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LIVE From the Barr Trail Mountain Race Elite Panel Night · The Steep Stuff Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome back to the steep stuff podcast.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, james Lauriello, and today we've got a really special episode.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: This is kind of a really interesting one off.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I was very lucky enough to be invited to be the host of the bar trail mountain race elite night.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: This is kind of a live roundtable athlete panel that we held this past Friday, july 19th, the Colorado running company Like I said, really special episode.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: We give a little bit of a breakdown and a small backstory on all the athletes.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: You might recognize most of these athletes Uh, we actually have the goat there.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Uh, mr Joseph gray.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Uh, mr Jonathan Aziz was present.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Sarah Gould, tatum Russo, uh, christina Mascarina.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: So a lot of household names you guys might be familiar with Um and if you're not familiar with the bar trail mountain race, check it out.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: If you're um, if you're in the Colorado Springs area or if you happen to be in Colorado or the front range or the mountain West um, you should definitely consider putting this race on your calendar for next year.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Btmr is a really special race and really important to our community.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Um, again, just uh, hope you guys enjoyed this one.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Um, really, really quick, I'm going to preface this um the audio quality because this was a live round table, some of the audio quality is not the best.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: This isn't like a one-on-one podcast.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: This is kind of a uh, open, open formatted, open source discussion.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Um, so some of the audio is kind of all over the place.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I did my best to kind of um, you know, kind of make it as loud as possible for you guys, but just just to preface, this does not sound like the normal podcast, will.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, so I hope you guys enjoyed this one again.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I'm really excited to bring this to you.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: This is really special for me and my first opportunity to be able to get to do something like this.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Uh, this is the bar trail mountain race elite night athlete panel.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Um, again want to thank Colorado Running Company, dean Abel, ace Brown and just everyone for considering me for this.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: So super excited.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Hope you guys enjoyed this one.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Without further ado, the Steep Stuff podcast slash the Bar Trail Mountain Race Elite Night Panel.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: All right, we're going to start with Mr Joseph Bray, if you join me in the tiny brook seat here oh man.
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: He's trying to injure me.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: Let's get that a little closer.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: I'm old man, you don't got me ducking down.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: All right, so I'm going to hand the mic off to you.
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: Just have a few quick questions.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I just want to ask you about.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Just keep that one a little bit closer.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay, so we're going to start off with.
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: You can tell everybody a little bit about yourself.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: What got you into running.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: Just a little bit of a backstory, if you wouldn't mind.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: A little bit about me I got into running in middle school and kind of like a big life changer for me, hanging out with the wrong folks and in in trouble and Kind of going down the wrong path.
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: And my PE teacher, who is a really good Friend of mine I call his family to me basically at this point but he got me to come up with a track team that was a wrap from there and addicted to the sports sense and Representing USA a number of times now and went to Oklahoma State so any Cowboys in here Go folks and military brats.
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: So kind of got to see a lot of the world at a young age and engulfed in a lot of different cultures throughout my running career and also as a child, and so a huge blessing to to be able to visit other places of the world and meet different people, different walks of life.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: So yeah, that's um, that's me in a nutshell all right, thank you so much.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: What an incredible backstory do.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I just want to uh say something um 25 national title you just won at Loon.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about how that race unfolded for you, what that experience felt like and just what that felt like to win your 25th national title, especially now?
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know how you feel about this, but now that you're a.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Masters athlete, you know.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: Being a Masters, I think, makes it a lot more special.
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: Just because you have to have a certain level, it's it's more difficult to have longevity in sport like this at the top, especially just because it's the US is so competitive.
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: There's so many other countries.
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: If I was a citizen, I probably could be winning national titles very easily at 40.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: But uh, you know, at Loon it was, it was a battle me and John, whom I trained with a little bit, we were kind of buried.
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: You know, three or four guys ahead of us.
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: But I had told them the plan in terms of, like, you know, we're going to have a time where we can attack and make some moves and a lot of these guys up front are going to go out too hard.
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: And it worked out for us and to some extent we get to near the end.
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: And, uh, you know, tyler was still ahead of us and I was like he's not really coming back to us.
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: I didn't expect that and uh, so, you know, at one point I kind of my mind was settling for second.
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: I was like I don't, I'm trying to catch him, it's just not happening, and uh, so I already had my mind made up.
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: I was probably a good second.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: And then I was like I'll just stick to it and see what happens and try to get that last segment.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: On upper walking, boss, there's like this last little climb that's.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: I don't know exactly how steep it is, but it's like the incline, except on a trail, and he started coming back, and so it was real special when I finally caught him, just knowing that, man, I'm going to win and I'm one of the old guys now so yeah, it's special.
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: Thank you for that.
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: Joe.
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: One last question what do you got planned for the rest of your 2024 season?
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: I'll probably.
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: We made a national team, so the Team USA has an event in Italy in October, and then Pikes Peak, and then Sunday, and then I'll probably try to add in one or two more races.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: Run to the top of Vermont.
• 5:52
  Speaker 7: There's another event that I might do, so, yeah, awesome thank you does anybody in the audience have a question for?
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: Joe okay, job okay that one is in.
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: It's in Stowe, I believe, and it's kind of like I don't know if you've ever heard of Mount Washington that race.
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: So it's similar to that similar grade, except it's on like gravel, but like nice gravel, like there's a bike race up to it.
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: On people ride these road bikes so it's obviously not too bumpy and it's just under five miles, I believe.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: So it's a it's fast and high octane race but very fun race, man.
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: It's nice little part of the world.
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: That was my first time racing in Vermont last year, being in that part of Vermont world.
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: Uh, that was my first time racing in vermont last year and being in that part of vermont, for sure, and so I had a good time and want to go back and try to get the record.
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: I took a wrong turn last year.
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: I missed the record by a few seconds is it a vk that race, or?
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: no, it's not that steep, it's actually it's probably about the same grade as sunday.
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: For the ascent part, I would say somewhere around there, nice, I have a question what's your favorite race you've ever run?
• 7:08
  Speaker 8: Favorite race.
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: Oh man.
• 7:11
  Speaker 8: What's your favorite race you've ever run?
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good one.
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: Only races in Colorado Springs?
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: That's a hard question, I think.
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: I feel like over the years, what you like changes Sometimes.
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: The environment, the people, the food attract you to a certain venue, so it's hard to say what place you like the most.
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: You'd have to be more specific and ask me something specific, which I want you to have to think about all that.
• 7:42
  Speaker 9: I have a specific question.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, what is?
• 7:45
  Speaker 9: your pop-up song that you listen to that gets you fired up for rape.
• 7:48
  Speaker 9: What is the song that pumps you up for rape?
• 7:51
  Speaker 9: Um?
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: I like some DMX, I like some Drake, I like Earth, wind and Fire.
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: A lot Probably.
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: Earth, wind and Fire, izy Brothers, I'm old, I'm 80s baby, anybody else I?
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: just got to embarrass Joe.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Who is?
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: your favorite steeplechaser from.
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: Oklahoma State University.
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: I know who you're talking about.
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: I've totally forgotten that.
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, chuck, yeah, chuck, chuck alright, guys, let's give a round of applause for Joseph Gray alright.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Next up is Christina Mascaretas.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: What's up?
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, I know, all right.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Next up is Christina Mascarenas.
• 8:47
  Speaker 6: Oh, I know, we just had this conversation.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Back from Mar, so maybe you could just give the audience a little background.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: You have a great story on how you got into running, so maybe just a little something on that.
• 8:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm Christina Mascarenas.
• 9:01
  Speaker 6: I'm a Colorado native, born and raised.
• 9:03
  Speaker 6: I did competitive gymnastics growing up and then after that I did absolutely nothing.
• 9:06
  Speaker 6: I just went hard.
• 9:17
  Speaker 6: I drank, I partied, housed a bunch of pizzas and my brother was kind of sick of me smoking cigarettes, so he'd always give me such a hard time like, hey, you still fat, hey, you still smoking.
• 9:21
  Speaker 6: So he ran Pikes Peak one day and was boasting about his miles and I was like miles suck, like I could crawl a 13 minute mile and apparently I cannot.
• 9:25
  Speaker 6: So I had to quit smoking.
• 9:27
  Speaker 6: I could have.
• 9:27
  Speaker 6: We made a bet, um, so I had to quit smoking and just got hooked on running, because you have to replace one habit with another.
• 9:32
  Speaker 6: Right, that's how it works.
• 9:33
  Speaker 6: So instead of smoking, I run.
• 9:35
  Speaker 6: It's amazing, my leg hurts more, but how was uh?
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: you just got back from um sorry the Mont Blanc Marathon.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Do you want to talk a?
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: little bit about that.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: I know it was a tough one.
• 9:52
  Speaker 6: Yeah, France is beautiful.
• 9:53
  Speaker 6: The hills are super steep, it lives up to all the hype.
• 9:56
  Speaker 6: But unfortunately I went in pretty injured and I was hoping for a race day miracle when you show up and the gun goes off and all of a sudden that shearing pain in your leg is gone.
• 10:04
  Speaker 6: But um, it didn't work out that way.
• 10:06
  Speaker 6: So I ran 20 miles, took a fall and the pain got worse and I was afraid that I was going to do some like big damage.
• 10:12
  Speaker 6: So I went ahead and pulled the plug and ended up at a bakery till my husband came and got me from the side of the road.
• 10:18
  Speaker 6: So I guess there are worse places to dnf but I would have loved to finish.
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: Thank you on that.
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: What do you got planned for the rest of your 2024 season?
• 10:27
  Speaker 6: after this I'm going for Parker Valdez's elliptical record is what I'm doing right now, me in the gym.
• 10:35
  Speaker 6: I'm just pounding that elliptical, killing it.
• 10:37
  Speaker 6: So that's my plan for the foreseeable future.
• 10:40
  Speaker 6: No, hopefully I can get healthy again and find some races.
• 10:43
  Speaker 6: I'm going to start local, build everything back up and yeah, it was a big blow to hit that DNF so I got to do some little baby steps to get back on the saddle.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Super exciting.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: One thing I don't know if the audience knows I'm sure they probably do is in 2022, you made a national, you know starting world team.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
• 11:05
  Speaker 6: Oh yeah, that was super exciting.
• 11:06
  Speaker 6: So Pikes Peak was the qualifying race and I was lucky enough to have a good race that day and I was able to win.
• 11:12
  Speaker 6: So Joe was there too, and so was Jonathan.
• 11:15
  Speaker 6: We all went to Thailand.
• 11:17
  Speaker 6: Would highly recommend, if you're going for a race in food like Joe likes Mango sticky rice oh, that mango sticky rice is on point.
• 11:23
  Speaker 6: But it was pretty amazing.
• 11:25
  Speaker 6: I never thought I'd be part of a team again, especially in my mid-30s, and to have the opportunity to go run for your country is pretty amazing.
• 11:32
  Speaker 6: So when you were just like about to crawl, you're like you have that flag on your shirt.
• 11:36
  Speaker 6: You better pick those knees up, girl.
• 11:38
  Speaker 6: So it was just super inspiring.
• 11:40
  Speaker 6: And to be around so many amazing athletes and I don't know it kind of humanized the sport for me, because you're just like, oh, those are super elites, it doesn't matter.
• 11:47
  Speaker 6: And then to just be among them, you're like, oh no, you're people.
• 11:49
  Speaker 6: You eat mango sticky rice and like, tell funny jokes.
• 11:52
  Speaker 6: But so it was awesome.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you, yeah, does anybody in the audience have a question for I?
• 12:03
  Speaker 6: hate to see it.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: Oh are your parents athletes your family is all so many all superheroes, so where did it come from?
• 12:12
  Speaker 6: yeah, oh well, thank you, I do try to keep up with those guys.
• 12:14
  Speaker 6: My mom and her side were super athletic, so my mom held the I think high jump record until like last year at high school, and she did gymnastics as well, but my dad was definitely not athletic.
• 12:25
  Speaker 6: So it's like a 50-50 mixed bag my uncle's an ultra runner and then my aunt climbs, so everyone kind of has their little niche, but we're all pretty competitive human beings anymore.
• 12:42
  Speaker 10: What's Ivo Alright?
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Dino, have you ever beat Jesse in a race and if so, how did he handle it?
• 12:50
  Speaker 6: I'm still alive, right?
• 12:51
  Speaker 6: Just kidding.
• 12:51
  Speaker 6: No, he would be such a good trooper, but I haven't beat Jesse at a race and honestly I don't want to, because if I beat him, that means he had a bad day, like me on my best day.
• 13:01
  Speaker 6: I shouldn't take Jesse, even on a poor day.
• 13:03
  Speaker 6: So something egregiously wrong went egregiously wrong for that.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: You're pretty good, or if it's really long, maybe if it's 100 miles.
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: I might get him what's your favorite trail?
• 13:11
  Speaker 6: Oh, that's so tricky.
• 13:11
  Speaker 6: Favorite trail, what's your favorite trail?
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: to run in Carter Springs.
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: She's on all of them, I know.
• 13:24
  Speaker 8: If you're a bully.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Don't give away anything, good yeah.
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: It's a secret trail that I turn off my watch and don't put on Strava.
• 13:34
  Speaker 6: No, I do, I don't know.
• 13:34
  Speaker 6: I like Bar Trail because it has so many fun memories, especially running with you there and stuff.
• 13:38
  Speaker 6: But Heiser is pretty cool.
• 13:41
  Speaker 6: I would pick the Columbine in Cheyenne Canyon because you can kind of get everywhere and you got to earn it man, you grind the whole way and then you just come up to the parking lot and the world's your oyster.
• 13:50
  Speaker 6: You can go to.
• 13:51
  Speaker 6: Rosa, you can go to Jack's.
• 13:52
  Speaker 6: It's like a fun gateway and it's not super popular.
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: Any more?
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: Do you count the male athletes that you pass?
• 14:04
  Speaker 6: No, they don't even exist in my mind.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: You exist in there, oh.
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: Thank you so much.
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: Christina.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Everybody a round of applause for Christina.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: All right, Next up is Miss Tatum Russo.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: This is round two of the podcast as well.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah Well, thank you so much for coming on.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: If you wouldn't mind, maybe give everybody a little backstory into your running journey, if you wouldn't?
• 14:44
  Speaker 9: mind.
• 14:45
  Speaker 9: So I ran.
• 14:46
  Speaker 9: It started.
• 14:47
  Speaker 9: My dad was a baseball coach and he got my sister and I into baseball when we were like little toddlers and I liked running the bases and I was like we discovered that I was like faster than like his competitive, like middle school, like baseball, like boys I could not run bases faster than me.
• 15:08
  Speaker 9: So I kind of knew I liked running from that point and then in middle school stumbled upon it again because track was like the cool thing that you do.
• 15:18
  Speaker 9: If you wanted to be cool, you did track.
• 15:20
  Speaker 9: And then they didn't have anyone to run the mile.
• 15:23
  Speaker 9: So they're like you're gonna run the mile and I'm like that's crazy, I'm absolutely not gonna run a mile.
• 15:29
  Speaker 9: That's ridiculous.
• 15:31
  Speaker 9: And then I was actually pretty decent at it and then from there I just like wanted to keep running a little longer, so I did cross country and then I was, you know, decent enough to hold on to varsity like all throughout, like high school, Though it stressed me out a lot.
• 15:47
  Speaker 9: So I had to take like an eight-year-long break.
• 15:51
  Speaker 9: And then I came back to it, literally started from the bottom, from scratch.
• 15:55
  Speaker 9: Like I'm talking like lactate threshold miles were 14 minutes, so I literally started from square one and I was having a lot of fun with it and it was the first time running was actually fun to me.
• 16:11
  Speaker 9: And then, unfortunately, my mom.
• 16:16
  Speaker 9: I lost her in 2020.
• 16:19
  Speaker 9: But I was very fortunate enough to get to see her in the hospital before she passed away.
• 16:25
  Speaker 9: She could hear everything that I said and I told her that.
• 16:30
  Speaker 9: I told her, I promise you like I'll just keep running as long as I can, you know she always wanted me to like chase happiness.
• 16:37
  Speaker 9: So like running brought me a lot of happiness and it's just kind of been me like chasing after this happiness and it helped dig me out of like the deepest like sorrow I could have ever have imagined myself in.
• 16:50
  Speaker 9: And I'm like still here, being like I don't want to go out, I don't want to run, but I'm like I promised.
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: I really promised that I would, as long as.
• 16:59
  Speaker 9: I could, so yeah.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you for that story.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Do you want to talk a little bit about Broken Arrow that you just got back from?
• 17:10
  Speaker 9: Yeah, definitely Broken Arrow.
• 17:13
  Speaker 9: I saw that race and you know it was like really hyped up at first I thought I'm like this is like a race, that's just like super hyped up, but like you know what is the hype about?
• 17:23
  Speaker 9: So I was very curious about it, kept seeing like the, the ladder cables that you got to go up and I'm like that's really fun, like I just want to do that, you know, and I like the distance.
• 17:35
  Speaker 9: The distance was very like cool to me.
• 17:37
  Speaker 9: So I just, you know, signed up for it and it was like the best first experience I could have asked for.
• 17:47
  Speaker 9: I mean, like I I kind of get a little in my head about like the way that I perform, and so I was going on ultra sign up and saw that I was like predicted to get like I don't know, maybe like 42nd in my age group and like 100 overall.
• 18:06
  Speaker 9: But I kind of blew those expectations out of the water and got like, shoot I don't even know like 15th in my age group and like I don't know, like 37th overall for women.
• 18:20
  Speaker 9: So like that was pretty cool and top 200 over overall, which is really awesome.
• 18:23
  Speaker 9: I was like that was pretty cool in top 200 over overall, which was really awesome.
• 18:25
  Speaker 9: I was like that's really cool.
• 18:25
  Speaker 9: I think maybe I want to keep coming back and seeing how I can improve on it and stuff and then to just put the cherry on top stars aligned.
• 18:37
  Speaker 9: Jim Walmsley was there because Western States was happening and he's got that goal where he's going to do that in UTMB's gonna win them both and he's gonna do it.
• 18:46
  Speaker 9: I gotta watch him do the VK and and I gotta meet him and his wife Jess and like that was that was just so cool.
• 18:55
  Speaker 9: So it was just like a best first experience ever and I think I just want to keep going back.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: I love that your mom's lose a stud.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I know Bar Trail Mountain Race is a sick downhill and this is a loaded question, but I know you're a sick downhiller.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: How stoked are you for that?
• 19:16
  Speaker 9: I'm very stoked but I'm also getting to the point where I'm getting like really, really good at downhills that I'm starting to get like a little in my head about it.
• 19:24
  Speaker 9: But in a race nobody has passed me on a downhill.
• 19:29
  Speaker 9: You will not pass me on a downhill unless you were already ahead of me to begin with, and sometimes I might catch you.
• 19:37
  Speaker 9: So I'm very excited for the downhill.
• 19:40
  Speaker 9: When I ran this race a couple of years ago I had the fourth fastest descent for women and that wasn't even as good as I could do, so I'm excited to just smash it.
• 19:51
  Speaker 9: And you know, if I blow up, oh well, at least I had fun trying.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: What do you got planned for the rest of your 2024 season 2024?
• 20:03
  Speaker 9: season.
• 20:03
  Speaker 9: Yeah, I think for the rest of my 2024 season.
• 20:07
  Speaker 9: Um, I'm doing Cirque Series A Basin, excited to do that.
• 20:19
  Speaker 9: Um, for a downhill that I hear is like pretty awesome.
• 20:20
  Speaker 9: Uh, and um, I might do the Lead King Loop out in like Marble Colorado.
• 20:23
  Speaker 9: That seems like a fun one.
• 20:25
  Speaker 9: And then I always like to do the Colorado Springs 5k.
• 20:29
  Speaker 9: Um, I got to do that the first time last year and unexpectedly got second for women overall and I'm like, wow, this is kind of like fun.
• 20:40
  Speaker 9: You know, maybe I just want to keep coming out here and, like you know, seeing how I can improve my 5k time and stuff.
• 20:45
  Speaker 9: Um, so yeah, super rad.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, tatum.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Does anybody in the audience have questions for tatum?
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: What was your time?
• 20:54
  Speaker 9: on the 5k, oh um, they all say like it was like officially, like under, like just under 20 minutes, but that's because it wasn't an actual 5k, was just a hair under 5k.
• 21:08
  Speaker 9: I couldn't tell you what my official time was because my dumb ass, sorry, I started my watch 10 seconds before the race started and, like Strava, took that into account for, like the 5k time I'm like, so it very could have been under a 20 minute 5k if I wasn't a dummy.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Anybody else?
• 21:36
  Speaker 9: When did you develop your love?
• 21:37
  Speaker 6: for Barbie.
• 21:40
  Speaker 9: Barbie and I, we go way back.
• 21:42
  Speaker 9: You know, I always wanted to, like you know, play with Barbies when I was younger, Like you know, dress them up and stuff.
• 21:50
  Speaker 9: I really love clothes and fashion and pink is so satisfying to me.
• 21:55
  Speaker 9: That color, I saw it I didn't even know what it was when I was like a young child, but seeing the color pink just brought me like the most immense happiness I've ever experienced in the world.
• 22:06
  Speaker 9: So I just like latched on to it in, like anything that's like identified with pink.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Now you also wear glitter on race days, right Can?
• 22:17
  Speaker 9: you talk about that real quick.
• 22:19
  Speaker 9: I do wear glitter.
• 22:21
  Speaker 9: I love to just like sparkle and shine and you know I may not be like an elite level athlete but I put in like a lot of work and I think everybody deserves to be recognized.
• 22:32
  Speaker 9: So I started like wearing glitter and you know someone out there always says, oh, I love your glitter and like by doing that they're acknowledging like I took the time to be here and by doing that they're acknowledging like I took the time to be here, I put in the time and everybody deserves to shine.
• 22:46
  Speaker 9: I've done a lot of extensive research and glitter is a microplastic so I have found sustainable, biodegradable glitter.
• 22:58
  Speaker 9: So when it falls off your face and it hits the earth, it will break down like a leaf and cause no harm to the planet.
• 23:08
  Speaker 9: And it's from the Good Glitter.
• 23:10
  Speaker 9: They're a certified bio glitter retailer.
• 23:13
  Speaker 9: Yeah, if you want to check them out, you can use my code glitter all caps Glitter all caps for like a 10% discount.
• 23:28
  Speaker 9: Shout out to glitter.
• 23:34
  Speaker 6: Anybody else?
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: have a question.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Mr Ace, I've got the camera, so I'll just turn it around.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: Oh perfect okay.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: So Cut.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: The Cheese Run Club will actually be doing a demo in conjunction with Tatum for the Good Glitter.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: That'll be on the 28th of July, right here at the Colorado Running Company.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: What kinds of glitter will you have there?
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: There's multiple kinds, if I remember correctly.
• 23:57
  Speaker 9: Yeah, so I went back to my supplier, the Good Glitter.
• 24:00
  Speaker 9: I went back to my supplier, the Good Glitter she's great and been very supportive of my mission to bring like sustainable, biodegradable, free-state glitter to like you know all you girlies and you know guys too.
• 24:12
  Speaker 9: Like everybody, like I don't care, you know, aliens, like we've been all glitter and I said, hey, I want to like get this out there some more.
• 24:25
  Speaker 9: Do you think you can send me some samples for this event?
• 24:26
  Speaker 9: I want people to see the glitter and try it out.
• 24:30
  Speaker 9: And she's like I will send you a sampling of all of our glitter blends and I'm not even kidding you.
• 24:36
  Speaker 9: It's like 20 blends Like pinks, purples, blues, greens, like you know, combinations Like you know like really great, really great stuff.
• 24:46
  Speaker 9: It's a treat like everybody come out try some glitter.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Thank, you so much out to cut the cheese run club, anybody else keep it rolling.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: So when your corgi puts on the glitter, do they normally normally go like an ultimate warrior style or more like a joker style?
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Like what type of makeup do they like when they're glitter?
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: Like corgis, like my dog?
• 25:16
  Speaker 9: Oh man, she's just a feisty little gal herself.
• 25:19
  Speaker 9: The glitter would not harm her.
• 25:21
  Speaker 9: She does not wear the glitter, but I do put some like bows on her.
• 25:26
  Speaker 9: I get her like these cute little like bow ties and stuff I'll make her wear.
• 25:30
  Speaker 9: She puts up with it.
• 25:32
  Speaker 9: I've tried putting outfits on her.
• 25:34
  Speaker 9: She doesn't like that that much though.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Shout out to corgis anybody else Awesome well, Tate, thank you so much.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Good luck at your race.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Anybody else Awesome?
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Well, Tatum, thank you so much.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Good luck at your race.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Next up is Mr Michael Everson.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: That's all?
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Michael.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: If you wouldn't mind just give a little background on your running journey?
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, you don't want to know this.
• 26:08
  Speaker 10: So my running journey starts with basketball.
• 26:11
  Speaker 10: I used to play basketball.
• 26:13
  Speaker 10: I used to play it a lot and in 1996, I was playing family reunion ball and if you've played that you know what it's like.
• 26:20
  Speaker 10: You have to have broken bones in order to call a foul.
• 26:24
  Speaker 10: Anyway, in 1996, I was playing basketball with a in a family reunion literally, and uh, I blew out my knee, tore my meniscus, uh, did a couple other things to it, but anyway wound up, you know, under the knife and getting surgery on my knee.
• 26:42
  Speaker 10: And for the next year or so I just didn't do anything.
• 26:45
  Speaker 10: I didn't run.
• 26:46
  Speaker 10: I never ran unless I was playing basketball.
• 26:49
  Speaker 10: So I'm an insurance agent by trade, so what I do for a living is I sit on my ass in front of a computer, I sit on my ass in front of clients.
• 26:59
  Speaker 10: So what happened is I went from about 170 pounds to about 220 pounds in about a year and a half and I was like, wow, I'm kind of fat and I didn't like playing basketball anymore because I couldn't run as fast, I couldn't jump as high, because I tore my knee.
• 27:16
  Speaker 10: So my brother, who's a physical therapist, said you need to get a stair climber, you need to build muscles up around your knee.
• 27:22
  Speaker 10: So a friend of mine said I know a good stair climber and the next Saturday we were on the incline and this is 1997.
• 27:35
  Speaker 10: So we're I mean this is when nobody was on the incline.
• 27:37
  Speaker 10: I'm on the incline with a pair of Hakeem Olajuwon.
• 27:38
  Speaker 10: You know high tops and you know I look like I had to be the biggest dorky looking idiot on the incline but thank god not many people did the incline back then.
• 27:47
  Speaker 10: So up the incline over to non-increte, back down, I mean I got it.
• 27:51
  Speaker 10: I it had to take three and a half or four hours.
• 27:53
  Speaker 10: I mean I was fat and I was slow and it was horrible, but I was hooked, I was like so.
• 27:58
  Speaker 10: So I started doing the incline every week um 1998, 1999.
• 28:03
  Speaker 10: So we did two years of the incline and we started running around the Garden of Gods and I lost 50 pounds.
• 28:08
  Speaker 10: So I always tell people I lost 50 pounds on the incline and if you find it, you can keep it so anyway that got me into trail running, particularly in about middle of June of 2000.
• 28:25
  Speaker 10: The guy that caught me on the incline and got me running, he said we should run the Pikes Peak Ascent and I was like, alright.
• 28:32
  Speaker 10: So we went down to the Pikes Peak headquarters, which is down by Colorado College and it's pretty easy to get in the ascent back then you just went down and they had a little thing that you put a little paragraph in and said why do you think you can run the ascent?
• 28:46
  Speaker 10: I was like, well, I can do the 8-quad in 58 minutes and I've run to bar camp six times.
• 28:50
  Speaker 10: And they're like, okay, well, give us your 60 bucks and you know you're good to go.
• 28:53
  Speaker 10: So I thought it was a bucket list thing and I did it in 2000.
• 29:00
  Speaker 10: It was the first race I ever ran.
• 29:01
  Speaker 10: I didn't run any 5Ks or 10 miles, I didn't do any, I just signed up for the ascent.
• 29:05
  Speaker 10: So that was the first organized race I ever ran in and I did just under four and a half hours and when I got to the top I decided that there's I've learned that there's two kinds of people who do the ascent the people who do it like a bucket list thing.
• 29:21
  Speaker 10: I'm just going to do this and say I did it.
• 29:22
  Speaker 10: And then there's people who do it like I did and said oh man, if I had run that section after Don't Aim Creek, I probably could have taken off five or seven minutes.
• 29:33
  Speaker 10: I'm going to do this again and so on the way down in the car I said I'm going to do this damn thing 20 years in a row and in 2019,.
• 29:45
  Speaker 10: I finished my 20th in a row in 2019.
• 29:48
  Speaker 10: I finished my 20th in a row, so I pulled it off.
• 29:49
  Speaker 10: I did.
• 29:49
  Speaker 10: It was either the standard marathon, so I did one or the other, or both.
• 29:53
  Speaker 10: Um every year, and there were some years where I probably shouldn't have done it.
• 29:57
  Speaker 10: But I was just on this street where I was like I'm just going to do 20 in a row and fortunately, um 2019 was my last one.
• 30:05
  Speaker 10: 2018.
• 30:06
  Speaker 10: I decided to do the marathon, thank god, because the ascent was cut short because of the weather and I was like man.
• 30:14
  Speaker 11: That would have pissed me off if I was like god damn it, you know.
• 30:16
  Speaker 10: So I was glad I did the marathon that year, I did the 2008.
• 30:19
  Speaker 10: You know the freaking, horrible storm at the top of the mountain 30 mile an hour, winds and snow blowing all over the place throws my ass off and to have a good time.
• 30:28
  Speaker 10: But there was some really all kinds of stuff happened in there.
• 30:31
  Speaker 10: You know, kids were born, people died.
• 30:33
  Speaker 10: You know I got injured but somehow every year I, I towed the line and I just I really, you know, eventually it got to be word like I don't want to do this anymore.
• 30:43
  Speaker 10: But but I was like I just gotta finish this 20 years Now I'll just do it when I want to.
• 30:47
  Speaker 10: But that's kind of what got me into running.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Wow, it's amazing longevity.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: How many times have you run Varchar Mountain Race?
• 30:59
  Speaker 10: I don't know that story's kind of cool too, because-.
• 31:04
  Speaker 10: Let's hear that one um 2003, four or 2003, I joined the incline club, which is something that I right now organize all the runs for um.
• 31:16
  Speaker 10: Back then, matt carpenter was in charge of the thing and I didn't know anything about it, and so I had run up to the top of Pikes Peak on a training run and I landed, you know, at the top of Pikes Peak and I was like I just need to get a ride down.
• 31:33
  Speaker 10: And I see all these guys up there that look like runners, a bunch of old men, and I said, hey man, can I get a ride down?
• 31:40
  Speaker 10: They said, yeah, we're just waiting for one other guy, and when he gets here then we'll go down.
• 31:44
  Speaker 10: And so he ended up in the back of a Cadillac Escalade with Matt Carpenter.
• 31:47
  Speaker 10: And I'm like holy crap, you know, I mean I'm kind of starstruck.
• 31:51
  Speaker 10: I like this guy's like the most amazing, you know.
• 31:54
  Speaker 10: I mean he's like Joe Gray's.
• 31:56
  Speaker 10: Now, you know, I was like holy cow, I can't believe I'm in the same car as this guy.
• 31:59
  Speaker 10: And not only that, I'm like literally, that I'm like literally sitting right next to it.
• 32:07
  Speaker 10: And so, uh, um, he started telling me about the barge mountain race and I said, uh, uh, what do I gotta do to sponsor it?
• 32:12
  Speaker 10: I could sponsor that thing, you know.
• 32:14
  Speaker 10: And so I said, oh man, we love sponsors, you know, can you give us 500 bucks?
• 32:18
  Speaker 10: I'll give you four spots and I'll give you whatever the hell you want.
• 32:20
  Speaker 10: I was like, all right, I'll give you 500 bucks.
• 32:22
  Speaker 10: So, so, uh I started sponsoring the race in 2004.
• 32:26
  Speaker 10: I don't know how many times I've run it, it's probably 12, 15, something like that.
• 32:31
  Speaker 10: I haven't.
• 32:31
  Speaker 10: I haven't got a streak like uh, like I do with pipes, peak, but um, but I've sponsored it every year that since 2004, um some way or another, and I've.
• 32:43
  Speaker 10: I sometimes, when you sponsor it, you're just so damn busy you don't have time to run it.
• 32:47
  Speaker 10: So, anyway, that's what I did.
• 32:50
  Speaker 10: I sponsored it and I still sponsor it today.
• 32:53
  Speaker 10: So there you go.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: That's incredible.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: What else do you have planned for your?
• 32:59
  Speaker 10: 2024 season.
• 33:03
  Speaker 10: I'm going to go, I'm going to eat a lot of pizza.
• 33:07
  Speaker 10: The runs I got planned, I'm gonna do so.
• 33:14
  Speaker 10: I'm gonna run Sunday um, I'm going to do.
• 33:15
  Speaker 10: I plan on doing Imogene, pass and Pikes Peak.
• 33:18
  Speaker 10: I did those two last year and I did them both for me really well.
• 33:22
  Speaker 10: I was joking earlier with a lot of my friends here that you know I'm up here with all these elite athletes that freaking win races and I'm like what the hell am I doing up here?
• 33:31
  Speaker 10: Like I, I like to run, I like to run and I run pretty good.
• 33:34
  Speaker 10: I'm an age group guy, you know.
• 33:36
  Speaker 10: I can I have a chance to win my age group in any given race.
• 33:38
  Speaker 10: But, um, I'm not.
• 33:40
  Speaker 10: I've never been elite and uh, you know.
• 33:43
  Speaker 10: But I I sure like hanging around with people like this.
• 33:45
  Speaker 10: They're good people.
• 33:46
  Speaker 10: But those are the three big races and I may not do Imogene because I really want to do good in the Pikes Week Ascent this year.
• 33:54
  Speaker 10: I really want to put a good number up there.
• 33:58
  Speaker 10: I just turned 60 last week, so I'm going to win my age group.
• 34:03
  Speaker 10: That's the plan.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: Let's go All right, there's going to be a lot of alcohol, so I'm gonna congrats.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna win my age group that's the plan.
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: Any questions from the audience?
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: Mr ace?
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: What's the pizza of choice?
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: Oh man, better be Chicago, micah.
• 34:24
  Speaker 10: We're not friends anymore, according to Joe it's Chicago, so restaurants in no particular order Roma, villa, leon.
• 34:38
  Speaker 10: Jesse's is good, fargo's used to be good before the pandemic, and then the pandemic happened and their pizza sucks now.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: These are all in the springs, yeah.
• 34:50
  Speaker 10: Oh my god, what about like white pie?
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Or like uh, what about like white pie?
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Or slice 420?
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Slice 420, I've been to, they're good.
• 34:59
  Speaker 10: Um, I like Louie's.
• 35:00
  Speaker 10: Um, you know but but I like the deep dish crust.
• 35:05
  Speaker 10: That's pretty good stuff.
• 35:06
  Speaker 10: Is that Chicago style Close?
• 35:10
  Speaker 10: There's a really good pizza place in Telluride that does Detroit style pizza.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: I know what you're talking about.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's delicious.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: It was good.
• 35:23
  Speaker 10: You know Detroit, chicago they're.
• 35:23
  Speaker 10: I know what you're talking about.
• 35:24
  Speaker 10: Oh my god, that stuff was just amazing.
• 35:25
  Speaker 10: It was good.
• 35:27
  Speaker 10: You know Detroit and Chicago they're.
• 35:29
  Speaker 10: They tough it out for two things now from my perspective which one's the murder capital of the country, and then which one has the best pizza.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Any more questions from the audience?
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, ace, I'm just.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: Ace, I got another one.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: I'm ready to go.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: What's going to be footwear of choice?
• 35:54
  Speaker 10: Oh, that's a good question.
• 35:55
  Speaker 10: Oh, man, so I bounce around.
• 35:59
  Speaker 10: I'm not sponsored by anybody, but I get a lot of free shoes from people Like.
• 36:02
  Speaker 10: Joe gives me free shoes a lot of times, which is pretty cool, because I think we're the same size we are, which is awesome, so it's good to be tall.
• 36:09
  Speaker 10: I do.
• 36:11
  Speaker 10: I like wearing.
• 36:13
  Speaker 10: I like wearing Hokas, I like wearing Sauconys.
• 36:16
  Speaker 10: This weekend I'm probably going to wear a.
• 36:19
  Speaker 10: Saucony Peregrine.
• 36:20
  Speaker 10: I've been running in it for the last six months and I really like it, so I'll probably wear that.
• 36:25
  Speaker 10: But you know, training, training just depends, depends on the.
• 36:30
  Speaker 10: You know the trail I'm going to run.
• 36:31
  Speaker 10: If I'm going to run hard downhill, I'm going to wear some hokas, I'm going to fall in the hell out of the downhill.
• 36:35
  Speaker 10: But if, uh, and it depends on the weather too, I like hokas because you can screw the long screws in there and they don't fall out, dean, so we'll skip the pizza questions.
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: I'm from the east coast so I totally disagree with them.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: But you know, I feel great behind you.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: Now I just heard Joe's a Lakers fan.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: You're a basketball player.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: If you guys had a dumb contest, who would win and why?
• 37:12
  Speaker 10: I mean, if we had a dumb contest today he'd win, because I can't jump in the crowd now, but I don't know.
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: I'll get you right now, man, I don't know.
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: Back in the day you might have been solid.
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: I believe you, though.
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: Back in the day you might have been solid.
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: I don't know, I believe you though I believe you.
• 37:27
  Speaker 10: So I'll give you a little story about Jamal down at the cage.
• 37:30
  Speaker 10: Does anybody know where the cage is?
• 37:31
  Speaker 10: So the cage back when I was a kid was the basketball court next to Memorial Hospital and it's just fenced in cage.
• 37:41
  Speaker 10: And I'm a white guy and most people don't think that white guys can jump, but I can jump.
• 37:46
  Speaker 10: I can jump really high.
• 37:47
  Speaker 10: So I never dunked while we were warming up.
• 37:52
  Speaker 10: When I played against people.
• 37:53
  Speaker 10: I'd never played against, I'd just do layups and shots and stuff.
• 37:57
  Speaker 10: And so we shot our free throws to pick teams and everything.
• 37:58
  Speaker 10: And I ended up on a team with a friend of mine who knew what I could do and just one time he he got a rebound and I took off running and I knew what I was gonna do.
• 38:09
  Speaker 10: I was gonna fly in there and dunk the hell out of it and I did and this guy named Jamal was right behind me and he thought he was gonna block this shot.
• 38:17
  Speaker 10: He had no idea how high I could jump and I just dunked it and I started running back to play defense.
• 38:25
  Speaker 10: This whole game stopped.
• 38:26
  Speaker 10: This park is filled with just lots of really good basketball players.
• 38:33
  Speaker 10: The other team was all black.
• 38:36
  Speaker 10: And then there were two white guys on my team me and one other guy and then everybody else was black.
• 38:41
  Speaker 10: It was just known that nobody, nobody's gonna dunk with black guys.
• 38:46
  Speaker 10: And and so it's this game stops and these guys look over and they go white dude dunked on jamal.
• 38:55
  Speaker 10: Nobody dunks on jamal.
• 38:58
  Speaker 10: Now I gotta tell you I never got another dunk in the game.
• 39:01
  Speaker 10: I never got another shot in the game.
• 39:03
  Speaker 10: Jamal was pissed.
• 39:04
  Speaker 10: Another shot in the game.
• 39:05
  Speaker 10: Jamal was pissed.
• 39:07
  Speaker 10: He didn't let me do anything.
• 39:14
  Speaker 10: He knocked the hell out of me.
• 39:15
  Speaker 10: But but it was.
• 39:15
  Speaker 10: It was a special kind of dunk, but I think if we were in a dunk contest I think he would probably win.
• 39:23
  Speaker 10: I could go backwards.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: With two hands, I could not do a 360.
• 39:30
  Speaker 10: Could you do the?
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: 360?
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: .
• 39:32
  Speaker 10: It'd be an ugly one Like a 295 or something.
• 39:42
  Speaker 10: I couldn't get the 360.
• 39:44
  Speaker 10: I tried like hell and I usually ended up on my ass.
• 39:46
  Speaker 10: It might be a pretty good competition.
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: But yeah, he's old, 20 years older than you do.
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: It's a senior, like seniors 50.
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, senior in a master?
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it would be fun.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: That that's for sure.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: It would be entertaining.
• 40:13
  Speaker 12: Anyone else, if you?
• 40:15
  Speaker 8: know, mike, you know he doesn't hydrate.
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: Mike are you?
• 40:20
  Speaker 6: going to hydrate.
• 40:21
  Speaker 6: He might not have to this year.
• 40:27
  Speaker 10: He's got to get that free IV.
• 40:30
  Speaker 10: Yeah, hey, when you pay, you know 250 bucks to run a race, you earned an IV.
• 40:34
  Speaker 10: But I, you know, I I don't hydrate as well as I should and it's it's cost me, it's probably cost me time, but um, but I kind of have.
• 40:44
  Speaker 10: I've tried to dial it in pretty good and I feel like I get enough.
• 40:48
  Speaker 10: I'm going to get you in a UD rank vest this year.
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: Say that again I'm going to get you in a UD rank vest this year.
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: There you go.
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what you're going to do.
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: I'll take it.
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: I got you, I'll drive you down.
• 40:59
  Speaker 10: Pikes Peak five times you get me in a rank vest.
• 41:01
  Speaker 10: I got.
• 41:02
  Speaker 10: Five times you get me on record back at you.
• 41:04
  Speaker 10: That's how that works.
• 41:05
  Speaker 10: We don't have dump contests, but we definitely talk about who the best basketball players were last year when we were driving down Pikes Peak.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: So I won't be in my Lakers this year.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, anybody else, all right.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you, michael.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Appreciate it.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Before we move on, I do have one more question for Joe that I did gloss over.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: It's a serious question.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: So you set the course record in 2017 in 128.34.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Carpenter's record is 129.33.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Is that something you've been thinking about, maybe?
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: My time is faster.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: No, I'm talking about for the Masters record.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, what's the Masters record?
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: 120, 933.
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking about it now.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Fair enough, fair enough, alright, alright, that was easy.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Alright.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Who do we have next?
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Let's bring up Sarah Gould.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Alright, who do we have next?
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Let's bring up Sarah Gould.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Sarah, how's it going Good.
• 42:12
  Speaker 8: Thanks for coming on the pod.
• 42:13
  Speaker 8: Thank you, if you wouldn't mind, tell us a little bit about yourself and your running journey.
• 42:16
  Speaker 8: Okay, yeah, my name's Sarah, I'm from Colorado Springs and my running journey began as a little toddler.
• 42:25
  Speaker 8: My dad, who's sitting in the back row, used to push my twin sister and I in a double jogger through the Garden of the Gods and he tells us that we asked him a bunch of times to push us down some of his deep step sections and broke a ton of axles on the jogger.
• 42:41
  Speaker 8: Anyway, so that was kind of my start exposure to running.
• 42:45
  Speaker 8: And then I remember in elementary school running like the kids races in the fall series here, and then, yeah, I just like stuck around and, yeah, I just run my whole my whole life here.
• 42:58
  Speaker 8: Basically I went to Cheyenne Mountain High School and ran there and then went to Baylor, walked on there and then now kind of transitioning to trail.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Super rad.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: What would you say?
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Your strength is Are you a?
• 43:13
  Speaker 8: better climber or descender?
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: Compared to her, so she's a downhiller.
• 43:15
  Speaker 8: I'm more uphill.
• 43:16
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I thought I was fast at downhill until I met like these people, so I love uphill.
• 43:22
  Speaker 8: That's kind of more of what I enjoy.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: for sure Very cool.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Now I know you just got back from Broken Arrow where you took what fifth in the 46K.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Congratulations, thank you.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Do you want to maybe talk a little bit about that race and how that went for you?
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure.
• 43:38
  Speaker 8: Yeah, Broken Arrow is such a fun event.
• 43:39
  Speaker 8: I really echo a lot of what Tatum said about just all the energy they have there and it's just yeah, it's just a really fun place to be.
• 43:44
  Speaker 8: So, yeah, I got to run the 46K.
• 43:46
  Speaker 8: That was the longest race I've ever run and had a blast Went out a little bit fast.
• 43:52
  Speaker 8: I was on the first lap.
• 43:54
  Speaker 8: It's like a two-lap course, so on the first lap I was like in front of every woman, which was not good, and definitely got passed by a few people coming downhill.
• 44:02
  Speaker 8: I definitely got passed by a few people coming downhill, but really enjoyed the whole race and, yeah, just had a great time out there.
• 44:07
  Speaker 8: It got pretty hot, but the course is really really, really fun to travel along and yeah, it has a lot of like mixed terrain and just had a great time.
• 44:16
  Speaker 11: Yeah, those downhills are smoking.
• 44:18
  Speaker 11: Yeah, it's really ski ridden wild yeah.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: So you've gotten second at the Pikes Peak Marathon.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Was it last year, Mm-?
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: So you've gotten second at the Pikes Peak Marathon.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Was it last year?
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Second at the Bartrow Mountain Race last year, Do you?
• 44:30
  Speaker 8: think this could be the year for the dub.
• 44:32
  Speaker 8: We'll see.
• 44:33
  Speaker 8: I'm always trying, yeah, I always try to win, but Tina's pretty fast.
• 44:38
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I hope so.
• 44:40
  Speaker 8: We'll see.
• 44:41
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I won the Garden, so we'll see if we can go back to that okay, this series.
• 44:46
  Speaker 8: Yeah, what else do you have planned for your 2024 season?
• 44:50
  Speaker 8: Um, I want to run the peak either.
• 44:55
  Speaker 8: I haven't decided yet upper both up and down, but um, yeah, race there.
• 44:59
  Speaker 8: And then I have a road marathon with my dad and my brother in Richmond in November, and then I might do some form of like a 50k or like a 50 mile.
• 45:08
  Speaker 8: I'm somewhere in there too, or maybe into the spring we'll see super rad.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Does anybody have any questions in the audience for Sarah?
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: so first of all, I didn't know you were twin.
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: I have an identical twin sister.
• 45:25
  Speaker 6: How competitive were you guys with each other?
• 45:29
  Speaker 8: And did you do the same sports?
• 45:30
  Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, she and I we did basketball both of us, and she's way better basketball girl than me.
• 45:36
  Speaker 8: And then running.
• 45:38
  Speaker 8: She did a little bit of running, but not really as much as me.
• 45:42
  Speaker 8: I remember we did like the spring spree race or something and like the 5k version and we kind of ran together and I more like steady jogged and she like walk jogged, like this is like middle school maybe, and at the end I remember she's like started sprinting and I like could not let her beat me so I feel like I'm maybe more competitive than her.
• 46:00
  Speaker 8: But yeah, she's way better at basketball, so it's good to have like our own areas, I think.
• 46:05
  Speaker 8: Are you still close?
• 46:06
  Speaker 8: Yeah, we're really close.
• 46:08
  Speaker 8: Yeah, she just moved back.
• 46:08
  Speaker 8: She was in the military and like lived in Germany for a while, so she just moved back to Denver doing grad school there.
• 46:13
  Speaker 6: So yeah, have you done all the four teenagers and, if so, which is your favorite to do or is it a bucket list item?
• 46:30
  Speaker 8: Yes, thank you for asking that.
• 46:32
  Speaker 8: I finished all of them last year, yeah, so that's been a long goal.
• 46:36
  Speaker 8: I did a ton with dad and then a ton with one of our friends.
• 46:40
  Speaker 8: Actually, let's see my favorite one.
• 46:43
  Speaker 8: I really enjoyed Capital.
• 46:45
  Speaker 8: That was the first one I did with my fiance, so that was special to me.
• 46:49
  Speaker 8: But yeah, they're all so beautiful.
• 46:51
  Speaker 8: I like Yale, you can park.
• 46:53
  Speaker 8: I have a car that can't drive that way anywhere, so I have to find friends who can drive me to the trailhead or my dad.
• 47:00
  Speaker 8: But Yale is really nice because you can just go straight down the road pretty much.
• 47:02
  Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:04
  Speaker 8: And Pikes Peak is like awesome just because it's here.
• 47:06
  Speaker 8: Yeah, thank you guys.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Anybody else?
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: So with the 14ers.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: You've done them all.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: Which one was the hardest climb, other than Capitoline?
• 47:25
  Speaker 8: And did you do the four great traverses?
• 47:26
  Speaker 8: No, I would like to do the traverses.
• 47:31
  Speaker 8: I did get guided on Rune Bells Not sure if you guys count that then but that was probably like the scariest one on the bells, and that's the only traverse that I've done.
• 47:40
  Speaker 8: But yeah, I would like to do the other ones, for sure.
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: Oh, and you said what's the hardest climb.
• 47:48
  Speaker 8: Oh, I did say the Maroon Bells, I guess I think other than that one, I think some of the like I think Wilson.
• 47:54
  Speaker 8: I get a little confused with Mount Wilson or Wilson Peak, but one of those was like pretty sketchy because there were some people climbing above us and like kicking rocks down.
• 48:00
  Speaker 8: So I just kind of think about that one.
• 48:04
  Speaker 10: My turn about that one, but my turn, oh okay.
• 48:07
  Speaker 10: So you and your sister played basketball.
• 48:09
  Speaker 10: If you guys have a dunk contest, which one of you would win.
• 48:17
  Speaker 8: Oh my gosh.
• 48:18
  Speaker 8: Um, in high school we had to do like box jump stuff and that was like we still talk about that as like the most embarrassing like weights class thing, because we could not jump like at all.
• 48:27
  Speaker 8: So, oh, probably, maybe I'm a little bit taller, so maybe me yeah.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: Anybody else.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, sarah.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the pod dude.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Thank you, if you wouldn't mind, just give a little background on your running journey?
• 49:06
  Speaker 11: Yeah, absolutely.
• 49:06
  Speaker 11: I think I have a pretty cookie-cutter story for how I got started.
• 49:11
  Speaker 11: Just suburban kid put in sports year-round since kindergarten, driving around to baseball, basketball, soccer For me and my three siblings all doing things gymnastics, dance, swimming and then come middle school interest in playing baseball was fading a little bit, so signed up for spring track.
• 49:33
  Speaker 11: That started going well, basketball interest was fading a little bit and ninth grade went year round to running.
• 49:39
  Speaker 11: But, um, I think I benefited from being in a small school that let me hang on to playing for the soccer team too and and running year-round.
• 49:46
  Speaker 11: Another big win for me for that small school experience was placing higher in the small division, getting greater recognition when at the large public school I might have still been third man on the team, maybe at a lot of places.
• 50:02
  Speaker 11: So that just kept me in it and going until time to go to college.
• 50:07
  Speaker 11: And then I went to the big school.
• 50:08
  Speaker 11: I walked on at Syracuse and met a whole bunch of my best friends who were then dusting me.
• 50:13
  Speaker 11: I was struggling to hang on workouts and I learned a lot and grew a lot there, but was never I wasn't.
• 50:21
  Speaker 11: I was hardly on the travel team, just stayed close to.
• 50:24
  Speaker 11: I was hardly on the travel team, just stayed close to campus really.
• 50:28
  Speaker 11: So when it came time to decide what to do post-collegiately, it was going to be a recreational thing for me.
• 50:37
  Speaker 11: I came out from New York to move to Boulder, colorado, to go to CU Boulder for graduate school.
• 50:45
  Speaker 11: So first year starting I was like, okay, running is going gonna be a little more casual, I'm gonna focus on school.
• 50:51
  Speaker 11: And then second year, there I started living with the guy I met at the Boulder Track Club.
• 50:56
  Speaker 11: So my roommate was Curtis Begley Jr and he was trying to make the Olympic marathon trials.
• 51:01
  Speaker 11: It's like, well, shoot, he's, I'm just doing casual jogs.
• 51:04
  Speaker 11: He's out in 100 mile weeks and I'll just start hitting that mileage too.
• 51:08
  Speaker 11: And so that kind of sucked me back into into training hard and um found found success eventually at the marathon by the.
• 51:15
  Speaker 11: By the end of graduate school I had qualified for the Olympic trials.
• 51:18
  Speaker 11: Um and see, before that race I finished school, moved down here, um, still staying on the roads doing the marathon thing.
• 51:28
  Speaker 11: And that 2020 week of the Olympic marathon trials I met my wife, tara, who had also qualified, and that's how I got into mountain and trail things, because she was all about that and I just wanted to follow her wherever she went.
• 51:48
  Speaker 11: And then the rest is kind of history I guess Started getting sucked into doing Ice Peak Marathon and this race last year and World Teams, and now I wouldn't say I've fully picked.
• 52:01
  Speaker 11: I'm going to be a mountain and trail runner.
• 52:03
  Speaker 11: I like to take it one season at a time.
• 52:05
  Speaker 11: Maybe do a road race, focus on the marathon, do an ultra distance, or shook it up this past year and said I'm going to do vertical mountain champs, just do shorter climbs, see what I can do.
• 52:17
  Speaker 11: And that's kind of my end-to-end running story to date.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: And on the tail of that vertical mountain, running chance at Loon.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that you?
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: Had an amazing result chasing Joe up the mountain.
• 52:35
  Speaker 11: Yeah, thanks.
• 52:35
  Speaker 11: Joe spoke a little about it already.
• 52:38
  Speaker 11: We talked strategy and some of our competitors a little bit beforehand and decided to not go out too aggressively, keep in touch but be patient and let folks keep coming back to us and frankly, that's been my strategy in road marathons and some of the longer things.
• 52:57
  Speaker 11: I think I've succeeded in just hanging on and letting people come back to me and in that race it started working out early.
• 53:06
  Speaker 11: We were into second and third halfway into the race and kept being patient, kept being patient and, as Joe said, tyler wasn't coming back and I didn't get all the way up to catch him.
• 53:22
  Speaker 11: I think I learned to maybe have to pick up a tactic or two on being more aggressive in that kind of circumstance.
• 53:28
  Speaker 11: Um, but no, I'm super happy with the result.
• 53:31
  Speaker 11: Um, incredible, really, yeah, really, uh glad with how I was able to put in some specific climbing work and see it pay off super rad now.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: You've had a lot of success in your own career.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: You've hit the Olympic trial standard and you've also made a world's team in Chiang Mai, correct?
• 53:54
  Speaker 11: Yeah, Chiang Mai and Innsbruck.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, you made Innsbruck too.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Congratulations, thanks.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: What was the most rewarding for you?
• 54:04
  Speaker 11: Let's see.
• 54:05
  Speaker 11: I think probably that first one, and maybe it's a little cheesy because it's here talking about the Pikes Peak Marathon course, but I thought I was beat out of that qualifying spot halfway through the race or before halfway through the race.
• 54:24
  Speaker 11: I think we were still two miles from the top when I got past and pushed into second and I didn't get back into that qualifying spot until the final mile.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 54:34
  Speaker 11: So it was like yeah, just it all happened so fast at the end.
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: Kind of just surprising.
• 54:44
  Speaker 6: That was, yeah, I think and it was just the first time.
• 54:46
  Speaker 6: The second time, I mean, it was cool but, not as special.
• 54:55
  Speaker 11: What was it like being on?
• 54:56
  Speaker 11: You were on the 40K team for InSprung.
• 54:57
  Speaker 11: Yes, what was that all about?
• 54:59
  Speaker 11: Because that was a really fun course, right?
• 55:00
  Speaker 11: Yeah, let's see, let me try to jog my memory a little bit.
• 55:05
  Speaker 11: Yeah, let's see, let me try to jog my memory a little bit.
• 55:08
  Speaker 11: Well, okay, maybe one of the most unique things about it is they set up this fake trail in the city, maybe 8 to 10 feet wide, just staged, so that they'd have a trail experience through the city for spectators to see.
• 55:20
  Speaker 11: And that was cool to gather all the spectators together.
• 55:22
  Speaker 11: But there was a whole bunch of angst about it in the few days leading up to the race and so we ultimately got them to change the course.
• 55:33
  Speaker 11: So we started at the scheduled start line in the city, did this fake start to run a quarter mile through this staged fake trail inner city trail and then restarted the race just on the edge of the city heading up to the trails.
• 55:48
  Speaker 11: So that was a really unique, different aspect.
• 55:51
  Speaker 11: I'm not sure that's anywhere else.
• 55:54
  Speaker 11: But to their credit, it sets up something a little more spectator-friendly near the start, even though it's not really the actual race.
• 56:03
  Speaker 11: And then and it's, it's mountain running we're all familiar with here.
• 56:10
  Speaker 11: I think what was a, what was unique about the experience for me is um, you know, the base is starting at such a lower elevation and you're getting into that high alpine scenery at something like five thousand, six thousand feet.
• 56:23
  Speaker 11: You're above tree length, like, oh, I need to be at 12,000 feet to experience this and oh, I can breathe so great now.
• 56:28
  Speaker 11: Yeah, so that was a really unique aspect about running in Austria too.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: Super cool.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: What do you have planned for the rest of your 2024 season?
• 56:42
  Speaker 11: So I just entered Pikeikes Peak Marathon mode.
• 56:46
  Speaker 11: I didn't register until this past Monday.
• 56:48
  Speaker 11: I decided all right, I'm going to do it.
• 56:50
  Speaker 11: So right now I've signed up for Bar Trail Mountain Race on Sunday and then Pikes Peak Marathon September 22nd, Vermont.
• 57:01
  Speaker 11: Yeah, Joe's pulling me to go to Vermont.
• 57:02
  Speaker 11: I don't know if I have much more travel in me the next couple months, but yeah, I'm going to start getting to the summit for some workouts, organizing rides up there and just start acclimating, and I'm a little OCD about just running bar trails as much as I can to prepare, so you'll see me out there quite a bit Super cool.
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: Any questions from the audience.
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: Well, I have a write-down.
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: Ace John I believe it was 2022 or 2023 took a pretty epic wipeout in the Pikes Peak Marathon, which you ended up winning.
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: Do you want to take us through that experience?
• 57:48
  Speaker 11: It's an interesting story Sure, so 2022 and 2023,.
• 57:54
  Speaker 11: I took a wipeout.
• 57:56
  Speaker 11: The 2022 one may be a little more epic, but in both cases it happened shortly below treeline on the descent.
• 58:04
  Speaker 11: Cases happen shortly below treeline on the descent.
• 58:14
  Speaker 11: I think that's one of the most challenging parts of the course A, because it's so technical, and B, that's where we talk about the different kinds of folks in the race.
• 58:20
  Speaker 11: So people gunning for it are coming down and hitting the bucket list people.
• 58:24
  Speaker 11: So you're getting the big crowd of uphillers while you're descending one of the most technical places.
• 58:28
  Speaker 11: And yeah, I didn't manage it perfectly both times.
• 58:32
  Speaker 11: So year one on the course 2022, I smacked my face on a rock, probably, and so I sprang back up right away and I brought my hand to my face and something was bleeding.
• 58:49
  Speaker 11: I was most concerned that I broke my nose and go up that head on my knees Done, but luckily I just had split my chin open.
• 58:56
  Speaker 11: I have a scar on the bottom of my chin, but strangely I had that already existed from a previous incident.
• 59:11
  Speaker 11: So I hit the exact same spot and, I don't know, maybe it was enough adrenaline for me to sustain to the middle part of the descent and ultimately the same area of the course.
• 59:34
  Speaker 11: I'm going down and, yeah, I fall again.
• 59:35
  Speaker 11: I don't feel like I'm bleeding or anything, I smacked like I felt like I knocked my hip or groin out of place.
• 59:43
  Speaker 11: I come back up and I see a coworker just had entered the view and I was like oh dang it.
• 59:46
  Speaker 11: I come back up and I see a coworker just had entered the view and was like oh dang it.
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: I thought I maybe got out of this without anyone noticing, but right when someone came to witness it.
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: I'm going to add to the same vein.
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: You mentioned at one point the idea of people kind of coming up as you're going down, and a lot of the time it's people at very different levels.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: You get people hauling down the mountain and then you're getting sort of middle of the pack people coming up.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: What advice, if any, would you give to those two people as they're interacting on the trail, just to make things as smooth as possible?
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 11: sure?
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 11: Yeah, a couple of tips.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 11: So one benefit for me in both of those I was in second place at the time.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 11: So if you're coming down in first, you're the first person the up-hillers are seeing, and so you've got to alert them sometimes that you're coming, because they might be face down at their toes.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 11: Let's see Bear to the right.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 11: Maybe.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 11: Just let's adopt that Race day and all other days On your left means I'm passing, on your left, let's see what else.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 11: Oh, this is a unique thing.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 11: For race day we say downhills have the right of way.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 11: So appreciate anyone who can accommodate that.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 11: But I think all of the days of the year let's be friendly to our other trail users and acknowledge they may be working hard to get up, even though we might be focused on our workout of the day.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 11: Let's just try to try to share space.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 10: This isn't a question so much as a recommendation.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 10: I'm one of those middle packers.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 10: I'm not.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 10: I always say I'm at the back of the lead pack or the front of the mid pack.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 10: I'm just kind of right there.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 10: But if you're going up and you see him coming down or anybody coming down hauling tail, just say runner, say it as loud as you can.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 10: If you see somebody coming down, just say runner, there's gonna be people behind you that'll hear you they know what you mean.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 11: yeah, absolutely, and folks are really great about doing that.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 11: Good tip, but I think that's just good advice.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 10: It keeps you don't want to get, he doesn't want to run into you and you don't want to be run into, so it just keeps everybody on their feet.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: One of the things I found fascinating is you seem to have a wide variety of interests when it comes to races.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: You're doing hard road marathons and then short, fast uphill stuff and then ultra marathons.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: Is that just because all that seems fun to you and you want to train for all of these different things, or is it just kind of variety is the spice of life.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 11: Yeah, maybe variety is the spice of life.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 11: Yeah, maybe variety is the spice of life and I think I'm gonna be a lifelong runner.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 11: This isn't my way of making a living, so I'm gonna do what is fun and interesting and, if this upcoming season, I wanna train for a 5k on the track.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: But yeah, if that's what's gonna keep me going and I'm gonna enjoy it like I gotta have fun doing it.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: Anybody else Dean, anybody else Dean.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: So, like most people on Strava, I woke up one day finding out who you were and that had nine uh-ohs.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: I found out in a little time, but that just made me.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: I was like who is this guy you know?
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: And then I looked up you were in OTQ and I'm like, oh, that's pretty awesome.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: What was your first trail race and why did you pick that one?
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 11: Okay, I have to think a little bit.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 11: I'll share a couple of experiences.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 11: One summer in high school we did a European XC race, which is kind of a trail race and creek crossings, and we had some steep hills at our local park.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 11: So that was ninth grade or so, my real first experience.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 11: Then, maybe in 2013, I had a bunch of former Syracuse teammates training in Flagstaff and I had graduated.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 11: I was like, oh, I'm going to go spend a month there before landing in Boulder for graduate school, and my buddy, joe Whalen, was on a like a corporate challenge team and so we did a 10k in Sun Park and Flagstaff just just for fun.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 11: So still not really competitive, yet I, I think, maybe the next one of the first ones where I really went you know, dedicated season.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 11: I'm going to go compete in this trail race and maybe we'll debate if it counts.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 11: I did JFK 50 mile November 2020, which has some like 17 miles on the Appalachian Trail, before then doing a gravel path, and so if it's not that one, then following summer I did Power 4 up in.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 11: Those are my first trail experiences super rad thank you, john, appreciate it.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Next up is mr benjamin townsend.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: Is this your fourth time on the pod?
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: Now how?
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: About, yeah, um would you mind just give a getting a little bit of your running background, of course, yeah, so I'm Benjamin Townsend.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 7: For me, running kind of came from my family.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 7: I grew up in a family of athletics.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 7: My parents owned a gym.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 7: I just always knew being athletic and working out and doing all these kinds of things.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 7: My dad was a big trail runner.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 7: Um, I think what really got me into running was I just really wanted to be good at it and I really wasn't.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 7: And so I would ask my dad all the time how can I help my form?
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 7: How can I help my form?
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 7: But I was this jacked little wrestler kid and so then eventually, all of a sudden, my body was in a point where I could run really well and started in cross country track in high school, did trail races all throughout the summer to train for it.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 7: And then my senior year of high school, I was going to win state in cross country, like I was going to, and the crate, like everything happened in the race for me to not win, and I was like this must mean something and then two weeks later I had the XTERRA national championship for the 21k and I took second there and my goal was to take top 10 and I was like whoa, I guess I'm okay at this, so I'm gonna start pursuing this.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 7: And then it kind of one thing to another.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: I decided not to run in college and to fully pursue trails yeah, I feel like you have such an interesting story because, like this year, you're competing in is it?
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: It what it's?
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: The U23?
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, so the U23 Skyrunner World Series.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: Correct, correct?
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: You've done a few races there.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: Two races, two races.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 7: Do you want to talk about your experience?
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 7: Sure, so for those of you who don't know, there's multiple disciplines of trail running and one of them is sky running and they're known as to be the most technical, the most steep, just the gnarliest races you can do.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 7: And I sort of applied as a shot in the dark for support from them for the U23 category and I got in and I raced earlier this year in France first time racing out of the country, and it was just an amazing experience.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 7: A lot of things happened that made it not perfect.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 7: My luggage got lost so I had to race and completely borrow things.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 7: But to preach to the community that trail running is, I ran and completely borrowed gear and had everything I needed and all the required gear.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 7: So it's pretty amazing.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 7: And then I just got back from Peru a couple weeks ago as my second one you need to for you 23 to qualify for the final and so just got back from there.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 7: I had a great result.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 7: For those of you who don't know, I started at 11,000 feet and got to nearly 15,000, so it was my highest race ever as well, and I was really stoked to how I did in that and looking forward to the final later this year.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 7: Where's the final at it's in Spain, I don't know exactly where it's.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: I know not to ask so now, sky racing is a slower format of racing.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: It's much more technical, much, much more arduous.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: You don't really be paying attention.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: Bartrow Mountain Race is a fast race.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: Are you looking more forward to something like this?
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I think it's always fun to jump in these super fast races just to see what your legs can do going down.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 7: I did race GoPro Mountain Games 20K, which is sort of a similarly fast race, and for those of you who don't know, the 20K started five minutes before the 10K and right when I made the turn for my second loop, Joe Gray came flying behind me and my whole goal was to not let him beat me with a five-minute head start, so I was stoked to do that.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 7: But yeah, I love running fast and I'm excited to see what I can do on Sunday.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: Other than the final, what do you have planned for the rest of your?
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 7: 2024 season.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 7: So I've been on a rampage of racing and after this race I'll have all the way till Pikes Peak Ascent.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 7: I'll do that, and then I'm deciding between doing a Sky Race two weeks before the final in Spain and just staying there.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 7: But I don't know if the money will allow it, so yeah, Nice.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: Any questions from the audience for Benjamin Everybody gives him 500 bucks, my Venmo is a.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 5: Cash app.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: I'll put that on the show notes.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: My first question is why do you love running?
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: And my second one is who's your favorite person to run with?
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 7: and my second one is who's your favorite person to run with?
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 7: I love running because it offers me a sense of peace and a sense of connectivity to the world and to myself.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 7: For those of you who know what Satori is, satori is my whole goal in life.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 7: For those of you who don't, it's essentially perfect focus.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 7: It's that moment where there's no external thoughts or beliefs.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 7: It's only in that moment where you are.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 7: I think a lot of people call it a runner's high.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 7: It's sort of a similar feeling, just perfect zen in your movement and moment.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 7: My favorite person to run with is I think you're looking for something specific, so it's my sister, rio Townsend.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 7: I also very enjoy running with Ace over here, likewise.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: Any more questions from the audience?
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 9: Any more questions from the audience?
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 9: Benjamin two-part question what's your favorite?
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 5: trail here to train on in the springs and what is the most beautiful and maybe the same, I don't know.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 7: Don't give it any away.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 7: Favorite trail is probably 666 in Bear Creek Canyon.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 7: I love it because it's steep and fun and it is really beautiful, although the most beautiful in wildflower season is Limbaugh Canyon up in Monument it's a good trail yeah.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 7: Dude, what shoes are you racing in Debating between the Merrill Skyfire and the Merrill Long Sky?
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 7: I think I'm leaning towards the Long Sky.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 7: Just a little more cushion in there.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: Any more questions from the audience, Benjamin?
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, buddy.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: We have one more.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: Last second entry, Mr Kale O'Day.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: Come on up, buddy.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the pod.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 12: Kale, what's your running story?
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 12: I hated running so much, I hated it so much, I did not like it.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 12: And then I saw that my dad ran the Leadville 100, and I was like sounds awful, why would you ever do that?
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 12: But then everyone was just like, oh, your dad ran Leadville, that's so cool.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 12: And I was just like I'm associated with that, that's so cool.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 12: I should totally try it as well.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 12: And then I didn't, and that was because I still hated running but then I started running with people and I found out that running with people is actually so much more enjoyable than running alone, and ever since then it's just been.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 12: I love running on a team and I love being with people.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 12: I also went to Cheyenne Mountain, so, and that year we placed super well in a pretty big national meet, and just seeing all these people that I loved being around and success with that, I just wanted that same exact thing.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 12: So now I'm here and running Super rad.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: Is that a snowshoe, correct?
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, dude, did you race him, or Morgan, at the snowshoe champs?
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: I think so.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you want to talk about that?
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 12: I think we raced at Snowshoe, right yeah, in Idaho, were you there?
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 5: for that one.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 12: So my first Snowshoe was in 2020, and I just had a blast in Leadville and it was one of the hardest races I'd ever done and I'm like that was so much fun.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 12: I should do it again, and I couldn't until finally, I'm like I'm going to Idaho and it's going to be awesome and we were in the middle of nowhere and it was so much fun and yeah, it was so in the middle of nowhere, but it was a ton of fun.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 12: We did the U-20 race at first and there were three people from each team score and there were three of us all on the same team and it was just me and my good friends and we ran that 5K and we won.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 12: Don't want to brag or anything like that, but immediately afterwards we're just like hey, can we cool down on the 10K?
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 12: And they were like you want to keep running.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 12: We're like, yeah, of course we want to keep it.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 12: We're in Idaho, of course I want to do that.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 12: And so she was just like, yeah, sure, like you guys can cool down, I guess just you have to wait like 10 minutes for them to actually start so that your bibs don't register.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 12: And we're like, okay, but yeah, my good friend Brian finished 12th in that race.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 12: Yeah, my good friend Brian finished 12th in that race, starting, I believe it was.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 12: I can't remember if it was five or ten minutes behind, but it was super awesome.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 12: I wanted to go out to Worlds, but I had school, unfortunately so yeah.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 12: But I would love to do it again this year, although I know this past year in Eau Claire they didn't have any snow.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 7: I don't think so no, it was a big trail race.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 12: Yeah, I don't know snowshoeing.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 12: Did you run in college?
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 12: I am currently.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 12: You're currently in college.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about that?
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 12: Yeah, so I am running at Western Washington University and I came back for the summer.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 12: What was it?
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 12: Bellingham, yeah, in Bellingham, oh, I love running out there, it's super awesome, it's so beautiful in Washington.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 12: But I came back for the summer and my dad said, hey, like you want to run the bar trail mountain race?
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 12: And I was just like yeah, like sure, yeah.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 12: And he was just like great, I got you a competitive entry.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 12: And I'm like what my running experience consists of?
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 12: No trail races or any races that aren't organized by a school.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 12: So this is kind of all new for me, but I'm super excited to be here and I love trail running.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 12: And again, shout out to Bellingham, washington, they got some great trails out there.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 12: So if anyone wants to go on a run, hit me up, I'll be there.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 12: Speaker 2 1.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 12: What shoes are you going gonna be racing in?
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 12: So again, on the whole, not really doing much trail running, I usually would just race in my trusty Brooks Ghosts, which I've been running in for seven years, but my dad was like no, like you have to get good shoes, okay, so I I came over to.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 12: Colorado Running Company.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 12: They're pretty good, I hear, but they got some Nike Invincibles for me to run in.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 12: I don't know how I wasn't running in these shoes.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 12: I'm really enjoying them, so maybe I need some more trail shoes.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 12: So, if this one goes well.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: Do you think you'll do another one?
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 12: Yes, absolutely Nice.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 12: I mean I like trail running.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 12: Do another one yes, absolutely Nice.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 12: I mean I like trail running.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 12: Sorry, I like trail running just so much.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 12: And yeah, really I would like to do a mountain marathon in Alaska.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 12: Oh, hell, yeah, I had a teammate just do that and it just looks so awesome and I'm just like, yes, I need to do it.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 12: So that's the goal, it's on my list as well.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: Any questions from the audience Ace.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: On behalf of the Colorado Running Company.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: I just want to confirm you'll be running the Bar Trail Mountain Race in Nike Invincibles.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 12: Yes, I'm not going to lie.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 12: I don't know if that's a great idea, but again, they've been feeling great.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 12: If you want them in Nike Invincibles, they've got some pairs here.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 12: Good luck.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 12: Thank you, it's going to be awesome.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 12: I'm going to have a great time.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 4: Any more questions.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 8: What size shoe are you?
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 8: I have some speed codes you can have.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 8: Yeah, this is great, you know it comes around.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 7: You don't want to take those corners in an invincible van?
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 7: Oh, I didn't, I was fresh, that's a slick road trip.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 12: Is your dad and the Cheyenne Mountain team going to be at no Name again this year?
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 12: No, we're at Bar Trail, or no?
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 12: Not Bar Trail, the whole thing is Bar Trail.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 12: What am I saying?
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 12: They're at Bar Camp this year, right at the turnaround.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: Is that another one from Race?
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: You raised your hand, sorry.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: Take those speak-yos though, Okay.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: Definitely recommend those Anybody else.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: Dean, I know you've probably got one.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: So is Nike Invisible like a secret code word for snowshoes?
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 12: I like the feeling of having boats on my feet, like going around corners.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 12: Now do you get to?
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: raise your heel to give you a little advantage on the uphill?
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, can you get to raise your heel to give you a little advantage on the uphill?
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, yeah pretty awesome.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 12: Can you get me a pair?
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 12: I can.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 12: I got some friends that die on snowshoes.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 12: They got you Anybody else.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 12: Come on, let's.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: Well, Kel, thank you so much.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you All right guys.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: Well, I think this concludes our panel.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: Let's give a giant round of applause for all these athletes.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you, guys, so much for coming out.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: Best of luck at your race and that might be all I have for you.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 7: Check it out.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 7: That's the Invincible.