“The final lap. This is the final lap. You already won. This is your victory lap.”
I tried to force myself to comprehend what I had just achieved. To feel pride, elation and all those feelings I thought one was supposed to feel when winning. But I couldn’t comprehend it just yet. After running for 24 hours around a motocross track and covering significant elevation gain, my mind was too exhausted to realize what this accomplishment really meant.
The accomplishment was not that I won the 24-hour race or that I won it against more experienced athletes who had won the race before, who were training in the mountains, and who used poles in this race.
The real accomplishment was that I won against the voices that had haunted me since childhood. I won against the stepfather who called me “fatty” and made me believe I was somehow less worthy, less capable. I won against the bullies who laughed at me in PE class and the teachers who looked at me with disappointment, who made me feel like athletic achievement was something reserved for other kids—never for me. I won against the young girl who believed her body was a source of shame, something to be punished rather than celebrated.
And whenever I now look at the chicken trophy I received as a prize, I am reminded that my victory was about so much more than this race. It was about silencing every doubt, every cruel comment, every moment of self-criticism that had defined my earlier years. It was about proving that you can redefine what’s possible when you refuse to be limited by past labels.
Early Struggles and Their Hidden Gifts
From an early age, my relationship with exercise was one of fear, self-doubt, and immense psychological pain. My earliest memories of PE class were falling sick and having high fevers most Wednesdays in 3rd grade – the year we started having swimming lessons.
Fast forward a few years, and I am bullied in school and at home for being “ugly” and “the fatty.” I hated PE class. I wasn’t athletic, and being laughed at whenever I moved my body didn’t help. Out of fear, I would “forget” my sports clothes regularly to sit on the bench while the other kids sweat in class.
I grew up hating my body and still hated it when I started running in 2006. I was a forestry student and on a 6-month exchange in South Africa when I laced up my running shoes for the first time. Still deeply insecure and at war with my body, my main motivation was to lose weight.
These first steps into endurance sports were still rooted in external validation and self-criticism. My first runs were painful. I hated them with a passion. But over the following months, I fell in love with moving my body in the early morning hours under the South African sun, surrounded only by nature.
Living on a plantation meant I was completely alone as I moved along the small paths.
No one saw me, no one could judge me, no one could laugh at me.
The plantations were my safe space to explore movement without pressure. And I still remember today, almost twenty years later, how I proudly wrote in my journal one day, “I can almost run one hour without stopping.”
I slowly transformed my body, but sadly, I didn’t transform my mindset. While I started to appreciate my body more and changed my diet to support my training, the fear of gaining weight was intense. And when I injured myself just before returning to Germany, my downward spiral began.
Afraid of putting back on the weight that I had lost, I started to eat even less, and the following years were marked by disordered eating and me becoming severely underweight. I didn’t have a period for most of my 20’s.
And while I now identified with being a runner, I ran only sporadically. Frequent injuries prevented a meaningful progression, but I managed to finish a few half marathons and even a marathon in 2013. After I had completed this event, I stopped running.
These years, though difficult, laid the groundwork for a more mature approach to athletics.
Finding Freedom at 36
When I started running again in 2021, I jumped straight into training for my first ultramarathon. I had 8 months to prepare. And I was ready to approach running differently. My entire approach to fitness and self-perception had changed, in no small part due to kettlebell training. In 2015 I began my journey of physical and mental transformation when I ordered my first pair of these oddly shaped cannonballs with a handle.
Over the following years, Kettlebell training became my unexpected pathway to self-discovery. Unlike my previous approaches to exercise—which were rooted in punishment and shrinking myself—this form of training was about expansion. Each movement was a deliberate act of building strength, not diminishing my body. Where running had once been a desperate attempt to lose weight, kettlebells taught me to value what my body could do, rather than how it looked.
My body was no longer an enemy to be controlled, but a powerful instrument to be developed and respected. The shift was more than just a new way of training. It was a reconstruction of my relationship with exercise. I learned that training is about becoming more of who you are, not less. It’s about expansion, not shrinking. It’s about being capable, and not about conforming to other people’s ideas of how my body should look like.
And when I thought about taking up running again, I felt a deep sense of readiness that I had never experienced before. The years of kettlebell training had given me something invaluable: trust in my body’s capabilities and a newfound respect for its strength.
Gone was the obsession with calories burned or miles logged purely for weight loss. Instead, I was curious about what my body could achieve.
The Physical Edge: How Kettlebells Prepared My Body
The physical benefits of kettlebell training prepared my body surprisingly well for the demands of ultrarunning. Years of almost daily kettlebell practice developed my deep core muscles in ways that proved essential for endurance events.
This core strength wasn’t just about having strong abs—it was about developing the entire system of muscles that would help me maintain proper posture even after hours of moving. During my first 24-hour race, I received the first comments on how beautiful my running form was and how I would still look just as strong at the end as I had at the beginning.
My well-developed core and shoulder strength also helped me carry a full backpack over many hours on the trails.
Mental Fortitude Through Iron
The mental benefits of kettlebell training proved equally transformative, offering psychological preparation that would become crucial in ultrarunning. Years of practicing complex movements under increasing fatigue had taught me invaluable lessons about the mind-body connection. Through countless long-duration sets of swings and snatches, I learned to recognize the subtle difference between productive discomfort and warning signs, developing an intuitive sense of how to pace myself through challenging moments.
And those long sets with heavy kettlebells also trained my ability to maintain focus during monotonous work—a skill that would prove crucial during those long hours on the trail. The mental challenge of maintaining proper technique during a heavy set of clean and presses wasn’t so different from staying focused when running in a loop for 24 hours. Both required the ability to stay present, manage stress, and maintain technique when fatigue made it tempting to quit.
But kettlebell training also taught me courage. The heavy military press, in particular, taught me about mental fortitude. Attempting to press a 20kg kettlebell overhead alone in your living room forces you to confront fear and self-doubt directly. There’s no room for distraction or hesitation—you must commit fully to the movement while maintaining perfect form.
This learned ability to stay focused under pressure would prove invaluable during crucial moments in ultrarunning, especially during my first mountain ultras, where running down steep hills over highly technical terrain required focus and courage.
The Late-Stage Beginner's Mind: A Unique Advantage
When I registered for that first ultra, a 61km trail race, I approached it with something special: a beginner’s enthusiasm combined with a veteran’s wisdom. The eight months I had to prepare weren’t filled with frantic training or anxiety about making up for “lost time.” Instead, I embraced what I like to call the “late-stage beginner’s mind”—the ability to approach something new with curiosity and maturity.
This perspective became my secret weapon. While many new runners fall into the trap of trying to do too much too soon, my previous 6 years of focused training experiences in kettlebell training have taught me the value of patience. I understood that sustainable progress comes from consistency, not from trying to compress years of training into a few months.
During those first months, I focused exclusively on base building, resisting the temptation to add speed work or complex training patterns that my body wasn’t ready for. This decision wasn’t driven by fear or limitation but by the wisdom to know that building a strong aerobic foundation would serve me better in the long run than trying to optimize every aspect of my training immediately.
I also drew on my experience of previous training mistakes. I knew the importance of rest and recovery—not just physically but mentally. When others might push through warning signs of overtraining, I was confident in my ability to take a step back when needed.
I approached my training plan with what I call “flexible discipline.” While committed to my training, I wasn’t rigid about following every detail perfectly. I knew that progress isn’t linear and that adaptation is often more important than strict adherence to a plan.
From Novice to Podium: The Power of Patient Progress
Within those eight months of focused training, I transformed from someone who hadn’t run in years into an ultrarunner. When I crossed the finish line of that first ultra as the third female, it wasn’t beginner’s luck—it was the result of patient, methodical preparation and the wisdom to trust the process. The podium finish that day would prove to be just the first of many, validating that my success came from a methodical approach rather than chance.
Patience was the guiding principle as I continued in the sport. Rather than rushing to sign up for every race available, I carefully chose my events and gave myself adequate time to recover after each race. This measured approach allowed me to progress from that first 61 km finish to winning a 24-hour race, each achievement building naturally upon the last.
Perhaps most telling is that despite dramatically increasing my running volume over the years, I haven’t had a single overuse injury in those four years since I started running again.
This isn’t a coincidence.
It directly results from building a foundation of strength, respecting the process, and allowing my body to adapt gradually. While many runners rush their progression and face repeated setbacks from overuse injuries, my patient approach to training has kept me consistently healthy and improving.
Each milestone, from that first podium finish to my 24-hour race victory, has reinforced that sustainable progress comes not from rushing, but from trusting in steady, methodical development.
Redefining 'Too Late'
Starting ultrarunning at 36 wasn’t a limitation—it was my greatest asset. Every life experience, even those seemingly unrelated to running, had equipped me with tools that would prove invaluable in ultrarunning. Those early morning runs in South Africa had taught me the joy of moving in solitude. Years of academic work had developed my ability to research and analyze training methods critically. Even my forestry background gave me a unique comfort with trail running and navigation in natural environments.
The “disadvantage” of starting late was filled with hidden advantages. My years of kettlebell training provided physical preparation, but more importantly, my diverse life experiences taught me invaluable lessons about resilience, adaptation, and personal growth. I brought to ultrarunning not just physical preparation but a rich tapestry of life skills: project management from my professional life, problem-solving from various challenges I’d faced, and emotional resilience from overcoming personal struggles.
This maturity manifested in practical ways. I could anticipate and plan for potential challenges because I’d faced complex situations before. My professional experience helped me approach training like a project, breaking down the overwhelming goal of running an ultra into manageable steps. Years of navigating life’s ups and downs had taught me how to stay calm under pressure and adapt when things didn’t go as planned—skills that proved crucial during long races.
Perhaps most importantly, I had the emotional maturity to separate my worth from my athletic achievements. Unlike younger athletes who might tie their entire identity to their performance, I understood that running ultras was just one facet of who I was. This perspective freed me to take risks, fail, and learn without the crushing pressure of perfect performance.