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Tom Hooper | Let's Talk Worlds Qualifiers · The Steep Stuff Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up, guys?
• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Steep Stuff Podcast.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, james Lauriello, and, guys, we got a fun one for you.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: We're going to dive right into Tom Hooper, the owner of 603 Endurance huge mountain running community member.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: The one.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Only Tom Hooper joins us on the pod.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: What a fun episode, guys, we answer all your questions related to Worlds and the World Qualifier races coming up later this year, actually in 2025.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: We talk all about tom's background, how he got into the racing scene.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: We talk about the new england racing scene, the sunop sample scramble, as well as the loon, some of his premier races that he has, as well as his world's qualifier and sunop.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Guys, what a fun episode.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Like I said, we answer all your questions related to world's qualifiers.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: We also talk a.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: We answer all your questions related to world qualifiers.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: We also talk a lot about potential matchups at these world qualifiers and who's going to be there.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: It just opened up the conversation for a little mini series we're going to be doing over the next couple of months to talk about these individual qualifier races and just who's going to be there.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Matchups, breakdowns, you name it.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: We got it.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: So, guys, I hope you enjoy this one Personal favorite of mine, none other than the man, the myth and the legend himself, mr Tom Hooper.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Really quick, guys.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Before we get started, I want to make a note that this is going to be a Zoom interview.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I don't normally do these, like I said, but only on special, one-off cases, and we don't have Tom coming out to the Mountain West anytime soon, and this was a conversation that we really wanted to have.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: So we did make a special, did make a little special occasion for Tom.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: So, guys, I hope you don't get too perturbed by the audio quality.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I did my best to clean it up a little bit in post production, but this one is not the cleanest.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: So, but the point gets across.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: It's a great conversation, one of my favorites.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Hope you guys enjoy this one, not other than Tom Hooper.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, we are live, all right.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: All right, tom Hooper.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Steep Stuff Podcast.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: My friend, how are you Good?
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: great Thanks for having me.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I'm so happy we were able to pull this off.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I know I kind of randomly DM'd you earlier in the day.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I was like Tom, let's get a podcast going.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Let's make this happen, yeah and you're like all right, how's tonight work?
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: So this came out perfect, yeah.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So for the audience, I feel like you were just such an influential figure in the sport.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Those in the know definitely know who you are, but for people that might have not run any of your races, maybe just introduce yourself and tell the audience a little bit about who you are and tell the audience a little bit about who you are.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm Tom Hooper.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: I'm from 603 Endurance.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: I started a run club back in 2010, and it just exploded.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: There really wasn't a thing back then, and then next thing I knew it was, you know well, backup.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: I thought there was going to be 10 of us drinking beers out of the back of a pickup and then, all of a sudden, it was 600 people, um, you know, trying to buy gear.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: So it, it went fast, it was great.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: It was, uh, a little wasn't expected.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: It wasn't what I planned to do.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Um, it's not like.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I set out and said, hey, this is my business plan, this is what I'm doing.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Um, it just grew organically.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Uh, and then the next thing I knew, um, I was no longer running roads or doing triathlons, I was dabbling in trail.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: And then, you know that's, that's an addiction on its own, like, all of a sudden, I was like, wow, all right, this is, this is my jam, these, these are my people.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: And, uh, and it just went from that from race directing a road race to nine trail races.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: And then, next thing, I knew I was hosting USATF National Championships and then being a staff member on it, and it's just snowballed from there, wow.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: That's amazing and you know what?
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: For those that are unaware, talk about a little bit about some of the races that you have, and then we'll dive into some of that.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean my.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: You know my races range from you know the one-on-ones, you know um Dixon's revenge, which is, you know, a trail one-on-one 5k, five miler.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Um, just acquired Kingman farm trail race, once again 5k.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Um, we talked about this at the U S trail conference conference.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: You know there's a lot of races out there that are race directors that are putting on phenomenal large races, big distance races.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: How do we backfill that with the people that are no longer able to do it or no longer doing it because of injury or age or whatever?
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: We need a farm league.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: You know, like, just like baseball, we need a farm league.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, you know we, we host, you know the beginner 101 races and move it all the way up to the you know three-day 75 mile stage races.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Um, so I put on, you know dixon revenge, kingman farm.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Uh, the loon mountain race, which is a six mile race that everybody knows of.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: You know it's.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: You know upper walk, upper walking bus is, you know, known throughout the world.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Um, now we, we, you know they came to us.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Usatf came to us two years ago when we were in thailand, said we need a qualifier, or sorry, right before, no, before.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, before after thailand in between thailand and austria, said we need a qualifying race.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: That needs to be this distance.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Can we come up with something?
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: It's super short.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: It got jammed up because of COVID.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: There wasn't two years between races, it was one year and we had like nine months.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: So we came up with Sunapee Scramble and made that the qualifier.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: That now this year is the qualifier again.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Um, I put on a rat, a race called ragged, of 75.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: It is a three day stage race.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: So the first day you run 25 miles, second day is 23 miles and the third day is 33 miles.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: That's you.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: That's typically the 50 K national championships.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, we put on two half marathons, uh, the Kismet cliff run, which was ranked, you know, the top 10 hardest half marathons in the country.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Vulcan's Fury, which is also a half marathon.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: And then we do an end of the season fun run for New England.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: It's called the Great Pumpkin Relay.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: It's a 10K total, but you do 1.5 miles, you pass off a mini pumpkin and then your teammate goes.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: You do that twice, so you just get a five K, uh, and then we do a stupidity for a cause.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Um, sometimes you can't label beer miles beer miles just because it's not super.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Sometimes the the, the other folks don't like that, so we call it stupidity for for cause, where they donate um money and we do a beer mile and we donate it to an SBCA.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's amazing dude.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: So well-rounded, tons of races, pretty much something for everybody, that's what.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I love, and the thing is and I think that might be what seems to be some of the most fun of being a race director is you really do provide something for every, anything from the beginner to the person that's looking for an ultra to you know, some of the most world-class mountain runners in the world come out to your races, especially for, like, the national championship races like loon and sunupi, which is just so amazing.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Um, so I don't want to bury the.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: but I think that's where loon comes in right.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Like you can run with the best of the best, but it's still obtainable for somebody that is just starting out.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: You know six miles, it's not.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: You can still run with the people you're seeing in magazines, but you can finish it, yeah.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: So where a 100 miler?
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: You know you can't run with your hero in a 100 miler, like that's not going to happen.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: You may see them in the parking lot.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: I mean they're done days before you're done.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: It's not as approachable.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: It's not as approachable, yeah.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Actually, this leads me to a good question.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: I literally just had Joe Gray on the podcast two days ago.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give you the same question I asked him my old guy.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to give you.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: The same question.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I asked him is why yeah, I appreciate that why do you think sub ultra is not as big as it should be?
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Why do you think the in the U S we seem to favor ultra over sub ultra?
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: It's a great question, cause we all came from sub ultra right, or most of us have Right, but it's, I guess, if, if once you you drive a cadillac, do you go back to a honda?
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: yeah, you know it's it, yeah, and it's.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: It's not that you shouldn't, it's, there's a, there's a prestige, and I think that I mean what you know.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: If, if you personally, if you go to thanksgiving, if they ask you what you're doing for your next race, you're not when you say, well, I'm only going to go to the next and only do a half marathon, yeah, it's still a half marathon.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: That's crazy, right, but you're gonna, you're gonna put that word only in front of it and I don't know why we, we dumb it down once we've done that big distance.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Um, so, yeah, it's, it's, it's a prestige thing, and I think that people need to to be more well-rounded.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: You're looking at some people like mk though like mk, you know she banged out some hundred and or you know some some ultras, and then now it's coming back being like I kind of like the ultra better yeah, like I'm sorry, the sub ultra better.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: so I mean, I think that there's who knows.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: They may come back, they may dabble, they may jump, jump the fence a little bit and go both ways.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I think it's just a belt buckle, prestige kind of thing it is, it's interesting Because I mean, you're well aware, you've been all over the world, but Europe, I mean I feel like there's prestige.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I would almost put more prestige on a series and all or as a gamma than I would on, say, even a UTMB.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: You know, even though we value the UTMB so high, um, but like to go have a great race at series and all that's, that's rarefied air.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: In a lot of ways, I mean UTMB is getting there 100%.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: I mean that's our Super Bowl, if you will, for the ultra community.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: But man, oh man, like I don't know, I just feel like there's so much more history, so much more depth, like you're going to and this is controversial, but you're probably getting you know, at the top of the sport you can only reach a certain level and it's more spread out.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: At ultra, where you can become a star, there's more money in the sponsorships.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: So people tend to float, at least at the top end.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: You'll float on into ultra versus sub ultra and I don't know it's my goal to change that.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I hope we get more sponsors in the space for the sub ultra and it continues to grow just as fast as ultra continues to grow.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: So if, if, if, if those marketing managers were smart, they, they spread the money around.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they occupy all the space.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Versus, try to get the top 10 at Westerns, right, like, why not have first and second at Westerns, first and second at Golden Trail?
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Shorter distance, like, why wouldn't you spread the money around?
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: That?
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: I don't understand.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: I don't quite get that where you want to throw all your eggs in one basket.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: But I think because the point is selling shoes, right, right, if that's what we're going for, right, you're going for a return on investment.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Not everybody is ultra, so why not try to get?
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Hey, give these guys somebody to look up to.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: They want to buy their shoes because they're the top of XYZ race.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what I mean.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's interesting.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Xyz race, yeah, um, you know what I mean.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's, it's interesting.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: It would be an interesting thing to have a conversation with a marketing team being like stop just throwing all your money at the top 10 at western exactly, exactly I I guess it sells I don't know, it's strange like my sponsors.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: So I work with ultimate direction and la sportiva, and you know both well, ud's a little more ultra focused, but I could definitely speak for like la sportiva that like know both well, ud's a little more ultra focused, but I could definitely speak for like la sportiva that, like we just sponsored, um, like the cirque series for 2025, which is great you know.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: So there's.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: It's nice to see some money pouring in um, and I just hope we can get more races like these, uh, like your loons, like your cirque series races, these mountain classic races or these vertical kilometers, dude, dude.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: I can't believe in Colorado we don't have a proper VK Like how is, how is that possible?
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I need to change.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, what is uh?
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, I guess you have magnitude challenge.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: What is that?
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, we've got.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: we've got the, the, incline is about 2000 feet, but it could never be, it can never be a race.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: If you will, if you will, right, right, um, just because people would, people would die, they would get right, get rough.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: So yeah, man, let me ask you a quick question.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I'm just so curious how did loon come about?
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: so paul kirsch and chris dunn, they started that race back.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: I want to say 2006 or 7 something, something like that.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: I can't remember the exact year.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Um, and it was.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is back.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: I mean trail running wasn't huge back then, it was kind of just the that's.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: You know, I mean it's still the redheaded stepchild, but it was really the red stepchild at that point.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: I mean that's where the outliers laid, um outliers laid.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: So it got pretty big in around 2011 or 12.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: I had just started 603.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: We were starting to go to Acidotic Races, which was the company that was running this, and it just exploded.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, they went from 400 or 500 people to where I believe the top number was almost 1400 people.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow, yeah, just because we had a team of you know so many people, acidotic was really getting in on the marketing and then partnering with Gina from Trail Sisters, and they just exploded.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, with the national championship and everybody coming out, and then there was a video done just showing how hard upper walking boss truly is and yeah, it was just kind of a perfect storm of everything going on.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, if you actually get to run upper walking boss, you'll know what we're talking about.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: The cameras.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Just don't do it.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: If you actually get to run upper walking bus, you'll know what we're talking about.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: The cameras, just don't do it.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: 44% grade is just so hard and so demoralizing because it's at the end of the race.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: You've given it everything you've got for 5.5 miles, and then it just kicks you in the face.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: It's funny Joe was talking about the strategy he employed at of straight, the strategy he employed at that at the race this year at um at Loon, and how him and his John Aziz and Tyler they had this plan on how to work with Tyler, work against Tyler to catch Tyler at the end or something like that and like he gave just this eloquent background and how he was able to like save it through walking boss, and I think he said he won the race in the last like 400 meters.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: I was like, wow, that's absolutely insane, it would have been fun to see that.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Um, but yeah, just what a historic race and just it's just amazing, like an absolute, like just a really now an iconic race in our sport.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Um, that just you know, it's pretty badass, pretty awesome.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: So, on the on the sunop though.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: So sunop is the selection race for this year.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: It's gonna the up-down selection race, is that correct?
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Up and down.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so with USATF or WRLS there's four things.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: You have a vertical, you have a classic up and down.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: You have a short course which is about 27 miles, Then you have a long course which is about 51 miles.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: So Broken Arrow Vertical K will be the selection race for the vertical.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Their 46k will be the short course selection.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Gorges will be the 100k selection or the, the long course, the 80k, and then we'll be the classic up and down.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, nice and are you guys?
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: You guys already have sign ups already going.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: It's, it's june, june 1st, right june 1st.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: The signups are done.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: The uh the elite are open.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: The uh the elite um entry form is ridiculous.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Uh, it's, yeah, it's the best of the best.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: It's crazy.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Even the even the long distance guys are coming, which is crazy yeah, it's gonna be.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: It's gonna be a barber I think, I think they just want to come and hang out.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: It's going to be fun.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: No, there's quite a few.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: I hope.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: We hope we're sending a bunch of guys from the Springs this year, so it should be hopefully a deep, deep contingent.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: It should be pretty fun.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, I just out of pure curiosity how does it work to get one of these races like as a UTF qualifier?
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: So if you want to ask the Gorge question, I'm waiting for you to ask it, just because there's been some drama about it.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: So I've had quite a few people ask me this year, because worlds is in September 25th of 2025.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Utmb is the month before, so we kind of have to dabble around that, because a lot of these folks are going to do doubles.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: They're going to, which is a whole different thing we can talk about of like people that are going to be battling and then, a month later, they're on the same team working together.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: That's going to be like people that are going to be battling and then, a month later, they're on the same team working together.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: That's going to be the that's going to be the story of 2025.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you that right now, anyways.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: So, so you have to have so for for gorge, right?
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: So, cause, that's the most controversial, it had to be done by June.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Sorry, july 7th.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: It'd be done by July 7th.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: There couldn't be a cap.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: So the race can't be like, hey, we only have 200 spots.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: This doesn't work.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: We need to get the elites in.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: We can't have these elites not be able to sign up.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: So if the race director is not like, hey, I only have a permit for 200.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: It's sold out in an hour.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: That doesn't help us.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: It can't be at elevation over eight I think eight thousand feet.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: We got to give everybody in the country a chance.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Like, we can't just go to eleven thousand feet and watch everybody get smoked.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: That comes from, you know, ohio.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: That's just not, that's not a thing.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Um, and then what was the fourth thing?
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: I can't even remember what.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: It is now um, less significant, but yeah, but those were basically the uh, oh, sorry, the.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: The race director has to be willing to let us do it, yeah, um, so that's, those are the basically the four things.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: So when we got the applications from the race directors, we put it out and I think in september.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: They had a little over a month to put them into USATF.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: We got the list and almost nobody applied for the a hundred K Um, so we we didn't have a whole lot to go for, but this was the closest thing possible.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Um, so I know when, when you know, atra put it out there, there were some people that were super grumpy, vocal about it.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and I even reached out to some of them being like hey, if you want to know what we had to deal with, let me know.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: And they wouldn't respond.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: They just like to complain on the internet.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: So I'm like I can't help you.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: You know, this is what we were handed, this is what we could select from, so we're taking the lesser of two evils.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's a horrible thing.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: I get it.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: There's not enough vert, but where are we going to find 18,000 feet of vert in?
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: the States Before July.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: No, you're right, but even not at elevation.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Where do we find 18,000 feet?
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Spain's crazy.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I don't even know, maybe California.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: There's crazy.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: I don't even know, maybe California, but there's nothing like that that I don't know 18,000 feet and 51 miles, like it's insane, not happening, not happening.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: I know and that's, and you're and I really appreciate the fact that, like you're just so spot on, cause that was exactly what what other athletes had said to me.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: That was my trepidation as well.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: It was like damn this gives, gives your, your runners, more so than your hikers or athletes that would compete at that you know level, which is which I'm not upset about in the sense of the.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: So I'm in a full transparency.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: I'm in charge of the long distance and the short distance dudes.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm, I'm okay with this because I know who we can take from the resume spots that have already filled up.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: I don't need any more climbers.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: I mean I could take some fast guys that are say we get there and they change the course, like in Austria.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: They changed the course last second.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: It went from like I want to say like 47 miles to 58 miles and it had 21,000 feet of vert.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: My God, but this was like yeah, it was crazy and it was overnight.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: So I mean, like you're sitting, I'm sitting with like La Puma and drew and those guys.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: I'm like I got nothing to tell you guys.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: I'm like I'm sorry.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: So I mean it is what it is.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: So, if there's any, it's nice to have a Swiss Army full team versus just a bunch of the same guys.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: So I'm not super upset about it.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: No, I like the way you said it.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: I'll let the online guys complain about it, but I think that this gives the long team the best shot.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Like if we can pull some fast guys, that if you know, if there is nine miles of tar in the beginning because they rerouted something, I'm okay with this.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so especially for the long one.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I mean I literally just before you and I jumped on the call, I was talking to somebody that was signed up for the a hundred K and I was literally just peeling through the long course start list and you know, at least on the dude side I could speak a little bit less to the women but on the dude side, like Nick Handel had signed up, like Ryan Sullivan, there's a lot of guys that have a good shot at making that team.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: That maybe would have not made it no-transcript big deal.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Same with sunopi.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: It was already a selection race uh to what two years ago.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: so all day, but I but I've invited so many track people to sunopi.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: I'm super interested to see oh, this could be see what happens.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Look at the half marathon championships.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: There were two ladies in there.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: I had no idea who they were.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: They beat Rachel.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Who are these girls?
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Here's an entry Come shake this up a little bit.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: That could be really cool If we can start getting these college people to come out and, and you know, and start dabbling.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: That's, that's amazing for our sport oh 100 and I think these are.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: these races are also by you giving these people these opportunities, we're going to find our next stars as well.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: You know you're going to get your next grace and out of that your next ali astrander people like that for sure, a hundred percent, like I mean.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Even look at Liam.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Nobody knew who Liam was until he came to Sunapee.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah that's true, I mean, and I mean that was, that was technical as hell, yeah, and and he came out and I mean sorry, Liam, I mean the dude balled at the finish line.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: He was so excited.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, he had a blast.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: In Austria, we call him Hollywood he's, he's amazing man.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: I love him.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: I love him.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: I knew it, dude, I'd known about him for a while.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: When he, what race did he do?
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: He?
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Um, cause he's an Oregon kid, what was he?
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Uh, what was it?
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: The Narnar?
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember that race that they used to put on, and he would always I mean he always put up great results there.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: And then, yeah, really came onto the scene.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Dude, garrett corcoran's another one that's had great races um, yeah, there's a lot of opportunities for a lot of guys I'm looking forward to and I was joking with joe, because all of these people come out, it's so deep, these fields are so crazy.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: And then, for you know, joe's gonna have, uh, he's got his hands full, you know, at 40, 41 years old.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Do you think, joe?
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Do you think we'll call out right now?
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'll call him out to his face, joe, do you think you're going to come to Senefie?
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: I don't think he likes to down anymore.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I don't want to speak for him.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I think he said on the podcast he's going, but I don't know.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: I've got some texts.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: I don't think he is, but we'll see.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: I know he wants to go to Broken Arrow too.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I publicly asked him on the podcast and he was kind of coy about it, but he did.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: I thought he said he was going to Can we call him right now?
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Let's call him.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Do you want to phone him in he?
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: probably did.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: We would never get him on the phone.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: He's got a lot to say.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: But no, in all seriousness, it's going to be interesting.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: I'm excited for the talent.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: And there was that.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Who was that kid?
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: That from man that beat him Was it at?
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: I can't remember.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: I think it was at Soonapy.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, alex, alex Picard.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: I just got a chance to meet him.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: That kid is really good, Like really really amazing, the Canadians are no joke.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Man, yeah, phenomenal, especially if it's technical.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: The canadians are no joke let me ask you a question.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Uh, this is related to cirque with the us mountain running champs this year.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because it wasn't a world selection race.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Is that why we were able to have it at altitude or have a race at altitude?
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: uh, more so.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: So, because spain is two loops this year, julian Paul asked Julian if he would make it two loops and he said no, okay, and I think that the committee really wants to see the courses emulate as much as possible.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: I'm easy with, I can change Sunapee anytime I want, right?
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: So I just made it a two-loop course.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: I did the one loop of the classic and then I did one loop of the vertical, which is super technical, so it actually comes out almost spot on to spain, nice, um.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: So yeah, julian, just uh, I mean julian's got a tough spot.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: You can't really do two loops at snowbird, um, so that was the only reason.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Um, I mean doing this a phenomenal job at races.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: I went out and did snowbird uh, this year and it was awesome.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: That was the only one I missed.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, dude, his races are amazing.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this, and I'm excited he got a Washington race next year and I'm probably going to go out and do it.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: He's got some more races coming up, yeah, yeah.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: He's got he's got some may or may not not.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: When's this airing?
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: He may or may not have some northeast races coming wait, dude, is he gonna get one of white face?
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: I'm.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: He's actually coming on the podcast next week.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'll let him tell you everything I know.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, cool, cool, cool.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: No, because this, this, I mean this can come out whenever you want it to, but he comes.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: I'm literally going to him in breckenridge on the 19th.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: So I think it was on Tuesday.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: We'll go see each other, but yeah, yeah, that was actually a question I had for him was cause, I don't know, white face mountain races has been around for a while, but sometimes it's on off and I didn't say it was white face.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: I didn't say that I mean, that was my, that's my guess.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: I would imagine I'd say you're wrong on that guess Okay.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: All right, I'll ask him.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: I'll ask him, all right, okay.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: Oh man.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: So thank you for answering that question.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I was very curious about, um, yeah, why do we have one at altitude and why we're able to kind of pull that off, I mean, so it's, it's super interesting.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Well, listen, man, there's criteria, there's people that are voting on this and nobody, like we're all pretty knee deep in this, like we understand, like USATF proper is not us.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: So if we want to get blackballed, you want to get your podcast blackballed, we'll do this right now.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: But, like, usatf proper is a bunch of old white guys that sit there and just collect money and that's it.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: And then we have the mud mountain obstacle trail and we are so far down on the bottom of the food chain.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: It's, it's insane.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: You know, nancy and richard, I mean, they scrap for every single dollar that we get.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: And so when we do a team, we literally have to say are we making it funded or not?
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: How do we make this funded?
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: I mean Nancy's selling coffee out of the back of her car to pay for some of the stuff.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: It's that bad For a $30 billion company or whatever USATF is.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: You know usatf is it's.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: It's crazy that we're scrapping for a hundred thousand dollars.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Um, so it's, it's not entirely as easy as you think.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Um, I, I, I work for them, volunteer, you know, voluntarily, yeah, but it's to make our sport better.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Max king works with michael wardian.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: You know, um blake, eric blake, like we, we're doing this to make make trail running better.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: So it's it's tough when you see some of the criticism being like these guys don't know what they're talking about.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Well, no man, this is what we're dealt like.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: We're doing our best, but it's like, hey, like there's not a lot of wiggle room with what we're trying to do.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, but we, I feel like we've done a great job in the sense of, like the last two years, we've made worlds cool.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Oh dude.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Like worlds.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Everybody wants to do it yeah.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Right and so.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't back you know a couple of years like nobody could you know.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Hey, you want to go to UTMB or worlds.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: That wasn't even a question, it was UTMB.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Now people are like what do I do, what do I do?
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: But now it's even spaced out 30 days.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: You're going to see some serious doubles from these guys.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: The best of the best of the best.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: I've had some phone calls and I've had some texts and when you see who's coming to both, you're going to be like this is amazing.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I'm so excited and you know what?
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: I think there was that watershed moment where you know you're Eric Lapuma, you're Zach Miller, that team, what did they?
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: I think they did they silver medal, if I remember correctly five, six, seven and eight oh man and just like I don't know.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: I personally for me like not just like the patriotism, but I was like God damn, I want to go represent America, Like that would be so much fun, you know, and I don't know.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: And so I was once teammates at Ultimate Direction with Jeff Cole and just getting to spend time with him and hearing him just like tell these stories from Thailand, and it just seemed like such an amazing thing to be a part of, and I don't know that was the worst thing that's ever happened to me being on.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: This is having Jeff Cole in Thailand and then him rah-rah.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: How cool Wurls was so rah-rah that he rah-rahed himself off the team, like I know.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: I'm literally I called him twice.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: I'm like listen, man, like stop whatever you're doing, like stop, like, because now all the you know everybody, a little bit, everybody's better than you know, I mean, and that's a short list, but there's a list of people that are faster and they're like we want in and I'm like, what do we do with the spokesperson of this team?
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like what, how, how do we?
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: How do we value that?
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Like where do you put that on a?
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: You know you have UTMB points, you have intro points, you have a ultra signup.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: How do you give patriotism and awesomeness?
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Like Jeff Cole?
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, gotta, give him more points.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: Right, Like what do you do?
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Like it was.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: It was the worst decision that I've ever had to make.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I'm sure, I'm sure it's just crazy, like, and you know, and you guys have picked some just amazing teams.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: It's going to be interesting, hopefully and I don't want to speak for jim, but, like, if we get a full strength jim next year, if we get joe, it's going to be, you know, some of the, especially that vertical team.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: I'm very excited to see what that'll look like.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: I'm more excited to see the long team men and women's think about.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: Don the think about the women's team for a second.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what'd you put?
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: on that team.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, dude for the long team, I know well, I know leo lingling.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, leo link yingling is signed up for the long course right I don't see.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: I mean I, how many wait?
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you this how many?
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Six?
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Uh, it's six spots for, it's six deep for women on the long team.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Six, six for women.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: So you get two at Gorge and the rest of resume.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: So you take the best of the best.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, dude, this is hard, I don't know.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Do you get like a Courtney to Walter, Like is that even possible?
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: A Katie shied, like is that possible?
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Do they do?
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: They want to come really All right, so we're hearing it here first.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: I heard things.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying it at word, I'm just saying if they were to battle at UTMB and then have to be teammates 30 days later.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Dear Lord, could you imagine?
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's just off the chain, amazing, and it just goes deeper than that.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I mean I'm trying to think on the women's side.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about who's been at Western States.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Katie's just really elevated herself to such a higher level now that her and Courtney.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: That will be interesting, to say the least.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: On the men's side it'll be interesting too.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to follow along.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: You put a Jim Adam Hayden Rod.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: All the guys that just all battle, Let them go battle at UTMB and then like, hopefully they don't mess themselves up so bad that then they go to the world.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Does David Roche throw himself in the hat as well for long court?
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Who knows?
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know, especially especially cause how like crazy you Roy is going to be this year.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Like it's probably probably going to be Hayden, I would imagine.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Uh, but I don't know.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: You know, who am I to say that it could be?
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Could be Jim, could be Hayden, could be David Roche, could be multiple people.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I really, you know, I don't know, but it's going to be very interesting to see, like, how this, this pans out.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: The sport is getting so competitive, my God, it's wild, um, and both the men and the women's side, like it's just, it's exploding.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: So, and then even in the sub-ulter stuff, like it's uh, I think that's gonna explore more.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: We're, we're gonna, we're gonna get almost beat.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: It's not on board, isn't the right word, but we're gonna.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: I think for a little bit we're gonna be like I'm not super interested because I don't know these people.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't have a backstory on them and I think one.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: That's where our stories are, our sports, missing.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: We don't have that live stream that you know.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Sit down with this person because you don't know their back.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: You know when you watch formula one or the golf swing or whatever it is, you know on netflix, you get the backstory and you get the feels and the heartstrings.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: We don't have that with some of these college kids that pop out and and smoke some of the people that we know and love.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Like it's like.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: It's like wait.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Who is this person?
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: And Christian Allen, cade, michael.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Like yeah, there's going to be, it's going to be killer's row, I would imagine, between broken arrow and soon to pay.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: I'm excited It'll thin out the herd a little bit for some of the Cirque series races so I might be able to finally get on a podium on one of those with without some of these kids we'll see we're getting old man.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: We can't.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: We can't battle these kids anymore oh my god, these young whippersnappers dude like, uh, christian allen is just like, and kate michael as well.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: I'm having kate on, I think, on friday.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Um, but these kids just coming out in their young 20s are so good and that's the future of the sport.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: I mean that's that's where it's going.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: You know, I think the sport would be better if we had like an exit strategy at college.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: So like when we were in thailand, adam peterman was telling us the story about, like you know, he got super heavily, you know recruited colorado.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: His last day coach was basically like pat on the bum, thank you for your service.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Boom like because the coach is on but he's on to his next, you know, recruiting trip.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got a job to do, yeah, so you know, adam didn't really know what he was going to do, like, and I think that, like we in the sport need to create something like an exit strategy, going around being like hey, yeah, you did staple steeplechase, we got something for you come try this yeah, I think that that's missing.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: I know wacker does a good job with his trail team, but it's such a small portion.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: Like you get the rest of the country to kind of kind of pick up and be like, hey, we, we need a farm league, we need these kids dabbling in trail more.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: So it should be on some of these shoe companies to be like, hey, hey, we've sponsored you this many years, we'd love to see you go into trail, I mean team managers especially Trail managers, should be all over this.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree, and it's really interesting because I mean you and I both know the revenue and the amount of money these shoe businesses make.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: It's not like you have to pay kids at the poverty line, but like you don't have to pay a ton of money to get kids dabbling in trail.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: It's not that you know college kids would do it for a box of Mac and cheese and some shoes.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Exactly, you know, just just the opportunity to get gear.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: I mean I think especially college kids would jump at and give them an opportunity to kind of make a name for themselves.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: And then give them an opportunity to kind of make a name for themselves.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: And then you know, on the racing side, you know there should be some sort of subsidized thing from the shoe brands where they could subsidize the race directors to fund these kids for travel and then getting them out to these races.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: You know, like there should be a system in place of some kind.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: I mean let's.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, let's call it what it is.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: I mean we don't, if we gave away 20 entries, it's not going to break our bank like it's, it's air we're.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: You know, let's, let's call it what it is.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: You know, I went to the us trail conference and people were freaking out about like costs and and stuff like that and I'm like, listen, if we're getting people into the sport, you can give the, the u20 team team, 10 spots.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: You're not right.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: What are you giving them?
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Stop giving them medals, fine, you know, like the dollar, the dollar swag bag you giving away?
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Fine, stop doing that.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: But at least get these kids into it, like.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: I think that that's the.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: I think that's the.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: The biggest takeaway is you just need to.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: You need to get these, these kids, into it as soon as they leave college.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the thing is, I mean and you've seen this more than anybody we have world-class talent in this country, enough to win.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're Grayson Murphy's of the world, you're Anna Gibson's, you're Christian Allen's.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: There's supreme talent in this sport in this country.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: We're not that far away from being able to kick the shit out of France.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: I mean for all, for more, for worse.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: You know Spain and a lot of these countries.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: We just have to get it figured out and have the correct funding to be able to, you know, move more people in, get them excited and realize that they can make a career out of this.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: You're a hundred percent right, like that's.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: That's basically it Like we have.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: We could do this tomorrow, it's just.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: It's just the.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: You could do this tomorrow, it's just.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: It's just the.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: Getting them to be there is the is the tough part.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: If we have the talent.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: It's just the the participation.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, you're absolutely right, man, it's it.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy and it's amazing.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: I don't think we're far away either.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: I think especially from you know how fast the sport is growing, whether it be ultra, sub, ultra-ultra.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Eventually they'll be the buy-in and once it's a catchy thing, it'll probably start to catch fire.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: We're going to have a podcast in 20 years and be like.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: I remember when.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: So, speaking of the future, though, I got a good question for you.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: What is it like from a race director, because the only experience I have is with doing some of the live commentary and stuff like that for pikes this year.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: What is it like doing the whole like live stream thing?
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Is that like an, a massive cost and like how does that even work?
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: I just did a three day uh series at at the ultra us um, sorry, us trail running Conference about this, and we had the guys from Mountain Outposts and then the mom and pops.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: So no, it's not expensive and you can do this for $1,000.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: It's not expensive, even if it's, I mean, for bare bones.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: You want to start, finish line.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: You're talking A hundred dollars.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: You want more than that.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: I mean it's.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: You know you can do whatever you'd like, but the biggest thing is you need to do it now, cause it's where the future is going.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, we're so used to selling, selling, you know, advertising, right.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: So when we go to a shoe company, we say, oh well, you can have a booth in this and that that's.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: That's a thousand people, yeah, great, and they may try your shoes and you're going to sit there.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: It's like a job fair.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: The people are coming by and taking your pens and you're, you know it does nothing.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: But but when we, when you do a live stream one, you don't, you don't need to have boots on the ground and two, you're getting a hundred thousand people watching, yeah, with your ad, your logo, you know, we just need to dial it in where we're doing more.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: You know canned ads where we're like all right, we have an ad there where we can play that during the downtime.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: So Vulture is a little different.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: There's not a whole lot of downtime, yeah, but I mean Coca-Donut man, jesus, you can do a Florida commercial every 30 minutes.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, right.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: So I mean that's where this is going right.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: Like if you're a race director and you're not dabbling in live stream right now, it's like you're you don't know how to work a VCR.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Like you're just getting left by behind in the technology.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Um, so it it's.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: It's super easy.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: You need to pick a platform, uh, know it, have your brands, cause once you set it up, it's easy.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: And then I mean, then you're just having.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: You know, people are like oh, I can't don't get a bunch of volunteers.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: You send out an email.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Be like hey, I'm working on this new project with live streaming.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: You're gonna have people knocking down your door because they like to dabble in stuff like that so I think that live streaming if you're not an RD, or if you're an RD and you're not doing live streaming, you're gonna get left behind real quick, because I think it's where it's going, but the cost is super minimal.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, is it more?
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is just out of pure curiosity.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Is it better?
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Is it smarter just to invest in your own stuff, or is it smarter to just outsource with either a mountain outpost or a company?
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: No, invest in yourself 100% mountain outposts or a company.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: Now invest in yourself, yeah, 100, I mean they're.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, and you know, zach, zach will tell you he's like we can get up to 30 000, he's like.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: But if you only have 200 people, don't pay us, right?
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: That's, that's not, that's not a thing.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: But so I mean, if you look at most ultras, what I mean?
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Not the, the granddaddies of all races, but the most ultras throughout the country, I think if you looked at most, you're looking at like 200 people, 300 people, let's call it that.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: That's, that's your own stuff.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: You know you have one laptop, couple commentators and then people with cell phones.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean that is more that you know.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: If you want to have some aid stations set up, I mean you, you're literally talking $2,000 the most, and that's the initial buy-in and then minimal fees after that.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so interesting.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: This is something we were trying to figure out this year at Pike's Peak.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Next year is having some sort of I don't know if it's Starlink or whatnot, but just being able to have the appropriate drones and have the whole live system in place to be able to, you know, pay proper homage to uh, it's the race that you know that that really deserves.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: You know, to be able to follow someone from the bottom of Pike's Peak all the way to the top would be absolutely sick, you know.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Right, so we're working on that right now.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: So, um, we have a non spectator friendly sport, right, yeah.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: So there's been many non-spectator friendly sports before us.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: So we're starting to steal the technology from those sports baja 1000, rally car racing, awesome sports you can't watch it.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: So right now they're they're starlink and those guys are all working on backpacks, like basically backpacks that you can wear, so if you're walking with your phone, your starlinks on your back, you can use your phone as your camera.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: You want a camera on your chest.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: Everything's all connected, your battery packs in there.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: So then we can start doing that with bikes, other vehicles, um, um, yeah, there's, there's definitely some.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: I think in the next year you're going to see some crazy stuff.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: We're going to run most of that stuff at Sanofi.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: We're going to, we're going to go men and women's up and down the mountain.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Um, we, we have starlings that are going to go on the bikes and on people.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: Um, so it's going to be.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: It's going to be cool and it should be pretty fast.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Dude, this is going to be so exciting.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to follow this.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: I hope broken arrow has got something similar planned.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Man, it would be cool for a lot of the selection races.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: I just talked to Brendan about it, so we'll see.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: See what happens.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: It's, it's, it's a shame not to have it there, just because it's such a cool race, it's such a cool vibe.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: It's such a cool vibe like, yeah, yeah, and it could be so easy.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: They have service the entire place, like I, yeah, I, I hope that, I hope that they dabble and try.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Well, there's a lot of these races.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: You can just get to the masses like I thought it was astounding.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Last year I think it was at aliaska julian had a freaking helicopter up there, dude, and I was like whoa, this is, this, is this is wild right and and so I was at sober with julian and we were talking and, like he, he, he made a smart play.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: He actually hit up the department of tourism and of utah and it's like listen, let's collab on this, you can use the footage.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: And they paid for all.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: This live stream wasn't the best live stream ever and I and I think he admits that he like it was kind of a lackluster company that was hired, but he did it right.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: Like he, he got them to pay that's smart foot the bill and they came in and they did everything for him, kind of left it off his plate as an rd, which is awesome.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, um, yeah, so pretty smart that is interesting man, and yeah, I guess utah would be all over that.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Any of the States probably would.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: It makes it, you know, kind of cool.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: I just we.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: I hung out with the race director from Mount Marathon in Alaska, yeah yeah, and I told him that story about the department of tourism and he's like we don't have a department of tourism Like you absolutely do.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: So we Google it, found it, and he's like I'm I'm hitting them up, absolutely, absolutely well, that's the thing too is like I don't know if you've watched any of the mountain marathon coverage over the last few years, but it I mean the the people speaking are amazing, like the commentators, but we could have better coverage going up and down, especially for a 5k.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: You know like how, how hard could that possibly be for a men's and women's race?
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that would be sick.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: That's a race actually.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: I'm trying, I'm going to try to get into for next year because I'm going up to do I'll be at aliasco, but hope to be at mount marathon a few weeks before, which would be dope.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: So that'd be cool.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's definitely on the list.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: We'll see, we'll see.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Uh, it's going to be a busy summer with all those, especially with podcast coverage.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: That's the goal is to try to cover as many of these.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: It actually works out perfect.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: We're going to definitely be in touch because I'll happen to be in Northeast.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Whether or not I'm going to be racing soon I don't know, but I'll be in the Northeast that week, so I'll come up and hang out.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: You should come out and do the podcast.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Live from something.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Right right, it would be amazing.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: You should announce it.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: We can you want to tell people you're going to do it?
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: You're going to announce it right now, all right?
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, I have literally nothing going on that weekend and I will.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: I was already planning on being in New York, so it's not not that much further of a drive from upstate, so no let's do it.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: All right, done deal, done, deal, done.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Signed right here.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: All right, oh man, exciting.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: I love everything you've done and I think you're just a great ambassador for the sport, and from our RD as well, it's amazing.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: You also run, though, too.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: I was following you on Instagram.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: You went out to Was it Broken Arrow?
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Last year you did the Cirque races.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: Do you race in Europe at all, or where do you go?
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: No, no, I did.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I raced Bandera a hundred K.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Um, this year was just a hundred K years, so it was like Bandera Vermont a hundred K, pilot a hundred K.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, snowbird um broken arrow.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I dabbled in a little bit here and there when I can.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, nice, nice, nice.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw you, saw you in Colorado as well.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: Would you do, elbert, or something like that?
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: I think I remember.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: So I did uh leadville uh in 16 and 17 and I fell in love with it.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: So I have been out there every year.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: I go out every year, um, and just hang out and pace and uh, yeah, I meet up with the bp, run guys and and hang out and have a couple beers and then and try to run through the night with somebody.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good time it's fun, isn't it, man?
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: I gotta be honest with you.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: I know people love to shit on leadville, but man, oh man, like, if you want to talk about one of the best scenes in the whole sport, yeah, it's special, at least, like for me it was very formative because that was like the I want to say it's.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: That's probably the first hundred miler I ever paced and like the first one I've ever like hung out at and like just sitting at twin lakes spending time with friends and just cheering people on dude.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: It doesn't get much better than that.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: It's fine, right.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: It's always like the who's who that's at twin lakes just hanging out.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: Uh yeah, it's great, it's great.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, what is we got?
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: A good sport, man, it's definitely.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: Uh, I don't know.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: What do you?
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: What's your take on the consolidation, like with all the like, utmb buying, trying to buy up races and then more.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: Like I know and this is nothing against Aerovipa, I love Aerovipa, um, and I think they're great for the community, but, like I know, they just purchased a few more races as well as white mountains, endurance, like.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: What is your take on that?
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's good for the sport?
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: I go with the UTMB one.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to answer their A.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: I came from triathlon.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: Um, I see their, their business model and it's kind of a, it's kind of a douchey move.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: Uh, so what they do is they buy up, um, they buy the smaller ironman distance races, they run it for a, make their money back what they paid, and then they cancel it, and so that's basically their move and they've done that all throughout the Northeast I'm not sure where else, but that's their move.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: And then they just use their premier races.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: So you have to go and pay the $3,000 to do the premier races, versus when you can only pay $200 to do an Ironman distance.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: That's in a local town.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: So they squeeze you.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: They squeeze, yeah, they squeeze everybody, so I can see them doing the same.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's their business model.
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: Why change it?
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: It works.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not my favorite.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's, yeah, I.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: It's a touchy subject for most people on it it's, but I yeah, I can.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: I'm open and honest about it.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: It's not my favorite.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: No, I appreciate it and it's.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: It's just interesting to me, especially from hearing from a race director, and a very prominent one, like what's your take is?
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Because I mean, it is, it's very black and white.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: I just wonder if I could see that appealing to ultra.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: It is, it's very black and white.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: I just wonder if I could see that appealing to Ultra.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: But I don't necessarily.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: Do you see it happening for sub-Ultra in the future, or nah, no, I don't think.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know, because I couldn't see Brandon bending the knee, or like who's the director of the Rut, mike, mike, I couldn't see him bending the knee for like a UTMB or something like that.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: I mean maybe, but yeah, but I mean say he gets older, he has three kids, he wants to get out and the biggest offer is from UTMB.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: How do you say no to that money?
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, you're right, you're not wrong.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: But with something like the Rut, that would be a premier.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: So it's not like they're going to cancel you, but say you have leadville and high lonesome.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they buy both of them.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, high lonesome's gone.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, high lonesome's gone.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: They run it for one year.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: They make their money back, they get, and high lonesome's gone now.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: Now, now you have to pay 700 to get into leadville this year.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: That's, that's the business model.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: So I, I, that's that's not cool, that's not helping anybody.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: No, that's not how the sport grows, it's not how the sport grows.
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: So yeah, that's a tough one to really deal with.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: So hopefully some people hold out and they pass it down to a future generation of smaller RDs and not to sell out.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, on that subject are you hopeful for?
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: Because I was.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: I had mixed feelings about Grindstone.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: I was happy because I wanted more people to get an idea of what East Coast Racing was about, and I love that.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: There are some really great races in the Northeast and I don't think a lot of them get their due that they should.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Are you hopeful for Northeast racing?
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: That, like this, could really be a big thing one day.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: I think it lies within the shoe companies and this is where I say it and I've said it before.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: It's not a popular opinion, but it's shoes don't last.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: In the Northeast You're not going to find Hoka coming to test their shoes in the way mountains.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, their shoes will last 200 miles and then you have to buy a new pair.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: Um, so I think that if they can run 500 just a thousand miles in the dusty, the dusty, you know buttery trails of california, they'll do it.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: Uh, you also get quicker times with that.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: So you know an 18 hour 24 miler or a 24, 100 miler or you know under, you know anything sub 24, you'll have more of those.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: So how do you, how do you equate that?
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: And it's tough to to market that be like hey, I did a pemi loop and xyz, nobody knows what the hell a pemi loop is.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: So you know.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: But you know you, you know you do a short race in the white mountains, you're not going to have any shoes left.
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: You know wardian was going to do his his, uh, appalachian trail, yeah, and he was going to do it in sandals at first and he texted me.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: I'm like you, dude, you're, you're out of your mind man and I just saw him at the at the new york marathon.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: I was like you're really lucky you bought those shoes.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: He's like I had no idea what I was like.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: Maine, new hampshire, vermont, it's no joke.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: No, no, it's destroy you.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it destroy it is the mountains are no joke that they just they rip you apart.
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I in Mike's defense, he said it never got easier the entire way.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: But he was like I was expecting, like after you know Maine, new Hampshire and Vermont, I thought it was going to get easier.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: He's like that didn't happen, but he's like, he's like I'm glad that you warned me about the shoes, that's funny.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I couldn't imagine doing them in Antiva sandals.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Holy shit, that's yeah, oh my God.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: So that's where I don't think.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: I think that we I mean so.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: We have a real hard time getting sponsors in the Northeast, no matter who you are.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: We have a very hard time with shoe companies coming in and saying I'm, I'm planting the flag here, this is where our races are going to be.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: They just don't do it.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: Um, I, maybe, maybe once the it's too oversaturated in Colorado and California, they're like we gotta, we gotta try to get some more from somewhere else.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: We'll we'll get some love, but for right now, I think in the next two, three years, I think everything's going to stay out West.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just my thoughts.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: It's interesting too and it's kind of it's borderline frustrating because you can even take I mean, I get your hoka shoe.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: That makes sense, your, your ultra stuff, like that.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: You're even your adidas, although it was interesting to me because I saw that adidas like created, they have like I don't know if you saw the instagram they have like an adidas white mountain thing.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, northeast.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's right, but it also dabbles with mostly rock climbing.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, very odd.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: But I don't know, like I was thinking, you know, if you build it they will come, like you said, like we've had now that, like I don't know, sunup and loon have just been such staples in that area.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: You know, you've got the white mountains.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: Aerovipe has got a few races up there.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: Now I just, you know, from in breakneck as well, down in new york, like that's becoming an ultra popular race and that's on the golden trail series.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: Uh, national.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: But only because, but only because he owns a shoe store.
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: Like if you're a race director and you don't own a shoe store, there's no other sponsors interesting is that?
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: so that's why you have to, because ian owns a shoe store.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: So that's how we get Solomon to buy in.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: If he didn't have that, there's no way Solomon would even look at New York.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: That's so interesting.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: Right, so is that why?
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: So that makes sense as to why you have non-endemic brands like your Delta Dental and your was it Samuel Adams or whatever, as well, yeah, that's amazing.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: But I think it's also it's groundbreaking as well, because you're exposing these non-endemic brands to the sport which I think is dope, yeah right, yeah right.
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: So it's, yeah, it's an interesting battle that that we as race directors, you know, in the in and I'm not even gonna say the northeast, I would say east coast, yeah, because I don't think I mean.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: You look at, you know, ben robinson.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: I mean ben robbins is a somebody.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he like, he knows people and I think he still struggles as a race director in pennsylvania.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: Um, you know, even, you know, looking, some of the carolinas, those, those companies are all, you know, all those rds are all like barely getting sponsorship.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: If they're getting any, if they're getting any, yeah, that's sean's name, sean blanton, who has, um, uh, he's got the quest for the crest race.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: I've done that like a while back and, yeah, I'm dude, these, some of these races are insane and amazing and super technical and engaging and something that's worthy of of being, you know, sponsored.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: But I don't know.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm surprised with all the times joe and andy and all of these high-end dudes have come out to race these races.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: That's all Joe talks about is Northeast between Mount Washington and Loon.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: You know, obviously soon to be all of these races that are storied that you know these guys go and do you think the brands would be, like you know, more interested?
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know, that's weird.
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: I'm wondering if most of the team managers event management is out West.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: So it's just what they, I mean, it's what they want to do they don't want to have to fly to New England.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: They've never been here, they don't know what it's like.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: So, they can listen to those guys, but they're like, yeah, I'm staying here.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: We'll think about it like this too, like I could definitely speak for, like Sportiva, like they, for instance, like we just did circ series and we've had leadville forever.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: You know, right, both mountain west races, uh, or generally mountain west races, leadville is literally right down the road from boulder.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: Um, dude, that like makes makes sense and it's close, you know.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's interesting.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: And then hoka I mean hoka's big league now between utmb and, you know, black canyon and all that stuff.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: But I'm trying to think of what other brands would be that do.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: I was hoping normal would get in.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: I gotta talk to mike ambrose.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: Um, that would be cool and see if normal would get more into races and stuff like that, because that wasn't mike a northeast guy, he is a northeast guy, he's from jersey, he's been on the pod, he's northeast guys from jersey and I know he lived up there, uh, for a while.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, it would be.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Who knows that?
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe we just spoke that new existence, I don't know, but yeah, and it's interesting.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Hopefully, uh, yeah, any brand directors out there definitely come to the northeast right, right.
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're gonna be there now, so now you can bring, uh, bring all your friends, that's right, that's right dude, I'm, I gotta start asking around.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: I want, uh, I want to see if john get you know john aziz on your start list, if he isn't already for I think he already is is he good, good, good.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would hope he would come back.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: That would make sense.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, he had such a close race at loon that there's no reason not to come back.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: Right, right and he's like he'd really he did really well at um.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: He did really well at.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: Was he at Broken Arrow?
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: No, he didn't.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: He should be.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: He won Pikes again.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was Mason that was at Broken Arrow.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Dude, that's another kid.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: That's so good.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: I had him on the pod, raced him twice this year.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: Oh my God, is he nasty.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: Future Again, with John Two of the future of the sport, for sure.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, that's another one, because mason already made a national or he made a world.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah yeah, that's right.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he came with us yeah, and john as well.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: John twice, once, twice, twice, yeah, twice, yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it's interesting.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: Lots of great athletes, yeah.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: So is there anything you think we didn't cover?
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: Anything you want to hit on before we wrap up?
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: No, you have any more questions you want to ask?
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: What else do you want to know?
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: What's deep down that you need to know?
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: I think we got a lot.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know I didn't prepare.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: I should have prepared better for this.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: You know, next time next time we talk, though, we'll I'll come back with more, especially more with some of the world's questions and stuff yeah, what I was thinking, I don't know.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: Maybe we could speak this into existence and do a little more like a deep dive.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: Maybe another episode is to kind of do a breakdown of some of the, of all of the races that are going to be selections.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: And and then, once we have a better idea of who's going to be on the start list, maybe talk about I don't know.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: Talk about some of them.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: That'd be cool.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: Break down like each one.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's four different episodes.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like a mini series, that'd be dope yeah, let's go through the entrance list.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: Be like, oh man, yeah, yeah, yeah and then, and then who?
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: All right, so who's on it?
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: And then who's gonna fill the resume?
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: spots, I mean, I don't know how much you could speak to.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: Do you have?
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: an idea?
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: I mean you already know who's going to fill the resume spots.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: I mean I don't know how much you could speak to.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: Do you have an idea?
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: I mean you already know who's applied, so I don't know if you can give any.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: I know who's going to apply.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: So I mean it is what it is.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: I mean I think you can pretty much think about who's the top of the top.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: I don't think anybody's saying no to Worlds this year.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: It's going to be so interesting.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: I can't wait.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd love to see you know, I really I know I probably shouldn't say this, but one of the things I would like to see is just like just the cream of the crop and some of the vertical races you know, or the in the vertical race to like you know Joe, and see like what that's going to look like with everybody else.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: So it should be fun, cause I'm such a big Joe fan.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: So do you think?
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: so do you think I mean you look at the results of the VK last year?
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what?
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: Where do you think Joe fits in?
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, I think Joe takes second.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: I think Joe beats Walmsley and the reason is is because, just knowing Joe, oh, a hundred percent, remember, he's not going to have his wizard sticks to save him this time.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: But I'm gonna tell you right now, like joe, even at 40, 41 years old, I think joe, because they're just, they're two very different athletes.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: And like joe said, like you know, like he, I see, well, we'll see.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: If we get this is a hot take, but if it's a broken arrow, I get you, I bet you we get patrick back.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: Even though he's not going to be racing for the qualifying spot, he'll be there.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: So you'll have patrick there to pull joe along him and and Joe battle it out for the front.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: Right, okay, so let's talk about that for a second.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: So you have Patrick.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: Who else?
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: I got Patrick Joe.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: I think Joe takes second, if not first.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: We'll compete for the front.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Go back to Patrick's team.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: What's that oh?
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: Patrick, yeah, so now?
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: So now we're no longer competing against Americans, now we're competing against the rest of the world.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: That's right how do we give Joe the best team possible?
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: Who do you put on that vertical team that can compete with those guys?
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: You have a Dan Kurtz.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: You're going to know and no offense to Dan Kurtz, I think you're going to you're going to need a Christian Allen.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: You're going to need a Mika Boden-Rosio.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to need Christian Mika.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: And then Jim.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: I'd take Jim, I'd say there's your four guys right there Joe Mika and maybe even John Aziz.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: I think John Aziz is very slept on in the vertical Over Dan Kurtz.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, 100% we have the altitude.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: I think all right.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: So you really want to get into the nitty-gritty here?
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: I love Dan Kurtz, and there's no shade against Dan.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: Kurtz, I hope you're listening to this Phenomenal, phenomenal.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: I hope you can prove him wrong.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: I hope he does.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: But if you're going to take a Dan Kurtz versus a John Aziz, you've got to remember the type of training John Aziz does Just the amount of power and the amount of, I'd say, from a uphill and just efficiency.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: And In a vertical race, oh dude, john Aziz will whip the floor with him.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: I guarantee you.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: Not even a question.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: That's a hot take, but I we're meeting a broken arrow.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: I'll bet you'll be on it right now.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: All right done, done, done.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: I bet you a case.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: I bet you a case that if we get John Aziz and Dan Kurtz in a matchup, I think John Aziz yeah.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: And just because I know the amount of If we get John Aziz and Dan Kurtz in a matchup, I think John Aziz yeah.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: And just because I know the amount of training he does with Joe and just how they do workouts together and I know just out of Joe's mouth some things that I know about and knowing John as well, and just seeing his incline times, dude, the amount of times he can get on the incline and run sub-20 minutes on the incline in a vertical race, just the amount of power, the economy, everything Dan's going to have to come out here, especially if it's a broken arrow race he's going to have.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: I know he had a tough race last year at the 23 K.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: He's going to have to come out to altitude.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: He's going to have to stay out here, uh he was out there all summer, All right.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: So he's going to have to do it again and then find something like that to train on Dude.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: Who knows how Jim stacks up into it.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: Like I said, Jim's.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: I don't think.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: I think Jim will save himself for the long course.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: It's probable, if he's not injured.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: He's coming from UTMB.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: I don't think.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: I would rather save him.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: And no poles man.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: Is Jim a different runner with no poles on the vertical race?
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: How does that factor in?
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: I, I, you know that's, I don't know.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be interesting.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: And then on the women's side, I mean, I think it's, it's, I think anna gibson.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: Anna gibson took a very big step in her career this year.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: Um, I think she might very well challenge Grayson depending on where Grayson's at for that top spot.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: Who knows?
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: We could see that.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: I want to know who these two girls were that just did the half marathon.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was super interesting.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to see them on a race day, super excited against the best of the best.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: I want to see those two.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: And I also think Ali Ostrander is starting to figure it out.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: I think she's starting to like she had some great results, um, you know, across the board this year at the golden trail series races.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised to see her, uh, perform very well at one of these races, no doubt depending on which one she chooses to do, if she chooses to do them, I don't know.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: Um trying to think who else on the women that just like really stood out so sophia lackey.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, she's an american, they're living in norway.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: I could see that.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, dude, you think she'll apply?
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, that is that's late season for her, because that would be just like as she's transitioning back to skiing.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: So it would depend.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know, because that's also a winter olympic cycle too for going into 26.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: So I wonder if she would, if she would do that, uh, dude, even if we could get like cam smith to go do something.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: He's so nasty cam's coming is he gonna go?
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: cam's coming to, to something he's, he's ready to go is he really oh?
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: yeah that's really exciting, okay, um I love me some cam smith that change, that might die, so that might change my calculus.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: Then for, for now you're just adding in all these people.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: Your list is flawed, my friend.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing what you could do with the imagination.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: Well, listen man.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: I don't want to take up all your time.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: We're over an hour, so I really appreciate it.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: You and I are going to be in touch.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: We're going to be talking a lot more so.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, tom, I appreciate it, yeah.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my pleasure, thank you.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: What'd you guys think?
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: What a fun episode.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: Lots of intangibles in there, lots of matchups, lots of conversations around worlds.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: I hope we answered a lot of your questions, cause I was genuinely curious about a lot of different things.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: For instance, we did ask like we got into the question regarding why Gorge was picked.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: I felt like Tom did a great job of explaining that, because I know that's something that's been a lot.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: It's come up in a lot of podcasts and it's come up from a lot of people.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: So I hope we got to the bottom of that for you guys.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: I hope we got to the bottom of, like, why we don't have a lot of these qualifiers in the Mountain West.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: That was a big one.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: A lot of different things.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: So I hope we answered all your questions.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: Um, like I said, this is opening the door for a mini series that Tom and I are going to be working on pretty soon.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: We're going to discuss and break down all of the qualifying races.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: Who's going to be there once we have um, once we have better start lists, um, and we're going to break down matchups.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about it all.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: So it's going to be really fun, something I'm truly excited about and I hope you guys get stoked for it.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: So that's going to take up a lot of our spring.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: Before we get going, hop on Instagram.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: Tom is a man of many Instagrams, so let's give him a follow.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Tom Hooper 603 is the handle.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: Give Tom a follow.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: We also want to give 603 Endurance some love.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: If you guys hop on Instagram type in 603 Endurance, um, some love.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: Um, if you guys hop on Instagram type in 603 endurance, you can find it that way.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: Give it a follow.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: Um, and guys, if you're in new New England area or if you're interested in a mountain race, tom puts on some frigging serious races.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: Loon is a bad-ass race.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: You got soon to be scramble coming up.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: You got the kiss of my cliff Run.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: I believe I probably butchered how to pronounce that, but it's a great race.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: I'll personally be at Soonapy this year.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: You heard it first.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's going to be in a racing or an immediate capacity, but I will be there, so super excited for what that's going to look like in 2025.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: And yeah, guys, it's definitely give 603 a follow.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: Give some of his races a follow as well, if you're interested in Loon and learning more about, like upper walking boss and that course itself, give Loon a follow.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Shoot him a DM if you have questions about racing that race, and same thing for Soonapy.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: Soonapy is going to be the selection for the up-down course this year for 2025.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: You guys, if you're a competitive athlete and interested in learning more, give them a follow, shoot them DMS with questions.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: Um, and Tom will do his best to get back to you.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: So, yes, like I said, tom's a man of many Instagrams.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: Follow all those accounts, um, and show him some love and support, because he's doing great things for the community and, um, I for one, genuinely appreciate it and really look forward to what he's going to be able to do in the long run.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: So some amazing stuff, um guys.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope you all had to think happy Thanksgiving.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: Uh, I know this is coming out on black Friday because I'm recording it the morning of black Friday at like five o'clock in the morning.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: Um, enjoy the rest of your weekend, guys.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: Watch some college football, get some long runs, enjoy your weekend and I'll be with you all next week.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: Take care, thank you.