Latest / The Steep Stuff Podcast / The Road to Worlds Ep1. Gorge Waterfalls with Tom Hooper

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The Road to Worlds Ep1. Gorge Waterfalls with Tom Hooper · The Steep Stuff Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What is up, guys?
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the steep stuff podcast.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, james Lauriello.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Guys, I got something fun for you today, something we've been putting in the works for a while.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: I'm joined by a awesome co-host and none other than 603 endurance race director, mr Tom Hooper, joins me on the pod and we are starting off our mini series with a way too early race preview and discussion on the gorge waterfalls 100k.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I will preface this this is the one and only ultra race I will probably ever preview.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Uh, the reason is is because we I didn't want to leave this one out.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: This was a fun little mini series we're starting to put together called the road to worlds, worlds, and, uh, we're going to be talking about sunopee broken arrow, and, uh, you know, basically the world's qualifiers, uh, leading up.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: And and, uh, we're going to be talking about sunopi broken arrow and uh, you know, basically the world's qualifiers, uh, leading up, and for them, we're going to preview them and discuss them.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Um, and we're going to do some more commentary and discussion on this race as we get a little bit closer for gorge waterfall, um, but it is going to be an absolute barn burner.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: It's going to be a really fun race, so it's definitely worth conversating over and having a discussion about, especially given the controversy that kind of had took place with the selection of that race itself.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I know a lot of people were kind of bummed that it wasn't a more mountainous race, but given the circumstances and where it landed on the calendar, it definitely warranted some discussion.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: So, guys, I hope this is a fun one.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I hope you really enjoy it.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Tom Hooper is the best co-host.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: What a fun dude.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Always great conversation, and I look forward to doing a whole bunch of these down the line as we move closer to a lot of these races.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: And yeah, like I said, it's a way too early race preview, way too early top 10.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: But given the fact that I'm so bored waiting for race season to come around, I figured I'd give you guys something fun to start chatting about.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: So, without further ado, none other than the Road to Worlds with Tom Hooper, episode 1, gorge Waterfalls, 100k.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: It's time.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: We are live, tom Hooper.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Steep Stuff Podcast again.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: My friend, how are you?
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Good, good Thanks for having me, oh dude.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: So I'm so excited to be doing this.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Only you and I know about this, so we'll tell the audience what we're doing.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: So this is a little mini series that we're putting on.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: We're going to be doing this for all of the world, or all the world USA qualifier races, and this is technically the first one.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: We're going to call our little series called the series, called the road to worlds, if you will, something like that.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I kind of like that the moniker.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: It's kind of cool I like it.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I like it yeah, so the first one we're starting with dude is gorge waterfall 100k, which is starting in april.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Like we're only we're a few months out.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, we got black canyon before then, so it's gonna.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: But the depth is deep, man.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: The field is starting to shape up and come together.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Right, there's been some last minute ones, even today or yesterday, I think.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: So it's going to be interesting.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: There's a lot to talk about here.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: I do want to say one thing to the audience, because I know people are like wait a second, you're a sub-ultra podcast.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: This is the one and only long course preview I will probably ever do, but you can't do all the other ones and exclude this one.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Right, you know this is like a rough go for the other ones.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Right, we'll, we'll get it.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: We'll screw things up with this one and get them right in the other ones, but I think there's some people that are jumping.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: They're jumping from there.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: They're kind of getting out of their, their comfort zone too, where they may have may have gone for some shorter courses, and now they're like all right, let's do it.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's going to be.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I mean I and I think you're right, I think there's a lot of people that might see I mean it's going to be harder, harder path on the women's side and the men's side, to the men's side, I mean with Adam Peterman now jumping in and like other studs path, let's put it that way.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: You know, like your, your mid-tier guy and gal is not not getting in, you're not not getting to the world.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Um, let's talk about this race a little bit gorge waterfall, 100k.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: It's going to be cascade locks, oregon.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Um, you have.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: You haven't been out there, right?
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I have never been out there.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I'm excited.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, dude, it's a great.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: It's a great course, like I, I have been out there.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: My wife raced the 50k, what was it?
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: It's like 2022, it was the year hen, all a good one, I think it was 2022, um, and we went out there and, dude, it was so much fun, like the, the, like the gorge itself is like oregon's beautiful.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: It's this beautiful, like when they say gorge, it's like the, these beautiful monolith peaks on both sides and it's this beautiful river running through the middle of it and there's great trails on both sides.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: We stayed in Stevenson, washington, which had great trails as well.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Obviously, the course itself is in Oregon, but it runs along the Pacific Crest Trail and it's not like.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: In the beginning, a lot of people raised their concerns because it's a relatively flat course, but it's sneaky, technical, man, like you're going to see people with with uh, people are getting stitches, man, it's happening.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: It's great, yeah, I mean, and I mean I mean we can.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: We can talk about you know, talk about it again, about the, the, the controversy, and like a lot of people had their you know their hands up saying why did you know?
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Why was this course picked Um?
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Just that it was the best of what we were given to choose from.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Um.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: I still think it's going to produce some really good results and people that I think will do really well in Spain in September.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Um, it just kind of is 51 miles, 18 000 feet of vert.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: This is, you know, 100k with uh 11 000 feet.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: It also has a little bit of everything.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Where you start on road, you have some super technical and then you, you know, you finish, finish on road.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: So it's gonna.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: It's gonna bring out some speed demons, I think oh yeah, I mean it's.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: You're gonna see, this is where the interesting controversy comes in right and we can talk.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: We can dive more into this because, it is such I don't want to say I mean it's flat, it's speedy, it is fast.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: There's sneaky technical spots, but if you're, if you have great turnover, that's probably not going to be a problem for you, unless you roll an ankle or tap a knee.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Um, but I think the big thing for me is like, just, you're gonna see, your, your nick handels of the world, you're gonna see.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: There's a couple names that stand out to me.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: There was another kid who I had raced, uh, years ago, ryan solvin, who had a.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: He took a couple guys to the woodshed this year at JFK and I was like damn, that kid's fast as shit, like he's a monster.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: So I'm curious to see how this separates from your traditional like low two-hour marathon guys or mid to low two-hour marathon guys, versus, like your, mountain guys, like, for instance, like your.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Caleb, yeah, your.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Caleb's, your, for instance.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Like your, your great, or yeah, your Caleb's, your, your grandpa and even Caleb's nasty, I mean he's got great.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Uh, turn of like your.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: How is a Jeff Colt going to do in something like this?
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Like there's a there's a lot of uh, interesting, you know dynamics at play with this.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: This race is going to suck we know that it always does so it's like who's going to?
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Deal with that for eight or nine hours and run fast.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: So right.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: I mean Peterman's going to be coming out of a nasty Montana winter, so I mean that's, that's only going to help him.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: He's going to think this is a heat wave, for sure, For sure.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited to see him on this course.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Dude I and again like when we'll get into the course records later, but I'm, I'm, I think I'm going to call it.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're definitely seeing a women's course record go down.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: There's no doubt in my mind.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Uh, we could very well see Jim's 2017 record go down.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: I would not be surprised if, if uh guys come out and smash that, you know.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Right, so Jim was eight, 20, uh, and Aliza was 10, oh, one.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: So there, we'll definitely see a sub 10.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Oh for sure.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to see someone in the women's field, if not the entire podium.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I could totally see going and running nine hours.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Like we said, a lot of it's If it's a nasty, rainy day.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: But if it's that light, beautiful mist that you get where it's humid and misty, and if it's not hard rain, I think that's perfect.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Man, you don't get overheated.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, you get soaked through and through and you just make sure you take care of yourself and don't get too cold.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: You know, but it's going to be interesting.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the selection itself.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: We're only sending two men and two women from this race, correct?
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Yep, and then the rest will be resume.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, so this is an interesting sort of spot.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: So say, peterman wins this, which normally he would make a team resume wise Usually, I mean, he was the world champion, caleb also made the team.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: So if those guys take spots without resume, that opens up the resume section so much more, how many resume spots are there Four?
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: We take six and six for the short trail, long trail.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: So if the old course or the course record holder of this and now Peterman are on the same team, what kind of 100k team is?
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: that I mean, that's dominate that's, that's crazy.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, so we'll see, we'll see what happens.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, I mean you can speculate on that.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: That 100k team, the long well, it's 80, I guess it's 82 is the course.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Um, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's the team for world should be, should be on paper, should be, should be gold.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you this I actually have a couple like uh, like nitty-gritty inside baseball questions, right yeah so what if you're like a katie shy that resides outside of the united states?
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: You can still run for for the US right.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, and so that kind of answers that question.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Have we been getting?
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Did you open up the pool for applications already?
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Are you starting to get apps in the application is?
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: open, but it's not really relevant yet.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: So you could be, but you're going to have to update it as the year goes on, more so so.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: As the year goes on, um more so so, by the time I think july 7th or something like that, uh, everything will be kind of unfolded like once gorge, broken arrow, sunopee, like all of that goes.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: You know, it's finished.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: there's a couple days for people to accept the their entry and then, and then we'll go to resume spots so we'll know pretty much by then, and that gives everybody enough time to figure out what they want to do, who's going to be doing doubles, who's going to UTMB, and then we'll see them a month later in Worlds.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: I think that's going to be the biggest story of the summer, I think.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about that.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what is the date for UTMB this year or for that weekend, 20th?
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: August 20 20 something okay, so it is within a month of one another.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Then it really is yeah, um, let me look real quick, 23rd maybe okay um yeah, something like that um, um and yeah it's, it's literally 30 days okay so it's gonna be yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see if athletes forego like one versus the other or do both.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: I think that their contracts are gonna play a lot into that.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Do you give up a paycheck to represent your country?
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Um, I know we're gonna ask that them, or ask the athletes not to race after the end of August.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Don't go to you know any of the short, speedy stuff.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Um, just because you're in Europe, there's a lot of good races, Don't?
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: don't do it.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: We had that problem a little bit in uh in the previous years where people went a little early, raced some Golden Trail stuff and then showed up pretty beat up.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: So I think that there's going to be an ask Please, please, don't do this.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Bring your best stuff to Worlds.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Well, I feel like it means a little bit more, especially given where we've done in the last two outings in Chiang Mai, as well as in.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: What was the name of the?
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: What was the other town we were in in the last, the last two outings, you know, in Chiang Mai, as well as in um uh, what was the name of the?
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: What was the other town we were in in Europe, innsbruck?
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: That's right yeah.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: So, given just how we've had success in the last two outings, I feel like the expectation is sky high this year for the Americans to deliver.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: We have to.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: You know we're top of the food chain We've had.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: You know we now have a men's UTMB winner.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: We usually always get the women's UTMB winner Like.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: The expectation is for us to deliver and we should now, you know.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, think about our you know our men's team.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: We talked about Peter and possibly Peter and possibly Jim on the same team.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: What do you do with if Katie and Katie and Courtney are battling at UTMB one month and 30 days later they're on the same team helping each other?
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Like how?
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: How much of a powerhouse is that?
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: All I'm going to say is, like I uh, the free trails of the world, your single tracks, the world are going to get a lot of good photos, A lot.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of storylines to cover with that.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: So many this summer, it's going to be crazy.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the world is changing.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: For our sport man, it's going to be, it's big time.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Now it's a whole different and especially now that world is every two years.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: The way this works now it makes it a little, I don't know.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: I think the the hunger is there in a lot of athletes.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: You see, I meet a lot of young guys that I'll either have on the podcast or people you just meet, you know, peripherally in the Springs or connect with, and a lot of guys want to show up to these short races and throw down, you know, and so it's just interesting.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: You're going to see a whole new class of guys in the vertical.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: You're going to see a whole lot of you know guys in the up down.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: It's going to be yeah.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: But I think that up and down on that vertical, we need that in this sport.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: We need to change.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: It's just and this isn't you know, this isn't a bad thing, it's not a fault, but it's like, how many times can you have Grayson, Alley, lauren and Rachel on a team?
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, like, just for the, the exciting factor, you know what I mean.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Like I love all of them, they're great.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: It's just like something needs to be.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: You know there needs to be a shakeup a little bit on some of these, on some of these teams.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: So I think it's going to be you know, there needs to be a shake up a little bit on some of these, on some of these teams.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: So I think it's going to be cool to get some of these super fast college kids at some of these races.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Get them, get them before they start going to road marathons.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Um and uh, see if we can find some some, some new talent yeah, bring it, shake up the trails big time, and you know it's going to be cool to see other like you know what, like anna gibson, like hasn't really gone and competed, that would be somebody going, there's just so.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Like Ali Ostrander, there's so much depth on the women's side in sub-ultra, and the men's obviously as well too.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Obviously, the old guard is kind of aging up now, so you're going to start to see a change.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I mean I wouldn't be surprised if Joe Ingoes wins again, but I mean he could continue to keep doing it.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Who knows, but it's going to be interesting to see new, younger guys come in and challenge him and what he does with that.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: I think that us talking about somebody, it's not going to be somebody we know.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: I think it's going to be a needle in the haystack that we're like wow, we didn't see that coming yeah.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: There was that kid.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: What was his name?
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Joe and DeLeon, um, friends with kade michael.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you know who, kade michael?
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, stud, he's really just kid.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Joan de leon, out of nowhere, man came to cirque series a basin and spanked like everybody, except for patrick and maybe one other person, and, like totally world-class racist kid, threw down.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Nobody had known who he was and leslie were like underground, like in the gunnison valley, and like knew about this kid, so like stud.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: So you're just going to start seeing more and more of these people come out of the woodwork and just you know it's going to be where, you know, our future superstars are made in the sport, which is cool.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah man.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: All right, so let's talk the course a little bit for gorge waterfalls.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Like I said, super iconic course, one of the most beautiful backdrops I like it's.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: It's hard to beat, especially in april when the rest of the country, at least the you know, the uh mountain west, is socked in with snow usually.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: So, like you said, this course is what 62 miles, 11 000 feet of vert, um, very fast, starts and finishes on the road.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: The finish is literally next to an ice cream stand in a park.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: It's dope, it's awesome.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: It's got what?
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Eight aid stations, but you can get a pacer.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: This is what's interesting.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: You can get a pacer after mile 48.7.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: What was the?
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: last.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: This is just out of curiosity.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: What was the last selection race they used for worlds for long trail, and were you allowed a pacer?
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Sonoma 50 miler.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, and you probably were not a lot of Pacer, so this might be the first like long race with a Pacer.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: It's crazy yeah.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: So I'm just interested to see if maybe they change the rules later on to where those like competing for like USATF will not be, allowed to have at Pacer.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Like does that throw in?
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a fantastic point.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: I've actually never really thought about how you go from from pacer to non-pacer.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I don't know.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's drama, more drama ensued it's interesting to see that how many entrance for for 100k like to have almost 500 entrants is crazy.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that, because that was one of the massive reasons.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of reasons as to why this race was selected, given the time.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about the ability for Dylan and Daybreak to be able to have a large permitting Right.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we wanted to announce this selection rates earlier than later.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Right, you want to give everybody enough time, but sometimes these guys don't have contracts to say what's what's included, what races do I have to do, what races can't I do, whatever their, their deal is.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: So I think with this it it gave us enough wiggle room where, if now we have people that are like, hey, I want to do this, but it's almost at max or it is maxed out, we can email them and be like, hey, we need one more spot, for he was or she was on the World's Team before.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: This is their resume.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: What do you think their resume?
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: What do you think you know?
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: There's just leeway where something you know that's super strict with only 200 people and it sells out in an hour.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: What do you do like?
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: you can't leave off somebody like a peterman that just found out that he can do it, like what that's this?
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: That doesn't really help team usa.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um, we get into this discussion.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: You know behind the scenes that you know when we have our meetings what's the point?
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: To make a really good selection race or to bring home gold, and I think that there always needs to be that goal like selection race.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Well it's, it's awesome.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: That's not the point.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: The point is to get like.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: You know they're spending money on us to go over there.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: It's, it's to bring home a gold Like that's.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: that's it's, that's, that's the reason, and I think that that needs to be in the forefront.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Um is that, that's the that's the main goal.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we want to bring home, you know, bring home gold, but send our top of the top of the food chain athletes.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: You know Right, a hundred percent without it rest of the countries are so competitive.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's not a walk in the park, it's not like the uh, the dream team in basketball, where they just kind of, you know, walk over everybody.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: These teams are.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: These teams are solid.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that?
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know peripherally like how much you know about like France and how they do their selection or anything, but I just know they're they're top of the food chain as well.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Like they have like like a whole freaking program in place that like selects these people like years out and shit.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Right and we find that so interesting and I don't know a ton about how they do it.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: It's pretty tight and you really don't get a list of who's coming, you know ahead of time.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: It's interesting Just because you'd like to kind of do some research and be like, all right, they're coming, all right, how do we offset that?
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Like you know, you kind of you know, if you're playing football, you want your, your best wide receiver on the side of their best, you know, defensive back you know, you kind of want to offset that and so we don't have a lot of info on that.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, most of these guys know everybody you know they're, they're doing their own homework, so we don't have to do a ton of it, but it's, it's still interesting to to see them match up against other other countries.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Oh for sure, man for sure, and it's like you can expect, you know your john albans, the world will be there, you know.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: I guess now that's dn's like off his band, like steen will probably be there for norway, I would imagine.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: So you're getting the bat, you're bringing the best, the best.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: So it's the best, the best man.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: It's funny because you know you, you're in these hotels and it's every single, single best of the best.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: There's no back of the packer.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: You know there is, but you know, you know them all yeah yeah, so crazy man, so cool.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, I don't know, I'm just, it's exciting.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Did we say what?
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we said the date of when the actual like world long trail like event is going to take place.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: It's between September 25th through the 28th.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Do you?
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: And it's in the Pyrenees right Is the Pyrenees region?
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, and they just released a hype video today.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: I sent you that.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: That terrain looks insane.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's going to be bananas.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Man, I'm excited too for, like, obviously, for soon to be in broken arrow.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: It'll be cool to get it kicked off with the first race.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: I think I'm probably because I'll be at soon a piece, so that's the one that gets me the most stoked.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: But, like um, broken arrow, too, is gonna be like friggin bananas this year, and I think since the last time we spoke.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Now the 23 K is a golden trail series race, which is crazy.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody's going to be there.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: That's going to be one giant party.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: So it is.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: It's going to be huge.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's going to be exciting.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, man.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Let's.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: It'll be interesting to see who does the like, the double too.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: And then that's a gauntlet man it's a gauntlet too, like try to go for the vertical, or you know like good luck is that.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: The same way, is it two persons per race that's selected, like men and women no, vertical is it's four people per team.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Okay, um grayson gets a bike because she's the world champion.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, so they'll take three three women and four men okay, she's still on the start list for broken arrow.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: I was.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, we'll see if she races, but like she's on the list, man I mean, I wouldn't if I I don't know that's a tough one dude.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: yeah, I mean you got to get some legs and some training in.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: I guess I don't know.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: That's a tough one dude.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you got to get some legs and some training in, I guess I don't know.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Race the best of the best.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and just go for competition, right?
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Brace day is weird, right?
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: What did you forget?
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: You want to be in the best?
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Brace day is always what did I forget kind of thing you need to be, you need to be sharp.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: What'll be crazy too is if we get a remy joe rematch with patrick.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: So the reason I say this, because it's a world mountain run, it's a wmr race for this year you got the golden trail series coming for the 23k.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I would be hard pressed to think remy wouldn't race that via that vk.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Um, dude, like we might have the most stacked race ever assembled on american soil that weekend, like with all those people going to.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I guess they call it the ascent now.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: But for that, yeah, I don't know.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Sorry, I'm getting off course here, literally no, it's, it's great.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is the road to worlds.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's right, that's right.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: There's so much to speculate man right.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: So I'm not really good with uh with ultras.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: This race is a 5.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Am Mass start.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: That's all.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: That's early, dude Like you're starting with a headlamp, it's probably raining Ouch.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: No bueno, so we, so we're calling 10 hours.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: We're talking three.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a bunch of time, yeah, so what is it?
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Saturday?
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: So you have people get to.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: If you're racing the 50k or the 30k, I get to follow along because it's a saturday race, very, uh, 10 hours, you'll see.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: My guess is, like your rachel drake's of the world finish, I'm going 9, 30 I think, for the finish time for this year.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: I bet you, rachel drake or somebody like that, just demolishes the course because she's from cascade locks and I think she's won the 50K before the 50K right.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: So she knows the course.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, she's so good man and probably getting even better now that they moved to Salt Lake.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: I raced her at Cirque Series Alta this year.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: She's really strong, really really good.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, some incredible athletes.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: So are we going?
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: to talk about it, do you want to?
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, we could do it.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it so to the audience.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: We kind of like put together a way too early top 10.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Mine's more of just a list of like just top of the food chain killers.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Right that.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: I think, like I mean, like I can, I could.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: I think here's the deal I feel like having.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I feel like knowing more of the women in the race, it's easier for me to draw a top 10.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: But knowing a little bit less of the men in the race, there's some very obvious contenders for the podium, but I think it's going to be close.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Man, the men's race is going to be crazy.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Do you want to talk about the men or the women first?
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Oh man, let's talk about the men.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the men will be easier, oh man.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the men.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the men will be easier For you maybe so here's the deal.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I've got.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: This is just a list, and then I go into the top 10.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Just like looking at the start list as of when are we doing this?
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: This is January the 15th 2025.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: This is going to change 12 times.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, easily, easily, oh, easily, easily, easily.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: People are going to laugh at this, but just off this list I've got Nick Handel from California.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Blake Slattergren.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Is this a?
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: specific order, or this is just general.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: This is just dudes that will compete for the top 10.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I'll give it to you, let's just say it and then I'll kind of narrow it down.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: So this is just gentlemen that will compete for the top 10.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Nick Handel from California.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Blake Slattergren from Washington.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Matthew Vera from Colorado.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Adam Loomis from Utah, who's the 2024 champion, who ran 8.44.12 last year.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Jackson Brill he's going to be kind of a sleeper A lot of people I don't think will bet on him just because there's been a gap.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: He's out there just crushing mountains with Max King and just off the grid, so I think people might not take him seriously.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: so we'll see what happens he doesn't race much but like, like, for instance, like.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: So he was with for a while.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: I don't think he's with them anymore, um, but like he raced at broken air.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: He did the vk a few years ago and like ran top five and like an incredibly stacked field.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: So I could very well see him transitioning well to the long stuff.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Like you said, he's um, I think he did some like long mountains, fkts and races over the last uh, few years of max king.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, he.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: I think all of last year he was just out in the, just out in the bush, just doing, doing stuff, yeah, and he made a world's team before, didn't?
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: he did.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: That's where I met him.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay all right, what was?
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: on.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Was it the short trail or?
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you were going to ask me that.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I think, I think, I think it was.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I think it was breakneck he qualified at, if I remember correctly.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, damn.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Look at that, I know my, I know my sub ultra man.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: He was second.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: He was second at breakneck.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, there you go, there you go, which was a stack.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, that was the year so, so that was a short course.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what he was.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: He was there for okay, and garrett garrett was is the only one that beat him.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Garrett the parrot but with that said, he beat max.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Really, did he really?
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: By three minutes that's actually pretty convincing.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: That's a solid, and max has won the marathon there uh, right he took him and david hedges battled it out a few years before then.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great course, man.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: That's where, uh, my wife's family actually lives really close to that area, it's uh so that second place wasn't against nobody's like garrett.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Then it goes, jackson uh, lars, I think was in there.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, uh, yeah, I'm like lena, noah Max, Noah Williams, Max King, all people that have been on world.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: So he didn't, it wasn't.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: It wasn't like he was going against nobody.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: So I think Jacksonville is going to do well, oh, dude, I would not be surprised if he, if he ran himself, he, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if he made it in the top two.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: You, know it's possible, anything's possible, right, and he's kind of due for it too.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: We'll get into it when we start picking Ryan Sullivan, who's a name who, like I said earlier in the I have raced him before.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: He's really good man, like really good.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: And then to see what he did against Eli and he ran against what was it, eli and David Sinclair and put up a great fight against some of the best in the world competition-wise.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: So I think he's possibly ready to take a next step forward in his career.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if he's up there.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Do you think he'll throw down on the tar in the beginning and just pull those guys into an uncomfortable situation?
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's what he did to me on what was it On Rampart Range Road when I raced him at Rampart oh, dude, he's so fast.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah he will, he's going to drag you into deep water and, yeah, he's going to make you squeal.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: So you better, you better be prepared to hold on.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: I mean that, saying it's a long race, it's a 62-mile race.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Well, that's what I'm saying.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Is it going to to be bad, like everybody's going out hot on that tar?
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Oh for sure.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: And he just pulls people into an uncomfortable situation.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: So when they do get into that long distance, they're already smoked it's possible, man, it's possible, and it doesn't like get any like the ending gets easier.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: But there's this like weird, it's like an out and back section on the at where you have a large climb, so like there's climbing late in the race.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: It's's not like it's not like it doesn't.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Uh, the course is unforgiving in a lot of ways.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: It doesn't get easy until the last few miles.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: So, um, who else on my list?
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Adam Peterman, obviously Peter God.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Um.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Ryan Miller from Texas, who's kind of a sleeper.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: He's kind of competed at a lot of the um big 100 Ks over the last few years.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: He's had some success, kind of mixed success over the years.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Burns, who I just realized lives in Colorado Springs, a little bit of a sleeper has had some success.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Top five at JFK in the past Pretty stout dude he just I believe it was, I can't remember off the top of my head, but he's had some success.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Caleb Olson obviously he's top five, top ten guy at Western States.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Coming into his own Nike athlete, you know will compete already has made a world's team Phenomenal athlete Um Darren Thomas see Darren he's an interesting guy man, I think he's.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: I think he's starting to train now.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: He's had some bumps over the last year or so.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: He started um, I just had him on the podcast uh, the week of pike speak marathon and like he started a full-time job as a geologist and he was kind of balancing, okay, like how do I do this running life with also a full-time job, um, and just trying to figure that out.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: and then I know he just parted ways with Solomon this year.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, dude, I think he's getting, I think he's working really hard, I think he's probably super motivated to, you know, to get back to it.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised Darren Thomas like when he's hot man he's he's on like almost unbeatable.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: You know, a few years back uh took Joe to the brink of the broken arrow, was a 23K when it was the USATF race.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: He's had so much success in the uphill.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Has he done 100?
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: He has done Dude.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: He's also done Barkley.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: He can suffer, man, he didn't finish it.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: I think he finished one or two loops, maybe one, I don't know.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: He did Cape Town back in 23.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: He did.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: How did he do there?
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: well, uh, 10th in 12 and a half hours.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's hard to say it's, it's we don't.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: You don't know what you're gonna get and I don't mean that in a negative way.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I just mean it like he's somebody that could very well shock the hell out of us and go run right with the right.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: He has the talent to do so I haven't been my top 15.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: I don't have them in my top 10, okay we, we need, we need to go back in this at the end of the year and go through all of these like, wow, we couldn't be more wrong.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: You know wrong we were you know I also want to.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: I want like I, I.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: This is like I love when people listen to it, because you know people are either going to take it to one of two ways.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: They're going to be like oh my God, they mentioned my name, that's amazing.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Or they're going to be like fuck, he mentioned me at the end of the list.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: They're going to hate me.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: So we'll see how this goes.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Who else I got?
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Daniel Metzger, local Colorado Springs boy.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: He's talented man and he's been like I said.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: He's another one.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: He's Jennifer Yehman's husband had him on the pod.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Really good dude, very smart.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: With his training.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: He's working with MK now as their coach.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: I don't follow a lot of people on Strava.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: He's like one of 15 people I follow because he inspires me.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: He just did a great long run, like a 30-something mile long run at a seven-minute pace.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: He's got the turnover.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: He's a fit dude.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: See what happens.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: I have him in my 15, but not my top 10.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, he hasn't proved.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: I think he would agree with this.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: He hasn't popped off yet.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: I think, he's due for one.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: I think he's going to Black Canyon too.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: We'll see 100K February 8th.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Then John.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Ray.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: John Ray's obviously going to compete.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: He, Okay, yep.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: February 8th.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: And then John Ray John Ray's obviously going to compete yeah, he's a stud.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Jeff Colt Jeff Colt, we'll get into that.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Tim Nooney Tim Nooney, boss of a teammate of mine, lives in North Carolina.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: He's had some success with the long stuff.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: I know he dropped from what the hell was it Ron Rabbit?
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Earlier in the year or back in 2024.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: So we'll see what happens there.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Matthew Siddell Seidel another one to look out for had a great race at JFK.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: He's got a phenomenal.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I think JFK is a great example to look to because there's a lot of parallels you can draw from that race.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: With so many miles on the AT, I think the AT is probably more technical.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Um, this is probably more runnable, but then you get.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: You know there's a lot of more runnable sections, so you can see those guys that have the great turnover doing probably pretty well.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Um, eric Sorenson is another one.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: He's had success in the past.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Um, he said some success at black Canyon.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Um.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: And the last but not least, alex king, who lives across the river from um washington, or sorry, lives in washington, lives across the river from cascade locks.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: I think he's in um salmon river or something like that is the name of the town that he lives in.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Phenomenal athlete, stud runner um used to run for solomon.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Um had a little setback with an achilles tear years ago, like maybe a year or two ago, um, and had it, came back and had a pretty good season last year.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: So I'm sure he's kind of rebounded.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: I know he tried to run gorge maybe it was last year and learn some lessons from it, so this will not be his first time running it.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Um braced him in the past like can't sing his praises enough, really, really solid athlete.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: So that's the.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: There's like 20 dudes that can compete for the top, for the top 10 man right right let's listen, because I think you have a more concise list.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: Let's hear what you got yeah, I mean you named everybody that I would.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: I would do.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, like I'm I'm interested to see what the, what the course does to different people, like I think.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: I think peterman will will be close to the I'm not sure, sure if he'll break Jim's 820.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: That's so fast.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Well, like I said too, it's also a little bit of a different course, because I think the fire happened after 2017.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Now it all depends how fit and how good really is Vincent Boulevard, because Vincent ran 828.57 in 2023, which is about eight minutes off of jim's time, which makes sense.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: So it's like how good is that dude versus like our, our contingent that we've got running here?
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: you know obviously there's a lot of things that go into it.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Um, like, luminous ran 8, 44, 12 and took the dub last year, but I don't think it was anywhere near a stack of a field, so it's going to be close to see.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: Never doubt, jim, you're right, right.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: And then you know, with those huge Hills, just knowing what Caleb Olson has been doing, yeah, does, does, does he?
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: Does he sit back for a few seconds?
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Let those guys go out hot and then just crush the mountains.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: He might very well man.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that he may play it smart and just let them go out on that tar as fast as possible, and then he just bulldozes his way through that.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: I could see it.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I could see it.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: What do you think happens with John Ray and Jeff Colt?
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Those are two.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: I put two asterisks.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Next, ray and Jeff Colt.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Those are two, I put two asterisks next to him because Colt's been on a team before Right.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: So I have John Ray, nick and Jeff all fighting for that third spot.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: I think you're right, man.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: I can see it.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Jeff's a freak athlete.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: He's a phenomenal athlete.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: I really admire him in a lot of ways.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: John Ray is great.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: John Ray is how do I say this?
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: Freak athlete, but hasn't put it all together on race day yet, only in a few instances.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Right, he's got a great Javelina Western States.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Now he's run top 10.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: But took him some time to figure it out.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: So I don't know, maybe the 100K is more his distance or something like that.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: You know he's a great mountain guy.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: It's going to be interesting, you know.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: I Do you think he doesn't race enough to put them to put a race day together?
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: I think you're right.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, so there's something to this and I think you would agree to this, and it's hard to say with ultras, but I can say this 100 to sub ultra, there's such a thing as race rust.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: For sure you need like to go through all your pre-race things and then to actually like like cover moves and make moves and like, obviously in an ultra it's much more drawn out, there's more opportunities to make mistakes and, um, you know, dig yourself out of holes if you will, but like there is such a thing as a race for us and if you don't do it enough, you are going to forget.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: Like I just kind of was saying with Grayson, like I think it'd be good for her to race one, one race in the middle of the summer, just to get back into that that flow.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: You know, what did you forget in the car?
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Where, where?
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: What do I take when?
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: what do I take when?
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: when you know.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, I forgot to you know, yeah, whatever it is, you just forget it, and I think it's happened to everybody pro and not pro.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean you.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: You just get out of that rhythm and you're like wow, I used to do that.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: I completely forgot so the other question too is like how many of these guys and gals are doing the long trail as I wouldn't say a warmup, but like as a test run for something like a, like a broken arrow, like maybe?
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Their a, their a goal is like to get on the short course as opposed to the long course, and you know maybe it's not that glorified or in the sense of maybe they're tuning up for Western.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: That's true too, you know, maybe it has nothing to do with worlds whatsoever.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: It could be a completely different goal that we're not thinking about.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: So, and that's the thing, like cause Jeff isn't.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Jeff is not coming back to Western States.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: He dropped last year, so I would imagine that journey might be done for him in his thirties.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: I wonder if he's pro.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to speak for him, cause I don't really know him that well, but like I would guess, having spoken to him the times I have, and how much he speaks so highly of worlds, that that's where I would guess that that's the motivation.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: I would imagine, yeah, I mean I'm sure that the contracts change how you, you know where you get paid.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: So I think that, until worlds is always on your contract, I think that, uh, I think it's going to be a personal, a personal choice for them.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: And it is interesting, like I I don't know if I should I'm not going to say I was going to say some contract related.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to say that to myself.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Um, it's just, it's interesting.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: It's going to be interesting to see.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Is that a motivator going forward for brands?
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Are they cause?
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen as much of that.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Let's put it that way.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: I haven't heard of any I mean I minimal how's that?
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: Very minimal, yeah, um.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Utmb is still, you know you know, western state still the big one, you know the big two.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: So I think that until worlds is is um, you know we've only had it twice.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: So I think you know it's starting to gain momentum and being cool and being, you know, the the best of the best.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: So I think it just needs time and then I think it will eventually end up in in some contracts.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: I think so too, man, and I think the thing too is like the million dollar question is like all right, well, if the Olympics don't become a thing with the trail running, which that's a completely different conversation right Right.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think the soul of our sport and the excitement of it is very much preserved in something like the worlds that we have, right?
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I think that's a little bit more of our, our super bowl, aside from like UTMB every every two years, right?
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: So I don't know I would.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: I think I would rather see something like a world as opposed to Olympics, but that's just personal view, right?
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: it gets muddied when it's when it's the olympics.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: But yeah, this is, you know, solely focused on trail running.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: Where that is, you know, that's swimming, power lifting, and then they'll just throw in a half hour of trail running.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: So it's yes yes, yes, this is.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: This is much, much better from being on my side.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: At least I get to go and hang out in the mountains for four days or whatever.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: It's not bad man do you do?
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Actually, I never really asked you about your role in it, do you?
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: It's hard, I wouldn't say coaching, but how are you?
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: What do you do when you go over there?
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Are you just directing, or what are you doing?
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sort of.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: So basically I don't do a whole lot in the sense of I mean, these guys are all adults with full-time coaches, they don't need me for that.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: I basically go to the meetings, listen to what the host has to say about each day, what's coming up, where they need to be.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: You know all the rules, all that stuff, and then we'll have team meetings the night before, go through everything, um, and then, when it is long course and short course, you don't get um like your own crew and your own aid station.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: It's, there's three of us.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: You get three people.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: Uh, they have it all boxed in.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: You know, you have a six foot table.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: That's all the space you get Um, so it's, it's pretty tight when you have six runners coming in, or 12 runners coming in full, full bore.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Um, it's, it gets a little hairy.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, and it's basically just making sure you know when, at the starting line, it's super tight.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: Um, you're making sure that you have an athlete on the actual starting line.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: Um, there's, you know, referees there and people that are in charge of that.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: So you have to make them aware and be like hey, listen, team usa is not on the starting line.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: You need to bring them up.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: Um, most of the the guys are pretty good at elbowing their ways in, but when you have, you know, uh, some, some people that aren't so aggressive, um, you have to kind of be their voice interesting yeah oh yeah, oh man.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not an easy job.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: I barely.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: I carry people's bags.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: I'm a glorified baggage handler.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: Oh my God.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Yo, really one question that just clicked my mind of a Northeast guy that I didn't see on the list.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Where's Eric LaPuma?
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, not on it.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know why I wonder if that may change.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: I would guess that would change um is he on the start list for uh, for black canyon?
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: I believe so.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so maybe it's wait and see.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Let's see how black canyon goes and then make it.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I, I believe he's on that, but I also have.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, are we throwing any Eric Lapuma's on broken arrow?
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: 46k.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: No shit.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, so maybe he wants to go down.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Dude, that's going to be such a competitive race.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to see what happens there.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, I have an idea of what goes down, I have guesses.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to see what happens there.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: I mean I have an idea of what goes down.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: I have a guess it all depends on, like, what kind of David Sinclair we get on that day is my my imagination goes there.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: But like, who's going for that second spot?
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: That's a that's a great question.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: I'd love to see Michelino get it, but that's just me being you know.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: I'm biased.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Are you going to throw any dark, dark horses out there?
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Are you going to throw anything out there that that is a dark horse for for contention for the time.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: So say that they're outside of your top 20.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: Who do you have?
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: That could just absolutely mess things up.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: That somebody you didn't see coming.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: It's hard to say man Like I, my sleeper, if you will, I.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: I named him already, though that was the problem I just put an.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: I have two sleepers.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: My two sleepers are Alex King, who I would not be surprised to see do really well.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: I don't think I don't.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is just, I don't know if there's the capability of getting in those top two spots to beat at like someone, like an adam peterman.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: A lot of it depends on what's going to happen that day.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: But to totally mess things up in the top five, I could see alex king and I could also see daniel metzger.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Dude, it depends.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know what's going to happen at black canyon.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: If he's still trash from black canyon, that might be a different game.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: But like he's just like very consistent I, I could.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: I really it's hard to be together.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: The other kid is Matthew Seidel.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Seidel, like I wouldn't be, surprised and same with.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of like guys in the same tier.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Jackson Burrell is another one man like, hasn't really run a ton of long stuff and just could go in and totally shock the world and run in the top two places.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Because Adam Peterman and this is nothing against Adam like adam is beatable.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: You know he's not and anybody is beatable in any day.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: But adam has shown, I think, more cracks in his armor in 2024 coming back from injury than I think he has in previous years.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: So it depends on what year, what kind of adam.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Yet that's a big one.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Um, I I would expect.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: If there's anyone who I'm really betting on to be dominant, I think it would be caleb alson.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: I would expect him especially.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: It's like this confidence thing Once you're coming off Western states.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: I would guess that he's probably feeling pretty good about himself Because I know I would be.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: I think he's coming in behind Peterman.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: I think it's going to be Peterman, caleb and then the rest of it is crazy.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: It's going to be peterman, caleb and then the rest of it is is crazy, yeah.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be a fun mix.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: It's guys are going to be blowing each other up, but I do really think, like you're going to get off the line and it's going to be ryan miller taking that group out.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Oh for sure, or not, ryan miller?
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, ryan sullivan uh yeah, that dude's got some wheels.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Um, all right, let's move on to the women All right, this is tough.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: The women is so stacked man, I think the women's race might be.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: I think it's going to probably be a little more exciting to follow than the men, but it usually is, I don't know.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: So this is just the list of just in no, no order whatsoever, and then we'll get into the top 10, but just in a list of people that can compete.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: I'm seeing Aaron Clark, Katie Asmuth, Leah Yingling, MK Sullivan, Claire Rhodes, Colleen Sands from New Hampshire, Rachel Drake, Shay Aquilana, Heather Jackson, Jane Mouse, Addie Bracey, Rachel Lemke, Lauren Puritz, Jade Bellsburg, Anna Loudon, Hillary Allen, Brittany Peterson, Jennifer Yeaman, Robin Lesch and then Mercedes Sigelgather.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a list.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: That's a list and a half.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: Dude I mean you just read the whole entry.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: It's less like how do you break that?
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: You're going to give me 10, man, you gave me 42.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: All right, I'll give you my top 10 and I'll tell you why.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: So first I'm going Rachel Drake.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: I think that's the most obvious, I think.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: I think, after I think she was what two or three this year ultra runner of the year, something like that.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Dude, rachel's really good, she's really fast and I feel like it's gotten better.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I would not be surprised.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: And this is home trails, dude.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: I mean like they lived in in portland for a long time.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, I like it's hard, just hard, to bet against her.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: So I would imagine rachel drake for the dub I'm gonna go to with aaron clark.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Um, I feel like aaron's had some tough year, had a tough year last year, especially coming off like it seems like she's done historically very well.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Um, like like sonoma, for instance, she won it, you know, for a world's qualifier.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: I could see her doing it again.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: You know, let's, let's, let's see you compete.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: You know it could, could happen.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: I I think she's searching for, could be searching for, you know, another great result.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: And third, I have leah yingling leah.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Um, ran, I think it was third place the year.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, I think it was third place because that was the year.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: Hannah, I was like 2022.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: When I watched it.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: It was hannah leah and um, oh, that name escapes me.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: She used to run for ultra and just left this year.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: Um, uh, uh, it's, it'll come to me eventually.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Um, but yeah, so anyway.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: 2022.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Leah had a great race here and can totally see her coming back and smashing, smashing the course in fourth place.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: I?
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: What was that?
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: I'm listening, I'm listening, I'm ready.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: And fourth, I go.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Addy Bracey, um, and this is where it got.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: It's like all over the place.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Fifth, I just put Shea Aquano.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Sixth, I put MK.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: I would take that out.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: Really, I think she's running a Boston Marathon.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Oh man, all right, all right, that makes sense.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: Well, the other question is how curious is she still of the longer distances?
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: I think she's still very curious I the other question is is like, how curious is she still of the of the longer distances she had?
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: So I think she's still very curious.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: I think she's just had such a good time in New York.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: She's like I got to do this again.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: I think that high was, uh was pretty high.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and it would play into racing at black broken arrow then, cause you'll have a huge marathon block with a ton of fitness.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: So that makes sense.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: What do I?
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: Also?
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: Heather Jackson?
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: I threw Heather Jackson seven just because I have an understanding that she can't run technical terrain.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: And this is a semi-technical course and it depends on, like, what her motivation is going to be.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: It's going to be interesting.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: I could very much so eat those words, cause she's a freak athlete, but that course is sneaky technical.
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: People are going to people are she lives there like she lives?
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: she does live there yeah, but I don't think she really runs trails, that I mean, I think she like what kind of trails is she running, you know?
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: like that's from new hampshire she struggled on technical stuff.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: Man, I don't know from what I hear, I don't know.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know her.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: So it's that's.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: It's hard for me to say that's so weird.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: Um, you know who's a safe bet for the top 10?
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: I'm going Lauren Puritz, man.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: I would not be surprised to see her compete for the top five.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: She's a beast.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Another one is Jennifer Yeaman, colorado Springs.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Local, literally trains See her and Dan training all the time.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: Dan Metzger is her husband, working with a new coach this year.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: Very fit, very, very fit, very structured.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: So Dan's going to Black Canyon, jennifer is not.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: I think this is the A race at the beginning part of the year, so I could totally see her doing top 10, running top 10.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: And another one is Robin Lesch.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: Robin has been very consistent and had a great result at JFK.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so she's another one.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: I think she ran top five or top 10 at jfk, which is a good indicator.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: So I could see her doing, performing very well there and she's good on technical terrain.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, she had a great result as well at meet the minotaur.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: So she's not not a I don't know not scared of techie stuff, like she knows where her foot placement's got to be.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: It is a long race but it's also pretty fast.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: Long race, like if you're only running 10 hours for a hundred, you know, for a hundred K, uh, it's speedy.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: So I could see her running into the top 10 as well.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: It was a depth is deep man.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: It's crazy.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: Contingents crazy.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: What do you got for me?
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, contingent's crazy.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: What do you got for me?
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I had the, I had that, I had everybody you have, I just have a completely different order.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, um, yeah, I mean, yeah, I have, I have drake winning it I actually have heather in in second okay, I have, I have her going all in on this um then I have leah, uh, katie and uh, I've clear roads in six.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what dude?
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: I specifically didn't put Claire Rhodes in my top 10 because I and this is not I am a huge Claire Rhodes fan.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: I didn't put her in the top 10 specifically because I feel like I hyped her up too much in my OCC preview episode and then she dropped from I think she dropped from OCC, I can't remember and I felt really bad about that.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: So felt really bad about that, so I'm going to take her out of my top 10 and I hope she just goes and wins the damn thing.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: We can't be held accountable for these, for these, I feel as an athlete, I feel bad because I know like all right, if someone's listening, like how would I feel?
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: And it makes, it puts me in a weird position, because it's like right, these people are my peers and friends.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: And it's like, oh, this is, this is complicated, this is odd, you know, but it's performance.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: We're talking performance here, so you know, it's like I mean, if I get to these, races and I get punched by one of these people because they didn't like this pick.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: This is all your fault dude, I still wonder if dan kurtz is going to show up in my backyard and kill.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: No, I'm kidding, shout out to dan kurtz.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: No, but in all seriousness, I um?
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: No, it is, it's funny.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, I don't know.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Uh, there's oh, two canad Canadians in there that I didn't met, that I did mention Jade Bellsburg and Brittany Peterson.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: That's who I have.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: I have a.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: So I had Claire.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I I skipped one.
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: I had Katie, and then, uh, laura Pierce, um, claire Rhodes.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: I had Aaron Clark at seven, jade and eight, yeah, and then, and then baby Shay, uh, at nine.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, baby.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: Shay at 10.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: Sorry.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I could see that.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: I could definitely say I think, yeah, Shay is definitely a lot.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: I could see her locked in the top 10.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: There's no doubt.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: She's, she's a beast.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is like a fantastic field of women, like if we can get everybody to the start line healthy like this, of the probably one of the most competitive women's ultra races we found on american soil in a long time other than your western states.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: My dark horse, for this one is calling sands uh messed around at bandera one messed around at vermont 100k dude, she's nasty man good and has had some good results.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: I think she had some good results at loon as well.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: Um, yes, her store short course stuff is pretty solid.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I have her in my, in my, like kind of in the mix there as well.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: I can totally see that.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think my my I have two dark horses, like I said, my one is lauren where it's in the second one's jennifer yaman.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: That's home cooking, but you picked a new hampshire person, so I don't I did as my dark horse, absolutely.
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: Uh, you had Addie Bracey.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: I hope Addie is healthy and can go.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: I hope that's the case.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd love to see Addie Bracey in the mix.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: I mean you have people you know, legends, like Hillary Allen, that we haven't even got to.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: That's in this list.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: Like you keep scrolling down, it doesn't get any easier to pick anybody.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: The only reason I didn't like pick hillary for the top 10 because she's raced this race before and and I surprised she's going back because she was very vocal about how much she hated.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: That's funny.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so like I, I don't know.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, because this is so damn runnable and she's such a good hiker and slash mountain runner.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I mean, this is gonna be who's got the track legs, and I think rachel's just like I I don't want to say Rachel's unbeatable, but I think there's a possibility that Rachel ascends to a new level in 2025 and beyond.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: I could definitely not be surprised if you see Rachel maybe win Western States going back.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: I would not be surprised to see something like that.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I don't know, I can't sing her praises enough.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: She's also a really nice person.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: She's cool people.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, there's a lot of like really good flat runners here, Like Aaron Clark can.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: like you know, comes from a track background.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: A lot of these athletes do so.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean somebody like mercedes could do well just because of all the mountains, I mean just because of the terrain.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that list of 20 is going to be all jumbled up by the time oh yeah, it's thrown down, we're gonna look like it is and we'll see, and I think the other question is like who even shows up, man?
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like who shows up, who shows up fit and healthy?
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: You know, actually it was jeff colt who said this to me long ago at an ultimate direction summit.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Um, he said something about like black canyon and like, well, I think it was advice that like chris macco had passed along to him about like being worried about like who's on the start line.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: He's like I wouldn't worry about it.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: Half the people don't even show up or don't get sick, and half of those people, you know, don't show up feeling their best or you know they have something going on.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: So usually, really, it's like, uh, it's a very small number of people that get there feeling fit, fresh and ready to absolutely like hammer you into the ground.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: So I don't know, I've always kind of like stuck with me with with that uh, you know, with that little saying and jeff has a very zen thing about him.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: He's very easy to.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: He has this thing where he can just block out the noise.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I could definitely see him saying that he doesn't care who's at the start line, as long as he's there healthy, that's all he cares about.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: That's an interesting thing.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: I wonder how many of these?
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Because I used to look at start lines and be concerned and, like now, you can't really care because it's usually so deep man.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: So it's like you know, whatever.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Whatever um.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: Is there anything more to add to the women?
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: oh, I don't know, I that I mean there's.
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like I said, I think we're gonna eat our words on all of that.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: Oh for sure, yeah, I think the only, the only constant I would see is rachel.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: I think that's the only thing I could like.
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: That's the two constants is, I think, is the winners.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: I think we can.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: We've called those pretty well.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: I don't think that that's yeah.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: I would be surprised, I think, if, if Rachel and Adam didn't win.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, um so yeah, yeah, man, all right, um, yeah should be should be interesting.
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: I'm excited.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: Are you going out?
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: there for it.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: I am.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: I'm racing the 30k are you really good for you, man.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: I considered it, I thought about it and was like I, uh, I gotta pick and choose my battles this year too much traveling be all over the place.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: The 30 30K is a great distance too.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: It's nice and fast, a little techy.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: You get to run behind some waterfalls.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Good climbs, it's like I don't know.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: It's less technical than New Hampshire.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: It's not New Hampshire, so you're in for a little bit of a treat there.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: Liam Moreau signed up for the 50K but I think he's dropping to the 30K.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: He he's dropped into the 30 K.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: He gave me an hour buffer, so I just I just need.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: I just can't lose to him more than an hour just to to win my bet.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: He's another one I'd love to see.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: I'd love to see back on like a world's team for for this year.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely yeah, he's a.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: He's a great guy I love him?
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: Well, dude, I think we this wraps I won't say wraps it up, but like, is there anything you want to add in totality to this episode?
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: No, I'm good, I'm good, I think I, I.
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: I want to go back after the, you know, at the end of the year and look at this and see how horrible we did on this.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: The next one.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: This is just throwing down the gauntlet.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: The next one, we'll have much, you know.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: The next one we could probably do.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: well, obviously, no, it'll be soon to pay, so we'll do that far out, but like we could do the soon to be episode after soon, before broken arrow, so we could do that yeah, I think, I think, I think son of p is going to be a real shake-up just because it's going to be the collegiate championships, high school championships and the, the, the classic up and down.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: So I think we're going to get some college kids that we've never heard of that just pop into the top 10.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: It's going to be bananas dude.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: I.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: I'm excited, I'm curious to see, I'm excited for for the competition level there who gets selected, who's going where and then, it's kind of like a big party because the Cirque series races the next weekend, so it's a fun.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: It's a fun week in the Northeast man.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, june is just crazy.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: You know it's, it's uh, it's from there to to broken arrow to to loon, like that too.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: We have two months of just amazing stuff throughout the country, so it's gonna be great.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: It's a great sport on earth, dude.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: Well, listen, so much I appreciate it.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited for the next one.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: I think this was really good commentary, lots of good breakdowns there, and, yeah, it's going to be very interesting to see what unfolds in April.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: Thanks, man.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: What did you guys think?
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: What a fun episode.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: I know, like I said, this was way too early top 10, way too early everything.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: If you guys got some negative comments, just direct them to Tom.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: It was all his idea.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: I want to thank Tom so much for coming on the podcast.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: Guys, if you haven't already give Tom a follow, that's going to be at Tom Hooper on Instagram.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: You can also find him at 603 Endurance.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: If you happen to be in the Northeast or looking for a really fun race this summer, the Soonapy Scramble is going to be a selection race for the upcoming Worlds that's going to be taking place in September.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: So if you're looking for a really fun competitive race in the sub-ultra category, definitely check out Soonapy.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: He also has quite a few races in his portfolio as well.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: One that I can't pronounce, I think it's the Kismet Cliff Run and then obviously the Loon Mountain Race and several others, and Ragged as well.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: So look at that Got them all off the top of my head.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: Tom would be proud.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: Guys, like I said, I hope you really enjoyed this one Personal favorite of mine, really looking forward to all the ones we're going to be doing as we get into the later months of the year, specifically in that June probably May-June timeframe leading into Broken Arrow and Soonapie with Soonapie taking place I think it's the weekend of the 1st of June Lots to talk about before now, and then Might do another small mini episode on something around Gorge Waterfalls especially.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: Listen, I'm not an idiot.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: We all know the field's going to change drastically Between the time we aired this episode and the time we recorded.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Between the time we recorded and the time this aired, david Roche had already announced that he was going to be signing up, so that completely changes the top 10.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: So this was just some fun banter, something to talk about, get the audience excited and get things rolling, get the juices pumping for 2025 racing season, because we all know January is kind of a low point when it comes to the racing season and not much is going on.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, looking forward to Black Canyon in a few weeks, looking forward to all the fun sub ultra races around the corner as well.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: So much to be stoked for in this 2025 season.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: So, really, thank you guys.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: Lots of fun stuff coming around the corner.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: As far as interviews go, we have some really exciting announcements to make.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: As far as sponsorships yes, that was with an S.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: That's going to be taking place pretty soon, so we'll be talking about who's going to be sponsoring this Deep Stuff podcast and, in addition, we have some exciting news for our one-year anniversary in March.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: That is going to be a live podcast as well as some other live stuff that we're going to be doing, so stay tuned.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: No-transcript.