We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Casey Westbrook. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Casey below.

Casey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

As a gradutate student, I started to run ultramarathons, after 10 years of running shorter distances. I loved the experience, getting out into nature, feeling completely alone & relient on myself & my body to keep me moving. I spent about 3 years doing that when I signed up for my longest race yet, a 100k race in the foothills of the Sierras on the Western States course. I spent many months preparing for this event with long runs & building up mileage. 2 weeks before the event I was climbing indoors with some friends when I slipped & hit my knee HARD on the wall, I was pretty sore, but I was 2 weeks out from the event, & I had spent so much time training I decided to go for it anyways. I finished the race, but at the end of the race I couldnt fully straighten or bend that knee & the pain was excruciating. I took me 2 years before I could run again on that leg. At the time running was who I was, it was how I spent my time & it was a major part of my identity. I felt like I had lost myself from this injury, & I was depressed for months.

But ultimately I am grateful for this injury. It forced me to expand my life & how I spend my time, to build community & to not put all my eggs into one basket. and that endurance athletes NEED to strength train.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I grew up running & playing sports, movement was always a part of my life. I can remember being a little girl jumping in and doing short runs with my dad. When I went to college I knew I wanted to learn more about human movement, help people move & get back to movement in ways that were meaningful to them.

Throughout college, I learned so much about how incredible the human body is and all it can do from a scientific perspective and from my own pursuits in running. At the same time I struggled a ton with my body image & disordered eating. It took me years to over come that piece but once I did I knew it was something I deeply desired to help women over come while also helping them lead bold adventurous lives. My coaching focuses on helping adventurous women conquer big feats in the outdoors. I take a holistic approach from strength & endurance training, mindset work, and personal growth to help them lead big bold lives in the outdoors.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

When I first started coaching I was struggling with growing my client base. I was questioning if I should even be in this field. The biggest shift for me in growing my client base actually came from Human Design – a system for understanding oneself that stems from other personalily tools like astrology. I learned that one of the most effective strategies for success for me was being “invited.” Once I settled into this strategy, invitations to speak, host events, and be out in the community came out of nowhere. It was amazing! I love hosting community events both in person & online, educating on womens health, and the importance of training (esp. strength training) for female outdoor athletes. & I started taking suggestions from clients as invitations to create new programs which was so helpful in my success.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Well yes! In August of this year I broke my arm in 2 places while MTBing on the coast. While I was definitely bummed about my riding season being cut short, I was excited about the prospect of delving into this new journey of healing from this injury. This was such a shift from previous experiences with injury where I felt hopeless, depressed, and catastrophised the experience. This injury showed me how much trust I had developed in my body, how much I believe that my body is strong & capable of healing & that I now am so committed to my health & wellbeing that I won’t sabotage time off from training with self destructive behaviors like undereating, or exercising to the detriment of my healing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.caseywestbrook.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caseymwestbrook/

Image Credits

Elizabeth Jansen Photography, MOT Photography