Set the Pace Podcast: Becs Gentry’s Inspiring Trail Comeback

The Peloton instructor opens up about running burnout, a Canyons 50K debut, and a mystery race in Europe in one of her most candid interviews yet.

Becs Gentry has been open about a lot of things over the years, but a recent episode of the Set the Pace podcast gave her space to be more candid than usual. In a wide-ranging conversation with NYRR CEO Rob Simmelkjaer, the Peloton instructor walked through an 18-month stretch that included burnout, a near-complete loss of joy in running, and the trail racing pivot that brought it back.

The Set the Pace podcast is the official podcast of New York Road Runners, presented by Peloton, and Becs co-hosts it alongside Simmelkjaer. This episode turned the mic on her own running journey, and the result is one of the most revealing interviews she has given.

Set the Pace Podcast

How Burnout Followed the Great World Race

The story starts with the Great World Race, the seven-marathons-on-seven-continents challenge Becs completed in late 2024. Rather than taking a true recovery period after an event of that scale, she kept running. She signed up for Grandma’s Marathon, built another training block, and pushed forward until the wheels came off.

“I woke up one day and went, I don’t want to run,” she told Simmelkjaer. “I didn’t want to go to work. It was becoming a pain in the ass and I resented it.”

She tried running without technology, without a watch, without her phone. It made no difference. During the 67 Strong for Kids fundraiser with Jennifer Garner, a commitment to move one mile a day for 67 days, some days that single mile was the absolute ceiling of what she could make herself do. She pulled out of Grandma’s Marathon and, notably, felt relieved rather than disappointed.

The low point extended well into 2025. Outside of her Peloton Tread classes, Becs said her voluntary running topped out at three miles, roughly the distance of her daughter’s school run and back. She was honest on the Set the Pace podcast that even inside those classes, she was running on autopilot.

Set the Pace Podcast – Trail Running

Trail Running Brings the Joy Back

Two things shifted her trajectory. A partnership conversation with Hoka got her testing shoes and moving again with purpose. And an honest conversation with her coach cut straight to what she actually wanted: to enjoy running again.

That clarity led Becs Gentry back to trail running, a world she had been part of before road racing took over. She ran 50Ks before she ran 5Ks when she first started running, making the return feel less like something new and more like coming home.

She described the difference as immediate. No crowd anxiety at the start corrals, no pressure to hold a specific pace, no monotony. The terrain changed constantly, and so did her mindset. On the Set the Pace podcast she was specific about what road racing had been costing her mentally, the self-created pressure of being a public figure in the running world, the eyes on her Strava, the expectation of fast miles and lots of them. Trail running removed all of that.

Becs Gentry also opened up about her anxiety in large race environments. Crowded start corrals, concerts, big public gatherings of any kind are genuinely difficult for her. Trail races, with their smaller fields and relaxed village atmosphere, fit who she actually is in a way that road majors never quite did. At the Canyons 50K start line she looked around at a few hundred runners rather than tens of thousands, and that difference mattered.

Training for trail racing looked different too. Living in New York City, she does not have easy access to technical trails for daily runs. Her preparation leaned heavily on the Peloton Tread, hiking at incline with a weighted vest, and running loops of Central Park for the hills. She compared the approach to how she trained for the Great World Race, building strength on tired legs rather than chasing specific trail mileage. Two weeks before the Canyons 50K she ran a section of the Appalachian Trail to get time on technical ground, rolling her ankles on the rocky terrain and learning quickly where her confidence needed work.

To put that renewed energy to the test, Becs entered the 2026 Napa Valley Trail Marathon, chosen partly because it fell on a pre-booked day off and partly because it landed the weekend before her 40th birthday. She crossed the line in 3:22:58, first place overall across all genders.

Set the Pace Podcast – Napa Valley Trail Marathon

Four weeks later she was at the start line of the Canyons Endurance Runs 50K in Auburn, California, a 32-mile course following the canyons of the American River with steep technical climbs and fast descents. She finished 13th among women in 4:46, earning a qualifying result for her next target race.

Set the Pace Podcast – Canyons 50K

Set the Pace Podcast: What Becs Gentry’s Trail Turn Means for Peloton Members

The shift to trail racing has been showing up in Becs Gentry’s Peloton classes for months. She told Simmelkjaer she has been transparent with her community about it from the start, letting them know that her training was going to creep into her programming. The Peloton Tread Plus goes to 15% incline; the standard Tread reaches 12.5%. She has been working both.

Her case for incline work extends well beyond trail-specific training. She framed hill work as speed work in disguise, a tool that builds running efficiency, improves stride mechanics, and benefits anyone looking to get faster on flat roads. “Forward is a pace,” she said. “You just have to keep moving forward.”

Set the Pace Podcast – Forward is a Pace

The Clip Out tracks Becs’s podcast appearances regularly as her profile outside Peloton has grown. This Set the Pace podcast episode stands out as one of the most personal she has recorded.

She closed with a tease. There is a major race in Europe at the end of August. She is not naming it yet, keeping the pressure in a tight circle of people around her. Between the Appalachian Trail near her home and consistent incline work on her Tread, the training is already underway. Becs Gentry is not winding down. She is building toward something bigger.

The full Set the Pace episode is available now on YouTube.