Meet the Mammoths; Amber Weibel!

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Meet the Mammoths — Amber Weibel: Second Place, and Back for More

Amber ran her first official 200-mile race last year at Mammoth and finished in 55 hours and 40 minutes, second place female. She holds fastest known times on both the Tahoe Rim Trail and the John Muir Trail. And with one week to go until the 2026 race, she's back.

Amber Weibel joins us to talk about picking Mammoth because it let her kids finish out their school week before driving down to crew — a genuinely practical reason that says a lot about where she is in her life right now. She describes what a race feels like after years of unsupported FKTs, where nobody is waiting at the next aid station and the energy bump of seeing family simply doesn't exist. Mammoth, she says, was strangely hard, and her husband had never seen her in a low quite like the one she hit on night two.

We get into the question that's been nagging at us since we researched this episode: she's run the Tahoe Rim Trail both supported and unsupported, and the crewed version was only 22 minutes faster. Her answer is about what a level playing field actually looks like, and why she'd rather be in the wilderness on her own.

She also explains the lie she told herself all the way around the Mammoth course last year, her path from cyclist to Ultraman world champion to trail running, why she'll happily spend four minutes changing shoes to avoid blisters, and her Mammoth 200 video game result — which she'll admit came after a first attempt she describes as embarrassingly slow.

In this episode:

• Picking a race that fits around an 8- and 9-year-old's school week
• Unsupported FKTs versus a supported 200, and what changes
• Twenty-two minutes: what a crew is actually for
• The lie she kept telling herself at Mammoth last year
• Four pairs of shoes, zero blisters
• A 105-hour first attempt at the video game, and a much better second
• Her non-placement goal: showing her kids what working through hard things looks like
• A weather prediction from someone who got caught in lightning on the second summit

Mammoth 200 kicks off Friday, October 2nd in Mammoth Lakes, California. Catch live coverage on the Mountain Outpost YouTube channel, and follow @Mammoth200 for updates and tracking throughout the race.