Adventure Racing Legend Danelle Ballengee on a 60-Foot Fall, Two Freezing Nights, and the Dog That Saved Her Life

Danelle Ballengee is one of the most decorated endurance athletes in American history, a four-time Pikes Peak Marathon champion, two-time Adventure Racing World Champion, and six-time US Athlete of the Year across four different endurance sports. In December 2006, on a routine training run near her home in Moab, she slipped on black ice on the Amasa Back trail, fell roughly 60 feet, shattered her sacrum, broke her pelvis, and spent two sub-freezing nights alone in the desert before her dog Taz led search and rescue to her location.

In this conversation, Buzz sits down with Danelle at the Moab Public Library to revisit the golden era of adventure racing under Mark Burnett's Eco-Challenge, coming back two decades later for Bear Grylls' rebooted World's Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji alongside Travis and Mark Macy, the fall that should have killed her, and what it feels like to live what she calls borrowed time.

Danelle is the founder and race director of the Moab Trail Marathon and Half Marathon, held the first weekend in November. 

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The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.