EP195 - Train Your Mind for the Miles: Holly Grahn on Hypnotherapy, Mindset & the Divide 200

What if one of the most important parts of your ultramarathon training isn't another long run, hill workout, or strength session?

What if it's training your mind?

In this episode of Run the Riot, I sit down with ultrarunner, clinical hypnotherapist, mindset coach, and NLP practitioner Holly Grahn, founder of Hypno Gold.

Holly recently completed her first 200-mile race at the Divide 200, and we dig into what it took to prepare for that kind of challenge—not only physically, but mentally.

Holly shares how she used visualization, mental rehearsal, positive reframing, gratitude, and self-hypnosis before the race so that when things got difficult, her mind was already trained to look for a way forward.

And things definitely got difficult.

We talk about sore feet, massive climbs, long stretches between aid stations, pouring rain, hallucinating a monkey wearing sunglasses, catching her boyfriend Rob around mile 100, and ultimately finishing their first 200 miler together.

But this conversation goes much deeper than racing.

Holly explains how the beliefs we carry about ourselves can affect the way we train, race, work, and live. We talk about self-doubt, fear, anxiety, feeling like we're "not good enough," and why simply telling yourself to be positive isn't always enough.

Holly also explains what hypnotherapy actually is—and what it isn't—and how she works with athletes and other high performers to identify thought patterns that may be holding them back.

We talk about:

• Holly's journey from a shy kid who struggled with self-esteem to ultrarunner and hypnotherapist