(Land) Trust Yourself: Abby Bennett, Ultra Runner, Researcher, Van Lifer, Land Steward

This week I’m back to in-real-life interviewing (woohoo!), and taking you with me to the ultra cool and vintage headquarters of the Mahoosuc Land Trust at Valentine Farm in Bethel, Maine, where we'll be chatting with Abby Bennett - aspiring ultra runner and conservationist in training. As you’ll hear, I first started trying to get Abby on the pod because she had a little online business selling fun-looking compression socks for hiking and trail running, and I thought that was cool. I got some socks, but never did manage to connect with her enough to chat at the time. So while we both languished through most of COVID, I followed her Instagram account and got even more interested in her progress as an van-life-ing ultra runner, and her professional transformation, all of which we’ll dig into here.Abby is as big a fan of western Maine as I am, so of course we have some fun. I hope you'll follow my new friend Abby (@abby.j.bennett), where you can watch her grit it out through all kinds of vertical, and take on her new schwanky van conversion!Because I know next to nothing about land trusts and trail/ultra running, I had to look a LOT of stuff up from this episode - I've dropped a few of these links below, but you'll also want to head on over to Guides Gone Wild, because there's a lot more where these came from!:Mahoosuc Land TrustYouTube video of Abby living out of van at school‘ProMaster’ vanBilly YangCourtney DewaulterMadison Gulf Trail (NH)Baldpate Mountain (ME)Ultimate Direction running packWestern Foothills Land TrustNSF program at UMaineMaine Coast Heritage TrustBuck’s Ledge Community Forest (Woodstock, ME)Spandits - and my episode with the Spandits ladies!OnX appSpeed Goat 50K (Utah)Loon Mountain Race (NH)Acadia Gantz on Guides Gone WildAnd finally, thanks to Evans Notch Lodge for giving me a reason to be close enough to meet Abby at Mahoosuc Land Trust's headquarters in Bethel!