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Dan Curts - Pre Sunapee Scramble Interview · 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, bringing you guys another Sunapee Scramble pre-race interview with the elite men and the elite women.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: This one is going to be with none other than 2023 Sunapee Scramble champion, mr Dan Kurtz.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I'm super excited to catch up with Dan on his drive back from the West Coast over to the East Coast.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Dan is on his way back, actually has already made his drive back from the West coast over to the East coast.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Dan is on his way back, actually, I was already made his way back, uh, to New Hampshire to start putting the final preparation on for race week and begin his taper.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Um, really fun to chat with Dan.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: We caught up and talked about a lot of stuff.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Um, like I said, for those of you who don't know, as you probably should, dan is arguably the best mountain classic runner in the country.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Um, one of the best in the world.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Um hasn't really gotten an opportunity yet to prove it on a world stage, at worlds, which I think kind of lights the fire and gets him very excited to go after and chase another team this year.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, I'm excited for him.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Uh, we caught up to chat a lot of things pre-race.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: We talked about Dan's time in Boulder.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: He was out here, um, in Colorado, living in Boulder, for a bit kind of living the van life and training high up at altitude and just putting a nice solid vertical block in, you know, training with some of the best mountain runners in the country.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: That included Johnny Luna Lima, kyle Richardson and a few others.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: So that was kind of fun to chat about and catch up on, talk, talk, local trails.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: On top of that we talked about the pressure and the weight to produce and make the team.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Again, I know Dan was pretty open with talking about the pressure that he puts on himself to make this team and, you know, to kind of come back and go to worlds again.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: No doubt he will probably be able to do that.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: And then, last but not least, we talked about this little rivalry with Mason Kopi.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know if we're I think we're still early in the process to call it a rivalry yet, but I think you know we talked about Dan racing along with Mason racing the Las Portivas Sanitas challenge, which was this small loop I think it was like a two or so miles up Sanitas and down um, and just you know how Mason uh got the better of Dan um on the loop and Dan had some frustration there.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Dan was very open with it on the pod, we chatted about it, but I think it just lights the fire more.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, to just produce, uh, when these boys go out and race at Sunapee, just what it's going to be able to do, um, and just kind of elevate both athletes Um, as the fire is definitely lit for Dan to go produce on race day and Mason as well.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's going to be fun to follow along um, wishing Dan the absolute best of luck and his pursuit of making another world's team Um, and yeah, I really appreciate that he was able to come on, especially given you know it's not easy to just pull off the side of the road nice 70 and have a chat and pull off the side of the road nice 70 and have a chat, and I really appreciate that he took the time to be able to sit down with me and and have a just a nice 30 minute convo going into the race.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: So, wish everybody the best of luck and I hope you guys enjoy this one.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: This is a great one.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Audio quality is a little iffy because Dan's on the phone in the middle of the highway, but we made it work.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: So thank you guys and enjoy this one.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Dan Kurtz, welcome back to the steep stuff podcast.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: How are you man?
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: hey man, yeah, yeah, yeah, doing good just uh driving cross country at the moment, so hope the audio is good no, it's good, it's fine, totally good.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I'm glad I caught you and, uh, we're able to get a convo in before before soon it goes, man, so it's gonna be fun.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how this?
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: is.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: This is gonna sound.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: This is gonna be like almost nitpicky, but it's so funny because it's funny how people say sunupi differently and a lot of people it's basically sunupi or sunupi, which is funny because I think the like the Abenaki or Algonquin name for it, for the lake.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Like you know, the native term, the word for the lake is sunupi, like S-O I, p I.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Um.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: So it's spelled totally different, but that's the only way you'd be able to say it.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I think Um wait so you say son of P, then is that correct, is it?
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: The okay, so I was pronouncing it wrong.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: But I'm, I'm.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I guess my point actually is I think you might be actually pronouncing it correctly, uh, and I think everyone I know, I think, might be pronouncing it like this anglicized version of the word, but uh, I think it means lake of the wild goose or something like that interesting damn dude.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate that.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: That's always good to know.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Like it's a little background on that dude, I hate when I pronounce it wrong.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I, you, you would have.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: You have no idea the amount of last like dude.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I had rachel t on the podcast the other day and just trying to get her last yeah, correct I was.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: I had to ask her to my check yeah, yeah I just had her say it out loud.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I'm like rachel.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Can you just say your last name, so I don't butcher it yeah yeah, yeah, it's.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Uh, rachel's awesome, oh, she's amazing.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: She's amazing.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Her episode actually drops tomorrow.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: She's, she's good.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: People talk like, talk about a consummate professional, like just such a solid professional in the sport.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, big, big, big rachel fan.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Dude, how are, how are you doing?
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: The last time we caught up it was just before you kind of started making your way out west.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Uh, this was like pre big alta, pre canyons um, pre like brooks, um summit and stuff like that.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: So what's been going on?
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Since we caught up last time yeah, just uh just been training, just been out of the van training, um nothing else, and uh, that's been pretty nice.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: So just training went out and raced canyon, so had a pretty big drive out there and then uh came back and been based in Boulder again since then.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: So yeah, nice, nice, let's talk about canyons a little bit.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Were you, because you raced and won the 25 K, you did some really sick like jump over the thing that were like a hurdle.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: That looked kind of cool.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I was, I was impressed with that.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I was like, damn dude's got ups.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Um, how did how did that race go for you, like, were you even tested at all, or was it just like a a hard threshold effort for, or like a threshold effort training run for you, like how did that go?
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: The race felt hard in for sure.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Um, basically I didn't think many people were going to be racing the 25k who were going to be like very uh, I didn't think the race was gonna be super competitive.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: So, going in I was kind of targeting, you know, some like tests mid-race.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: So there was this one segment in the race that, like jim has this kom that's like very quick for like this nine minute, like 20% grade climb, and so I was kind of figuring it would be sweet to try to like time trial that you know, just full race, um handful of miles into the race and see how you recover and um, but then the night before I realized, uh, I got wind that like Eddie Owens was racing Um, eddie's very good, especially on those like california style trails, um, so I uh decided that would be a stupid decision and um, basically just ended up racing eddie, um, and kind of came to the conclusion that I felt like basically all I'd been doing was hiking.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: I tweaked my knee when I got out to Boulder basically just because I was trying to start doing trail running off of having not done much vert.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: So anytime you do that there's this big risk that, you know, tendon stuff pops up, so really was only hiking.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: I did my first flat run the day I left for canyons, um, and then I did like a mix of flat and uh uphill workout in salt lake city on the way out, um, and the drive did not go perfectly like, got stuck in a blizzard the first day, the next and I had to wait 24 hours actually in this little town of like rollins wyoming oh yeah, um, yeah, they totally closed the highways.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they closed the highways and so I I wasn't, you know, like huh, so it was supposed to be like a couple hour like vert run that day and there was no trails or anything, so I just went up totally off trail in the snow, like in the concert, like up some up something behind town, and then, uh, yeah, actually the next day broke down in the van.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Um, I had a pulley just like totally stopped working, so I had no serpentine belt and, uh, spent the next day sourcing parts and then I ended up replacing it and getting the van back on the road.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: So, um, yeah, it was definitely an interesting trip getting out there.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: And then, uh, yeah, the race went well.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: I just kind of wanted to push from the start.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Um, and kind of Eddie's legs, I guess, was my goal was to, like you know, put some fatigue into his legs on that first ascent, was to, like you know, put some fatigue into his legs on that first ascent.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Um, I figured I my advantage on him would be more vert stuff.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: So, um, yeah, wanted to push the issue on that, force the issue on that, and uh, yeah, that ended up working out.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Um.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I definitely had a lot of question marks going into that race because I hadn't just no idea where my fitness would be at Um, especially on such a runnable course.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: I was just kind of crossing my fingers that I've done enough running that I would be able to lean on like hiking fitness.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, you did it, man, you pulled it off and congratulations.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Nice, solid dub.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: And I guess it gives you a better idea of, like, where things were at Um.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Dude, you see you have been spending a lot of time in Boulder, you kind of exploring everything the front range has to offer.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Um, I know you're kind of getting out and I saw you out with Kyle Richardson and a few others like um, you know, johnny Lulima, some of like the staple athletes that are in that area, like what, uh, what did you think of Boulder?
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Like what was your take of it so far?
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: What did you think of?
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Boulder.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: What was your take of it so far?
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: So on my way back I met up with a friend, jack Kenville.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Him and Anna DeMonte were up in Breckenridge for the last couple of weeks training up super high, so I met up with them and actually did Quandary Peak.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Whatever it was two weeks ago today and that was pretty bad conditions, but it was super fun.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: And then, uh, yeah, and then I got back down to Boulder and just been running with a bunch of different people yeah, like you said, kyle Richardson, johnny, luna Lima and, um, just kind of a mix of everybody.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: It felt like Um, but I've seen a lot of Johnny for sure.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: We've been hanging out quite a lot and, yeah, it's been really cool to just have so many people, um, interested in doing some of the stuff I like doing.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: I definitely much prefer to be on steep terrain right now.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: It's kind of what I'm just like enjoying, um and uh, those guys are perfect for that.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: So, just been doing the like steepest lines on green and then lapping that stuff, so, yeah, it's been a really good time.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: I think the training since canyons has gone quite well.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was looking at your Strava dude.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: You racked up some impressive like vert in the last few weeks.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: That was pretty wild, so looking good yeah the mileage looks pretty rough, but then I think if you look at the hours in vert it looks a little nicer.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess last week the vert was a little low, but uh, yeah, I've been aiming to be more like 20 K or so a week.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Um, which is quite a bit for me.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Um, solid amount of vehicle for less than a hundred miles a week.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: That's pretty, that's legit.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, it was like 20 K and 70 miles.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a lot.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: That's steep.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Did you ever make it down to the springs to get on the incline?
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: I definitely it would be something that would be fun to give a rip.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: But also, I don't think I've totally figured out efforts on climbs at altitude.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: I would say before this I've only had one other solid like performance, in my opinion, while at altitude.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, I did like NAU season opener cross country meet up at Buffalo park a handful of years ago, um, and that went, that went well.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: But um, I've always kind of struggled in terms of race effort stuff at altitude.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: No, it makes sense, dude.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I mean it's just such a I don't know.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's such an interesting delimiter to kind of figure out like, okay, how hard, because I obviously peeled into your Strava for the conversation and obviously there's some things we'll chat about.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: But I think there's a lot more to it and altitude is significantly harder, obviously, as opposed to when you're at sea level.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: There's just different factors.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Like you can, you can push a lot harder.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: There's a lot more extra things you could do.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: So that totally makes sense.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a wildly different feel.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, for sure.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the taste of pennies.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: It's I.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I gotta be honest Like I w I would live at sea level if I could like.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Altitude hurts, it's hard.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Well, I think, I think you can just like also accumulate more quality obsessions.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Um, there's actually something, johnny, and I've been talking about a lot actually.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, yeah, no two.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: To that point I think you're you're a hundred percent correct.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I just have found that altitude breaks me down a little bit, like you said, like it will break you down a lot quicker, like accumulation of, like hard sessions, like just workouts.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I feel like quality.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: You can do more at sea level just because you can recover faster too.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Like altitude is just so much harder to recover from of individual variants.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: I just listened to like this podcast with Killian this morning and he was talking about people from Tibet that lived super high versus people that lived in the Andes super high, have totally different adaptations to altitudes.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Like the people in Tibet, I think they didn't have blood values that were any higher, but, yeah, so there's also, like all of these other things, that I think that everyone just adapts to altitude very differently.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Um, sometimes I think I should probably be fine, be good at altitude, like I've never felt altitude sickness, I've never felt like really weak at altitude, um, like I've popped up and done like some of the 14ers and like jogging, and like I've always felt totally fine and you know so.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Um, but I just haven't figured out how that like push, push, push effort should feel.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: No, for sure, for sure.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Whereas it's interesting Cause you look at like someone like cam, for instance, that lives at like eight or 9,000 feet, and it's like yeah.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: I wonder and he's been there for a long time Like I wonder what cause?
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Dude, it also works the opposite way too.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Like I was just talking to Gwen Rudy, who is a ski mountaineer, and she was like we were talking about.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Like when she comes down to like from altitude to sea level and she lives at 10,000 feet and like it's almost like the viscosity of your blood is a little bit thicker Right.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: So like she says she feels yeah, I've struggled with that.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's interesting too to like.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Maybe you have just like too much.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's, I guess, um too much blood volume or too much blood, um, I don't know, it's like your blood's thicker iron.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, down from Tucson I did a very similar thing.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: I'd been up in Flagstaff in my van um and occasionally sleeping up fairly high, like 10,000 feet Um, but doing most of my training between like probably seven and 8,000 feet, so not super high but higher than Boulder Um and I drove back and on the drive back I was going to do I think it was 12 by K, on like 90 seconds rest and it was just supposed to be like you know, it should have been an easy workout for me.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: I think it was.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: They were supposed to be between three minutes and three 10, um, which should be I.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: I can go do that workout straight through.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: I could do 12 K at three minute pace per K and that that would be should be fine.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, I, I mean I've done tempos like that plenty of times, um, I couldn't touch a single pace on any of the reps.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: And it was in down in tulsa on the way back through.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: There's this nice bike path there and I mean I was one of the workout worst workouts I've ever had in my life.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Um, it was like super demoralizing and it was like my last workout really before.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Son of p, are you?
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: freaking out, I would have been losing my shit, dude yeah, I was like holy crap, dude, I've just spent like the last you know six weeks up at altitude in a van with no heat, for no reason.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, so then I felt totally strong, like I felt you know good racing, um.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: But I also had the same thing in college.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: I came down from altitude for a race one time and it just went terribly.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: I ran as felt like I was sprinting the whole 10, the whole eight K and um.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I'm coming down a slight bit, or like I'm not going to come out, like two days before the race.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: That's why I'm heading back now.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's smart.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think, yeah, you give yourself plus you also give yourself, uh, I guess, room to attempt to, or to adapt back to humidity.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: I don't even know if that's a thing you're probably already adapted, but like I wonder cause it's so funny.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: I talk to people from out West all the time and they get wrecked.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: So it's just interesting to me, like to how, uh, how long it takes the body to either readapt or to get that adaptation for humidity as well.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they do seem to be like a bit like, um, like advert I don't know the right word, but I'm going to say like adversarial, almost like um, conflicting adaptations, um, cause your blood plasma volume increased while training, and like heat and humidity is just wild Um, so I don't know.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: I doubt it'll be very hot and humid, to be fair.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: I'm hoping it's pouring rain and 40 degrees.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Terrible and cold and just nasty and muddy, oh man yeah.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Let's.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about truly.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: We did talk a little bit about training.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: One thing I did want to bring up to you and I can cut this out, I just wanted to ask you about it was you seemed frustrated when your last Strava posts on this path I don't know if it was the past weekend or last week, um, on the Sinitas route, and then you go and threw down like a sub four minute mile which it was like, oh my God, that's disgusting and like so insane.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Um, are you over that frustration?
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Are you still frustrated?
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Does that give you fire going into the race?
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: I'm just kind of curious as to what your thoughts are on that and like where you're at with that now.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: So I guess the background would be Mason.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: I'm sure I think you just had Mason on um, but Mason had run the.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: There was doing a segment challenge on Sanitas through La Sportiva for like a thousand bucks for the winner.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Mason had the top time on the segment at 2548.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: I had done.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: I had looked at the splits and I was like, okay, I can run 2548.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty confident on that.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: I know what I have to do for the climb and that's you know.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: I feel pretty good about being able to do that.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: And then I knew that technical descent I would be able to run.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Um.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: I felt confident I could do quicker than Mason, cause I had done it Um one day.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: I just like did an easy run where I did four laps on Sanitas and so I had done that technical section quicker than him.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Um on what I would say was like an easy day um.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: And to be fair, I wasn't just like going very, very easy.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: I was like moving well but not like really trying to press um.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: And so I I was like, okay, I think I have a good shot at this, so I'm gonna go out and out and we'll do it as a workout and it'll be good, like sonopy prep kind of thing.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: And initially I'd gone in and said I want to do this two laps that morning.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: I was going to do one like hard lap, give myself 10, 15 minutes and then go out again and do another hard lap.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: But I went out and it all felt kind of messy, like I, you know, like I clipped my head on a branch like three different times, so I lost my glasses at one point, lost my hat at another point, um, it was just all clunky.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: I, like you know, didn't feel good about the effort, um.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: That being said, I I still ran hard, um, and my goal was, just, like you know, didn't feel good about the effort, um.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: That being said, I I still ran hard, um, and my goal was, just, like you know, I'm solid, but don't try to crush yourself so that you have legs in the descent, cause it's immediately off the top, is technical and, like, um, a bad fall would be easy to do, um, so, yeah, when, like I didn't check my time but I knew I would have, I thought I was just under 25 minutes on it, um, and then I like went out and tried to go find my sunglasses, which got stolen, which was a little bummer.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: But, um, I'd run 24 51 on it and was like, uh, all right, that's fine.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Um, and I didn't know, but mason had just run 20 seconds quicker than that, so he had taken, like you know, 80 seconds off of his time, just about, um, and put up a really really, really fast climb, um, so, yeah, I mean, he just ran incredibly fast on it and uh, so I was a bit bummed because I definitely I needed that thousand and uh, um, yeah.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: So then the next day, that Strava post you're talking about was that next day I went out to just see what the legs were, cause that was the last day the segment was open, um, and I was like I'm just going to go see how the legs are, like I will push, push the climb and just see what happens.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: And I got like 10 minutes up and just couldn't get my mind and body into it because I was just tired, obviously.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: And so I was definitely pissed off at myself, for sure, because I walked around up at the summit and then was like I don't know, did I even push that hard?
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Was I tired, or was I just being kind of like, did I totally wimp out on it.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: I even like push that hard.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Was I tired or was I just being kind of like, did I like totally wimp out on it?
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Um, and then I was like, all right, well, we're doing a workout day anyway out of this.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to like move decently well down the techie part and then I'll like push the last couple of minutes again.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Um, so yeah, dude, definitely frustrated with that I can understand your frustration.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: But Holy shit, then you go and run a sub four minute mile down that and that was just disgusting.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: I was like, wow, that's your fit, you're so fit, oh my god.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: So at least there's like some confidence to draw out of it in a lot of ways and I feel like it lights the fire as well, like it's going to be really interesting.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: There's so much like a lot of really fit dudes going into this race.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: It's also home court for you, you know, being at sunup, sunup, sunup.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, I don't know, I just find, plus, it's also like dude, like this race is not at altitude, right, so like there's just like so much you could pull out of it in my opinion.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Um, the benefits probably yeah, I, I I'm still not sure how to think about it um, I'm definitely I bet I'm 30, 20 or 30 pounds heavier than Mason, so I think that typically is harder at altitude.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Um, for climbing, for sure I'm like one 70.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: So I think that's usually I don't know, like I genuinely don't know what to pull out of it.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: And I think you could, I could sit here all, all day thinking about why I didn't climb as fast as he did.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Like I'm not sure I could have.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: If I, if we had done that head to head, I don't think I would have done that ascent with him on that day, like he ran really, really fast.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Um, it would be very interesting to see, because I I know I could have pushed a lot harder.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: I think that second half, um, and I do think, going looking back at the splits, I think I fell asleep a bit on the like from like four to ten minutes or something.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Um, and, like I said, it just wasn't like a clean effort and I think that's the thing I was most frustrated with.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: I think there's some days where you get out and you're like you like hit all the lines that you want to do, like there's like micro beta kind of on that route where I think, um, you can clean up a lot of time, and every time I would look down I'd be like, well, what the heck?
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Like, this is not the line I kind of wanted to be on and I felt like I kind of messed everything up.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: So I was.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: I think that's the thing I was really frustrated with, not that not necessarily that someone ran faster.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Um, it was just like, yeah, didn't feel like I, I wasn't super impressed with my effort, I guess.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: So, um, yeah, I mean, Mason deserves to win that competition.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: He just did it fastest.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Gotcha, gotcha, listen man.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: So no, I think it's a good way to sum it up too.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: I think it's a good way to put it and I, like I said, there's only probably so many positives to take away going into Senate P.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: All right, I do want to get into the race and talk a little bit about it.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Obviously, this year is going to be a little bit different from 2023.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Obviously, there's not a vertical race and the course is going to be.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I think the second loop is slightly different, if I understand that correctly.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, let me ask you this.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: So, obviously, from what I understand from a lot of these loop courses like, when I think of races like this, I think of, like, maybe like a broken arrow, 46k right, where usually the first person, usually the person leading at the end of the first lap, is not the person winning the race.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Do you have any strategy that you think about when it comes to that, or do you think, fuck that, throw that out the window, I'm just gonna race to my best ability and just do what I gotta do?
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Like, what do you do you think about the strategic aspect of it going in, or how do you?
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: So I mean, last time it was here I'd done the vertical race the day before and I woke up and I, you know, I like told my friends there I was, was like I am going to be happy if I'm top 10.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Like I feel horrible, um, and I kind of had decided that second lap that I was just going to take some risks on the descent, um, and I felt like if I took risks on the descent that I would probably do decently well, um, but I just, you know, woke up and my legs felt horrible.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: And then we got out on the course, um, and I found myself in third at the top of the first climb, just kind of running, you know, not trying to press super hard, but running like you know, finding my own level.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: And honestly, what I did was I kind of got in my own head because a bunch of people had predicted Max King to win the race and so I was keying off him a bit.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: I don't know why I let something like you know, like the free trail, like predictions of people, like get in my head.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't know.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean like people predicting, just like kind of silly, because, like I was in the race, I should have been paying attention to being in the race.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Um, the bottom half of the climb, I was kind of like keying off max a bit and then, um, at some point I was like, okay, well, I'm not running as hard as I should be if I'm racing.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Got up to the climb in third and then a quarter of the way down the climb I was leading as a descent I was leading and so I had a pretty big gap at the end of the first lap.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Um, I think some of the stuff played into my favor.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of mud, there was snow on the course, it was just like bad conditions.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Um, and I definitely run on that stuff in the steep grass like that's soaking wet, a lot more than I think everyone in that race.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Um, and yeah, so then I would just come through the first lap leading and just like, all right, I behind at the summit, I should be able to win.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: It's the classic style.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Races with the you know up-down format can be so interesting and I don't totally know how to best approach the tactics.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: It's the pure climbs you can't get dropped on, like if you're in a VK and you get dropped, you're, you've gone.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Um, but with the, certainly with any race, with like two big climbs and two big descents, it's there's a lot more going on and, um, I think the race up in canada last year, the canadian championships, was like a really good um show of that.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: So, like alexander ricard was leading at the first summit and then, like the gaps decrease and like him, remy and I are, like you know, all running downhill quite quickly, and then you come back up and then like there's just so much stuff going on because people climb, everyone climbs differently the second time you have to climb and then everyone descends differently the second time you have to descend and then everyone descends differently the second time you have to descend.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: And um, it's going to be really interesting to see what happens.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: I think the host of guys that are going to go race, uh, going to be really interesting.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: I think the race is going to go out stupidly fast, and I saying stupidly because I do think it'll be.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Unintelligent.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: How fast the race goes out is my prediction.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, um true, and I think people are gonna.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, people are so fit, it's crazy.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I feel like all of the people like, like, I know, like mason, andy, christian, joan, they all are known for going out really fast, um, and I think they're all going to be really fit.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know how all that's going to play out in a group setting.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Um, you know, and it's hard to say, like, how Christian handles the second lap If he hasn't been running as much.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: The biking should be great for climbing fitness.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: But then, like similar idea with Andy Andy's very good on these classic races, um, but he hasn't been doing a ton of vert, so it's like, how will he climb and descend the second lap?
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: It's I don't know how.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: I have no predictions really, I don't know how it'll go.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: I have to be honest with you.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: I have the only prediction I have, honestly, is something with you and and like I just think mason has evolved and is in a different level now.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: So I have you guys in the mix.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: That I it's the only like pick I can possibly have as of right now, until I actually sit down to think about it.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: But like it's, it's just going to be the other thing, dude, I think like just not to like hype you up too much or blow smoke up your ass, but also like the fact that you've won here before, and like there's just that confidence that comes with it.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: I you're, you're hungry, you're, you know you've done really well.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: It's also home trails, so once you're back in New Hampshire, if you want to, you could practice on it.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I just think there's there's something more to that.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: As opposed to guys having to fly out or fly out on a Thursday race on a Sunday it's not always smooth and you know not to.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: It's like also getting your sleep used to um, you know East coast time, which fucks people up.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: So I think there's a lot where you get a little bit of an advantage.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: in my opinion, yeah, I'm going to try to convince Tom Hooper to not mow any of the descent, so I'm hoping it's just like four foot tall like ferns and grass the whole way down and uh, I think if that happened I would win, but uh, yeah.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I mean, my goal for the race is certainly, I w, I want to win Um, and I think the way I have to do that is climb really tough and then, um, you know, make people uncomfortable in the descent, and then that second climb you go up the same way for half the climb and then you pop into trails which are going to be technical and tough.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Um, and yeah, I mean it's just going to be an interesting race.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know how, I don't know how it'll play out, but my, my goal definitely is to win Um.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: But uh, yeah, if I don't win, I certainly want to try to make the team.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: That's really important to me.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Um, I'm, I'm definitely gonna be like disappointed with myself if I, if I don't make the team.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: But, um, yeah, really I'm, I'm getting pretty excited for the race and, uh, it'll be nice that it's going to be slightly better uh time of year than last time we raced at Sunapee.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Sure what was?
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: it April last time around Spillier, late, late March.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like April 30th, um, okay, I mean it was snowing up top, raining at the bottom, like it's like that stick season in new England, so it's like, you know, kind of like the gloomiest two weeks of the year.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Uh, so it'll be nice that there's some green, um, and, yeah, I'm excited for there just to be a bunch of people out there.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: I think it's, I think it'll be a fun, fun weekend for sure.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it'll be fun.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: I think there's more eyes on it this year than in previous years too.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: I think that world matters to people.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I think a bit more this time around as opposed to 2023.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I think people even yeah, I think people are stoked on it.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: I think it's going to be really interesting to follow along.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: And yeah, man, what uh?
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: I gotta ask you this what shoes are you wearing on race day?
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: Are you a catam, do you?
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: What are you rocking these days?
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Oh, the asheels are so good.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I ran in the asheels this morning.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: I did, uh, what I do.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: I did a lap up the steep stuff on green so I did like 6.6 with 3300 feet.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: Um, nice and uh, yeah I, I really like the asheels.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: I think they're really good for that kind of race and I think it's just like I don't like much shoe under my foot for sure.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Um, I mean you could almost if the I guess that's probably stupid, but I mean, if it was grassy, but certainly the descents you could run barefoot you'd be fine.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Um, okay, so you know, I don't want like a.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: There was actually a video of Remy, a year before last I think, at Loon and I was.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: I was up there but I was like sick, I was recovering from like long COVID, and so I wasn't racing, but um he, he ran past my Birkenstocks on and so I was like going to like chase him for like a video like descending at Loon, but I I, you, you know, I had to like kick off my shoes and I just like chased him barefoot because, like the stuff is just grass.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Um, so, yeah, you don't need a ton of shoe.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, and I think these yields are like perfect, like dialed minimal.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Um yeah, and with the sock upper, if it's muddy they don't pop off.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Um, the course at sunupy was so muddy the day after the race or two days, I don't remember I walked around and picked up all the course markings with tom and there's like walking and your shoe pops comes off because it gets sucked off in the mud.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Um, so that's not fun.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: They were definitely good in that, in that stuff, yeah yeah, and I'm sure the lugs have a solid traction as well to kind of keep you, keep you in place and shit like that.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: So it's good.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Yep, yep and then yeah.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: So that first that first lap, you could wear whatever for sure.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: And then the second lap is technical, that second half of the climb, um, and you're just like traversing a bit across the mountain, in a couple spots where it's like fairly flat, but just like windy, rooty, rocky, um yeah, so very cool, very cool.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Well, listen, dad, I don't want to take all your time, man, I think this is a good place to uh put a pin in it.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Uh, dude, I really appreciate it.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: I know you're busy and I know you're on the road, so thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Um, no, we no, we're good.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Really appreciate it, man.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just pulled over on the side of 70, kind of watching a storm roll past it's all good, nice, appreciate you.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Yo, are you going to be?
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: I was planning on being a cannon, but I'm like working through a small injury, so I'm probably not going to be out there.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Are you going to be a Killington?
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, oh.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: So I, I would love to do killington, but I have a.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: Also, every race on the, every race on the planet seems to be june 28th, like yeah, I think there's probably four races right now that I've been looking at that.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: I would love to do that or that day, but I have a.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: I have a family wedding that I just can't, um, bail on.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: So, understood, um, maybe like killington and then like marathon to Mont Blanc, and stuff are kind of next year things.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Gotcha, gotcha For sure.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm wishing you a cannon for sure.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, oh no, nice, nice, nice, dude, I'll hit you up when I'm up there.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be up to like I'll be in upstate New York, like Adirondack area, for like a month like through like early july, so I will, oh cool.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I might go up to the adirondacks at like second week of june.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: I've got some friends heading out there, so, um, I think there's a little race out there dude I don't remember what it's called before I let you go.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: I found out about this little.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: It's not a very competitive race, but they do this like race called the great adirondack trail race, which is like a like an up down yeah but you have to like I think it's the 14th, yeah, I almost, I was dude.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: I was really thinking about it.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: I'm like maybe I'll do that if I can't do canon, but I was like you have to.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: In order to get into it, you have to like call on this like random day and they only have like x amount of spots available and the only way to get in is like the for a phone call like nine o'clock in the morning to this like run shop.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: It's actually like kind of neat yeah, it is pretty cool.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, some of the stuff out there is is awesome.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: I haven't spent almost any time in the adirondacks but, um, I've done that one race.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: I did a white faith that year, a couple years ago for us championships, yeah, um, which went horribly.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: That was my first trail race and uh, yeah, so I mean, everything looks awesome, so I think I'm going to head out there, so maybe I'll see you out there for sure, man for sure.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Well, listen, dan, I don't want to take up all your time.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Appreciate it, man.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on and this'll be, out the week of the race, so wish you the best of luck.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Awesome, All right.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Thanks, man.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Have a good day.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Listen up, guys.
• 37:41
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• 38:27
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• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you.