Latest / The Steep Stuff Podcast / Jonathan Aziz | 2X Pikes Peak Marathon Champion

Transcript

Jonathan Aziz | 2X Pikes Peak Marathon Champion · The Steep Stuff Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up guys?
• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Steep Stuff Podcast.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, james Lauriello, and today we have another special one, kicking off Pike's Peak Week with none other than John Aziz, two-time Pike's Peak Marathon champion, joins the podcast to chat all about his previous wins, some of his goals, accolades his backstory in running, his Olympic qualifiers in the marathon.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: He's done ran twice.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: John is absolutely unstoppable, one of the most interesting and just dominant runners I think I've ever had on the podcast.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a really special one.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: It's a Monday episode.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: We're doing this to kick off Pike's Peak Week.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I am so excited, one of the best weeks in trail running, especially for our Colorado Springs and front range of Colorado community and internationally as well.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: This is a big race.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: A lot of people come out to it.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: So, without further ado, I hope you guys enjoy this one.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, john Aziz.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Going up.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: It's just you're constantly wondering if you're going too hard and if you're gonna die.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: So is it like they say, it's a, it's an ultimate mental battle is that what keeps bringing you back, year after year, the ultimate mental battle yeah, I don't care what racers show up, even if somebody shows up better than me.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: You know this is a test against yourself.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Everybody that's out here is doing it and everybody's testing themselves, and it's great, it's called America's Ultimate Challenge.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: Each year, over 2,500 runners flock to Manitou Springs to challenge themselves against the mountain known as Pike's Peak.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: This year, runners from 46 different states and 8 foreign countries have come.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: They all start here and make their way towards the clouds.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: It's time.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, we are live Dude.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the pod, bro.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Thank you, How's your day going so far?
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: It's going well.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: It's another warm one out here.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Toasty Tuesday, dude.
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: I sit inside an AC at a desk so I don't realize it, until I step out to my car and get slammed.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: You're actually sitting at my work desk.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I work from home, so I have one, one screen there.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: One screen packed away well, thanks for inviting me into your, your home office, my into my man cave.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny, man.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I just got back from utah yesterday.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Uh, I was in the wasatch and it was like nice and cool.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: I was expecting I know it's like lower elevation and and I come back here and I'm like what the hell?
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: It's so hot yeah.
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: We just had a nice week back east visiting some of my family in New York and sometimes I am a little nervous about that trip, like jumped into heat and humidity, but it was like such a nice break.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: Right after Hurricane Debbie cooled things off and it was good.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: So nice.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: We should probably preface this.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Uh, I'm on the pod live with john aziz dude.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, welcome, thanks so much.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Uh, let's talk about let's talk about your background a little bit.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Introduce yourself, maybe, tell us how you got just like a brief overview of how you got into running, and then we'll talk about your background sure.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: so the the brief overview of getting into running.
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: It's a pretty boring story, I think.
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: Just like multi-sport athlete getting into middle school didn't really want to do baseball anymore, so picked up track in the spring and then found some success in it and it became a year-round thing, so kind of just always active in sports basketball, baseball, soccer.
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: Growing up and running just slid in there and, yeah, I found some success and enjoyment out of it and just kept going.
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: So no real crazy origin story here.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: And you're from upstate New York.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: I am yep Town of Gilderland.
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: It's a suburb of Albany, so state capital, Dude my wife's from.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Highland like just down the road Wow no kidding, yeah, that's funny.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, from highland like just down the road.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Wow, no kidding.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's funny yeah, we'll talk about that later.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: We're going back?
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: um, yeah, we're going back uh at the end of september to go up there for uh.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: We had our like we talked about before we had our wedding a few weeks ago, but we had some family members that couldn't.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Uh, rosa's grandmother couldn't come because she's uh sure so we'll go back up there.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I gotta take pictures in the suit again and do the whole thing with the grandparents.
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: Oh cool, it'll be fun, it'll be nice, at least.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: September I feel like it starts to cool off.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: You get the apple orchards up there.
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: Cider donuts, you start getting colors.
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that'd be good.
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: Fall up there is incredible.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so beautiful.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: You went to Syracuse, right, I did yes.
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: You ran cross-country and track there.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Yep, syracuse university class of uh 2013 okay um yep, yeah, I think you and I are the same age.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: You're 30.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Yes, 33 or 33, same, yeah, nice man.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Uh dude, talk to me about your running experience in college, like how was that?
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: yeah, um, I had a blast.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: Um, I let's see.
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: So let me rewind a little bit further.
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: Just like close out high school, um, I was, I was like a good small school runner, um, so I found success in the small division races where if I was plugged into the big school races I, you know, might've been more middle of the pack guy, um, and so I considered myself really lucky to get a spot on that Syracuse team as a walk-on.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: I think if I was a year, even just a year, younger, um, standards might have been too tough.
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: So, uh, chris fox, brian bell, they, uh, they welcomed me warmly as a walk-on and so I went.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: I had a learning experience there from just like, um, you know, working out by myself largely in high school and maybe winning or being near the top of these small school races, to not being able to keep up in workouts.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's crazy Um so, yeah, at best over the four years there, I maybe could have called myself like a man, um, but I know I learned a lot, grew a lot there.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: Um, made some of my best friends uh, joe, bachelor party this weekend.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: We're going to go celebrate circus runners.
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: So no, it's a.
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah I, I learned a lot, I grew a lot and um, a lot of basic principles employed there that still am doing today.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: What was that like?
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: So you went, did you like contact them beforehand, like find out, like about walking went?
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Did you like contact them beforehand, like find out, like about walking on and stuff like that and like, were you like a preferred walk on or how does that work for like walking on?
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: yeah, let's see.
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: This one started with an email conversation and bell, let me know, like maybe january, february time frame, when I was doing this, um, cause I was probably kind of late, I didn't know, I wanted to go to school, I probably do a bunch of them and um, then, after acceptance letters, I think acceptance letters, then I started reaching out to, to coaches and a lot of them just laid it out there.
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: It's like hey, here are standards, uh, you hit these this track season, you can walk on.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: Wow, laid it out there.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: It's like hey, here are standards, uh, you hit these this track season, you can walk on.
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: Wow, um, I think, uh, I, I think they told me a 930, 3200 or a 425, 1600, damn.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: And I'd have a spot okay, all right, and what was that?
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Did you have to work like insanely hard to meet those standards?
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: or were you?
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: I was, I was right on the cusp coming in from my junior year, okay.
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: So, um, I had to work, yeah, but it wasn't like it wasn't a huge stretch to go for it nice man.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's incredible.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: What an experience.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Um dude, what the hell got you to trail running then, like, where did that come from?
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: Sure, my wife Tara Richardson At the time we met.
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: We met because of running.
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: We'd both qualified for the 2020 Olympic marathon trials and we met at a send-off party the week before at Jason and Jenny Simpson's house.
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: That's kind of a cool backstory.
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: Jason is a teammate of mine in the Boulder Track Club.
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: We were training together oh, wow um.
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: So they threw a party a week before.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: We had four members of our, our club going um, and so that was the start of our relationship.
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: And then, well, yeah, okay, that's what we met.
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: The start of the relationship was like a month later, uh, when covet hit, okay.
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: And so then it was just like, uh, you know, I want to do everything tara's doing and covet is shutting everything down.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: Great time to just go explore the trails.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: And that was my, my, entry into the wow and you, so how bridge this gap for me?
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: So I know a little bit about your background as well.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Like you, you got your PhD at UC Boulder as well.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Did you do any trail running there, or was it more like what did you do after college for running?
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: So let's see.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: Let's go back to 2013,.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: Graduated Syracuse I had a fun month or so with my teammates training in Flagstaff before I then moved to Boulder to start graduate school and again circling back to.
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: You know, I improved a lot at Syracuse, but I didn't performance-wise throw down anything special, excuse me.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: A lot of peers hung up their shoes and moved on.
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: I already knew I would be a lifelong runner.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: This is the lifestyle I want to adopt and continue to pursue.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: But I need to figure out how to make a way of living and I didn't want to quite enter the career force yet, so I decided to pursue graduate school.
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: So landed at CU Boulder.
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: Wow, almost almost exactly 11 years ago, I guess August.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: August 2013.
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: And that that first year, I was like, okay, I'll, um, I'm gonna be running every day, but I really want to, you know, focus on my graduate studies and knock this out.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: Um.
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: And so it was running, was a little bit on the back seat for a year, but I was still probably hitting 70 miles a week oh, wow getting engaged with the boulder track club, um, doing local road races, and that kept me in it and made a lot of friends, and then I just got absorbed back into it and I think that, uh, that time in graduate school probably was a a good period for me to just continue growing and I I think um, you know I was still a late bloomer and continue to improve and running and uh, I think, uh, yeah, just everything it offered from lifestyle, schedule, balance and a little bit of, um, freedoms of responsibility and all that.
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: I mean I still worked my tail off at school, but I think that was a good time for me to just explore what I really wanted to put into running and try to squeeze out of it Interesting.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: What an experience too.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, how long, like I know.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I know engineering is a little bit different, because when I think of the hard sciences, it takes sometimes a handful of years to go get your PhD.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: How long does it take you?
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: How long does that work?
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: So yeah, it varies from four to eight or ten year trips.
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: I was in the middle, maybe slightly faster than the middle, a five year plan for me and that was coming right out of the bachelor's.
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: So it it wasn't exactly bachelor's, master's, phd.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: I had it set up to kind of just file paperwork to get the master's along the way, but more or less two years for master's and another three years is for the phd and you do aeronautical engineering yeah aerospace engineering.
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: So aeronautical and astronautical I'm on the astro side now.
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: But a lot of it really depends on what you can line up for funding sources.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: So I was very fortunate after my first year to win what was called a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship at the time.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: It's under a different name now, um, but loosely you can have, you know, you can have a dedicated fellowship that's going to pay you to do your work, which I was fortunate to have.
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: So I got to do that, maybe plus three after the master's Um.
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: But you might be on other plans where you're on a research assistantship to a professor or lab and you might not have as much authority over the direction of what you're working on.
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: And then you might also have to be a teaching assistant to earn your funding, which you know further challenges how much time in a given week you can commit to commit to your studies.
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: So, uh, depending on how you're uh paying for your meals, it might make it a little bit of a longer journey interesting.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: What did you?
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: If you don't mind me asking like what was your thesis and like what did you specify, sure?
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: um, I'll give you the title Low-thrust, many-revolution trajectory optimization Holy shit.
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: So the short version is how to?
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: I was working out how to solve path planning for spacecraft that are going to use really low-force, efficient engines that take a lot of steering and maneuvering to to move from point A to point B.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: Um, so it's a lot of it's many different decisions that need to be made about how you're going to thrust and steer your spacecraft, and that makes it a a challenging control problem.
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: That's so interesting.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: I have an eight brain, so like I, I got to physics too.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: And that was.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: That was as far as I got, so anything beyond that is like sure um, but to me it's just like mind-blowing.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know my uncle was an aerospace engineer.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Um, he worked for lockheed for a while and yeah, just interesting, yeah well I'll give you the.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: Okay, I can give you a physics 2 version, okay?
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: So, um, now picture yourself standing on a skateboard with a bowling ball and you throw a bowling ball.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: What's gonna happen?
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: You're gonna jet the other direction, right, right, like that's how a rocket works, right, um?
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: So now imagine you're standing on a skateboard and you're holding a jar of marbles.
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: You can only throw one marble at a time to get to where you're going, and so I was working out.
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: You know how do we compute how to throw those marbles, how hard, which directions, when not to throw them in coast.
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: That is so crazy.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: And very applicable.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Do you?
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: I would imagine you work in that capacity.
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: Yep, I'm in the field.
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: I work for a company called the Aerospace Corporation Okay, like the Ohio State.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: So I often say like the Aerospace Corporation, which one it's like?
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: Like the aerospace corporation, which one like?
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: Not the aerospace?
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: corporation is the name of my employer.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Uh wow, super rad.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: And is that what brought you down to the springs?
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: it is yeah, yep, um, so finished in boulder spring 2018.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: Um and yeah, throughout my job search, I uh definitively wanted to stay in the state and uh, uh that the opportunity down here in the Springs um enabled that for me.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean dude, what a great place to train.
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, I feel like we just have everything we can get into the Alpine here.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: You have two 3000 foot climbs.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: You've got flat trails, everything.
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know earlier in conversation, see, got in a trail running like 2020.
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: So I was here for two years before like really learning how to embrace the training environment around me.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: Those first two years I'm like focused on road marathons and it's like how do I find just a flat stretch to do some repeats?
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: It's very challenging, oh absolutely.
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: But yeah, just embracing the trails and the hills and the climbing, it's much easier going.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you this what was your, what were you always interested in pursuing, like the road marathon, like after after school or like what?
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: No, I brought that on.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, let's see, it was not planned.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the things I got into shortly, shortly after moving to Colorado, I'm going to go out and do a rock and roll half marathon.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: Getting into Boulder, boulders and even my research took me out to DC area a couple of times and I tried to get in track races and things.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: Um, the, the marathon didn't really come into the picture until maybe halfway through graduate school and even even before.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it wasn't until after I moved to Boulder that the whole image of the Olympic marathon trials was like a thing to me.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: It was not this thing to shoot for.
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: But suddenly everyone I knew in Boulder was going for the Olympic marathon trials qualifier, knew in boulder was going for the olympic marathon trials qualifier.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: It was like um and one of my roommates, curtis begley jr.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: He was um in hot pursuit of the, the 2016 trials, and ended up qualifying and to, to his credit and uh.
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: Something I hope to show to other people is like, oh, if curtis could do it, then I should be able to go do it.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: So that was part of the motivation and so, in turn, I hope I've inspired some people to say, oh, jonathan could do that I think I could go take a stab at that.
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: Wow, so that's where the marathoning really came from, just that immersion in Boulder and realizing it was a thing, and I got kind of dragged in.
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: Dude, I feel like that training block is the worst, like for a marathon, I don't know.
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: Out of everything else, I feel like it's just the hardest, the most brutal on your body.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, um, most times when I get like when we're approaching peak race kind of just feel like, uh, you know what's gonna give, is my hamstring gonna?
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah I'm gonna pop as my achilles gonna go um it's tough and um back to the trail thing.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Like I feel like that's made me so much stronger and healthier in that regard, like it feels so much more robust, resilient absolutely now, where did you qualify at you qualify, I think, was grandma's right um.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: So yes, and there's another one, so 2020 trials.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: Uh, I qualified at cim cim okay and can I count my yeah, 2024 trials?
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: Uh, qualified at grandma's, okay, yeah wow, dude, what was it like?
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: like what I don't know?
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Just like paint, because you gotta remember, like a lot of the audience is sub ultra runners but like a lot of them and maybe came from the tracks but a lot of them have never run marathons or like at least, have never touched that rare air of like what it's like to run and qualify an olympics qualifier, um, and run that type of race.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Maybe you could like paint that picture of like what that level is like sure, um, maybe the the first qualifier is more relatable because the second one.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: I've been there before going for a pr.
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: I know it'll get me there.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: I've been on the standard, so let's go to the.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: Let's try to jog my memory about the first one, um, and what I think might also be relatable about it is um.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: It was my debut marathon and so I think I want to draw a relation to just like hopping on a, a challenging course you've never been on before and you don't really know what to expect.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: Um.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: So CIM 2017 was my debut marathon.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: Qualifying standard was, uh, two hours hours 19 minutes.
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: At the time, um, I'd been training for two hours 18 minutes because that was the previous qualifying time, so I had that pace locked in in the training plan.
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: But there's still the whole unknown and unknown.
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: Unknowns like not having been out at the distance before um and I didn't know if I had a serious shot at it or if I was gonna be looking at more like 225s.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: Um, in that range.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: I knew sarah hall was in the race, so so I mean it was a real.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: Things like maybe I, maybe I'll be running with sarah hall for a little bit, trying to hold her off, um, but no, everything just, uh, just kind of clicked and I remember being like hitting the half marathon split and feeling so good and I, I, I remember passing through the half marathon aid stations, like my phone is gonna blow up when I'm done with this.
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: So I mean, which is a silly thought, because so much can happen.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: Like you're only halfway there and yeah, you know the 20 mile wall and whatnot, and like, yeah, maybe a naive thought to have, but just sharing, honestly, that's what ended my brain.
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: And then the yeah.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: So, tying it back to, I made the comment I want the relation to you know, hopping on a course you really don't know what to expect and so, just you know, continuing to hold that pace and ultimately qualify.
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: I had I ran 2.17.13.
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: , so I was a minute 47 seconds under, so it was just like um a little overwhelming by your performance about crushing this unknown thing.
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: It's like, um, yeah, so, so that reward.
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, I crushed it, um, didn't really know what could happen, coming in and came out with a very positive result.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: And then, to the um, the recognition that followed.
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: So like, yeah, the phone blew up.
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: It's just a recognizable feat, and all your, all your friends and fellow running community members you know everybody comes out and recognizes it, so so that's really a rewarding aspect of it too it's an absolute huge deal, man.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: And then you went and competed you, so you ran 2020.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Then was walmsley in that race at he was yeah, yeah what was that?
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: like dude um, I couldn't fully appreciate it because I wasn't really into.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: That was like just when I was yeah, this is some guy at the end to you, yeah yeah, it's like oh, there's a, there's a pretty good trail runner going, how's he gonna do?
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: and he did pretty well yeah he killed it.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, um, what was that race?
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: All I mean, because I had some hills, it was a much yeah, it was silly.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: Um, if I had to guess, it probably had something like oh, let's see, I'm trying to think of what paris just had.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: Now, I don't know, maybe something like 15 to 800, 1800 feet of gain.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of marathon, yeah, um, yeah.
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: So for road marathons where there's a lot of just time trialing, we talked about two time trial courses, see I am in grandma's park.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: I'm a qualifier so throwing some hills, um, it was, uh, made for a challenge, um, but I think it's.
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: So there are a few different perspectives to take.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: Um, so ignoring, like, wanting to get course specificity and how we pick a team for a certain race, I think, given that it's a championship style event, like it's, I'm cool with throwing all the hills and things in there, like we're throwing time out and just competing for place.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: So let's, let's make it a challenging course, let's make it make it fun, spectator friendly, do whatever.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: Um, so no, I think it was a.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: It was a, it was a good course, it was a good way to do it that's bananas.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: What is it like when you qualify like?
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Is it like a level of of like I wouldn't say stardom, but like, are there perks?
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Like, do they do you get anything for?
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Like when you qualify to like, come out there, I know there's a lot of people in the race but like, do they help you with like travel?
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Do they help you with anything?
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Or like, how does that work?
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: yeah, um, I think it varies year to year based on the host city, host host organization.
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: Um.
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: These last two occurrences, I think um at atlanta track club and I'm forgetting the name of the orlando organization made track shack um and probably other supporting supporting groups um tried to more or less comp everything.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: Wow okay it wasn't.
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: It wasn't quite there, but it was pretty darn close.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: I think they had to put limits on like, okay, you get a 350 stipend instead of covering all your flights, so from here you know, it's kind of hard to get it yeah, under 350, but it, uh, um, covers most of it.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: And then they offer lodging and um, have meals the whole time, um, and then go back to those, the qualifying races.
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: A lot of qualifying races have incentives, prizes for hitting qualifying times too.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: What was more rewarding for you?
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: The first one or the second one Like to come and do it again.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Has got to be pretty exciting.
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, let's see.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: Let's see.
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: First one was more exciting, probably because it was new Um.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: Second one, even though the excitement was less, it was probably more rewarding and fulfilling.
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: Um, maybe just because I continued to bring down the time, I got down to two 1530 on that grandma's one um got a little older, um taking on, you know, more career responsibilities.
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: I was like that's really the big thing, like every year, like still trying to take on more responsibility and balance and balance the running, so to still continue to um push the needle forward.
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: I think that made it more rewarding the second time.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: I like that, yeah, and that's.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: There's something just to be said about that man Like what I don't know.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: For me at least, as a fan of the sport, as a fan of you and as a fan of just like all these athletes, like I don't know, to do it once is an incredible feat, but to do it twice, twice, like it's something you'll always have on your resume, like no one will ever take that away from you.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: That's wild man.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Thanks, um especially hit the olympic standard, like bananas.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Um, all right, let's talk trail a little bit.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I'm sure people on the podcast are probably wondering yeah, it's a trail podcast, right, yeah, so like what, dude, what was your first race?
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Like you've had and you like that's the deal, like you've had substantial success in a very small period of time and we'll talk about all that, but like what's your first race?
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: um, for the trails yeah, let's see, we talked a few weeks ago and I mentioned this one we did for fun in flagstaff, so that's probably the oh, and I mentioned a european style cross-country race growing up, um, but other what I should.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: What the real answer should probably be is jfk 50 mile in 2020.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: Um was the year hayden won.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, yeah, so let me set the course record.
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, dude, what a race yeah, uh did he win in multiple years I think he only won once.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: I think it was only.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: It was either.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, it was the year.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: It was the covet year okay, that was there.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: You ran it, yeah, yeah.
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we all lined up with masks and buffs and yeah, yeah, that was fun.
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: Um, yes, that was my first, first real one, and we could probably also start a debate about calling it a trail race or not, because you do, you do do the first portion on the appalachian trail, but then it's just canal path and road to close out the final 50k, so fast is this something you ever?
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: I mean because I feel like that fits your skill set so well, so it's something you ever have considered going back to do yeah, um, especially just because the you know I did it once.
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh, and it was a you know first trail race like oh man, I want to go back and see how much better I can do.
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: And in that covid year was also so dead on the course it was like nobody out there, um, so quiet, and it was real gloomy days.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: I was like I would I want to come back and get the full experience.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: So that's certainly in consideration for future years.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Maybe this year.
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: I haven't planned out the oh.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: We'll get to that.
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: We'll talk about the rest of your season.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Dude, one of the things I've I don't know not to pivot too hard, but one of the things I found really interesting and awesome is that, like you've been training a lot with joe, yeah yep goat, what's, what's that like man um, humbling.
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: Take me back to those syracuse days.
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: I was talking about being on the, the, the back of the pack.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: No, um, it's been good.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: I've, um, since moving to colorado springs, have done a lot of training on my own.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: You know, I've got I'm still connected to the group in Boulder and get the same workout assignments.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: Um, it's been good.
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: Uh, let's see, we've been getting.
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: Joe and I have been getting together not quite a year and a half, I think.
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: Last spring, um, ahead of uh, innsbruck, we started getting together for some workouts.
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: Um, so, yeah, that's been great to just have someone, someone to pull me along, um get to go explore some different routes in the area and construct some different workouts to go climb them and in different ways of tempos or intervals or whatever.
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: Um, uh, but no, it's, it's been good to have a, you know, a veteran around to to, you know, to push each other.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: I've never.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I've never asked him this, but like, is he like more of a mad scientist with his workouts Like we're.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: I'm just curious to see like what, what kind of stuff do you guys do?
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: no, it's been.
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: I mean just just the basics.
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: No, yeah, no, weird, nothing crazy.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like you can, you can fit the description into a strava title without like hitting multiple right lines.
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: We'll climb this twice.
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: We'll do alternating minutes, or, yeah, easy descriptions.
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: Nothing, nothing crazy, just just hard.
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: Honest, what does your?
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: training like Do you work with a coach at all?
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so, um, in my time in Boulder, um, I connected with the Boulder track club.
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: Um, there's a within the club.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: There's a training group, training group led by, uh, clint Wells, um, and together, um, kind of as a group shoot for a target race, um, usually a road marathon or a couple of them that are close together.
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: Uh, so right now a lot of folks gearing up for chicago or cim again, um, and well, structure, structure workouts for for the whole group, talking that one or or several races, um, now I'm not up in Boulder anymore, but they're uh, I had success with Clint and they're all that whole group, they're all my really good friends.
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: Um, so I've stayed engaged and often do the same workouts remotely or adapt them, them for for a trail workout, interesting.
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: So maybe instead of a two by four mile I'll do two by 20 minute climbing, something like that.
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: Or, if it's far shorter, fart, lake intervals type stuff, like maybe just directly take those uh minutes and reps onto the, onto the trail, and then um, in working with with joe and other guys who might join us from time to time.
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: It's uh, it's a collaboration like, oh, I was thinking of doing like this climb.
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: He's like, oh, I kind of got this for race week protocol like well, meet in the middle and make some adjustments and um yeah, let's see where were we at.
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: No, that's about coaching, yeah, so that's the answer to working with clint and boulder track club and how I kind of take those kind of the same generally marathon focused type training onto the trails that we uh have lucky access to uh we do right here we do.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Have you trained in monument at all or done anything out here?
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: um, joe showed you herman, yet I've uh.
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: Well, he and I have not worked out here together.
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: I've been up around herman a couple times.
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's uh it's different back here.
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I like it.
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: Um listen to a few too many other podcasts that might scare you away from it.
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: Um I agree, that's unfortunate, but, um, I mean, I've never had issues or felt unsafe, but it's uh, it's good trails to.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you gotta be.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: You gotta be a little careful.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Let's just put it this way I don't like.
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: I'm more careful and with like rose and the dogs going alone yeah I'm like you might want to go somewhere else and yeah, I don't know, maybe just end it there.
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: It's unfortunate that there have been incidents there's's a instance in the past.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and for those of you listening, you could Google it.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: There's an outside article.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Check it out, dude.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: So one of the things I find so interesting about you is you had substantial success on the roads.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: You kind of came onto the trail and in a very short period of time you had substantial, like success winning the pike's peak marathon and therefore getting a qualifier to inspruck to go race at worlds.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about like that experience, like what that was like?
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: yeah, um.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: No, it has been interesting to reflect on just the really condensed time period, because between those I've went to the last two pikes peaks marathons and there are two world championships in between it.
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: So, uh, we went, you know, pikes, pikes, peak, 22 pikes peak, september of 22.
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: Uh, chiang mai, thailand, november 22 but you made two world's teams.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, my apologies.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know why.
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: I kept thinking just well, sorry, I answered it that way because pike speak qualified me for chiang mai, that's right that's right I had, and then, um, that motivated me to go try for the next one and the qualify for that was formidable, just like three months later.
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: So, you know, recover from the race, get the training block going, do formidable, formidable in February, innsbruck in June, pikes Peak again in September.
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: So just lucky I didn't get hurt or gravely ill or anything Could.
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: Just, you know, work on the, you know, maintain fitness and hit a couple of peaks throughout that yeah, the whole, that whole year and two worlds teams were you on?
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: was you run what the 42k for chiang mai?
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: yeah, I did short trail both times, short trail both times okay dude, what was that?
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: like, can you talk about?
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Like both of those, we can talk about chiang mai first and then in spruck, and just like the differences um, yeah, no, it's incredible just starting with one team.
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: You like team usa jersey.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: Get to rep the team um.
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: Get to work together as a team with you know, our peers here, like we're all friends, like let's go travel together and race and represent team usa in international competition um, so, so you could put that in whatever city you want to go to, first one, chiang Mai.
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: I've never been to Thailand or had any reason to go there, so that was just, like you know, awesome opportunity to go, get a complete new experience.
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: A complete new experience.
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: Um, felt, like you know, stepping into the jungle almost, even though it's right on the edge of a city.
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: Um, I mean almost like here, you know, we have our, our front range towns and you can just easily step up into the mountains.
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: Their mountains are a little more jungly.
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: So that's just, uh, the difference in the area.
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I get to appreciate the different culture there and play tourist for a little bit before and after the race.
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: Same deal in Innsbruck, though being in Europe, culture aspects of it a little bit closer to home, but very, very cool and exciting nonetheless.
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: What course did you prefer?
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: Um, probably Innsbruck, yeah, more of a.
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: I don't know if there's a familiarity bias, but because it's just that like, uh, high alpine mountain running is very familiar to running in the Rockies here, yeah, um, whereas in Chiang Mai it was like the moist, hot, humid, swampy woods.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Uh, that, yeah, not as exciting, maybe not as scenic, because you can't see as far Um, what did you think of the level, like the level of the athletes at worlds, and maybe like, compare that to like almost like olympic trials or something like that.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Like what did you think like at the olympic trials, like whoa, this level is in crazy high.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Did you feel the same way at like worlds, like was or no in a lot of ways?
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: um, overall.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: Uh, looking at the total population of athletes may be very similar, um, but because there are the four different disciplines at worlds, it's thinned out a little bit.
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: So yeah, the olympic trials, it's it's the singular olympic marathon trials.
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: It's the singular event, whereas at uh, world mountain trail, world mountain and trail, um, and you're split across VK classic short and long trail, um, so the talent is spread out a little further Interesting.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Do you?
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Um, oh, I think one of the interesting things was like you went to loon this year to race the vertical us mountain running champs now.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: I know we talked about this a little bit a couple weeks ago, but I think the audience would appreciate it.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Um, dude, just like I don't know.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: It was really insightful for me and I think a lot of people will find it interesting.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Like the way you and joe race like um, just tactically to try and put yourself in contention.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Just how that worked like could you, could you elaborate into that a?
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: little bit, sure.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: So um.
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: Another benefit to working out with joe the past year plus um is over time.
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: He's sizing up the competition for him.
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: He's like, oh, andy's gonna run it this way and xyz people are gonna run it this other way, and um.
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: So he'd run the course numerous times before and did a nice job of laying out how to, how to be patient, where to put some work in um let's try to chase down tyler.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, uh, which worked for him, I mean not so much for me.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: You still had a great result, bro, you took third.
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: You took third place.
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, very, very excited about that.
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: That result grateful the work paid off absolute huge deal.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Um, do you think next year especially because it's going to be a world's qualifier year you think you're gonna put yourself in the mix for that?
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: maybe, yeah, I've got a oh man, I've got to do some thinking.
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: I think my challenge is all those disciplines sound super exciting to go tackle.
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I kind of want some redemption in the short trail, but it's been really fun to focus on climbing earlier in the year and just see how quickly I can get just up and not have to descend and worry about cracking my head open on a rock.
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: But then there's also the allure of the long stuff.
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: I don't know, man, that's so interesting I do.
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: Um, yeah, I do want to buy for a spot on that team.
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: Which which discipline to go after?
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know well, fortunately for us.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: We don't really know yet.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: We don't know like what.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, actually you know a big fact.
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: It might just be like, yeah, how the calendaring works out when, when and where things are, um, that'll, that'll likely influence did you consider, because I know this year we did um the us mountain running champs at snowbird for the cirque series?
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: did you consider that race at all?
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: yeah, I thought about that one.
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: Um and largely, the decision was to not travel every single weekend it's like I, I just I.
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: I feel like I gotta draw the line somewhere.
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to travel every week dude, I feel you on that thing, and so loon one out there because Cause it also uh got to check off some family visit boxes, too Understandable.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, the Northeast trail running scene is actually like I was looking.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: We're going to, we have a couple of weddings we have to go back for, uh, in June of next year and it kind of cuts out like my first two weeks of like Alpen running season and stuff like that.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: So it's like, oh, maybe I'll find some races to do out there, just actually like more than I thought there would be.
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: So yeah, this is, uh, going to loon was my first one really.
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: Um, I'm trying to think like, even on the road maybe I did.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: I tried rock and roll philly once, okay, dnf, because I got hurt.
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: I I guess I haven't really run in the Northeast since I lived there and was doing high school college cross country.
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: Um, but I want to go back.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think, or something like that.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: Another one that didn't make the cut was a Mount Washington.
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a bucket list one I think I want to do.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: I'd go to loon again um joe was pulling me to do the race at the top of vermont this weekend.
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: Is he out there doing that?
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: Or, yeah, he's gonna, he's gonna do it um, unless he's pulled out since we just talked about.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: No, that's, that's been on the bucket list, not bucket list.
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: Uh, on his uh docket um.
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: But yeah, it's one of those delta dentals uh races um, and I don't know if it's a 603 race, but no, there's a lot of uh community folks out there um, you know tom hooper, paul kirsch and then tom over at delta dental like they're uh putting on a lot of good stuff and I'm gonna go hit a couple more in the coming years yeah, dude, that race to the cog, race or race the cog.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Seems pretty legit too up mount washington yeah, yeah um, yeah, there is like a lot of variety and I don't know.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: I think it's like a interesting for like people uh, especially colorado athletes that you can kind of go over there and brace something a little bit lower and almost have like a borderline yeah, I think, oh, that's a selling point to like hit some of those climbs between you know a lot of work between one to five thousand feet maybe.
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we're, it's a lot nicer what are we right here, 6500 feet like I think like 7k yeah yeah, so it is, it does.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about that.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Where was I when I was in utah the other day.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh man, like looking down at my great, like my great, just the pace was like, oh, dude, I'm moving a lot like faster on this, like I, like utah better.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I, it's interesting, man, I.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: And so to my point, what I was trying to get out was I was hoping, uh, kind of before I went into the northeast tangent, was that like I was hoping the circ series would have maybe the us mountain running champs next year of some kind, which would be neat.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Um, I just hate how everything's like back to back, like I wish there would have been another week in between loon and, like snowboard snowbird, so we could have sure broken it up more, gotten like more of a variety of athletes.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: But it's gonna be interesting, no matter what they choose next year.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Hopefully I just hope it's not like a lake sonoma or something like that.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Like I want, like give us um, cause I think worlds, it's Pyrenees and it's late season, like, it's like after you, I think it's like three weeks after UTMB, so it's like late late September.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that'll be fun.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Um, and I feel like we could get qualifiers then in June and like have something in the mountain west to kind of um, yeah, for sure, throw down with so yeah so dude uh you're.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: You're at a build for pike's peak marathon.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Again, you're going, I am going back.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Yep, uh, not on the start list yet from right, are you or I don't know?
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: I am yeah, you are officially okay, let's see so I've been binging your podcast to prepare for this.
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: Uh, who are you talking to?
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: Uh?
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: oh, mark, you're talking to mark about it, okay, so yeah you got it.
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: When you go to the entry list it's broken up by like, award, competitive and all these different bins.
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: But I'm on there you're on there.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: Good, I'm excited man.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Good to have you back yeah three p, that would be dope that's the goal, yeah, that's.
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: I mean frankly, that's, uh, that's largely why I'm doing it.
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: It's like, um, we talked about, you know, loon mountain and, uh, I wanted to focus on climbing this year.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: It's like really pulled to do in a set time see how fast I could do it.
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: It's like, oh good, going for the three pete in the full is a um, a bigger draw, I think so yeah, no, I'm excited to go try to defend, but, um, it won't be easy.
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: There's, you know, half a dozen, half a dozen, uh, quality competitors in there yeah, dude, you gotta.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: You gotta fight with darren thomas and and kim smith.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Have fun with that, freak athletes.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: No, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a great race.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely and how's uh, how's the build going?
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: You feeling, feeling good, or?
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: yeah, um, I'm my climbing's improved quite a bit compared to compared to last year, so directly seeing the payoff from like working toward loon, um, hitting the, hitting the incline and a bunch of vertical workouts.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, I've seen on.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: I've seen on Strava Yep.
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: So yeah, definitely focused on on power and climbing a lot more this year at the expense of.
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: I'm not as altitude or distance trained, so my mileage has been a little lower.
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: I haven't gotten up as high as much this year.
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: I haven't been doing any four hour long runs I don't think you need to.
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: But trying to cap it, two and a half, probably, get up to three.
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: If I do, I might, I might go do a full course workout and, um, that'd be, I'd probably keep it.
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: I'd shoot for around four if I, if I do that, but um, for sure I'd I'd boast that I'm a stronger climber.
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: This year we'll see how the uh altitude and endurance pieces work.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Nice man, nice I love, I love.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Like I said, your, your strava has been a work of art like seeing your incline workouts.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: It's like man Dude, I can't break like 24 minutes, 23.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Like it's hard for me to get anything below that.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: I think it's because my handicap that I joke about is because I'm short.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: It's probably fitness.
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: Oh, I don't know.
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: I think yeah, it's been an interesting journey on the inclineline for me.
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: I didn't start doing it until last year same either like when I moved here I wanted nothing to do with it.
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: Like people, I moved here.
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: People at work learned I'm into running the guy you do the incline.
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: Yet, like nope, I, yeah, moved here.
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: 2018 didn't touch it till may 23, um, but yeah, it's been interesting to just learn, like for starters, just which portions I could run versus hike, and then now flirting with um.
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, it sounds so fundamental how to pace yourself.
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: But, like it's so true.
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just a new, a new beast.
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: So, figuring out where to balance effort on different parts of it, where where I can try to hike in different, certain ways, or where I can probably commit to running and push it, and then, um, another mental piece of it, yeah, just convincing yourself that, despite the uh, let's see, uh, despite however hard you're breathing, like realizing that, yeah, I'll recover in a moment, it'll be fine yeah, have you broken 20 minutes yet, or?
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: well, strava will tell you I did my hand.
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: Time will tell you I didn't, so I was right on the cusp I think I hand timed my best on it, like 2003 or 06, and then I I think this.
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: I'll have to go look closely.
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: The strava segment might be a little short or it just could.
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: Could have been how the gps error was hitting my start and stop on the segment of the day.
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: Um, but that was, yeah, that was a stated goal earlier this year when I was, you know, working out just yeah, I think I can do it under 20 minutes now and have hit right on the edge.
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: Um, so I'm sure before the end of this calendar year I'll probably do a focus.
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: You know, one x incline on my, on my strava, uh, just tempo ever can't wait to see it, dude, can't wait.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: Um, I don't know, do you feel the same way like?
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: I feel like for me, the more I did it I was probably at at this, the last training block I was doing before brighton I was probably doing like maybe two, three times a week I just noticed, like my uphill running, I think like my uphill running improved, even though there's a strong hiking component to it.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: I was like maybe it's my power, something with the cadence, I don't know.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: It was very obvious to me that, like I don't know, I just became a significantly stronger climber yeah, I think I think so.
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: Um, well, two thoughts I've been debating and it's probably just, they're both true things.
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: Um, one, hitting that steeper, harder climb, I think just is a good training venue to get better at climbing overall.
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: Um, I'd say, a caveat is, it's not very specific to many things.
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: We're going to go race, that's right.
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: So, um, I might back off of it when you know, really gearing up for for something I want to peek at.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: Um, but I think just the sheer fitness challenge and um, you know, I don't know how it's working, different muscle muscle groups or what, but I think it must be building the climbing muscles.
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: Um, so, yeah, just hitting it frequently enough, I think, is going to make us better climbers at more gradual things.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: And then the the.
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: The second thing I mentioned is I've been, I've been trying to hit it once a week and very frequently not as a workout day, which might sound a little funny, and that's what I'm trying to question myself on, because it's hard, no matter how you slice it.
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: So to say, I'm going to hit it on a medium distance day, like it's still hard work, even if I'm doing it in anywhere between 22 to 25 minutes versus like a workout going for 20 minutes, like so am I getting better?
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: Because I'm saying I'm not doing a workout, but I'm hitting the incline for a third workout of the week.
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and just benefiting from that, and that's probably just also true too um, interesting yeah, so I think that uh the.
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: The message there is go do some moderate climbing outside of your dedicated workout days.
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: I think it might pay off.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Do you do a lot of doubles?
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: at all or no, I haven't doubled since January.
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: It's something I've wrestled with mentally, like working them into the training plan or not, like I've always just done them cause it's on the, on the script.
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: Um, good way to get some more volume, maybe help, uh, help with recovery between sessions.
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: But since I first did doubles, um, since I first did doubles early college to, I don't know if I'll definitively stop them, but after something like 15 years of doubles, like they never felt good, always felt so junky, they always suck, like it was never enjoyable.
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, that's not true, because it can be an opportunity to get together with your friends, you know, do a brewery run, so hardly enjoyable and just cutting into time for other responsibilities.
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: And so I wrestled with is this time, is this even worth the time?
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: And so, coming off of this year's Olympic trials in February, I said, you know, coming back up, I'm just not going to double for a while.
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: And I haven't yet.
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, I'll probably stick that way for a while.
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: Interesting.
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: I think it'd probably take other changes in life to convince me that I'll put that time back into running.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: Do you think of it like, just because I know you're very analytical?
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Do you think of it as like opportunity costs, like what I could be doing at this time, for sure, I mean, it's just.
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: I get home from work like I have a very small window to take care of chores, dinner and spend time with my wife.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: No, I agree, Dude, I feel you on that.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Interesting, let me ask, is what is your um like a new thing?
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: I've been asking a lot of people just because I've been changing my nutrition strategy up.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: Um, because I had, in my first race of the season, like some I don't know made some significant errors, or just like my nutrition just kind of like changed because I think my gut changed.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: But like, what do you do for nutrition, like during pre-race and during race?
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: sure, um, let's see.
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: So, pre-race, I have the pretty much same breakfast I have every day of the week in training.
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: I do a bowl of oatmeal with a banana, some nut seed topping, protein powder, um, and coffee.
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: Um, depending on the, the timing of the race, I might eat a little more than, or snack a little more before Um, but that's usually sufficient to get me started.
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: Um, and then in the race, um, I've if, well, we, we could probably go um, do some some post analysis and see how accurately I follow this philosophy or not.
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: But in my head I've got kind of a similar principle I had from road marathoning and that is drink every 5K, eat every 10K.
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: So we have to play some games here with effort and time and weather.
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Because, okay, if I'm cruising on the roads, I'm going, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna round down to make myself faster, I'm gonna hit five for easier math.
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna get 5k every 15 minutes, 10k every every 30 minutes, right, um, so that's not gonna happen on the trails.
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: So I might stretch that out to like, maybe, drinking every 15 to 20 minutes, eating every 30 to 40.
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: I think I keep it pretty simple.
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: I get gels and waffles.
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: Jfk 50 mile.
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: I had an Uncrustable.
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: I had one of the first aid station off of the Appalachian Trail and then I hit one like 15 miles later and I wouldn't look for the uncrustables and they didn't have them.
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: I was so devastated they're so delicious.
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: If, um, yeah, if I get into more ultra stuff.
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: The PB and J's on the on the menu, I think.
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: What kind of gels do you like?
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: Um, let's see in the in the cupboard right now I've got goo, uh, caramel one and a chocolate one goo, you're a goo guy.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, dude, you're.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: You're one of the few, few in the brave I've been like.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: Um, I just switched over to martin and I don't regret my decision.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Like martin, gels are like, they're a little more expensive, but man, are they like legit, really good yeah, I mean I'll use whatever.
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: Um we had morton on the course in orlando and and that worked well.
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, um, I think uh I'll get what's on sale or I can get hookups with um.
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: I worked on uh, was it never I got a box.
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: I'd never second ever so.
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: Joe worked on those for a while.
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: Um, so I think, uh, I think it's probably good to not, um, get too dialed into one specific thing and say, oh, I need this to work on race day Cause, uh, uh, yeah, I think you're better off training and getting familiar with different things, because you can't control everything.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: so, no, you can't control and your body changes too.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: You know like I learned the hard way this year um in a hot race with like overdoing on electrolytes, I got super sick.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Um say, your body changes different variables.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: I've just been like really interested in like what different people do at the highest level for the plug and play for their um nutrition strategies like hydration, I think the other thing, training in training, I like to, I prefer more solids.
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'll try to pack waffles instead of gels, and then race day, I feel like the I don't know gel's a little more efficient efficient, lighter, easier not choking on like waffle dust you don't want to be doing that.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: Uh, dude, we're.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: We're winding down now we're almost at an hour.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: Um, let's get into some.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: Get into some questions.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: Kind of curious, curious to see who inspires you.
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: Oh, interesting.
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: Wow, I I lean on I don't know just broad friends and family Like um.
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: I I think about my family quite a bit when so it's been like high pressure situations.
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: Going into race day, like um, I think it's good to put a bunch of pressure on myself.
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: Let's set the bit lofty training goals like shoot for your race.
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: Um, then getting to race day, I think about like my little nephews and nieces and like they don't know what's going on here, they don't care about the results at all.
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: So that kind of helps level things for me and it's just about like going out and having fun.
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: So I I'm probably inspired to just show my family how to, you know, go pursue goals but be a little level-headed about it and realize that there are some, some bigger things.
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: Um, yeah, I don't think I have like some some athlete on my wall who I'm like I want to go accomplish everything that they did.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: I was actually just home last weekend and there is a Derek Jeter poster on the on my channel.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: So there's a little bit of a false statement.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: Um, I yeah, when I get to scrolling through crap on the internet and like, like seeing Kobe Bryant quotesryant quotes and um, just which they're probably, you know, half made up and not attributed him anyway.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: But like a lot of that content out there.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: Dude what this is one serious question I have for you, and I'm just so curious you're not on instagram, right?
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: I'm not no dude.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: I'll put tara's handle out there.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: When I fill in forms and things, well, i's like I was gonna.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: I was gonna I think I was I put out the btmr thing and I was like I typed in aziz and I was like looking for you and I realized you weren't on there and I was, I was like almost tagged your wife and I was like ah, you can do that um, but like that is so freeing and interesting, I I like admire that in a lot of ways.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: What's your rationale?
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: I have had one, I've had a Twitter, I've had an Instagram.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: I don't have them anymore.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: The honest reasons for getting rid of them is probably personal development, trying to optimize my life, probably less than a year into starting my job, and I'm just like laying in bed scrolling through this stuff and I think what the heck am I?
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: doing so so the honest reason for hitting stop then was, like time optimization, like trying to optimize my career life performance, like this is doing nothing for me.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: Um, now, why haven't I got turn it back on?
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: Um, I won't.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: People can go listen to mark tatum's episode about the some of the toxicity things that that I tend to agree with, but it's not absolute.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: There's like there's good content and it's great for networking and communicating too.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: I think largely, I just try to be very intentional about my time, and so I'll be frequently asking myself like what's the most important thing I could be doing right now, or what can I be do, what could I be doing to work toward my goals?
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: And just hopping on Instagram has never made the cut line for answering those questions.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: I feel the pull every now and then like, oh, I want to go engage, um, maybe that's a path to sponsorship or something, um, but yeah, it's.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: It's still never made the the cut line when I reflect on it I say stay away from it as long as you can, because once you're in, you're in.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: I find I waste uh, gratuitous amounts of time, especially like during during taper week, like strolling, and Tara has hers too, so if I need to go watch some Panda videos or something, she'll help me out, that's true.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: Now you said something that was interesting to me.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: Um, you said the S word for sponsors, that something you're interested in, or like what do you?
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on that?
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: Um, yeah, I've been yes on that.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: Um, yeah, I've been, yes, I'm interested in.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I'm open.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: Um, it's uh something I've been reflecting on over, I mean, really over the past almost two years.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: I guess it hasn't really been a thought for very long because we we've talked about the Olympic marathon trials as one of my career wins.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: But even those performances are like not in sponsor conversations Like I run 215.30.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: You need to be much faster still to be chasing down sponsors.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: So it was never even a thought that I should be pursuing such a thing until pretty recently when I found some trail success.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: So now I'm thinking about it more.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 4: I've, you know, shot messages out to folks and timing wasn't right or whatever.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: Um, uh, so I'll I'll probably still do explore those conversations.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: Um, the other, the other pieces of it kind of tied to what we're just talking about, one I'm a little fearful of like a sellout concept, like I don't want to get into position to be peddling products.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: I'm not interested in that and frankly, it's probably still, if that's what I am doing in in such an arrangement, it's probably not as worthwhile as just working harder at my real job right right you're not a salesman.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: You're not here to be a salesman, you're here to compete yeah, so I more interested in, you know, partnerships that are focused on performance, community engagement, any kind of kind of brainstorming sometimes about projects to take on and that sort of that sort of thing is is compelling.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I'm not looking to not looking to go spam my friend's social media accounts or to really give up my current career focus.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: I'm a career-oriented person, so I'm not looking to find a sponsorship alternative to quit my job.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: Job now.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: I think if I could chart a course toward, uh, some kind of financial compensation where maybe I don't have to work full-time, uh that'd be, that'd be cool, but yeah, yeah and oh I think.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: The other comment I wanted to make is kind of related to doubles.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: Like as I, as we're getting older, taking on more career responsibilities, I'm starting to think, like, even after taking the doubles out, putting a lot of time and energy into this, and it's like is it, can I justify it?
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: Um, you know, I've got career responsibilities, home responsibilities, if I want to have, if we want to start a family, have more family responsibilities, can I justify putting that training in when I have all these other things I ought to be taken care of?
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: And um, the answer to me is probably, maybe it needs to be a lower level of effort, but if I can say it's bringing in income for my family, then it helps a little bit yeah, then I could reason toward that.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: I think you're well positioned, too, from the social media perspective, because you don't have an Instagram and, I think, without one.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: I think that's really important.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: I mean you see other like.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: Arlen Glick doesn't have one Sure.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: So you don't have to.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah the other.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: Well, another counterpoint was like oh hey, sponsor, I have this blank slate Like what do you want to create a new from here?
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's true too.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: That's true too.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: If you want to go that way, yeah.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's kind of kidding comment, but yeah, no, no, no.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: I just find it more like I don't know.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: Like you said, like there's nothing, um, I don't, I don't understand it.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: It's like not my thing.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: I don't get it, I don't know.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: Like, if people that know me very closely know how I feel about the influencer thing, I don't have to talk about it on the podcast.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: But, like that said, um, yeah, I don't know.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: I think the art and and the craft um is just so much more important than the competition part are.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: Are you a super competitive person?
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: I am.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: Maybe I won't show it externally.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: All the time I'm quiet, easygoing, but no, I'm driven to compete.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 4: That's much of what I enjoy about what we're doing here.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: Love it.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get into some goofy questions.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: Kind of curious to see what your face is going to do when I ask you these and if you don't like these ones, we can cut these out, but um dude, what's?
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: your take on on the.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: On bigfoot, let's go.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: Bigfoot, bigfoot.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: I'll say no.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: Next question all right, all right, this is a serious one.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: Because you're an aerospace guy, all right, I don't know if you can answer this.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you're working for any top secret shit, but like, what's your take on the aliens?
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: You had to have known this was coming, yeah, yeah, I mean.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: I've listened to a dozen episodes or so now.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: No, I think they're out there.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's, uh, I think it's geez, um, like, do I want to say it's probable, like well, it can't really measure that.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: I think it's, I think it's I'd err toward plausibility.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: I think, uh, yeah, it's just too big and I obviously can't say definitively there aren't.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's kind of, uh, arrogant, naive, I don't know, we're not all knowing.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: No, so, um, yeah, just given the expanse and complexity, I will we learn?
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: Will we answer that in our lifetime?
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: probably not, but it'd be pretty darn cool if we do what do you think about all these like and I like I said I can cut this out, but like what do you think about?
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: Like, all of these, um, like crafts and shit.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: People get like photos and videos of like.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's like government stuff or do you think that's like that could be from here or from there?
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 4: so I mean, yeah, the well fact is, I don't know, was it last summer or the year before?
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: Um government declassified a whole bunch of footage just because we don't know what.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: Like we didn't know what the stuff was, um.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 4: So let's just be honest, like here's all these things.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 4: We can't identify what they are.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 4: And hey, broader community, do you understand any of this?
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: Here's the data.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 4: Go study it, you know, maybe some kid will understand.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I was shining a laser pointer over here and that's why you saw it.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: Probably not, but yeah, I mean, I don't believe any nation state is hiding secrets about aliens or things.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: There's stuff out there that we can't explain, whether it's an actual phenomena we don't understand yet, or it's some technical issue of a system or instrument we we don't understand, I don't know.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, interesting um, this one's a little more upbeat and uplifting.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: Probably the last one.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: Are you very optimistic for where ai is headed?
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: I am yeah, um, though I think present day, right now it's about, it's very much a buzzword.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, um, doesn't promise all those uh great imaginations yet, but I think we're making leaps in that direction.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: Um, I'm yeah.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: It's just largely going to take time and innovation to figure out how to fully exploit it, I think which will be really cool because we'll probably we'll see the first trillionaires who aren't named Musk or Gates or Bezos People will really figure out how to bring this technology to bear.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: Um, but right now I think it's still largely at the um.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: Effectiveness is still largely dependent on, uh, smart user, yeah, smart data.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: Um, so I mean you can search around and see silly examples of things results coming out of it screws up all the time.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: So a lot to learn.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: Still, I kind of go back and forth on this one.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 4: So I see the great advantage in how you know it promises so much time savings to people.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, you only have to work eight hours a week Cause all these other things are AI is going to do Like I.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: I'm.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure people are going to figure out how to work for 32 plus more hours, or their boss is going to figure out how to give them 32 more hours of work.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: So um um, I, hours of work for sure, um, I, I don't think that uh is as promising as it sounds, but it still is going to be a hugely powerful tool.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: Um, I know you've talked previously about like taking people's jobs and that's probably also a real thing.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: I don't think I'm, at large, as concerned about it.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: There's obviously probably someone's going to be hurt and I'm sorry and it's going to suck, but technology advances.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 4: I think a key example, a common example that comes up there's like elevator lift operators yeah, like this would be a very common, like just facet of daily life.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: Like there's a person running the elevator they don't exist anymore and you can go down the line and come up with all these other things and, at large, we're better for it.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 4: Sure, it sucks for that person when their job was taken but I think we'll work through it.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: I do agree with that in a lot of ways and I think the big thing too, I don't know like we have an internal.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: It's hard for me to even say AI, like I work in corporate finance, so I I, I, yeah, I was going to also just make a comment about the, the term itself, and like well, how do you find AI?
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 4: And really, been using it for decades, or is it not AI?
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: Yet there's that whole debate.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, and it's so interesting too.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: Yet there's that whole debate.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, and it's so interesting too.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: Man like um.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: Oh man, it was like late.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: Like uh, open ai's latest um.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: I believe it was like their order to be on chat gpt4 now, I think.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: I think we're on four anyway, I don't know if they were doing to it, but it said it was suffering and you're like okay, I was like that's bananas, like, is this actually suffering, like, or is this like making stuff?
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: It's just interesting, I don't know.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 4: Or doesn't even understand what it's saying.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: Right, right Just have the definition of yeah.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, that's the other thing too is like I don't know.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: I think Chad PPT has passed the Turing test at this point, but are we just moving the goalposts?
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: So that's the the other thing, like who knows uh yeah, what's good enough?
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 4: I think, uh yeah.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 4: Well, forgive me for quoting louis ck for some things he done, but he had a funny bit about people complaining on their flights.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 4: It's like you're on a chair flying through the air like what is not good enough for you right, right you like.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: Do you like comedy?
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah oh, me too.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: Who's your who like?
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: Who's your favorite comedian?
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 4: oh gosh, I don't know if I can pick one um right now.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 4: I've been watching a lot of seinfeld, but yeah he's not.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: I don't think his stand-up's my favorite.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 4: No, I'm certainly enjoying the show.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 4: Um, let's see, I've really.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 4: I laughed a lot recently at a nate bargassi skit he had on snl.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 4: That was pretty good, it's funny shane gillis is a wild boy.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: he's a little out there now.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: There's some there's, I feel, like comedy, the renaissance of comedy, has been, uh, more fun lately, I don't know.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: There's more to it.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: It's dangerous now.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: People fear it.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: It's interesting, I don't know.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: It's like more in the zeitgeist now too, as well.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: You see people like Tony Hinchcliffe that go to the roast of Tom Brady.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: He's like really funny.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: No, I enjoy a lot of the stand-up specials that Netflix has put on for various comedians over the years.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I get a kick out of those.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, same.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: No, the Chris Rock one was good too.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so many good ones, but yeah, well, dude, thanks so much for coming on.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, this has been awesome.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 4: I appreciate it.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 4: Thanks for inviting me into your home.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, we're in my very hot office.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: Appreciate all the content you're putting out.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: It's been fun to follow along, yeah man, like I said, I appreciate you and yeah, man, best of luck at the Pikes Peak Marathon.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: Thank you, let's hope we get the three-peat.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 4: And yeah, man, I'll come back on here and interview you.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: Dude, do it.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: That'd be fun.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: Awesome man.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: Have a great night.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: What'd you guys think I told you that was a fun episode.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: Big shout out to John for coming on.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: Just what an incredible human no-transcript he's been on as well.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: Back on episode, I think it was episode 22.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to be kicking off something really exciting.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: It's going to be a history of the Pikes Peak Marathon and Ascent podcast.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's something that, if you guys are really interested in the sport or just really interested in the race itself, something you guys are going to get a really big kick out of.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: It's kind of unlike any other podcast or any other episode I've ever done before.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: So I think it's a really fun one and something we hope to do with some other really big historical races in the future.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: So, guys, hope you have a great week and keep tuned in for Pike's Peak Week.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you.