Latest / The Steep Stuff Podcast / Mercedes Siegle-Gaither | Navigating the Wilderness of Professional Trail Running

Transcript

Mercedes Siegle-Gaither | Navigating the Wilderness of Professional Trail Running · The Steep Stuff Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey you guys, welcome back to the steep stuff podcast.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, james Lauriello, and today we have an absolute banger of an episode for you guys.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited to welcome Mercedes Siegel.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Get through to the podcast.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Um, this one I think you guys are going to really enjoy.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: If you're unfamiliar with Mercedes, she is a professional athlete for the Merrill test lab trail team.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Um, she resides in Colorado.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Um, she's this year.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: She's been running around the Skyrunner World Series, partaking in races like Meet the Minotaur, as well as the Corte Blanca Sky Race, as well as the Mexico Sky Challenge.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Really fun conversation.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I think you guys are going to get a lot of value out of this one and I think you're going to probably get a kick out of it.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: So, without further ado, steep Stuff Podcast Mercedes Siegel, ga gaither.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Uh, thanks so much, mercedes, for coming on.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: It's time.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: We are live.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Alright, we're on.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: We're doing this Welcome.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the pod.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Can you hear me?
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Is this close enough?
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: That's good.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: So your name is Mercedes Siegel-gel Gaither, is that how I pronounce it?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, I got it All right.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I'm usually butchering bad with last names.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: So well, thanks for coming on.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Really.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: You know, I think your name has been brought up a lot this year.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: You know, you're really popular with the audience.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: You're a you're a Merrill runner now, which is exciting.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Congratulations.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Um, you know you've been.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Your name's really was brought up on.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: You know, on the sky challenge Mexico live stream, you're doing the sky running um series this year, which is awesome.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, I'll let you.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I'll let you talk about yourself a little bit.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: So it's been an exciting year.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: What do you want to know?
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, let's.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Uh, all right, so we can.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: We can open this up with just introduce yourself to the crowd and how'd you get into running?
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: We'll start from there.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Gosh, it's funny because in high school I did a day with the cross country team and they made me run five miles and I'm like never again will I do that.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I studied abroad, in Australia, and it was a mile from the ocean.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I read Born to Run, like a lot of people, and I was just inspired and I wanted to see the dolphins and and go swimming every day.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: So I started running and and I just fell in love with it and it's a good way to just kind of I don't know push yourself and see what you can do, and I think being able to do that and running opens so many doors in other aspects of life too.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: so it's true.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Where are you from?
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin oh okay, midwesterner, yeah, yeah, very cool us midwesterners thrive in colorado because, it's cold, but there's sunshine, so that's true, I did.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Uh, I've lived in michigan for like a year and I didn't see the sun for a very long time during the winter.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: It's sad, it's hard to go back it's really bad.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would never go back during the winter, so all right, so cross country a little bit.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: And then, what brought you to Colorado?
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: I got a job with the Bureau of Land Management doing cadastral, which is you're just out in rugged areas like carrying these post pounders in remote areas, marking the boundaries between either private or public or just different federal lands, and then it just stemmed from there.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I got to do a bunch of different seasonal jobs.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: I did one as a park ranger, one as a wildlife technician, and then I was about to start my fourth season with the blm with the wild horse and burrow program.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: But then I got a job with the colorado state forest service.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: So super cool.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, are you still working with them or?
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: I quit my job in march and now I just run you're a full-time runner, dude.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: I love that life money goes a lot further when you're not paying rent and living out of your car.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Is that what you're doing?
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: You're doing the van life, yeah, or car life without the van?
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: yeah, that's you're not the only one.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: I just I had erin on a few episodes ago and she's she's living the van life.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I'm just like I love how people can.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Just I, I want to do it, I would love to do it, but I'm like I'm nervous to do it just because I have so much stuff yeah, you get rid of all the stuff it feels so good, yeah, sell
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: it, throw it away, I don't know, donate it, well, I think it's like things are like so expensive now and like life, like just Just life and all that stuff that's what I get you.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: I don't want to do that.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Give it to your friends.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Maybe they'll give it back later if you really like it.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you this you live this semi-nomadic life.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Do you find training harder to be able to do that?
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: I think the hardest part is eating.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: I bought a Yeti.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: I hate it.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: I gave it away already.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: I'm just like I don't even want it.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Ice would last two days and then everything gets all soggy.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: So I bought this goal zero fridge and like giant battery which lasts a day.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: So now I'm trying to figure out like do I buy giant solar panels?
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Do I just punt and get a different fridge?
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the struggle my buddy.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Um, I was borrowing it from him.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: It was like a jackery, I was using Dude.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: I can like power.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: This is terrible.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: When I like go out and like do stuff and like stay overnight in my car and stuff like that, I bring my Nespresso machine with me.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I have like coffee in the morning.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: People, everybody shits on me for it.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: They make fun of me.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: But like I bring the Jackery with me and I'm like I can have espresso in the morning with this.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I use the AeroPress.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: It's probably smaller than the espresso machine.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: I'm running out of room in my car, so solid.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: That's really cool and, yeah, the thing is that I like about it is you can go anywhere.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Nothing to hold you back.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: It's been amazing so far.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: I didn't expect it to be going this well.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Knock on wood but yeah, I mean, the other hard part is if you're in a new area trying to find trails, if you have a specific workout, like sometimes my coach says rolling hills.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know where rolling hills exist if you're not in the midwest or east coast, like it's either up or down, yeah, so that's true.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Rollers are not so easy to come by, especially, yeah, like any of the I may be, some of the valleys I don't get to find them.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Who coaches you?
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Aaron Saft.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: He's the East Coast guy, nice yeah.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Very cool.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Now, how many years have you been working with a coach, doing all that?
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: I think I have a bad habit.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: At this point.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: I worked with Aaron for maybe a year, a couple years ago, and then I got injured so I was like, oh okay, not running, I don't need a coach.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: And then I got coached by lindsey herman for a while, which is amazing and then I was like, well, I'm gonna do canadian death race.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Aaron got second at that.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: He knows like long stuff, so does lindsey.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: And so then I went back with aaron and now I just feel bad because I'm always like, well, I want to just go run in the mountains, which is really hard when you have a training regimen which I think does like rein you in a little bit but at the same time like I want to just go run 20 miles and yeah, I think it's something a lot of us struggle with, like I.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I have the same problem where I mean, don't get me wrong, love my coaches.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: I think the structure is really important for me to to do good at races, but that, for instance, like yesterday, I had like a a two hour like hike run schedule and it turned into a four hour effort and I'm like sorry you know, you know, the other thing I suck at and I probably if Eli and Tabor listen to this like dude, I am fucking horrible at filling out my like I have like an Excel sheet that like I'll put stuff in and like put in like you know the feedback and wait, you know they'll give me feedback on it and yada, yada, yada, but like I take like a week and a half to do that and I'm like just really bad at updating stuff and I should be better at it.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know it's been harder like, especially with the podcast and just being busy.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: It's hard to like keep track of everything you know yeah, I thought quitting my job I'd have all this spare time and at the end of the day I'm like, oh shoot yeah I should have done like all these things yeah prioritizing is hard listen like I.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Like I said, I envy that life.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: I think it's a.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: It's a pretty cool one.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Now, what did you study in undergrad then?
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: uh, I started pre-med I feel, like a lot of people did me too.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, I switched to geology and that's what I he told me I needed an a in calculus.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: I'm like, well, shoot, like that advisor, like someone should slap him because it's a lie, first of all, and I gave up on my dreams because of that one comment, uh.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: And then I switched my major like six times to psychology and, like pre-chiropractic, pre-vet, I ended up just getting a biology degree.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, I wanted to do marine biology, so I started at university of texas, at brownsville, and then transferred to mississippi state and I got my master's in forestry, which was more like hydrology yeah, yeah, yeah and so yeah I saw it on your instagram.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: That's why I asked.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: So that was kind of kind of put it on there because I'm like still a nerd at heart, yeah yeah, that's cool.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: I uh, I worked as a consultant for a year out of college and, like as an environmental consultant, if you will, sweet Sucked.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: I hated it.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: It was terrible, but like one of the things they wanted me to do that I just didn't do was become an arborist or get my arborist certification, I have that too, yeah, do you?
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: And I'm like.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I literally did this one project where and it was fun being outside I lived in South Florida and like I had to walk around with a GPS and just like shoot trees with the GPS and like measure the diameter and like identify the species of tree and I'm like this is horrible, like it was fun walking around and being outside but like the whole like staring at a screen, still the whole hydro, like or, I'm sorry, the whole like or like.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I just I don't know.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I find like I found rocks at the time and other things to be a little more interesting.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Like the physics or maybe the math part of it.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Rocks are more exciting than trees.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: The geology aspect I thought would be more fun.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: But then you get into consulting and it's like this is so boring.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: It's like let's find pollution or identify pollution and write about it and then maybe they can't build here or they can, and then they could just pay more and probably build here.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: So I don't know, I thought it was dumb.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: It's all about money.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I see that my job was pretty fun.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: I think the best job I did was a wildlife technician.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: I was literally out there calling for owls, looking for bats.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: That's dope.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: It was a blast.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: You're just out on federal lands.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: You don't see people out on federal lands.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: You don't see people, you're just wandering around the woods.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I can't wait till we get to our ending questions, cause I'm going to ask you about Bigfoot.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: We're going to, we're going to, we're going to get into that.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: We'll get.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: We'll get to that later.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: So you just came back from one of the things we should talk about.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: The audience you just got back from the go programs was yesterday.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: So how, how was it?
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: It was brutal, yeah it was good and then it was rough and I tried to have a positive attitude at the end, which I usually do, but I was just.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: I had a pity party for a while.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I uh might have snagged the jersey they made me wear, put a target on my back immediately, but they had more.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'll give it back next year.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: That's cool, that's cool.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: It started out great.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Uh, me and this girl, amelia Shay, uh, who I had met before, were the first to the hill, the top of the hill, on the first lap, and I was like I think I ran with this girl last year.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: I didn't, it was.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: I got her mixed up with someone else.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: She got, I think, third or fourth last year, so she's a crusher.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, all right, where is everyone else?
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Like I know there's some really strong women here.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: I should not be the first one on the top of this hill.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, after that, like I just I didn't have the downhill speed.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: A lot of those girls are like previous collegiate track athletes, which is not me.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: I'm just like recreational trail runner gone, try hard.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: And so I used the downhill to try to catch my breath and that second lab, I just started tasting blood, and so I slowed down a lot and normally I catch people on the hill, but I just I couldn't catch them after the downhill.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I ended up in seventh, which I got last year, but I missed the fifth lap.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: So I was just like beating myself up about it, Cause it's like 30 seconds can make or break if you get that fifth lap.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Well, it's only what?
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: 30 minutes to do the race.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yep, and you have to, like, hit the bottom of the single track within 30 minutes, and I heard the horn blow like uh, I knew I wasn't gonna make it, even though I was on the single track.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: So oh man, what did you think of the like?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: The one of the reasons why I shouldn't say this on like, but like one of the like there were.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I had a few reasons why I didn't go like, mostly family related.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: It was like my mom's 60th so I wanted to like spend time, uh, with the family, but, like.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: One of the things I just like was a hesitation of mine in the beginning is like I hate one o'clock starts oh, it's so hot, dude, hottest part of the day, for sure.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: What are?
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: We doing it's so mean.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: But I looked and last year was 10 degrees cooler and then the last time I did, it was three years before, that was 10 degrees hotter.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: But I thought like maybe I would have some heat acclimation from mexico, because it was 100 degrees when I finished that race.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: But I guess that's not how it works.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: I think just the altitude, like 80, 200 feet baking in the sun I don't know, it hit me harder than I expected yeah, yeah, oh, my god, I feel like it would zap you.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, um, yeah, what a cool I'm going to do.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Probably, like later in the week, I'll do a race recap.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I screwed my whole schedule up this week.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I thought Broken Arrow was Friday.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know why.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: It's next Friday.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's 22nd.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Did they move Broken, arrow?
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: I feel like it moved back the week after GoPro games, because I did Pepe's face-off and immediately started driving to California.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, something screwed me up.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Anyway, I had like five episodes to release this week and then I'm like I suddenly have no episodes to release this week for all my race previews, so I'm like I've got to figure out something to do.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: So I'll talk about Pepe's for an hour.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: There's a lot to talk about.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, and it's funny like I feel like most, if not every person other than, like aaron tan that's been on the podcast, was at gopro games this weekend, so there's lots to chat about.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Such a fun weekend.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah did you run in the other races or just at pepe's?
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: no, and last year I did the 5k, 10k and pepe's so I thought maybe this year, like not doing another one, would give me some sort of advantage.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's a weird race, the hiking format and stuff like that.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Did you use poles?
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: I use poles.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: I just it was so weird, like I just I like blacked it out yeah I think I might have.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Maybe I was red lining because I just it's all a blur normally, like I have more, more memories, but they wouldn't let people line up by the tape.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Normally there's people yelling in your face supporting you and I think that really took away from the race.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: And then them making the elite and the amateur wave split us up.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: So we had 19 guys and 10 women in the elite wave and a ton of people in the amateur wave and we started at one.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Amateurs started at two and that just took away from it, because you're splitting up the spectators so much too, yeah and so just like it's the closest thing we can get to that european race style where you just have people like screaming, cheering for you and like that's what it's all about.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: It's so fun and we kind of missed that a little bit this year yeah, no, and I hope so.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: I actually got to meet and have a phone call with the pr person for go programs, so I was trying to get a start list, yes, which they didn't, they couldn't provide.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: So, and this is like maybe get some constructive, like happy feedback that we can provide, like constructive feedback that we could provide them, as like maybe just let everybody all start at once, if that's possible, and like also, I don't know, like maybe let's provide some start lists, make life a little bit easier for the people covering it, you know yeah, I think their concern was the downhill single track passing people.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: But I talked to a few people and like it was never that bad, because if people are going slower they'd usually like yell on your left and they'd just like kind of go over.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think there are any weird incidences well, I also got feedback from some people that ran the 20k um, or was the 10k, I think it was.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: The 20k is passing people.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: You know a lot of the guys up front would be passing people in the second loop and it's like the same thing you know you're passing people in single track exactly so I don't know, I, um, I think may and this is, I don't mean this in like a negative way I I don't think they're as close to maybe the running scene as maybe other race directors and stuff like that.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: So I think you know they've got some ways to go, but hey, people are turning up, so and if they, want runners input, like we'll give it exactly and I know there are a few people on the us mountain running team that wanted to hop on to peppy's last minute, but it it wasn't an option and normally you can sign up last minute and that's I don't know.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: People have fomo yeah if you like.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: We had joe demore, cam smith jeshwin, like we had these guys just crushing for first place and morgan elliott was trying to get in there and he's won it previously and he tried, everything, could not get on the starting list and it's like so stupid?
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: you have all of these amazing elites Like I don't know, Just people last minute want to sign up.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: It's so hard to plan a race schedule.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, At least like given like my entry away.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, if I would have known I would have just handed it off to somebody.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they wouldn't allow trans.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, they won't, I don't know.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: There's something.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: We've got some moves to make there.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's lots of races they can borrow from.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: You know, you can kind of learn stuff so well.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: On happier news, you were just in Mexico for a big race Mexico Sky Challenge.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Congratulations on top 10 there.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: I kind of wanted.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Like one of the big conversations I wanted to have was like have you kind of give me a race report, maybe unpack, like like your race and kind of go from there?
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was, oh my gosh, that was really something like I went into it just like I'm not gonna sprain my ankle because I went out to la palma for my first sky race, which I had no business doing, like I was just running gravel roads all winter training for a 10k snowshoe race that was gonna be flat, and then decided last minute to go do La Palma and rolled my ankle on like the least techie spot, thought it would take a week to recover.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: It took a couple months and so transitioned like I'm going to try one more sky race and see how this goes for the season.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: And my mindset was like just have fun, don't redline, just make it to the finish, don't get hurt.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: And I think that really helped.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Uh, there was a moment I showed up at the finish or the starting line.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: I was so nauseous, I was like gagging and I don't know, like that Martin drink mix sometimes makes that happen.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I also just woke up like so hot already, like it felt like I had a fever almost, and and so I was.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: I was just having like a bitty party at the starting line, like I don't deserve to be here, like this isn't, this isn't good, and one of my friends kind of was like sat me down for a minute.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: It was like you deserve to be here.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Like you made it to the starting line Like this, just have fun, be yourself, just do it.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: And that just flipped a switch.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: The whole race.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: I never a negative thought, which that is for seven hours that's not normal.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Normally I'm just like, oh, I should just give up.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: But it was amazing, like that was such a big win for me, and the whole time I was just thinking like, okay, watch your ankles.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Like just don't, redline, take care of your body.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Like keep fueling.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: I hiked a lot because it starts out with like a 6 000 foot climb and I hiked and I superman on the one flat sandy part of the trail.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Luckily I'm glad I got that out of the way.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: In the beginning I like bruised my thumb.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: I thought it was broken.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: I will take that win.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Um, along the course, three random guys that I was running with tore or sprained their ankles to some extent.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: So I'm like, okay, this is like someone telling me, like keep paying attention.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: It was really techie, uh.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: And then karina, the woman who won it, gave us like a little talk before and she's like the pico de orizaba is like the spirit for us and I just kept thinking about that and like she's incredible, she's, amazing, she's such a sweet like down-to-earth human too a fangirl for sure, and she's gonna be at minotaur, so I'm excited oh, all right, all right
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: um, put her in for my pick.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: But, yeah, just like her words stuck with me, like we're getting to experience these different ecosystems in the forest, and it was really fitting with that downhill.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: We dropped like 1500 feet in a mile and I'm just like rolling around the dirt trying to get down this mountain and I'm just like this is it?
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Like we're just like one with the earth right now.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: So it was a blast.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Uh, then I finished the back.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Third, it was above 95 degrees.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: I think I was just roasting, I was so hot.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Someone sent me a video and I'm just like swerving into the aid station like they like put their cold ice sponges on me and I close my eyes and like tip over.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: I'm like I'm fine, everything's fine.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: And there was this one guy, uh, celso, who didn't speak English and my Spanish is garbage, um, and he was just like he'd be like come on, vamos, let's go.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: I'm like I'm hot.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: He kept checking on me and like pushing me.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: It's like I appreciate that so much because I was a little out of it.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: And then, and when I did manage to cross the finish line, it read 40 degrees celsius, so it hit 100.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Whoa, I was just baking, so there's no way to prepare for that, not in colorado.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: I spent two days in the grand canyon, which was probably good for me, but it's just baking.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: There's no way to prepare for that.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Not in Colorado, I should say I spent two days in the Grand Canyon, which was probably good for me, but not enough.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Maybe I should have stayed there longer.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: When I was in the Grand Canyon, I was like I'm so glad I'm not doing the Mexico Sky Race.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: And then I did it Last minute decision, yeah.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: And then eventually they told me they're like you got seventh.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: I'm like wow, that's like the cherry on top, because my goal was like just have fun and finish.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: So, wow, I'm gonna try another one hell, yeah, yeah, fingers crossed.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: So congrats.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: So lots to unpack here.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Like first of all, congratulations.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Like amazing finish and like those, those conditions sound atrocious.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Um, I just have like so many questions for it.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: So like, when you go out there, like as an American, now is and you can, you don't some stuff you might not be able to answer, some stuff you might be.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: If you go out there as an American for like especially as an elite for the sky racing series, like, do they help you guys with travel and stuff like that to get out there?
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Do they help you guys with, like, where to stay and stuff like that?
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: yeah, yeah.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: So, um, each race is different because there's a different race director, but then you have the sky running organization behind the scenes, kind of playing some sort of role.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: But I think if a lot of people applied to do the series, so if you're doing at least four races competing in the series, you get like three nights of watching, I think, per race for a certain amount of races I'm not sure if that's male athletes or everyone competing in the series necessarily, so that's a huge benefit.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: And then it seems like the races will have a WhatsApp group that starts, which is really helpful, but I wish it was a little bit sooner so that we could kind of talk to one another, but because Mexico was just, we had such a solid group of athletes, like just so many, like good hearted people, like nobody being an elitist or anything, and so a lot of those girls and guys are going up to Canada.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: So now we're already messaging each other, like Ruby messaged me and I'm like oh cool.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: So I think that kind of helps moving forward and getting to know who is racing.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: And just that community aspect is really nice, because it's like I met Benjamin and his girlfriend Rio.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're going out to Peru.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Sister, oops, sister.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: No, you're good, you're good.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're good, they're adorable.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: First of all, I've never met Rio, but yeah, I mean, I hung out with Benjamin a bunch.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: He's a good guy, yeah.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: And so I'm like sweet, you're both going to Peru.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Like I was like follow me on Instagram, we'll chat, so you don't have to like flying by yourself, we'll coordinate.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: And then she's also doing South Korea.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh, maybe I should come to South Korea so you don't have to travel alone.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: But just I don't know.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: That part of best part right is getting to meet all, everybody knows everybody and just kind of getting connected with everyone and it's like a big party yeah, super fun yeah super cool.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Okay so, and what was it like like for the lodging?
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Like, did everybody like?
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Like it was like golden trail series where everybody's like rooming together, or how was that?
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: no, I wish it was.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: I don't know if each race is different or they just ran out of space because kelly wolf and I were together in the holiday inn so we had air conditioning and I know a lot of guys got put up in a hostel and that hustle was like at least 95 degrees.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: There were no windows in some of the rooms and I'm like I haven't asked jackson yet about about this.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: So I'm kind of curious stomach issues and it's like, okay, you're just baking in 95 degrees, like that's not setting you up for success.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: So dude, that's horrible I don't know like if that's common, because lubhama it seemed like some people went and got airbnbs and there were quite a few athletes in like one hotel, so I'm curious to see.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: It's so much more fun when you're all together and you can go get breakfast and eat together and community building.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, yeah.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: So I'll see what canada does what were the um?
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: What were the aid stations like on the course?
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Amazing, yeah, oh my gosh.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: So we got to go out for a photo shoot.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: It was like ruby, johnny, emma, uh and me and we ran some of the course.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh no, I'm redlining, but we're passing boroughs.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: They have these boroughs.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: They're hiking up with watermelons just like bags of watermelons and a bunch of five gallon jugs, and so I was worried they're gonna run out of water.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: But they nailed it.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: It was amazing.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Like I was just smashing watermelon at every aid station, they were so quick, filling up my bottles, like sponging me down with cold ice water.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: It was really good.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: I was so impressed that's amazing.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, and people are hiking because they're like.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: One of the aid stations was probably at eight or nine thousand feet and I think the race started at what like five yeah, somewhere in the range four or five yeah high fours I think low fives and those roads like it was remote.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was effort to get.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Is there like?
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: dogs and stuff I've heard like on the live stream.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: I think they did pretty good at keeping them out of the way, but I know, uh like, morgan flew out early and he had issues running the course with dogs chasing him so they, the race directors, were like nope, we got it.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: We talked to all the local villagers and we're like okay keep your dogs at bay, yeah, but there was just one dog.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: I saw towards the end and he was just like it's a happy dog, what it's just like kind of out of it like me so he's probably trying to survive the heat as well, and this woman was like handing out tomato slices and I'm like I'm not gonna try that today, but she's like shoo, shoo dog that's a big extreme, like uh tomato slices that's different?
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: yeah, not right now.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: How was?
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: How was?
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Um?
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: What did you think of orzaba, like the town and and the culture?
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: It was just so hot.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: I feel so bad for them because they had this 10 day heat wave that it's never this hot and it was just brutal, so just melting the entire time, but it seemed great.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: I was just afraid of drinking the wrong water eating something that didn't sit well, and so I was just afraid to really go out and experience a lot of the foods and things, and then my stomach ended up being totally fine until I got back to America.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: So I guess that's a good thing.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's like a waiting period, I guess.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: I got back on Tuesday and then Wednesday night it was like weird, anxious, like night sweats, like body aches.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I don't know.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: And then I'm finally.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Finally the sharp stabbing stomach pains have gone away, so I haven't been eating enough.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Like post-race recovery has been garbage and then I think, maybe going into puppies.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: I was just under fueled too, so it makes sense I don't know, maybe have some immunity now yeah, yeah, yeah, now you're invincible.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you won't have that problem in canada.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: No, that's, that's cool.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: That's cool.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: And thanks for the race recap.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I was just so curious because I well, I just love the mexican culture, I love the food, like I know, mexico is a cool place for me.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's hard not to go check out orizaba like the peak yeah, as well, like we could see it, but also there's a ton of wildfires going on right now, and so I noticed a little bit of smoke at one point too, and it was really hazy.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: You couldn't see the peak from Orizaba itself, but we got up high enough that there was a really good shot, so yeah, how techie was the course Like?
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: was it like just nasty terrain, or?
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: The downhill like they had some ropes and I don't know.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: I think people sent it on that, but I just my technical downhill is not there.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: It seemed pretty techie to me okay uh, I think at one point I was like oh, it wasn't that techie, but I was.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: I was hiking out a lot of it and so I think if you're going fast, it's pretty darn techie.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: I don't even know how to explain it did you wear like gloves, like for the ropes and stuff?
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: no, but I had poles and I'm really glad I had them because I used them on the entire uphill, not the downhill, because I don't know I'm like scrambling with my hands.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it was pretty techy.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: It just wasn't as exposed, I think, as some of the sky races.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, there is a point where you get up to like 10-2 or 10-3 and there was one spot where it's like, oh, there's no trail and it's quite a drop off.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that's cool, it's a fun experience.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: So you're uh, what's your take on exposure and stuff like that?
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I'm terrified.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: I'm terrified of heights I'm learning.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: I'm like, fascinated by things that I'm afraid of, I think like crocodiles and heights okay, crocodiles and heights sharks.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Sharks too.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Have you ever seen a crocodile in the wild?
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: um, I don't think so.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: I studied abroad in australia, and I think they had some crocs up by the great barrier reef.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: So you don't go in the water, but they just see any.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: But they can sense your heartbeat underwater I didn't know that.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: What terrifying I grew up in south florida.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: We have american crocodiles down there, we have, we have alligators, obviously, but we also have in like miami and south in the keys.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like loaded with american crocs.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I've never actually, I lied, I have seen one, but it was in the everglades.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Pretty cool it's terrifying, but it's so cool, yeah, oh, I think they're awesome and sharks too?
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: yeah, I don't know.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Um, okay, so exposure is a little scary.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Do you do like?
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Are this?
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Are you going to do like any class four, class five, three, fourteeners?
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: What's massive?
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Massive is class two, probably.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Maybe there might be a ridge of class three.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Class two class one what's Albert?
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Probably class two, class one Go to the Songrays.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Songrays is where it's at, that's where the tough stuff is.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: That's a.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: It's a brutal range.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, do the song race it's like have you?
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Have you ever been near the needle or on the needle?
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: No, oh, you can all right, check it out.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Definitely put that on the list, okay, um I'll tell evan, I'm going out there yeah paul, just so you shout out to evan paul come back.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: So, on the this topic, every time I do something stupid in the mountains, usually Evan is with me.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like now it's like every actually I think back in like every panic attack I've ever had in the mountains has usually been with him and it's him talking me off the ledge.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, good yeah, he's the best.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: I'll text him after this and ask him what he's doing next week.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's the best, um, okay.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: So on the topic of exposure, you're gonna be doing in a few weeks meet the minotaur, shout out to that race.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Very exciting.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: You stoked, I'm so stoked, okay there's a lot of ridge lines up there are you driving out or flying?
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna drive okay make sure there are no grizzlies.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: I got bear spray tickle them a little bit yeah, yeah, just don't run.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: I guess like I don't know where is that area?
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think it's like right over the border okay, of montana montana, maybe I don't know, montana.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I think ish okay alberta so yeah, there are there's.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: There's straight up grizzlies running around out there.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Someone just got attacked, I think in the Tetons.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Holy shit, really yeah, oh, wow.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: That's not good.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you gotta be careful.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: I keep like looking at races to do in Alaska for next summer.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: And like I cause I'm I donque series Alyaska, um, and yeah, I don't know.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I feel like those races are so short.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: The probability of getting attacked by a grizzly bear you'd hope is pretty low.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: It's like trying to weigh that math out.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: The grizzlies are bigger up there they're pretty big.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: They're pretty huge.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: I think ours are a little smaller, but I don't know I went to the Cheyenne mountain zoo not too long ago.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Cause I and this first time I've ever seen like a grizzly like in the like in captivity.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Um dude, they're huge.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Oh no, they're so big you have to go there after this and just be like okay, that's.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: That's what I don't want to see.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: I was thinking like, oh my, one of those in real life on the trail, like that's a, that's a huge animal.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: What do you do, like, just okay, I don't know, I'm sorry for being here.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like prey, I don't know.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, so meet the minotaur.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Um, we could talk about your 2024 season.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: If you want, we could kind of jump into that.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: But is there anything you want to say on meet the minotaur?
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: as far as like, just like excitement or anything like that tape, this shit out of my ankles yeah I don't know if I'm gonna use poles, because I just maybe I'll use my hands yeah, it looks really exposed, it looks beautiful.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: It's crazy because it's like their tree line is different yeah, so it's much lower.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: It's much lower, but I don't know because, I.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: I was doing some research on canadian death race, which I'm not sure if I'm still gonna do at this point.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Uh, but their tree line, like you, hit seven in that race and you're way above tree line.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow, okay, All right, that's a superpower.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all right.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually I have the start list for that race.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: I was able to.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Fortunately it's pretty stacked get it off them.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, elise ponchette's coming out over.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, quite a few.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: She's an arterics athlete now yeah, yeah, and emma cook clark.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Emma cook.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Clark will be there.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Ruby will be there.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: I believe she's on the list.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I didn't know karina.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: I didn't have.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: At least on the updated list I got last week, karina was not on there when I did the preview.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: Unless she changed it, I think she's.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: I think she's doing it okay, I might have to make an edit.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a good thing that's coming out next week she went to school in canada oh, that makes sense.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: I mean I would be.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, she got third there last year.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised like it would be weird if she didn't go.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: You know why.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Why not?
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, there's a stacked male and female contingent like I'm looking forward to seeing.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Like you know, jackson and morgan will be there.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: We'll have, um, what's his name?
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Johnny will definitely be there and I think he like dropped last year.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know if he got sick or something, but he got food poisoning in canada.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: What, yeah, how's it even possible?
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: I mean?
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: mexico would have made sense, but such a bummer.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I made that comment earlier.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: I was like you probably won't get that in Canada, but I guess I'm wrong, I don't know.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Poor Johnny Lunalima.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hopefully he corrects that this year and I'm sure you'll have a great race.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be a good little.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: You guys got to like a cool little contingent, now like going through these races.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: It's going to be a blast, blast and uh, my friend robin lesh is running.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: She's 50k crusher, okay, so I'm really excited for her.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: This is, I think she said like her first sky running race.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: So okay, yeah, watch out for her all right, nice, nice, um, all right.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: So what do you?
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: got planned for the rest of the year I'm kind of just taking it one day at a time because, like going into mexico, I'm like I'm for sure gonna come out injured, and I didn't.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: So I was thinking canadian death race, the 118k was gonna be my a race.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: But now I'm like I'm for sure going to come out injured, and I didn't.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: So I was thinking Canadian death race, the 118K was going to be my A race.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: But now I'm like, well, let's do Minotaur, assuming that goes well.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: And then you have to do four races to compete in the series.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: And then I'm like, okay, but I made the US.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: We're putting together a US sky running team, and so I got picked to be on the 70K for that.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Oh congrats.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: So now I'm like all right, I have like six races abroad.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Like what am I doing?
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: I'm going to try to do the Cordillera de Blanca Sky Race in Peru.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: So after Minotaur I'll drive to California.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go crew Ragna to Batz yeah, yeah At Western, because she's Merrill, that's yeah, yeah at western, because she's meryl, that's amazing and then fly out to peru.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: So it's like just assuming every day goes all right, like it's one thing after another, because if one little domino falls the wrong way, like yeah wow, that's a lot.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: You have a serious schedule and I also got chosen for the romp climbing team in ecuador and we're supposed to go climb some peaks.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: I got picked to climb cayumba okay it's like almost 19 000 feet sweet, is that pre or post peru?
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: that's post peru okay that is, end of september, early october nice so you are gonna be busy.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, uh, I was gonna no because I was gonna say for the peru race, like benjamin was telling me that race was like at 14k or something like that.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you start at like 10, 8 it's insanely high similar to like the pike's peak profile, but there's a via ferrara oh, no shit that's so cool oh my gosh I raced, I did broken arrow iron face last year.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Oh sweet, with uh, with the, with the via ferrara, that race, that's amazing like I don't know I thought it was kind of super fun, let's put it this way I'm a better runner than I'm a climber, so I lost a lot of time on the view.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Um, but super cool race, super fun, yeah, um, yeah, how does that work?
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Are they gonna just like rope you guys up and you're just, you're just going on uh, the race director andres, who works for the sky running series.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: Uh, he sent me some videos and there was like a two second clip and it didn't look that bad it looked like you could climb without being hooked in.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, but it was only like two seconds and I feel like it could be deceiving okay so I have no idea, just hang on for dear life.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, that's cool.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: So one of the things I really want to unpack and talk, talk about is you are a Merrill athlete this year, which is super exciting, yeah, congrats.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: And one of the things I thought was really cool and maybe you can kind of give us some inside baseball and how this worked was like this selection process that they did.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: It was like this very public FKT process like thing in Steamboat.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: How did this work, like, how did this come about?
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: It was really cool.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: I think Gear Junkie wrote up an article about it and that's where you would apply.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: They wanted three men and three women from North America.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: You had to be at least 18, submit an application, and so their process was choosing three men and women to come fly us out to Steamboat and compete in this FKT style race.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: And so it was awesome.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: They had a house.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: They put us up in a hotel.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: We had a call with some of the product development team and then marketing and PR people were out there from Merrill.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: So we got to know them and secretly we're like, oh wow, like one, two, three, four of the six of us are from durango, like are they trying to put a team together?
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: So in the back of our heads they're like we're gonna, they're gonna just take all of us for the team yeah uh, but that's not quite what happened.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: It was this course up steamboat, I think, very similar, if not the same as the run rabbit beginning, yep.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: And so 3.2 miles, 2200 feet of vert staggered.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: First one to the top.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Male and female win a sponsorship, and so, yeah, we pick names.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: I think I was the second female to go, and Sarah Aranda was right behind me 20 minutes, and so what happened was Morgan had won, and then Sarah and I somehow tied we're within like a half second of each other, and so they ended up taking both of us.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I was curious to see, like, how that worked out with Staggered Stars.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, wow, good for them.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: That's a classy move.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: And there's rumors they're going to do another one.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, so it'd be cool to see like what kind of fkt.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: I think it'd be awesome if they did a longer fkt, personally, because some of the the people who got chosen for the event were like 100 mile specialists like, yes, jeff garmeyer yes, he, which is like he does.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Well, I was gonna say like it didn't make sense to put like him and kunkle, like, or him versus kunkle versus.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Uh, like morgan, like I was like morgan's gonna smoke all three of them.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I don't't, I don't know Not to be that way, but like it's kind of obvious.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and like Anthony, specializes in like road running.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he's a fast dude.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: He's got wheels, no doubt, but like I don't know, I felt like Morgan, your own route, but the grasses were really high and so we all ended up just sticking to the trail.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, but it would have been cool to just like choose your own path, which is how it was kind of presented.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: But we all were like, yeah, yeah interesting, so you win this sponsorship.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Are did they tell like, like at the top, or they're like okay, congrats.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: No, okay, no, it was really suspenseful because initially they're like.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: My watch was like the half a second faster, so, like you're for sure on the team, we're not sure what we're doing yet for you.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: And so like I'm like okay, like I'm kind of pumped, but like kind of concerned, and like, of course, sarah's like in limbo just waiting and we're like are they going to split the salary?
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: Like we don't really know.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: We still like salary like we don't really know.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: We still like who knows what happened behind the scenes?
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, no, they'll probably have an asterisk for next year, like tiebreaker will be this yeah, yeah, another, another race to the top.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so, okay, so they.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: So you find out, which is super exciting.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: It took a few days, okay, okay.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: So I wasn't sure we're like flying to the airport and morgan's just like cool.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: And then we're just like what, and he's like I wonder if this like affects me.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, okay, cool, very suspenseful, yes, yeah so you find out and then you I don't know if you can go into this, but as far as like contracts and you gotta go through that negotiation process and then you start and then this year you're on the team, basically right yeah super cool it was sweet.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: And then I was like I want to go to the running event and they, let me hang out at the booth, sent me shoes, set me up with all the merrill girl gear, so kind of like after the event we're getting merrill gear already and then just like officially january our start date.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: So um, the reason I am asking so many questions I'm curious is because, like merrill was, like I think reed really came onto the scene in the last few years and you know they just got Tyler McCandless.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Like they've been making a lot of like really notable pickups, you know.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: So my thought was, you know, like I don't know, and they've they're coming out with all these amazing shoes.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: So it was like it's kind of nice to see, you know, a new brand that's got some of these sweet shoes, you know, making some pretty notable pickups.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: But I think Merrell's getting there and now that they have these awesome test lab shoes the Skyfire and the Long Sky like it's getting a lot of attention but the shoes are not available in enough places.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: I'm really pushing to have shoe demos, like send me a bunch of shoes and I'll go do group runs, like it would be so fun because people can't get the shoes on their feet.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah Well, so fun, because people can't get the shoes on their feet.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that was one of the conversations I had with evan, because he works at 7 000 foot running co and I don't think they carry marils.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a local hiking company that has merrill and it's too small of a town.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: So if they don't give us approval to carry those shoes, we can't have them that's so annoying though they won't carry those running specific trail shoes.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: I don't understand how that works, that's yeah that's like a monopoly pushing buttons.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: It's ridiculous because those shoes would do so well on, like the colorado trail, all of those awesome routes around salida well there's so many runners in that area like yes, 100, like it would really catch on, and especially with like now, having you know between you morgan reed, like just there's three merrill athletes like in that general area, like and sarah's down in durango, which isn't far either, right like it would make the most sense to have the.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know if they have them, if we have them at colorado running company.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: Yet I gotta find, I gotta ask ace I don't know where you can buy them, yeah I've never seen them in a store.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've never.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: And the other thing too is like I just found out from a buddy yesterday, because, like sportiva just dropped the prodigio, which is like our new running super shoe, if you will, and I've had people, plenty of people, reach out to me and ask me where can I get that shoe.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: I'm like I don't know, go to the sportiva store, like that's.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: That's my immediate thought.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: But apparently somebody told me the other day they tried it on at rei.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: So I guess rei does like cover some stuff so I think they have the agility peak because they're doing an early release with our, we're doing a collab shoot with john g and merrill okay, and rei is gonna have it, but it's the agility peak.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: So it's like it's a little tier below third peer tier in the test lab and I hike with it yeah, okay, okay, dude, on the janji topic, like I, that's a brand to watch out for.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Like I, really like Janji, I think they're doing like really innovative stuff.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Their product, I mean every piece of apparel I've ever tried, top notch.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: Their men's tights are dope, like the half tights I was like, oh man, these are great.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: They're pretty sweet, like they're actually runner tested.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: And.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: I wore some Janji shorts out at Mexico.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: They're like neon orange in case anyone needed to find my body or something.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: But yeah, their pockets are awesome.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: They're actually like runner tested.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: Uh, my teammate Corey is out in like Mongolia doing an expedition style shoot with them with camels, and that's cool what they're doing.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: That was dope.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, now I'm.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Thank you for opening up a little bit more about that.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: I know some athletes are a little more cagey and don't say as much.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: But, like, just because Meryl is, like, so new to the scene, I wanted to, you know, hopefully get some more information for you know it's been awesome, and we get to work with the product development team and tell them, like, what works, what doesn't work, and so they can just constantly be improving the shoe.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, some like far-fetched lab we don't get to talk to or something.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: Where are they based at like, where's there?
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, no shit.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, like greater detroit or I think so.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: So you know, all the other teams get you to these cool trips like switzerland and germany, and you get to go to canton, michigan that's funny, I uh yeah, oh, you're back in the midwest, at least yeah, I can make a trip home good food there.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Spent some time in Ann Arbor.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Solid food, yeah, that's all right, it's not bad, it's nice.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Are you like a Wisconsin fan?
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, I went to school at UW lacrosse, so people in Madison would be like you don't even go here.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: It was a sister school, so I don't know that's cool.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, one of the things you said to me about you talked about this like or sorry, this climbing expedition in Ecuador that you're supposed to be doing.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: Can you give us some more information into that?
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so ROMP is the Range of Motion Project and their goal is to increase mobility for all, because everyone deserves to have that freedom to like go walk on a trail, and there's so much more to that.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Uh, they have a clinic down in ecuador and we're trying to raise enough money to open up a second one and it helps provide high quality prosthetics to those in need at like a very reasonable cost.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: And there's just all of these amazing stories where, like a farmer can work in his his yard again, or like a mom can walk her child to school, because otherwise, if you don't have that prosthetic, like you're not mobile and everyone deserves that freedom.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: And so I got chosen to do this climb to kind of spread awareness and education about the group and the non-profit.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: I have to raise $10,000.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Oh shit, yeah, I can start with the podcast.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: Here we go so if anyone wants more information, uh, let me know.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: Okay, and so I get to go climb Cayumba.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: It's like it's yeah, yes, it's just under 19,000 feet in Ecuador.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: The other team gets to climb Cotopaxi, and then a third team will be put together to climb the tallest one, which is really hard to pronounce.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: It's like ch-ch-ch-ch.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: I got to practice.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: I have to wear my hat.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: It's on my hat.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's a great cause and my buddy, zach Friedley, who is an AK runs for on professional athlete, got me into it.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: He's like you should apply for this.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, if you say so, like it seems like a pretty awesome cause and I didn't expect to get on the team, but I did.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: That's super cool.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: So there's a bunch of like noteworthy athletes then that are basically doing this or it's a combination of like romp ambassadors.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: There's a few women who are actually like physios or doctors super cool some of them are also amputees, uh like zach was born without uh underneath his knee, yeah, and so a large majority of the team are.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: They're not all athletes.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Some people are just local ambassadors who are really involved in the community, do group runs.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: There's like a large spectrum of us and then there are a few athletes page penrose, I think she just I don't know that name graduated she's a little blonde super fast.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um zach.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: David kilgore is on the team oh cool, it cool.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: I was just like I think Sam and Cam, I think they're coaches.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: They're super freaking tough.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: There's just so many amazing people on the team.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, I just met.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: Oh no, she's not on the team.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Never mind, yeah, there's just some great people on the team and so we haven't gotten to meet in person, but we'll have monthly calls to kind of get to know each other before we go out there and super cool.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: What's the highest you've ever been um pikes peak no, okay, I went up albert, you know albert, all right.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: So 14 000, I don't even know how high is over 14 something.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I heard they remeasured sea level, that's true, it's true, we have a, so I I have an excuse for not actually knowing, because they changed them all.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, super cool, uh, that's, uh, that's a, that's pretty neat yeah, it's a uh, it's like actual mountaineering though yeah, that's neat crosses and things that also terrify me, I feel like they'll probably do, like they'll teach you and stuff right I hope so.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, don't jump in the crevasse, jump over it.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Um, I'm sure they'll, like I would imagine.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how technical it is, but like maybe there'll be some like fixed ropes and stuff that you'd be roped in yeah, you have to get bring like like snow pants and shit, like like I don't know, like mountaineering stuff yeah, I think that's part of the the trip fee.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I have a lot to do.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: I'm also trying to.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: I also think I opened my mouth too much and I'm responsible for fundraising for the us sky running team because we're not funded like the mountain or trail team so we could start fundraising.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Here we go, we're on the podcast, so I got my car.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: I have a toyota and I went to the toyota dealership to get an oil change like.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: Is there someone I can talk to about sponsorships?
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: hey, why not listen?
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: You know, I mean an endemic sponsor or non-endemic sponsor would be dope, get toyota to sponsor the team or something like that.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: That'd be dreamy.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can hope yeah, yeah, I don't know whoever's listening.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's, that's something I can get behind, because I know a lot of the people that are on that team and then, like, just like really support it in a lot of ways, like super, super cool.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: So, I think aaron's on the team with you.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just had her on the podcast.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, shout out to aaron, yeah, and she's like interesting because she doesn't really race a lot, like she's mostly on the fkt scene dude she's really strong, like really, I she took, I went up the incline with her.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: She's really really strong.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's gonna be, you guys are in for a treat to have her on the team.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah um, okay, uh, yeah, shout out for that, and if you want to come back on when you start like doing the fundraising stuff, let me know we can start getting going.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: All right, so we're at about about an hour.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Um, and I'm finally at the questions that I'm really excited to ask you.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Um, first one is, especially with your background in biology in a lot of ways, what's your take on colorado, or grizzlies in colorado?
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: they're probably still here I think so everyone's like no, and I'm like have you been to the women you?
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly know, yeah it's the largest roadless area in colorado and not a lot of people go back there.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: It's a very large space and it's around Wolf Creek where it's really rugged, I don't know.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: There's just all these creeks, there's the habitats to support it and that's where the last one was seen.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: That's right In the 80s.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: See, I'm so happy you can speak to this.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: Every time I ask people, they look at me like I'm crazy.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it could be yeah, I mean every now and then there's like a notable sighting, I mean like even on, like what was it on independence pass?
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: I mean it was probably a cinnamon phase black bear, but like there was a quote-unquote somewhat notable sighting years ago, like in the 90s on independence, um, that there was like apparently photos involved that were never released, so that's interesting I've seen a cinnamon bear down in like the wilderness area outside of canyon city and it was very cinnamon bear, very cinnamony yeah, yeah, I mean, he stood up and I was like, oh, it's a big bear, oh my god I've never had one stand up to me like he was just like, clearly not afraid.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: Just like, what is that?
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: Can I eat it?
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: It's pretty chill, but I'm not okay.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: No, no no, I've never.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: I usually like the last bear I seen, I was like running on a ridge with earphones and like almost ran into it and like he had his back turned to me and then looked at me and ran away.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, uh, yeah, I could have gone a much different way.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: Um, so you have you been to the woman who cheat all?
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: A little bit.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: I went to like Poison Park, which is outside, I think, williams Reservoir, because I lived in Pagosa for a year.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm like right on the edge there.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: Did a little bit of running.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: It's beautiful, it is.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: Like I think it's absolutely gorgeous, so cool, so dense, that stretch from like Wolf Creek to Bogosa and then to Durango and it's like that whole stretch north.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: It's wild yeah.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: And then like what's the northern border?
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: It's like Creed and then like Lake City all the way at the top.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: There's like nothing up there.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it goes to like, does it go to Uri?
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: I think you can run, like from the top of Wolf Creek to Silverton.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Really.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: but it's huge.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, interesting.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: Well, I guess you, I'm trying to think Because that?
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: No, I'm thinking of the Continental Divide Trail, but I don't think that goes to like the right.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: I think it like swings up over Wolf Creek and then to the right.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: I don't think it goes to the left.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know what goes to the left.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, super cool, okay.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Next question um, what's your take on bigfoot?
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: um, he's probably out there.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: He's probably smarter than us.
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: It's funny.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: I had this like random thing back in grad school where I like tweeted at lestrade you know, survivor man the canadian gay yeah and he tweeted back.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: And I was tweeting about, you know, back when people tweeted about aldo leopold because I'm from wisconsin and aldo leopold has this big non-profit there and I tagged them and somehow I got him to come to their biennial conference about conservation and he performed and someone asked him the bigfoot question and he like went off and he's like what do you mean?
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: it's not a question like he's real oh, les stroud is a believer, bro, yeah, yeah and so I don't know, I feel like I'm not gonna say no, I can't say no, I mean, apparently he had like something happen to him in alaska or something like that.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: He had an experience and ever since then, like he's, he's like all in a like 100, like a believer yeah, so I mean I'm not gonna say no you know what ace's answer was.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: I hope he believes in me.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: I was like dude.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: That was very, a very ace answer.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: Let's go with that I know, I like, I was like too.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: That's amazing all right.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: Next question is um what's your take on the aliens?
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: aliens yeah I mean, I hope they're friendly okay all right I mean that's fair there's like this um do you know, little dicky yeah, oh yeah the pillow talk video.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: No, it's like a 10 and a half minute song.
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: It starts off very inappropriately but like halfway through he just goes off and he's like he started with.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: Like do you believe in the war?
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: Do you believe in aliens?
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: He's like what do the aliens think?
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: Like, would they be?
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: like earth, go hard they probably do think I was go hard.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: That's fair, I mean they're probably watching us like, oh gosh, we're not getting involved with that mess I I often wonder if we're like a giant science experiment and they're like, there's like so many funny theories and they're just like what the fuck are these people doing?
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: It's not worth our time.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: No, no no, I got a few more interesting ones for you.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: It's just like, especially as a science person, I'm curious to get your take on it.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: Like what's your, what's your take on if we went to the moon or not.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know, it doesn't seem that far away.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, no, it's pretty close.
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: Like you can see it every day.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: How far can it really be?
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: I don't like there's I don't know.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: It's like it is pretty far, but it's also pretty close.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like we're probably doing way crazier stuff than that.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: Like we can have a drone deliver Amazon.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: We could probably do more.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: That is true, I see I.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Just my question is like why haven't we gone back?
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: We probably have.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: It's just like weird things are happening and they don't want us to know.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay, enter the aliens.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: Conspiracies?
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, that's fair, that's fair, and then all right.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Last question, seriously, what is your take on AI?
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: I feel like it's.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: I don't like it.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Me either no.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Google.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: It's like, am I Googling or am I AI-ing?
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: Like, is this the truth?
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I didn't know, I didn't realize how far it was and someone had to explain what chat GPT was.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: And you can just have it write you stories and essays and I don't, I don't like any of it.
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: And then on Instagram you can even have like an AI background now and it looks so real and just I want to go back in time a little bit, maybe Same.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: Same yeah, say yeah, I'm pretty pro-human.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: I'm a little upset about the say.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: I think yeah, and it's like, okay, this is what we know about now.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: Like what's the government doing?
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: like they're probably way more advanced and everything there's like holograms fighting wars?
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: probably.
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: Who?
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: knows I I think my worry is like I mean, I think about it on like the most basic level of like taking people's jobs, you know, and stuff like that.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: That upsets me.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: But then I think about like the robot overlord that eventually is going to take over, you know, like Skynet or like the Terminator or shit, Like I don't know.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: I just listened to like I don't know.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: I'm like very on the up and up, especially with my job like listening like what's about?
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: it scares the shit out of me.
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: I'm like this is not good.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: I've been out of the bubble, like living out of my car.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: I don't watch tv or hear the news.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Probably a good thing, oh no it's probably a much happier life probably ignorance is bliss yeah no, well, on that note, we're about an hour now.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: Thank, you for coming on do you want to?
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: Is there anything else you want to talk about?
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um, I don't know.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: Um, no, all right, well, thanks for coming on.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's, uh, let's plug your instagram.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: Actually, we got like some fundraising stuff, so let's plug your instagram.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: Um, maybe you talk about how people can get in contact with you.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: Um, if, for any fundraising stuff, maybe message you, I'll let you take it away yeah, uh, instagram, I'm run science.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, instagram, I'm runsciences.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: Good luck spelling that.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: It's R-U-N-S-C-I-E-N-C-E-C-E-D-E-S, because I'm sure you're writing that down right now.
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: I couldn't get Slim Sadie.
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: It was already taken.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's a good one.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: I'm bummed.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can reach out to me.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: I'm super responsive.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: I have a bunch of links on there if you need like discounts to things, mail discount and stuff like that, or if you want to read about some things I write about.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: I try to be interesting are you right like a sub stack, right or no?
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: oh, okay, okay I used to write more, like I used to have a non-profit and I would write blogs, but I've gotten out of that super cool.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: What was your non-profit about?
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: it was conservation.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: So it was conservation with a van and we would do conservation work like prairie restorations and things like that.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: It's pretty dope, yeah, cool thanks, thanks for coming on.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me no problem I'm glad it worked out.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, thank you.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: What'd you guys think?
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: I told you this was a great episode.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: Really want to personally thank Mercedes so much for coming on the podcast.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: What a special episode.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: I definitely plan to have her back on to hear more about the rest of her season at some point soon.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so some plugs I want to throw out there.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: If you haven't already been on Instagram to give her a follow, go ahead and get that done.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: Hop onto Instagram and check out just type in run science, sadie's.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: Good luck spelling that.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: R, u, n, s, c, I, e, n, c, e, c, e, d, e S.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, so give her a follow.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: Check out her, her Instagram.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: So I'm on now.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: Pretty cool.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Have a great weekend, guys.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this one, go ahead and hop on Spotify or Apple and give us a rating.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: That would be awesome.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: Really appreciate that.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: That helps us get this out to the world.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: Have a great weekend, thank you.