Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 114 - The Real Shoe Dawgs

Episode Date: February 1, 2025

Dave Dombrow and Kevin Fallon are the co-founders and masterminds behind some of the best running shoes on the market, Run Speedland. Dave, Kevin and Cam will be covering the newest additions to the Speedland lineup including new road and trail shoes and a hunting boot, with perfected details by Cam himself. They’ll also be covering technology in running shoes, their future goals for shoes and more! Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Follow Courtney: https://www.instagram.com/runspeedland/  Thank you to our sponsors: Grizzly Coolers: https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/ Use code CAM for 10% off  MUD\WTR: https://mudwtr.com/cam use code CAM for 15% off  Ketone IQ: https://www.ketone.com/Cam use code CAM for 30% off your first subscription MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv use code CAM for 10% off Timestamps: 00:00:00 Testing New Shoe Designs 00:06:49 Embracing the Athletes Mantras 00:10:37 Ketone-IQ 00:11:46 Social Media Presence in Marketing 00:17:27 Coffee Club Podcast 00:19:14 Body Language & Mind Games in Races 00:21:01 Shared Suffering & the Community in Running 00:22:49 New Cam Hanes Cocodona Speedland Shoes 00:26:18 Ad Break (MUD\WTR & Ketone-IQ) 00:28:42 New Cam Hanes Speedland Hunting Boots 00:33:51 BOA® & PerformFit™ Wrap Features 00:36:54 New Technology in Shoes & Boots 00:39:04 Durability of the BOA® 00:41:39 Speedland’s Goal 00:47:06 Difference Between Race & Road Shoes 00:52:19 Reducing Impact During Running 01:00:32 Gaiter Shoe Attachment - Cocodona Speedland Shoes 01:05:54 Speedland Goals for the Future 01:07:21 Leadville Trail Marathon  01:09:09 Q - Will There be Insulated Hunting Boots? 01:09:50 Q - Will There be Speedland Military Boots? 01:12:51 Outro

Every step I take, I move my truth. Every time they tell me stop I use. Every comment hate that makes my feel. Gather up my energy and boom. I hear them talking, saying the way that I move is so reckless. That is a part of my mind I've been blessed with. Giving my blood so I am relentless. Well, we're here.

Keep Hammer Collective. Kevin and Dave from Speedland. Man, what, how great of a day is this? Stoke to be back. Yeah. Can you, and look at all our goodies. Got some products. What's going on?

What's going on? And like, so just let's recap Speedland. When did speed, how long has this been going now? When did this brainchild start? Let's see. It's been now. Well, we started developing in 2020 and then we started selling product in 2021. Middle of 2020.

Yeah, June or July. Man, so it's only been like four years, really. Yeah, we're coming up on four years. Yeah, we're getting into our fourth year here. Yeah. Four years. And I don't know, I see a lot of people wearing and talk about Speedland. How does that?

feel it's it's that's why we do it I mean that's the the reward is seeing these amazing athletes like yourself choosing our product for these really difficult hard things in the mountains that we love it it's a process though right and like yeah you know like we're always feels like we just getting started to some degree yeah yeah I kept uh I know I mean these guys are out there with me the whole time well three days of corny corny but for that whole uh 12 hours on pisca so many people were in speedland which you know it's local it's cool but it's never gets old seen so many i don't know how many pairs of speedlands was there was probably tons i bet over 30 people yeah i was going to say at least like 25 30 yeah yeah so we we love it and you've helped us build that community

and certainly an event like with taylor is you know going to bring in the speedland folks and it's great it's great we love seeing that and uh we we don't take any of it for granted either no yeah it was nice having uh had the tent there and had some representation yeah our boy chris was there chris yeah he delivered got my shoes to me the night before i think yeah yeah some new uh new i mean it's a it's a road shoe but of course you put it to the test uh on the trail as well as evidenced by the look of it yeah it's ahead over a hundred miles and Yeah. Less than a week.

I say a few days. You put 100 miles on it. Yeah, you guys said you wanted me to like do as much as I could in it to test it to see if it would break or do whatever. And yeah, I mean, so Courtney and I did, you know, 24,000 feet of gain 100 miles. And my feet were in great shape, you know, the whole time, no blisters at all. And that's great to hear. For wearing a road shoe in the mountains, that is a good test. That's a hard test. Yeah, we don't necessarily recommend when people buy it they do that.

But that's what we look to do. It's part of our process. This is Don Reichelt's commission, FPY, stands for Fair Play. And he's been instrumental in getting us to this point. And then we've kind of expanded the athlete testing group to make sure it holds up and works for Don and for a broader group. And that's kind of where we are. We're in the late stages getting ready to commercialize this. And we should have it for sale. probably in late February, early March, and then it'll deliver in April. Yeah, we try to break it in testing if we can. And someone like you, we know, is going to, you know, you broke the other ones. Yeah, you broke the other one. Yeah, you broke the other one. Yeah, you broke the other one. Yeah.

But that's what we need. And that's how we work and we rely on that, you know, only get so much out of mechanical testing or that type of testing, the in situ and having the athletes do what they do in it is the best way. So we rely heavily on that. Well, you know, I mean, I, I, to speak from past experience with other companies, they've said the same things you guys said. I'd go out there, did things that caused them to fail. Then I tell them nothing changes.

So with you guys, I broke the other version. Here's what happened. Here's a new version, fixed, and no issue. Yeah. So you guys took the feedback. It seems so simple. Yeah, it is. It is simple. It is simple. And it's amazing at big companies. how that doesn't happen. And that was one of the reasons that led us to start Speedland, really, like, just get too many layers between the athletes and the product teams. And there's not a good reason for it. There's, you know, just layers and things that get in the way, timing, the relentless product flow of a big company.

And we don't, you know, we're kind of anti all that. We want to listen to the athletes and incorporate the feedback. And that helps us make better product. I mean, you're sending us text real time, you know, so then we can just go fast as possible. So with expletive sign of case. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. They're not all the nice. Sorry, they're not as the nicest text. Well, no, no. That was this. But we needed on that one, it was like, what the fuck is this thing?

Yeah. Well, okay. It's gone. That was like, you know, when you have, when you have a new relationship and some of the old, from the old relationship kind of kind of leads into the new relationship. And so it shouldn't really, but here's, here's why. So I had a boot with another company. we're familiar with.

I said, I wanted this, right? And because it's hard to get the boot on just without this little thing. Boots are always hard to get it. Yeah, got it.

Cam, no problem. Got it. We're on it. Thousands of boots come out after that. No thing. So why did you ask me? If you're not going to do, so that I think it was a little bit,

I still traumatized from that maybe. But you guys. We love it. So the change you made, fix that. And that's what I was talking about on that one one text. But yeah, that's what I love about it is like, you know, you talk about the challenges of a of a big company and this and that. But you guys, yeah, you're nimble, you're quick, you listen. You make great product. You've been immersed in the space forever. You know what runners want or in this case. Now this is going to be a hunting boot.

And yeah, you're just committed to doing it right and making great product. And like I said, it's like I said earlier, it's like, it seems simple, but man, I don't know. Well, I think that's our goal. We want to keep it that simple. And when it gets to a point where it can't be that simple, then maybe it's time for us to do something else. But, you know, it does really, our brand revolves around that. The relationship with athletes is everything for us. Oh, this is like now I'm distracted on stuff.

But fair play, is that in Colorado? Yeah. Okay. So is that where Don's from? Don lived in actually he's moved now, but he was living in fair play at altitude and he intentionally chose that as a place that would be a great training ground for him and his professional running pursuits. And so that's where the FPI comes from. And that's our next commission that's coming. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's it. That's cool. I love that shoe. So worked with him on the colors. There's some neat graphics inside that, you know, kind of reiterate his mantra of, you know, there will come a day when you can no longer do this. Today is nice. not that day. So that's what's inside. It's the inside. And, you know, so we just try to really imbue the product with things that are meaningful to the athlete that we're working with on a given product. And then, you know,

change it for the next athlete as we can. And yeah, we talked about that. Like, that's one difference at Speedland is embracing the athletes and like kind of celebrating an athlete, you know, with this personality or with these little things that are important to them. Whereas a lot these other brands for some reason are almost anti-athlete. It's just like, what are we sell? Why are we afraid to celebrate what makes this individual special and why what they do is important and why this product or the shoe will help them? Yeah.

Whatever. It's like, why do you think brands don't do what Speedland does? I mean, pretty much everything we do is a signature, every commission we come out with is a signature shoe, which is somehow very unique. in the running industry. It's not as unique when you look at other industries like basketball, you know, or, you know, where that is kind of what it's built on now is signature shoes. So I'm not sure why they don't do that.

But for us, it gives, it goes beyond a color then. And it starts to give every commission a stronger purpose. And that gives it a foundation, you know, that we can build off of versus if it's just, you know, another color way or another iteration, it doesn't have as much meaning. Yeah. Yeah, it's a, I mean, the storytelling, that's pretty much marketing, right? So it's like, what's the story you're telling? It's like, when I think of, I always go back to the hunting industry because that's what I do.

But like, there's big brands, like, say Matthews, Matthews makes great bows. They got one of the best archers and bow hunters ever in Levi Morgan. It's just like, why the name on a bow? Sure. It's a great question. Makes sense. because sometimes they're like so they're worried about well our other pro staffers and they would want their own boat too it's like well they're not the best of all time yeah so not everybody gets their own

bow i just i don't know some of it's that you know some of it's that kind of philosophy of oh it's got to be the best of the best and you know for us it's more about celebrating all of the athletes anybody who's doing these hard things you know let's let's tell their story everybody has an interesting story and it's worth celebrating. I just I just sh-it on myself because I'm not the best trail runner of all time, but look at this. God, dang it.

Well, and that's to the point. Like, it's not necessarily about being the best because then there'd only be a few signature products out there. There's only room for one or two people to say they're the best. Right. And it's really more about interesting stories and great people. And for us,

that's a big part of it too. Like, starting a brand, you have a choice. You have a choice. you can surround yourself with the people you want to surround yourself with. And that's a pretty important thing that I think gets overlooked. And a company, you kind of got to deal with whoever's there. And we have a choice and we choose the people that we want to associate with. Yeah. What do you think?

I had a question I was going to ask. I'm going to jump in on this keytone. Oh, I know. Do it. Want me shoot it off your head? Yeah, sure. Let's repeat that one. That costs a lot of, a lot of,

A lot of turmoil. People were very upset with the camera tricks. How did you not benefit from all of that, though, right? I mean, all the banter, all the talk has to be ultimately a good thing. Yeah, I mean, it's all good. There's people saying they had keep hammering tattoos you're going to have removed now because I don't know why. I guess. Call the wambies.

Because it's too good to have a camera trick. But, yeah, no, Ketone has done a good job as far as. like yeah just brand awareness and doing you know they had john jones in there as a chiropractor like breaking people's necks and rightly read adult film star i like that stuff i don't like doing the same shit all the time michael seems on afraid to try different approaches and new things and his team does a great job we we like watching what their journey is we met him at coca donna a couple years ago and um smart people yeah that's what i was so what i was going to get to is like how much you know we've talked a little bit about we had a little meeting before just

talking about all our cool new projects and we'll get to that but how much uh you know we talked about like the greatest of all time and then like then me not the greatest but how much like when you guys look at runners or influencers or sponsored athletes does that social media piece come into performance is it like you know i know there's no you can't say 50 50 or whatever but Social media is a part of the game plan now, right? Or the formula, it seems like. Because there's some great runners out there for whatever reason, no social media and their value is lessened, right or wrong.

Yeah, it's less. I mean, we look at, I would say we've always looked at three things. We look at, obviously, we look at social media. We look at just pure performance, speed, race results. And then we look at community. Like what are you doing in the community local or national, whatever? And so they all play a different factor. And we kind of, if you're really strong in one of those, then we want to talk to you.

If you're strong in multiple, that's even better. We really want to talk to you. So everything's important. You know, I think, yeah, we wouldn't say social is not important because it is. But if you're also up on the podium at, you know, a coca dona that's pretty amazing as well so you know we'll we'll take both but that's how we look at things like we're not kind of singular in one way which actually some companies are are they more singular i would yeah i would say we don't over index on the social thing to be fair like if you

look at our elite team they're not huge none of them are right big huge so beyond you um dylan is probably the next one but pretty big if you look at just pure followers you know there's Getting to the level that you're at is no small feat. And when you're a pro runner, that's a tough, tough thing to do. Or maybe not even fully pro, but you're still building your own brand. Yeah. It's a good thing to do. So for us, it's as much about the relationship.

Do they want to work with a brand like us? Because we work differently. We're not just sending product in the mail and checking in once a year. We're kind of asking you to be part of the wear testing program. Sometimes you might wear a product that fails or, you know, that you need to give us more input on. And that's not what some people want either. So, you know, working with us is a different type of process. But for the right person who's looking for input into product,

who wants to be part of a small brand doing things a little differently, we're a unique alternative to a big brand. Yeah. It's a, and I think like, you know, you talked about Dylan, where I think Dylan and some of these other athletes are doing a good job is like, so it's not just social, just like how many followers, but like he's got this media. Yeah.

Right. Dylan's unique in a very unique case because he has his own media media company as well. And he's able to leverage, you know, he can kind of amplify both Dylan. Dylan is the athlete personally and Dylan and the free trail side. So he's able to kind of go back and forth, which is super unique. I mean, actually, you're able to kind of do the same thing as well in a different way. But that's kind of an ideal where you can kind of take two different platforms and kind of cross-amplified both. Yeah.

And that's great if we have that. But that is somewhat rare. It's very rare. Yeah. There are some like Deslanden and Kerr Goucher are doing a good job where they're still, I don't know if Kerr's competing still. I know Des, you know, some, but their media is now, their podcast. They're still reaching people and they're still involved in the, you know, the culture and

in the sport. Yeah, because they're also finding their stuff on like the big broadcasts and stuff. Yeah. noticed. Yeah, right. The commentators. So I love, you know, I look at it as like not just one or two, not just performance, not just social, but like I'm always, to me personally, I want to do performance, social YouTube, which I guess would be social media too in some ways, print media. I want all of it. I want to do it all and have a presence in all of it. Then when you, you know, when you're working with a partner or you're, you know, excited about just what I do,

it's like in all these avenues this is reaching people and that's that's where we make the biggest impact that's hard to do though it's hard to get that's more than a full-time job just in it itself right yeah so that's why i think it's rare for people to do that when when it does work you know like dylan being in the sport a long time a lot of connections it kind of you know it works yeah yeah it's pretty pretty cool to see his um because i do i listen to all his stuff basically I mean, he's just really good at what he does, but the team he has, I listen to the second nature one.

I think it's more about business, kind of. The free trail, I don't know what else he's got, but I think Corrine Malcolm, is that her name? She's been doing stuff with him or maybe just an appearance, but. She has a podcast within his media. And then they also have done multiple times Western States broadcast together.

Yes. So they do different events together as well. They seemed to. They did UTM beat as well. They vibe well together as far as like going back and forth. They kind of have a little different skill set, but they seem to, I don't know. They offer the color. You know, they can tell the stories about the various athletes and, you know,

fill in that time in those long races and in a really effortless way. My favorite. I like, I definitely like all the trail stuff. I listen to pretty much. I love single track. Finn, I think is his name. He does a good job. Super good guy.

I'm getting a Hal on here. I want to have how. Yeah, I talk to him. But my favorite right now, just because they're a little more hot take type people, is coffee club. Do you guys? I haven't listened to that one? It's track guys. And they're like good, like elite track guys.

And so they talk, kind of talk shit. I love it. It's pretty fun. Yeah, that is fun. Yeah, like they had Woody somebody, Kincaid maybe. Yeah. Do you know he's like a big 10. guy and 5K guy.

So he was on. They talk about, you know, coaching changes from different teams to, you know, I think he went to Mike Smith, which is, I think down in Flagstaff. But anyway,

I like hearing all the elites. And I can't relate to that, but it's fun to listen to. Sure. You know. Yeah, the insider details. Yeah. Well,

and you get a lot of elites on, on yours, for sure. But not talking. No. That's what I like. I like the, you know,

you guys told a story earlier and I won't mention the name, but like, you know, runners, running is saying, you're out of your, you're telling the other runner who's trying to challenge him, you're out of your league? Yeah. I love, I'd love if we could put names and stuff. But that's the kind of, that's fun. It is fun.

Probably not fun for the person who's like got told they're out of their league. Yeah. I think people don't realize sometimes how much of the mind games happen in running. You know, you think, oh, it's a solitary sport or you're just, you know, out there doing your thing. But man, these, these are competitors. and they will mess with their competitors as much as they can. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you look at body language a lot, like running.

Like, it was just funny how we noticed that in 12 hours passing people back and forth on Piscay. Yeah, right. Everybody's fired up at the beginning. But you're like seeing body language change. And so, and you know, the old, you guys have competed enough to know, if you're running, somebody's behind you, you're not going to stop running to get around. the corner right when you get around the corner if you're dying that's when you stop where they can't see you right right for sure so yeah it's it's all part of those are the mind games right it's so fun

uh you know and i i don't know i don't know if courtney's the master at it because i there's no way something could be as nice as she is and is ruthless at the same time but you know she'll ask people competitors she's racing against like do you need anything do you need water's just like that so it's like no way you're not that's not not real Right. I have no doubt she's as genuine as can be when she asked that, but the perception of the other person is like, you, mother, that might be the ultimate mind. It might. Yeah. It might. Like, yeah, I'm so not worried about you. I'm willing to help you. Right. Yeah. You need some water. Yeah. I'm not even running hard enough to need this water. You can take it. Yeah, no, it's a, but yeah, I love the mind games. I mean, this, uh, I love this. There's this one kid. He's getting really good at Rodney. His name's Rodney Williams. He runs in Speedland, but he was big smile every time we passed him, big smile every time. And then it turned into like half smile, half grimace.

Still trying. But he did, he kicked that and it's, uh, yeah, you're, uh, what's your body goes during those long days is. So it's, it's special. It's powerful. It's painful. It's painful. It's, it's Man, it's just everything. Humbling, right? Oh, it's the best, though. Yeah. It's the best. So it's like those tests in life, you know, we don't need to test ourselves like that nowadays.

It's just don't need to. We got it. Easy if you want it to be. Pretty easy if you want it, right? And so to, you know, intentionally put yourself out there and that shared suffering, which is what people talk about all the time, it's that community, you know, you talked about community. And Courtney and I talked about this too, but like all the people there at that

race. It's just like if you could capture that in a bottle or sell it as a drug, you'd be rich. Because it's, it's invaluable. Just, you know, how much love and support and respect. Everybody gave each other. And just that, that, I don't know, it's, I don't know, you just feel really lucky when you're involved in and things like that and experiences like that and with people like that. I know I do. But, uh, incredible. I think trail is unique in that way. Yeah. Everybody at the end of the day is there at a lot. support each other and hold each other up it's not a step on people to to get by yeah no it's uh yeah i don't know it's yeah it's weird i just think that like once you get you know we kind of mentioned

it in our meeting in there but you can fake a lot of stuff in regular life when you're just beat down it's hard to fake anything it's just this is just how i am so so so love me or hate me yeah and so you know with with life when you actually the mask is off and it's a real person that's that's what's special and that's what happens on those events feels like um yeah so let's talk about what do we got here let's talk probably well we already kind of mentioned the FPY so that's next right here yeah then launch the road shoe but then uh then we come to a coca donut pack your pack here so this we're super excited about this it's a a new gs you can see here kind of aggressive

that one that looks polka dot pattern yeah that looks pretty cool have the coca donna logo over here coconut logo on one side keep hammering on the other yeah and and then we have

a road shoe the RXCCD to go with it so that's the GS CCD okay so kind of coca don is kind of the perfect story for this because anybody who's not familiar with that race is you you obviously do a

a fair bit on the trail, but you also do a fair amount on the road as well. So having both is going to be pretty exciting. So, you know, hopefully those are the shoes we'll see you running in when we're out there, which is. And, you know, our reason for doing the road shoe is really around that notion of, you know, the trail athletes, even the most dedicated, can't always train on trail. There's inevitably some moments where you've got to get road miles in. in and we felt like there was an opportunity there for us to bring something new to that space

using what we've learned from our trail shoes, bringing that removable plate system into a road shoe and making a great trainer. It's basically the intent is to be a fast trainer, give you the same fit, a lot of the same functionality from our trail products, but in a product that'll work great on the road. Well, yeah, I mean, I'm running on, you know, if I run from here to Piscuitz it's it's you know eight miles on the road if i go from spencer's to Piska it's about 10 miles across the town so yeah i mean road road comes in i just like i mean that shoe right there was so comfortable i love all your shoes but it's just like on the road that was great i ran with true at one time and uh when he was here for thanksgiving we were going out like fast and it was the first

time I wore those, it was the other shoe that I broke, but it felt so freaking good. You know how those times when you run and you feel light? Yeah. It rarely happens to me, but that day it did. And man, so I relate like to me, I can be running and I can like come to a place in the trail or the place. And I remember like, oh, I was listening to a podcast during this time. I was listening to the music during this time. I remember. Or there's runs where like, man, I remember that run. I felt so good. I was wearing those shoes. So I like have this anchor memory about, that's great. I felt unstoppable that day wearing those shoes. And you can, that gets you through a lot of stuff. Oh yeah. You know, I mean, Courtney talks about her pain cave and we learned a lot

about it on the last podcast. But it's that mental part, you can attach something positive to, to, you know, whatever you're doing. And man, it makes a big difference. But I'm super, so I haven't try these yet, but I'm super excited just because they look badass. Yeah, yeah, we can't, we can't wait. So those will come around Kokadona time period, which is the first week of May. So we'll be out there with you. So that'll be fun. And then after that, we have the, the boot. So that's still a proto, but it's getting dialed in, you can see. And it's got the same bottom that you're feeling there is the bottom from the GL. So that's a shoe that's out. right now for us. It's testing and performing really well. So we've made a kind of a fast light

boot out of it for kind of early season hunt. Right. Yeah, this is, I wore this. We didn't have it ready for the early season, but I did wear this. I'm super comfortable. What I like about is like good traction, of course, with the soul, but it's like, I mean, it gives. So like if you're on rock, basically like a kind of a steeper rock it's going to grip on there and you're not going to slip it's got enough but it's also quiet so it kind of gives like when i think about those old vibrant souls remember those they kind of had the longer nub type thing those were super quiet and soft it's like halfway in between that because that was long and those wore pretty fast because they were soft so they're quiet while they lasted but these are similar but last longer and uh i know this lug just from the trails

it sheds the mud pretty good so it's not gumming up in there and you're not losing traction yeah right but yes for a for a for a boot what i like in the early season when this generally hot um bow season in the mounds uh i like a light color like this because as we know black absorbs you know i've had some darker boots where your foot just feels hot as hot as hell but uh also just just light nimble, quick, allows me to take advantage when you train all the time in the mountains. And sometimes hunting is about closing that distance. Like you see an animal in a position where, okay, I want to take advantage of this. You've got to be able to get over there quick for the wind changes or before the animal moves

before just something happens. And so these are going to allow me to take advantage of what my strengths are, which is like moving quick in the mountains. And that's pretty exciting. Pretty exciting. I like made some tweaks on this one also. So with it has the one boa here. Well, of course this that I see. We tried to fix that.

Very clear feedback. Explint of laden text. But this also, like you tighten this down and then you can pull this where it pulls the very bottom of these here. Right. Because that's quite a distance to pull generally. If you look at compared to this, there's not as much cord pulling through as there. I don't know what the length is, but it's a little, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, more on this. So you added this tab to pull that and then that gives you, allows you to

tighten that a little bit better. Yeah, this was some learning for us too, right? For a single boa system and using a boot height. Yeah. So, you know, getting a great bit across a much broader area was with some learnings for us. And, and of course, working with Boa on how to optimize that. But the L plus one dial offers more power than what we have on this, which makes sense. This is a bigger product. And then using the coated cable instead of the textile ensures the durability and the strength that we need for really cinching down. And then there's kind of a block and tackle around that midfoot strap. This approach, which really, that double approach really ensures that your heel stays back in the heel pocket.

So in the learnings that Boa shared with us and what we know from trying, that's really important in a product like this. you need to make sure you're well held inside that boot so you're not getting blisters as you're hiking up and down pretty steep terrain yeah that's a i mean it's a serious piece of equipment i i don't think there's a boot quite like it out on the on the market um that's kind of in this zone of being light fast but also this technical durable and durable yeah yeah and i i just the the little things like like oh as i told you guys i look at shoes as like how much do i have to how much of a pain and the to get on, right? And I like how this opens up pretty good here.

Yeah. And so it's not hard to get on your foot. Easy to slide your foot in, then it tightens down pretty good. Yeah. Great. It seems like I know what I use, the version I use,

so this has been tweaked and made better a little bit, but the version I use is really nice, really good. I'm really excited to get this out there. And that is some of the qualities, money. Quiet, fast, going to help me kill big bowls. Fast and light. That's what we're, yeah, we're inspired by that Carlos trips and watching what you do there and, you know, thinking that that GL platform really makes sense. It's not the high stack of the GS, but it's still got good cushioning. So you're out all day on your feet, moving. And it's runnable. You know, I've run in it just as a test. Definitely a runnable boot. It's a runnable boot. But, you know, not everybody's going to use it that way, but we, we.

like that you can. Yeah, if you have to. Yeah, I just like that, I mean, Bo has been such an integral part of like this new technology into shoes. I know they've been around in ski boots and things like that for a long time. But man, they, you think something, like, there's just one part of this technology of this whole shoe or a boot, but it's such a key part, just Boa. This Boa system is incredible. So they've taken just this one little thing and made a whole industry out of it. They've obsessed the details when it comes to that component and I would say gone kind of the next level or two in terms of working with us in the optimal implementations. You know, hey, what guides you choose and your spacing becomes really important and they're

good partners that way. All of these, you know, they call it a fit wrap, but all of these fit wraps, they didn't start this way. They started kind of actually a little bit different and then through working with them going back and forth, we optimized them to get to these points. So the fit wrap is this part right here? Yeah, the straps and like kind of the configuration and how it's set up and the routing and everything. Like they, those were perfected over time and testing. Okay.

And the same goes for the boot. You know, like he was talking about the block and tackle. Like that's very unique. Like you're not going to see that setup anywhere else because we worked with Boa to get to that point. Yeah. You know, so. And they've got, you know, Dan Feeney leads their biomechanics team.

So they have a lab. They have testing that they do to validate these things. It's not just a supplier that's saying, hey, try this or do that. No, no. Leaving it up to you, like they're helping and a good support in what actually works. Very common. From a human performance standpoint. So it's a great partner to have when you're kind of pushing the edges of what you want to do with that system.

Yeah. I mean, it's, I've been so impressed. because now I've used boa for, well, we had it way back in the day on the Under Armour stuff, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that's been. Yeah, you've had, you've been testing it for a while. Seven years maybe. But I think they've just, you know, gotten progressively better, honestly, over since that time.

Those are L6s, I think. Yeah, those are the L-I-2s. Those are the L-I-2s, which is very, you know, it can go backwards and forwards. And then on this boot, you know, that kind of rap system that we have going, I mean, there's just stuff like that hasn't been done in boots before yeah degree so well i know i have boots and really good boots that the bottom part down here has never been tight yeah never these laces never move yeah i mean they've been the same probably like maybe halfway down and to get these tight down here you'd have to um you know like loosen up all the all the way down

guys just don't do that so half the boot has just stayed the same Whereas these will, you can actually, you know, contour to your foot to not getting that movement. But yeah, the way technology has enhanced what we do is incredible. And I think so many people are so used to like they buy the same brand like, you know, whatever. Maybe they like the den or maybe they like whites or maybe they like, there's some good boots out there, Zambril and or whatever. But it's like some of those boots.

they've been great for a long time and they haven't made adjustments. They haven't evolved. Whereas this is like the highest evolution of, yeah, this boot isn't for snow. It's not for like late season or whatever. But for what it's built for,

it might be the best ever, ever made for that quick, light, fast, dry climate. So that's exciting. Well, and we, and it is exciting.

And we get there probably from a little, different perspective too because we're starting in trail running and we're bringing what we're doing in trail running to the boot side versus just doing boots right so like if you look at that and that's set up and how it's asymmetrical and how it's built you know you can obviously see the parallels of it coming from the GS so there's a lot of things that we're able to kind of adapt and learn from our trail running side that maybe if you were kind of in more those kind of let's say say nostalgic or old traditional boot businesses,

you wouldn't approach it the same way. Yeah. So we use that to our advantage, hopefully. Yeah, and that's fair. I mean, you can't critique them for just doing what they do and being the best at it. It's great. You guys have come from this way,

doing the best what you do. You're the best at this and now you're, you know, transitioning to this. So, yeah, it's going to be a little bit different. Maybe at the end of the day, everybody wins because it's all elevated, you know, or maybe. You hope so. Yeah.

don't know what they're missing until they try something better, right? And that's, I think, our mission, too, is just we want to bring products that we think are better to market. I mean, we're here to put a debt in the industry. That's plain and simple. Like, we're not coming just to be status quo. I like that. I like that. Yeah, we're not trying to blend in. No. It's one thing I always get, like, people still, for whatever reason, ask about the durability of the boa. I haven't had, I mean, I haven't had a failure. Do you go? guys ever, I think they're about as tough as it gets, but people, because it's different, or they're used to laces or whatever, they're like, how durable, I mean.

They're very durable, but even beyond that, Kevin can speak to it more, but they offer a lifetime guarantee as well, which I don't think a lot of people know. Like, so a lifetime guarantee, and you can, you can rebuild them, you can do a lots of things. So, you know, they are durable, though, at the core. Yeah, I mean, I think the only thing that can happen is the late. eventually can fray but it usually you have visible signs well before it breaks you start to see it fray you call boa they send your replacement kit and you're never stuck you know and and so that's the but it's rare I mean it we don't get very many calls about yeah and so again you know it's great to be partners with

somebody who stands behind what they do and so if there ever is an issue and you know they're very easy to service as well once you learn that and outs of them. Yeah. Like I said, I've had a lot of questions about the durability, but never had any like,

yeah, I had three break on, never. It's never been, it's always like, how does it do? It's never like anything negative. Yeah.

I was fine when people, you know, some, you know, people are still, for people that are still discovering, though, and they've never put it on their feet

once they get it on their feet, it's like an instant aha moment, right? It's always like, wow, I haven't felt, fit like this before. Yeah.

There you go. No, it's pretty. So now I was just thinking about this, are these staying with me, or are you guys taking them back? Well, we were planning to take them back, but convince us otherwise. They're not your size.

These are your size. These are samples. These are our size, yeah. Yeah. But I could, these are good church shoes right here. If we did, if we did forget and leave them here. Yeah. We'll get you something very soon.

Okay. In your size. Yeah. In the right size. I can't like to get cramps in your feet during church. I've done that before. Yeah. No, I know you've squeezed into nines before.

Yeah, just for chilling if you're getting coffee and stuff. But yeah, they look great. I mean, it's pretty exciting. I know. So like we've talked about your four years and where you're at now. What's the goal? just making more cool shit keep growing. Now the boots are kind of a new, I don't know, category, I guess.

This is new for us. And that's super exciting. And, you know, we talked about this from the beginning. That's something we'd like to get to is a segment of our business that is built around the needs of you and people like you in terms of, you know, still serving a mountain athlete. But, you know, looking a bit more at the boot. And, you know, this might be the first of several. projects we hope so you know we can see we have plans this one's kind of fast light dry non-waterproof version but we do we are working on a waterproof version which will test with you and make sure it stays

waterproof and all the things that it would need to do but it really gives us a whole other segment of consumers as well the same with the running shoe you know the road shoe uh in the sense that we've been really hyper focused on trail and we always will be but offering a road shoe all of a sudden means a new consumers are going to find us. So through the boot and through the road shoe, we hope to broaden the number of people that know about Speedland and what we stand for. And then we keep building on that. Just keep making excellent product.

And who knows, you know, we stay with it until we get to $100 million or somebody decides, hey, this is a nice little acquisition. I'm going to add this on to my business. You know, we'll see what happens. We're open to whatever. But for us, we're just insanely focused on making great product and, you know, building this business. Stopping at 100 million? Come on.

I think the business potential is bigger than that, but, you know, let's get to there first. I was just thinking about this as we were talking. You guys haven't done slides, right? No. Not yet. We have our kind of our tenants that we have hanging in our office. And one of them is, you know, we don't want to release something unless it's better. Right.

And I think in slides and I'll use air quotes when I say recovery, because recovery is just kind of meant a comfortable sandal slide clog that you put on after you run or do your activity. There isn't really a functional advantage to the vast majority of those. We do have something in the works. We're working on something, but again, it's kind of like the road shoe where we started that in a little different lane and we stopped because it wasn't better. And the same has kind of happened with the slide or the recovery space where you try something and you think it's going to be one way.

And if you can't quite get it there, you just push pause. And at least we are because we're not in that relentless product cycle of a big brand. We've got to get a $50 slide to compete with, blah, blah, blah. We want to come out with it when it's right for the athletes, when it's something better for the market. Yeah.

We don't need a slide, just another all-foam slide market's filled with them. And it's kind of price point sensitive. It's not performance oriented. Right. We want to do that business when it makes sense for who we are as a brand. Yeah, because I know I think it's Kane. They sent me some. And, you know, I'll warm around.

They're supposedly recovery. I don't know what they do. It's just comfortable soft stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. So it's, I was just curious thinking about, yeah, everybody's making slides. I was wondering if.

We have, we have something works. And we like to do something yet. A slide with a boa. I haven't seen that. Yeah, we've prototyped it. We have several times. A fuck around Friday. Yeah, he's done it for sure.

Made many of those. And it kind of becomes that thing where you can do it. Like we've made slides functionally that with a boa and they work great, but why are you doing it? If it's just to throw the bow on there. One thing is it, you know, boa costs something. It's a premium product. So is it appreciated on a slide? Most people just want to put their feet in them.

walk around. They don't want to dick around with anything. So it might be a misplacement of the technology. I think we've been concerned about that. Until again, we can find something that really just... It's just better. Everything's better.

Everything's better. We honestly, we stand out like better trail shoe, better road shoe, better early season boot. You know, like, and we can just stand behind it then. So then it's an easy dialogue between us and athletes, you know, and just be like, this is why we did it. Right. And honestly, we do have something we're working on on a slide, but it's just not quite ready for prime time yet two different times we've yeah gone down the prototyping but it's super

exciting stuff like i wish it was ready it's just not quite ready yet so we just have to you know we have to be disciplined you know the uh the performance the only performance i know on like a slide is the crocs where you have the back strap what's that called when it's the four wheel drive performance mode yeah performance mode yeah and we've prototyped that too um but you know that That's a little bit of a stretch, I think, in our mind in terms of how much performance can really put it. Yeah, I mean, and they own it, you know, so we don't really want to be in the business of copying that someone else is doing either.

But it would be better performance mode with above a four-wheel drive mode. Yeah. You never know. Yeah. Well, so how you said you stopped and started a little bit on the road shoe. Is that what you kind of mentioned? Well, initially we hoped that we could. use the GS midsul. I'll just reveal that. We started thinking, okay, maybe just a different

outsole and it would be a good road training shoe and it just wasn't. It wasn't, the geometry wasn't quite right. The firmness that we could get out of that foam. Like your, your molds are built around particular chemistry. You know, there's expansion ratios and all these technical things, but you can't just throw a new formula in there and get the same performance out. And so it just became clear that we weren't going to get to a great brod training shoe without a different outer midsole. Okay. And so it went on pause basically until we, I would say, found or we leaned into this particular, which is a pretty special foam.

I think you can attest to super high energy return. It just feels amazing. And when we put that on compared to where we had been, it was like, okay, this feels better. And then that combined with a removable plate. So now you've got a super trainer with a carbon plate if you want that. It's not the same plate as the trail. It's a different plate. Is it the harder?

It's a rigid carbon. So if you want that. Like if you put it on the table, it would like sound more like glass. Yes, exactly. You know, whereas the trail is flexible. That's right. Yeah. And so between this special foam, the removable carbon plate, which gives you kind of two shoes in one,

you can put that plate in and get your snappy speed work, or you can take it out. Now you've got a pretty cushy. daily runner. And then the boa is kind of the third element that we feel like really don't see a lot of that

in road anymore. It had been, you know, in triathlon shoes with the brand called Zoot. With what? There's a triathlon brand back in the day called Zoot.

Yeah. They used a boa way back. Oh, okay. I mean, we're talking 10, 10, 15 years ago. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, but it was a different boa, obviously.

But it was the idea of a quick transition. I don't think anybody, I think we're the only one, honestly, that has a, I mean, I think so at this point.

Yeah. So I don't think anybody else has a bow on a road shoe. So then at that point, then you feel like, okay, we've got a better fit system. We've got a better approach to carbon. You kind of get two shoes in one and we got a really special high energy return foam. Then it sort of passed our filter of, okay, we're offering something better. So we didn't necessarily make it for the try segment, but this shoe should appeal because it's going to be fast transition with the boa. So I think a lot of try runners are going to like this.

Oh, yeah. We're not positioning necessarily as a. racing shoe it's really a trainer but um you know that it's it's a very fast i think it's capable yeah what would be the difference between a trainer and a racing shoe weight just wait we're still like we're still in the eight so it's an it's still in the eights you know as far as so it's a light shoe still but but the marathon racing shoes are you know you get get them down there into the six so you're talking ounces ounces yeah yeah like for and most people so i think they weigh what size nine yeah is that what everybody that's whatever

Most people do. I mean, some people cheat and weigh in 8-5. Right. You see Nike do that from time to time. They don't say it. When you look at the fine friend, it says 8-5. Oh. Yeah.

Caught you Nike. So size 9 is in the 8s for ounces. Yeah. So you're saying like the premier or like the lighter, the better for a racing shoe would be maybe sixes. Yeah. I think that's where I've been. Yeah. There's some, you know, ultra-light stuff coming out now.

Yeah. a little bit less even but it's it's also how much you trim it out right like we have a pretty decent size um okay the cushioning on that's like 40 33 so 40 millimeters 33 stack so it's got big cushioning and then also the if you look at the width on the bottom it's got a pretty generous width right so that lets you you know really be a really good trainer as well so um and the foam's very soft so yeah you need a wide base so that's some of the differences i see i see fine lines between training and racing. That being said,

a lot of people will race in this shoe, and it'll be a great race shoe, especially with the plate in. Well, and you compromise something to get into the five or six ounce range, and I think when you look at some of those shoes, like they're narrow in the heel,

because if you're turning over five or six-minute miles, you're only on your four-foot. So that's why, to me, those aren't, you see people wearing them around casually, but they're terrible because they're so unstable in the heel. The foam's really soft, and if you're probably, You're just rolling in all day long.

Yeah. Anyway, so we just didn't take that approach to this. We haven't done a racing, proper racing shoe. We just think this is more of like a daily trainer that is racable. Very light, yeah. That's just not how we want to position it. Yeah, I mean, I know I tried Hoka for a while, like when I was after Under Armour. And very comfortable for like the first few times and then that phone goes quick.

you know it's very comfortable it just wasn't it just didn't last so it's like you're trying to find this balance between durability light and yeah there's a lot to and also like when i was thinking like as you were talking um like i'm just curious as a runner that impact on the ground so if it's wider is is distributed better for your body where if it's it's narrower, maybe it's more like intense on your bodies. Kind of what I'm thinking like, so when I look at this, I'm like, okay, that, that pressure, that pounding is over a wider area has to be less impact or less effect on your body, I would think.

As far as like joints, knees. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. And the type of striker that you are too, you know, you're a heel striker. And you've got a racing product with a. really narrow heel then your body is kind of forced to correct a lot of that as you go through your foot strikes yeah working harder than you you should be right i see whereas you're for four foot

striker and you're just kind of snapping off the ground yeah hopping off that narrow heel never affects you because you're maybe late in the race you're dropping a little bit but yeah otherwise you're not really touching your heel and so that's where that's less of a compromise but in a trainer you're going to be doing different paces and yeah types of days and we wanted to build it for all of that yeah i know Well, like, we put up a video yesterday, or I mean, I did, but these guys sent it to me of me and Courtney running side by side. And I was like looking at like my shoe compared to her shoe and those solomons. I wore solomons one time on a mountain marathon and Orca Islands up there. It's kind of hard race.

But my feet got torn up just because solomons were narrow for me. So when you talk about different feet, different strikers, it, it, it, does change. And when I look at like Courtney, that shoe she has is narrow, but her foot is probably super narrow. Sure. You know? She's not a big person. And it's just like, yeah, so it's not one size fits all obviously. Yeah. But even just the shoe design. The design, it makes a big difference. And one of the reasons we like the fit wrap is it's very accommodating for a wide range. Like, you know, some brand. This part. Yeah. So just that system. If you have a super narrow fit, a foot, that might be a little bit of a challenge because material's got to go somewhere.

Right. Cranking that thing down. But people with super narrow feet have challenges with lace up shoes too. They're bottoming it out. Yeah. I've had to tighten mine where it does kind of gather right here, but it's never, because I don't think this stretch is. I don't know what happens.

But it's never been an issue, even if I had to tighten it. Like maybe you'd want like a perfect would be like probably there. Yeah. But I've had it further and I've never. had cause a blister cause anything so like to your point it does accommodate probably i know when i think of this and people say they have wide feet they that's why they like these but i don't have a wide foot and it still works yeah so yeah we've only had issues with fit with super narrow feet or we call them low volume because it isn't necessarily about the width sometimes that people

just have like a really low in step and then you know we've got this booty construction where there's no tongue so you can't overlap the sides. Yeah, I see. And that means when they crank it down, that bunching that you might get a little bit of, which is not a problem, all of a sudden becomes a problem. There's so much of it. But again, there's no solution that works perfectly for everyone, but we found that this is really accommodating for a wide variety of foot sizes. And it's that balance of, you know, focusing on ultra and trail. You want room in the towbox, but too much room and you're moving around, that doesn't feel good. And so finding that middle ground combined with the fit wrap.

It's hard when you get into like the true long distance stuff, like what you're about to do in a few months. Quite reminding me. Because then you got, yeah, in Coca-Dona. Because then you have people that have actually two sizes even. So they'll have their like early. The feet swell. First half, you know, they'll wear whatever size.

And they'll go up a half size or a whole size even for the second half of that race. Yeah, I was thinking like, McKnight was McKnight does that. Was he? He'll wear two different sizes. Yeah. Yeah.

He was texting me to see if I was going to come down for heat training. He's going to be down there a couple weeks before. And that would be a good time to, because your feet do change, you know, with that heat and with obviously just the pounding. Well, and the phones change as well. You know, like we encourage people if you can to switch at a certain points because just the repetitiveness of being in it for 20 hours or something like put a fresh pair on yeah and i think the bow is unique and allowing you to do that really quickly right you don't have to overthink it and you know

foot maintenance foot foot care is usually part of anybody's routine when you're oh yeah desert anyway so taking a shoe off and being able to put it on easily and get a fresh pair so that foam gets gets a chance to recover yeah no it's uh yeah that's well that's that's always been the big selling point and on this boa is when your feet do change, you can back it off. We talked about this the last time where it does allow you to create more room for your feet as conditions change and your body changes and things swell and heat causes different things. A lot of times salt retention. Sometimes you don't nail the salt in those long races. You're too much, too little. It affects your fingers so that obviously if your fingers are swollen, your toes are probably doing the same thing. And

that can, you know, it's all those little things in a long race. race that add up. It's not the one thing. It's not like, oh, I got this one blister. It's like a lot of little tiny thing. So this, if this shoe helps alleviate some of those hurdles, yeah, then you're just focused on, if I can just run, so Courtney was saying, she's like, wouldn't it be cool if we could just run together for a while? And I'm like, are you going to try to stick with her? I said I would, but sounds terrible. I mean, is it a good, good strategy? you to blow up in the first 20 miles of a 250? Probably not.

No, I would say probably not. Yeah, but I told her, I said, that's my goal. It would be able to hang and run for a little while. And then the first 40 are the hardest too. I know. Yeah, that's the thing. We're talking about that because it says they like require or something about taking how many ounces of water was that?

40? I think it's more than that. No, four liters. Four liters. Four liters. Yeah. So it's like, so she was saying that's 10 pounds of water. For her 10 pounds of water is a lot of, you know, that's a lot percentage wise of her body.

And so for the first, yeah, 50K, that's supposed to be the toughest. To crown, to crown king. Right. Yeah. So it'll be, it'll be good to hear, you know, McKnight. He's done it and he's done struggle. He's done well. So it's like good lessons there.

Courtney said she didn't think she was going to do the, the heat training. but you know it does get warm up where she's at too sometimes so it's uh yeah i don't know it's the swing at coca donna too because it can be hot in the day but then at night it got down it got cold yeah 30s yeah and it progressively gets colder as you go obviously further into the race yeah yeah that's get the flag stuff kind of how moab is too sure moab was hot as hell to start and then it was like nine degrees up on the hill that yeah that's real you start climbing i can't remember what the mountain was there i just walked watched Max's video of King of Moab.

It's incredible. But yeah, you get there on the mountain. And, I mean, Taylor, we did that year Courtney won it outright, where everybody like, who the hell is Courtney? She won by 10 hours where the hell it was. But we were, yeah, dying in the heat, then 9 degrees freezing. Yeah.

Same race. I think that's really tough on the body, in addition to the sleep deprivation and everything else you've mentioned. Yeah. Nutrition and so on. Yeah. I didn't want to talk about, so this is a trail shoe, but the polka dot stuff is,

I love the looks of a bad ass shoe, so I'm trying to, like, steal this from you guys. But you guys did change the, so this is a gator attachment right here. Yeah, we integrated it now for the first time. We had it as a loop that was stitched on to the vamp for the RAR. Yeah. And we had done that on the HSV as well,

one of the early commissions for Liz, because she wears a gator quite a bit. And then we just didn't love the execution of that stitched on loop. And we had experimented with a local guy and doing some of that style. Yeah, it didn't look as good as that. No, I just ironed on some stuff and punched some holes for him to try it. And it worked well for him. And so we just kind of took that learning.

It was a little bit like a fuck around Friday, but it was offline. Yeah. And we learned how to do it and then got the factory to execute it. And it's nice because it's a cleaner execution. It doesn't add any more material. And then it allows also multiple positions. There's kind of three different ways you could put that on, depending on how tight you're going to the gators.

Again, something we've never seen done before like that. And is this for Velcro? That is for Velcro. I'm like, so does it stick pretty good back there? Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of the times the gators come with that. with an adhesive that's you try to stick on the shoe and it doesn't stay so you guys have so we just

stitch it on if you don't use it it doesn't really get in the way when you do need it it helps the heel stay down a lot of people don't use it at all because if you you know you have the tension running across there it'll stay down without any Velcro but we felt like it was a good thing to yeah that's that's a great looking shoe inspired by the you know the kind of the colors of the desert and the artwork that that they've done that our life is done for the the coca dono logo and so we kind of took that and combined it into this design so it was rusty rusty red color i i like the uh just that what jamele is built with that air viper i mean just doing so good and i think i think buying out more things and growing more and i turned to win chipotle for a year

that's been a fun he's got a lot of stuff going on They do a great job. They run great races. They really know what they're doing. So I think you're not showing up to an event wondering how it's going to be. Like they've got that dialed in. It's no small feat when you, we don't know the ins and outs of it like Jamil does, but we're close enough to it that you see how complex it really is when it comes to permitting

and getting the crews there and the volunteers and the coordination with law enforcement at the races. It's challenging and kind of a thankless. job but they do an amazing amazing work and uh i think Courtney mentioned this too but that live streaming is i think we talked about that's like the big big thing because i was talking about the Olympics i'm like we need ultra run the Olympics people would pay attention i mean i know i'm addicted to the GPS tracking on these races so air viper does it a whole other level with a live live broadcast during the whole thing and and that's going to be you know Courtney mentioned it i don't want to want to take credit for saying this, but she thinks that's going to be the big, big thing.

It's like people just love. We agree. It's changed from like looking at a tracker and trying to, you know, look at something on a website into the live streaming, like people like Dylan and Corinne talking, you know, giving you background on the athletes and then, you know, people running along with the runners during the race and getting the drone. Cocodona is an interesting one because so much of the landscape, you can use drones. and you can use different functions like where some of the races, you know, you're too covered

or it's too allowed. It's not allowed maybe. But Cocodona, there's just so much opportunity. So, I mean, you can really do some different things there. And it is an unlock for the sport to be able to really bring in people who maybe wouldn't take the time to follow a tracker and just kind of a boring interface. Now you've got color commentary and you've got amazing visuals from these cool places and you can really see how the race develops.

And it's making a big difference. Yeah, definitely. It's, yeah, I'm excited to get down there. You can do the heat training? Going to be miserable. I don't know. I got to do Boston first. I got to get that out of the way.

So I think I'll do, I'll have these by then, right? By Boston, yeah. Yeah, I mean the road shoe. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Now this is, so for this one, I'm going to need a pocket knife to cut this off right.

Yeah, that shouldn't be that. That I just adjusted that. That was me digging around. Yeah. Yeah, no, that won't be there. That won't be there. I promise. Yeah, you get to see the prototypes.

I was just trying to show them that they had it in the wrong position. Anybody watching, that's not what it's going to look like. Yeah. Anybody watching, that's how my, I'm always like. Cam's always trying to like trim everything off of her shoes. Anything of excess. He's trying to pull it off. And we're like, no, it's there for a reason.

It's a good challenge, though. Yeah. know i i i love what you guys are doing i just love being i i mean i'm so thankful to be involved and we talked about this like i'm not like an olympic athlete i'm not this on the podium for these for utmb or western but i love what we do and the sport and impacting people and i you know i'm addicted to all this everything that i do and it's uh it's just an honor to be involved with you guys and and hopefully creating something that that makes it makes an impact you know and and enhancing people.

We feel the same way. And for us, it's a giving a take, right? This is getting the boot is getting us into territory. We probably wouldn't have gone into without the relationship with you. And I think it's going to make us better as a company, as a brand. But stuff will trickle back into the trail side of stuff too. That's always the way it works. So we're excited about the future.

Yeah, I mean, too. So, yeah, I mean, we've talked a lot about this. is the goal just in the future just more cool stuff more innovation all of the above yeah yeah we're built around innovation so that's a key component of what we do and so we're always we'll be back and you know on the ground hunting again in march and you know we're always looking for new materials new opportunities and how we can up level the product from the littlest details to you know big audacious ideas so yeah i also think i also think i also think I have to do Leadville now.

Yeah, that's definitely should do it. Really cool event. Another well-run event. I think me and Truitt are doing it. So should be fun. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, that's a tough one due to the altitude and an amazing event, not the most technical race.

The coolest thing about Leadville is you can almost spectate the whole thing. Really? As a spectator. Have you guys run it or have been there? I'd like to run it someday. Yeah. I need to. do some training but um but um but the you can get to so many of the um eight stations there yeah

well it's an out and back and it's an out and back so you can really almost cover it aside from hope pass you know the big right the task the technical section you can almost see the entire race so as a spectator i don't i mean it's definitely one of the best races right yeah yeah i think so too probably western's pretty good for spectating been some good films on it you know if you look up ultra films Leadville's you know Billy Yang has had yeah he had a great one there but other people have too I think Anton had I didn't watch that one but I think he did he have a film on it or just a comeback do you remember I don't we were there when he was doing a comeback a few years ago I don't know if you had film I remember Billy was film in that same year yeah yeah but yeah those films are

so good and in the story of Leadville so cool I just well we'll be well I hope you do it we'll be at the expo yeah yeah so it'll be there We'll be there. I'm doing it. Truis says he's doing it in jeans. Oh, my God. Dude. I might rethink that, but, you know, he seems committed to it.

So who am I to say? I know. I know. Well, yeah. Peanut Gallery has two questions. Oh, you did? Yeah. Okay.

These questions are for the boots. Okay. And I wondered, you know, a lot of hunting boots also offer an insulated version. Is that on the horizon as well? Is that something you guys have considered? It's definitely something we'll consider. I mean, this is squarely in the camp of what CAM asks us for. And if there's a need for an insulated product and we feel like we can do something better,

then would absolutely do that. And that's, I think, what we meant when we talked about sort of expanding that segment of product that's built around CAM and people who work or use products like CAM. If the insulated product isn't a need, then for sure we'll get after that. Okay, this one's from Larry. All right, my question. Looking at the boots, I know my time in the military, guys were super, super, super loved the, like the Solomon boots. And looking at those boots in here in Cam, describe, you know, how they benefit his kind of approach to tracking an animal, quiet, good grip. Have you guys ever moved into or considered moving into, like, the military space in terms of guys wearing those boots, boots on the ground?

it seems like something that maybe some good wear testing could come from. For sure. I think we're interested in that space for sure. There's some, let's say, compliance things. If you're actually going to be something that's part of the military, you've got to be a very compliant and means made in the U.S. or with U.S. And that presents some challenges at the moment. We would love to manufacture in the U.S.

There's just not a factory that is capable of making our stuff. Unfortunately, that stuff got offshore in the 70s. And so that presents some challenges. But that being said, as we understand it, special forces have a little more leeway with what they can use. They get to buy their own stuff. And so to work with groups like that and test and get feedback and develop something, we'd certainly be keen on that.

That would really just require us to have somebody in that space who could do the testing and tell us from that specific viewpoint. Like, we can all sit here and ponder what might be appropriate. it. But, you know, again, we would never do that without fully vetting it through those channels. And so something we hope to be able to do. I think, too, if you're wearing that Solomon product, like you were talking about, this boot is going to be a pretty interesting option for you. You know, it's going to offer better fit and go after a lot of that same market, I guess. And this is as American made as Solomon is.

Exactly. Yeah. So operators have a, yeah. They have a choice. When Tanner was a ranger, they wore a lot of Patagonia. So they do have, it's a big army that controls. Correct. And normally it's just different.

That's a community we would love to serve and be a part of. We kind of got a, in, I think our opinion, you want to get pulled in there. You don't want to push your way in. you want that adoption to come because they try it and they tell you it's working and then they tell you what's not working and then you can say okay well we're going to go after this and we're going to maybe that's the starting point be great if we got some feedback from that community and then telling us okay well this doesn't work for us and then we can you know adjust and go from there so we'd like to add that on we just needed to happen in an authentic yeah well now it's put out there in the what do they say the zeitgeist is that a thing yeah Is this a thing? Right place, right time? So now it's out there. Any more peanut gallery, stupid questions?

All right. Okay, so now I'm going to do another sign off. I don't care what you say. That's another me. People will find it entertaining if we left it. It's good either way. Maybe we'll do both. But no, I want to have it.

Thank you, Kevin Fallon. Thank you, David Dombrow. Yep. How is that? Beautiful. Speedland. We're kicking out. People are paying attention.

I love to be involved. It's an honor to be involved. Thank you guys for coming down today. All right. Thanks for having us. Keep hammering.