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Meet the Mammoths — Elliot Chisholm: 18 Years Old, Two Cocodonas, and a First 200 Ahead

Today's guest has been on this podcast before. So has his whole family. Elliot Chisholm hiked the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail with his mom and three brothers — the full Triple Crown — before most people his age have a driver's license. He's 18, and as far as we can tell, the youngest entrant in this year's Mammoth 200. He's also still looking for his first 200-mile finish.

Elliot joins us to talk about how the family stumbled into this sport in 2023, watching Cocodona from afar with a friend and realizing that a race combining running and fast hiking was exactly what they'd already been doing across the country.

He's honest about both Cocodona attempts: going into 2025 sick at sixteen, throwing up everything he ate, and dropping somewhere past Crown King. Then coming back in 2026, getting his sodium badly wrong, developing rhabdo, and having his body shut down at mile 150 even as his mind wanted to keep going. Forty-something miles to a hundred and fifty in a single year — and a lot learned about nutrition and problem-solving along the way.

Mammoth is different: he's blazing the trail for his family this time, nobody's run it before him. He talks about training for runnable terrain instead of the jagged White Mountains he trains on in New Hampshire, heading to altitude from 400 feet of elevation, and why he plans to start the race in road shoes.

Plus: his virtual Mammoth 200 finish of 73 hours currently sits third on our leaderboard, his brother Asher helped him make decisions along the way, and he's pre-committed to the Mammoth Basketball League.

In this episode:

• The Triple Crown, and finding ultrarunning by accident
• Two Cocodona DNFs, a stomach bug and a case of rhabdo
• Why Mammoth, and blazing a trail ahead of his family for once
• Training for runnable terrain in the White Mountains
• Sea-level kid heading to altitude
• Third place on the game leaderboard
• A prediction: questioning every decision that led him to the start line — and looking forward to it

Mammoth 200 kicks off Friday, October 2nd in Mammoth Lakes, California. Catch live coverage on the Mountain Outpost YouTube channel, and follow @Mammoth200 for updates and tracking throughout the race.