey, want to run one tomorrow and she'd say sure without thinking twice — and when a distance loses its mystery, Lindsey goes further.

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Ask Lindsey what she loves about the long run and she doesn't talk about the miles or the fitness or the sense of accomplishment. She talks about not looking at her watch. Not knowing the pace. Not knowing the time of day. Just running.

In a world where everyone is tracking everything and optimizing every metric, there's something genuinely refreshing about someone who competes at the highest level of ultra running and whose favorite thing about her favorite day of training is that she doesn't have to look at any numbers.

She's been training like an ultrarunner since college, she just didn't know it. By the time she found out ultras existed, her body already knew how to do them.

At mile fifty of Cocodona 250, Lindsey's knee started hurting. She had two hundred miles left.

She didn't quit. She tried switching shoes. She tried poles. She tried topical lotion. She tried really good playlists. She decided the knee was just part of her life for the time being, accepted it without much drama, and kept moving. She finished fifth overall, eighteenth among women, seven hours faster than her previous finish and several places back in the standings — which is its own kind of testament to how competitive that race has become.

What she talks about when she talks about Cocodona isn't the suffering though. It's the puzzle. Problems are going to happen in a race that long. You can troubleshoot ahead of time but you will get surprised. Your race is largely determined by how you respond when the thing you didn't plan for shows up at mile fifty and doesn't leave.

Lindsey has thought a lot about crew and pacing because she's been on both sides of it. Her advice is simpler than most people expect. Ask your runner in advance what they actually need when things get hard. Positive words? Silence? Music? A joke? The answer is different for everyone and you won't know unless you ask. Also — and this is important — don't take anything personally. Deep in an ultra, in the middle of the night, your runner is not going to be their best self. They know you're helping even if they can't express it in the moment.

The most important thing you can tell someone in a low point is that it will pass. In ultras there are highs and lows. There could be multiple lows. There could be very long lows. But it passes. It always passes.

The reason Lindsey keeps going longer isn't complicated. She just wants to know what's possible. She reaches a new level and immediately wonders what's next. The mystery of the unknown is the whole point. What you thought was crazy and impossible a year ago becomes realistic if you work toward it. And then when you hit that goal — well, then what?

That curiosity shows up everywhere in her life. Travel. New places. New people. The same impulse that had her quietly training for a half marathon in seventh grade without telling anyone is the same impulse that has her signed up for Mammoth 200 after finishing Cocodona.

She also wrote her time and race notes on the back of her finish line photo when she was twelve years old. Some things don't change.

Lindsey's sister recently sent her an old Facebook post from 2013, written after her first fifty miler. It starts with the line — I know I'm a rookie at all this. She skimmed it and laughed. She got lost and ran fifty-six miles instead of fifty. She ate an entire pack of Oreos and was very proud of herself. Not much has changed, she says.

That's the whole point of looking back. Not to be nostalgic but to actually see how far you've come, because it's genuinely easy to forget. There's always a next race, always something to improve, always a gap between where you are and where you want to be. The gain — the actual distance traveled — tends to get lost in that.

The version of Lindsey who signed up for her first ultra did not know she'd be finishing two hundreds a decade later. The version of Lindsey in 2036 probably has thoughts about the version of her right now that would be equally hard to believe.

She just keeps running. And she never checks her watch.

🎧 Listen to the full episode with Lindsey Dwyer on For The Long Run wherever you get your podcasts.

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Jon is a runner, cyclist, and podcast host from Boston, MA, who now lives in Boulder, CO. For The Long Run is aimed at exploring the why behind what keeps runners running long, strong, and motivated.

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