For Amanda Basham, skilled runner for Altra and mother of two, nothing about how she approaches the game is conventional. All pictures: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Welcoming Committee
After I knock on the door of a home perched within the forested hills above Boulder, Colorado, it might be Amanda Basham who opens it, however she’s positively not the primary to greet me. That will be Maeve, Amanda’s three-year-old daughter. Maeve wastes no time ushering me inside and telling me all about Luna, a nine-month-old cattle canine the household adopted just a few months in the past, who can be a part of the enthusiastic welcoming committee. She additionally tells me that she simply discovered methods to swim, a undeniable fact that her older sister, Rylan, who’s observing quietly within the background, doesn’t appear impressed by. 4-year-old Rylan quietly says, “I can swim, too,” as she hangs again with Amanda’s older cattle canine, Marley.
Barely contained in the door, Maeve exhibits me an image of her mother that she carries round earlier than becoming her Elsa — from the movie “Frozen,” clearly — dancing sneakers, that are in a pile of footwear largely dominated by Altra path trainers. The 2 ladies run off, and Amanda and I’ve an opportunity to formally meet. We’ve in all probability spent quarter-hour speaking with the ladies and petting the canine by the point we get previous, “Hello.”
Amanda’s youngest daughter Maeve exhibits off an image of Amanda that she likes to hold round.
I’m there to see what a day within the lifetime of an Altra-sponsored skilled path runner and mother of two is like within the lead-up to her greatest race of her 12 months, the 2025 CCC within the Alps. So far, I do know way more concerning the ladies’ dance camp than any of her coaching plans and targets. The mixing of operating into Amanda’s life is clearly a household affair.
Attending to Know Amanda Basham
It’s a Thursday in August, about two weeks earlier than Amanda leaves for Europe to race CCC in three weeks’ time. It’s a race that Amanda positioned second at in 2019, coming off a four-year streak of outcomes that included two fourth-place finishes on the Western States 100. It was earlier than assembly her companion, earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic, earlier than transferring to Boulder, earlier than having two youngsters, and earlier than having to determine methods to mix being knowledgeable athlete and a mum or dad, a feat not generally seen within the sport, particularly amongst elite ladies.
Whereas most athletes evolve steadily over time, Amanda has had two very distinct components of her profession, punctuated by 2020 and 2021, the 2 years that modified practically every thing in her life and operating — apart from her trademark shiny purple hair, her now eight-year relationship together with her major sponsor Altra, and her need to race on the entrance of probably the most aggressive occasions in path operating.
Curler skates, Cookie Monster Crocs, and Altras fill the household shoe closet.
Three weeks out from the race, whereas lots of the different high runners racing CCC have already traveled to Europe to coach on the route and recover from jet lag, Amanda is staying house together with her household for so long as doable. It’s a danger, and possibly not one which she would have taken earlier than having youngsters, however nothing in Amanda’s present life state of affairs is conventional or essentially deliberate out or conducive to best race preparation. Whereas others may panic on the lack of day by day construction or best coaching and restoration forward of an vital race, Amanda, after greater than a decade of success within the sport, appears to have the expertise, or no less than the acceptance, to make it work.
Breakfast of Champions
Luna, the overgrown and over-excited pet, shadows me as we head into Amanda’s kitchen, clearly deciding that I’m her new finest buddy. I touch upon the fantastic thing about the home and site, which is a 30-minute drive up a steep, winding mountain street from Boulder. It’s best for a path runner, sitting at round 7,000 toes, with dust roads and trails from the door, away from the bustle of Boulder down under. However Amanda explains that the situation has its drawbacks additionally: It’s practically unattainable to get childcare on the home, and getting along with others to run has confirmed difficult, between the time it takes to drive to city, managing two youngsters, and scheduling together with her companion, Justin Grunewald, additionally an Altra-sponsored athlete and a physician who leaves for every week at a time to work in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Bacon for breakfast, electrolyte mixes for runs.
Bacon scorching on the skillet, we’re mid-conversation about Amanda’s choice to give up her day job with Nike in 2014 in pursuit of a operating profession when the 2 ladies return, now modified out of the operating camp t-shirts they have been in and into dance costumes. Maeve fails to play the music she desires on a small speaker, lapsing right into a mini-meltdown in Amanda’s arms whereas the wrong music blares from the speaker. Amanda rapidly adjustments the music to the specified KPop Demon Hunters music, which she explains is an enormous enchancment over the ABCs music the ladies have been beforehand obsessive about.
Coaching After Children
Breakfast is on the desk when Justin returns from his morning run. His first transfer is to show the quantity down on KPop Demon Hunter a number of notches. He’s on the point of race the Leadville 100 Mile, which can happen proper earlier than this text publishes, and tells me a few niggle together with his sacrum as he foam rolls on the lounge flooring. The ladies entertain themselves whereas the canine lounge.
The pair takes turns watching the ladies to make sure that they’ll every get their coaching in. It’s a juggling of schedules with many transferring components, and one which’s by no means set in stone. Amanda explains that when she first turned pregnant, the pair dedicated to discovering methods to proceed working towards their operating targets.
The ladies play, Amanda’s husband Justin Grunewald foam rolls, and Marley the canine lounges on a Thursday morning at house.
Amanda returned to racing six months after her first being pregnant and three months after her second one. Postpartum, she’s had a string of spectacular outcomes, together with successful the Damaged Arrow Triple Crown in each 2024 and 2025, after ending second in 2023, and putting fourth on the 2023 Bandera 100k whereas seeking a Golden Ticket to the Western States 100. However the return to racing has included disappointments as properly.
I ask her if she was extra regimented in her coaching and preparation earlier than youngsters, and she or he seems at me like I’m loopy. “I hear ‘Mother’ 100 instances earlier than breakfast.” As an alternative of getting the construction of eat, run, and get well like different high runners, she’s working round scheduling runs with Justin, the ladies whose power and inclinations typically run the family, and different surprising disruptions. She laughs, “My mother says Maeve is rather like I used to be once I was little. And that that is payback.”
Household Power Exercises
Amanda’s coaching at present includes a energy session and a two-hour run. Her energy coach, Chris Lee from Kinesis Built-in in Boulder, prescribes 4 classes every week, two energy and two mobility. “I get the energy classes carried out,” Amanda explains. “However the mobility …” she trails off. “If I get three classes whole in every week, it’s good.”
For the energy exercise, we head upstairs to a room with two treadmills, a stationary bike, a weight rack with various kinds of straps hanging from it, and an assortment of restoration instruments. A set of medals and trophies adorns the again wall. Whereas she goes to the gymnasium in Boulder to coach with others when she will, the additional time and logistics are sometimes prohibitive.
Health club sneakers of alternative for this household: the Altra Solstice XT 2, Elsa dancing sneakers, and none in any respect.
The ladies observe us in, however the canine get locked out. Amanda pulls up her exercise on an app and places on a pair of Altra Solstice XT 2 gymnasium sneakers. Rylan joins her for the preliminary warm-up, eyes on her mother’s each transfer. Maeve, nonetheless carrying her Elsa sneakers, heads for the bands.
“They often begin doing no matter with me, after which they go off and do their very own factor,” Amanda explains of the ladies, who usually be part of the energy classes. In between units of lunges, pushups, step-ups, and band work, Amanda helps the ladies grasp from the pull-up bar, mitigates tears when Maeve can’t flip off a therapeutic massage gun, and negotiates that the ladies can get on the treadmill after her exercise is completed. A targeted individual might end this exercise in about half-hour, however with the youngsters, it takes properly over an hour.
A energy session additionally consists of hanging on the pull-up bar.
After the exercise, Amanda is straight again into mom-ing, first serving to the ladies develop into costumes after which studying a guide. In contrast to many elite athletes, there isn’t a pause for a restoration drink or snack. And there positively isn’t time for a nap.
A Decade in Ultrarunning
With the morning within the rearview mirror, we sit down to speak extra formally about Amanda’s operating profession. She palms the ladies over to Justin, and we shut ourselves off from the remainder of the home.
It’s the primary second of calm we’ve had since I walked in her entrance door a number of hours in the past, and the transformation between Amanda the Mother and Amanda the Skilled Athlete is rapid. There’s a spotlight and drive that appears masked, or maybe deliberately hidden, together with her ladies. These traits instantly reveal themselves once I ask her about her historical past with CCC and the UTMB Mont Blanc competition of races.
“After I did [CCC] in 2019, I bear in mind pondering, ‘That is probably the most aggressive CCC has ever been, however now evaluating that 12 months to now, it’s like, ‘Holy crap.’ The place it’s gone has simply been insane.”
Amanda has been at the forefront of the game for a decade, and she or he’s not satisfied that every one the adjustments she’s seen in that point are good. She says that the game’s professionalization, whereas nice from a monetary perspective, additionally has drawbacks. “Extra individuals are extra targeted on, ‘I’m right here to do properly and carry out to then get a sponsor and receives a commission higher,’ and that’s the target.”
She looks like issues have been completely different earlier than there was fairly a lot cash and hype across the massive occasions. “Individuals have been doing it as a result of they beloved to do it. Sure, you wish to carry out properly and you’ve got massive targets, however the primary goal was, ‘I’m right here to get pleasure from this place, see what I can get out of myself, and have a great time.’”
After her energy exercise and earlier than her run, Amanda reads with the ladies.
As each Amanda and the game have grown, so has her sponsor, Altra. When she first signed with them in 2017, it was a small workforce working a comparatively new shoe firm with a novel imaginative and prescient. Of their subsequent decade of large progress, she says that they’ve stayed true to the core values of what first drew her to them. “They need the human model of the athlete,” she explains, saying that it’s not all concerning the podium finishes. In 2020, after three years of being sponsored by them, she says, “I wasn’t fairly as frightened about having youngsters as a result of I had been with them for therefore lengthy, it simply felt like extra of a long-term partnership.”
Whereas we’re speaking, Maeve walks in, explaining that Justin has despatched her upstairs for a little bit of a timeout. She sits on the ground, promising to be quiet.
Defining Success on the 2025 CCC
Since her first go to to the UTMB Mont Blanc competition in 2017, Amanda has had combined success in her six subsequent visits. Her pre-pregnancy second-place end at CCC in 2019 set her requirements excessive, however she dropped from her second try in 2021 after discovering out that she was pregnant together with her second youngster simply three days earlier than the occasion.
Amanda says that returning to CCC this 12 months isn’t about redemption from 2021, however an opportunity to race with confidence once more. She explains that early in her operating profession, she had the boldness to run on the entrance of any area — even towards the recommendation of people that instructed her to race extra conservatively — however these days she’s been hanging again, frightened about her postpartum health and physique, and feeling like she shouldn’t be a part of the race.
Within the remaining weeks earlier than the 2025 CCC, Amanda makes each coaching session depend.
Amanda admits that her lead-up and preparation to CCC this 12 months is much from conventional, however that her time within the sport and long-term relationship with Altra have given her useful perspective, freedom, and confidence. Her targets lie not in her remaining end result however in her race execution and technique. “I’m going to go on the market and simply be riskier and be within the race. I don’t assume I’m going to be proud of it if I sit again after which the race will get away from me once more.”
She additionally notes that she’s dedicated to operating with happiness as a substitute of a give attention to the ultimate end result. “I feel you must have the enjoyment issue, irrespective of how professionalized and aggressive and the way a lot individuals receives a commission.” She pauses. “Not less than I can’t, I can’t operate that method. It’s not going to go properly for me.”
Rylan walks via the door, the polkadot onesie she’d insisted on carrying simply half-hour earlier eliminated, her third outfit change this morning. She and Maeve start taking part in, first quietly sufficient for Amanda and me to proceed speaking, however their recreation escalates in enthusiasm and quantity.
Whereas there’s nonetheless a lot I wish to ask, the cadence of the hours and actions are managed not by Amanda, however by every thing else happening round her.
Relentless Ahead Progress
Subsequent, Amanda has a two-hour run on the schedule. Having all the time coached herself prior to now, she employed Robbie Britton, who additionally works with runners like Hayden Hawks, Dan Jones, and Caitlin Fielder, in late 2024. “Robbie is extra high quality over amount,” she tells me, explaining that whereas some weeks she solely runs 60 miles, it’s with a number of pace classes included. Previous to working with Britton, she’d been a high-volume runner and all the time had a tough time convincing herself to do speedwork, choosing lengthy runs on trails as a substitute. “I’m nonetheless not utterly offered on the low-volume coaching,” she admits. “However it appears to be working.”
Relentless ahead progress.
On the point of go away the home, Amanda laces up a pair of Altra Expertise Wild 2 sneakers. Her house’s entryway is full of each her and Justin’s Altras, and she or he exhibits me her pair of Altra Olympus 275, the model’s latest light-weight, extremely cushioned path racing shoe. She’s debating between these two fashions for CCC, weighing some great benefits of consolation over weight, a 4-millimeter drop versus zero drop, and lug dimension. “If it’s dry, I feel the Wilds are going to be good,” she tells me.
All within the Household
With Justin taking good care of the ladies, we drive just a few miles down the hill from her home to a parking zone that she says is often full. It’s noon already, and the temperatures are pushing 90 levels Fahrenheit. She remarks on the empty parking zone. “It’s too scorching out for anybody to be out right here,” she says, unloading operating gear from her truck. I agree, pondering to myself that it might take so much for me to placed on a pair of sneakers and run in these situations. Plainly everybody else in Boulder who needed to run at present has lengthy since gotten their miles in and gone house.
Cookies for path snacks!
She stoically masses her operating vest with a bag of cookies. Her vest is in any other case crammed together with her CCC obligatory package and a big quantity of water, and she or he heads out on a route with two main climbs. She solely has just a few hours earlier than needing to be again house to her household, and with solely a few weeks left of coaching earlier than flying to Chamonix, each mile counts.
Justin has his 100 miles in Leadville. After that, Amanda will likely be on the CCC begin line. All of the whereas, the ladies will play, do energy exercises with their mother, and have little or no thought of their dad and mom’ lofty targets. However they’ll see their mother working onerous, and as Amanda tells me, “They don’t actually take heed to what you inform them. They see and observe every thing you do.” And no matter how CCC seems, the teachings she will educate her ladies via operating are invaluable. “How can I inform them to maintain attempting if I don’t do it too?”
With a decade of expertise within the sport, Amanda is approaching the 2025 CCC able to race.
[Editor’s Note: This article is sponsored by Altra. Thank you to Altra for its sponsorship of iRunFar, which helps to make iRunFar happen and free for all to enjoy. Learn more about our sponsored articles.]
