The “Queen of Pain,” Amelia Boone, is an obstacle racer, endurance athlete, and one of the most decorated obstacle runners in history. Amelia is a 3x World’s Toughest Mudder Champion and is currently pursuing 100+ miles at this year’s event. In this episode, Amelia discusses how she started running, paving the way for female athletes, her eating disorder, and more.
Connect with Amelia on Social:
– Website: AmeliaBooneRacing.com
-Instagram: @arboone11
-Twitter: @ameliaboone
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A LOOK INSIDE THE EPISODE:
TM: How did your running/racing career begin?
A: I have a few co-workers from my law firm in Chicago, who will take credit for my entire obstacle racing career because it was one day in winter of 2010. I remember talking to one of my co-workers and being like, “Oh, have you seen this thing called the Warrior Dash that’s coming into Chicago in June?” His name is Louis and he looks at me and goes, “Oh, no, no, I have something cooler.” And he brings up this the very first promo video that Tough Mudder ever did and I can still remember it, it’s people running through flames and carrying tires and electroshock therapy. He was like, “We have to do this.” I remember going, “Oh, I don’t think I’ve ever even run 10 miles before in my life. I don’t know if I can do this.” But, we signed up, four of us from the law firm, all corporate associates at a major law firm, and decided to go run this race in July. It was in Devil’s Head, Wisconsin and I remember we went off and ran down a steep slope and then had to run up a steep slope. And I was like, “I really like this.” Then, I remember one of the first obstacles was Funky Monkey and this is when they still greased the monkey bars. I got to like two rungs and just fell off and I’m like, “Oh, this is hard.” Everest was greased and I just remember falling in love with it at that moment. I ran that first Tough Mudder and then a week later, I got an email that’s like “Congrats, you have qualified for the first World’s Toughest Mudder, which is a 24-hour.” First of all, I had run one Tough Mudder and then all of a sudden I decided, “Oh, this is a great idea to sign up for this. Why not? Let’s just do it. Let’s go from 10 miles to 24 hours.” So, I joined that faithful, very brave group of folks in 2011, who took on the first World’s Toughest Mudder in Englishtown, New Jersey, and the rest is kind of history.
I couldn’t extract myself from the community, even if I tried just because there was so much misery and unknown and suffering in that first year and then in the second year, where none of us had any idea what we were doing. It just really bonds you with people. There were no pit crews allowed, you were on your own. They had medical people coming through to check in the tents to make sure we were all still alive in the middle of the night, but that was about it. I think when you go through something like that, you suddenly learn what you’re capable of and then the confidence builds on itself. Even though I got my ass kicked in 2011, we all did, but it kind of left me hungry for, “What can I do in this scenario?”
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