Latest / The Steep Stuff Podcast / Meg Cooke | Mountain Runner, Ski Mountaineer & Chemical Engineer

Transcript

Meg Cooke | Mountain Runner, Ski Mountaineer & Chemical Engineer · The Steep Stuff Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up, guys?
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Steep Stuff Podcast.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I am your host, james Lauriello, and today we've got a really fun episode planned for you guys.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: None other than Boulderite Meg Cook joins us on the podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, what an incredible human being.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: She is a chemical engineer by day, she's a ski mountaineering athlete and she's also a very talented mountain runner.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Really want to thank Meg personally so much for coming on the podcast.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: We chatted about all kinds of things.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: We obviously talked about a ton about Schemo, so, for those of you that are Schemo curious or Schemo athletes, definitely a lot of like good nuggets of information in there.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: We also talked about her 2024 running season.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: We talked about her mountain marathon race, which is just absolutely a bananas race.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to do Um.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: And we also talked about the Telluride mountain run, as well as the meet the Minotaur sky race.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Um, super fun.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Again, I want to thank Meg so much for coming on.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Um, guys, please tune in.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Um, you're really going to enjoy this one.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Like I said, lots of little nuggets of uh, information and knowledge there and just Meg is just such an absolute incredible human and I was just, like I said, so lucky to have her on the podcast.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: So tune in.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoyed this one.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Steep Stuff Podcast.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Meg Cook, it's time.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: We are live.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, I am interrupting this podcast because I've got something really fun and really special to share with everyone.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Ultimate Direction, one of my running sponsors, was kind enough to pass along a promo code to the listeners of the podcast.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: It's going to be 25% off site wide.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: If you guys are interested in some new gear, a new pack, maybe a new handheld, some apparel, whatever, ultimate Direction is going to provide the hookup.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: If you guys hop on the Ultimate Direction site and type in the code steep stuff pod, that's S-T-E-E-P-S-T-U-F-F-P-O-D, at your checkout you guys are going to get 25% off.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: This is only for now, which is I'm recording this on August, the first week in August through September.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So it's just a one month only thing.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: They were kind enough to provide it, hooking me up as an athlete, so I want to be able to get you guys the hookup for ultimate direction.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, that's going to be code steep stuff pod for 25% off.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: We are recorded now like how close do I need to be to this?
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: uh, keep like a fist away from your mouth.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's perfect, you got it cool, yeah, so we're.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: We're doing this now.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Welcome meg, how's it going?
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good yeah welcome to the podcast.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Meg meg cook right that's the right way to say it.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Yep easy like a chef do you prefer megan or do you?
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: I'm always a meg, you're a meg.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: All, right all right.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: What about because you have a chef?
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Do you prefer Megan?
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I'm always a Meg.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: You're a Meg, yeah, All right.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: What about because you have a PhD?
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Do you prefer Meg Cook PhD or like doc, doctor?
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know Like I feel like whenever anyone calls me like Dr Meg, I'm like it's just Meg, it's fine, Fair enough.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Fair enough.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Well, welcome to the podcast.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Thanks, good to be here.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: It was great getting to meet you a couple of weeks ago with the La Sportiva group.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Run had a quick little chat there with Mercedes and I was like, oh, you'd be perfect for the podcast.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: So yeah, introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about yourself and we'll go from there.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: I'm from the UK originally, don't have a super traditional running background.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I played a sport called netball which no one in the US has ever heard of, but it's the biggest sort of mass participation women's sport in the UK, in Australia, in New Zealand, south Africa, basically the Commonwealth, and it's kind of like basketball, but it's lots of like dodging, like dodging man to man marking.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: So yeah, sort of trained my whole life but never ran.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Um found my way to Boulder through sort of a PhD, a postdoc work, moved here, um and yeah, started running when I got here.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Wow, so you?
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: So you just discovered like sub ultra and trail running and all of that basically, when you got to Colorado.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um sort of I always ran as part of training.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: But then, um, I was living in Montreal before I moved down here and my one of my sisters is an ultra runner.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: She happened to come out to drive with me from Montreal down to Colorado, and obviously we got to Boulder and she was like, well, we with me from Montreal down to Colorado.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: And obviously we got to Boulder and she was like, well, we're running on the Mesa Trail.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: And I was like, okay, cool, I can run.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: And then went out and she was like, hang on, how can you run all of this stuff?
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: You don't run.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: And I was like, well, I sort of do run, but I'm not'm not a runner, um, so, yeah, I picked it up from there.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's so cool.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I love seeing that people not in like their formative years at like track and field and things like that that like gravitate to the sport and make a big impact and they just happened to find, like, oh, wow, I'm pretty good at this.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: So it's interesting because I have.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: I, I had a similar trajectory, like very similar, where it was a little bit later, I was in for me, I think I was in my like mid to late 20s and, um, yeah, I was ran a fast 5k and it's kind of evolved from there, found trail running on youtube and wound up relocating to colorado specifically like one of the major reasons was for the sport, um, but it's just interesting to see people that didn't come from a like a traditional track and field background like be pretty good at it.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I think it's funny.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: It's sort of everyone you meet in boulder.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: It's well, did you come here for the trails or did you come here for work, um, and sort of.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was the latter of those, but then found them pretty quickly.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: That's amazing, yeah um, one of the things I told you even before we started this podcast that I was going to not grill you on, but I was just really intellectually curious is what you do for a living.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: You're a chemical engineer by degree and can you talk a little bit about, like what you do like like for work and stuff like that?
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Just kind of get into that.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: So I got my PhD in chemical engineering back in 2018 and then um worked as like a postdoctoral scientist at mcgill and then moved down to boulder and I'm sort of a staff research scientist here, um, at the university of colorado, and so basically most of my research is around developing new materials to replace worn out cartilage in our knees.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: So you can imagine someone say they have like an impact injury in their knee.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: They'll chip off a piece of cartilage and there's no blood supply in our cartilage so it doesn't repair itself.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: So instead of having a nice smooth surface for our knees to sort of glide past each other, you now have a defect in that.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: So if we don't do anything, it's not going to repair itself and it's just going to wear away and we'll end up with like early onset arthritis, which is awful, because then you're 35 and you need a knee replacement.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: No one wants that.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: So we're working on developing new materials to basically fix those little patches in cartilage.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: That is so cool and that's so applicative for, like, running and skiing, like it just makes so much sense, kind of fits together.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: The number of people that tell me, like can you go back to the lab?
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Like stop running, go back to the lab and hurry up.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: That's funny, wow.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: So like, what do you like?
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Are you guys having like any breakthroughs?
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Like I don't know if you could go too deep into that, but like yeah, so we've made quite a lot of progress.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Um, we have made sort of functional pieces of tissue.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Um.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: The regulatory environment around all of this is super strict, as you can imagine.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Um, so it's probably, I'd say, 10 to 15 years before this kind of thing will end up in patients.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Um, but it's, it's definitely on the way.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Um, interesting yeah.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: You know what it's um and I don't know how much you could speak to this.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: I've listened to a lot of podcasts, um, where professional athletes.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Now one of the more common things is people leaving the States to go to, like, south America and Central America because you can get stem cells and that's like a super common thing.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: But what's your take on that?
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Is that like a thing?
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I feel like some of that's now becoming available.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: In the US there are definitely sort of biologics providers who do things like PRP, who are also moving into stem cells.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: So that kind of regulatory space is slightly easier, because they'll take that those cells from you, they won't leave the room, they'll basically put them in a tube and then in a centrifuge, so they basically separate out the stem cells from everything else and then they'll re-inject those into wherever they want to.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Does it work?
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Yes and no.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: I'm not a biologics expert, so take it all with a pinch of salt.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: But imagine you re-inject okay, okay, whether it's prp or stem cells into someone's knee joint.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: It's this open space with fluid floating around and you're trying to get this targeted to a bit of cartilage or to a ligament.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: The retention in the area that it really needs to fix is going to actually be pretty low, um, which is why lots of the work we do is on making materials that will hold those stem cells in the correct place.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: There are maybe other effects of injecting these things.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, wonderful.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: So like you might get an inflammatory response, that helps in the short term.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: But if anyone says, I don't know prp cured my osteoarthritis, it didn't, because it's a mechanically like huge inflammatory sort of disease, that yeah, cartilage isn't gonna repair itself with some plasma, super interesting no, and thank you for elaborating just because I know I feel like it's like a big topic on podcasts now and all over you hear athletes, especially athletes at a high level, talk about it.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: I think because there are like there's lots of anecdotal sort of well, I had great relief from this.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Um.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: So for some things it definitely, it definitely does work.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Um, just not everything.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: It's not a one size fit sort of fits all.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Interesting, super interesting, all right.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to pivot a little bit.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: I'm going to, I'm going to get into some running, um, just because, like all of the races you've done in the summer or like races I plan on doing next summer, so I'm like super, I don't know, like your season was just really exciting to me.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Um, I know you just came back.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: You ran Mount marathon.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Um, you also ran meet the minotaur um, two of like my favorite races, like my favorite courses on the planet.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Maybe we could talk a little bit about meet the minotaur first and then we'll we'll get into, uh, your race at mount marathon.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about that yeah, of course.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Um, I was really torn back in sort of the fall.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Last year minotaur and broken arrow were the same weekend and it was sort of this Minotaur looks really fun, super techie, like incredible descents, whereas Broken Arrow it's sort of well, yeah, it's going to be super competitive and sort of the place, almost the place to be in.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Sub Ultra it does.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Like be at the Broken Arrow, vk and then 23K.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: But I sort of thought you know what I do this for fun.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: No one pays me to do this, so I'm going to go and do what I want to do.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I went out to Minotaur and such a cool race.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: It's 21 and a half miles with about 9,500 feet of climbing, starts in this really cool little town in Crozen's past and yeah, it's just up and down all day, so fun.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: The course was like so I didn't know this until Jackson Cole told me.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: But the course itself is like was created for the race, which is you don't see that in America Like that's completely different and very unique.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Um, and the line just looks so aesthetic, like once you're above tree line and you're you're on this like technical ridge and yeah, I that had me sold.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: That was the part where I was like, oh wow, like next year, this is like top of my list yeah, it's really cool.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: It's sort of I think the race is eight years old now, yeah, um, so the first year they did it it was obviously completely off trail.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Um, now that it's been running for a while, I mean people can find a strava heat map.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: It's not that hard.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: So it's now more sort of worn out, like you can see where the trail goes um.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: But it's still really cool because it's not sort of a man-built trail.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, up above tree line you're along ridges there's I wouldn't call it scrambling, but there are definitely some spots where you've got to use your hands.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Um, any areas of like consequence like yeah, there are definitely places you could slip and fall, um that you wouldn't go out and try and like run them, run them because, you're on a ridge, um, I'd say, if you're not super happy with exposure some of it's pretty exposed um, I feel like whenever I'm racing I'm looking at my feet and where my feet are going, so I'm not too concerned about the exposure.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: It's so funny.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: It's funny you say that I've run races where people ask me after the fact they're like did you see this?
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Did you see that I'm like no, I'm just focused looking at the ground, I'm not looking around.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: I don't know Completely, yeah, but you've got to work out where your feet are going For real, for real.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: How did you like overall?
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: How would you rate your performance?
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Did you really like have a great race or what'd you think?
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Um, I was pretty happy with it.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: I ended up eighth.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: That's amazing, I think.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: I hate to say it, but like they didn't, uh, I didn't ask you beforehand and they also didn't put the results up, so I have no idea.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm pretty sure I was eighth.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: I had a weird spring in that I finished Schemo season, where I'd been I'd probably run once, maybe twice a week all winter, and then was like cool, straight back on trails, didn't really think of anything, was doing like a recovery jog off a hill, stride and rolled my ankle because I was looking at my watch um in April.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: And so I had this really sort of up down spring of I can run but it sort of hurts, and so had a lot of time not on trails in the spring.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: So, going into it, I knew I hadn't done nearly as much climbing as I wanted to, but at the end of the day I was yeah, I was pretty stoked with how I did Dude eighth place is pretty solid In a world sky running series race.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: that's amazing.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was sort of the top.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, the top end of the field was super stacked and then I was sort of the top.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, the top end of the field was super stacked and then I was sort of the first of the rest.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: I'll take it.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: And, like I said, so many oh my God, like Karina was there, emika Clark, yep, Mercedes, just a really good.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Like strong group of females, that's awesome, so All right.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: So like strong group of females, that's awesome, so all right.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: So did you go from there to Mount Marathon or no?
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: I came back there were 12 days between races, um, I actually had to go straight from Minotaur to a wedding in Calgary that night, so I don't know if six hours like running up and down mountains or six hours in heels is worse for your feet, but it was a big day for the feet, um, but no.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: So I came back to Boulder I think I was, yeah, back for a week and then flew out to Mount Marathon, um, which this week was on a Thursday, cause it's always on the 4th of July.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: So yeah, oh my gosh, and what a cool race that that.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to try to get in next year, obviously, and, like that's, that's one of my a goals.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: What an iconic race.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: It's so cool.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: It's really cool.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, I'd say for people that aren't super familiar with it, it's about half a mile on the road.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Then it's a mile where you climb 2,900 feet, um, and then, yeah, a mile straight back down and then another half mile back or just over, um, to the finish to make it a 5k, um, the route isn't marked, so as a sort of what's the word I don't know, you have to sign away to say that you've seen the entire course before you're allowed to race it.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: So if you're going, you have to make sure that you're there sort of at least two days before the race to get a full lap in, to then have a day where you chill before you race, um.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's wild, it's like super steep, and then you're like climbing over cliffs, um, and then the descent is all on scree.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: It's a race that breaks strava's gap algorithm yeah, yeah it's like people go so fast down that hill um the live stream was bananas.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I watched the live stream and you just see david norris just like, and he's so good, oh my god is he good.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: But just watching him just absolutely like I don't know what.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Was he running Like low five minute, probably four something minute pace on that?
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: I don't even know like what, that's even what you can do on there.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, it's, it's amazing.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: So what did you think?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Uh, so, I know it gets like kind of crazy.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: I have friends that, um, that live close to me that usually run it every year and they always explain to me, like, once you're off the, this is on the ascent, once you're off the road and you have to like select one of two ways to go up, can you talk about that a little?
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: bit.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: It's like super, super confusing, right, yeah, um, so there's the cliffs or the roots okay as in, like tree roots.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: So you can imagine how tree roots grow down into the ground.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: But if you take the roots sort of way up, you're pulling yourself up roots.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: It's that steep, it's almost like scrambling, but on trees.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: And the cliffs is what it sounds like.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: You're going up a cliff and there are good footholds.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: You probably wouldn't need to use your hands going up the cliffs Through the routes.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: You definitely do.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Lots of people say that cliffs is faster, but Ali Mack set the women's course record going up the routes way that's true, which way did you choose?
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: I chose routes.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I knew that cliffs was going to be really popular and I didn't want to get into traffic okay because it's sort of that first point on the course where people slow down because they start to bottleneck, um, and of the women that were ahead of me, I'd seen one or two go into the roots and I was thinking, if anyone's slow through the cliffs, I'm stuck behind them.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Um, so yeah I chose roots.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about like the way it like the brace works, like there's a men's like basically the men go for like I guess it flips flops every year, right?
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so the men will go first, then the women and it's on all women's like wave, right?
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: yeah, exactly.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Um, I've spoken to a few people out this recently because I was watching the cirque snowbird race which was champs and obviously the men and the women ran the same time and on that descent I just can see all these women who were just stuck behind, men who clearly are strong uphill but don't know how to run downhill, and as somebody who prefers the downhill, I can just sense that frustration.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: On the live stream we've got Grayson Murphy who's having to go way off trail to get around these men, and I'm like she's a world champion.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: These guys shouldn't be in her way, especially at a national champs race.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's really cool how Mount Marathon does that.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: So there's one race at 9 am, the kids race goes at, I think, 11.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: And then the other race goes at 2 o'clock.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, so the men and the women alternate every year.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: So one year, sort of, the women will have the prime time spot in the afternoon where there are huge crowds, um, and then vice versa for the men.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: So I don't know that's really cool.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I feel like I would rather go at night just because, the way I like to race and the way, like I don't know, in the morning I'm awake, I've had my coffee, I can get my nutrition figure out.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: I feel like two o'clock starts are so late yeah, absolutely it is.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: It is it?
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Especially because you've sort of got the buzz of the men's race going on and you're like, well, they want to watch it, but I also need to be eating at this time and I need to go and get my warmup in and I want to do these things.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's kind of tricky to navigate, I think because we're all so used to running like or most people are used to running in the mornings.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah most people are used to running in the mornings.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, interesting.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, love it.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: And let's talk about how your race unfolded, like what.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Obviously you like, like you've alluded to and we'll get into this in a little bit when we talk about FKTs and stuff, like you are a serious downhiller, um, but I also want to hear about your ascent.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Like talk to me about how, like the whole thing, like give me, give me a race report.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, talk to me about how, like the whole thing, like, give me a race report.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is something I learned hugely from this race, which I think kind of reflects my lack of run race experience.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: I know I'm not going to be as strong as a lot of these women on the uphill and I feel like I sort of didn't put myself in it enough, like out of the start.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: So I think I probably hit the bottom of the hill, I don't know, probably in about um 12th or so, um and because and I was like I could have been with the absolute top pack on the road but I'm like would I have blown up?
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Um?
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: So yeah, got into the routes, got through them really efficiently.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: I knew which way I was going.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: I'd done probably six laps of the bottom of the course okay before, so I knew which way I was.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Um, and then you get through that first really technical section and then you're just grinding for a good 30 minutes.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: There's no running, it's just power hiking right.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: I mean there are parts of it you can run Um, like David Norris probably runs 80% of it.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Um, maybe not 80%.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: It's pretty steep but, um, yeah, you can sort of shuffle up some of it.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: It's definitely on that limit of what's more efficient to be, sort of shuffling or hiking Right.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: But yeah, just grind all the way to the top.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: At one point you sort of pass the halfway mark, which is where the kids turn around.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: You get past there and you're like, okay, we're halfway up, we've still got all of this to go.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Um, one nice thing about being behind enough people was that I could see the good line going up.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Um, I'd only done the full course once, so I didn't know the fast line.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: So that was nice to be able to just like sort of head down, keep grinding and follow people Spun around the top and then, year to year, there's either a snow patch or there isn't.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: This year there was a small snow patch.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: So what you can do is sort of round the top, come straight off it and then just butt, slide down the snow.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: You could try and glissade it, but you're probably going to fall forwards if you try.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: So just yeah, jump down and glissade it, but you're probably going to fall forwards if you try, so just yeah.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Jump down and just embrace.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, With all of it, it's just embrace the fall, just fall backwards, not forwards.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Um.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: So yeah, you then like hit the snow, slide down that, and then you're just scree skiing, Um was it like the footing on the scree, like when you step down?
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: is it like the way it appeared to me watching it?
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Was that like it didn't seem very hard, like your foot kind of went in and you have that little bit of cushion so you could just keep pushing, as opposed to it being like thicker, harder, like more scree?
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Can you explain that a little?
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: bit.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: It was pretty soft and loose this year.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, every year it's different, um, and there are patches where the scree is really nice and soft, and then there are patches where it just runs out somehow, oh, yeah.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: And so all of a sudden it's really hard underfoot and if you don't anticipate that coming, you just stop dead.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: And you're going so fast downhill that if you stop dead you're falling forwards.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Um, and there were like some people coming off the men's race in the kids race who clearly had fallen forwards and just their whole chest scratched up, oh sure just brutal.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Um.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, the screen's pretty soft.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Um, it's fun to bounce down most of it.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: I say this most of it's fairly low consequence.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Um, most people wear gloves during the race because I wore gloves yeah just because the chance of falling is pretty high.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: I was like I don't really want to cut up my hands.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: I need them at work, yeah, so you get through the scree and then you run basically through a sort of creek waterfall section and then you get back to the roots of the cliffs.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: So again, you're choosing which way to go down.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Everyone takes the cliffs on the way down because it's just more efficient.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: There is one way that's called the waterfall.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: I know someone who was up there recently who got to the top of that and thought this isn't the way I'm supposed to go because it it's just a sheer rock face.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Um, no one goes down it in the race, unless you're, like I don't know, an insane scrambler, just because it's a ridiculous down climb.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: It would take you longer to go down it because it's just harder, and if you fall there, longer to go down it because it's just harder and if you fall there you've got consequences.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, wow.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: So then you, when you hit the road I've heard the road is like not downhill but not uphill, like the road coming back sucks, like it's not the best.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is where my race didn't play out quite how I wanted it.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Um, I hit the road and overtook four people on the road.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, and I was like hi, I shouldn't have this much left in my legs.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Um, so I think I'd sort of taken a lot of my minotaur training, almost this sort of like keep grinding it out, don't blow up, don't go too far into the red.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Um, you hit the road.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: It is definitely downhill.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, I think I was running sort of around five minute pace down this hill, so it's oh, wow, okay, so you can hammer.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: You can hammer it, yeah if your legs still work, you can really hammer it um and you've got the entire town out and everyone that's there for fourth of july yeah, so much down the road so yeah, that's really cool, oh my god, that's so cool.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Wow, did you get to uh like after the race was over?
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Did you explore alaska at all, or?
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: I saw a bit of sort of the very local area.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Um, I didn't have loads of leave so I had to get back um for work, but um, oh, it's so beautiful.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: I was really lucky with weather.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: I think I only had like half a day of rain while I was up there.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's not bad at all.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: The Chugach is cool.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: It's an interesting range yeah.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: I mean I'm going back next year.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Mount Marathon is really hard to get into, but kind of, when you're in, if you stay nearish the top of your aid group it's, you're sort of guaranteed re-entry okay.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Um, so I'm definitely going back next year and, yeah, planning on making a longer trip to just nice yeah explore way more see the chugach yeah yeah, I want.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: The way I want to do it is figure out how to like branch.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know how I can do this yet, but like, stay from the fourth to like later in the month so I can run both mount marathon and cirque series aliaska, because that aliaska race, like that course looks compelling like very hard.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: No, that looks really fun.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Um, in some ways almost like to me.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I think it's better, like it would suit my skill set better yeah but I don't know, everybody's different.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of looks more like Rocky Steps Down rather than Scree, from what I've seen from Alyeska.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Like some single track and you get into the woods, yeah.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Just more what we're used to in Colorado.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: And I think that's probably why it makes more sense to me is because it's more similar to what we train on.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: I mean race day at mountain marathon was the third time ever that I'd run on scree.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: Just we don't have it really here?
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: No, it doesn't exist, or if we do, it's like big and chunky.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: San Juan's maybe, but yeah, like you said it is, it's big and chunky and just not.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: It's not that way.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Like it's not.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not something you can bomb down.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, interesting.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Well, what a cool experience.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Thank you for breaking it down.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Um, what do you got left in your 2024 season?
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Um, next up is Telluride mountain run.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Sweet, so keeping things fairly steep.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Um yeah, running the.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: They call it a 13 mile race.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: I did it last year.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: It's definitely 14.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Um the returning champion.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Going back.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: Um.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's about 5,000 feet of climbing Um, most of that in the first climb.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: So you sort of start and then you just grind up Um goes up the ski hole, right, I've run the course, but I ran the?
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Um other way around.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, um, goes up the ski hole, right, I've run the course, but I ran the?
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Um other way around.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I ran it from bear creek up I think bear creek's the way you guys come down, yeah, yeah, so you go up and I think it's like a double black diamond run coming down.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: It's really narrow looking like if this got chopped up this would be some serious skiing, um.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: But yeah, so it's straight up ski runs, um, all the way to.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: I want to say it's gold.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: I want to call it gold hill, but I don't think it's called gold hill, um, and you do sort of a little off-trail loop up there, um, and then, yeah, sort of descent down slightly techie, not much difficult stuff, um, and then you climb again and that climb sucks because you're smashed um.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: And then, yeah, techie, descent down from there and then, yeah, you hit the bear, the bear creek yeah which is kind of like chunky jeep road, um, and it's just keep the legs turning over, don't fall over stupid rocks, because you're kind of tired, um, and then back into town oh wow.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Well, best of luck on that one.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I know it's a fun.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: You know I've been wanting to do it every year.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: This year I'm going to tart grand targi for a cirque series, or else I'd be there.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: I have a bunch of friends running the 24 mile 24 mile looks pretty.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty stacked this year yeah yeah, lots of boulder guys, people are showing up yeah, yeah, yeah, and then I might jump into a basin circ series oh cool, yeah, you should, you should yeah I'm heading home to the uk for a week between those so bit of sea level back up to whatever that tops out.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: That's tops at 13, I think yeah, something like that it's high I'm going on sunday.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: They have like these, um.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Um, if you're around, you should.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: I've been trying to put the word out for these a base and puts on like their own little, like trail running series.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: I've seen it, yeah.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: We're like five to seven miles, but I don't know.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: I feel like I need uh more race efforts at that altitude to get used to a race like that.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: I run a lot in the Indian Peak wilderness.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Oh it's so beautiful.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so beautiful and really easy to get like nice and high.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can be up at 13,000 feet pretty easily.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: I've been wanting to do that Pawnee.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: What is it?
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: The Pawnee Buchanan loop, yeah.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's 20, it's like 26.2 miles.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: It's basically a marathon, just with 6,000 feet of climbing in it.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Um, I, I keep saying that's going to be my first marathon, cause I've never run that far.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Um, I just need to work out where it fits in the schedule.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, you gotta do it.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: You gotta definitely put it on the list.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you want to do Cirque series.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: A basin, that's a, I think, for some.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: For someone like you, it's like from a downhilling perspective, out of all the races that probably suit your skill set the best yeah, I've run it, twice oh, you have, yeah, I've run it the last two years and, yeah, the downhill on that.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: It's just not technical enough oh, you like technical downhill.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: I hate technical um.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: I was never a track runner okay so part of me is like you put me on a downhill fire road against somebody that ran track in college.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: They just have leg speed.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Right, right right.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: But then you put us on I don't know, a 25% grade downhill rocky crap Like I'll fly that.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: See, I always like I'm like not terrified, but like in a race setting I'll do it, but in a training setting I'm very like careful with my ankles, I don't know, I'm like always very risk averse with that.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: I love the techie downhills Very cool.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: I wish, I wish I could be you honestly Like I wish I had the mentality.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: I'm an uphill guy.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: I love a hard ascent more than anything like something where, like VKs and stuff like that, that's my jam.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: It's funny I ran the veil uphill the first year that I started running and got to the top and my partner was like wasn't that so much fun?
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: And I was like no there was no downhill.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: That was terrible, that's funny.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm definitely not a VK person.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Which shocks me, because my next transition is to schemo.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I figured you would be more of a vk person, given, like I don't know, schemo is gonna be such a vertical component to it yeah um, let's talk about schemo.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: I know it's uh, like your other sport, I shouldn't say other sport.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Is that more your primary sport, or like what would you say?
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: I'd say they're kind of adjacent.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Like 50-50.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, like in the winter, I had people being like, oh so Schemo is your sort of primary thing these days and I was like, well, yeah, cause it's January, but no, it's good, and both, I think, compliment each other.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: I'm definitely a person that goes out with poles running because I'm used to it from Schemo.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: If I was ever going to run a VK I would take poles.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Um, but yeah, schemo is great, it's so much fun.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: So what do you, what do you specialize in?
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Like, what do you like more obvious, I don't know, I wouldn't say the vertical given uh, what's like, what's your?
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: schemo jam um, I'm still pretty new to schemo.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: I started racing the 22 23 season.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, um, I mean, I started running in 2022, but um, it's, I'd say in the us we're pretty limited on what we can race.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: So there are sort of five schema disciplines.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: The shortest is the sprint race, which takes about four minutes.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Then there's a mixed relay, which is a 10 minute race that you do with a co-ed partner.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Then there are vertical races, so like a VK, straight uphill, usually take between 30 and 45 minutes depending on the course.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: And then there are individual races, which is more like I don't know.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: These races are supposed to be 90 minutes.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: They will be for the top men, top women, usually two hours oh, wow okay, and then there are also teens races which are sometimes one day, um, sometimes they're multi-day stage races, um, in the grand courses which happen in europe, yeah, um.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: So there's sort of a this huge spectrum from, yeah, four minutes to four days all right being so new to it, like what kind of goals do you have for this?
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: um, I feel like like.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Would you like to do like a pierre amenta one day, or something like that?
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Or?
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: way down the line okay maybe?
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Um, being british, qualification to a national team isn't too difficult.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Um, there's lots of chatter at the moment around the Olympics because Schemo is making its Olympics debut.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: In what will it be?
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: 2026?
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the number of people that have said oh, surely you can go to the Olympics.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: For Great Britain, we have to qualify against teams in Europe.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: Which includes all of the Schemo powerhouses basically.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: So the chance of a British team going to the Olympics is pretty close to zero.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: But I might try and get to some World Cups this year and we'll sort of see how we go as a British team to see if it's really worth pushing to try and hit that qualification standard.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you this how do you get on british team like do you do any tryouts, like do you raise your hand, like how does that work?
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: yeah, it's all resume spots.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: Okay this year, um, just because they haven't been able to hold a british champs for a few years.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: They do british champs in scotland and just the chance of there being good snow at the right time in safe conditions, um, is difficult up in the Scottish Highlands.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, um, if anyone's ever seen somebody run a Bob Graham round some of the weather they get in the summer, then turn that into the winter.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: I can't believe.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Elsie Davis ran it last year in the winter.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: She's a monster, she's so good, um, but yeah, so British spots are all on resumes this year, um, so yeah, we'll see what happens there.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: Wow, super cool.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: That's something like massive to aspire to as well.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: I had um Ray Cobo on and she is obviously racing for the Slovenian team.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: She kind of gave me a breakdown on how it works for the European, basically the Europeans, and like just how they all go at it with the world cup and trying to get like selection for the Olympics.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: It just seems bananas like very difficult yeah, it's.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: There's just so many moving pieces in, who's gonna get what spot and that kind of thing.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: How does it work for the United States, then?
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Like they have to compete against the Europeans to get?
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: in no, so there's basically a North American spot.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: So there'll be a guaranteed spot for either a Canadian, a US or a Mexican team.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: So we'll definitely Well.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: Is the Mexican team any good?
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: I't know, no, but it's probably.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: It's between the us and canada right right, right and so it will be based on which of those teams has the highest ranked athletes by the end of the world cup season okay um we got cam smith, so I don't know.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: I feel I feel pretty confident about this, yeah, yeah um I feel pretty confident about this.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, um cam's like so, so good, dude.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: He's on like yeah, both as a runner and just as I mean.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: I can't really speak to his schema skills, but I can speak to his running skills as an athlete.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: The kid is a freak, he's so good but also on the women's side, there are some crazy strong girls out there absolutely like kelly wolf yeah kelly um hayley haferman yeah she was like cleaning up at us nationals for skimo this year.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: Um, she's so strong.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: And she, I want to say she came, was she fourth or fifth at broken arrow vk I think fifth, yeah, if I remember correctly.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was broken arrow she was like well, up there, she's so strong, she's so fit, um, and she's so lovely.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: She's really sweet, um.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: That's one of the really nice things about schemo there aren't that many girls in the sport, yeah, um, but the girls that are in it are so supportive and it's so good, she's so talented.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: It's like amazing athletes yeah, yeah, people, yeah, just trying to get more girls into schem.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, we're going to.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: That's why we got the podcast.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: We're going to put it out there.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Hopefully recruit uh, you know, recruit more people, especially as the summer season dies down.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: You know people are looking for something to do for sure, boulder schema.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: There you go of women's clinics last winter.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: So friday mornings we would just people would come up, we would have gear for them, so anyone that wanted to be on super light race gear could be.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Um, the stuff's not cheap yeah I'm not gonna lie.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: It's like everyone says to me oh, should I buy skis first or should I buy boots first?
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: The reality is you need both because you put a heavy boot on a skimo ski not gonna work it's just yeah, it's not gonna work, but you're in a skimo boot and on a skimo ski.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: It's a different sport to sort of backcountry skiing well, I was gonna say it's not touring yeah, yeah um, I quite like I can't remember who it was somebody related sort of backcountry skiing, being like it's a muscular endurance workout, especially if you have heavy gear, because you're just like lugging gear up a mountain, whereas on schema gear it's actually like an aerobic workout yeah, um you can move effectively it's very technical, though I think this is like one of the things that, like has me compelled as an athlete, because running is so simple put on a pair of running shoes, you have your water bottle and you can get out the door, whereas I feel like schemo when it comes to the skins, when it comes to your binding.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: There's just so many things that can go wrong, and I I must like find that schemo.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: Athletes tend to be, on average, better athletes in a lot of ways, and I don't know if it's necessarily the fact that they're just more well-rounded in the mountains and strong, um, or the fact that, like it, just running comes across so much more simple to them because they're used to such a technical sport.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: What do you think of that?
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: yeah, um, I kind of like the technicality of schemo in that you can really get good at technique as well.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: It's not like, yes, you can improve your running form to improve your running economy, um, but I feel like not many people focus on that, whereas in schema, if you are picking your feet up off the ground every single step, it's so inefficient that almost you can't be super strong and just get away with it.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: Um, and also the fact that schema is a two-part race, you also have to be able to ski downhill.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: That's the part I'd have a hard time with.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I've done schema races against like claire gallagher for one, like incredibly strong, like she's gonna beat me uphill any day, but it's like but then you practice your transitions so you get your skins off quickly.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: I'm a lifelong skier.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: Like I trained as a ski instructor when I was like just after I left high school, so the downhill is like doesn't phase me.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: I'm happy to point my ski straight down, eldora, and see you at the bottom, um which it's a two-part race yeah it's called ski mo.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: It's not just going uphill, so that's cool I can appreciate that.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's something I guess that I would really struggle with is the like I think I get the ascending down like going up, pretty easily.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: It's the, it's the whole skiing downhill and still having my ACLs.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it terrifies me yeah.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: I think to your point.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: You made a point earlier regarding just like the entry point to the sport, not just expensive, but I don't know.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: I always found it very complicated on like the gear selection select, like what skis to select.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: It's not like you can go and maybe you can, I don't know.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: I've searched for it, searched for it, but like if I I'll just use this as an example dinafitcom, or if you're on even la sportiva and you're trying to figure out like what you're looking for, it can be very complicated for someone that's like brand new to the sport, you know yeah, absolutely, um, and I think a thing that a lot of people that are more schemo minded, um sort of is a bit frustrating if you could walk into somewhere like rei and say I want to go backcountry skiing and you'll walk out the door with a setup that is just so heavy, yeah, and there just aren't.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: There are the options, but I think they're not marketed as much.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: I feel like in the us there's this huge focus on like you'll see a video of somebody skinning up some enormous peak and skiing on I don't know 110 underfoot and not in a four buckle boot, and you're not going to be doing.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: That is the reality.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like you're going to be doing.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: That is the reality.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: Like you're going to be skinning up something super, super safe, because avalanches are real happens a lot especially in colorado, like avalanches are real.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: I think people are very risk averse in avalanche terrain, um.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: But as soon as you get onto a lighter ski, you can just do more laps and it's just more fun if you can do more, right, yeah, and I can see that it's kind of confusing when you start looking at gear.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: I'd say for runners that are sort of skimo curious or looking for a lighter setup, the biggest indication in a ski that it's going to be light and you're going to move fast and efficiently is if it has what's called a tip notch.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: So at the front of the ski there'll be a little groove out the front of it, which means your skin's attached to the top and then a glue to the bottom, but they don't have a back attachment to them okay so they're designed that you can transition really quickly um, which basically means you're going to be moving faster gotcha
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: um, yeah I'm going to be coming to you for pointers then I I plan on trying to get into it this year.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: That's the plan.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: What do you um now?
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: I know you raced a little bit last year as well, or a good time last year like what do you plan on racing this year?
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: If it pops up like what do you schemo wise?
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: um.
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: Races kick off probably the first week of november up at a basin.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: So oh wow, is it that early?
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: oh my god yeah, sort of first second week of november they start, and it's mad because, especially living down in boulder, which is basically the flatlands compared to up there, um, yeah, you're straight up to 10 000 feet and you start warming up and you're like, oh, we're high again, um, but it's great, um, and those first races will be pretty chill.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: Um, I mean, yes, there will be guys and girls out there that are there to race and there to win.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Um, the first race at a basin is always laps, so it's probably the men take about.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: They probably go uphill in about 10 minutes, okay, um, and then down in 30 seconds and it's.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: It's just how many laps can you do in an hour?
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: So, it's really cool because even if you're in your really heavy gear, you'd be like, well, I might get two laps in in the hour.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: So it's actually quite accessible.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: It's not hard skiing um in these early races and yeah, people should just come out.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's like a.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: It's like a Pepe's face off on skis.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: It is pepe's on skis, yeah have you?
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: did you ever do pepe's?
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: or did you?
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: Did you really yeah?
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: I'm supposed to do it and I didn't go oh my god, oh, it's so fun.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Um yeah, great risk super cool.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: So let me ask you this what is your, what are your trend, what's your transitions like um, from all right, so we go through the schemo season and then you gotta get ready for running, or you plan on getting ready for trail running, like.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: How grueling of a process is that, especially considering like you've only been.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: You said you would be running like one to two days a week yeah, um, I always find the hardest thing is leg speed.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Just because the runs I will do in the winter realistically are going to be easy runs, just because everything's covered in snow, yeah, um, you're not going to be out kind of working hard, so, yeah, definitely, getting leg speed back is tricky, um, a bit of that sort of downhill proprioception.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: Just you've not moved sideways in a long time, um, not had to anticipate rocks for a long time, so things like that take a bit of getting used to.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: But yeah, you've been putting in big days all winter, usually um kind of similar to a run week where you might do two workouts, a long run, and the rest is easy.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: Skiing's the same you're probably going to do one or two workouts, but on skis you're going to have a long ski day at the weekend, um, and the rest of it's going to be easy.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: So in terms of the training, moving over, it's not that difficult.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: Um, it's just those sort of fine tuning parts.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like it would be at.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: The hardest part would just be the difficulty on the muscles, like the like, using different muscles that you haven't used in a while.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely those first couple of weeks you're like, ooh, this is a lot of pounding.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Fair enough.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: No, that's that's that's interesting for me.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you this from a fitness perspective what do you think?
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: Cause I always ponder this.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: I'm like, hmm, if I did a schema block, like what would that look like for me?
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Um, from a fitness perspective, like would you say you gain better uphill fitness?
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: Would you say the pounding on your legs go like skiing downhill?
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Like, because I've I've had people tell me like the downhill skiing aspect of it helps build certain things as well.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Like, what do you think?
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: Like from a fitness perspective, it does yeah, um the.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: I think one thing that's really interesting is the athletes in the world with the highest vo2 max and nordic skiers yeah because they use their upper bodies as well.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: So it's like you're using more muscles to do the same, or like not to do the same thing, but you're using more muscle.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: So there's some theory that that's how it helps increase your vo2 max.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: I think lots of people forget that in schema you are using your arms a lot yeah um, every single step you're pushing backwards off your arms.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: So I think that, in terms of sort of translating that to uphill, fitness definitely should track um and then downhill, the kind of quad loading.
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there could be something there.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: Um, definitely, I'm racing a big individual race and that last descent's full of icy moguls, which one of the last races this year was, was sort of it was a race that started at, I think, 5.30 PM at a basin.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: So as soon as the sun goes, everything just firms up and, yeah, skiing ice moguls is your last run and your legs are smashed.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: That's definitely a good quad stimulus Fair enough.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you coach yourself or are you coached by anybody?
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: I do have a coach.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: You have a coach.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, who's your coach?
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: Who do you work?
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: with.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: I work with Chris Grouch, who is a master's trail runner.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: I don't know how many US master's champs wins.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: Super cool.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's awesome.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Cool, all right, so we're at about 50 minutes now, so I'm gonna start moving into a few other questions.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: One of the things I was curious for we were talking about college before and you moving just jobs, whatever you moving over what was it like like moving to the US?
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: First you were in Canada and then coming to the US and you'd obviously your formative years in Great Britain.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: Was that a culture shock for you?
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: Like how different was that?
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: I think moving to Montreal wasn't that different.
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: It's a very kind of European-esque city, yeah.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: America is different, though America is different, and I say this not intending to offend any Americans.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, I just know it.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: That's why I was.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: So I was in Canada and I said to people I was like, oh, I'm moving to the US.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: And people were like what?
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: You're moving to the US why?
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: And I was like, no, no, no, I'm moving to Boulder, it doesn't count, that's fair, that's fair.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: count, that's fair, that's fair.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: Well said, yeah, I think it's a.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: It's definitely a bubble, yeah the boulder?
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: yeah, that's fair.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: The boulder bubble?
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all right.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: So all right, we're starting to get into some questions now.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: Um, like kind of off running off stuff like that.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: Um, who inspires you?
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: who inspires me?
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: I would say a lot of my teammates inspire me.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: I think that's one of the big places that I get inspiration from is, um, yeah, people on the team running really well, like crushing their races, hitting big goals.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: Um played team sports growing up, so I think I really like that team mentality.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: You're on the Dynafit team, right.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: I'm on the.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're sort of ambassador team, Cool Very cool, ray Coble.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, sort of between them and the trail team.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: They're my people.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: I love.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: It All right, so you are scientists, so I've been dying to ask you this question since we started.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: What is your take on?
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna kind of leave this as like open ended, but like, what's your take on AI and the advancement and like where that's going?
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: it.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: I think ai is an incredibly powerful tool.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: Um, I think people that are leaving college, go and do some learn how to use machine learning, because it's coming.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: It's coming.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: It's here a problem?
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: yeah um, some people like it, some people don't like it, but I think it's I mean, it's definitely here to stay.
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: There were people that didn't like the idea of the internet and email because they wanted to write letters, um, but imagine if we'd said no, no, no, we can't do internet, we can't do email, like where would we be?
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: We would have done something else.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: So I think, yeah, ai is just one of those things where we will embrace.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: Super cool.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: Do you use like machine learning or anything like that, when your current role at all?
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: Um, I use it for some things.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: Um, I don't use it to pull scientific stats or data just because it's at the moment, it's been shown to not be quite good enough.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: If I say, tell me, I don't know what type of cells I should use to replace someone's cartilage or what material I should use to replace someone's cartilage, it's going to throw me a hundred years of.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: I found all this information.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay, makes sense and whether that's relevant or if it's been proven to not be true or that sort of thing, is where I would avoid using it.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: If I needed to I don't know write an email to somebody in a polite manner asking them to do X, y and Z, I'd have no issues using AI and things like ChatGPT.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: I use it all the time at work, so that's why I was just curious.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Cool um, all right, this is a funny one.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: What's your take on the aliens?
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: aliens.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: There's definitely life out there, for sure I don't know if they're green and they fly around in ufos, but I think the probability of there being yeah, yeah, life forms out there is so, so high.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: The chance of us being the only sort of living species in this universe is yeah.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: I agree with that.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: There's definitely something out there.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: I would hope so, you know if there wasn't.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of it would be kind of cool also to think that, like we're the only thing.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: But it's a little narcissistic to think that way.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: You know, hopefully, yeah, It'd be cool to think that there's.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: There might not be something as developed as we are.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: There might be something way more developed than we are.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: That's scary but cool.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: It might be blobs of sludge that are just about alive, but there's something out there I listened to this crazy podcast the other day and it was a leading astrophysicist from stanford and one of the things that she had said she's actually an astrobiologist and like one of the things that she had said was that there's a high probability that, like, even if there was such advanced life, like we think of things almost to like in a humanoid form, or we think of things like we would expect to see something similar to us, she's like, how do we know?
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Like we would even be able to recognize whatever it is, you know, if, even if it was something else which is interesting, yeah, I don't know, Could be.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: it could be like bits, something that looks like dust, but it's alive.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: Cause it developed in a completely different way.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: Right, right, Completely different.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: Like everything you know people think, like DNA and RNA and like we need like that for the building.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Like maybe not, who the hell?
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: knows.
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: There will be different like atomic elements out there that could make life.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: That's not carbon.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not even like things that we don't have on our planet.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: Wow, when you think about that, it's kind of wild.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, totally wild.
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: Um, and we may never know.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: That's a sad thing.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: I hope we it would be cool, before it's like for our.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: Our life cycle is over, you know, to have some sort of answer to know something you know, I something you know.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: I hope we get to get the answer to that question, but you never know.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: On that note, thanks for coming on the podcast.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: We may never know.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: We never know.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: Uh really appreciate it.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: Uh, best of luck on the rest of your season.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Um, kill it at tmr in a couple weeks.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: Um, I was kind of hoping I was going to be there but, like I said, I'm racing a different race.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: Um, and yeah, let's definitely uh see you at the group run tonight yeah, great, great to chat.
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: See you later.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much.
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: What'd you guys think?
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: I told you this was going to be a fun episode.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Lots of really cool nuggets of wisdom there, just lots of information.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: I, for one, was super excited to learn a little bit more about Schemo.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: I'm a little Schemo curious over here, so it was kind of fun to get some more information from someone that's an expert.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you guys enjoyed this one, hop on over to Instagram.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Go ahead and look up Scrambled Megs that's her handle on.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: It's Meg's handle on Instagram.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: That is S-C-R-A-M-B-L-E-D.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: Megs M-E-G-S.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: You can also type in Meg Cook and you'll find her.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Guys, go ahead and give her a follow.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Shoot her a message.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: Let her know what you guys thought about the podcast.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: I'm sure she would love to hear from you all.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hope you guys enjoyed this one.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: A couple more housekeeping things.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: First off, ultimate Direction was kind enough to give me in a code to be able to pass along to you guys.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: It is steep stuff, pod.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: If you guys go ahead and put that into your cart at checkout, that's going to be 25% off your cart at the ultimate direction website.
• 1:00:02
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• 1:00:09
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• 1:00:11
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• 1:00:16
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• 1:00:21
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• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you.