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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
Make sure to tap these links:
- 📱 Tiffany on IG
- 🎬 Tiffany’s First 50k Sisterhood reel
- 🏃♀️ Trail Running Sisterhood: apply by December 28
- 🌲 Meet the 2026 First 50k Sisterhood
- 🌸 Wild Woman Trail Runs
- ➡️ The Cairn Project on IG
- ✨ The Cairn Project’s newsletter
- 🥾 Become a Trailblazer
- 📅 Summit Scholarship Foundation
Like this episode? Leave a 5-star rating and review on your podcast app!
You can help us close the gender gap outdoors and beyond:
- Become a Trailblazer. Your Adventure Fundraiser makes wilderness experiences possible for girls and women.
- Check out the Summit Scholarship Foundation.
- Apply to the Trail Running Sisterhood by December 28 for your first trail 50k or first trail half marathon.
- Send this episode to a friend who is trail running curious but has the same doubts Tiffany had.
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In this episode of the See Her Outside Podcast, host Angie Lake talks with Tiffany Diep, a pediatric nurse, mom of three, and mountaineer, about becoming an outdoor athlete without any outdoor upbringing. Tiffany Diep grew up in an immigrant household where her parents focused on survival and assimilation, told her girls belong in dresses, and called her “too much like a boy” when she tried to wrestle and do pushups with her brother and cousins. Her first glimpse of the outdoors came from a Backpacker magazine subscription she chose from a school fundraiser.
Tiffany describes how indoor rock climbing in college led her to quit a nursing assistant job to work at a climbing gym, where she met another Southeast Asian woman with the same upbringing who was hiking solo and WWOOFing on farms. After moving to Los Angeles with no community, she joined the women’s hiking meetup Girls Who Hike LA, which led to climbing Kilimanjaro and Mt. Elbrus with Whoa Travel. She explains summit fever from the inside: turning around in a whiteout on Elbrus, then feeling like she’d “wimped out” once the rest of the group made the summit.
The conversation covers motherhood and burnout, from twins with ten hospitalizations in two winters to a hip labrum tear that a doctor dismissed as normal pregnancy pain. Tiffany applied to the First 50k Sisterhood, The Cairn Project’s trail running scholarship program, right after her labrum repair, and wasn’t cleared to run until late March. She trained on the StairMaster and treadmill, raised money for the program, and ran her first race ever, the Wild Woman 50K in Trout Lake, Washington, on June 20, 2026.
Listeners will hear how Tiffany Diep turned around on the Matterhorn as a Summit Scholarship recipient after an unusually warm summer, a lead guide who backed out, and a pace she couldn’t hold past the Solvay Hut. She compares that decision to Elbrus and explains why trusting her intuition felt different this time. For women thinking about their first trail race, first ultramarathon, or applying to the Trail Running Sisterhood, her advice is to take the baby step just past your comfort zone, then the next one.
