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(Tiffany ran her first ultra with the First 50k Sisterhood. The program has grown into the Trail Running Sisterhood: 36 women training for their first trail 50k or first trail half marathon at Wild Woman Trail Runs in June 2027. Applications are open through December 28.)
Tiffany Diep grew up looking out her window at a state forest she was told never to go into. It was dangerous, her parents said, and not a place for women.
This spring, on a three-hour training run for her first 50k, she dropped her kids off at that same house and ran straight into those woods. Six months earlier, she'd been in a hospital bed after hip surgery.
When Tiffany told me she still didn't feel like an athlete (after Kilimanjaro and Elbrus), I recognized it. I've run 100 miles and still catch myself thinking it's not cool enough, because somebody out there is on a three-month Arctic expedition. (Side note - Tiffany's next goal, for 2028: an Arctic expedition, pulling a sled on skis.)
Tiffany Diep is a pediatric nurse turned stay-at-home mom of three. Despite not discovering the outdoors until her twenties, her adventures have taken her dogsledding through the Arctic, mountaineering on Mt. Elbrus, and most recently, climbing the Matterhorn as a Summit Scholarship recipient.
Raised by immigrant parents who told her girls don't belong outside, Tiffany found climbing through a Groupon in college, found hiking through a women's meetup group in LA, and found running straight out of hip surgery.
Tiffany and Angie talked about:
Growing up in an immigrant household where strength wasn't celebrated and girls stayed inside
The Backpacker magazine she picked from a school fundraiser and pinned to her bedroom wall
Quitting a hospital job in nursing school to work at a rock climbing gym an hour away
Meeting a friend, a Southeast Asian climber with the same upbringing who lit the fire for her
Finding community through Girls Who Hike LA after moving to Los Angeles
Her husband's response to her plan to climb Kilimanjaro: "I f*cking dare you"
Turning around in a whiteout on Elbrus, then second-guessing it when others summited
Ten hospitalizations in two winters with her twins, and a decade-old hip injury nobody took seriously
Applying to the First 50k Sisterhood straight out of labrum surgery
Running into the state forest outside her childhood home during training
The final miles of the Wild Woman 50K with another mom and finishing together
Turning around at the Solvay Hut on the Matterhorn, this time trusting her own intuition
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