Mount to Coast

In the early fall of 2026, Meg Eckert travelled to Hungary to race for 144hrs around a lakeside campsite. Over those six days she covered 1024km, breaking her own women's world record and taking the all-comer’s American record in the process. Meg raced in the Mount to Coast R1, just like she did for her 2025 record. 

This is an episode in two parts: we start in Albi, France, where we follow three Mount to Coast athletes at the World 24hr Championships, and we finish with a long conversation, recorded after the race, with record-breaking ultrarunner and physics professor Jenny Hoffman. Enjoy!

This episode we're speaking to Nico Liu. Nico grew up in China and now lives in Switzerland, where he discovered mountain sports and in partidcular ultrarunning. This summer he became the first person to the race the Transpyrenees, UTMB and Tor Des Geants. His name probably won't be one you recognize from the first page of results at these races but his attitude towards racing is infectious - he's all about savouring the moment, and something that I took away from this conversation relates to volunteering at races, and how that sense of community and goodwill can travel with you. I hope you enjoy this chat.

In episode 8 of the Mount to Coast pod, we’re speaking to two Spanish athletes, Manuela Vilaseca and Oriol Antoli.Despite both being super competitive ultra runners, they’re involved in quite different areas of the sport, with Manu focussing on 200 mile trail races, while Oriol has found his niche in the backyard ultra scene. As this episode launches, Manu is travelling from her home in Spain to Moab in Utah for the final leg of the Triple Crown series of 200 mile trail races. We’ll speak to her about that challenge later in the year, but before this final race, we wanted to catch up and find out how she’s feeling going into such a daunting event.

For this edition of the Mount to Coast podcast we spoke to two world record holders, American Meg Eckert and Belgian Mattieu Bonne. Meg recently broke the Women's six-day World Record, covering 970km (603 miles) at the Six Days of France. That was over than 40 miles more than any woman had covered in six days up to this point.Matthieu Bonne meanwhile, in addition to holding the six-day record, broke the 48hr record in May in Poland. He ran 485km (301 miles) breaking Yiannis Kouros’ longstanding record by 11.6km. We spoke to Matthieu and Meg individually - first up is Matthieu, and Meg's interview comes in at 36:55. Read more about Matthieu and Meg (and the shoes that powered them to their records) at MounttoCoast.com

Anna Simonsson-Søndenå is a 21 year old Norwegian ultra runner who has been running long distances since her teens.Born in Norway, she’s lived in Sweden, Norway, and across Europe, living the dirtbag ultra runner life out of her van.Anna started working with Mount to Coast in the summer of 2024 when she ran the length of the Lofoten islands in the arctic circle for a film on slow tourism. Anna has an interesting approach to running and training, and for someone so young, to life in general. There are some nice insights in our chat, particularly around the Norwegian approach to endurance sports.

Cole Crosby is a New Englander who’s competed throughout his life. His real success though has come in ultramarathons and when we spoke, he was fresh off a victory in the Mount to Coast-sponsored Across the Years race in Arizona, where he covered 150 miles in 24hrs.  When he’s not training and racing, Cole is a rep for Mount to Coast in the North East and he’s a well-known figure in the ultra community across the US. This is a great conversation, we hope you enjoy it. Any comments? We'd love to hear them.

Ben Blankenship has been an Olympian, a world record holder, and a champion miler.  Now, as a Mount to Coast athlete, he’s embarking on a journey from the track to ultra-marathons. This is a fascinating conversation where we cover a wide range of topics, from his approach to training, the similarities and differences between running on the track and racing long distances, and his approach to shoe technology.  You can read an interview with Ben on the Mount to Coast website: https://mounttocoast.com/blogs/go-beyond/ben-blankenship

We speak with US ultrarunners (and Mount to Coast supported athletes) Megan Eckert and Sierra DeGroff about their journeys to ultra running, the challenges they've faced, and their upcoming goals.

In episode 2 of the podcast we speak to Trishul Cherns & Viktoria Brown about the Global Organization of Multi-Day Ultramarathoning and the Mount to Coast sponsored 6-Day World Championships in Hungary.