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The Best Sub-Ultra FKT's of 2024 with Jason Hardrath · The Steep Stuff Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What is up guys?
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Steep Stuff Podcast.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, james Lauriello, and today I'm so excited to bring you guys a very special presentation of the podcast.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I am joined by the legend himself.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I couldn't have thought of a better co-host for this type of episode.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: The legend himself, mr Jason Hardrath, the FKT man himself, joined me on the pod and we broke down the sub-ultra FKTs of 2024.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: That really stuck out for us.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: It was a really fun ranking system that we did.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: We put together our own kind of like criteria.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: That was really fun.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: We picked our favorite ascents up, down and long trail when I say long trail like underneath 35 miles Records for the year, which was a lot of fun to put together.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: This is a super fun episode.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: This was like one of the most uh exciting ones that I think we've done in a while.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Like I said, this is a special presentation, so it's a bit longer than a normal episodes.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: You can expect this one's going to be about two hours, so buckle up, get ready.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: There is some controversy, so I hope you guys don't get too mad at me for this one because there's a.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Just because FKT doesn't say it's a FKT doesn't mean we don't think it's an FKT.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: So buckle up, get ready.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoy this one, none other than the sub ultra FKTs of the year, with co-host Jason Hardrath.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: It's time.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: We are live.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Oh man, jason Hardrath, welcome to the Steep Stuff podcast, dude.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: What's going on?
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: James, this has been a long time in coming.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: I'm super glad we were able to put this together finally.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we've been floating in each other's orbits for a while as athletes and I think we first connected over like ultimate direction or something.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: We did.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: And now, here we are.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Dude, I am so excited to finally have this.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I know we kind of as, at least for the last like three weeks to a month, we've kind of like, at least I have like dangled the idea and you were definitely in, and then I'm like, oh, I have to move, so I'm busy, and then we finally like spitballed ideas for what we could possibly do.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: So to the audience, the reason we're here today, we're gathered on this blessed day, is to talk about sub ultra FKTs for the year of 2024.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: And we can.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: We're going to expand that out a little bit.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about vertical FKTs.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about some beautiful up-down routes and some amazing athletes that set records on there.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about some medium and long trail stuff, and when I say long trail, keeping it within that 50 K distance and down.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: So it's going to be a little bit different from the normal FKT episodes People are like used to.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: And then just to add my own spicy bit of commentary as well as controversy, we're also going to be talking about some FKTs that weren't actually named FKTs this year, but we're still the fastest times ever recorded on these routes.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: So it's going to be fun, man.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: I'm excited.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Thank you for joining me.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I'm excited to be here.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: I've been.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: I've been wanting to chat mountain FKTs particularly.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Um, definitely some stuff got respected in the in the overall FKT of the year, uh, but nothing in the short, short, fast single mountain push, um.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: So I think there's a lot to talk about here that didn't didn't get covered.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: So I'm excited to kind of roll.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: This can down the road, all right so, as we, as we kick this can, as we, as we start to punt the can down the road, here's my question like why do you think and listen, because you're I, I come from a traditional sub-ultra background like I race short races, short punchy, fast vks, things like that?
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: You're, you have a storied and like amazing career and doing all the long stuff.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Like what is your take?
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Why do you think the sub ultra stuff, especially on the fkt scene, gets a little disrespected?
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: What do you?
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: I, I think it's just easier unless it's like a world-renowned mountain.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Um, you're like, mont blanc is always going to get attention.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Anytime anybody does something on mont blanc, it's going to get attention.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Um, I think, aside from those like household name peaks, it's really easy to just think of a single peak push or like a shorter push as just like a casual outing, um, and to sort of underplay the amount of preparation and training and refinement.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Um, one of my mentors, uh, a guy named josh nelson, who used to be quite an athlete himself back in his day, um, he talked about how, when he said he he held a NFKT on Mount McLaughlin here in Oregon for a while and just our local Hill, the Hogsback Hill, climb, and nobody's touched his time on the Hill climb still, and Max King has like rolled through town a couple of times and he would talk about how, when you do this short stuff, like he could tell what his time was going to be up the mountain that day based on where his feet were landing on the trail on the way up, and to like be that kind of in tune with your body and with the footfalls up sections of a trail, on a route or or off trail, um, to refine it to that level, to choreograph it to that level, to to perform at a high level against a highly competitive field on some of these peaks, it's like that is something worthy of, of attention and it just it doesn't have the same adventure value, I think, as these like oh, the pct, or you know killian with his incredible push on the alps this year, um, those have this like adventure value.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that, that, I think, catches people.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Versus like oh, you, just, you ran up a peak, a single peak, three minutes faster than anybody else.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Like how can I really process?
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: That is three minutes important it's interesting.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's funny like I don't know.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I love taking different perspectives and seeing, like, how different people look at it.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I would take that approach toward it, but it's I definitely.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I like your, your way of looking at it a little bit differently, a little bit better, dude what have you been up to?
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: These days.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: What's what's going on?
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I see you all over the place.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: You just had your birthday.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I saw you over.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Were you in Columbia?
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: I was in Columbia, yeah, yeah Uh, I've taken up paragliding and speed flying, kind of had some some knocks with with the health, some long COVID stuff mixed with some maybe some overtraining stuff, and it just snowballed and couldn't train like I wanted to train, and so I took it as a time to pivot and and focus on acquiring a new skill set and I mean I'm hoping that I'm going to get this stuff sorted and now I'm going to have this new skillet to integrate into how I move in the mountains.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Um, a buddy of mine, nathan Longhurst.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: He, he did the uh a bunch of the bulgers peaks with me and became the youngest finisher of that list.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Hike and fly speedmo style um, where he's like soloing some of these technical peaks and then flying off to get to the next peak across glaciers and um, doing multiple peaks a day in just this incredible fashion.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: And yeah, there's just something, something drawing to that like multi-modal uh, just opening up a means of moving efficiently through the mountains in a way that not many people can or do.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Um, and that's kind of kind of been calling my name.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: So I took it as a chance to give it a try that's amazing, dude, it's so.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: The paragliding is is fucking cool.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: The reason I say that is because, like when I first got into the sport, like this is like years and years ago I I dabbled in like gym climbing and rock climbing at first and I found Cedar Cedar Wright and like I found his YouTube and he had this like insane video this is like I don't know 2015, maybe 16, 17 range where him and a couple athletes I forget who it was, but him and a couple other North Face athletes anyway climbed to Orizaba and paraglided off of it.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: It was like that is inspiring and it looked really fun.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I originally thought that I was done with Orizaba, with all the things I've done on it.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: I've climbed it, I've done an infinity loop on it.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: But I think I want to go back and take what Cedar did I was inspired by that film take what he did, but then blend it with a little of this uh, speed Mo style and see if I can go faster trailhead to trailhead at the very bottom of the mountain than anybody's ever gone by running up and flying back down.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Um, so yeah, I'm kind of intrigued.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Dude, you know one of the questions I've always meant to ask you and just never I should have just texted you, cause I've always meant to ask you and just never I should have just texted you, because I've always meant to ask you this.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: But were you kind of like the beginner, like of like you started this like trend with infinity loops where, like you would I don't know you would circumnavigate the mountain and then do the, then climb it if you will, and then come back down and then do it again, or something like that.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Like, were you one of the first to start doing the infinity loop situation?
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Um, I can't claim to be the first, I can't the the original person that thought it up was a beloved um american mountaineer and he he actually passed away before he ever got to try it.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: So then some of his friends, having heard the idea, went and sort of finished it in his name and it was on mount rainier that he dreamed it up and so it originally got done by them kind of in honor of him um to establish it, and it was one of the first big fkts.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Uh, that sort of put me on the map back in 2019, 2020.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Uh, I did the cascade trifecta which is climbing Rainier, adams and hood in the same day and then I followed it up like 10 days later with the Rainier infinity loop and that like got buzz and Peter's attention back in the day and came on the um podcast then and talked about it.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: And then I started chasing more things in that direction and I kind of circled back after the the Bulgers push to to climb Washington's under tallest.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: I circled back and was like I want to go try this on bigger volcanoes, cause I'd done some international climbing um down in South America, and I was like, oh, it would be sick to go on like a 20,000 foot peak and try to do an insane ultra push, having to go over the over the peak twice.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: So in a way, I'm the, I'm a person that took the idea and picked it up and ran with it and I'm currently still trying to extend it to the volcanic seven summits list, which is the tallest volcano on uh on each continent.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: So kind of this ongoing, possibly impossible project that just kind of yeah has me.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: That is so cool, man, are you?
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Uh, as your health starts to improve and you start to get back into training and things like that when is your like?
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: what do you think is the next one you want to do?
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Uh, I already went down and climbed a hostel Salado.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Um, just kind of get down there and get the lay of the land.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Uh, took a group down there and we all, we all summited, all six of us with only a six day acclimatization window, which was kind of wild for a 6,800 meter peak.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Um, it was brutal.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: We were in so much pain.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually have some footage from it that I'll probably release on my YouTube soon of just how how heinous it was to push that high that fast for this whole crew of like experienced uh, you know, like Colorado 14ers and stuff, stateside and ultras.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: But to go push that high that fast kind of hurt, um, but yeah, so I'm, I think, going back and and checking that one off the list.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: And then I'm also intrigued.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: One of them's in Papua New Guinea, and I just feel like that country is so many hundreds of years in the past.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: It's just going to be really intriguing to go have the experience of feeling like I'm in the middle of nowhere.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Um, that's amazing, that one's going to be that one's going to be bizarre.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Yo dude, papua New Guinea would be sick.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: All right, consider me for that one.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I've always that's somewhere I want to go.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: it's on my list, I watch I used to I'm like, uh, one of these like animal nerds, so like even like up until like college and it was watched, like these, like discovery channel, like do you ever watch extinct or alive?
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Anyway, there's long story short.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: There's this guy for us, galant, he's been on broken a bunch of times, um, but he's like this wildlife biologist that is like fixated on the idea that, like the uh, what is it?
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Is the tasman, the tasmanian?
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: No, what is it?
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: The?
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Um?
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, what's the extinct?
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: um, wolf-like looking thing, uh, that I think you're gonna out nerd thylacine.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: It's the thigh.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: There you go thylacine.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: What the hell is the?
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Uh, I forget what it's like.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: The proper name for it is.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: It's called the thylacine.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: It's like a scientific name, but anyway, it looks like this giant extinct.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: It looks like my dog basically true story, um and.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: But he believes it's in papua.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, oh man, I like when I have people on the podcast, I always ask like dumb questions like what do you think about bigfoot?
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: And shit like that, because I'm always like very interested to see the way people tick with like weird animals or you know, like cryptid crypt species and shit like that.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know how we got on this topic, but here we are here we are.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Is everybody ready for us to get back onto?
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get, let's get back to fkts.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: I'm sure people want to hear all about uh all right.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: So back when we started uh talking what I said, I I broke this down into like kind of a long trail, fkt, which would be kind of that 50 K distance.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: I think we should clarify by long trail.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: We might not be talking about there being a trail Like this could be all off trail folks Like you.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: This is the steep stuff Like we're not yeah, we're not talking about like the PCT graded for horses here.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no Ascents and then up downs.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: So, like, I think one of the things and maybe we could talk about styles I think this is actually a great opportunity too is I think there's a lot of folks in the community that don't necessarily understand like what a like.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: They'll understand what a vertical is right, you know, just your set your basic ascent, but like what an up down is like.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: The same rules don't necessarily apply in all countries for up-down routes.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Where, for instance, the United States, particularly in national parks and places like that, you have to stick to the trail kind of Depends on where you're at.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: But in other countries you don't necessarily have to stick to the trail.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: An up-down route is as fast as you can from the top to the bottom.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: So there's different stylistic approaches to different routes and things like that.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: You want to maybe give some commentary to.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I personally I personally, like I've always loved routes that have that open course nature to them.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Um, because to me, to me that you know something that's prescribed as an open course it's like, oh, if I'm able to free solo, that was one of the things that gave me a strength in when I was chasing fkt's heart is, I could move on fifth class terrain up to easy, moderate fifth class terrain and not pull a rope out and not slow down, like just had spent enough time rehearsing that sort of thing that it gave me an edge on someone who was a pure runner that the moment they got a bit exposed and were like having to pull by their hands, like freaked out and had to slow down and be really methodical and scared, um, me I could just like roll right into it.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: And so it gave me an advantage because it's like, oh, this is the fastest time you know, trailhead to summit or trailhead to summit and back down to the trailhead, and I can take this really direct line right up, right up a face, versus the runner that has to do this roundabout trip to stay off the technical terrain.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it kind of adds this sort of um problem solving element, right, this creative element, like oh, but if I can do a few things that the previous person can't, then I can achieve a faster time.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: And yeah, in europe and places like that, that's kind of how the game is played.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: It's who can get up to the top and back down to here the fastest?
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um, and yeah, I love, I love routes like that and that's been something that I was very drawn to in a way that I played the game um, but on the flip side of it, I do, I do totally understand.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: In places where there's ecological um, ecosystems being protected, and there's a ton of users getting drawn into a place, it's like, yeah, unfortunately, sometimes people I live right next to crater lake and it seems like every two or three years some hillbilly with a truck goes up there and like cuts donuts in the um pumice up there and like kills a bunch of the delicate alpine life and leaves these scars in the terrain that like never go away and it's just like okay we have.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: We have to have protections so that people know not to trample things and not to destroy things in some of these places where everybody wants to go there and everybody wants to see it because it's on the checklist, yeah, um, and so I definitely understand some of that.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, you know, one of my super mountain purist friends said you know, those of us who were mountain people to begin with never wanted a trail built.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: We always just wanted to take the most direct way up and down the mountain.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: It's only because other people who wanted to come along and wanted easier access um, they wanted it to be easier trails got built in the first place.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of like that's an interesting catch 22 I like that.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the I mean dude like I.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: When I first moved to colorado I was rolling with some like old school hard rock guys that would uh like dude, they just they don't really take the trail, they just like take the most direct route up the peak and I was like, oh, I never really thought about it that way.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: So it changes your whole perspective.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: So, all right, let's get into it, man.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: So I think like we could pretty much very well address like the different categories.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I don't necessarily have as much of a ranking for certain things.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: I have more of a ranking for like what I think was some of the best descents, some of the best up downs, not like an overall FKT is what I'm trying to say.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: I don't really want to say what this one's the best versus that one's the best, cause I think they're all incredible.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: These are all amazing athletes, right?
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: So like I've got a breakdown of some of the women for different routes and maybe we'll kind of compare lists and see what you have as far as different ascent routes, different up-downs, different long trail things like that, and we can kind of go from there.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Do you want to start off with ascents or do you want me to take it away?
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Well, no, Maybe let's save the ascents for last.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: I like that yeah, I guess.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Well, no, you know, maybe let's save the ascents for last, let's uh I like that let's maybe do, let's maybe work it, uh, to respect the short stuff.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: You know the way we started this episode let's have the shortest things be last and let's start with the long stuff.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: So, in the women's category, what did you think was longer that caught your attention in this, this mountain world?
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: oh, dude, I think helen mino faulkner um her san San Jacinto Peak.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: If you guys are unfamiliar with that route, San Jacinto Peak is a 35-mile route in Southern California, 10,400 feet of climbing.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, dude, she absolutely smashed 35-mile route, totally unsupported.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Smash it in seven hours 54 minutes.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Having been around, I've done the Cactus to Clouds, the c2c, to see myself.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Uh, I did it as a traverse of the mountain.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Um it's, it's intense, like it's full-on.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: You're just like grinding away for 10 000 feet without relief and it's pretty cool to see that she, she bested um, the, your first woman under eight hours and that's a full what?
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: 35 minutes, almost 40 minutes off the previous woman.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a cool route.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: It's definitely.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know, there's what, maybe five places?
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: No, not even five places in the country where you can get 10 000 vertical feet without having to cross a glacier can?
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: you name any of them unbroken there's, there's telescope peak from shorty's, well, so in death valley you can start at negative elevation and climb to 11 000 feet.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: That's one of them.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: If you do mount whitney from the very bottom down at like lone pine and climb it all the way from the valley, you get, uh, obviously, you get uh, what is it?
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: The valley's at just below 4 000.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: So yeah, you'd get a little bit over 10k there, um, and then no, the other one I was thinking of.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: So maybe there's only these three.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: The other one I was thinking of was, uh, if you do rainier from longmire, okay, in the old old way of climbing it, the historic way of climbing it, it would give you over 10k, it would give you 11k, but you're crossing glaciers, so that one doesn't fit my own stipulations.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: But yeah, they're like the mega climbs.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: So this one, this one was one that had my attention back in the day.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: I actually took a crack at brett monet's time, um, and didn't come anywhere close to it, but yeah, that was way back.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: I've I've been aware of this one for a long, long time dude, what is it you said?
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: the terrain's pretty gnarly like.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Is there opportunity?
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Especially if you're doing this like unsupported or self-supported, like is there opportunities for water?
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Or like any water crossings, like rivers, anything's like that?
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Or because it's for the most part, especially if it's mostly ascending like there's.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: You really have to, you really have to carry your most of your own water.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: There's a a spigot at the top at a ranger station, but you're basically all the way at the top already and yeah, it's just like one refill, um, so it does make a difference, uh, for the round trip, but still you've got to carry your water all the way up.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's bananas dude, oh man.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: So shout out to Helamina Faulkner, the poker runner.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: I know she's probably best known for some of her CCCs and UTMB this past year.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Obviously Broken Arrow as well she's had.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: She's taken the dub once or twice at the Broken Arrow 48K, I think, at the broken arrow 48k, I think, maybe twice now.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Um, so yeah, definitely a force.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: One of the best female mountain runners in the world, no doubt.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, big shout out to her for the long trail.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Quote unquote long trail, yeah, long course.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Let's call it long course what else stuck out to you?
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: or anything, I think in that in that category.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: The only other thing that really comes to mind for the longer stuff is again one of those mega climbs that I've had my eye on yeah, I've done it myself is telescope peak from shorty's.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Well, uh, brie jasket, she went out and did that and bested, uh bested the time by a pretty large margin.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Um, and I think that's worthy of mention because the the difference with telescope peak is you're literally in Death Valley and you go up this remote canyon into the middle of nowhere and you're not really on trail, you're just kind of on like animal trails, up this like steep side, through cactus and all this rough terrain, until you finally get to the summit of Telescope where you rejoin the normal trail and you might see a few people hiking, and then you have to dive back down into the thing and just be on your own in Death Valley with, like you don't have cell reception, you don't have it's like kind of committing in its own way.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so you definitely have to shout that one out as well.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: For sure, for sure, bree, just Jessica, is that how you pronounce her last name?
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: I mean somebody correct us if we're wrong, but yeah, yeah, no, and for sure this is going to have some controversial ones.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: When we get to the men, people are going to be pissed.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: It'll be fun, okay, all right.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: So I think those are two for longer trail, longer course stuff.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I think those are two really solid ones.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: I want to give a shout out to both those ladies.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I think we had a lot more to talk about as well.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: For the up-down.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: I think the up-down really, there was almost a handful of just really stout women's records that went down this year that I don't think really got enough of a call-out.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: I think one of the ones was definitely Jen Day Dayton's Pico de Orizaba in Mexico, and I do want to preface this really quick because I was kind of keeping this more so.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: There's a reason you're not going to hear us talk about like stuff in Europe.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: We're trying to keep this as mostly North American centric as possible.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Just because we opened up to Europe, it would be a lot more, much significantly longer list and there'd be more.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: We both.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: We both have day jobs, and the amount of research that would go into understanding what is significant for single peaks in Europe is more than we could probably get right.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Um, so we decided, yeah, next year, next year perhaps.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we decided to keep it North America.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so on that topic.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: So let's talk Jen day date and Denton, because she got.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: She ran an amazing one on the other side of the mountain in 2023, and then came to the South side in 2024 on Pico de Orizaba.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Now, having been on that mountain yourself, maybe you can give some commentary to this yeah, I've been on, I've been on both sides of pico de orizaba, uh, having done the infinity loop there and the the south side that she did this on, uh, this year is just, it's marbles on concrete it's it's like some of the sections you're you're exposed, it's steep, you're at 17 to 18 000 feet and your footing, like every step, wants to blow out from underneath you and to move this quick, uh, at these elevations.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: And she bested shauna rourke, who anybody that's dabbled for very long in the mountain fkt world has seen shauna rourke's name on stuff like the evolution traverse in california, which is an absolutely insane and beautiful uh, it has five, nine rock soloing it's.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: It's like he has things like that that he has the fkt on.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: So this very experienced mountain athlete, um, for her to like go out and better his time by even a few minutes is awesome.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very, very respectable.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah we should talk about, we could talk about a little bit morgan into, I think she hit the summit.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: So her overall fkt, she hit it in what was it?
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: 227 to the summit, which is pretty.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: I mean that's bananas fast, with a total time of three hours 14 minutes 53 seconds.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: And for those that are curious, I mean you're talking five and a half thousand feet of vertical and what's the average?
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Like what is the top of that mountain?
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: It's like 20, is it 20 000 feet?
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: that one's not quite 20, it's uh, I think it's 18 000 uh 651.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: I might be getting the number uh transposed there, but yeah, it's, it's about 18 500 that's so crazy, man.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I mean you're talking in the first four miles, each mile gain.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: I mean on strava saying what 16, 1700 feet per mile gained.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: That's crazy, that's that's that's an incline every mile right there yeah just just take.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Take a second and think about the last time you tried to push hard at 14 000 feet, when you're at the top of a peak, and now imagine that's where you're starting and you're going up from there.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Um so yeah, it's, it's a.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: It's a different.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: It's a different game when you try to play in these higher elevations, for sure.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: What did you I mean especially for someone like you coming from Oregon out to like down to Mexico right, which is high altitude, Like I live at six, seven thousand feet, so it's a little bit easier for someone like me to get into the high country and like acclimatize.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: But like, what were you doing to acclimatize when you like went down to Mexico?
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Uh, I definitely use altitude tent leading up.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: I do a lot of, uh, sauna sessions.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Um, they've shown that that can help you acclimatize faster, um, once you're there, um, and then, yeah, just trips up Shasta, which is kind of my local 14 or as much as I can.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, it's, it's a challenge.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: It's a challenge for me as a school teacher to make these trips happen to the higher elevations.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I know it's, you know it's part of it's what makes life interesting, right, we all have our parameters, that we have to play by certain rules.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: None of us are fully sponsored athletes that just take all of our time off, um, unless someone who's listening to this happens to be a fully sponsored athlete, in which case disregard everything I'm saying.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Um Jim Walmsley but yeah it it makes it interesting to try to figure out.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, this thing I'm not supposed to be able to do, right, I'm supposed to have three or four weeks to acclimatize.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, I have seven days, um, is it possible?
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, definitely altitude tents, definitely spending as many trips as I can getting up to actual elevations available to me.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: And uh, yeah, the sauna session, sauna modalities after workouts were all methods that I've employed dude, I love the sauna.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: The altitude tents are expensive, though, man.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I looked into one when I back, when I lived in florida, like years ago, and back then it was expensive.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh no luckily now you can rent them temporarily from places like mile high training, um.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: So there are ways to not have to drop three thousand dollars for, you know, six weeks in a tent um, you can just rent it for those, you know, three to six weeks to get acclimatized.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: So so it is more doable, but it is still an investment.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: But I mean again, it allows you to both keep the job that pays you and go take a crack at the mountain thing.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: So it's true, it's true you live with the parameters that you've you've accepted.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: That's fair, that's fair.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Um, I do want to.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Let's go back to Jen day, didn't too?
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Because I think that name is someone.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: If if you guys are in the FKTC and unfamiliar with that name, it's definitely someone that people should know.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Like, she's got the grant, the grand Teton record, and we'll talk a little bit more about the.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Does she still have world?
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: I know she had the world for a while.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: She's one of the people I looked up to.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: When I got into the scene she was already out crushing some stuff when I was chasing.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: She does have the world record still, yeah, yeah.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: She's awesome.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: It's incredible 18 hours 27 minutes and we'll talk about the world a little bit later.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: But damn dude, that's a stout time for the world.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: I don't think people understand how nasty of a route that is.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Having done it, it's full-on, yeah.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think people get it like it's.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: It's yeah, dude, I, I don't, that's like I.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: That's way above my technicality level, like I.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do like 30 something miles on that level of terrain.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: No chance like I'm gonna go up a peak and down.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: That's it, keep it.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Keep it like that yeah, no, I loved it.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: It was, uh, it's exactly my cup of tea did you do the double world too, or did you just do the one?
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: I didn't.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: I, uh, chris, chris fisher and I set out to do it together and I had just done norman's 13, like seven days prior, and I linked norman's 13 straight into also breaking the human powered californers record.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: So I did this whole like week long long push to do the human powered, uh, california 14ers, and then tried to just go straight up there, like got in the car after, like while still being sleep deprived, and just like rolled up there and tried to like pull this thing off and my body was not having it.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: So when we hit the, when we finished the first world, I'm like dude, chris, to finish this thing ahead of the thunderstorms, you got to just go and send it on the way back.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: And so he got the double whirl, um, but I helped support him that's crazy, dude.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine someone doing it like that because it's so far.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, yeah, pretty cool.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Definitely some cool peaks so big.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Shout out the gen day, dayton.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Um, all right, let's get back into the other one I was going to talk about was the ascent and car to car on Longs Peak that Flannery Davis Love put up.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I thought that was a pretty sick route.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that one kind of falls.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: That one kind of falls in both categories.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the car to car, because she got both.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she got car to car and the ascent.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely crazy here's an interesting question for you.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: Which one do you think is the bigger one there?
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: On Longspeak I'd say Carter.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: More your backyard.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: I'd say Carter Carr, I mean I'm not like as in.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Like the Boulder people listening to this are gonna get so pissed at me because, like I'm not as in tapped into that like Boulder scene, that like, because it's like religion for them, like they, like I've actually I've never even been on long speak.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Dude, this is kind of a sin to say that Wow, you are.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: You are about to get crucified really bad, like a Pike's peak is.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: I can literally see Pike's peak from here.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: It's like in my backyard.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Pike's is our local Hill, so like I'd never find the need to go up to longs, although I have to do it and put it on my on my list sooner rather than later.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Um, but she's a crusher man, absolute crusher.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Car to car from longs peak I'd say that I'd say the ascent is stout, but I'd say the car to car just because some of the technicality on the descending through that boulder field.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: It's one thing to run uphill in a boulder field, like scramble your way up, but it's another thing to run down it.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: I feel like and like I said, take that with a grain of salt, because I've never been on longs peak, I just know that there is a boulder field.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: So I start to think about the way that works with logistically and I'm like I don't really want to run down something like that I'm excited to tune into your episode with uh, with her chatting about like where she felt the strength was, if she thought the the ascent was where she really did it, or if she was happy with how she blew the doors off the descent, yeah so yeah, I'll be intrigued to kind of hear her thoughts on that yeah, it's definitely no joke.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, and the other thing that's really interesting to me about the longs peak route, like I said we'll, we'll get into the grand as we get into the men.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: But one of the things is interesting is it's kind of like choose your own adventure for the fkt on longs peak once you get above treelock, so that creates kind of, and it's interesting because it's also in a national park.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: So, like you know, like I I did say in this episode, people were going to get pissed at me, and this is some of the things I bring up here.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: So one of the thing I do bring up is like well, why can I go off trail here?
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, am I causing erosion?
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Am I not causing erosion?
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Like what?
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: You know, what am I doing?
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Basically, there's just a lot of question marks.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of where that one comes into, uh, into play.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear people, you know, throw some things in the show notes on what they think about that.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: So just, uh, keep the controversy rolling yeah, no, I mean I'm intrigued to hear people go back and forth as well on on their opinions and thoughts.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Uh, yeah long speak.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Uh, you know, having been been in this fk teen scene for a while, like yeah long speak has just always been done with a large portion of it off the main trail, yeah, um, by those that are doing it fast for ever, and so, yeah, it's interesting.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: It's interesting to see, with, like, some of the controversy that's been stirred up this year, like okay, how does that get handled?
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Um, it's an excellent question.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know this is why we're here is for uh to, to get the, to get the gears turn in for people, um, yeah, so I think that's all the as much that needs to be said for Flannery Davis made it a very notable ascent and a very notable car to car um.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: That, I think, is, you know, comparable to a solid race effort.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: You know that might not get topped for a while, so big shout out to her.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Um.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: The other one that's an up down that I had was our mutual friend, my teammate, miss aaron ton um ton.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: I always pronounce her last name.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: I want to say ton like, ton, like ton, but like it's ton like like a, like a, like a thousand times as if you were making a a joke or something.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I it's.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: It's fun knowing her well.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Um, we definitely get some mileage out of teasing, teasing around with her last name, so um, but like I mean, dude, we gotta talk about erin's season.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Jesus christ, like I just looked on the thing, like she had 91 fkts overall, like I think she's got, I think she has.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: I think she had like 54 in, uh, just just 2024 alone.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: She had like 54 of them and I think by the time this comes out, it'll probably be like 55 or something like within, like the calendar, you know, for uh, to like just add another one.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: You know it's just crazy.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Um, I'd say redefining what it means for women in the space in a lot of ways and redefining, like, the space in more ways than one.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: It's incredible what she's doing yeah, I love.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: I love that she's gotten out of colorado now and is stepping out into this international scene Some thanks to Chris taking some steps after he and I went to Chile to get involved and then doing the best he can to open the door for her and then her taking that and going full steam with it on her own and, yeah, I think we're just gonna see more.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: We kind of alluded before this episode that we might chat about people to watch.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: I think I think Aaron is for 2025 is absolutely a person to watch where you're going to see lots of cool records in lots of absolutely astonishing and beautiful places.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Um, I think her and Chris are going to work on a, a YouTube series about some of the places they're traveling to and some of the peaks they're climbing and FKTs they're chasing.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, definitely, she's on a watch list.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Oh for sure, for sure, dude, I think she has the ability.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Having spent time with her, just to me, as you have as well, you've met a lot of people in the space, you've spent a lot of time with a lot of people in the space and to me, I was just astonished by how she's really fit and really good and just has I don't know to me just has the ability to completely redefine what it means for women in the space.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: I think, before it's said and done, she's going to take down a lot of records like a like I'm talking like she will probably get nolan, she will probably get the colorado trail and that's just the beginning.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Like I think there's a lot of like and her talent isn't even in that.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Her talent is probably more in the up down stuff.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: As of right now, like I feel like she gets a new up down fkt like every other day, like literally like every day.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: So yeah it.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I can't sing her praises enough.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Like it's just going to be really cool to see what she's able to do with her career, so pretty awesome.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Which one was it you were bringing up for her on this one?
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Dude, mount Elbert stuck up.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Stuck out to me because, and like I said, given the criteria of this episode, we were keeping it.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: You know, for the most part North America based and you know Colorado I'm a Colorado boy.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: We've got most of our listeners are mountain West right.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Mount Elbert is the name that sticks out because it's the tallest mountain in Colorado.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Um, I think what she did on on Mount Elbert for an up-down record was absolutely bananas.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: I I don't think it's going to get touched this year I mean, we'll see unless she goes back and comes back to Colorado and redoes it.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Um, but I just don't see a woman strong enough to be able to go take that record down for at least the next few years.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: And that was, that was good.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Someone world-class.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's fair.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: I was her 37th FKT of the year as well.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Albert was her 37th.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: She'd already rattled off 36 other FKTs and then came.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: And I six other fkts and then came and I think she was nine minutes behind the ascent time.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there the ascent record.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then blew just absolutely blew, the doors off.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: She was 39 minutes faster than any woman ever on the descent um how crazy is that?
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: well, dude, imagine if she was tapered like that's the million dollar question like imagine if she actually treated it like like a proper race and like tapered for it and like like that number would never get touched, you know.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I have to say, like Albert stuck out to me the most.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: I'm like one of the things I mean she's done so much last year, dude, and like one of the things you can give an honorable mention for, even though it's not sub ultra, is like leg strength that you have to have for that, Um, especially to like average I think she was averaging like 30 something minute inclines Um, yeah, she's.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: She's a monster, dude, like like hands down a monster.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I'm excited to see what she can do and definitely, like I said, her Mount Albert one sticks out the most to me for this year.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: But there were so many other ones.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: I mean like where she's at, I think they're.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: They were just one in Chile and now they're going to Argentina or something like that.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they're basically down at the Southern tip of South America right now.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and just doing incredible things.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: So yeah, big shout out to Aaron.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Is there any more commentary you'd like to add to Albert or?
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: I think for her.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Her is the.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: The thing that got me was just how much faster she was than any woman ever running down.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: That, at least on strava, excuse me, I should say on strava nine minutes yeah 39 minutes, that's like, that's not like you know, five minutes, that's not you know 10, the 39 minutes faster.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: So yeah, that part.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: If because she even mentions like, oh, I want to come back and try to beat the ascent time, um, and like her right up, but she can do it.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Well, the thing is is like the ascent time, the unsupported ascent times, one 16, one hour 16 minutes seven seconds from Kim Dobson.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Kim Dobson's arguably the greatest female uphill runner ever, like one of the best heads that she has the record for Pike's peak.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: She's got the record, I believe, for the Mount Washington road race like one of the greatest ever.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Do it so like to come back.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: And if she's able, like I don't know, I just think of like in my little tiny sub ultra brain, like one of the things I think about is like a legacy.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: So like damn, if.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Like one of the things I think about is like a legacy.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: So like damn, if she could go get, take that off of like someone like gib dobson, that's legacy, I mean, although aaron has built an insane legacy for herself already, but that would be something crazy to go for.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: But the round trip dude 39 minutes faster, that's bananas.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Like that's insane.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, I don't have much to say about that other than like that's 39 minutes is a lot of minutes.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Dude for like that's like for that few miles yeah it's like five miles.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like what the hell?
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Um, I'm sorry, I'm just like looking on her strava right now and it's like she ran pretty fast but like not like these weren't five minute miles.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: So like I'm wondering if, like, it's possible to even go get more off that probably.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: I mean she ran.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: She averaged like an eight minute mile for the descent, so yeah, that's always the question.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: Right is if, was she really pushing the throttle down like how hard?
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: How hard could she push when she's like, oh, I've got this thing in the bag by 30 minutes already, like you, are you really going to go shave an extra 30 seconds off each mile?
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: at that point, you know who knows, and she's an extremely talented downhill runner.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Like she's like I could firsthandedly say this like she's dropped the shit out of me going down the incline and I was like, Whoa, I gotta get a move a little faster here, Yep.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Yep, she's phenomenally talented, having been out with her before.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in the mountains she can move, yeah okay, we've waxed eloquent enough.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: There you go, there you go, aaron.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: I feel like we really us 20 bucks really shout out shouted out aaron's praise there.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: So shout out to aaron.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk the ascent.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: I think there's no other ascent record.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Um, that is is on the women's side.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: That blew me away more than anna gibson.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, anna gibson's one of the best in the game right now, arguably the best female uphill runner as of right now in the country, or at least top three.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Um, for those of you who don't know her, anna gibson, I think she lives in like the mill valley, california area by way of like jackson wyoming, so she's kind of like splits time.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Um, very well-known sub-ultra athlete, runs um, lives in the or, like I said, lives in the mill Valley area, but also, um, uh, has a lot of records like in the in the Teton area, like in Jackson.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: So beast athlete.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Mount Tam ascent, matt Tamal Pius, I think, is what it's called.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Have you ever been on it?
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: I've never been on it.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: I've actually never been on it.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: No, took the ascent.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: I've actually never been on it.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: No, took the ascent Actually.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you for the calculation 69 feet per minute or 4,115, 45 feet per hour?
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I always love that feet per hour mark, like that's something I used to measure myself by when I was out attempting stuff.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Or if I was like looking at an FKT to assess whether I could beat a mountain FKT, I didn't look at a mile pace, I would look at a cent pace and I would go, okay, am I able to generate right now in the desired heart rate range, depending on the length of the effort, am I able to generate that level of gain per hour?
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: And if I could exceed it, it's like, okay, I've got a crack at this.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: And if I couldn't exceed it at the time, it's like either I need to get more feet, uh, more fit, or this one's out of out of range for me.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: So I always love that for mountain steep stuff like it's feet per hour.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: It's feet per hour is is how you measure whether you can beat something or not.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Interesting um, yeah, dude, and her stats, like I mean 35 minutes 46 seconds for this and for people that don't know about 2,500 feet and about 3.3 miles, she took about 90 seconds off of the great Bailey Kowalczyk's time, which was about 37 minutes three seconds, which was set back in 2021.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: So, stout, stout, 90 seconds off in ascent time, like that and 3.3 miles with 2,500 feet, like Ana's moving and I would direct and that and 3.3 miles with 2,500 feet, like anna's moving and I would direct and I can link this in the show notes as well.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: I would direct anybody.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Free trail did a great video on it.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Um, ivana gibson's ascent they did some cool reels and stuff like their.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Their storytelling is around.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Some of these things are really good.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Um, so, yeah, it was pretty cool to follow along and I would say that's the women's ascent of the year.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, flannery davis love going up longs peak.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: That's a different type of beast, that's a high altitude, that's a 14er.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: That's an amazing ascent record and I'm trying to think if I missed any other ones.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Um, what about anna's record on mont blanc?
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: I know we weren't going to do any european ones, but do we want to just talk about briefly.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, she didn't get it right, or she got it on skis or didn't get it on skis, I don't know what.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: The full picture oh, what was it?
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: It was um.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: She beat the ski record, but not the overall time.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: I think that's what it was because I know she went after hillary gerardi's record, correct?
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: she wanted to beat the overall really bad okay, yeah, absolutely.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: But do you, do you know more on that?
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know much about it, so um, I, yeah, I don't know any of that, the inner details, um other than, yeah, that she got the round trip ski fkt and did not get the overall interesting.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Um, hopefully, hopefully, both her and jack will go back.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, more interesting things happen next season I think he kind of alluded.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: He was on finn's podcast talking about fkts as well, gave some good commentary and I I think it opened it up for both of them to want to go back and, you know, see what they could do.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: He said something really fucking funny that like blew my mind because he was talking about um, I guess on one of the I guess this is one, one of the more Alpen, like glacial sections, like it's the footings, kind of funny, and he like was going to buy a board like a construction board, and like put it down.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: And like he asked Killian if he could like put it down there and Killian's like sure, sure, okay.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: And then he was like asking other people like should I do this?
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: And they're like do that.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: So it's interesting.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: I thought it was kind of funny.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: That's a wild boy dude and we'll talk about more to him when we get to the grand Um, but that is, that's a wild human.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: So that's something.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: I got to have on the podcast.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: I, you absolutely do.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: I helped support him when he took his crack at the uh, grand Teton FKT.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: And getting to spend that time with him while he's doing his thing to like refine a push like that, it was just like, oh man, what a, what an absolute animal and wild human.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Oh for sure well, literally wild human, that's the best way to describe it.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Um, okay, I would put I think we got everything.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: As far as the women goes, I would also give a shout out to like taber hemming for the lick skillet mile, which is like a very popular boulder.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: If you're a boulder rider or someone in that area like, you know what the Lick Skillet Road Mile is, and I think she has the ascent and descent, so the up-down record on both of them, which is pretty sick, and I think that's all everything else I've got for the women.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Do you have anything else on there?
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: I think that's what I scrub up um in my time between little kids screaming in my gym um so yeah, I was.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: I was pretty happy with that, I do think.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we laid out a pretty good spread of north american um things there.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: You know we might have missed something in canada.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: If there's any canadians on here you know any canadians get them to come yell at us yes in the in the comments about what we missed um.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, as far as uh north america goes, I think that's the spread yeah, no, I definitely agree.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: And and yeah, to piggyback off that adam campbell um, anybody listening to this that that you know, I know they're gonna, if they, if they, if I'm missing any, please let us know, because we're gonna go do a deeper dive into the canadians for next year and make sure we can get everybody, or as many as possible.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: It's a little bit harder with the, with the sub ultra stuff, because it's like it's not like you can I guess you can rank things by distance, but like you also have to be aware of like who did what.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it's a little trickier to do research for this one well, yeah, and, and you ask most people, even even mountain literate or running literate people, you ask them like, hey, who, who are your your top three?
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: Or what are your top three?
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: Uh, short mountain FKTs, and they spit back stuff that's not in the category you just gave them.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, that's a trail run or no, that's, that's, that's, uh, you know the LA freeway?
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Like that's not what I asked you for, that's that's, uh, you know the LA freeway?
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: Like that's not what I asked you for.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: Um, and so a lot of people, even in the domains around them, just don't have sort of the granularity of understanding.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: So, a lot of this research, we have to go click through everything ourselves and look at the Strava and look at the like files and all that to find, I mean, you know, of course some of them are really easy, like Mount Tam um or the grand, but you know, to go a place we don't know, like up in Canada, like what are the significant peaks that are highly competitive, that also fit in this, this niche of short, steep stuff?
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, I couldn't agree more it's.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: It's interesting I'm, and I'm excited for over the next few years to continue to grow this conversation and get more in there and have like more of a deeper dive.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: It'd be kind of fun.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: So, all right, let's talk men.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: We'll start, we'll do this kind of same thing, we'll talk about kind of the longer routes and then we'll kind of get into the shorter stuff.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: I'd say, for the longer stuff, there was two routes that stuck out to me the most.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: The first is going to be what Anton did on the LA freeway, and I would count the LA LA three way in there, just because it's like 35 ish miles with like 20 something thousand feet and I mean I wouldn't say it's exactly the same thing as the world, but I would throw the world in that category as well with what David Hedges did.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Um, so let's talk about Anton first and then we'll talk about David Hedges and what he did to the world, because that was one of the best records of the year, one of the best FKTs I've seen in a long time.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: Absolutely it was.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: But first Anton, dude, all I can say about Anton's LA Freeway record, after comparing it to previous times, is like what the fuck?
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: He ran lights out Amazing.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: Unsupported.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: That's the first thing that should be specified.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Is not?
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: A lot of guys go unsupported on this?
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: The ones that do usually run in that like 17 to 20 hour plus range if you're really good, like cortis, for instance, cortis hall uh, detis terex athlete.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: I think he went in 2020.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: I think he went seven.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: No, I think he went in 2020.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: I think he went seven.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: No, I think he went 20 hours no.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Yep 20 hours, did he go 20 hours on it.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: And then Skylar Williams, not so long ago as well, went 17 hours 42 minutes.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: So for Anton to go 13 hours 20 minutes and shave literally four and a half hours off the previous unsupported record is wild.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: Well, and then the fact that he bested Kyle Richardson's self-supported right Getting to leave caches out there so you can move.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: I can't emphasize to people enough Like there's a huge difference in in how much weight you have on your back.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: Like if you think if you're a person that runs a lot of trails and you think there's a big difference when you're running on groomed trails up and down with a different amount of weight on your back, when you're moving through technical terrain, it is a massive difference, right, because you're stepping onto small holds with your feet, you're gripping holds with your fingers, you're moving across terrain where you're exposed, and that weight shifting on your back, that difference of even a few pounds one way or the other, is just such a bigger impact on the overall flow of your day when you're doing these off-trail pushes.
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, I remember you know again kind of throwing back to the Buzz and Peter era of FKT as I was getting into this while they were still at the reins.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: I remember them literally saying of Kyle Richardson like, oh yeah, killian Jornet couldn't come over here and just beat this record.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: Too much work, too much refinement went in to producing a time like this and so for Anton to go unsupported.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: And so for Anton to go unsupported, as we just described, and best a time that was held in a steam like that by such a large margin, like just three hours, three hours and eight minutes faster.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: And Kyle Richardson is, like I don't think people realize, like how good he is on technical terrain Like, and I think that a lot of it is because, like he, I mean he's very selective on what he races and he doesn't race much, but one he does.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: The kid is nasty dude, one of the best like around.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know Like for Anton to do that, especially at like 40, 41 years old, like goes to show you the dude is an ageless wonder.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: And like he's just getting started, I like it like ultra jesus is back.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: You know, on the third day he turned the la freeway into an actual freeway like look at that, just sent it yeah, no, I know seriously like wow, um, and for people that don't know, I think I said this already but 35 miles, 20 000 feet of gain, but like almost entirely off trail for the most part, like just just a wild course.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, I'd say I'll say on that, and Anton's fit man or was really fit.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: That's crazy.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: And then the next one I throw would be David Hedges whirl.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: I know um single track did some great reporting on this, like Finn and them did a really sick video on David Hedges whirl.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: David Hedges is one of the best in the FKT scene right now, absolutely monster.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: Um, I know you can speak to the world significantly better than I can, so I'll let you take it away as far as like what the technicality is of that route, cause I think that's something that really needs to be expressed.
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there are some trail sections on it, but a lot of what you're moving through is hands on the ground, like hands on rocks, and either you're you're doing it with your weight.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: You know what they'd call third class, fourth class, where your weight is still in your feet and your hands are just kind of like there to balance you, um.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: But then there's significant sections where you move into fifth class, where you have to actually place your hands and feet in just the right way and pull weight into your hands and arms to be able to move across this terrain um to be able to ascend, to be able to descend.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: Your ascending and descending um exposed, making movements, uh, above open air, like genuine rock climbing movements, and this is spread out over the course of this entire ultra marathon um across the tops of the peak.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: So you're also at a notable elevation where it's enough that it makes an impact in your ability to push hard and not.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: You know, we've all had a time where we've pushed hard at elevation and we've got a little woozy or our head is spun a little.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, yeah, but you're not on a safe trail as that happens.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: You're trying to push in this terrain where, if you get a spin in your head, the fall could be highly consequential.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: Um, so yeah, it's, it's a pretty full on route.
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: Um, it is the the one.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: The one nice part I would say about it from from my background, having done stuff in the deep back country is it is nice that it has easy access.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of a I consider it like an entry route If you want to go do deeper stuff in the Sierra.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: That's like big enduro scrambles, um, because you can go rehearse the different sections of the route and be in and out easily.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: But to actually execute the route, start to finish, without coming out, it's a big deal.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, I and the fact he went pretty fast.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Now there's some intricacies to it as well, like, from what I understand, he was being mule as well, which is, I didn't know you could do that in supported efforts like that.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: That's pretty cool.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: Interesting, I hadn't.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: I actually hadn't heard about this part being muleed as well, so he had.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: He basically had constant support the whole time.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty I don't know how many sections or how long it was, and if david does listen to this, this is I almost like a hundred and I don't think I misquoted that.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: I'm almost 100 sure.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure finn said that on his podcast, um, that he was being muled in sections.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: I have to watch the whole video again to see.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: But like I'm almost 100 sure that's what happened and he did it Well, to be fair, the culture of the Whirl is the established culture is that you have locals come out and do each section with you.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: I think is it Campbell?
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: Was he the one that established it, jared?
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: yeah.
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Jared Campbell.
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: When he established it he wanted it to be something that sort of hearkened to the rounds in the UK where you have to have people come out with you and be a part of the sections.
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: So there could be something related to that, I think he had.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: Blaine Benitez and some of those other guys out there that were, yeah, helping.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: I do believe he was muleed.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: I, I like I said I don't want to misquote so I'll have to go back before I let this out and just make sure that's correct, but I'm almost 100 sure that's what he said on the fkt episode and but, like, that's, I think that's cool.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: I, I don't know, like to me, I think that's an interesting thing because, like, yes, when you look at like a bob grand round or something like that, um, you know, like I don't know, like there's some, some interesting people that I've met over the years that have like, run that round, um, you know, shout out the george foster fucking legend and um, but like he's ran some amazing times on there and like, yeah, they, they will meal you, carry your stuff and it's I don't know, it's, it's culturally different, it's neat, so it's kind of cool if we had something like that in the States.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: You know, um, how that goes against supported or how that works.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: I guess that's totally fair.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know how like the FKT gods would look upon that, but it sounds dope to me.
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: You know it's each.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: Each game has its own set of rules that it's played by, and as long as you play by it according to the rules that were established like cool, Awesome, Two thumbs up, Send it.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, for sure, For sure, and that's dude.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: So that's similar 32.7 miles, 20,000 feet.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: Man, you got to come do the LA freeway Now.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: Now I'd have to see you.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: It's been, it's been, it's been on my list to go give it a run through.
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: So yeah, at some point, at some point, hopefully, in the not too distant future.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: All right, come on out, man, we'd love to love to have you.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: Um, okay, so I think those are the two long ones that really stuck out to me and, if we missed any, the only other shout out I would put in that category is, uh, a fellow named Sam Forsyth.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: He, uh he bested Max King's time, if I'm not mistaken, on the three sisters traverse here in Oregon.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: You know, maybe I'm being a little biased little Oregon or home state little Oregon boy being like, hey, somebody, somebody took down the big name on the big three traverse, those, those three peaks, their three volcanoes that sit right next to each other outside of bend, um, so I thought that one you know in this category of kind of longer stuff is at least worthy of a mention.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, a hundred percent, dude.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: And like anytime you take down a max King record, like that's something that needs to be mentioned on a podcast.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: So hell yeah, max King, a legend, legend absolute legend.
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolute legend.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: Um, all right, so let's talk.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: Let's get into up downs.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: There's and there, and there was quite a few up-downs that really stood out to me.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: I'd say the first one was my teammate, jackson Cole, on Mount Bora Mount Bora Idaho round trip.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: It was a car-to-car record.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: He did this up-down in unsupported fashion.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: It took him an hour 53 minutes and 47 seconds and he absolutely demolished Cody Lynn's time.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: Jackson's a freak, amazing athlete, definitely someone worthy of a follow.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: So I would check him out for, like, he absolutely demolished Cody Lynn's time.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: Like Jackson's a freak, amazing athlete, definitely someone worthy of a follow.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: So I would check him out for sure.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: And he's probably going to be one of the biggest names, in my opinion, in sky running in the next few years.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: 5.7 miles.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: Didn't he absolutely blow the doors off of the descent on that, yes, yes, 5.7 miles, 5,227 feet.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: I don't have the exact downhill splits on me but yeah he's.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: He's an amazing technical downhill runner.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: For a while there had the up down record on the men to incline, so the fastest person to go up and then down.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: Obviously it's impossible to beat Remy's time going up, but like the, the ability to go up and then down that fast on something so steep, yeah he's, he's definitely like I, like I said, gonna be a force of nature in the next few years and on the sky running series.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: So big shout out to jackson.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: Um, I do want to talk as well about david sinclair's shasta record.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: I know you could speak oh, yeah, a little multimodal.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was sick.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about that well, I mean, you know jack sort of turned the mount shasta trailhead to trailhead ski uh record into his pet project for a number of years.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: It was kind of funny, you know, we all got chuckles because he blasted his skis across the side of shasta, going for it like one of his first tries just absolutely shattered you know those tiny little sticks that he skis on, those skimo sticks um, shattered one across the side and had to like ski on one ski out, um, and anyways came back and like set a pretty respectable time on it and, yeah, david, just absolutely crushed dude world class.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: David sinclair might be one of the best, if not the best, in the world right now.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: That kid is so talented and just has such a big engine.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wouldn't want to race him Good luck.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I wouldn't even be on the same starting line.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: He's a monster dude and could very well be an Olympian in Schemo.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: Could happen.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: And could very well be a world champion in mountain running in the next year who the fuck knows?
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: But yeah, like I said, trying to see some stats on this.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: For the Shasta round trip record Two hours 16 minutes.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: And what was Jack's time?
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: I didn't write down Jack's time, but he did it.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: It was 10 miles,5 feet, so I wonder how much he beat jack's time by.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: Let's find out.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: I have to go on might be hunting that down myself right now too.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: Right now, bear with us people uh, he took.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: He took 14 minutes off I don't ski so like I would imagine that's pretty fast, because skiing you're descending pretty fast.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: So it all comes down to how fast you're going uphill in a lot of ways right.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: And when you think about, like, the amount of dedication and attention that Jack puts into getting everything just right on these round trip ski records, you know, like he, you know, one of the things he became known for is doing the whole hood record in his underwear to optimize his heat exchange, um.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: So here's this guy ripping up shasta in or excuse me, ripping up hood um in his underwear and skiing down, blasting down from the summit in underwear um to get the hood record.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: So like that he brings a beast of an athlete and he brings that much attention.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: And then to still go out and get 15 minutes on him, um, and I don't know, I don't know what david's story is here.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know if he went and lived at the mountain like jack did and like probably not refined his technique, or if he just like showed up and did it, um, dude, I don't know what he did.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: I think he's like one of those people that like just show up and did.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: I mean you could just tell.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: Like I think he's just that talented and the reason I'll say that is because, like, if you followed along like jfk, for instance, jfk 50 mile, where he just raced eli and like eli is like hands down, one of the best in the world, like eli's a freak dude and to to beat Eli in the way that he did, which no one does and you see him just carrying plastic bags from the feet of gels.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: He didn't even have a belt, he was just kind of showing up and doing shit.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: So, I don't know, maybe he's just not a super big planner.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: I'd love to believe in this legend that is David Sinclair, and I told him this when he was on my podcast.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: Like you know, like he's like one of those people that comes onto the scene and like from a mountain running season, like will blow the doors off of everybody, demolish everyone, set like five course records and then either get injured and completely disappear or just like completely disappear and you won't hear about him until the following year.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Um, I think he's more dedicated to the game now.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: I I think now it's public that he just signed a professional contract with Kraft, so you'll probably be seeing a lot more of him, but I definitely think he's just one of those people that just shows up and just does it, and the fact that he's able to beat a super dialed Jack by 14, 15 minutes, it says a lot.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: World class, one of the best in the world.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: Just wild, that's my rant on skis, on skis and on feet that's my rant on david sinclair, who, coincidentally well, we didn't get to we're still on.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: Uh, I don't want to talk about we're gonna.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: We might be bringing his name up again, yeah we will be talking about him again um all right, is it time to talk about michelina sinceri yeah, let's, let's
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: unlock the controversy, let's let's open that can of worms person.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: Um, I think there was a lot of misinformation that was like put out there regarding his, particularly by a lot of news outlets that like regarding his effort, like there was a lot of things that were not discussed.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: Um, you can look at my episode and listen to my episode with alex rienzi.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: This is directed to the audience.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: Um, if you have any questions regarding that, I'll just kind of give the brief synopsis of, like what michelino did.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, he he overwhelmingly was definitely the fastest person ever run on that mountain, regardless of what anybody says.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: Two hours 50 minutes, 50 seconds go via the own spouting route um to take the FKT on the grand back in September.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: The situation that came up was regarding cutting some switchbacks on the way down.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: Um, having experience and understanding the route you've been on that route before the route that he chose to bypass, this switchback he chose to bypass, took a historically significant climber's route.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: That's seven of the last eight record attempt runners, or record holders, I should say, have taken, including Killian Jornet, including everybody except for, basically, andy Anderson, who was under the understanding that Michelino after the fact had cut I shouldn't say cut.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's the right verbiage, because cut would insinuate that he just like jumped down a bunch of switchbacks and that's the way he was treated and I just that does not sit right with me, because he didn't just like cut switchbacks Like he took a, took an actual trail to bypass a switchback, and the way it was reported was that he cut switchbacks, which was also the way he said it in his Strava writeup, which was, in my opinion, unfortunate word usage, and I think he would agree with that.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: And again, this is not me speaking for him, this is just me as a, as an athlete in the space that understands the route and understands all that went down.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: Do I think he was attacked in a way that was probably not fair?
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, but I also am under the belief that I think you should have the fkt.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: In my opinion, given the historically significant like, given the significance of the route.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: Now, you might disagree with me on this, because andy anderson chose to take all the switchbacks down and given and I think jack made this argument as well when you take all the switchbacks down, the prior person, then you should follow the form of the prior record holder, and that's where this comes up and yeah, yep, I see you shaking your head.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, this is where it gets a little.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it gets a little dicey, gets a little iffy.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna Listen.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: First of all, I'm not an authority of any kind.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: Um, I think.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: Sorry, let me just finish.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: If you wrap this, if you were to and I'll wrap it up with this If you were to even give him the, if you were even dent him on the time I like, mathematically I think he still gets it.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: So, but that I'll leave it at that.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'll say it this way is is he the fastest person?
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: You know, we talked kind of we opened with this like yes, yes in, in the good old style of who can get up and down this thing the fastest?
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: Like he definitely has that.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: Like nobody can take that away from him.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: No human being has ever gone from the trailhead at the base to the summit and back down as fast as he has.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: Um, again, having been in the space for a long time and having been around the grand a number of times, I can remember thinking to myself and I've walked past the like section he took the old climbers trail where it has the trail closed sign that he had to choose to go past.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: Um, the way I felt about it was okay.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: So the records right, sort of like long speak, like we talked about the record holders had done this thing where they they kept using this trail that they were trying to close and restore, and okay, that's fine.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: But there seemed to be something I remember thinking like oh, it's kind of honorable that this local guide chose to do it the harder way, to go the extra distance to try to do it right and still got the record, like there's.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: There's something kind of honorable and cool about that and so I guess that would tip my scales toward like having just chased in the footsteps of Andy Anderson, since he was the one that still had held the record and he kind of took a an honorable higher path, I guess, to like try to play by all the rules.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: But you know, that being said, like he did best the time and he bested it by a margin, that that difference probably doesn't matter.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um, it was in the fashion that many of the prior uh before andy anderson um had followed, so the argument can definitely go both ways, and I mean the whole circus show that's come from it.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: You know, in my, in my younger years, I was in a ton of debt and was living out of a van, just like chasing true dirtbag, like I was just dirtbagging my way to go chase some of the things I did um and prior to getting into fkts and even some of the early days of fkts, I was still in this mindset like I'm, just like I'll, I'll deal with the fine if I get caught, but I like I I'm not going to pay the 40 bucks to for this summit permit, and then there were a couple of times that I ended up paying a bigger fine because I didn't you know, it was pay to play, um, and so I can definitely appreciate making a decision to go do a thing, um, and take a risk as far as, like you know, getting your permits, or taking taking an old trail that has a closed sign on it, but also I can understand the whole, like we don't want people to continue to do this because we're trying to close down this old route that people used to take, specifically through this delicate ecosystem that we're trying to restore down here.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: Um, I would show, yes, it's definitely difficult let's talk about this, because this is something I would challenge it.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: So there's a lake like right, within like a mile and a half of that area, that that he took or that trail that he took, and it's entirely off trails.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: Choose your own adventure.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: You can trample the vegetation you want, you can go off trail entirely, it does not matter.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: You can go get eaten by a grizzly bear if you want to, whatever, and no one gives a shit about that lake, right, but it's one of the most beautiful places in the entire, arguably in Grand Teton National Park.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: No one says anything, no one cares, but you get a super well-known, professional North Face athlete that takes a trail that's still there.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, there is a close sign, right, and that's a different conversation.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: We can get into that.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: But the fact that it's hard for me to fathom and understand and this is me directly going after the NPS it's hard for me to understand.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: They don't give a shit about that, but they give a shit about an old climber's trail.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: Listen, I have an undergraduate geology degree and I could 100% with full accuracy tell you that you're not going to change anything geomorphologically.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: And this might ruffle feathers and I know people might get pissed at this, but in full honesty, there's one runner coming through there to bypass something.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: It probably isn't going to do anything, I don't know.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: To me, I think the frustrating part and while you are 100% correct and I'll agree with you for me the frustrating part is selective enforcement.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: Nobody gave a shit when Killian Jornet did it.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: I know he ruffled some feathers and he even said don't take my way, yada, yada, yada.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: But like I just find it awfully funny that like Killian's now FKT of the year, everybody's totally fine with that.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: And like super stoked.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: And like good on Killian, a hundred percent Kudos to Killian, he's super inspiring.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: But like get his flowers for what he did.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: Like having sat with him before he went after this record and like spent time with him.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: Like dude, he had names for the rocks going up the mountain.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: Like he even said that to me he was, he was, he was, he's a wild boy, dude, a wild boy.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: But like he even said to me he's like I got names for my rocks going all the way up.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: Like I've never met anybody in my life that was so dialed and so committed to like one goal it was.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: It was so apparent and so interesting to me and like, dude, you and I made a lot of people like I have interviewed like oh my God, like a lot of people over the last year and a half and like even like I've raised a lot of people.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: I've talked to the goats of the goats, with the exception of Killian, and like Michelino was one of the few people and I think that's why I was so hardcore about defending him, because I spent time with him before the record and was just like so blown away by like how dialed he was and how badly he wanted that and like, yeah, I don't know, that's my rant, that's all I got on it and I just wasted 20 minutes on that.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: But like I don't know, what do you think?
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think I think by and large, we we have a lot of similar thoughts.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: I think what it comes, what it comes down to, is just that sort of feeling that I mentioned.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: You know a lot of the otherability thing with, like the andy anderson thing, and that's my only like hesitation with it is it felt like andy anderson like chose some kind of like more honor.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: Right, it was like the underdog choosing the more honorable path and beating the big name right to beat keely, and it had that sort of a feel to it.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: Um, within, and this just doesn't record too yeah it.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: Just this one doesn't quite have the same feel.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: Uh, since he ran past the sign, that's closed whether that is enforceable or not.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: But again, to rewind further in the conversation, it's whether an entity called Guinness or an entity called FKT recognizes that this is the fastest time up and down.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: Uh, the grand Teton for their record books in the good old mountain ways, this is still the fastest time Anybody's gone to the top and back down.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: It's true.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: Nobody can argue that Like anyone that says, oh yeah, andy Anderson has the FKT, they have to then follow it with.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: But this other guy right, they have to follow it with.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: Another guy's done it faster, but he did it on this different route.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: The only thing I think of too is like I mean, once Michelino, his court situation is done, and like once it's all tucked away, and like said and done, then like I don't know, there's no reason for FKT to super stay away.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: We could have to, they could literally just create a historical one.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: That way the historical people who have done it, where they cut the switchback, will basically not necessarily get their flowers, but that way there's an historical understanding that this was the old route and then we're going to move forward with Andy Anderson's route and that is the new route going forward.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: I have to say I don't say dude, I think I agree with Jack too.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: Like Jack says, that route isn't it's not that it's untouchable, it's that like well, it's kind of I don't know, like if I'm a professional mountain runner of that level not that I'm at that level, but why would I go do something like that with the level of risk?
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: And then now there's I think it's more the frustration and uncertainty with the upper switchbacks.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, when you get once you get well above tree line, it's like you can see the beaten footpath and the built trail and you can see a few random uh user trails here and there, um, and by and large you're on like a lot of rock and you're on a lot of like just loose alpine terrain.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: Um, so yeah, like in my head, there's no marking that says only stay on this given path, follow the markings.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: Um, and you know there's people that go and climb different routes on the mountain from there where they go up and they climb um XM Ridge or things like that.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: So I think in my head up there, making decisions in that higher Alpine environment, um, I don't know, there's always people making decisions to go different ways up the mountain, the ones you're up there, right.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: So to me that that part I I would more take the mountain athletes side a hundred percent of the time, like you just go where you go.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: Is it worth it then?
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: I think that's the question Is it worth the criticism If I go and do that, going the route that I think is the right way screw up, submit it for an FKT.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: Not screw up, but submit it for an FKT.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: And they say I screw up, right.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: And then now it's, he said.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: She said now I'm getting a fine from the NPS, now I'm facing a ban or this, that and the other.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: It's like is it really worth it anymore?
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: So I don't know.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: I think there would have to be certain things that would change for other people to go for it.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: And not to mention, like two fit, what is it?
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 250, 50, is anyone ever gonna even crack that?
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: Like that's that's such such a fast time, like I don't know.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: I have to say, like I definitely.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: I think I agree with jack that like we might not see a record on this for a very long time, unless michelino, uh, unless when things get cleared up, if he's able to go back and do it, if, if that's that's the case, if he ever chooses to.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: So who the fuck knows, dude.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: I don't think anybody's going to go up and down the grand faster than that for a very, very long time.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's for certain.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: No, for sure.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: All right, let's.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: Let's get into the ascents.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: We've got three of those to knock down.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: Uh, before we wrap this bad boy up, first one we could talk about is david sinclair, um on mount washington, uh, new hampshire.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: He took the ascent from pinkham notch to tuckerman ravine.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: Not too familiar with that area, um of the whites, haven't played over there too much.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: But, dude, 58 minutes 18 seconds to go, 4.1 miles and 4 285 feet of vertical.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: Like he's moving pretty fast, like it's a.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: It's one of the top ascents of the year, for sure yeah, and those by understanding, not having lived over there and moved on those trails is they definitely like to describe how their trails are much more brutal to try to cover ground quickly on.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: So to be on an old style trail and to be ascending at over uh 4300 feet per hour um, as your average ascent, ascent pace is pretty phenomenal pretty phenomenal, absolutely.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: I mean another david sinclair is world class.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: So there you go, um.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: All right, so I'm gonna move on from the next one to morgan elliott's mount mitchell ascent time, where this was actually a really cool thing that I think didn't get enough notoriety.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: So david hedges and morgan elliott back in I think it was april or may, I believe it might have been closer to may um that they decided to race one another for the ascent and I've actually been on this route, pretty um, coming down it from when I did quest for the crest.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: Awesome route, dude, really, really iconic, beautiful ridge line on mount mitchell.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: Um.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: So they decided to race one another for the ascent time and Morgan snuck under Mason Kopi, who's another world-class athlete um, snuck under Mason Kopi, um and ran.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: I think it was one hour and 42 seconds and I think Mason might've had this unsupported record in like one hour um and like one minute or something like that.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: So it was very close and Morgan did it in a supported style.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: I think that's because there was cameras.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: They were racing yeah.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was, yep, so pretty cool 5.7 miles, 3,648 feet of vertical and the reason I will say it stands out to me is because Morgan's an incredibly gifted technical runner, even on a sense and things like that, and it is a very technical route, like super technical course, um, so it's exciting to see someone go that fast on it and very inspiring, especially for that.
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: Like western north carolina area, um, I actually got some word yesterday that they actually I think they're gonna have quest for the request coming up in may.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: That area was like pretty ravaged by, um, the hurricane not too long ago, so it's it's exciting to hear that they're kind of building back and and, uh, the community's starting to kind of come back from that.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: So crazy stuff.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: All right, man, we got the last one.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: So excited to talk about this one and none other than no.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: We got, we have two more, don't?
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: We did we?
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: oh, I thought we're gonna.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we got a shout out, another controversial one.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: We got to have more controversy.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: All right, I'll let you take this one away.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: I already ranted about Michelino, so I'll let you have Tyler.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, tyler Andrews' Albert Ascent A whole thing.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: He has the course record but apparently not the FKT Worthy of mention because it bests Joe Gray's time by over three minutes.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, mention because it bests joe gray's time by over three minutes.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, um, and joe gray is an absolute legend of the short, fast mountain stuff.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, uh, you know, starting at the base, 10k and he, he ascended at uh, what is it?
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: 42, almost 43, um hundred feet an hour it was on average 550 graded, just a pace which for 10 000 feet is bananas dude like that's, that's.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: And yeah, he was he was moving, yeah, um, I don't know much about the the controversy let's talk about the controversy.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: So the controversy that surrounds it is he was, and this is why maybe some audience members, maybe tyler I doubt he's listening to this, but chris or chris fisher, uh, might be listening to this so, and maybe he knows more or whoever is in this.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 2: If you listen to this, yeah, chime in in the comments anybody in the sphere might know more of this.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: So what I understand was that tyler may or may not have cut switchbacks and that's why the FKT was not given.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: But that was from hearsay that I got from an Instagram DM.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that was actually the case.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: I find it very interesting that, especially being on Colorado's most prominent quote, unquote, one of their most prominent, highest 14 or um, even if he had set the FKT on Strava and not even submitted it, they, like I have a feeling Tate or somebody that would have seen it would have probably just put the FKT on there.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: Um, I don't know what the community rules are, but I feel like that would should have just been automatic um, especially for something so prominent.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: So I think there was a reason is what I'm trying to say as to why the FKT was not given.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: Like I said, I've heard some heroes say of switchbacks, and then I saw seth james demore in the comments.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: Uh, not very happy that polls were being used on the ascent um.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: So I don't know, I don't really know what, what, what kind of went down on this effort, but if anyone has any commentary for more, I'd love to get the juicy I am kind of curious.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's, there's this editor's note that's been added on on the route description.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: It used to be just very simple, like two sentences, but now it says um, this should not be considered backcountry um, where you can go anywhere you want due to the popularity and the plethora of braided trails.
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: Um, basically it says it gets down to it.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: It says so, if there is a trail, please stay on it, and it mentions the hundreds of volunteer hours by the 14ers initiative to build out trail.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: Um, so apparently fkt is really trying to crack down and get, get on board with this messaging of like cracking down that you know, stay to the trails.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: Um, and yeah, I mean, I can feel, I can feel the pain of, like, the mountain athlete where they, you know it's the alpine terrain where you're just boulder hopping, yeah, and they build some like low angle set of switchbacks where anywhere on earth I would not take a path that easy.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: I would always take the direct line.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: And now, because you built a trail here so that grandma could make it to the top, more or less yeah I have to walk, you know, 14 switchbacks on something I could do much faster just going straight up as an athlete who can scramble right.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: Um, so, like I can feel, I can feel the pain here.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: It's another one of those situations where, yeah, okay, will people continue to contest this front country?
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: Um, fkt, if you know, they keep further refining the trail to be flatter and flatter and flatter.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, interesting, and yeah, if anybody, any, if anybody has greater clarity.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know everything, but that's kind of same.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: I don't have a ton of information on this one, but it is interesting because it was totally overlooked, like no one.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: It was talked about like in the inner deep, the dark web, the deep dark web of uh, fkts and and ascent records, but like not much really surfaced after the fact.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I'd be very curious to find out, like and the fun part is andrew really doesn't care about this.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: He's too busy knocking out 8 000 meter peak records and 7 000 meter peak uh peak records in the himalaya.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: So I don't actually know him, so if you know him, I would you gotta just ask him.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe you know better than I do, so maybe I'll have a chat with him.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'll see if he wants to come hop on your show too dude, that would be.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: That would be amazing.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: We could ask him about that, ask him about a lot of things.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: Uh, that'd be amazing.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: We could ask him about that.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: Ask him about a lot of things, yeah, that would be a.
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: That'd be a fun, fun one, fun one to talk about.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, okay.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: So big shout out to Tyler Andrews, like literally owns the crown now on Albert um and did it in pretty dominant fashion.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: So I know, uh, probably Joe and the more brothers will probably be chasing it as well over the next few years to see if they can take that back, take that time back.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all right.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: So back to california, back to california, back to mount tam.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: Um, I know, free trail also did another sick video on just I think it was.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: I can't remember if it was before.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: I was, um, not mammoth trail fest.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: What the hell was it that headlands 27k race um that the golden trail series race did?
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: It was just ahead of that.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: Remy bonet went out and absolutely smashed the mount tam record.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: Um, dude, beat a walmsley, took a walmsley crown a 2017 walmsley so it's been seven years, eight years it's been floating around, yeah yeah, you can't.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 2: You can't argue that walmsley wasn't in good form um back then he went under 29 minutes is crazy.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: He ran 28, 59, so that's 90 seconds off of jim's time, average 858 per mile and the route is a 3.3 mile route with 2500 feet of vert and if you're interested, like for the audience, if you're interested in learning more about the route, like it's, first of all it's a strava verified segment but second of all, you can like watch the free trail video and it's pretty rocky and technical in a lot of sections, like I saw anna like when she did hers, like she was breaking into a power hike and there were some sections where you have to like climb a little bit, like a little scramble and stuff.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it's definitely not the easiest.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: It's not carpet going up.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: So and he's he's the only one on our list where his ascent rate to again circle back to that over 5,000 feet, 5,100 feet per hour.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: Um, it's what he was, what he was pulling to go pull this time, which is kind of wild to me.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: So crazy.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's, you know, one of the best uphill athletes in the world.
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: So yeah, especially, uh, not just a schemo athlete, but just incredible uphill runner.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: So yeah, remy's remy's a freak dude.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: He took the ascent in my own backyard, he planted a big swiss flag on our mountain um, hopefully somebody gets that back soon and planted a big swiss flag on the manitou incline as well he's a beast.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: I mean his.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: His content's super fun to see, uh online too.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: Just the skiing stuff, the way he's ripping uphill skiing in the Santa costume was pretty funny as well.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: I give him a shout out for that.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty funny.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: Um, dude, who is?
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: I just had Lara Hamilton.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: Uh, she's a really dominant uh skier and a runner as well.
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: I just had her on the podcast and she was uh at the golden trail world series.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, golden trail world series final.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: It's a lot to say and uh, apparently like him and like it was remy and el hussein were like dancing and singing together at like the final.
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: It's pretty funny.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of interesting to like humanize these people.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: It's like some freakiest athletes in the world.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: So it's cool.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of them a lot of them are just cool people they are.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: They just spend a bunch of time with david hedges, um, you know, kind of the we mentioned david sinclair as like perhaps just showing up and doing it.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: One of the things I fell in love with david hedge's approach is he like goes in dirt bags at the place and rehearses stuff and like lives it and breathes it.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: Like when he took nolan's, he just like made it work to hang out there for a long time until he'd rehearsed it and then crushed that route.
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: Um, and so I kind of I like I I'm a person that that's what I have to do if I want to best other athletes.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 2: I'm not, I'm not the superhuman, uh, elite world force.
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: I'm like I'm barely going to squeak by.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: And the reason I'm going to squeak by is because I spent so many hours prepping Um and I just love that.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: David Hedges is the athlete that he is and he he approaches it still in that way of like putting passion and intricate detail into it.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: Um and so yeah, I think, I think he's going to be one to watch still going forward.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 2: Oh for sure, man.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: I guess we could shift gears into that.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: I was going to say if we're forecasting for the future.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: That's someone I have on my list, like he's, and he trains with Jackson Cole.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: He's another one you know that like, yeah, hedges dude, I followed David hedges for years now, like he was.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: He was on my radar back in like 2020.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: I did this race when I lived, when I was a Florida boy.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: I was a Flatlander and I came out to Colorado to go race this uh Sanger to Custo 50 K race and David had I think he had like Molly wallop the course record and like did typical David Hedges fashion and like I had his splits from his Strava and everything from him and I was just like and this kid was like three or four years younger than me at the time Um, and just like someone I really looked up to in the sport, like just a really interesting guy and it's crazy to see how his career has kind of blossomed.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: I still think he's very underrated and like his best performance is probably still like he hasn't had it yet.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: In my opinion, probably not even close.
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: Um, definitely someone to look out for in the future.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: In my opinion, um, and that's both in the racing scene and the fkt scene.
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: I mean I think he's made more of a name for himself on the FKT scene.
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: I think the world was a huge step forward and a big, big step for him.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: But like I know he didn't have the race he wanted at Minotaur, but like you're talking about someone that can come back and totally go win that race.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: No doubt in my mind like he's world-class for sure.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, definitely somebody to look out for.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: Um, it's crazy to see what all these people are going to do in the future.
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: I pretty sure Morgan Elliott just signed a new contract with Merrill, so you'll probably see him again more on like the sky running scene.
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, I don't know.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: Remy just signed a longterm deal with Solomon.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: You'll see him there for a long time.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: I don't really know.
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: I think, think.
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: Tyler's got big plans back over in the himalaya.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 2: He's going to keep chasing down these 8 000 meter peak records, which which means at some point he's like knocking on the door for the everest record that's what I was like, that's got to be.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: That's got to be.
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: Where he's going, that's got to be where he's going I can't remember if aaron, I shouldn't, I don't, I'm oh, you can speculate on this.
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: I I'm pretty sure Aaron told me on the.
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: I can't remember if she said it on the podcast or she said it after the podcast.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: Probably shouldn't say this, but that's definitely the plan from what I understand and that was what I understand too, that was as of the summer.
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's changed.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: But God damn, dude, if he goes for that, that would be.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: Utmb was in his future, possibly as well.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know how true that is still.
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: Maybe shift of gears, I don't know it would be cool to see him do both.
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: I think his priority is that he wants those.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: He wants to cement himself in mountaineering history as the guy that holds the records on the 8,000 meter peaks.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: Dude, he's so fast.
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: Oh my God, he's so fast.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I also think, like you got to think of it from like a risk-reward perspective too, right, it's like he could go train an entire year and then go have one bad day at UTMB and there's a season, whereas, like you, can continue to push and, push and push these high mountains, and it's more at your own level.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you could train for a year and go have one thing, go wrong and be dead, you're right, you're right, you're right.
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 2: If you want to talk risk and reward, I mean there's a huge risk to what he's pursuing and the style he's pursuing it, and I think that's one of the things that makes it so ballsy to go go this direction of trying to take this alpinism, this mountain running style and push it to peaks that are that tall is the cost if you get it wrong does he have any close calls that he's been like vocal about?
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 2: none that, none that I've heard of, um, none that, none that he's.
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 2: He's been super vocal.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know if he's just been really lucky or he's just that methodical, or both.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: I mean some luck, some just incredible method, or if maybe he's had one or two and isn't super vocal about them, just kind of keeps them as his private lessons for now.
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: That's somebody that needs to write a book for sure.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, absolutely.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: It's going to be cool.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: Are you going to try and get a book deal, or what?
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: What are you doing?
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 2: Uh, people keep talking to me about this.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 2: Um, if I get the book deal, I have to sit down and write the book, right?
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: Um, you'd have a ghostwriter writer for you.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: You just got to pay them.
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: There we go.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no people have mentioned that I should.
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 2: I should pick that up.
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 2: Um, and I'm starting to take it more seriously.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 2: I was too busy just being out, always doing the stuff.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: I never wanted to take any time away from being in the mountains.
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 2: Now I guess I'm rounding the corner enough.
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: How old are you?
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 2: You're 30s, right, just turned 36.
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you're only a few years older than me.
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: It's nice, dude.
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: You got plenty of time.
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: man, you're not even like Max King is like ancient compared to you.
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 2: He's like yeah, he is ancient compared to me.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: Max, I hope you listen to this ancient.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 2: He said it first.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 2: I flip him garbage so much on how old he is and he'll like stop through my, my town, because he'll pass through klamathal sometimes, since we live so close, and he'll just crush like a strava segment that I've held for like years and he's like man just wanted you to know I was in town.
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: That's too funny.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, dude.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: He's that.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: I have to say he's one of the few people when I met in the sport.
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: I was like genuinely starstruck, like I was like oh shit, I'm so used to seeing you on like Solomon TV and stuff like that, and he's like much tinier in real life than I thought he would be.
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: He is.
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: He is smaller than you expect.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but boom got you again max.
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 2: Oh man, I'm never getting him on his uh for an interview or he's gonna come on tomorrow.
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: That's true, oh man well, dude, do you think there's anything we hit on?
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: I can't believe this is.
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: This might be my longest episode, two or three hours.
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 2: We did something like that we did a good job.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 2: We kicked, we kicked around a lot of stuff on here.
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um, I think we covered for wrapping up the short stuff, the, the short steep stuff for 2024.
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 2: I think this is pretty solid.
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 2: Again, people from canada can have their, have their time with us.
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 2: Um, we'll do better next year.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 2: Um, but yeah, I can't think of anything else, anything else jumping out to you no, no, no, I I definitely do.
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: I appreciate your perspective and just everything, like you.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, you definitely carry the ship on this one, so I really it would be.
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: it would be really fun to give some respect next year, when we do this, to truly technical routes that get efforts like have that be in its own.
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 2: Like I brought up the evolution traverse, like if that record ever gets broken, like people just can't wrap their mind around what goes into actually doing an ultra endurance push.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: You know it's a 30 plus mile effort but you're soloing multiple five, nine pitches over the course of this day at 14,000 feet.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: Um, it's just yeah, things like that I feel like should kind of have its own little like drop it in its own bucket and be like hey, let's shout out these people that are doing, doing this like enduro, scrambling style stuff, um, cause it's just not quite the same animal.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, the grand Teton gets into that bucket a little bit, yeah, but it's like that put on steroids in the mountains, and so I think, yeah, it'd be fun to fun to get into some of those types of things as well.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, well, I guess it will dedicate a whole episode to it.
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: Let's, let's do it.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: Especially, like I said, I think more justice needs to be done for these things and, you know, we definitely have the right, the right people in place to to be able to have these types of episodes.
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: So I appreciate it, man, thank you.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: Heck.
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this has been a pleasure, James.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: I'm glad we made it happen Me too man.
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: Oh man, what'd you guys think?
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: What a fun episode.
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: I want to personally thank Jason so much for coming on.
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: Lots of uh, lots of really good hot takes there, lots of really just expert analysis and breakdown of some of the routes.
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: Really couldn't have done it without Jason's commentary.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: It really meant the world to me and it was fun to really bring this episode to life with the legend himself.
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: So looking forward to possibly doing something like this annually and continuing to kind of build on our repertoire of sub-ultra FKTs and technical routes you know ranking systems at the end of the year.
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: So definitely a blast.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: Guys, I know there was a lot of controversy in there regarding some FKTs.
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: If I ruffled any feathers, feel free to leave your comments, questions and concerns in our either DMS on Instagram or in the comments on the Instagram, the Instagram post that I put up for this.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoyed it.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: I hope you got some value out of it.
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: I hope we were able to shed some light on some Maybe some records that happened throughout the year that people really didn't get a fundamental understanding of, or maybe that weren't expertly portrayed in the way that they probably should have been, and when I say that meaning like not even, though so many amazing athletes put up so many amazing efforts.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: It's interesting how the limelight picks and chooses which ones kind of make it out there for the world to hear about, and some of them are just kind of not really talked about.
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: So I hope we were able to add some commentary and really highlight some of the ones that really mattered and, for instance, jackson Cole's efforts, flannery Davis' love on Long's Peak.
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: There was just a lot of them that I feel like people should have learned a little bit more about, and I'm glad we were able to provide some more commentary for that.
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: Before we get going, if you could do me a favor and hop on Instagram, first off, give Jason Hardrath a follow if you haven't already.
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: Um, he's really got some awesome videos.
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: These have been putting up of paragliding all over the all over the world.
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: At this point the man just got back from, uh, columbia, uh, doing some paragliding, so he's a really fun follow.
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: Um, as well, as you know, he'll be doing a whole bunch of mountain adventures this summer, so definitely worth a follow, also on Instagram, if you happen to really enjoy this episode and got a lot of value out of it.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: I would genuinely appreciate it from the bottom of my heart If you wouldn't mind sharing it in your stories.
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: That way we can get this to more people, get this out to the world.
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: And then, very last but not least, if you guys got a lot of value out of this, give us a rating on YouTube, spotify or Apple.
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: A five-star rating and review would mean the world to me.
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: Like I said, it's how we can get this out to the world and continue to cover our great sport, the one that we love so much SubUltra.
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: Well, guys, appreciate you listening to this.
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: I've got a dope-ass episode dropping.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: On Friday, none other than Arc'teryx athlete Connor Cook is going to be joining us on the pod.
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: Really exciting to get that one out to the world.
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: Um, the man is an artist and a wild boy, so I think you guys will enjoy that one.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: Uh have a great rest of your week, guys.
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, thank you.
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time.