Extended interview: At 74, Michael Koppy aims to be oldest person to finish the Arrowhead Ultra 135
Michael Koppy pulls a sled before a training run outside Duluth on Jan. 3, for the Arrowhead Ultra 135. He's required to pull a sled carrying about 40 pounds of survival gear.
Dan Kraker | MPR News
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Early Monday morning nearly 200 athletes embarked from International Falls on the Arrowhead Ultra 135, one of the most grueling winter endurance races in the world. Racers bike, run and ski the equivalent of more than five marathons on a snow covered trail across northern Minnesota, carrying survival gear with them.
Among the racers is Michael Koppy, 74, from the Duluth area, who’s vying to become the oldest person ever to finish the Arrowhead on foot.
MPR News correspondent Dan Kraker recently caught up with Koppy, who started running ultras about 25 years ago, when he turned 50.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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Audio transcript
NINA MOINI: Early this morning, nearly 200 athletes embarked from International Falls on the Arrowhead Ultra 135. It's one of the most grueling winter endurance races in the world. Racers bike, run, and ski the equivalent of more than five marathons on a snow-covered trail across Northern Minnesota carrying survival gear with them.
Among the racers is 74-year-old Michael Koppy from the Duluth area who's vying to become the oldest person ever to finish the Arrowhead on foot. My colleague, Dan Crocker, recently caught up with Koppy, who started running ultras about 25 years ago, when he turned 50.
MICHAEL KOPPY: Sort of worked my way up the chain. 50K, and then just kept doing longer and longer things, and found that I really liked the long ones, the 200s. 200-pluses because one is you can eat real food. You get real tired of race food. And so real food is a nice treat.
I also like the added challenge of sleep deprivation and how you deal with that, and that's only exists in the 200-plus ones. You have to figure out how you're going to do that and when you're going to do it. And it's a critical part of the whole race.
DAN CROCKER: Hmm. So how long does it take to roughly to run a 200-mile race?
MICHAEL KOPPY: Well, they vary a lot because I've done one like Cowboys, which was on a railroad grade in Nebraska. And so those are much faster because they're flat, there's no technicality to the trail. But then if you get into something like-- well, like doing the FKT on a Superior Hiking Trail, that's--
DAN CROCKER: An FKT?
MICHAEL KOPPY: Yeah, Fastest Known Time. I did that when I was 69, set the FKT for the Superior Hiking Trail. And that is technical. In fact, that's the one thing that I underestimated, is how draining it is to always be concentrating where your foot is planted.
DAN CROCKER: It's hard to hike the Superior Hiking Trail.
MICHAEL KOPPY: Yeah. And to run it, you just don't-- there's no time where you can just zone out and relax and just run. You've got to be paying attention to your footing all the time or you're going down. You don't realize how draining that is on your mind to have to pay that much attention 100% of the time.
DAN CROCKER: And what was the fastest known time that you set for traversing the Superior Hiking Trail?
MICHAEL KOPPY: It was five days, three hours.
DAN CROCKER: Wow. So talk about how you manage sleep on that when-- as you described it, it was pretty mentally exhausting just focusing all the time so intently.
MICHAEL KOPPY: Typically I don't sleep the first 24 hours at all, and then I don't sleep till the second night. And try to actually sleep towards the latter part of the night so that when the sun comes up, I'm rested, and you're ready to go again. And sometimes you get what's called a reset where you get up, and it's like you've never run. Your legs are brand new, and it's just an amazing feeling. And that's after just an hour or something of sleeping.
DAN CROCKER: Hmm.
MICHAEL KOPPY: So I kind of used some of that same thought, that I could get by them with-- on the second night from then on just an hour a night. But it turns out, after the third night, your body can't do that-- at least mine can't. I needed more sleep.
And I really-- I would give myself even two hours, but even after that, it just builds up where the fatigue is just-- there's no way to overcome it unless you give yourself a little more rest. And so I ended up sleeping a total of eight hours during that time, but it wasn't even enough. I was really a zombie at the end.
DAN CROCKER: And so-- wow. I mean-- and that seems like incredible sleep deprivation. So people talk about the runner's high. Do you get that? And could you--
MICHAEL KOPPY: Oh, for sure.
DAN CROCKER: And explain what that feels like.
MICHAEL KOPPY: It comes in different forms. You can zone out, and you can get into what's called the flow where time sort of disappears. I mean, it really does. You don't even know you've run 30, 40 miles and it feels like it was 10 minutes.
But then there's other ones where part of it is just seeing the beautiful vistas that most people never get to see. Many times I've seen a scene for five seconds and it's like, that's worth the whole effort, just for that five seconds. And I don't know-- I can't explain why that would be that rewarding, but it is.
DAN CROCKER: Hmm.
MICHAEL KOPPY: And of course, just the feel of the movement is just therapeutic. Just flowing down the trail and just feeling that your body is in tune with what's going on, and that whole part of it is just a nice, magical feeling. But, of course, in altars, they always say, whatever's happening, you can guarantee it's going to change. And so you might be feeling great, and then next minute, it's just-- man, it's tough.
DAN CROCKER: I mean, there must be a lot of moments of suffering in the midst of those fleeting moments of joy, huh?
MICHAEL KOPPY: Right, right, yeah. But that's what you tell yourself when you're feeling bad, is that's going to change, too. You can let yourself get absorbed in it, and if you have to have a little pity party, go ahead and do it for five minutes, but then you've got to just let it go and move on and go on to the next thing.
DAN CROCKER: Is it as much a mental challenge as it is a physical challenge?
MICHAEL KOPPY: Oh, for sure. They say ultrarunning is 90% mental. You could almost say it's 100% because it is really all up in the head. And people can go there not being in great shape and do well if they can keep their head. Yeah. I mean, not that you can't-- you've got to train, but I've seen people that are in good shape drop out early in a race because they're just not ready for it.
DAN CROCKER: So you're getting ready to do the Arrowhead 135. For folks who aren't familiar with it, describe the race. And I know it presents some unique challenges, right?
MICHAEL KOPPY: Oh, it sure does, yes. I mean, we have to carry a lot of required gear. It's non-supported, so you have to carry your food and your water. We're pretty much out there the whole time on our own. So it ends up being around 40 pounds of gear you have to carry. The runners are typically pulling a sled. And that's what I'm doing. I built my own sled.
One of the hard things about this race is that you have to make sure you don't sweat because if you sweat and you get wet, and then you're going to freeze, and it comes back to get you.
DAN CROCKER: Because it gets pretty dang cold at night, doesn't it?
MICHAEL KOPPY: Well, it can. You've got to be on this fine line of staying warm, but not getting too warm that you're perspiring. And that's a technique that's-- I'm still finding it kind of hard. It's a really delicate line. And you can't-- out there, nature doesn't let you by with too many mistakes. When it's below zero, just take your gloves off and see how long you can stand there. It's not even a minute.
DAN CROCKER: And of course, you're also dealing with being in the middle of nowhere. Pitch black in the middle of the night with sleep deprivation.
MICHAEL KOPPY: Yes, right. So you got all those things.
DAN CROCKER: A lot of people your age are not doing anything remotely close to what you're doing. I mean, do you see yourself as an inspiration to folks or not? Are you doing this for you?
MICHAEL KOPPY: Well, I do it for myself, but if I can use it to inspire people and help motivate them to maybe reach for something a little more than what they thought they could do, I mean, great. I mean, I have to say, Arrowhead scares me. It's out of my comfort zone. It's a little scary to go out there. I have no idea what the conditions will be. I mean, I've trained hard for it and tried to be in different situations, but I know I'm going to learn a bunch of stuff out there, and some of them the hard way.
DAN CROCKER: So you probably get this question all the time, so forgive me for asking it, but I'm sure people ask you why you do this. Especially at your age when you could be lounging and enjoying retirement on a cruise ship or something, I mean-- because these are hard, and you just talked about what the Arrowhead about-- that it's scary, too. So what is it? I mean, are you chasing those moments that you talked about earlier, those moments of flow and joy? Or what is it that pushes you to do these things?
MICHAEL KOPPY: I would say my why is a lot of things, but for me, it's a lifestyle. For me, running is what makes life really possible for me because we all have a lot of stresses that we have to deal with. And I feel the most connected to the Earth and get the most release of stuff when I'm running, I make my best decisions. I trust the decisions I make while I'm on the trail because my head is so clear. All those complications fall away when you're out there running. It's just very simple.
And then the benefits of just being active every day, too. I have friends that are around my age, and for some reason, because the aches and pains, have become less active, and it's a downward spiral. I think the most important thing, as you get older, is to stay active. And it doesn't matter what you do, you certainly don't have to do extreme things like I'm doing, but those motivate me. And so whatever it is that's going to motivate you to get you out there.
NINA MOINI: Great advice. That's Michael Koppy speaking to MPR News Reporter Dan Crocker. Koppy right now is about five hours into the Arrowhead Ultra 135. We wish him well. Again, he's hoping to become the oldest competitor ever to finish the race on foot.
Among the racers is 74-year-old Michael Koppy from the Duluth area who's vying to become the oldest person ever to finish the Arrowhead on foot. My colleague, Dan Crocker, recently caught up with Koppy, who started running ultras about 25 years ago, when he turned 50.
MICHAEL KOPPY: Sort of worked my way up the chain. 50K, and then just kept doing longer and longer things, and found that I really liked the long ones, the 200s. 200-pluses because one is you can eat real food. You get real tired of race food. And so real food is a nice treat.
I also like the added challenge of sleep deprivation and how you deal with that, and that's only exists in the 200-plus ones. You have to figure out how you're going to do that and when you're going to do it. And it's a critical part of the whole race.
DAN CROCKER: Hmm. So how long does it take to roughly to run a 200-mile race?
MICHAEL KOPPY: Well, they vary a lot because I've done one like Cowboys, which was on a railroad grade in Nebraska. And so those are much faster because they're flat, there's no technicality to the trail. But then if you get into something like-- well, like doing the FKT on a Superior Hiking Trail, that's--
DAN CROCKER: An FKT?
MICHAEL KOPPY: Yeah, Fastest Known Time. I did that when I was 69, set the FKT for the Superior Hiking Trail. And that is technical. In fact, that's the one thing that I underestimated, is how draining it is to always be concentrating where your foot is planted.
DAN CROCKER: It's hard to hike the Superior Hiking Trail.
MICHAEL KOPPY: Yeah. And to run it, you just don't-- there's no time where you can just zone out and relax and just run. You've got to be paying attention to your footing all the time or you're going down. You don't realize how draining that is on your mind to have to pay that much attention 100% of the time.
DAN CROCKER: And what was the fastest known time that you set for traversing the Superior Hiking Trail?
MICHAEL KOPPY: It was five days, three hours.
DAN CROCKER: Wow. So talk about how you manage sleep on that when-- as you described it, it was pretty mentally exhausting just focusing all the time so intently.
MICHAEL KOPPY: Typically I don't sleep the first 24 hours at all, and then I don't sleep till the second night. And try to actually sleep towards the latter part of the night so that when the sun comes up, I'm rested, and you're ready to go again. And sometimes you get what's called a reset where you get up, and it's like you've never run. Your legs are brand new, and it's just an amazing feeling. And that's after just an hour or something of sleeping.
DAN CROCKER: Hmm.
MICHAEL KOPPY: So I kind of used some of that same thought, that I could get by them with-- on the second night from then on just an hour a night. But it turns out, after the third night, your body can't do that-- at least mine can't. I needed more sleep.
And I really-- I would give myself even two hours, but even after that, it just builds up where the fatigue is just-- there's no way to overcome it unless you give yourself a little more rest. And so I ended up sleeping a total of eight hours during that time, but it wasn't even enough. I was really a zombie at the end.
DAN CROCKER: And so-- wow. I mean-- and that seems like incredible sleep deprivation. So people talk about the runner's high. Do you get that? And could you--
MICHAEL KOPPY: Oh, for sure.
DAN CROCKER: And explain what that feels like.
MICHAEL KOPPY: It comes in different forms. You can zone out, and you can get into what's called the flow where time sort of disappears. I mean, it really does. You don't even know you've run 30, 40 miles and it feels like it was 10 minutes.
But then there's other ones where part of it is just seeing the beautiful vistas that most people never get to see. Many times I've seen a scene for five seconds and it's like, that's worth the whole effort, just for that five seconds. And I don't know-- I can't explain why that would be that rewarding, but it is.
DAN CROCKER: Hmm.
MICHAEL KOPPY: And of course, just the feel of the movement is just therapeutic. Just flowing down the trail and just feeling that your body is in tune with what's going on, and that whole part of it is just a nice, magical feeling. But, of course, in altars, they always say, whatever's happening, you can guarantee it's going to change. And so you might be feeling great, and then next minute, it's just-- man, it's tough.
DAN CROCKER: I mean, there must be a lot of moments of suffering in the midst of those fleeting moments of joy, huh?
MICHAEL KOPPY: Right, right, yeah. But that's what you tell yourself when you're feeling bad, is that's going to change, too. You can let yourself get absorbed in it, and if you have to have a little pity party, go ahead and do it for five minutes, but then you've got to just let it go and move on and go on to the next thing.
DAN CROCKER: Is it as much a mental challenge as it is a physical challenge?
MICHAEL KOPPY: Oh, for sure. They say ultrarunning is 90% mental. You could almost say it's 100% because it is really all up in the head. And people can go there not being in great shape and do well if they can keep their head. Yeah. I mean, not that you can't-- you've got to train, but I've seen people that are in good shape drop out early in a race because they're just not ready for it.
DAN CROCKER: So you're getting ready to do the Arrowhead 135. For folks who aren't familiar with it, describe the race. And I know it presents some unique challenges, right?
MICHAEL KOPPY: Oh, it sure does, yes. I mean, we have to carry a lot of required gear. It's non-supported, so you have to carry your food and your water. We're pretty much out there the whole time on our own. So it ends up being around 40 pounds of gear you have to carry. The runners are typically pulling a sled. And that's what I'm doing. I built my own sled.
One of the hard things about this race is that you have to make sure you don't sweat because if you sweat and you get wet, and then you're going to freeze, and it comes back to get you.
DAN CROCKER: Because it gets pretty dang cold at night, doesn't it?
MICHAEL KOPPY: Well, it can. You've got to be on this fine line of staying warm, but not getting too warm that you're perspiring. And that's a technique that's-- I'm still finding it kind of hard. It's a really delicate line. And you can't-- out there, nature doesn't let you by with too many mistakes. When it's below zero, just take your gloves off and see how long you can stand there. It's not even a minute.
DAN CROCKER: And of course, you're also dealing with being in the middle of nowhere. Pitch black in the middle of the night with sleep deprivation.
MICHAEL KOPPY: Yes, right. So you got all those things.
DAN CROCKER: A lot of people your age are not doing anything remotely close to what you're doing. I mean, do you see yourself as an inspiration to folks or not? Are you doing this for you?
MICHAEL KOPPY: Well, I do it for myself, but if I can use it to inspire people and help motivate them to maybe reach for something a little more than what they thought they could do, I mean, great. I mean, I have to say, Arrowhead scares me. It's out of my comfort zone. It's a little scary to go out there. I have no idea what the conditions will be. I mean, I've trained hard for it and tried to be in different situations, but I know I'm going to learn a bunch of stuff out there, and some of them the hard way.
DAN CROCKER: So you probably get this question all the time, so forgive me for asking it, but I'm sure people ask you why you do this. Especially at your age when you could be lounging and enjoying retirement on a cruise ship or something, I mean-- because these are hard, and you just talked about what the Arrowhead about-- that it's scary, too. So what is it? I mean, are you chasing those moments that you talked about earlier, those moments of flow and joy? Or what is it that pushes you to do these things?
MICHAEL KOPPY: I would say my why is a lot of things, but for me, it's a lifestyle. For me, running is what makes life really possible for me because we all have a lot of stresses that we have to deal with. And I feel the most connected to the Earth and get the most release of stuff when I'm running, I make my best decisions. I trust the decisions I make while I'm on the trail because my head is so clear. All those complications fall away when you're out there running. It's just very simple.
And then the benefits of just being active every day, too. I have friends that are around my age, and for some reason, because the aches and pains, have become less active, and it's a downward spiral. I think the most important thing, as you get older, is to stay active. And it doesn't matter what you do, you certainly don't have to do extreme things like I'm doing, but those motivate me. And so whatever it is that's going to motivate you to get you out there.
NINA MOINI: Great advice. That's Michael Koppy speaking to MPR News Reporter Dan Crocker. Koppy right now is about five hours into the Arrowhead Ultra 135. We wish him well. Again, he's hoping to become the oldest competitor ever to finish the race on foot.
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