In a sport like ultrarunning, where wins are measured in minutes, crushing the competition by hours gets you noticed. But Courtney Dauwalter does running differently than almost everyone — and that just might be the key to her success.

You know how you feel after a long run — sweaty, maybe a little snotty, and totally spent? Yeah, that’s not how Courtney Dauwalter looks when she finishes races. Most of the time, the 34-year-old ultrarunner has a big, toothy grin on the course and off.

Dauwalter brought that same smiley energy to the GearJunkie podcast. And Dauwalter has plenty of reasons to be happy — she’s won the ultra world’s most prestigious races, including UTMB, Western States, and the Moab 240, to name a few.

But it turns out she might be smiling all the time because she regularly hallucinates! Oh, and she basically wears pajama shorts on the racecourse.

We learned all this and a whole lot more!