Latest / The Steep Stuff Podcast / Rea Kolbl | Professional Mountain Runner & Olympic Skimo Hopeful

Transcript

Rea Kolbl | Professional Mountain Runner & Olympic Skimo Hopeful · The Steep Stuff Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up guys?
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Steep Stuff Podcast.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I am your host, james Lauriello, and today we have such a special episode with a really exciting guest.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: None other than ski mountaineering and mountain running legend, ray Coble, joins us on the pod.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: The Dina Fit and feed athlete joins us to talk all about her 2023 and 2024 season Really exciting episode.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: We also get into the nuts and bolts of the Olympics and Schemo in the Olympics.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Ray is actually in the process now, and will be in the process throughout her 2025 Schemo season, of trying to make that Slovenian Olympian team for ski mountaineering.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: So we really want to congratulate her and wish her the best of luck as she pursues this massive just this massive goal and dream.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: It's really exciting to have that kind of conversation.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: In addition, we talk about a fun race.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: We raced a few weeks or about a month now back in Cirque Series, brighton really brutal and technical race, and now we get into all kinds of fun stuff as well as her transition to moving back to Europe full time.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Really fun episode.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Again, I want to thank Ray so much for coming on.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: This was a personal favorite of mine.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I learned so much and it's just so interesting getting to talk to someone that is just so full-time embedded as a mountain athlete year-round.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Just a unique perspective.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: So, without further ado, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Personal favorite of mine, ray Coble it's time.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, we are live.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: One of my running sponsors was kind enough to pass along a promo code to the listeners of the podcast.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: It's going to be 25% off site wide.
• 2:50
  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.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: If you guys hop on 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.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: This is only for now, which is I'm recording this on August, the first week in August, through September.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: So it's just a one month only thing.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: They were kind enough to provide it, um, hooking me up as an athlete.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: So I want to be able to get you guys the hookup for ultimate direction.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, that's going to be code steep stuff pod for 25% off.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Oh man, so uh, what'd you think of that?
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: So what do you think of that course.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: You said you did some.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: You did a schema race on it before too, right, yeah, um, I did a schema race on it before too, right?
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I did a schema race and that first, like Millicent climb, was also on the schema course and I remember back then it was further than it looked like it was, and the same was confirmed yesterday.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: It goes much further than you think it goes, but I love that.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: It's super technical, yeah, probably more technical than any of the sky races in US.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is why it's been on my bucket list for a while and I'm so happy I finally get to do it.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Oh my God, same same.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: So we're live, by the way, uh everybody, uh, welcome Ray, it's cobalt, correct.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Is that right, ray cobalt?
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Of course, thanks for having me.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: We're both going to be racing Cirque series bright tomorrow, so, figured, friday it's a taper day.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Might as well see if I can connect with some other athletes and and have a conversation.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: So this is a.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: This is a great to talk.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: So thanks for coming on.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Of course, thanks for having me.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we can kind of unpack this and get into it and we will talk a little bit more about Well actually my friend saw it.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: I'd obliviously run just right by it, but it was humongous and it also saw us, which made it a little bit scarier.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: So we took a massive detour.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Where did you see it?
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Did you see it going up?
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: No, it was on the final descent, like on the side of the fire road.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: It was just munching on grass or whatever moose eats.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: That's crazy, but it was a little too interested in us, so we also then went around some grass and bushwhacked a little bit super cool.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you, this was the final and we don't have to get too much into it, but like was the final descent?
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Like as techie of road as it was going up, like is it still or is it a little smoother?
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: and like it's very smooth you can really open it up send it which I think it's gonna really destroy the legs yes, I feel like that kind of running is like the worst for a quad oh for sure, I much prefer really slow, very technical stuff.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: So we'll see how that goes.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: But it seems like it has a lot of that too.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: So, okay, a little bit of everything.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: I'm just so excited like I think the course um, because I love technical running and I I think the course just like speaks to me.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: It just gets me the most excited.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Like usually I'm like caring about, like okay, what's the competition?
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Like, like how, like what's this?
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Like sure, I'm excited to race world class competition, but at the same time, I think the course just has me like really like a lot of enthusiasm.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: So it's just so beautiful it is beautiful yeah, um it'll be.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: It was nice to do it yesterday at a really slow pace, so I had a lot, lot of time to look around.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: So I won't feel as compelled to look around too much during the race itself.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Fair enough, fair enough, okay.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: So let's, let's get into uh, we can get into your background a little bit.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I know you're like a really well-known name in the sport, but I don't know, like you to me after I was doing there's what do you not do Like you're like a sports, yeah, like you're a schemo athlete.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: You're an incredible schemo athlete.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: You're an incredible.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: You're a professional trail runner for Dina, fit you, um, you, mountain bike, like everything.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: So, and it's very unusual to find an athlete of a high caliber like that that does so many different things.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Like usually you'll see athletes really you know you eskimo athletes, but then they'll be really good trail runners and it's usually like one or the other or a little bit of both, but then like this mountain biking component, and then there was this ocr component and I was just like oh my god you've done it all um, so yeah, maybe we can unpack, like, how did you get into trail running?
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: yeah, well, actually trail running was the first sport that I started after.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: When I was little I was a gymn gymnast.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: So then, after gymnastics career ended, it brought on like a lot of like eating issues and things like that, and I think I just needed a little bit of a break from sports.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: So I was just studying really hard for a long while and I just didn't like how unhealthy I got and how hard all movement became.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: So I started trail running because I lived on the bottom of a hill that had beautiful trails going up it.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Um, and I like that was like my first time I moved to United States and if I took this one trail then I saw a really beautiful view of the Golden Gate Bridge and I just thought that was so incredible.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: So, um, like for the longest time I was just running without a watch, without like any plans or anything, just cause I really enjoyed it, um, and so that kind of led me to like do some races and I realized I was pretty good at it and then I got a little bit more focused.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Um, I still didn't really get a GPS watch until a really long time in, um, so there was a lot of like training by feel.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Um, but yeah, like I did a lot of races in California and was quite good at it, um, and then, once I started doing OCR and I was doing PhD at the same time, um, that was at that time I was really lucky with my timing in the sport because there was like a lot of prize money, a lot of sponsors interested, so, um, I was actually at the same time making the same amount of money with my PhD and with the running, but I enjoyed running immensely more.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Um, so I decided to just take a leap and try to do it full time after I finished my master's and move to Boulder, which then opened up like a whole world of new sports for me.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, it's like endless possibilities.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: I mean Boulder, um, I mean I'm a little partial cause I live in the Springs so you know, there's a little bit of rivalry there, you know.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: But anyway, I do.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Let's just say Colorado in general.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's fair, that's fair.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: No, but seriously though, like there's just from a mountain sports perspective, like there's nothing you can't do in Boulder, it's absolutely incredible.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you this so you grew up in Slovenia, correct, and you moved from Slovenia to the United States for college, correct?
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: And so you were 18, 19 years old, somewhere in that range.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Wow, what was that transition like?
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Had you been to America before, when you were looking at schools?
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: No, I actually, the first time I came to America was like a week before the school started and I was like I'll just go a week early and I'll see San Francisco.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: And I was used to traveling around Europe a lot and I would just always book the cheapest motel or hostel I could find and it was fine.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: And so I booked the cheapest hostel I could find in San Francisco and it was not fine.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Um, so there was quite a bit of a cultural shock.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Um, also, just like in terms of diversity and everything, it's just very unlike anything that I've seen.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Um, but I loved it Like.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: I love the hustle of it.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: I love, like the community that I quickly found at school.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Um, I loved campus life.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: I loved like walking from class to class, living right there.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Um, so, yeah, it was exciting.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: It was a challenge, for sure.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Um, I like knew the language pretty well, but still not like.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: I wasn't like super comfortably fluent, so it took like a little bit to get used to that as well.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Um, but yeah, through all of it I felt like super supported, I felt like challenged, but it always fun, like.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't say it was like it was hard, but like in a fun way.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's interesting Cause a lot of my.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: One of my best friends is from.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: He's Hungarian and he had never been to America before.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Before undergrad he was a swimmer, he swam, swam the 400 IM.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: So when he came over to America it was very similar, but it was like it was a shock.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Now we went to undergrad in Florida, so a little bit different, like a little more bougie, not not so much San Francisco, but like just a different, just a totally different world.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And he still to this day, when we chat like he talks about just like differences and things like that between there and Europe, and he's always talking about how he wants to go back.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: But yeah it, but yeah it's, it's just, uh, it's interesting to me.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: So did you?
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: You studied, so I know you got your master's degree or your graduate degree in material science?
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Did you study material science in undergrad also?
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: no, I did physics and astrophysics um, I mean, I never really thought what I wanted to do in my life and if I did, I think I'd pick very differently.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Um, but it just like they said that was hard and there's no women in it and I'm like, oh, that sounds like a great challenge, let's do it.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: I love that, I always love math and I love, like, sciences, but I never really considered what careers you can get out of that.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: And like, now that I'm older and I kind of have a better idea of what I want to do with my life, I love working with people and I love sports.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: So I think if I had thought through it, I'd probably pick something in that direction do you take a similar, like analytical approach to your, to your training?
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I know you're a coach as well um, are you very analytical then on that side, like more metrics driven, or how does that work?
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: yeah, well, actually when I started, I was very metrics driven, um, but I've like, now that I have some coaching experience, I've learned that you can be just metrics driven, that human people are not powered by metrics, and I still use data, I still coach by science backed up methods, but I also rely a lot on subjective feedback and tell me what you enjoy doing.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: There's so many different ways that you can take to become your best self and um, maybe the best one is the one that you enjoy most, not necessarily the one that an algorithm says you should take fair enough, fair enough, I'm just.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I'm so amazed because, like so, I studied geology in undergrad and, um, I don't know like, I took classes with physics majors and, uh, particularly like, geophysics is a lot of what.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: And I was just so amazed because like I just did not have those, that level of math skills.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: So like when I meet someone that studied physics and actually got a physics undergrad degree or astrophysics or something in that line, I'm like wow, that's really cool.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Just because like I don't think people realize like the level that's a whole level above anything you look at in college.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Like I mean mathematics as well is very difficult.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: But I just feel like physics is just on its own, like in a world of its own, just because it's so different yeah, and actually that's kind of when I realized it's not really for me, because I preferred being something that's more like applicable.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, everyday life yes but I feel like you could take that through so many different things as well, like for Like I've met so many like physics majors that like I don't know if they go into engineering or they go into business.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I know quite a few of them that, like when I got like MBAs and stuff, like I had a couple of people that I went to business school with that were physics majors and like I'm just like, can you help me with this math so we can fast forward?
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Actually, let's backtrack a little bit.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: So one of the things you talked about was um being a gymnast, um in slovenia, and I know from some of the research that I did like you were very competitive at a young age for a gymnast.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Like can you break that down a little bit?
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: or like how well actually, I think sports in general in slovenia are pretty competitive.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Um, it's a little bit of a different structure.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: We don't have after-school sports, it's all just clubs.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: So you pick what you want to be doing and it very quickly can turn very like demanding and very professional.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: So like I was I don't know 10 years old and we were training four hours a day, every day except Sundays.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: So like you quickly decide if you love the sport or you go do something else and then you do that like pretty seriously.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Um, but yeah, I did gymnastics for 11 years and I was on the national team for most of those.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Um, it was yeah, it definitely taught me a lot of skills that I can keep using in my life, but it was also very challenging in many ways yeah, I bet but I would do it all over again the same if I, if I had the chance it's funny a lot of.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: So my buddy, who the swimmer I was telling you about before, very similar background, very similar the way he grew up, like it's six days a week and it's like integrated with school, like you would like either.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I think it was for swimming.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: It would be before and after, if I remember correctly on some we had the same yeah, yeah, it's just interesting the way like the european, the mindset and like you guys just produce like athletes, whereas like americans it's like we're just so much more relaxed with that stuff.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Like I guess some people take it seriously at a young age but like, unless like your mom or dad, or like it's like that special coaching system, then like we don't really have that here and I think that's why the europeans kick our ass and everything when it comes to like sports in a lot of ways, so it's interesting yeah, yeah fair enough, fair enough.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: So this past summer or, excuse me, this past winter, I, uh, I just had like so much fomo.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Like looking at your instagram, like I feel like you were just out on a new peak, like every day in slovenia can you talk about like the adventure you just came back from and like what you were doing over there?
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah Well, actually like a lot of the winter was spent just trying to train on snow and training mostly on dirt and rocks and grass.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: I have not done this much grass skiing that I've done this winter and our World Cup starts from like in November and they go like through April, so my last race was like April.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: So I would say most of the winter I was pretty focused on training.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Um, I try to really follow the training plan to a tee um this winter and really like try to just like be on skinny skis and just like focus on like, really like races and like the short stuff.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Because what I'm trying to really be good at now, which is the Olympic discipline, is like the 10 minute race, so it's like two times 10 minutes.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: So it's like very different than like going out on a.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Because what I'm trying to really be good at now, which is Olympic discipline, is like the 10-minute race, so it's like two times 10 minutes.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: So it's like very different than like going out on a 10-hour adventure in the mountains.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: But I don't think I think it backfired a little.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: I feel like I personally need more of an adventure throughout the winter.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: I need those days when I can just go in the mountains and just not think about my heart rate or like anything really, and just like enjoy the mountains for what they are.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: So it was a good experiment to see if that would make me a better athlete, because in a way I felt like oh, like if you really want to shoot for the Olympics, you really have to focus and really buckle down.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: But maybe that's not how I can achieve my best potential.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: So I think I'm going to go back to the drawing board for the next season.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: But then, after the last World Cup ended, I really gave myself time to really adventure and I put the skinny skis because we race on like really light 65 underfoot like just a little bit over a pound lightweight skis and they're not like so fun to ski.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: So after the last World Cup cup, I put those away in the closet and I just did so many days on my like touring skis and um, I like the winter really arrived in may to europe.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Um, I was in chamonix for like the first of may, um, for like a couple weeks and it was just powder day every day oh wow.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: And the great thing about Europe is the snowpack is quite stable, so you can ski a steep couloir in powder which you could never do in Colorado and come out alive on the other end.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: It's true.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: So like I really got a chance to really enjoy.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: I think it was like the first time I really took a true off season.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: I really took a true off season, um, so I I I can't really say I wasn't training because I was doing a lot of like sports, um, but I wasn't following a training plan and I really just took time to mentally decompress and, um, do a lot of adventures and steep skiing and mountaineering and like challenge my skills, um in that way, which I felt like was really good for me during that time.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: How was so?
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I have there's so much for me to talk about here.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: I feel like that was just like the start of like so many questions.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: So I think the first question is is how has that transition been from like I wouldn't say unstructured training, because you've been doing, obviously, a lot of volume?
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Um, how has that transition been though back to the trail running discipline?
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: In a lot of ways, for, like a race like this, has it been more difficult or the trail running discipline?
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: in a lot of ways for like a race like this.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Has it been more difficult?
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Or Well, I actually just so, like this summer I told myself I'm only going to race the races that I'm really excited about.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Um, I found like I did it like last year when I did a full world cup season and I did a full summer racing season and I had like a month in between, um, and it was fine.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: But I really realized in summer I did a lot of races and I couldn't push, so like a person would pass me and I'm like, oh, hi, go ahead, have fun.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Like I just had no competitive push in me and I think it was because it was too much.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: I feel like physically you can recover a lot faster than mentally, and the winter, like the world cup season, is just so hard and it requires so much of like going in the red and like mentally really pushing beyond what's comfortable and like at such a deep level that it takes a while to recover that.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: So, um, I've I'm actually right now just coaching myself I'm not working with a coach at the moment and I waited until I felt the want to do the workouts again, and it was about two months before I felt like, oh, I want to do speed work today and I've been kind of taking it like on a day that I feel good, I would do a hard workout.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: On a day that I don't feel good, I do something easier, take an off day.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: And I did pick for this winter, for this summer, the races that are really on my bucket list that I've been wanting to do for a while but for some reason they just haven't fit in the schedule before Um.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: So I feel like in a sense it's been the easiest transition into summer because I haven't gotten off of the winter season already with a summer schedule.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: The summer schedule kind of followed motivation and what I felt like I wanted to be doing this summer.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: I love that, yeah, and I love that in the sense like I think coaching is really important, I think being coached is extremely important, but at the same time, I think there's that, that finding that equilibrium of being able to just listen to your body and knowing when you know if you're tired, like yesterday, for instance, like I had we both had nine hour drives or whatever you know.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: And it's like, okay, I'm going to do something, just like chill and relax and take it easy, like I don't need to power myself up this mountain.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: You know, just look around and take everything in.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: And I think there's a lot of athletes get caught up in that.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Every day has to be, you know, at a high level, and I just think it's so easy to get burned out doing that you know, yeah for sure?
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: So you talked a little bit about your 2024 calendar.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Other than Cirque Series Brighton, what are you going to be doing?
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: I'm actually going back to Europe.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm doing a Sky Race in Italy and then I'm doing a Gross-Glockner Ultra 57K.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: That's also a Dina Fit race in Austria.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: That kind of circumnavigates the tallest peak in Austria and that's end of July.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: And then I'm done so cool.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: I'm doing very few races this summer because, um, the next winter is olympic selection year, so I want to come in rested, not injured, healthy, um, and I also feel like come september I will start roller skiing and just very specific schema prep work.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: So summer is more just like a taste of racing this cool summer.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Just a few things quality, high quality, not quantity, and I love that.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like schema prep work.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: So summer is more just like a taste of racing this summer.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Just a few things quality, high quality, not quantity, and I love that.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that actually flows into the next question I was going to ask you.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: You said the O word, olympic.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: So a lot of our listeners are obviously trail runners, mountain runners, and we have a good amount of listeners that are schema athletes as well.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: I know not a lot.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be honest about schema.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: And this is like a lot of.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: The reason why I wanted to have you on was for that education to learn more.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: How does the Olympic like cycle work, what like?
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: So first thing I guess we could talk about is like how does the Olympic selection work?
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: And then the second.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: This is kind of a loaded question.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: The second question I'll have for you is basically um, just like actually, let's just do the first one how does the selection work for the olympics.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: okay, so schema races in the olympics are a little bit different than what you would consider like schema racing.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Um, if you just like said schema engineering racing.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: So we're we're all actually a little bit upset when they decided to the only two disciplines that they are going to be in the olympics is the sprint discipline, which is a three-minute race, and a team relay discipline, which is about a 40-minute race split between two people.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: So it's like a man and a woman in a relay and you do one lap, the guy does one lap and then you do one lap again and then the guy does another lap and it does have all of the aspects of schema racing.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: So we skin, skin, we bootpack, we skin, we transition and then we ski down.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: But it's more like of a track version, like if you took trail running and you put it on a track and you put a few obstacles.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like that Interesting, it's exciting to watch because it's all very compressed.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: You can see everything from like one spot.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of action happening because we're all very close together.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: But it's very unlike if you look at like some of like Grand Course races which are like the very like races with a lot of history that have been around, that are like very like known for like the spirit of what ski mountaineering racing is, and those are like four hours in the mountains on ridgelines, skiing down couloirs, where you have to have really good descending skills, really good ascending skills.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: There's like all sorts of conditions you may encounter.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: So it's very different.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: But so yeah, so like that's like.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: The first part is like the Olympic disciplines are different to train for, different like they're more like fitness-oriented, yeah, but we're all hoping that they're successful and that the next Olympics also bring in the individual discipline, which is the longer, more like rugged, more madness, discipline of schema, okay, and the way that the because it is the first year in the Olympics, there's only 18 spots um for each gender, so there's 18 men and 18 women that go to the Olympics Um and six of those are reserved for sprinters, so six of those will go to the six fastest people.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: In the sprint, which is the three minute discipline, you'd spend about two minutes going up and in those two minutes you skin, boot, skin and then like 30 seconds going down.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Oh my God, that's so technical.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of transitions.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: You make one mistake and you're out.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then the other 12 go to team relay.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: So they go to 12 different nations.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: There can only be one team per nation.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: The first spot is reserved for Italy, which is the hosting nation.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Two spots are reserved for the first and second team in the world championship that's going to be this winter, and then one spot is reserved per continent.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: So, for example, us will have to beat Canada to go to the Olympics to be able to send Do we have better?
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: does the US have better Schemo athletes?
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I know we have Cam Smith.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: It's very, yeah, it's very.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: I feel like last year it was a battle between.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: US and Canada.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I'm racing for Slovenia right now and then.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: So, like that's like, four spots go to continents and then the remaining I believe six spots is what remains goes to the top six countries in the world.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: So the whole season, every single race counts, um, you get points, you collect points and then, at the end of in December of 2025, um, the top 12 teams go to the Olympics in February.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: That is so cool oh my God it is but it's also very hard, oh yeah.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: And stressful and you can't get sick.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: That's true, you, oh my God it is, but it's also very hard oh yeah, and stressful, and you can't get sick, that's true, you can't get sick.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like no room for error.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Like, I feel like the smallest thing could derail and like I don't know, I feel like, at least on the European front, maybe less the US front Schemo is such a big sport and I don't think people realize that like how, how big ski mountaineering is like on the European front.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Um like I feel like most of the bigger nations like France, italy, switzerland um, it's all part of like the army.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: So the athletes that are in the national team, that are competing at a very high level, all have like jobs in the army.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: So they are not like soldiers.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: It's just that the army is essentially a sponsorship for them to be a full-time athletes and there's like a big team they have like a coach and a ski tech and a skin wax tech and a physical therapist and like it's like a big production that is so cool.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: I know like what is it, nadir?
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: And I think like davide for on the italian team, davide magnini, I think like they're part of that military thing.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: It's so cool yeah.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's just so neat, I don't know.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: I wish we had that in America with like our, you know, because you know America invests a lot in the military, like pretty dope to have, like you know, some backing Sports.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sports team, but yeah Now that.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: What discipline do you specifically do then, or what will you be competing at?
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: I'll be focusing on team relays.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: I'm not a sprinter.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: I came into schema from like doing 24 hour races and doing seven day adventure racer, so I just don't have the muscle power to be really fast at a three minute event.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: But the team relay is two times 10 minutes and that is more.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: In my wheelhouse it's really more of a threshold effort than it is like max power sprint effort and I feel like that I can be.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Super cool, decent at yeah, and so when will?
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, because I know you told me like when they'll actually do the selections in December, right?
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: So it's going to be based off of then.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: A lot of the World Cup racing, all of the World Cup races and the World Championship, so, like the entire upcoming season counts.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow, and then maybe like a race or two in the season that follows.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Super crazy, depending on how early they start us.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: They used to start us in November, but it became impossible to train for that, because there's no snow anywhere in October, even on the glaciers.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: It's really hard to train.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: So now they moved it to December, which I think is a little bit more reasonable.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Such a it's really hard to train.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: So now they moved it to december, which I think is a little bit more reasonable.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Such a cool sport, oh my god, I'm like.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: I'm like ready to go get myself a set of skis now.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: You should do it.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: I want to.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: You can't really ski right now.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: No, no, you should do it.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: It's cheaper right now start planning.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, I get a discount.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Um, like I don't know, like in your heart of hearts, like what do you?
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: How do you feel about that?
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Like what would that mean to you to make an Olympic team?
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: When I was little and when I was a gymnast.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: That has always been the goal.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: So if you asked me when I was a seven-year-old kid what do you want to be when you grow up, I would reply to you I want to be an Olympian, and I almost made it with gymnastics.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: So it almost feels like it's like a second chance at making that dream come true.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: But it's also conflicting in a way, because of the way that the sport went into these really short disciplines.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: It requires very different training than what I really enjoy.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: So I always try to ask myself am I enjoying this process, whether or not I make the goal?
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: And I think, as long as I leave room for adventures in between, I would say the answer is yes and the goal is like pretty special to me.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: But I definitely plan on going back to the long distance stuff.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: After you know, I try it like I have one chance at this, and so I will give it everything I have.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: I try it like I have one chance at this, and so I will give it everything I have, um, but at the same time also leaving room for the longer stuff that I enjoy outside of the focus season.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: I really like, like what you're doing too, and I don't know if you want this on the podcast, but and we can cut this out if you if you don't, but, like you said, you're moving to Europe.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we can leave that, Okay, fair enough.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Um said you're moving to europe.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we can leave that.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, all right, fair enough, um, I don't know.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I just love that because to me, my favorite thing about it doesn't matter it could be trail running, could be boxing, could be underwater basket weaving I love when athletes go all in and they're like super committed to this one thing and it's their craft and they're just like in love with it and it's just really cool to see you going to europe.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: You know, I feel like that.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: I't know.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: I feel like if I was, if it was me and I was competing at that level and competing on that stage, like I would move to Europe as well.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I just feel like that makes a lot of sense, yeah.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: I guess the World Cups are called the World Cups but they're really just Euro Cups.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there are none in Azerbaijan, but that's it.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: The rest is going to be in Europe.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: So really, if you want to do the full World Cup season, you have to be there for the winter.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: And I also like to get rid of the jet lag and get used to training, because Colorado is wonderful for training for longer stuff, because you can really take advantage of high altitude.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: But training for sprints is really hard because the ski resort started like 8 000 feet and you can only go up from there.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um, I think it might be even higher than that.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Um, so it's really hard to produce the kind of power you will need racing at like much lower altitude than that.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Um, I actually noticed that for the when I came for the first world cup.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: I thought I'd do really well because I'm like I have all this altitude advantage and I could breathe just fine, but my legs couldn't go any faster to keep up with the people in the sport.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: So I realized I need that like lower altitude training before the season starts to have developed the power that I need in races and in between it's really just hard to go back.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: So I know that US team is going back forth and it's just really impressive because to me, like the cross-continental travel just exhausts me and the time zones and all of that, and I just feel like it's much harder if you don't have the ability to stay in Europe the whole season.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, back and forth has got to be terrible.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just harder.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Plus, like I don't know, I feel like in Europe your diet's a little bit different.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, like the American standard diet not great, and like we have a lot of no offense, but we have a lot of shit in our food over here, whereas European food is much better in my opinion.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: You know your sleep is different.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: It's just everything you know.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Like living there full time, I don't know.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: It's just like.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: What I draw parallels to is like Jim, for instance, with UTMB.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: You know, he'd know, he knew that in order.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: You just can't go over a few months before and expect to produce great results.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Like he went and lived there and it made a lot of sense.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: The other thing you said that was really interesting to me cause I just had this debate with somebody.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Um, I have a friend that's getting ready for UTMB, right, and he is under this like belief that if he just just trains on the 14ers, the entire entire, for his entire block, that he's just going to be so altitude adapted that he's just going to be able to fly.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: I was like dude, it's a lot different of a race like there's a lot different.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: It's like it's much lower.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: It's a completely different ball game.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: You know, it's not just running up a peak and running down and just expecting to have that altitude advantage.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: So I thought that was very interesting what you said with being able to produce that power and being able to just be more adapted to different altitudes.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: So it's interesting.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess it just comes down to like what intensity are you going to run the race at?
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: If it's going to be purely endurance, then I think having high altitude advantage is going to be huge.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: But if you have to do threshold or above that, then you need to have practiced at those intensities and you just can't do that at 14,000 exactly, exactly, yeah, you're only getting one year threshold, but it's not threshold one year, and that's it.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I, uh, I was laughing because, like I don't know, I've ran up a few 14ers in prep for the race we're gonna do tomorrow yeah and yes, I feel like, and I feel great at like, because you know what was mellicent mellicent's like 10, 2, 10, 3, it's not that high yeah you know, was like oh, I feel really good on top of this mountain.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know it's Utah because, like I don't know, everything's lower here than, like, where we live.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: And I've been like in Europe and I came and I was on top of Millicent and I'm like where's oxygen?
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Really.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Did like I've been training.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: It's the.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: The mountains are really steep, like I trained in slovenia, and there's like I trade on one peak that is two and a half miles to the top and five thousand feet of gain um, I love that.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: And then two and a half miles down and five thousand feet of loss and you don't feel your quads at the bottom of it, um, but it like tops out at like seven thousand feet okay or eight thousand feet um, so it's very steep, but you can't get that high in slovenia yeah, you're good on the steep stuff.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: I remember I don't know when I like steep stuff.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no same same so I saw that fire road and I'm like, hey, can we just like cut over here and go straight up?
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: yes, yes I felt the same way.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Uh no, it made me laugh because, like I, um, I don't know when you posted this was like a while ago, this might have been last year.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: I I just I remember because it was.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite segments in colorado is the peak one, vk oh, yeah, yeah and I was like oh, I love that segment it's so good um yeah I don't know just like that's a beautiful aesthetic line.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: I love the running that's not running.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Yes fair enough, um so okay, so interestingly enough.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: So I'm kind of interested because you are probably the only sponsored dual sport athlete I've had on the pod where you're not just a trail runner, you're a ski mountaineer, but you have the same sponsor for both and dina fit are you?
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: You're under dina fits for, basically for both sports.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Is that how that works?
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: yeah, so you are primarily on one of the teams.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: You're either on the schema team or the trail running team.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: I actually I'm not sure which one I'm on I started off on the trail team, but I think they've since moved it, since moved me to the schema team.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: Um, but I love being with dinafit.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: They are super supportive and, um, they really do have great year-round gear yeah um, so I I actually the way I came to dinafit is I was already using their gear and I was going to make this massive purchase and I just wanted to ask them for a code.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: And then that turned into sponsorship, which was pretty great.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: But, um, yeah, like, Shout out to Michael Casarubia.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, I love him.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a cool good cool guy.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, no, that's just.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: It was just interesting to me.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Now the other question is is that like and I don't know how much you can go into this, but do you feel like being in Europe?
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Because it's Dina, if it is based in Europe, will you have more support and be able to, you know, just have more access to things over there as opposed to the American side, or how will that work for you?
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: I actually just had this conversation with them because at first I wasn't really sure, if you know, they would keep me on if I moved, if they would keep me on if I moved, because I was on the US team and the budgets are separate and all of that.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: But it does seem like it is a possibility and for sure, the product variety is greater in Europe, but I think that is more reflected to what everyone can get Us as athletes.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: We could always request the gear and we could get product from Europe shipped to US for us, but I would say, like the dina fit is bigger in the market in europe for sure yeah, big time and the headquarters are there, so have you?
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: have you been to the hq over there?
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: I've been to the old hq, so every year we have an athlete summit in the fall and I've been lucky enough to be able to go to two of those so far.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Um, and I just found it really cool because they really asked for like athlete feedback and it felt like, you know, we're the ones using and abusing the gear and we always notice what could be improved and when somebody asks you for that opinion, it just feels like you're valued.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: So it is cool, right?
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: I like that but they said they've recently moved, so I haven't been to the new oh, they got a new fancy HQ.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: I saw the one on Instagram, like I think last year they had.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was the year before when they had athletes come out to it.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: It was just like, actually this was like two or three years ago.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: I was on the the hell, was it the Trail Hero team?
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: like three years ago or something like that, yeah.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: So I was like, oh man, you get access to all this great stuff Free.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Shoes is dope.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that's how I met Michael and went through the whole thing.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: So that's why I kind of have an idea of the way I work.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: So, interesting.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: All right, I'm not going to pivot too hard, but I am really interested in you as an OCR athlete and your background in that.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I know you were what.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: 17 in 2018 World's Toughest Mudder.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: And you were like a Spartan World Champ as well, or something like that For the 24-hour races.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: That's so crazy can you talk like what inspires you to do?
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Ocr?
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: How did you get into that?
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: well, I think it like kind of combined what I was doing at the time, which was trail running, and my background as a gymnast.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: So I saw there was this race and I was like, oh, that actually sounds really fun.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: I think I could be good at that.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: And I just remember lining up for the first elite race and like seeing everybody with their like six packs and no shirts and I'm like, oh my god, what am I?
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: doing people are jacked yeah but I had the advantage of not knowing anybody and so I just ran hard and I didn't know the people I was passing and I ended up being fourth um at my first race and I qualified for the world championship.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: Like back then you had to get like a little coin that you could run it, um, and then the world championship was at Tahoe and there was the swim on top, like at 9,600 feet and it was extremely cold and I cried going into the water and then I couldn't do anything else after that because I was frozen and it was just it went so poorly.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: But it kind of gave me this fire to try and train for it and like, try and like be better at it and I pretty much dove in full-on, like I do it a lot of things in life and yeah, I did it for a few years and I was at first really good at the short stuff.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: But I struggled a lot of things in life.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I did it for a few years and I was at first really good at the short stuff, but I struggled a lot with eating disorders back then and I was really really good for about a year and then things just started breaking, like my bones were breaking.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I was always in pain and so I couldn't run fast anymore because I always hurt, but I realized I could still run far.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: So then I shifted to ultras.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Because there you, I think like part of the ultra is like dealing with the aches and pains, and mine just happened to start the start line.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: I like I would change a lot of things if I could go back with the way I approached it.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: I think I would have a longer and more sustainable career.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Um, but I loved it, like, especially the 24 hour races.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Um, it was just so much like troubleshooting and like gear you needed to, especially for the world stuff as matter.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Um, usually there's like 25 obstacles in a six mile lap and you keep doing that for 24 hours and the winner is the one who does the most.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: Um, and about half of those are usually water obstacles.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: So you also need to run in a wetsuit at night and the temperatures draw like they.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: They drop below freezing on the second year that I did it and you're like jumping in this thing and you're like the water was actually nice because it was warmer than the air outside.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Um, but it was one of those races where I felt like I could make mistakes and there was time to fix them.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: And I love that because it wasn't just like one mistake, you're out.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: It was like about who can fix the mistakes most efficiently, and just the community was great.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Because there's like in world, stuff has mattered the obstacles, some of the obstacles you can't do by yourself.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: So for those usually people would post up on the top of the obstacle and their goal was just to help people over it.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: So it was just like.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: It was like it kind of combined competitiveness with community and I really liked that.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: That's cool and I've just realized that the longer the event it is, the better I am.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: So I did that for a few years.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: But after it just it's mentally also really hard.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: So after I did four of those I've decided I didn't have it in me, not like physically but mentally, to push for another one, so then decided that was it super, still so neat, like what, and to have like early on success big time at that is wild yeah, coming into the first one, I had no idea I was gonna be good at it and I just started out pretty fast and I think I was the first person ever to win the first lap and win the overall race.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: Um, wow.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: But I think like part of it was just that was like before I got really over trained so I was able to do that early on, um, but then it got harder and harder as the years went by fair enough.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Now you said something about in regards to eating disorders and things like that, and I I often wonder because, like I see, see, in our trail community, it's like I don't know, it's not that people have to look a certain way, it's that people do look a certain way and I hate.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: I hate that because that's not necessarily the most like, like, while it might look that way, that's not the optimal form for an athlete in a lot of ways.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying yeah, um, I definitely struggled with it for like three decades of my life and it came from gymnastics, um, and I think if it wasn't for covet, when I had this like forced time off, I probably would have quit professional sport back then because I was at the point where my body was breaking and I just didn't have the mental capacity to deal with my eating disorder anymore.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: But I also felt like I couldn't go into recovery because that would mean taking time off from sport and I wasn't back then.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: I wasn't strong enough to come out and admit I have an eating disorder and be like I'm not going to be racing.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: So it came handy that there was no races for a while and I'm like, okay, I can do this in silence and I can start taking care of my body.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: But I was at a point where I really didn't care if I never want anything anymore.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: I just wanted getting out of bed to not hurt and eating a cookie.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: So what I like.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: But what I I guess what I still struggle with, especially when it comes to trail running, and probably why I also avoid trail races that are super runnable, is I was really freaking fast for that one year before I broke but it wasn't sustainable, and so I think, in a way, eating disorders, they take away from you having that progress and coming to a result in a sustainable way.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: You just kind of get there by, almost, like I wouldn't call it cheating, but like for sure it feels like taking a shortcut, a little power weight ratio.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: And then coming back to that once you're healthy at least for me, it seems like it'd be an impossible task to do.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: So.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: Maybe, in a way, finding other sports and giving myself a chance to build myself as an athlete in those sports in the right, healthy and sustainable way feels like my almost like I wouldn't say it, but like a gift, basically like what I got for getting healthy, healthy, um, and it's.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: I think it feels much more rewarding to become a really good schema athlete because I know that I'm getting there in a healthy way and in a way that I can sustain that for the rest of my life.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um, whereas running like towards the end, it always felt like it could be taken away from me anytime, because I just felt like I was riding that edge and it wasn't fun and it wasn't like like sustainable and it wasn't healthy for me anymore yeah um.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: So that's why I like, do like, sky races now, which are so different, and I don't have this precedent in results that are just, I feel like, not obtainable anymore without sacrificing my health again yeah, no, I love that and thank you for sharing.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that it's to that point too with the sky racing.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Is that?
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: You know I've I've had Jackson Jackson Cole on the pod before you know, we've chatted a lot and I don't know.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: It just has really ignited and I'm so happy um that, like sky racing is for this year seems like it's really big.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: And.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: I think it's like the biggest year.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: It feels like there's a lot of energy around it and it's got a big title sponsor.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm excited for what the future holds for Sky Racing and the races are so much more fun.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: At least I think so.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: They're different.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: Technically engaging yeah, they're different.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: I feel like it's not all about just speed.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: It's also about technicality and like skills and like being really durable, um, and I feel like all of those things are.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: You can't get there with shortcuts exactly find that rewarding.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no doubt at all.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: What was the race you're doing in italy again?
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: uh, it's pizzo stella sky race.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: It's not in the world sky running circuit and the reason being to be on the world sky running circuit this year.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: You had to commit to races in the winter and in the winter.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: I just had no idea what I would want my summer to be.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Um, so I decided to do like smaller races this year super cool.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I remember overall myself.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't blame you.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Well, especially with like schema just being such a big thing on the calendar, it's like how I don't know.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: Like I feel like everything I would plan in the summer would just be like okay, what can I hop into if I'm feeling fit and like what excites me yeah, um, I initially was just not gonna race at all in the summer, um, but then a few months and I decided I really love racing and I can keep it in a way where it's just for the love of it, so like, for example, for this race, I have no clue what the competition is and I really have.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not going into it any like placing expectations.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: I just want to go into as like joy of racing, which I've always had since I was little.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: It's funny, I don't know.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: I feel like I've personally like just changed in the last year as an athlete a lot, cause I I I'm extremely competitive, I love competition, I love planning that, I love the whole thing.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: And then I like look on the thing today and I'm like, oh shit, kip and yego and david norris are gonna be there.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: I'm like this is gonna be fun let's see what happens no, but in all seriousness though, like I don't really, I'm just excited to race that course, like I think the course is very static and just I don't know just has I've got stoke for that.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: I don't really care about you know, like whatever happens, happens you know, it's more fun just being out there with my tribe and just seeing what you can do yeah so, yeah, that's uh, that's exciting, yeah, so I'm trying to think, like what other?
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: What was the third race that you said you were going to do?
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: The glock, gross glockner, what is that?
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: so that's the one around the mountain yeah, it's like a trail race around, like in the vicinity of, like, gross glockner, which is the highest peak in the alps, and it's a.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: It's a dina fit race.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: So I always like to do one dina fit race every summer, um, so that one.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: I saw the 100k last year and the course looked really, really fun.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: Um, and I've actually skied it this winter, so I thought it would be really cool to do a trail race that's rad.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I come back and kind of see it in two seasons yeah, exactly on the dina fit conversation too, I've noticed like they've got a lot of like new developments and shoes coming out.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: Like their shoes look pretty dope and they what are the ones you race in or like?
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: What do you like?
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: like, yeah I actually I've been in love with the old alpine um so I've always did all my trail races and all the sky races in the alpine, and I don't even use the dna, which is a racing version, um, because I love how soft and how like they feel like a sock.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: So, um, I'm still on that train.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: I am trying their new shoes and they are like they come with the new that, that foam that's usually in the carbon shoes, that's really reactive or something, yeah, yeah so the new shoes have that foam, um, but I guess it's just like when something works really well for me, I have a hard time changing it.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: I feel very similarly.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: I run for Sportiva and we just dropped the Prodigio.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: And don't get me wrong, I love the Mutant and I love the other shoes that they put out, but I can't run in anything other than Prodigio now I just love it too much.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: It works.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: If something works, why are we going to break it?
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: Why are we gonna, you know, change it?
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: So now I feel the same way.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, so I don't know.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: We're at 45 minutes in.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Let's get.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: Let's start getting to some some good questions.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: So the first thing is really interested me um is your background with gymnastics.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Is that where your competitive drive comes from?
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: Like you seem to be pretty competitive, so like, where does that come from?
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: yeah, well, I don't think like I think gymnastics is a byproduct of that, but I feel like I've just always been competitive.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no matter what it was.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: I'm like I'm going to sprint you through this line and like everything was turned into competition when I was little.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I, I love racing, but Like I don't turn my life into competition anymore.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: I love going easy in training.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: I love like I race races now and I only race races and everything else is like Training.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: It should be fun, I agree I agree, okay, fair enough, fair enough, all right.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: Next question so you're from the.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: You live in the front range, or formerly live in the front range of Colorado.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: You've been all around Coloradoado, I would imagine.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: What's your take on the grizzly bears in colorado?
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: oh, I've only seen like wait, grizzly bears, we only have.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Like we don't have any technically yeah but it's like this.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: It's like this is like a thing.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: I ask everybody on the pod because it's interested to me, because most of the people I have on the podcast are like colorado people, yeah, so it's like, this is like a thing.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: All right, so like we apparently hunted them out in the 80s or like killed the last one in the 80s.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: But every now and then there's like a pretty solid sighting of like a bear, of like a grizzly bear.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: I've seen a really cute black bear before.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: Wait, do they have bears in Slovenia?
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like brown bears.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: I think it's black bears, like the cute ones.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: The ones that are going to run away if you scare them.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Because I've seen like videos of like Northern Italy and like I've seen like they have like huge primers.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: I've never seen one in Italy.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: I always feel like in Europe nothing can really kill you.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: That's what I thought there's like cute sheep on the mountains.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Fair enough, fair enough.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: But I've been to Alaska and I survived running in the bear country and it was wide open.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: It was one bush and there just happened to be a grizzly in that one bush, and so, like I came way too close to it, it stood on its hind legs and it was like looking at me and started growling and like stood up again, and then it like charged towards me and so I thought that was it.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: I was like, well, I guess I had a pretty good life.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: But it was a bluff charge so it just like came like way too close to me and then it ran away.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: But it was funny because I was really scared of bears up to that point and I'm like I have a very healthy respect, Like I will not go close to a bear.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: I will make sure I'm like loud and visible.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: Make sure I'm like loud and visible um, but I'm not afraid of like running if I know there's bears in the area yeah, anymore, and I feel like almost like the worst things that can happen happen apart from like dying.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: Um, and I was fine.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: So my brain was like, oh, maybe this is fine, maybe bears are okay did you have like fight or flight, like what was your immediate, like when I was very calm?
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: okay, I was just like I made myself big and I started talking to the bear, but it didn't really call him down, and then it was yeah, it was very calm, I wasn't freaking out or anything, cause I was like I can't do anything right now.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're powerless.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: After the bear ran away I got really scared.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: I would have cried.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: I sprinted back to the tent um, and I was glad that was the last day, but oh my god what a story that's wild yeah, okay, all right well, like I said, back to the colorado one, we don't, we don't know there's no chris losing colorado.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Probably not, probably not, but it's, I don't know, I always like to think the woods are a little more wild, you know with that.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: You know, I feel like the mountain lions are the scariest thing they don't really bother.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've never I've only ever seen one across the road.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: Well, because if you see one, then you're really screwed Right, but it's usually on your back If you're out in the winter.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: you can see their prints, so you know they're there.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all the time In fact.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: So I train a lot around Manitou Springs and that southern area.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: I see mountain lion tracks all the time never, yeah, never seen one and rattlesnakes there's lots.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: I just saw my first one, a couple weeks ago what first one?
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: I see like one on every running golden really, oh wow yeah, I was kind of I was in garden of the gods and I wasn't even on a trail, I was just like walking across the road.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a rattlesnake in the culvert like freaking out like rattling and yeah, it was pretty crazy.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it's the first one I've ever.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: It's funny I do.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Um, I train on this peak a lot called blodgett and uh there's a I don't know.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: The upper half mile of it is like completely off trail and I'm like bouldering and like going over all the like kind of like actually like the upper part of millicent yeah or not?
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: But it's like there's like bushes and stuff in there and I'm always like, oh my god, if I put my hand on a rattlesnake trying to like climb up this rock.
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: I, I'm going to, yeah, so, so far knock on wood.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: haven't seen one, but you know, you never know.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, All right.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Next question this one really interests me because I know you have a physics, geophysics or physics and astrophysics background.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: What's your take on the aliens?
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever gotten this question.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: I don question, I don't know.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: I feel like, how vast the universe is.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: There's probably some other life that exists somewhere, do you?
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: think it could be like interdimensional, like what do they teach you in astrophysics?
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: Like is there?
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: like do you guys, not that you don't get into like dimensions and all that shit no, they just teach you there's lots of different systems, like our solar system, around the galaxy and it's massive and changing and expanding, um, but yeah, we never really talked about aliens, but I do feel like, with how huge everything is, like it's very likely there's another life form somewhere.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, um, but I don't think we'll ever find it what do you find?
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: what do you think about, like, what's your take on string theory?
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: oh gosh, I don't even remember that that was so long ago.
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: All right, all right.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: All right, I'll make it.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: I'll give you an easier do you?
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: what do you think about?
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: All right, so like there's a big theory out there now with like simulate.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: What's your take on simulation theory?
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: what is that?
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: So like we're, we're like living in a simulation I don't think we are, you don't think so, like the thing I have, that's like a real reality.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, yeah, that blew my mind.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: Like there's like leading physicists now that like really think like we're in a simulation, yeah, and I'm like these guys are on crack, like this is wild.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: One last question, back to running.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: Who is your, who's your goat, who's like the greatest of all time for you?
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: It could be ultra, it could be sub ultra, it doesn't matter.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: Can it be not running?
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: It could be not running.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Not running could be not running, that's fair.
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: I love hillary nelson.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: Hillary nelson, yeah, okay.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: Um, I love the way she lived her life.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: I love how she was breaking the barriers, how she showed you can be a really badass mountain athlete and also have a family, um, and I just love what she accomplished.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: I love how brave she was and how she supported like like risk taking, but like calculated risk taking and knowing if you want adventure and if you want your life to be fulfilling, you also have to accept you're not gonna be 100% safe all the time, and that really resonates with me.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, shout out to.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, like she was a giant in our community.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: She was, you know, like losing her was, yeah, heartbreaking for the community.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: It was terrible.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: No, I think that's a good goat.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: That's one of the best goats I've heard so far.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Well, on that note, thanks so much for coming on.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was amazing.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: Well, I want to wish you first of all.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: I want to wish you the best of luck at the race tomorrow.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Second of all, we'll be in touch, for sure, but I definitely want to wish you the best of luck as you move to Europe and you pursue this Olympic goal.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: That is just so incredible.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: I love seeing people pursuing these things.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're welcome.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: Thanks for coming on.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: Thank you, have a good day.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you too.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: What'd you guys think?
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: I told you that was a fun podcast.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: Ray is just so awesome and just such an inspiring athlete.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: We really want to wish her the absolute best of luck as an Olympic hopeful.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: Oh my God, fingers crossed.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: If we get an Olympian on the podcast, how dope would that be.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I really want to wish her the best of luck as she pursues this insane goal and just I hope she achieves it.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: It'd be really fun.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, really want to thank Ray again.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: Guys, if you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and hop on Instagram, go give Ray a follow.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Her Instagram tag is very simple it's her first and last name.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: So Ray R-E-A-K-O-L-B-L.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: So Ray Coble.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: Guys, if you also enjoyed this episode and if you're in the market for some new gear, ultimate Direction, one of my sponsors, was kind enough to give us a percentage off, a little discount code to share with podcast followers.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: If you guys hop on to the Ultimate Direction site and just use the code SteepStuffPod that's one word.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Steepstuffpod one word, steep Stuff Pod S-T-E-E-P-S-T-U-F-F-P-O-D it's going to give you 25% off your cart order.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: Pretty awesome.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: So big shout out to Ultimate Direction for sending us that code.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Pretty awesome to be able to share that with you guys.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: 25% off is pretty solid, especially in this economy.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: Guys, if you enjoyed the podcast as well, hop on over to Spotify and Apple and give us a rating and review.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: That would be awesome.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: Hope you guys have a great week.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, james Lariello, steep Stuff Podcast and hope you enjoyed this one.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Thank you.