This past late winter I met a truly impressive group of athletes on a trip to the rugged and beautiful, high-elevation Atacama Desert of Chile. One of these is Kat Edwards of Richmond, Va. A relative newcomer to ultrarunning at 24 years old, and having never experienced performing at altitude, Kat crushed climbing peaks of 16,000 and 18,000 feet before tackling her first FKT attempt, on nearly 20,000-foot Nevado San Francisco on the border between Chile and Argentina. This same insanely difficult climb with 4400 feet in elevation gain over just 4.67 miles took me more than nine hours to the summit and back. Coached by Tyler Andrews, who led our trip, Kat quite impressively set the female FKT by reaching the peak in 3:37 and completing the roundtrip in 5:40. Kat has followed that up by taking on more scary challenges that have been more opportunities for growth. She raced for the first time on foreign soil in the Petzl Trail Plus 80K in Ecuador on a dastardly beast of a course that led to a DNF, but she also gleaned a ton of knowledge to apply to the future as she discusses here. She bounced back in a huge way in early May as the first woman finisher by nearly four hours – and fourth-place overall – in the Sedona Canyons 125 on the Cocodona course in Arizona. Kat comes from a varied athletic background in which she has also biked, rock climbed, and enthusiastically hit weight training. She may be young, but she is on the fast-track of seeking new ways to challenge herself, and she has now joined Tyler as a coach with the Chaski Endurance Collective, and she will take on the Moab 240 this fall. She also recently got engaged. One thing you’ll notice is how meticulously Kat approaches her training and racing, which belies her easy-going personality. I certainly enjoyed getting to know and admire Kat while we were in Chile along with all of the incredible people on the trip.

Kat Edwards
katedwardspt.com
Instagram @kat.elizabeth_
For coaching inquiries: www.chaski.run

Bill Stahl
silly_billy@msn.com
Facebook Bill Stahl
Instagram @stahlor and @coachstahl
YouTube We Are Superman Podcast