Ben Duffus is one of Australia’s best mountain, ultra and trail runners. This year he finished second in the UTA 100, 1st in the Australian Mountain Running Champions and 3rd in the 9 Dragons 50km in Hong Kong.

Ben is a coach at Mile 27 along with his own coach Andy DuBois. It’s clear he’s put a lot of thought into the mental side of his running and he confirms one of my long held suspicions – that the endurance mindset is an attitude to life, not just running.

We kick off talking about Ben’s past experiences of UTA and by about 30 mins in we find ourselves in the depths of some real interesting chat about running being a like a science of self, a testing lab in which you control all the variables and you get to explore what makes you tick.

To me, this interview makes me feel like I’m searching in the right direction, and with a few more interviews, some common themes are going to start becoming apparent.

Ben lives in Queensland and I’m in Canberra, so the interview is a phone call recording. The sound quality isn’t ideal sorry but I hope you enjoy the content anyway

You can find the podcast on iTunes and Castbox.