Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 164 - Kilian Korth

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Kilian Korth - professional ultrarunner who made history by winning the Triple Crown of 200s, a series of three grueling 200-mile races: Tahoe 200, Bigfoot 200, and Moab 240. Kilian swept all three outright and set a new cumulative time record of approximately 156 hours, surpassing the previous mark set in 2019. Join us for a conversation about what it takes to win a triple crown in 200 mile ultramarathons, how Kilian went from a full time job to full time athlete, and how his childhood and schooling made him who he is today. 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 Killian: https://www.instagram.com/runtoughmindset/  Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Forged in Failure (Upcoming Documentary) & Kilian’s First 200 Mile Races 00:09:47 – Mental Struggles While Faces Failures 00:15:17 – A Race for First: Racing Against Other Runners 00:19:43 – Forged in Failure Trailer 00:23:01 – Blisters from Ultra Races & Mental Games of Pacing Races 00:34:01 – What Kilian Changed: Efficiency in Being More Fit, Overtraining, & Fuel 00:45:54 – Advantages of Going Professional & Being Rewarded for Talent 00:51:25 – Aid Stations, Dirt Naps, & Babies 00:55:30 – Kilian’s Childhood & Growing up on a Military Base 01:03:12 – Kilian’s First Marathons & Facing the Elements with Humility 01:07:43 – Facing Near-Death in Alaska 01:17:33 – A Love for Philosophy: Going to School to be a Politician 01:22:17 – Physicalist, Stoicism, and a Path to Enlightenment 01:28:42 – Who Inspires Kilian in Ultra Running 01:32:14 – Grand Ideas, Goals in Running, & Support from Kilian’s Sponsors and Wife 01:41:09 – Getting Past Self Doubts 01:43:32 – Using Experience and Failures to Train Better Runners 01:52:05 – Warrior in a Garden Mindset: Strength & Endurance 01:56:46 – Being Honest with Your Goals 02:04:23 – The Road to Nowhere is Long 02:06:42 – QA: F**k, Marry, Kill: Moab, Tahoe, Bigfoot 02:10:49 – QA: Is a 50K an Ultramarathon? 02:16:51 – QA: Who Kilian Would Swap Minds with for a Race? 02:20:08 – Final Thoughts Thank you to our sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/ Use code CAM for 10% off  Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order Sig Sauer: https://www.sigsauer.com/ use code CAM10 for 10% off optics Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv use code CAM for 10% off MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Grizzly Coolers: https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off

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'm moving so reckless. That is a part of my mind I've been blessed with. Giving my blood so I am relentless. This is a Keep Hammering Collective.

I'm with Killian Korth. Dude, it's an honor to have you here. Honor to be here. Yeah, thanks so much for having me in the hospitality so far. Fun run this morning. Got the full Oregon experience. Right. Well, it wasn't raining.

Okay. It wasn't poor. It was supposed to. We were geared up for it. Yeah. And then it turned out to be humid. And kind of hot. We're taking stuff off.

But we got a couple summits in on Piscca. Got the, got to the monument up there. And yeah, it was awesome. Yeah, fun times. Yeah. And we are, so you're in the same seat as the king of Moab sat there, Max Joliffe. And now you are the king of the 200s this year. You want.

Every, well, all destination trail 200s. Yeah, the Triple Crown. The Triple Crown, right. So that's Moab, Bigfoot, Tahoe. Correct. Yep. You're the man. It happened this year.

It's been a goal for a long time. So it still feels kind of surreal here and it's said out loud. But yeah, it's pretty cool. Well, it's, you know, I've done, I've lined up on all those starting lines and they are tough. Tough. Yeah. And to do it all and win them all in one year. Yeah.

Amazing. I don't think I really realize how hard it was going to be until after the first race. So, yeah. It's very different than trying to peak for just one race doing the whole series because you just don't have nearly as much time as it feels like you should in between them. I just tell, I just say I'm peaking for one race, even though I only have one race in me a year. So I just pretend like that's my peaking. And that's still hard. But what we're going to do now is we're going to have a little.

different start to this. So you have a film coming out, which I'm, I'm addicted to documentaries, and I love good documentaries. So I've got high hopes for yours, but tell me about this and we're going to watch the trailer for it. I think this will live up to high expectations. It's going to be called forged in failure. I'm working with my media team, L-I-U Creative Co. Yeah, if you're listening, follow them on Instagram. They're great people. They're also Bo-Hunters. You guys would get along. Nice. Yeah, they hunt the San Juan's. But they contacted me after Bigfoot because they were there filming for Avery Collins,

so you came third in that race. And they were like, hey, we've been following your year. We know some of your backstory. So they already knew a little bit about my history at the 200 mile distance. And they wanted to make something telling that story. So it's called Forged in Failure. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about the past few years of trial and error at the 200 mile distance to put it lightly but uh yeah that's it's it's focused on moab and that that'll be the

culmination of the documentary but the story definitely it goes all the way back to 22 so so it's not focused on the three the triple crown it's mostly on moab mostly moab because that's what we have the footage from that's where where they were filming we'll have a little bit of footage from the other races but yeah moab will be the primary focus but i'm hoping to tell the story of you know getting knocked down quite a few times at the 200 mile distance and then finally, you know, tasting some success in 2025. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, well, it's amazing. It's, but you, so just like the Clifnose version, you D and after got injured on, was it three 200s before this year? Yeah. So 2022 was my first try at a 200 mile distance and that was at Cocodona. I tore my hamstring and then ran 24 more

miles, which I don't recommend doing. Right. Bad decision, but that was my longest ever layoff from running, probably the most physically painful experience in my whole life. Horrible. How'd you tear it? When you're miles from the truck and breaking down a big bull, you can't afford a knife that won't hold up. That's why I built my own signature blade with Montana Knife Company to keep hammering pack out. It's lightweight, razor sharp, and built in the USA to handle everything from caping to cordering. This is my go-to-backcountry knife, Tough, reliable, and made for hunters who push hard. Here's the deal.

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best. It's a coffee of the month club where you get premium roast from the best farms worldwide. Black Rifle Coffee is America's Coffee. It's veteran owned and operated. They support hunting and conservation and give back immensely to the veteran community. They're offering followers of the podcast 20% off on your first purchase to the coffee club. or order on their site using code keep hammering to get America's coffee today. You know the Fane Ranch section? Yeah. So awful.

Yeah, very muddy this year. Yeah, really, it wasn't muddy, but I was in that kind of off trail bit as you're approaching Mingus. Yeah. And I was looking at my phone, trying to figure out where I'm going because I couldn't see markers and all not.

And I ended up tripping over a ravine and just like reaching my right leg way out in front of me and just cranking on it. And tore it loose? No, but so it hurt pretty bad right when that happened. Up higher down low. Down low. So like right where it can,

it's actually where your hamstring connects to your tibia. Okay. Which is an unusual place to get hamstring injuries apparently, but I've had two there on different legs. But yeah, ran up Mingus and then down Mingus and coming down Mingus. I looked down at my leg at one point because it's starting to hurt. And my calf was so swollen.

It looked like someone had taken like a basketball pump and just blown air into my calf. Like it looked like a cylinder. And I was like, oh, that's a bad sign. That's not good. And you got a long way to go still there. Long way to go. So I ended up calling my wife who sent one of my pacers back up toward me with poles because I didn't have poles because it's all downhill.

You know, I'm planning to run. And then it took about eight hours to do like six miles. And I didn't stop. You know, that was just me hobbling at like a nine or a ten out of ten pain the whole time. Like I would, you know what that section is like it wasn't muddy for me. But it's rocky, you know. And I'd catch my toe.

And every time. my leg like twisted it was so bad sounds miserable yeah so that was a good 12 weeks off from everything and 16 weeks off from running and then uh later that year i my first race back was the dc pq 50 with the next station guy so that's how i met them they're very toxic yeah so toxic that's why we love them yeah yeah i love them yeah me too jake and mitch they're they're amazing um i actually won that race that was cool and then 23 came back to coca do This is turning out not to be the Cliff Notes version. That is fine.

We've got no whatever we can talk about whatever. Yeah. 2023 came back to Cocodona. That race was going really well. I was in the lead and basically until mile 220. I had noticed breathing problems right around halfway, but hadn't really thought much of it. Because oftentimes in desert races, especially, you know, they're dusty.

You just get a little bit wheezy and it's normal. But then coming out of Sedona, I was supposed to. coughing up like black tar from my lungs basically. Like not stuff that looked healthy, you know. And then got to Fort Tuttle, which is the second to last crude aid station in pretty bad shape. Left with my pacer. It's like 2.14 or something like that.

Yeah. Left with my pacer was kind of running, kind of going really slow. And my breasts out of like a baby's rattle, you know, just in and out, awful. Started climbing. And then had like a moment of action. actual fear, like panic set in where I couldn't really breathe much. And I just had to slow down to, you know, a crawl. I got really cold. My, I like had a full physical and mental breakdown is how I described it. I mean, I was like crying in the middle of the trail because I'm like,

oh my God, I'm about to, I was going to win and now I'm going to DNF. Yeah. I'm picturing like climbing Eldon and it being cold and being unable to breathe. Like right, I'm just having all these panic thoughts. Uh, got to that aid station after getting passed by a bunch of people, including Mike McKnight, who when he passed me to get into the lead was, you could tell he was excited at first. And then when he saw me, he did that like immediately turned into, oh, no, something's wrong with you. So he was nothing but a gentleman. That's great. Which is cool. I mean, he's such a nice guy. Really nice guy. So got to Walnut Canyon. My O2 saturation was 82%. So not good. Ended up getting a nebulizer treatment, which is like super inhaler, basically.

Yeah. Took like five hour, took a five hour nap, ended up finishing, came 11th still, which, you know, could be worse. After five hours? Yeah, yeah. Jeez. So then I finished and later that night I was trying to fall asleep and I just could not get to sleep. Like I'm taking in a breath and then coughing, taking into breath coughing. I'm coughing up.

And finally I get up because I'm going to spit out some more blood and I look in the mirror and my face is super blurry. And it's not like, it's not just because I wasn't wearing glasses. Yeah. It's like someone was really wrong. So I was like, all right, hon, I think we should probably go to the hospital. And then I got to the hospital and the nurse took my O2 saturation. It was 72%, which is really, really bad. And I heard her gasp.

This date is dangerously. Yeah. So I got put on the step below ventilator. I think it's called a B-PAP machine that forces air into your lungs. I had pulmonary edema, made a pretty quick recovery from that. So all good, but not a fun experience, you know. I like got into the ICU. And you know, my feet were totally mangled.

I hadn't learned how to take care of him yet. And in the ICU, they just start ripping the tape off my feet. You know, and I was like, stop, stop. Just holding together my body that tape. Please don't do that. Yeah. So that was, you know, tough experience. Ultimately, what I took away from that, though, was I can be competitive.

You know, like I was in the race. Yeah. Would have finished obviously much stronger had that not happened. Right. I'm not a coulda, would have should have guy, so I won't say like I would have won or whatever. Right. um you know the math says you'd have been better than 11th and 11th is good and you had a five hour break in yeah yeah yeah and then uh finished bigfoot later that year had an okay race then 2024

rolls around and i'm in kogodona and the triple crown and so in my head i'm like all right i'm going for the win in you four 200s yeah who um then i dnf coca don't with the same breathing issues i didn't let it get as serious so i had i dnaf to write around mile 150 but then i had all this mental awfulness happened because I didn't push to my limits. Yeah. So my brain is like, oh, well, you're just a loser. Do I have what it takes to even do this? Exactly.

And then a month later, DNF Tahoe with a hamstring string. So that was, you know, what, probably the darkest moment of my life from a career perspective in terms of just like, can I do this? Is my body built for this? You know, like, am I just delusional? Yeah. With what I think I should be able to do. If you're looking at the results.

Yeah. It's not good. You can believe you're the best in the world, but you got to prove it at some point. Exactly. You hadn't really done that yet. I know. And I'm someone who really believes in being honest with your goals. Yeah.

So I'm going into these races, telling everyone that I know, like, I want to win this, you know. And to like not only go in being like, I want to finish, but I want to win. And then having your failure writ large on a live stream and, you know, people talking about me as one of the competitors going into 2024 and Kocodona and then just failure. So that was pretty. tough mentally. And, you know, getting through that was very difficult, ultimately a good experience. So how did you talk to anybody like a sports psychologist or how did you get through it? So I talked to that, that's hard. I didn't talk to a sports psychologist, but I did, you know, my wife is extremely supportive. So she was very helpful. And then what really happened to me is I was in

this negative thought cycle. You know, you suck. You have nothing like look at you, you think you're a coach. Look at this failure. Like, who do you? Who are you? to think that you can coach people to be successful when you can't be successful, you know, uh, you believe that you could be competitive at these and you've never even finished one well, really. You know what I mean? In terms, not, not well in terms of like 11th is fine, but not well in terms of I'm competing for the win. Right. Right. It's not elite. Yeah. Yeah. So there's this like, stark contrast between what I think I'm capable of and what's actually happening. And what I ended up saying to myself, I was like, listen, when someone you admire DNFs, so I pictured my, you,

friend Alyssa who's a professional with On and she had actually DNF to race right before Cooked Donut. And like McLean or something her name's Alyssa Clark. Oh yeah no okay I'm thinking of somebody else. She's great. I mean top 10 at UTMB okay very good runner. She's stud yeah yeah so I pictured her and I was like what I say the things I'm saying about myself about her when she DNF to race am I thinking oh Alyssa you suck you know you're a piece of shit right no I'm not I would never say that to her yeah so why am I being so unkind to myself in this situation, right? So that really helped me kind of turn around the mindset at least.

And then I was like, okay, we're going to defer the triple crown to 2025. And I'm going to focus on different things. I'm going to have fun because going into those races in 2024, I had so much, I had put so much self-imposed pressure on myself that I wasn't having fun. You know, I was getting into those races. And I'm literally running tight. Like I remember the feeling of like having my fistballed and being like having these egotistical thoughts where like, oh, think about what this could do for my career rather than, hey, enjoy the process.

We do this because we love it. And I'm not doing it because I need approval from myself or other people. You know, it's like this is what I love to do. And so reinvigorating that inside myself. So I focused on shorter races. I ran 100 miler and 100K, which they're not short races, but they're shorter than 200s. So did a bunch of speed work, different training. I ended up winning the 100 miler, the Mogian monster.

which is a hard race. And then I won the 100K, the Red Rock 100K in November outside of Vegas. Two great races, totally outside of my comfort zone as far as what I had been working on. And then entered 2025 feeling fitter and happier than I had at 2024. And this is all just self-diagnosis and self-talk. Just change that mostly? Yeah, the mental side of things. I mean, I've got a great physical therapist who she is.

a legitimate expert on the world of ultra running. So, you know, she helped me with the physical stuff. I wouldn't be successful without her, for sure. Katie, if you're listening, thank you. But the mental stuff, it was just a lot of learning, self-reflection. I like to journal, you know, things that require introspection of you and kind of, you know, you need to be your harshest critic, but you also need to learn how to be kind to yourself when you are trying hard and failure is not, failure shouldn't necessarily be this like big

negative, you know? Like if you have big goals, you're just going to fail sometimes. It's just the way to work. And so learning that, I've always been someone who needs to learn from experience, unfortunately, or fortunately, you know what I mean? But that was probably the biggest lesson. You know, failure is not the opposite of success, but it's an integral part of it. And so moving forward into 2025, I was like, all right, I'm going to train smarter, but I'm also going to focus on having fun.

Like I want, you know, going into Tahoe, for instance, I was like, I want the first 60 miles. I know what that course looks like. Those trails are amazing. I want it to be fun. And so running relaxed is going to help you use less energy literally, you know, physiologically. But it also just helps your mindset being like, listen, this isn't all about the result. You know, process over outcome has been kind of my mantra for this year. Yeah. What does it like in those races if somebody goes out did somebody go off hot in any of those like and did you have to check yourself on? Okay, I'm just going to chill enjoy the process, let them go or were you in the lead on all those?

So for Tahoe I was in the lead at a 50k and never gave it up. Okay. I had one other guy with me for a while. Bigfoot, Avery Collins. He's a fast guy. He went out pretty good for the first 50K. And I remember seeing him like a mile ahead at times and seeing him running up stuff and just being like, I'm not running up that. And honestly, it never worried me because part of it is like if I give, if I leave everything out there and I come second, I'm not going to be that upset about it. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like I'm a competitive person, but there's only so much you can do. Right.

But also logically, I was like, this is the first 30 miles of race. I'm not going to race until I'm at mile 100. Yeah. It was kind of my plan. But then I ended up passing it at mile 35-ish. And he didn't look great. And we have this huge climb up Mount Margaret after that. And it's the highest point of the race.

And I sort of broke my own rule. And I was like, well, if he doesn't look that good, I'm going to kind of crush this time. You know? So I race a little earlier than I wanted to in Bigfoot. And then in Moab, I was running with Brody Chisholm for the first 50 miles. Did you lead the whole rest after that? Yep. Okay.

I didn't see, I didn't see anyone ever in Bigfoot for the rest of the time. well in bigfoot with 20 miles to go though my brother got phone service he's pacing me and he goes oh brodie's caught you by an hour he's only 58 minutes behind you and I was like oh my god like and he brody's fast in the last 10 miles of bigfoot are on a road you know and I was like this can't come down to a race on the road like I will lose yeah I'm just going to get my ass and it to me so the descent off of pompey peak is super sketchy yeah and we flew down it like we had a couple of 950s coming down that terrifying descent. It was dawn too, so the worst possible light. Like there were a few times where I took steps that if it had been, you know, inches to either

side of these branches and down trees, I could have just, it could have been bad. But it all worked out. Bigfoot was the most fun I had because being caught like that injected so much energy into both of us at that point. So that was really fun. And then in Moab, I was with Brody for the first 50 miles. He was having some. stomach issues, but at 50 miles, we ran an 858 first 50. And I sort of, I told them that because I like to lap my 50s on my watch. And I looked at him, I was like, dude, we just turned on 858. And we were both kind of like, hmm. Oops. Yeah. I mean, I was like, well, the grenades, the pin has been pulled out of the grenade. And like, we're just going to hold onto it now. So then he

ended up slowing down right around mile 52. The aid station was at 54 and I didn't see him after that. So I was alone for the rest of Moab too, except for Pacers. Gotcha. That's interesting. But I like being in the lead, you know? Yeah. Like some people want to chase, but I find it motivating to, you know, like coming into one aid station at Bigfoot, I knew that I was only about 10 minutes ahead or thereabouts.

And I was like, I don't want them to see me, you know? I don't want them to have any hope. Right. So there's like some fun mind gains that happen with competitors at that point where it's like, I like that feeling of being a ghost up front. Yeah, no, that's, that's cool. That's just competing. And there's, there's tricks to competing. And you don't want your competitors to have hope for sure. So you're doing all, you know, the little things like covering up the headlamps so you don't turn around so they can't see your headlamp or like

getting out of their quick or, you know, you know how it goes. If so, if you know somebody's behind you, you push hard to get around the corner. And then you're like, oh, fuck because that is killing me. But you put on a show. So they're like, oh, my God. How strong is that? guy, you know. Or you run into the aid station and you're just like, yeah, I'm feeling great. So that the A station volunteers, they'll tell the next guy like, oh, he looks good. And then you get like 10 feet out. You're just like, oh, I'm done.

Yeah, I know. It is such a, there's a lot of mind games, though. For sure. Some of them are for yourself. But, yeah, it's good, good stuff. Well, that was a good intro into the film. So this is, is it forged and failure? Forged and failure.

Forged and failure. We're going to watch the trailer for. right now I'm pumped. Are we ready? Yeah, I'm excited for you guys to see it. Killian's determination, the first times I saw was probably when he was about three or four, and he was taking swim lessons. He had an opportunity to earn a 1500 meter badge, so about a mile swim, and he refused without a pool. He was also born with this innate, like, I'm going to do this kind of a thing. This is my prediction.

guy right here is going to run into the last race of the Triple Crown, the Moe out of 240. I am feeling sort of overwhelmed by the journey. You know, I DNFed Kogedona when I started it the first time I tore my hamstring. I almost won it the next year in 2023, finish the race, but ended up in the ICU. And then 2024, I believed I was going to win the Triple Crown and Kogadona and DNF2 races in a row is probably the hardest year of my life. I won't ever, court record, which is 55 something. Um, Brody and I were together for a long time. He's having a little bit of stomach trouble. Dude, I mean, he's a sub nine.

He's running 30 miles of mud. Dude, my first hundred was at 1928. Right, flush, drink mix. I mean, bad. That's what you asked for us. I know. See, you had that large gauge needle. Okay.

Dude, I think what's messed up my feet is the mud. I mean, I mean, he was 30 miles and had. of the next competitor. I'm watching you for days. I'm kicking ass, man. I'm really lucky right now. I just ran nine hours of Jack. Now I'm gonna go run some amount of hours

with my friend Blake. My brother's gonna finish it with me. Like how cool is that? I am stumbling what I can stomach. The mud has made this like so challenging. You set the new Triple Crown record which was held for six years by my time. for 60 or 5 Michael McKnight.

He previously had it 162 hours, 0 minutes, and 51 seconds. And you beat it by, I think, about 5.5 hours at 156, 30 minutes, 20 seconds. I like it. Yeah, that's sick. That's so impressive. I can't wait to see the full film. So that was two minutes. The full film is going to say an hour?

Yeah, something probably like that. that I'm trying to I think if we get footage from Cogedona 2023 in particular like I want that to be kind of the first big touchdown yeah that we could get potentially around 80 minutes just because I think there's enough there but yeah we'll see I'm supposed to come out something like Marchish like end of Q1 looks great thanks it looks great shout out to Nolan and Rachel L IU Creative Coe they're they're amazing yeah that I mean some of those shots were perfect but yeah just capturing the one that stands out of course is popping the blister. You know, that kind of stuff that's like, there's just going on in these ultra races that are, you know, for most people, you know, like in regular life, you get a blister. It's like a pain in the ass.

It's like, oh, this sucks. I, you know, don't want to put on my shoe. That's just the name of the game in ultras. Yeah. I mean, what's crazy is for the first two races, so 400 miles of racing through Tahoe and Bigfoot, no blisters. You know, I wear a creeper's toe socks. They typically do the job for me.

Yeah. But when you go through, well, so it was humid and wet to begin with. So my feet were wet for the entire race. But then you go through 30 plus miles of mud. And your feet, like I wear ultras and I like to wear I'm pretty loose typically. But my feet are, you know, sliding around with the articulation in the mud. So my toes just got mangled. Right.

Like I typically will tape my first and my big toe and my second toe. And the tape slid down between my toes and cut the webbing in my foot. So like there were points during the race where that webbing was flapping around and it would flap under my toe. So then every step I would be pulling on this like cut piece of my webbing between my toe. And then it would leave so it wouldn't be painful. Then it would come back. It was crazy. What what I think or here's what I do myself is I envision like all that shit like you just explain happening.

But then sometimes I'll take off my shoe and it's like that didn't happen. Yeah. But I had in my head that all my feet are just torn to shreds and like this and that. But you can create issues in your, you know, but that is, that was very, I'm sure that was happening with yours with that tape sliding down. Yeah. And like you, you do, you think you're mitigating a problem and then it creates another problem. Yeah.

Because sometimes that, the tape and the blisters and the, all that shit you try and that, man, some of nothing works sometimes. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I don't actually know. know what to do with wet feet for almost 60 hours, you know. So that will be something I need to learn for the future. But I, at about halfway, I just gave up trying to take care of them. And I just put on a pair of socks that I didn't take off till the end.

Yeah, just dealt with it. Yeah. And then at the end, I took them off and there was water pouring out of my feet. Like not out of the sock, but like liquid coming out of my, the like near trench foot crevices in my foot. It was so gross. Yeah. That is, yeah, it's so hard on your feet because you figure, you know, say 200 miles, that's going to generally it's about 2,000 steps a mile just in regular life.

So 400,000 steps for 200 miles. That's a lot. A lot. When do you ever do that? When do you ever ask your body to do that other than in those events? So 200,000 steps because people have these goals like, oh, I want to lose weight, like maybe even first form one of the goals is 10,000 steps a day maybe. I don't know what, do you know what it is like for their 75 hard? I don't know exactly, but I'm sure that's been a part of it. Yeah.

That's for most people, 10,000 steps is a legit day. It's a lot. Yeah. It's a legit day. So 400,000 or 500,000, your feet, your body is going to take a beating. Yeah. And then, well, then you add the 40 more miles. So you're talking 480,000 for Moab probably. And the climbing and Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. So did you have it in Moab? I think it's funny. I've done the 240 and I've done Coca-Dona, you know, and in my head when I was like,

so I've got the Tahoe 200, the Bigfoot 200, the Moab 240. Like the 240 doesn't sound that different from a 200. But then you get to mile 200 and you're like, holy shit, I have 40 miles. And 40 miles at that point sounds so far. You're like, oh, no. Because sometimes, you know, like when you're tracking those races is you're looking at their pace, you know, and it's always like, normally if you can get up to four miles an hour you're doing pretty good late in the race yeah but

sometimes you look at those that pace at the end so if you're saying from 200 to 240 and whoever's running is like two point something miles an hour it'll take a while yeah it's gonna take a hour no 20 yeah 20 hours yeah it's like in 20 that's a whole other day i know that's crazy it's but you sometimes it's hard to, that seems so slow. And I remember like on Max's film, King of Moab, there's a section towards the end where he's just dragging his poles. You remember that? Yeah. Going probably not even one mile an hour. And when that happens, man, it seems like this race is, the race is never going to end. Yeah. You look down on your watch. And I really try not to do this, but it happens every race regardless. And you're like, timing out how far, how much longer you have left? You're like,

okay, I got 10 miles left. I'm moving at, you know, three miles an hour. I've got three hours. Yeah. Like, okay, I can do this. And then all of a sudden you start climbing. You're like, all right, I'm moving at two miles an hour. I've got five hours. It's like, oh, no, you get sucked into that. It's like, you can't let that happen. No. That's, I mean, that's kind of the name of the game on those ultra races. You're always looking at your pace. You always know the distance. You always are doing math, like over and over. What I do is I have these goals and I'm like, Like at Cocodona, I was, I go, singing to myself, I got to get in the 70s. I want to get in the 70s.

That's my goal. So you're doing this math nonstop. And I didn't get in the 70s. I was just over that, or 84, I think. But the whole time it was a math problem. Yeah. And you're just like, okay, I got to push here. I got to push.

How much time do I got? What time is it? And then towards the end, I'm like, okay, I got to get this marathon done and this much. But yeah, it's just nonstop. Yeah. I try to not do the math. You know, I'm like, I'm someone who,

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That is how much I believe in them. Hoyt is offering listeners of the podcast 20% off on all soft good items at hoit.com using code CAM. That's Cam. Well, I do set like little intermediate goals. So in Moab, you know, you have the marathon from drop, Valley to Road 46, which is basically a road marathon. You know, it's 600 feet of climbing total or something like that.

Okay. And my goal for that section was to run 1030s. So I told my pacer, I was like, we're going to sit at this pace. And he just ran that pace. And then I didn't look at my watch at all. And I think we ended up with an elapsed pace of just under 11s for that section, which when you stop at an aid station, it's not too bad, right? I ran pretty much every step of it.

And so I like to set the intermediate goals. But really, I'm just trying to focus on the moment or if I, if I save music for when I'm really suffering, so I'll like try to really focus on tunes. You know, like I'm listening to music that I love. Like, let's focus on that. Sometimes I'll try to trick myself where I'm like, oh, just focus on your arms. Your arms don't hurt that bad. Pretend that they're what's moving you forward, you know? And then you just like really focus on your arm drive. Yeah. Well, that's not a bad because when your form goes, everything goes. So I think you see people who are struggling, like even in a road race and their form is just went to shit.

Yeah. So if that, I would think like focusing on your arms helps you have better form. It does. And then I think, you know, keeping your feet moving pretty quickly. Like I think you can get stuck in the half walk, half job shuffle. And that was something I attempted to avoid in all the races. I was like, I want to be able to open up my stride at the end. So in Bigfoot, for instance, I think mile 181 was like a 930 mile.

Going downhill, but solid. Like I could still open up my stride. Still turnover. Yeah. And then there was a section of Moab going down, getting out of Lusouse. There's like a really low-tech, slow meandering G-bro that's all downhill. And I ran roughly like 10-minute miles for about six miles straight. So that, and then that section, all I was thinking was I am a metronome.

Like this is all I am is just click, click, click, click, click. The turnover on my feet. So I was focusing on that one sensation. And some of that, those like mental skills, I think, come from a background with meditation where you like focus on one, you're attempting to, you know, center your attention on one thing. And so if you only are turnover, like there's no pain there. Yeah. You know, so you can kind of trick your mind in those situations.

It's, have you heard Courtney described her pain cave thing? So it's sort of like, you know, she's, I always thought it was like she's just in her pain cave, kind of like accepting pain where it's really she's hitting that chisel with the hammer. Yeah. And it's just rubbles kind of falling. She's not focused on pain, running, focus on work. Yeah. Just hitting.

And so that seems similar to me. Yeah. And I think probably everyone who's managed to break through at some level. And like, you know, no one's feeling, I wasn't feeling good running 10 minute miles, you know, but I'm managing to deal with the discomfort in a way that's productive. So I think there's probably a limited amount of ways to do that. So it's not surprising that like other people who are managing that, you know, come to similar conclusions.

And they're all sort of similar in their approach in that you're just focused on something other than the running. Yeah. You just have to both embrace the pain and decide that it's not worth your attention to some degree. Like both, it's like a weird balancing act. Both could be true. Yeah. And you just have to. I don't know if you can master it, but yeah, they're tough.

So hard. I think people don't. I don't think people know how hard they are. And like I was talking about this with a friend of mine the other day named Ryan Sullivan, who's a really fast hundred guy. And he was saying he kind of gets a little chafed and annoyed when people are like, oh, but someone in the back is working way harder than you because they're doing it for longer. And it's like, take nothing away from the people in the back.

But the front of the pack is we're having different experiences. Yeah. You know, like someone who is finishing Moab in 100 hours could be sleeping. You know, they might not be sleeping a ton. Yeah. But when you've only slept 11 minutes and you're attempting to run down porcupine rim, that's a different experience than having slept even an hour. Right.

You know, like it's, it is just you're like right on the edge of, I think, what is possible for me at that moment. I definitely was. I think anyone who's pushing that hard is going to be there. And when you're like, your pedal is down for that long, like, I just picture a car, like driving along held together by zip ties. Yeah. You're like, oh, come on, please make it.

Just make it up this hill when we can coast down. Everything's starting to rattle. Yeah. I had a Toyota four-wheel drive pickup like that and I had big tires on it and it was a four-cylinder. I'd have to get a run at the hills to make it up and over. It reminds me of that, like, starts to slow down and kind of, Then you get there, then you're like, okay, now we're made it. But yeah, it's like just praying it holds together.

Totally. And so, yeah, what changed from the struggle and the DNFs to all the success? I mean, did it, did you change your training or coaching or diet? What was it breakthrough? So there's multiple aspects. And I wrote a piece about this on my side. Sub-Sack just called What Did I Change? And it's kind of everything that could have changed, changed.

So my approach to training changed, my mindset changed, and my, you know, fueling ever, like all of that shifted big time. So that's a lot of changes. A lot of changes. Because most people change like one thing and try this, but maybe, maybe over time, that's how it worked. Totally. But my, I think the most important was the mindset, you know, I don't think you can underrate

how important the mental side of all this is. So going into 2024 with the DNFs being really hard on myself and with all this, you know, self-imposed pressure about like where I need to be for my running career, like blah, blah, blah, you know, mostly thoughts driven by having, you know, like paying too much attention to your ego. I think like self-centered kind of selfishness in a way, you know. And then focusing on having fun was just a big piece. Like that sounds kind of silly, but it's like I had to reconnect with the love of what I'm doing. And so that was a big piece of it for me.

Just being able to know that like like Bigfoot, I pretty much had fun from start to finish. No real lows. No. Well, I did have a shin issue that lingered after that race. So I was about to say no unexpected pain. But basically, I mean, I just just having fun. Like I'm running with people that I love and through places that I love, you know. Right.

Like focusing on the joy there was a big piece of it. In terms of training, you know, I don't think it's necessarily what people want to hear, but I did less. You know, I was just kinder to myself from a recovery standpoint. So I was definitely been overtrained in the past. And I just really tried to pay attention to when I was getting signs that I needed to take a day, you know, especially in between the races. Like going into Tahoe, best training cycle of my entire life. I was mostly training in Uray, Colorado, San Juan. super steep.

I was doing long runs with like 26 miles, 10,000 feet of climbing at like a 13 minute pace. You know, elapsed with water stops and everything. Yeah, that's great. I was just crushing these long runs. And I would do the same thing the next day. You know, so all the signs were there that I was in better shape than I'd ever been. And I think part of that came from focusing on shorter races, doing speed work, getting my just pure cardiovascular fitness to be much better than it was previously.

So some training changes there. I'm curious about this. So the cardio, why do you think that makes such a difference when really you're not pushing the pace cardio, you know, heart rate wise? So what I tell people that I coach is that speed work for ultras is to make your easy pace faster. So going in like in January of 2025 as opposed to January of 2024, if I just went out for a five mile easy road run at a heart rate of like 115, so super easy.

I would have probably been in 2024, I was probably running an 845 to a 915. But then in 2025, I was running a 745 to an 8 minute mile. Oh, okay. Same heart rate. Just much fitter. Yeah. And so what you want is your, I can run forever pace. If it's a minute per mile faster, like just think about what that does for you over the

course of 200 miles, right? Like that's, you know, almost, it's more than three hours of time you have saved, just being fitter. So like that, I think, is a huge piece of the puzzle. And do you think that like the fitter you are, so cardio wise, your heart wise, you're not having to, it's not working as hard. Your heart isn't. Your heart rates down. Do you think that that efficiency, that pays off? I mean, you're not taxing.

I don't know what you tax. You tax everything in an ultra, but I'm wondering how the heart and being efficient and if that helps recovery or why. why that top in speed and efficiency helps in a long race, I guess. I think mostly, I think it's everything you mentioned. I bet you recover faster. Speedwork makes you literally like physiologically muscularly more efficient in your stride. So you're getting to be a better runner. Okay.

You know, like better at the skill side of running as well. So I think all of that plays into it. And then just like if you can make your easy pace faster, you're golden. You know, like that's a huge, you want your 200 mile or the first 100 miles to feel super mellow. But if that's super mellow feeling is faster, a minute per mile faster than what you were before. You know, you're obviously at a huge advantage. It's when you say that, so you were over trained, what's that? Like, because everybody has, so 100 miles a week, 14 miles a day.

Sometimes you do speed work. It's less. run. That's how you get the 100. So like what do you call overtrained? So for instance, when I did Bigfoot in 2023, I finished it, but I felt tired at the beginning of that race. And what I, what had happened to me is I got obsessed with 10 to 12 hour days. So every single week, I was doing at least one 10 to 12 hour day in the mountains. Okay. Which is just, that's just too much. You know, I was doing like 32 miles with 15,000 feet of climbing in the Sawwatch or somewhere in Colorado, you know, and that you're just not recovering from in time for the next one.

Right. So like when you're overtrained, what you'll notice is you're just plateauing. So like week by week, you're not improving. Like when I was having a lot of success in May of this year training for Tahoe, every single week I would go to your ray and every single week my runs would feel easier and faster, even though they were getting harder. So it's just not improving. And once you reach that stage of plateauing, like the only way to get past it is,

to pull back. Yeah. So, you know, and then if you get injured, obviously you're going to be forced to pull back. So there's like a mental and a physical side to overtraining. And honestly, part of that is just learning to know yourself, you know, like I think a lot of people look at someone, you know, like Andy Glaze is an example. And they're like, that guy's running 100 miles a week. Like I should be able to do that, you know. And Andy's a freak in the best way possible. Yeah. No one's people aren't that durable except for him, right? He's one of a kind. And so, Or you look at David Gagins, you know, someone like that. And I think you can get caught up in kind of emulating your heroes and these people you admire or like someone like Killian Jornay, you know, like no one should be training like he does.

Because your zone too isn't doing 15 miles with 10,000 feet of climbing, right? So I was kind of caught up in that mindset too. Like I want to train like these people I admire. Exactly. Yeah. And ultimately I ended up just embracing a quality over quantity mindset. And that doesn't mean I was doing low volume weeks. You know, I topped out at 24 hours of time on feet, which in the desert equated to roughly like 120 to 130 miles.

And in the mountains is more like 90 to 100 miles. Yeah. So still big weeks. Still a lot. But not what I was doing. I mean, 24 hours. Yeah. I mean, that's a lot.

A lot. That's it, you know, I think like we get addicted to numbers, you know. And like the, like I said, more is better. And if somebody's doing this, it's like, well, I got to do more then. Yeah. I mean, I'm that. I'm like, I'm not. talented, so I have to outwork. Well, that can be, that can be negative too. Totally.

If you're, when your body says, yeah, we get what you're trying to do, but not going to happen. So when you said, you pulled back, you were doing 10 to 12 hour days once a day a week in your A. What did you pull back to? I was doing more like a seven hour day followed by a five hour day, six hour day followed by a three hour day, you know. So I was still doing back to back long runs and I was still doing objectively big weeks, but just not to the level that I had been previously. And another piece of it is I changed my feeling. So I used to be much more focused on like the low carb stuff than I am now.

I still am probably lower carb, but I periodized my carbohydrate intake. So it's like more complicated. But now on my long runs, I'm making sure to feel like I will on race day. So I'm taking in 90 grams of carbs, almost exclusively from gels and drink mixes. and that has made a big difference to how I'm feeling day by day and recovering too. So does it help the training as well as the racing then?

Okay, so you can push harder in training, which means you're raising your ceiling, which means you're going to perform better than the race. You're just less depleted after a long day. And I think your body, I mean, sometimes I, you know, this is probably stupid like most things I do, but sometimes I like to go out and run with no water or fuel to be like if I can do it under these,

terrible conditions and still get it done, then in race, I should be even better because I'll have fuel and I'll have calories and I'll have hydration and everything else. But you're not being able to push us hard in the training because you'll have anything with you. And you're also depleting your body. So the next time you go out, you're not able to push on that day either. Yeah. So it probably doesn't make any sense. I mean, your muscle glycogen just isn't going to recover in time if you're not replenishing it on the run. And I mean, I'll still do, under two-hour runs that are just recovery runs, I'll still do those fasted with nothing.

Yeah. Because I do want to just every now and then test my body's like innate fat-burning capacity because I still want it to be there. But I just want to do my long runs the way that they're going to be on race day. And you also just have to train your gut too if you want to eat 90 grams of carbs an hour. And then I'm also sympathetic to people, you know, who I work with who are like, well, fueling is really expensive because it is, you know. Like if you're feeling like David Roach, who's doing 100 to 150 grams an hour,

a six-hour run is going to cost you $60 to $80, right? Yeah, I never thought about that. Who can, not that many people can afford that, you know? So. All right, hunters, listen up. Honey season's here. And the last thing you want is to tap out before the action starts. That's why I'm dialing in with Mountain Ops Ignite.

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You know, that's another thing I noticed this year is like, oh, okay. So like this is why people take big leaps once they get sponsored. Yeah. It's because all of a sudden they're able to afford all the things they need to train perfectly and they don't have to be like, hmm, what runs can I fuel on? What runs can't I feel on, right? Well, and even. I know like when I had a full-time job, it was hard to get in like the recovery part,

the sauna, the cold plunge, the massage, because I get massages twice a week now, let alone the fueling and the diet, and then to sleep. I mean, I never slept because I, something had to give if I wanted to train and work full time.

So the sleeping is, you know, I know Olympic athletes, that's basically their training. Yeah. Just as important as putting in the work, you know, the recovery. So when you add all that up, yeah, that's when you're, and so that's the challenge of, you know, ultra right now is how many people can be, get sponsored or support enough to do it full time without a job. Yeah.

Not a lot. Not a lot for sure. It's a small number. It is growing, you know, as money comes into the sport and the sport gets more popular. But you're right. I mean, if we're talking about like my weeks, like 24 hours of time on feet, that doesn't count. all the time I'm walking my dog for an hour a day. So you're adding seven more hours.

I'm at 31 hours of physical activity. That doesn't count lifting. All right, I'm at 35 hours of activity. That doesn't count sauna. I'm probably at 37, you know, mobility. Like mobility, you add in everything, I'm easily at 40 hours, right? Yeah.

And so it's a full-time job. Yeah. And so for a long time, I was doing a full-time job that I'm not getting paid for and another full-time job, you know? Yeah. And I worked kind of a bunch of random jobs that allowed me flexibility to take off time for races and stuff. But yeah, it's, is you're like, to be really successful, you're basically devoting your life to this thing, not knowing whether or not it will ever be lucrative.

And that's obviously not the why. That's not why I'm doing it. I'm doing it because I love it. But it's nice. To be it's your best. Yeah. You need time. Exactly.

Yeah. That's where, I mean, I want to, you know, in some ways, And we've talked about it with different people, but I like the like the dirtbag style of ultra just kind of like it's just we do this because we love the mountains. And I like the little races and things like that. But I also like seeing people crush it and be rewarded for all the training, all the effort, all their talent. I mean to have talent. You know, I want to see the ultra in the Olympics. I want to see people.

I want to see people get what they deserve. And this is one of the hardest sports in the world because the training, getting your body to perform, I want to see it celebrating the Olympics. And that would bring everybody up, you know, basically. Man, I want to touch on that Olympic thing for a second because I've had ideas about this too where imagine if you had a like all the distances,

50K through 200 miler and you made one-time courses. So like US is hosting the Olympics and we allow them to run through Yosemite or something like that. Yeah. Like one time. You offer a one-time permit. And that's the only time that course will ever be run. Yeah.

I think that would be incredible. Oh, that would be sick. Yeah. Yeah. Dude. So what do you mean like the 50K to 200? What do you mean? So you just have all the distances available.

So you have 50K. And they're all on trail. You got 50K, 100K, 100 mile or 200-mile. All on the same course at the same time? No. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Different days.

And I think you could even, like, we have so much available. In like most places that the Olympics are being held have enough available. that you could make those courses. Yeah. All different, all in different places. Yeah. Imagine if the 50K was in Canyonlands and the 100K is in, you know, glacier or something. Yeah.

Like it would be so cool to have these one-off courses, like they're not going to ruin the land. Right. You know, we're not giving a permit to a million people. Yeah. And just have it be like this one-time special event that will never happen again. That's my idea for ultra running in the Olympics. Oh, I'd love it. Like, well, the chances of that happening with all those races is probably not great.

but if you had to pick one distance, what do you think it would be best for the first? 100 miles. And would you be fired up to try that? I would definitely give it a go. It would depend on what the qualifying course looks like for if I had any shot. You know, if it's hard rock, maybe.

If it's Western, no shot, you know, so. Or Havelina. Yeah, yeah. Those, yeah, because we have 100 mile races, but so different. Yeah. You know, you get hard rock, what is it? 33,000 feet of gain.

Yeah. And what's Havlina? Six. Six thousand. Maybe. Yeah. So it's completely different races. Yeah.

But still 100-ish miles. But yeah, I would just be, I know people would love it because they tune in, you know, it's 10 days. The Olympic Games are 10 days. Yeah. They would watch this shit. And they tune in the Kogadona. Yeah. Yeah.

Like 800,000 different people watched Kogadona last year on the live stream, which is, I always think it's funny that people watch this because it's mostly watching zombies shovel crap into their mouth while they're sitting in a chair looking like a half dead person. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, that's what's hard with ultra films. I mean, I love good ultra films, but it's hard to get out of aid station footage. Yeah, we specifically were like, we're not making an aid station movie. For one thing, like my aid station stops were averaged about two minutes. Oh, fast. They're fast. So there's not a lot of time in aid stations. And the filmmakers, Rachel and Nolan, they are also the ultra runners. So they ran collectively more than 40 miles of the race with me.

Oh, great. So we've got running footage and then they gave my Pacers a little handheld DJI. Yeah. Like we've got some footage of the awful muddy sections. One thing we don't have footage of that I wish we did is I fell like neck deep into a puddle at one point. See that's yeah. Yeah, I wish we had that but uh like we've got and then we've got a footage like one of my Pacers took a footage of me waking up for my second dirt nap and that's pretty funny. Yeah and look disarranged. It's weird. I look really comfortable and then I'm just like back

because when a dirt nap works you're just like you're in the dark in the nether regions and then you're back. I always said it was like a control delete like back in the day when you have to do that.

Totally. I guess I'll unplug this thing or maybe I'll just try this first. That's when a dirt nap is. End task. Everything. Whatever. You're just pushing all sorts of shit

but start back over and that's what the dirt nap is. I did that one time. I think it was big. Big foot actually and my brother Taylor was pacing me and I think I or maybe it's Moab but I woke up and I was just like it felt like I'd been there forever. I was like how long was I asleep? He's like one minute.

Yeah. It's like, let's go. We're doing it. Yeah. It's that's how that I don't know why that works or how it works. Do you? No, physiologically I feel like it makes no sense and when you tell people who haven't experienced it.

Yeah. They're like, no. Five minutes for each of the first two races this year. That was enough for me to get to the end. It's crazy. It's very weird. I mean, it's not sustainable. No.

For sure. But for a couple days. It's sustainable for 60 hours or less. Yeah, yeah. But after that, who knows? Then you need the math, I guess. Yeah. But you know what's interesting to me?

First, tell me about this bracelet. I've noticed that. Oh, yeah. So this was made for me or given to me by Woodsy is the name of Nolan and Rachel's youngest kid. Okay. I think he's two. And so he wanted to give this to me like the whole race. And so he ran up to me at a dry valley and just gave me this bracelet. And I wear I pretty much wear it every day now. It makes me so happy. He's like, I like, he's such a cute little kid and their kids are like the most polite three children I've ever met in my life. It's so fun to be around. So yeah, it just gives me a little happiness when I look down on it. It reminds, I mean, that's like a baby bracelet, which reminds me of James hates babies. And he was. gonna you you were gonna punch one or you did but whatever so that's like our bonus question would you punch a baby on a plane if it was crying full force who uh or would you just half i think half

half half body shot yeah or yeah i think if people would say where yeah where like head or so okay bobby shot half okay that's cool maybe go for the parent full force depending on on How proactive or not proactive they're being. Why did you hate babies, by the way? Because they're always sat right behind me and crying, screaming their heads off. And they always shit your pants. Yeah. They shit your pants.

People got mad, but all I was saying is that if you're a parent with a baby, you should be with the luggage below the plane. So James, he was trying to act like he had his first hater. not even really hate yeah but so he read this on shit tucker's weekly is something about what did he call you boss man boss man boss man anyway this guy's telling james he doesn't know what the f***ing about which is true but i mean you know i'm not gonna argue yeah so speaking of babies um you told me a cool story when you were seven i think seven right tell me about how you how you grew up And it made me feel better about abusing my kids because I used to make them run the mountain.

The mountain we ran all the time. But that wasn't anything like what you did when you were a kid. Tell me about that. Yeah. So when the summer I turned eight, so we started when I was seven, my family bicyled from Fort Collins, Colorado to Seattle, Washington. And you weren't miserable as well from what I understand. I'm sure there were some miserable moments. I mean, at one point on the trip, I got a chicken bone.

stuck in my throat. And so I didn't eat for like a full day of bicycling. And so there's a picture of me. We took at 1,500 miles. And I look like pale and like deathly because I hadn't eaten for a full day before that. My throat was so swollen. I like had to make myself vomit a bunch. Did they, did your parents know about this chicken bone?

Well, they tell the story. They're like, so we stopped at this restaurant. We were bicycling. And then all of a sudden, Killian's asking all these questions about like, is it possible to get a chicken bone stuck in your throat? And then apparently. I'm like sitting on the back of this bike coughing and I'm starting to like spit. And my mom is all of a sudden like, oh shit, he's got a chicken bone stuck in the throat.

So I remember sitting behind a Kmart having bought syrup of like epicac syrup to make you vomit. Yeah. Because they tried a lot of things. They just like we tried all this stuff to make me vomit like putting fingers in my mouth, not vomiting. I tried eating a spoonful of salt like a big spoonful of salt all this turned into a thing. Yeah, like not vomiting. And so then we had to get drugs to make me. vomit and we're sitting behind this Kmart in the middle of nowhere. And all of a sudden,

I'm just projected that vomit. Did it come out? It did come out. Yeah, but I still felt like garbage. And it sucked too because we ended up in, I think it's called Leavenworth, Montana, that night. And it's like a German town. We love Germany. And I grew up in Europe and we were all looking forward to getting German food, like Schnitzel and Spatzley that night. And so then I'm sitting in the hotel only able to like just eat a tiny bit of ice cream at a time. I couldn't even eat like, I wanted to. I wanted to. a Oreo blizzard from Dairy Queen. They couldn't even eat the Oreos because it hurt my throat so bad.

Oh, man. There were moments that were miserable. But that being said, the whole trip, you know, you look back on it as like one of the coolest experiences, right? Yeah. I was looking forward to turning eight because that was like in my family when you got your first pocket knife. So like I got a Swiss Army knife.

And every night I had this stick that I'm like carving. And I remember talking on the trip? On the trip. Oh, sick. And so I remember carving the stick into like a sharp point. And we were going to stop for a while at this lake. in Washington, Lake Chalanne, is known for having really clear water. It's a beautiful spot.

So we were there for a couple days. And I remember, like, diving under the water trying to spearfish with my sharpened stick. You know, so I'm like, it was really good. And then going into Seattle, we were bicycling across these bridges on Lake Washington. And I'm on the back of tandem with my dad. And at some point, I just started talking to him. And I'm like, hey, you know, I was really excited to get to Seattle. and now I'm feeling sad, you know, like that this is going to be over.

I think that what this might have been about has been about the journey and not the destination. You said that. I said that as an eight-year-old. Yeah. And so I'm pretty sure my parents were probably like, hallelujah. Like, you got it. You figured it out here. And so, you know, for an eight-year-old to be saying that and having had that experience,

it's like pretty powerful. And then, you know, obviously, in my head, that is like a direct line to Ultras. But it was funny, like, talking to my mom at some point when I was getting into 200s and she's like, what do you do? Why are you doing this? I'm like, mom. Yeah. Remember? Think about what we did.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a, so how far is that trip? I think it's something like 1,600, 1,700 miles to 46 days. 46 days. Yeah. That is awesome. Yeah.

So cool. I mean, what a great experience for a parent to to share that with their kids. You know, I mean, because the fact that they had 46 days to take out of their life. Totally. I mean, what, what's your mind? mom and dad do? So they were both teachers. So he got summers off. Oh, nice. And is that why you grew up in Europe? Yeah. So my dad was a teacher for the Department of Defense School system. So he taught on an American Air Force Base. And that's where I went to school too. Oh, okay. And how long, like,

tell me about growing up. How long did you live in Germany? So I was born in Germany, lived there for three years, so don't remember much of that. Moved to England and I was there until I graduated high school. Oh, okay. Yeah. And my wife, I met my wife in high school there too. And how was it growing up over there? It's cool. I mean, England is not, it wouldn't be the spot that I'd go back to. Like, I'd kind of joke about how, like, I live in the desert now where it's always sunny, and I've just had enough rain for my entire life, having grown up in England.

And unlike Oregon or, you know, the Pacific Northwest, the beauty of the countryside didn't really make up for how terrible the weather is. Yeah, yeah, I see. So the rain was a bummer. But no, it was really cool. I mean, for like, when I was going to a way swim meets in high school, we would fly to Sicily or Germany or Spain. That's amazing. So that's amazing.

Like, having had those experiences, I learned how to ski in the Dolomites, you know, in Italy. And, like, as a kid, everything feels normal. You know, I'm just like, oh, this is what people do. Right. But now looking back on it, I'm like, wow, what an awesome way to grow up. I've never been to Europe, but I'm, you know, almost 60. So, yeah. Yeah.

It's, there's definitely some positives to that experience and just being worldly and just different, you know, societies and seeing how people interact just as I had to really enhance just your youth and how you grew up and matured. Yeah. I mean, it's great perspective for, for sure. Without a doubt. And like being on a, on a military base and kind of military schools, they're not like super, that makes it sound like you're like, they're like disciplined, like military.

like military schools. This is a normal school, but what was great about it is like everyone, except for the teacher's kids, so I only had one person from kindergarten who I graduated high school with, also a teacher's kid, but everyone else is only there for two or three years at a time. So like there's no, there's not really clicks. Everyone has this inherent insecurity that like they're going to go be the new person at some point or for me like my friends are all going to leave or all in this like churn together. And so it forces you to interact with people who are different than you. Yeah. Like the military is a diverse place, And so you end up having the ability to just like agree to disagree and to interact with people who are just come from vastly different backgrounds.

And I think that's a huge bonus of just having grown up in that type of environment. Yeah, I would think. Because like, you know, in school, that's the worst thing about school is when you're not in the clique. Yeah. You know, when you're the outsider. But there's like everybody's recycled through basically because parents are moving in and out different bases. So yeah, it's just like that probably is a huge positive to growing up on a military base. But yeah, and you were able to compete in sports and swimming.

Did you run then? No, I hated running until I graduated from college, basically. So I was a swimmer all the way through high school, swam in college. And then once I was done swimming, you know, it was like I'm either going to become a fat person or I'm going to do something else. And I had done a marathon in 2017, the year before I graduated, hadn't really trained for it. I had the classic like bonk at mile 18. Yeah. Zombie walk it in.

I mean, I finished in an okay time, but I was like, I'm never doing this again. This is the stupidest thing in the world. Why does everybody do this? And then when I actually trained for a marathon in 2018, I ran a road marathon in Virginia called the Blue Ridge Marathon. It is a road marathon, but it has 7,500 feet of climbing. So it's a big road marathon. That's legit. Yeah.

And I actually trained for it, did pretty well. that still knows it was my marathon PR until last year. 7,000 26 miles? Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah. Yeah, it's, they bill it as America's hardest road marathon, which might be true.

Yeah. That is a lot of climbing. And I didn't really realize that at the time because I didn't have anything to compare it to, you know. But I'm like, oh, this is fun. So that was 2018 in May, in July, I ran the Leadville 50. And then even before I ran the Leadville 50,

I signed up for 100 in Texas. So I got the bug, you know. The addiction had fully set in. And then I went from running a marathon to running 100 miles in less than five months, which now that I'm a coach, I'm like, that is a really dumb progression. But it worked, you know, my first 100 didn't go well, but I finished. I lost seven out of 10 toenails. So that was pretty, that was an experience.

Which one was that? It's called the Cactus Rose 100. It's in Texas. Yeah. And it's since been changed a little bit. But it was basically a self-supported race where you provided, rock bags and then they took them to aid stations. So there's no volunteers or anything. Right. And so all I had, I tried to, all I fueled on and all I ate was cliff bars and bananas. And so then I just didn't eat

anything for the last 40 miles. Yeah, because those suck. Terrible, dude. You ever try to chew a cliff bar when you're really tired and your mouth is dry? Oh, so worse. Impossible. They're not even good. You got everything with you to drink and eat. Like, they're okay if that's all you got. But yeah, it's rough. Yeah, cliff bars and bananas for 31 hours. And then, So you're, as you know now, or everybody knows, is your feet swell. So I guess your shoes probably are a little bit too small. Oh, yeah. I was running in Las Portivas.

So narrower narrow already in size 10 and a half. And now I run in size 12 ultras. So big difference. Yeah. So it was loops. It was four 25 mile loops. And before the last loop, I'm like changing my socks, my cotton socks. And I take them off.

And I just vividly remember how much dried blood was stuck to my sock and three toenails just ripped off with the dried blood. I remember those, I used to wear cotton socks like for basketball in high school. You just put on two pairs of socks, right? That's what, I guess what people did. But it seemed like those white cotton socks were like sandpaper new. Yeah. I can't imagine what they're doing to your feet in an ultra.

Oh, so bad. Like, as we know, foot maintenance is like one of the biggest challenges. Those socks definitely don't help that shit. No. I mean, before that race, I didn't even do a Google search of like, hey, what, what do people eat during these races or how do you train for these things? Like, nothing, you know? I was just like, bro, how different can running 100 miles be from running 50 miles? I remember saying that out loud. Yeah. It reminds me when True is going for the world record for pull-ups, the first one, the 40 or no, 80, 100. He was like, he'd trained so much, he's like, I don't think it's going to be that hard. Like, oh, well, you were wrong. We'll see. Because you only did 4,000. But yeah, so we can get kind of overconfident.

But yeah, that's all part of the process because you don't know until you do it. No. And I mean, I was totally infected with the young man in his 20s who thinks he's invincible. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I for sure had the I know everything. I can do anything attitude. Yeah.

And like not approaching it with humility. And then you just like, I had experiences outside of. races just in the mountains, you know, in Alaska. I almost died in a crevasse. Like I got lost in the Colorado wilderness one time. And then after those experiences, you're like, I, I used to kind of think when I would like climb a peak, I'd be like, oh, I'm conquering the mountain. That's how I would phrase it to myself. Right. Yeah. And now I'm like, no, no, what actually happened is I got lucky today that the mountain didn't kill me. Yeah. You know, like, it doesn't care about you. No, like when you face the elements, you know, if you're not a

approaching it with humility, like you're going to die. Yeah. And so once you have a few experiences that could have gone really wrong that ended up not going wrong, then you either change or you're a moron. Yeah. And so thankfully, I don't think I went the moron route. We are mortal, unfortunately. But what happened in the crevasse?

So I did this big trip to Alaska where me and one other friend. Yeah, I'll take some more. I'll give you at least half. Yeah, that's definitely good. Let's see if I got enough. I'll give you some more if we got. Oh, let's get down there. I'm good with half.

Yeah. That's what that works. No, you're going to have to give me your half, so I have a full cup. Do you have some cream? Sure. I'm hiding it over here. Thanks. Is this a black rifle?

Yeah. Nice. Yes. AK-47 or something like that is a blend. Nice. That's good. Yeah, one of my buddies gets, too. Yeah, that's good.

Okay. Yeah, so tell me about that crevasse. So in Alaska, can I go through the like kind of the whole story? Go through all of it. It's a pretty good story. Yeah, I love it. So one day in Colorado, I was just going backcountry skiing. And I was going by myself and I was going to camp with my dog.

And we were just going to do really mellow stuff because I was by myself. But I met these two guys who were from the Air Force Academy. First time I meet them just happened to be out there at the same time. We ski together a little bit and then share each other. I give him my phone number. And so the next day I get a text from one of them, Evan, and he's like, hey, I'm planning this trip to Alaska. So we had skied in maybe April or May.

And then he's like, you know, you mentioned you were a raft guy that's going to involve rafting. Like, you want to come. And I'm like, well, obviously the answer is yes. Yeah. Adventure, yes. Yeah, we ski together a few more times, get to know each other a little bit. And so then the other guy that was going to be involved ends up having to bail.

So it's just the two of us. And basically our plan was to, our plan A was to, fly into Juno, get a ferry up to Haynes, fly into the Mount Fairweather, ski Mount Fairweather, and then hike to the Alsec Lake, raft to the Pacific, hike up to Yakutat. So it's a good trip. Ambitious, right? We end up not getting a weather window to fly into Mount Fairweather, but I think that actually worked to our benefit for it being cooler because we got flown into the Grand

Pacific Glacier essentially traversed the entire Grand Pacific Glacier over the course of about 12 days. Those were like the purest 12 days of freedom that I've ever felt in my life. We're just pulling our pack rafts as sleds, using them as couches, lounging in the most beautiful place I've ever been. We're like, oh, you want to go ski that? Yeah, let's do it. Oh, you want to go ski that? Yeah, let's do it.

That's living. It was the best thing of all time. Yeah. It is indescribable like purity of experience. But then we're getting to the AllSec Lake. well, on the glacier at one point it starts raining and then we've realized that the tent that we had gotten from the mountain club at the Air Force Academy wasn't waterproof. So this forerproof tent, we, you know, obviously we should have tested it out, but at one point we were bailing our tent out with pots. Like we were, you know, drowning sailors on a rowboat.

Like it was absurd. Yeah. But so tent, not waterproof. All of our stuff is wet. So everything's heavier. to get off the glacier, you know, once you get below a certain elevation, it turned out to be about 3,000 feet, you end up having no more snow and it's just ice. So now you're just on crevasses. So we're roped up and going across this maze of death. So you're walking on like something that's two feet wide with crampons. We were carrying about 100, 105 pounds on our back. And there's death down there and down there. And so it's like 200 feet crevasses on all sides. So we have one day of this where it takes about 16 hours and we end up going a total straight line distance of like 0.4 of a mile. And the whole time we can see the lake we're trying to get to.

So close. See the lake. And so like there are a few times we set up ice repels and we drop down and we're like, that felt like changing the level to the game because there's no way we're getting back up. Yeah. So we dropped down. We're like, okay. And then that night we ended up just setting up our tent in a Boulder field like sleeping

on rocks because you're like so tired. It just had to happen. Next day, it ended up being another 16 hour day. But towards the end of the day, we're in this really confusing terrain where, like, had the mountain on one side and then the glacier on the other. But the glacier was covered in dirt. So it's really hard to tell whether or not you were on ice or on dirt. And so we had stupidly taken off our crampons because we thought we were on the mountain. It turned out we were not.

I ended up sliding down towards this crevasse that then, like, put out into this big, huge pond, basically, in between the glacier and the mountain. And there was a huge waterfall creating a ton of noise. So my buddy ends up going over the crest of this ridge, and I like self-arrest with my ice axe. So I'm sitting there. I can't get out. I managed to put on one crampon on my foot with one hand while my iceax is buried in the ice. My pack weighs 100 pounds, and I'm sitting there. I'm like, I can't get out of this, you know.

And so one thing I'm pretty proud of is I managed to, so my GPS phone was in a pocket of my bag. And I managed to put it in a pocket of my jacket. So that if I did fall in and I had to ditch my pack, we'd have to have. the SOS button, right? So I was pretty proud of how clear-headed I was. But then my friend ends up, I don't know how much time it was, because when you're in that moment, time slows, right? He ends up coming back, roping me off. And then after I get roped off, I like had a moment of like kind of panic. And I started shaking. I was like, holy shit. Like that was pretty close to being really, really, really bad. And then we go a little further down. We raft across across the pond. And

And then pack it up and then 100 yards down, we find this beach at the lake where it was maybe double as twice as wide as this table is long, like tiny with a 50 foot wall of ice and a thousand foot cliff on the other side. So we get to we get to the beach and we're just like hooting and hootting and holl. We're like, we're not going to die. We're not going to die. So the next day we paddle across the Allsec. His boat springs a leak and it's on the zipper, the one place we can't repair it. So like I was testing out these icebergs so that he could hop out onto these icebergs on this lake and then blow up his boat. And then we get to the river.

The river is running way faster than anticipated. And we're literally moving 22 miles an hour going down the river. And it was pretty easy rafting. But if you like, what are we going to do if you flip? And then at one point we pass an iceberg the size of a house that's stuck in a hole in the middle of the river getting recirculated by the water. That's dangerous. Yeah. And we're just like, dude, that's dangerous.

You get stuck into that. Everything's done. That's dangerous. Yeah, it was crazy. We ended up getting to the Pacific Ocean, but then we didn't end up hiking to the town because there was a little air strip. And my bag broke. So like the strap that connects, my shoulder strap broke. And we carabinered it, but the carabiner dug into my hip.

Oh, yeah. And so we're walking literally like hunched over. Calorie deficit, carrying what was 100 pounds, but now I'm probably weighed more because it's soaking wet. Yeah. And I remember. sending my wife a message with the GPS phone. I was like,

don't worry, we are physically safe, but spirits are broken. That sounds nuts. You need to get us out of here. So we ended up getting flown out of this tiny little air strip. Did she get a hold of somebody to get in there? She did. She called every single person probably that lives in the town of Yakutat.

Because we were like, we're eating dinner at this lodge when we finally get there. And, you know, we're kind of talking about the trip. And some guy next to us is like, oh, I talked to your wife today. Oh, that's, that's sketchy though. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, but what an adventure. It was amazing. I mean, I would do something like that again, but I would do it much more intelligently. Because like you said earlier, like what you don't know, you don't know. Yeah. We learned a lot. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

For sure. No, it's a, that sounds, yeah, like a good hunting trip, but you just weren't trying to kill something. Yeah. But a good adventure. I love Alaska just because it's the best. It's so big and unpredictable. And yeah, but it's like you never, when do you ever feel more alive than trying to survive the elements? And, you know, just like the little things like that, like, you know, you could get one cramp on on or just barely get your GPS.

He's like that. I like when there's everything matters like that, like there's consequences. Yeah. I like life with consequences, you know, because. Most it feels like most people go through life and Whatever you fuck up you do stupid shit does it really matter not really yeah, but there it matters big and I like that stuff. Yeah, I mean Not having the crampons on. Yeah, was so dumb, you know, so Yeah, mistakes matter and just like it's the purity of the experience like yeah, I definitely tend to romanticize, you know

The hunter-gatherer time period of human history. I think that there'd be something about the purity of that experience that I find compelling, right? But you can have that now. And, you know, I like having days like that where I love scrambling in the mountains where if you fall, you're going to die, you know. Because you're running, you know, it's actually kind of hard to get into a flow state because you're not doing something where if you end up paying it not paying attention for a second, you're going to die.

But when that's the consequence, you have, there's no effort to get there. Right. You're just there. And like, that is as close to, you know, the like base level evolutionary, you know, brain stem function that I think we can get to. And it is great. Yeah. It is.

It's, uh, yeah, it's amazing. Um, but how, but listening to you describe like anything. I mean, you got great vocabulary. You've been educated. It's like, tell me about like you're just like, you have master's degree in political science and shit like that. It's like, how do you go from? from like the intellectual type or education or higher education type thing to ultra running.

So when I went to school, I was 100% sure that I was going to become a politician. So like what was your goal as a like what politician? I probably I wanted to. I was saying I'm going to be a senator. You know, I was like I was humble enough to be like I'm going to be one of a hundred rather than one. I'm not going to be the president, but I'm going to be a senator. Yeah. I had done model United Nations and all this debate.

stuff in high school and you know I'm like was fairly knowledgeable about these things and I'd always loved philosophy and so I considered myself you know to be able to that that didn't seem like a ridiculous goal right yeah but then you get to I got to college and you know I was a complete idealist you know I'm like I'm going to go in there I'm going to change things you know I'm earnest I believe things you know and then you just learn a little bit about how the system works and I was like, oh, like, this can't be fixed. Yeah, I was like, I, I'm not a scumbag. And a liar.

Yeah, I was like, I can't, I don't want to do this, you know. And I had this really intense experience in the woods of West Virginia, camping alone, where like I was kind of depressed for the first time in my life. And I didn't know why. I'm like, what's going on? How old were you? 21, I want to say. So I'm about two months from getting my master's degree at this point.

And I'm like, what's happening to me? Like, I'm dispositionally like a very cheerful person. But I'm in the woods. I'm alone. I'm camping. I, you know, it's like my first time really backpacking. And I just kind of have this realization moment where I'm like, oh, like, I don't want to do this.

Like, all this stuff I've been studying, it has been leading me to a career that I'm not enthusiastic about anymore. That's sobering. It is. But, and like, there's two ways to take it, right? I could be like, oh, shit, I wasted a bunch of money. I wasted my time, my parents' time, all this, blah, blah, blah, you know. But instead, I took it really positively where like, at least I know this now. You know, like, what if I had dove into a career of 10 years, a decade of unhappiness and then found out?

Right. That's the worst, that's a worse option. So I came home from that and was like, something needs to happen. What do I want to do? And then I was like, oh, what I want to do is have more experiences like that. Like, you know, West Virginia is a weird place because the towns are so poor, but the land is so rich. Rich, yeah. You know, so, and I, I just kept going back to West Virginia over and over and over again.

So why West Virginia? It was close, you know. To D.C.? Close-ish, two hours, you know. Okay, yeah. Virginia was close to, but there was something about West Virginia that I liked more than Virginia. It felt wilder. There's a little bit more variance to the terrain, you know.

there's a place called Dolly Sods, which is the only place on the East Coast. They have snowshoe hairs because it gets cold enough on this plateau. Like it's just a unique environment. And I really liked it. You know, so I kind of discovered. I was like, this is what I want to do. How do I do this? You know, how do I make a career out of this?

You just wanted to be immersed in the wild or nature? Yeah, yeah. I want to explore mountains. Yeah. That's what I fell in love with. And did you do a lot of solo trips like that or was that one of the first? I did a lot of solo trips like that. And so what would you like?

about that just the time to think you know um and i've always been a writer and i journal and i would write poetry in the mountains and stuff and maybe it was terrible but i enjoyed doing it you know and i would think about things you know i would listen to um audiobooks i would read you know that's the first time i read uh you know albert camus who's an existential philosopher like was it was in a tent and I read it all in one day. It was raining out. And so I just decided to sit in my tent and I read The Stranger in one day, you know?

And I'm like... That sounds like a perfect day. Yeah, yeah. Basically, kind of, doesn't it? Yeah. And so I'm having all these like intense experiences both on a physical side of things and intellectually where they complimented each other so much

that I kind of realize I'm like, you know, if I was a video game character, you know, I would want to be a warrior poet. It's kind of how I describe myself. And that's sort of jokingly because I'm definitely not a warrior in each traditional sense, but it's like, I want these two sides. Yeah. How do the philosophy comp- like you said like the physical and the philosophy, how does the philosophy make you better physically? So one, I think that I would describe myself

as a physicalist and what that means is that I think that there is no mind-body separation. Like I think your mind is just a physical process, basically. And so when you're improving one, you're ultimately improving the other, you know, just like, you know, I'm sure there, we've all eaten an unhealthy dessert or something like that and then felt cloudy. Yeah. Right. So even if you think there's a separation, they're obviously connected, right? Right.

So nourishment for one is nourishment for the other. And I mean, I am a big fan of stoicism. So like Marcus Aurelius, who's a Roman emperor. And Seneca, who was a slave, they were kind of the founders of the school of stoicism. and they couldn't have had more different experiences. You know, one is basically a god, a mortal god thought of by his people and the other just slave. But they're both coming to these same conclusions about how best to live your life. You know, like be the rock that the wave crashes upon as a famous phrase from Marcus Aurelius.

And it's like you want to ultimately be able to deal with the challenges in daily life by kind of being level-headed about it. And what's the best way to train yourself to do that? is to have intense physical experiences where you're forced to be level-headed or you're going to die. Like it connects to like we're talking about earlier, right? Yeah. And so I might not have been having that intensive experiences from the get-go, but I knew somewhere inside me that this was the path to what you might call enlightenment. I'm not claiming to be enlightened,

but I'm just saying that like the striving towards that is both a physical and an intellectual goal that I think ultra-running and pursuits in the outdoors ultimately are emblematic of that struggle. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, so defiant for me, like I've heard the term path to enlightenment and age of enlightenment. Describe that for me. What does that mean? So there's a historical period called the Enlightenment, which is totally different from like the philosophical idea. of enlightenment and everyone's going to describe this differently and I don't know that it's,

it's one of those things that I don't know. It's like, is it actually possible to reach enlightenment? I'm skeptical of that. But it is what I think of it as is just this ideal that you strive to. You know, you think of like the United States founding documents are focused on freedom, liberty, yada, yada, when those were written, people had slaves, right? So they're not, they're not living up to those ideals at the time. But the reason we're able to improve as a society is because we have these ideals that although we will never reach perfection with them that we can continuously say like this is what we're shooting for right and so enlightenment is kind of like that on a personal level where it ultimately means that I want I just want to be able to when you know

I'm in an argument with my wife or something I want to be able to step back in that moment and not be focused on whatever the problem is and be focused on the fact that I love this person and have that, you know, infect my judgment in the conflict. Right. Infect is a weird word to say there. But you know what I mean. Influence, yeah. Inbue my idea, a more positive connotation there.

And same with, you know, being in the outdoors. You know, when I was sitting on the edge of that crevasse, I managed to be calm and get my phone, my GPS phone, into a pocket on my person. Yeah. Right. And so, like, those two moments are very different, but they're kind of, they, they, they, sort of live and breathe what I think of as like moments where I was enlightened, right? Where I was able to separate myself from the situation. I didn't let the wave crash upon the

rock and break the cliff face off. Right. I was the rock and I was sitting there with all this chaos going around and I was able to make clearheaded decisions. And I think that those moments are like emblematic of what I think of as enlightenment, if that makes sense. Yeah, that does. That's a Yeah, I mean, I like that, the path to enlightenment. It reminds me I was talking to Jelly Roll when we were running the other day. And he's 41 and just kind of getting into the running, losing, you know, weight and doing everything that he's doing, positive. And, you know, somebody might say, like, you know, wasted all the way to 41 years old before you figured this out, right, before you figure out of exercise and diet and bow hunting and all the stuff he's doing now.

but what I told him I said you're on the path now some people they're over here their whole life they're never even close to the path yeah some people have been on the path for a long time some people might get on it after you and pass you but you're on the path going the right way yeah that's a win and we just keep going we just stay on the path so to me it's like you'll never reach that true place of enlightenment but you're getting closer to it yeah and as you do get closer, you're growing, you're evolving, you're becoming more of what you seek to become. And that's, I think that for men, especially that calm and chaos, that is the key. That is what our community, our society, our family needs.

They need somebody to be, hey, when everything's going to shit, who's the guy everybody looks to? Yeah. That's who we want to be. when they need somebody to have the answers or be the strength or be just somebody to help them, that's who we want to be. Yeah.

And if you think about it, when we used to live in tribes, like you needed that person or your family might die. Right. You know, like you talk about living with consequences. It's like when I think when we live in relatively affluent places removed from consequences, it becomes easy to fall off the path.

because it's not necessary to be on the path for physical survival. Right. Yeah. No, I like that. So when you think of ultra running and, you know, you're, I mean, very talented, but like who's been, who inspires you in ultra running or who has been, has anybody been like, I want to be like that, but my own way or better or whatever? Yeah.

I mean, what inspired me originally to get into the Triple Crown was hearing about Mike McKnight break the record in 2019. So I knew right away that I was like, and I knew from being a kid, you know, you play like touch football, went at lunch and I was like, I'm not fast. Yeah. So, you know, you don't, you know what I mean when you're, you're a kid and you're like, oh, that part, like that guy, he's fast. Yeah, fast.

I'm not catching up to that guy, right? There's no amount of work I'm going to do that's going to get me to run a 202 marathon, right? I mean, or a 12-hour havelina or a 14-hour Western States. So, like, remove all of that from the. possibility. What does Mike McKnight have? And you kind of said it earlier. Like, I think what's beautiful about the 200s is that normal people who don't have tons of the natural gifts of being a lean life, you know, gazelle like runner, you know, can succeed at 200s. And so that's what really

drew me to it. And I was like, okay, what do I have that's a strength? I've got the mental piece. I think I've had that from the very beginning. And I have the fortitude to just keep going. Well, so you say, The mental piece, though, but you didn't, did you have that even when you were DNFing? Yeah. Or, and you had it in your body just wasn't cooperating. But you knew that that was your strength. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. The mental piece has never been a question. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. And so seeing Mike McKnight have success at the 200s and him having the story that he has of, you know, not feeling athletic, being overweight, having, you know, breaking his spine and skiing accident. Like all of that.

I was like, okay, here's another normal guy who's succeeded. and pushing the limits that no one really thought was possible, right? And so he was the inspiration for me to get into 200s. But I mean, talk about who I find inspiring. There's like too many people to name in the sport of ultra running. You know, like it just really is, that's one, that's the thing I love about it is there's not really many people who are doing this that are boring. Yeah.

You know, everyone's got a story. And so, you know, I've been inspired by you. have been inspired by David Gagans. I am inspired by Rachel Entrican, you know? She's pushing the boundaries. I'm inspired by someone like Killian Jornay, but in this way that I find him to be like an alien, you know, where like what certain people do, it seems attainable, you know?

What he does, does not. Yeah, no, he's a freak. Using him for inspiration is kind of weird because I'm like, well, okay, like, excellent, I'm never going to be there. You know what I mean? It'd be like a young basketball player watching Michael Jordan. Yeah, yeah. Kind of.

And it's like, it makes you want to play and love it, but you know that that's tough. Yeah. I mean, but he's also older than you. Who knows where the future holds for you, really? And like, you can have different strengths. Yeah. It's, it's not that you don't have to, you don't have to value them differently. But you do, I do think you have to be honest with yourself about like what seem,

you have to play to your strengths to a degree, right? like what does seem attainable. And like, you know, does like I said, does like a 14 hour western states attainable? Like I don't think so. So it's like I want to focus on the things that both scare me but also seem like they're potentially in my wheelhouse. Yeah.

You know, longer stuff, FKTs, that sort of thing. Yeah. And so 200s obviously are right in your wheelhouse. Do you think that longer efforts would even be lean into more of your strength? Yeah. I think so. I have no proof for that yet. But I mean, I wrote something on my sub-sack earlier this year called delusional self-belief. So I've got a lot of self-belief. Hey, it all starts there. Yeah, exactly. But I do see my career trending towards that. So what I would really like to do, and I've got like

a few ideas of just pie in the sky things. Like how cool would it be to three consecutive years set the AT, FKT, the CDT, and then the PCT? Like, like, like, have all three of them at the same time. What's the middle one? The continental divide trail. Is that, so that'd be Montana then? Yeah,

starts in Montana ends in Mexico. Okay, gotcha. Basically goes down the Rockies. Oh, yeah. So the AT all the way, yeah, I mean, that hit all of them. Right.

That'd be amazing. Yeah, so you're like three years in a row, do all of those. And so I have these ideas of just these kind of like big grand things I'd like to do. And what's nice about this space is that I don't need to do that right now.

Like, I think that it's totally possible to set those types of FKTs when I'm in my 40s. For sure. So, you know, I'm 30. I'm focused on races right now, potentially the Colorado Trail FKT next year. And so there's lots of options, but it's the adventure that calls me. And so do I see myself doing the Triple Crown again? Probably not. Like, been there.

I've done it. I loved it. And now we're moving on, right? Right. Like, it would take a lot to get me to go back to do something again. I mean, I'm going back to Cokedona because I've never had the race there that I know that I can have. Yeah. But I don't foresee myself doing a lot of repeat things, you know.

There's a lot to do in this world. There's a long trail that runs the entire length of Chile in Argentina, basically, like, through those mountains. Imagine setting the FKT on that. Yeah. What is it? Who knows? How established is it? Who knows?

But like, there's so many experiences to be had. Like, I'm not going to limit it to, you know, what we think of. is like the main races. What is a limiting factor on those? Do you think is it sponsorships and funding to be able to make those dreams realistic? And then tell me, so you said you're inspired by a lot of people in Ultra.

What I've noticed in Ultra is a lot of people are kind of like, I mean, they train alone, by themselves out there all the time. We're kind of used to be not talking a lot, like kind of in our own things. thing that doesn't make for characters on a for a movie or documentary you need personality you know and we're like inherently because we train all the time we're just like kind of in our own head so we're not great at like conveying entertaining messages yeah but you seem like unique in that

way i mean like i said i like your bright glasses the hairs grit you speak well and you have the performances so it feels like you're set up up for a great future, how do you get the sponsors and how do you get that people to believe in what you can do? So I think, you know, this is the ultimate answer to that question is, I don't know. But here's my theory of the case here. I think, you know, part of it is the social media side of things. So being able to create your own hype around stuff is going to be huge. You know, I'm working with First Form. They've been incredibly supportive. basically told me like do what you want to do next year and we'll try to make it happen right so fkTs you

know you talk to shoe companies they're not super stoked about fk t's like we want to see our shoes on podiums right right so how do you make that worthwhile for companies to invest in I think part of it is you know I said I'm not in a rush to get into those long trails necessarily it's like I need to build a profile for myself of okay when he says he can do something that it's likely to happen right So I have no doubt that I'm going to fail at things probably in the next two years, you know, right? Hopefully nothing this upcoming year, but who knows, you know? If I DNF at KokaDona at 150, you'll know why, and it's because I can't breathe. But hopefully that doesn't happen.

You know, so I think part of it is just like having, you know, before this year, you looked at my results page on Ultrasignup. You're like, wow, this guy frigging DNFs everything, right? Oh, he had a good race at this 100 in Arizona, Mogian, you know, like, okay, cool. what does that mean? Nothing, right? So I think part of it is just having the results to speak for themselves to be like, hey, here's,

when I say that I'm going to do something, it's, you know, likely to happen. Yeah. And then, you know, I think that I'm not particularly talented at like the,

the objective self-promotion. But I do think, and I really like podcasts, I like the long-form content. And what I'm working with with first form, you know, is some episodic storytelling going in. to Cogodona.

And I think that that will play to my strength as to what I'm effective at, you know, conveying reasonably like longer messages than things that typically are on social media. And, you know, I think my substack is a good forum for me. I love to write. I think I'm a pretty decent writer. So I, this is a long-winded way of saying, I don't know. But I think there's lots of paths to get there. And really what it all comes down to is like your whole.

thing of keep hammering. Yeah. Like, you just have to keep putting in the work. Yeah. And if you put in the work, you believe in yourself, the rest will come.

And so just like I kind of talked about being process oriented with a race, with specific races, rather than outcome oriented, I think what's going to get me to the point where I might be able to say to a company, like send me to chili and have me run this long trail is being process oriented.

Yeah. And not thinking about like, how do I get to this thing? Right. Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, you say,

like shoe companies care about podiums, but you know what they all care about? Attention. Yeah. I mean, if people are paying attention to you, that's all they care about. Yeah. I mean, so whether you do that by getting on the podium or by setting FKTs or by just being a great storyteller or by just great performances, if people care, then your sponsors care for sure.

And it's like, I think you do a great job. It's, you know, being an ultra runner, being on social. media is hard for a guy anyway. It's like girls have a huge advantage. But being an ultra-runner, it's like a niche thing. But you're ascending so fast, you know, with with followers. And it's not like a space where people have tons of followers generally. So you're doing a great job. But I think that, yeah, your personality shines. Your performances, of course, are the key. But yeah, it's just storytelling and coming up with giving reasons for people to care. Oh, thanks. I appreciate all that. And thanks for

you know, giving me a platform to further tell the story, you know. And I, and I really hope that, you know, the documentary Forge and Failure, when that comes out, I hope that can play a role in, you know, lifting up both me and the people around me and, like, part of it, that's part of the what's so rewarding about being in the position that I'm in now is that I can, you know, help the people who've helped to get me here, right? Like, you know, my coaching company that I work for, everyday Ultra, I was able to quit both my jobs before I even got a sponsor because I'm coaching for Joe Corseon and his company, right? Like, so I'm, he's a sponsor of the documentary, Everyday Ultras, my sock company,

creepers, they believed in me when I was failing, you know, and like now I'm not. Yeah. And so they made like a good investment, same with Ultraspire. And then, you know, first form obviously came on this year and I hope that I can repay their belief in me for the future. But then more than the company is like my wife has been supporting my lifestyle for 70. years. Like, yeah, I've got a master's degree and I haven't had a real job for seven years and never once did she say to me, you need to get a real job. That's amazing. And so her believing in this

crazy, there's not that many people making money in Ultras. And her believing that it could possibly happen is the only reason I'm able to be here talking with you. Yeah. And like being able to we've talked a lot about it and she would never phrase it like this like as a sacrifice, but objectively speaking, being able to like pay back her sacrifice for me. Yeah. Is like the most rewarding experience I've ever had in my life. You know, like not like she made a good investment with time and and, you know, loving me and believing in me.

And like that is just, it's hard to put into words how meaningful that it is. Yeah. Did you, so did you ever have doubts that you could make it? Oh yeah. And like how did you get past that? All the doubts. Because I think self-doubt sabotages many dreams. Yeah.

I mean, you know, when I DNFs the two races in a row, like, how could you not have doubts? You know, I'm just like, okay, I know I have the mental piece. So I never doubted that I could mentally push through something. You know what I mean? But I'm like, what if my body doesn't hold up? I've always had this like paranoia that I'm like pigeon-toed, my toes go in. I'm like, what if this is the end of my running career? Because I have this weird thing, right?

you know, what if my body just isn't made to run 200-mileers? How do you push through those doubts? Delusional self-belief is the answer. Like, you might not have any evidence, but you just have to, you just keep working. That's the only answer. You know, the only way to rebuild confidence after losing confidence is to rebuild it, brick by brick,

you know, one step at a time, literally. And that's what you have to do. Like, you're just, otherwise what's going to happen when, you know, like if you get in a car accident and someone teabones you and you break your leg, they might pay for your surgery, but you've got to do the physical therapy. Yeah. Right?

Like there's no getting around putting that work in. And so, yeah, I don't have a great answer other than just like get back to work for how to push through doubts because it's the only thing that gets you there. Well, I mean, I have a product that says nobody cares work harder. Exactly. And it's like, yeah, you lose your job, you get a promotion, you win this race, you lose this race, you lose a sponsorship, you get the, nobody cares. No, get back to work.

Yeah. Yeah, it's like success, failure doesn't matter. The key is work unless you're done. Like, that's the end of your life. But other than that, there's no substitute for just grinding. No, there isn't a cheat code. And they're like, you can get lucky in life and you can get, but can you really get lucky in ultras?

Like there's a lot of variables that you can be lucky with, whether or whatever, right? Right. But no one's getting anywhere because of luck. No one's finishing a 200, let alone winning a 200, having been like, you know, just going to sign up for this thing. Yeah, no, it's very intentional. It's not the way that it works. No, no.

And that's what I love about it too. So tell me about like how has, you know, you said you're coaching for Everyday Ultra Joe Corseone. Tell me how his, that partnership or how, was he coaching you or? No, so I've never. actually had a coach. I like the puzzle. So that's one of the reasons I like being a coach is I'm making the puzzle for other people,

right? Or helping them make the own puzzle. And you were talking to Truitt on the phone today. I talked to my son, Trude, and you were giving him kind of coaching advice or like listening to what he's doing and chiming in. It's like, I like that.

I mean, I wasn't necessarily trying to give him advice. I wouldn't say that like. Because we don't know shit. I wouldn't say that marathon, road marathons are where I've got all my knowledge. I mean, the coaching side of things, I think everyone who coaches will say this, if they're a good coach, it makes you a better athlete, you know, because you get to see how other people are successful, your athletes you're working with, and you get to see, you get to be inspired by them, you know, for one. And like, I think one of the reasons I'm a, at least a pretty good coach, I like to think, is that I went through all the struggle.

Right? Like, you know, you think about any of the traditional sports, it's rarely the best players who make the best coaches. Right. Because is Michael Jordan going to be able to talk to some new NBA player and be like, this is how I did it. Like, I don't think he's thinking about how he does it because he's too busy being really amazing. Right. But some guy who's really good or even average for a professional player is probably going to be way better at explaining how he got there. Right. And so I think having the story that I have of failing a bunch of times and coming up with all these ways to overcome mentally and physically,

allows me to translate that well to the people I work with because a lot of the things they deal with I've dealt with. You know, so that's that's one of the positive things going in my favor there. And then I mean, what Joe is building with Everyday Ultra is just, I think, a beautiful thing for the community. Like, he is really focused on the community side of the company. So, you know, you're signing up for a coach, but we also have, you know, group calls. He is hosting an entire Everyday Ultra Kocodona training camp, you know, fly to Phoenix. The training camp is free. We're going to go on all these runs together. You're going to meet people who are interested in the same things you're interested in. Right. And so what he's got going on and being a part of the growth there is super

rewarding because I want to see the community thrive. Like not just the everyday ultra community, but the ultra community as a whole, you know? Yeah. Like I think that, you know, at some point, you're probably going to be able to get an AI coach who can give you a good plan. But are you going to be able to get an AI coach who can help you with who can tell you what happens on the second night and what to say to yourself to keep moving? Yeah. Like that to me seems like it requires a human. Yeah.

You know what I mean? And so when. AI isn't going to set up a group run in Kocodona. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So it's nice to be able to be a part of something that's bigger than yourself within the itself because I'm just I'm so enthusiastic about the ultra world as a whole and so you know I'm I'm I've

never been the best at social media I think I'm getting better yeah but Joe's amazing yeah and so like one learning from him and contributing to the project as a whole it's just like another piece of my life this year that's been like a massive highlight you know and like as I mentioned earlier I was able to quit both of my real jobs in August after Bigfoot because I had enough athletes I'm working with So at that point, I was like, running is my career. Like, I've made it. This has happened for me. That's exciting.

Which is just like, I can't thank him enough for that. And for, and just like, how, how absurd is the dream, you know? Like, how many places in the world could I have been born and ended up living where, like, my job title reads, professional trail runner and coach. Yeah. I mean, here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I like what Joe is doing too. and I like his energy is just so positive. Yeah. You know, and he's just, he's immersed in it. He's good, too. I mean, he's a good runner. He is a good runner.

But I love, I like, I mean, I love what he offers, single track. I like distance to empty because those guys, you know, Kevin and I don't know what the other host's name is. Peter? Yeah. But I, I listen to all the ultra podcast. I love it. I love hearing about people's stories, about the journey, about the successes and the failures. And it's just such a pure sport, it seems like.

Just getting to the mounds and pushing your body is, it's just beautiful. Yeah. And they're struggling suffering involved with it too, and that's life. And what other sport is as supportive as ultra running? Yeah. Is there anything? Like, you know, I always just go back to the example of Carl Meltzer and Scott Jurek. Like Scott Jurek sets the Appalachian Trail of KT.

Literally the next year goes back and helps Carl break his record. Like there's no roadrunner doing that. There's no cyclist. There's no, like, there's no sport where that happens. Yeah, that's. Except for the ultra world. And for whatever reason, you know, from the dirtbag origins of ultra running now to when it's becoming semi-professionalized, like that exists.

And I want that to continue because that's what even people who aren't ultra runners when they're around the races, that's what everybody notices. It's like, wow. The community. These people are supportive of each other. You know, like, like this year when I'm competing with Brody, like I want him to succeed. First of all, I hope I'm out of the 200s by the time he's back in then. He's good.

Because I'm young. We're all just going to get trashed. It's going to be bad for everyone else. But like, you know, we're both competitors and friends. And those two things coexist not. They're actually complimentary in some ways in old training where, you know, I doubt that like professional tennis players are really that friendly with each other. Yeah. You know, probably most fighters who are fighting each other, not that.

I can't imagine there's a lot of love there. You know, like soccer players and anything. But it's ultra running where like if Brody beats me or if someone beats me and I give it everything, I'm not upset about it. I'm just like, dude, you have moved the ball forward. You know, like we're in a collective pursuit to see what humans can do. Yeah. As opposed to an individual pursuit to see what I can do.

Yeah. That's how I think of it at least. Well, that's exactly. It feels like that's exactly what, how Courtney looks at it too. she's always like so supportive during the races yeah i mean like asking if other competitors need anything it's like what just and she's never like never seemingly cares about where she places is just that she did her best yeah you know and that's what that's what's i'll be honest i'm not that great at that i mean i'm always like keeping track of i'm not winning you know but

but i want to yeah and it's just like um I'm not, I guess I want other people to do good as long as they don't beat me. So it's like, I don't know, I'm not that great at it. But I'm also not best in the world like, you know, like what you are. But I just love the community. Yeah. Like if you came across, like if you're running Coca-Dona and you come across someone who you're passing, but they look rough. Oh, yeah.

You're probably going to be like, hey, do you, do you need anything? Yeah. If you have a water filter or you have like some ibuprofen or, you know, emodium or something that might help them. Yeah, yeah. You might be like, hey, you need something. Yeah. Like that is really what I'm talking about. Yeah.

Because ultimately it's like, I do want to win, right? Like I'd prefer me to win than anyone else. But it's like at the same time, it's a collective pursuit in a lot of ways. It reminds me of when I would be deep in the wilderness like doing some of these hunts, I didn't want to see anybody, but if I did see somebody, I'd be like, they worked their ass off to get back here. Yeah. I hate that they're here, but I respect it. And that's kind of, that's how I look at ultras is like, if somebody passes me deep in an ultra, I'm like, f***ing props.

Yeah. Because this hurts. This shit hurts. You know what you're feeling and you're like, oh, that person's also just a human. Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm down for, but I just love the purity of it too. And yeah, I'm curious.

is so, like we talked about this a little bit, but you're a little bit bigger than like the prototypical ultra runner. Like tell me about has your approach or your body size or your diet, has it changed over the years? And or has it or not? It has changed for sure. I mean, when I was in college, I just ate whatever I wanted, you know.

I was like I had like a half gallon of ice cream every day probably. Yeah. I'm just, but I was swimming, you know, and in your young. And so I was just crushing whatever I wanted to eat, you know. And it didn't seem to affect me any differently. Like I wouldn't have noticed if I had a bowl of spaghetti or a steak and vegetables. I'm just like feeling the same is would be my thought process back then.

After a while when I got into ultra running, I noticed I was just having some like chronic inflammation issues. And I again, because Mike McKnight and Zach bitter actually, I paid Zach for an hour long consultation to talk about switching to low carb. And he was really helpful. And so in 2021, as a New Year's resolution, actually, I switched to full keto. So cut out carbs entirely for like three months. And then I added him back in a little bit for races. But I was still not doing tons.

And I was mostly doing real food. So I would try to eat like homemade rice cakes and stuff while I was like on runs. And then I sort of stayed in that kind of realm where I was probably getting like 40 grand. grams of carbs an hour for a while before this year and doing my faster races last year before shifting my strategy like we talked about earlier. As for the body type, you know, I still feel like I kind of have a swimmer's body even though I'm not tall, but I've got broader shoulders than a lot of

ultra runners. And I do think, you know, having some upper body muscle, like pull-ups, for instance, that translates to using your poles. So there's like some benefits there. There's a vanity aspect to I want to look good. You know, I don't necessarily want to look like the typical super lean runner. So there's that. But then I also think, you know,

being able to lift heavy, you know, if I got squat and deadlift PRs just two weeks ago in my off season and lifetime PRs, actually better than I was in college, which I was very surprised by. Yeah, that's great.

A pleasant surprise. But I think that is helpful because you're solid. You know, I'm not building tons of muscle. I'm not body building, you know, but, and I haven't really gained any weight, but I'm just, I want my body to be durable. Right.

And I want it to be durable for the long term. And what's going to do that, it's lifting heavy things ultimately. Like, I think, especially once you reach the age of 30, if you're not lifting, you are missing a big piece of the puzzle for human longevity. Yeah, right?

Like, so I'm not myopically focused on my ultra-running performance, although I think it helps. I'm focused on, I want to be able to, you know, I have this dream of hiking the long trails when I'm 70, going like 10 miles a day, like just chilling, you know, with a hand-carved walking stick and just doing whatever I want, right? And I want to be able to do that. Yeah. Maybe. It was like you got some work to do there.

A lot of work. Yeah. Well, does part of it go back to the warrior in a garden mindset? Like you want to be having during. and strength. It's like you want to be, because a lot of, say, ultra runners,

they're not lifting shit. Yeah. You know, I mean, so there are kind of specialized in endurance, essentially, but to be a well-rounded,

quote, I guess man or whatever, does that require strength and endurance? I think it can. I wouldn't say, like, like Killing Jorna,

for instance, like, I would call him a well-rounded person. I'm sure he can, you know, when he moves, I'm sure he can lift the couches he needs.

needs to lift, right? So I, but, but I, for me, I think with what I'm thinking about doing, like what is the number one thing that's going to get you to the app, through the Appalachian Trail, FKT? I think it's durability, right? Yeah, definitely. And so that's what I'm attempting to build with the lifting is I'm focused on that aspect. And then like I, I mentioned, the, the longevity outside of the sport, you know, but I want to be able to run when, like, I have this idea that I'd like to run 70 miles on my 70th birthday, you know? Okay. Like, I think that would be cool to be able to do that, right? Yeah.

But, and so I'm focused, I'm attempting to focus on the long-term health of my body. And I don't really think I'm sacrificing anything in the near term. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, I understand that. You mentioned a bunch of goals. Do you write down all these goals? Like, do you journal?

Like, you said the 70, what did you say, 70 miles on your 70 birthday? So do you have these goals written down? I mean, they're in journals. Yeah. But not like, no. they're not like on a wall, you're a sticky note on my mirror or anything. I do that. I'll, you know, I like to publish ahead of time, like my year goal.

So like on my substack, I will go through what my goals are for 2026 at some point because I'm a big believer in just being honest about your goals. Like don't hedge your bets. Hedging your bets is for whims. Like, yeah. It's not, that's not cool. It's not, it is like if you're trying to win, say you're trying to win and if you fail, it's okay.

Yeah. Right. Like, you know who Kamar Usman is? Yeah, of course. Yeah, he said something on Rogan one time where when he got chaoed by Leon Edwards, he was like, I'm happy my daughter was there because I want her to see me fail and be okay afterwards. Right? Yeah. That's the mindset.

That's amazing. I know. And that, he's one of my favorite athletes of all time because I think he's got the mentality of just a, like an insane person in a good way. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, you know, his rival, you know, Colby. Yeah. You know, he's from here. Oh, is he?

Nice. Springfield. That's cool. Went to high school here. That's why I was always like team Colby. I mean, he just came up. Their fight. Their first fight is the best fight I've ever seen.

Yeah. It was just like, yeah, it was a great fight. Yeah. But yeah, anyway, just a little tomorrow Usman note. But yeah. So it's that kind of thing where like I'm just, you know, I know people who hedge their bets who are like, I don't want to be honest about my goal. because I don't want to be embarrassed when I fail.

And that's not the way to be. No. Like it's, I'm just, I want to put it all out there. And if I don't reach it, for all what they may. Exactly. It's like we were talking about like reaching for enlightenment. Yeah, I'm never going to get there.

Yeah. But I'm, that's my goal. That's the goal. It's, you know, Truick puts out big goals and sometimes he comes up short. But we were on that hunt with jelly roll the other day and his truth's birthday. Truitt's birthday. And so I was talking to him on the phone and Jollyroll came up. He's like, hey, you know, he was, hey, could I say something? So he just mentioned to True, which ties in exactly to this, that he likes that Truit sets these big audacious goals because Jelley Rillard told

the story about there was a time in his career where he could sell out like a two to $4,000 venue and it would be sold out and Jelly Roll sold out. But he had to make a decision should he go for those venues or the next venue up, which is say an $8,000. to 12,000 seat venue and he probably wouldn't sell it out but he could and would it be better to sell 8,000 at a 12,000 seat venue or sell out the smaller 2,000 to 4,000 seat venue and he said let's go big yeah because we got to go big and if we don't get it that's okay because we will get it at some point and he thought that that was a better option than just the safer bet hedging your bet as you said like you want to win, but you're not going to say it.

Yeah. Because then you look bad if you don't or you look whatever. So that was like a perfect illustration of that mindset. And now, Jilly Roll can sell out a stadium. Yeah. You know, so would that have happened taken, I don't know, maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe he wouldn't have worked quite as hard because he had already hit his mark.

You know, he'd already sold out. He's a sell, you know, he's already like selling out these shows. So that makes sense to me perfectly. I love it too. I've got a few things I say along that line to myself. And one of them, one of first forms mottoes is never settle. And I, you know, I love that. Like never settle.

Well, you do better, you know, keep working. Keep hammering. Right. And in another one that I say to myself along a similar lines is no limits. Like all these limits you're going to set for yourself are arbitrary. They are. When I was going into Bigfoot this year, I was aiming for 48 hours, right? And I finished in 45.

And if you had told me beforehand that I was going to finish in 45, I would have been like, 45? Yeah. A big foot? Yeah. How? That is crazy. I mean, it was seven miles shorter than the original course, but still.

God. It was three hours faster than when I thought was possible. Yeah. And so after that, I'm like, what, what am I doing? Yeah. Limits here. Like, this is so stupid. Like, no limits, you know?

That's like my sign off on my Instagram post now is no limits because you just, like that jelly roll story, you know, if he had limited himself, maybe he's not where he is today. Yeah. You know? And if it doesn't scare you, is it really worth doing? Right. Right. Like, it should, your goals should scare you.

Yeah. It should feel barely attainable. And that's the sweet spot. And, you know, even if, even if you're not saying it, you can't lie to yourself. Yeah. So if you want to win, but you're not saying you want to win, do you really want to win? Or you're just kind of lying to yourself? Or it's like, are you not being honest with yourself?

which he had another great example about this where he had, you know, he told his family he was going to go on a run, but then it was raining. Then he was maybe not going to go on a run. And he's like, they had no reason to believe in me because I'd been lying to myself about I was going to start running or doing this a whole time. And he just had to go out and do it in the run. And then he came back from that run. And they were all outside clapping for him. And he never actually even really ran.

He's just walking. But it was, you. point is you can't lie to yourself. Yeah. Right. And you can't, you might say this, but the people who believe in you, they know, they know that you're not even really being honest. So the true, as we talk about this path to enlightenment, the true, to be on the path, you have to be brutally honest. 100%. You both need, you need to be your harshest critic. Yeah. Someone shouldn't be able to criticize you in a way that is surprising. Ultimately, when my wife says something to me and trying to make me a better person, even if my initial reaction is to be defensive, the likelihood is I've had that

thought first. Right. Right. And I'm just ignoring that little freaking boil in my mind that is like poking me, you know? And she might point it out and that might be the step I need to make whatever improvement that is, right? And I think some people get triggered by that because they've had that thought themselves. And now it's just like, oh, you saw that too? Yeah. And now you're pissed. Yeah. And when you're defensive, it's like you're being defensive from a place of insecurity. Yeah. Right. It's true. Yeah.

I tell my, my athletes to hold themselves accountable to their goals. So like that's one of the things I say to them in our last call before a race. Okay. Is I'm like, you know, you're going to get to a point where you don't want to run. You're going to get to the point where you want to stop if you're pushing hard enough, right? Yeah. And in that moment, you need to think about what you wanted to do three months ago. Think about what you've done for those three months and then hold yourself accountable to that work you put in.

because if you don't hold yourself to the standard, no one's doing it for you. Right. You know, it's only coming internally. There's, like I always tell them too, I'm like,

I can't motivate you. I will not even try to motivate you because that's impossible. Intrinsic motivation is the only way to finish these things. Is the only way to succeed at life, you know? And so you have to be the one pulling the strings here. There's no one, no one can force you to take the next step.

Yeah. No, I love it. It's true. Tell me about the quote on your arm. Sure. The Road to Nowhere is Long. It's from a song by this band Ghost. We use their music today for our reel.

Yeah. My favorite current artists for sure. This whole sleeve is a triple crown commemorative sleeve. Okay. Yeah. That I made a deal with my wife at the beginning of the year. I could get if I won. But what the road to nowhere is long means to me is.

means to me is like Michael Jordan had this quote where he was like one is you're only successful at the moment of greatness. So he wins the NBA championship. He's happy that night. Yeah. The next day he's unsatisfied. Right. Because he's not where he wants to be anymore.

And I think Michael Jordan may not be the best example of being the perfect mentally stable individual. You know, you watch the last dance. It's like the best sports documentary of all time. But you're not like, oh, that guy, that guy is stable. You know what I mean? But he's a winner. Exactly.

And so I want a piece of that. I want a slice of that pie where I don't think that the path to enlightenment. I don't think that the path to being successful in ultra running, I don't think that the path to being a better human ever ends. So the road to nowhere is long embodies that for me. Where like what am I trying to get to? And I don't have the answer there. Right.

You know, I don't have an idea of what. what does finishing me? You know, like finishing Moab is sure, I'm finishing the Triple Crown, but I'm going to want to do another race. I'm going to want another adventure. You're not retired. Yeah.

And even when you retire, are you done becoming a better person? No. I hope not, right? Yeah. I don't ever want to be. I want to have kids this year. You know,

that'll be a new adventure. And that roads, hopefully that journey never ends, you know, no one wants that. And so, like, that quote is meaningful to me

for so many reasons, not only because it's, you know, art that I love, music that I love, but it's just, I think it really embodies everything about who I want to be as a person, you know, continuously attempting to improve, continuously attempting to strive to be a part of something greater than myself. Yeah, just a constant evolution. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. So James probably has some stupid questions to ask, but we can, don't focus on the stupidity

of what he's going to say because we can pull back the onion a little bit and get to real shit. What do you got? Yeah, this one will really help you get to some real shit. Pull back to onion? I'm excited. What is that? I think it's peeled up. That's Shrek.

Yeah, that's what I thought too. Pull back the curtain or peel the. Oghers have layers. What am I talking about with onions? People are onions. You've got to peel them back. Exactly. One layer at a time. And then you got a cakes have layers. Then you got to

jerk them off. Okay. Yeah. I have nipples. Greg, can you milk me? I don't even know what that was from. That was from, uh, I don't think anybody knows what that's. No, it was Robert De Niro in, uh, what is it about the family getting married, uh, Oh, the wedding. Oh, meet the Fokkers. Meet the Fokker. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it was. Remember because like the cat,

GC had nipples. I don't even know. But let's just get to the question. That's a good movie. So we do a little segment on here, and it's called Ferry Kill. Hell of that. Have you played the game? I've played the game.

All right. So you're probably with people understanding this. Yeah. I think he's going to get it. Wow. I got it. Yeah. We're here.

Your Fri. Kill is the Triple Crown, Moab, Tahoe, and Bigfoot. Uh, I'm going to kill Tahoe. That's an easy. Easy one. Mary Bigfoot, I'll f***. Yeah.

I loved it. You said it so good. Everybody's usually like the other one, Moab. So you love Bigfoot. Bigfoot is my favorite race. I thought that was the hardest 200. It's gnarly,

but it's so different from what I'm used to. You know, like Colorado forest is just garbage. Right. of the trees. I love Colorado. Yeah. I'm not,

don't get me wrong. The San Juan's are my favorite place. But Bigfoot's like, did you get out of the trees and there are volcanoes around you? You know? You're like at 5,000 feet and then there's a volcano that's at 14,000. Yeah.

Holy shit, that mountain is so big. Yeah. So Bigfoot, I just think it's the most adventurous of all of them. Tahoe, you get that Tahoe long bullshit. I hate it.

Yeah. If I could avoid that, I might feel differently. But Tahoe, I have no desire to ever do again. And then Moab. I said I'm Moab. I mean, I think I f***ed it up pretty good.

I love it. Yeah, it's, oh, yeah, Bigfoot I thought was hard, especially like I was so dehydrated going around Mount St. Helens at the beginning. I was in that boulder field and all that shit. It's just like sunny dry. Oh, God, it was, that put me in a hole. Yeah, that's hard if you get dehydrated. I was running good.

I was leading there all the way to the wherever that age station was up on the Ridge and then just was so dry. I just, yeah, we ended up, we crossed. So we actually skipped Windy Ridge that first aid station this year because it's a road out. So that's why I was seven miles shorter. Oh, I see. But we, I was running with a few people at the time and we all stopped at this like tiny

little stream to filter water. Yeah. And we're like, oh, thank God. Because you know who Wes Rittner is. Yeah. He's gonna have a bunch of these 200. He might have the most 200 mile finishes in North America, but I'm running with him. And he's like, we're talking about.

the course and I was like, Wes, are we going to cross water? He's going to 25 mile section. Right? And I was like, are we? And he's like, I'm not sure. And that would, I mean, that's a long way. It's no water. A long ways. God. And it just gets you in a hole.

It took me a whole day to get out of. Totally. Because you're still running. Yeah. You still have to. So you're still burning fluid. No, you can't stop. It's like it took me a day.

Then by the time at the end, I was actually running good. What else you got? Okay. This is a controversial take I've had, but since you're an ultra runner, I have previously said that a 50K shouldn't count as an ultra. What do you think? Mostly agree. It depends on the 50K. There's a 50K around Silverton that has like a tiny finishing rate because it's like mostly off trail and stuff.

Yeah. And I'm like, okay, that is an ultra, right? But man, when someone who has run 150K starts being like, I'm an ultra runner. Am I like, I'm like, you've done something cool. I'm proud of you for reaching that milestone in your life. Would I call myself an Ultra Runner after doing a 50K? If I was 22, probably yes. If I was 25, probably no.

I know I did after I did one. But here's what's weird to me is a 50K is an ultra and the monster 300 is an ultra. Yeah. How are they both the same thing? What are you talking about? I know. We're talking like 10 times more. Yeah.

You're talking potentially under three hours for a 50K for someone fast. And then three days. It's like, how are those both ultras? Yeah. Yeah. We need a different name. That seems crazy to me. Yeah.

I'm not opposed to counting a 50Ks in ultra because I know I definitely did my first ones. But then the other one should be something else. Yeah, megas. I don't know. What's bigger than an ultra? I don't know, but it needs to be something. Yeah. Good.

I'm getting some support finally. I know. Finally, he did. Yeah, he did get hate for that shit. Yeah, he did get hate because he's, he's struggled through 250Ks. So, like seven hour finishes and yeah, so he's really not the one to say, oh, this shouldn't count. Well, basically, if I said, if I can finish it, it shouldn't count as much. No, it was a self-depreciated.

That's what it's getting people. he's so used to talking shit about himself. That's all he's doing with that. Yeah. And people, I mean, I'm happy for some self deprecation for sure. But,

uh, yeah, it's, they're different things. Yeah. Yeah. You're right about that. It feels like a different sport.

Yeah. Like those multi-day, you're not carrying a pack for a 50K. Well, and also, some of us are. I mean, even,

I mean, he would be to finish. Yeah, but you're not carrying three liters of water. Some of us are. Yeah. It's just, and I think also there's a huge difference between one night and multi-night. Totally. I mean, those are night and day different. When people are like, what's the second night like? I'm like, I, you need to get there.

Because I can't describe it to you. It's one night is like nothing. Like Leadville this year, I'm just like, I had a shitty day, but. Whatever. One night. It's like, who cares? Yeah, yeah. The multi-night. God, that gets brutal. I know.

And then when you start counting the sunrises you've seen, you're like, oh, God. I know. I was at Coca-Dona this year. And I was just like, what night is this? And it was like night three. And I'm like, I can't go another. I can't do no sleep for three nights. No, it's not going to work.

And, uh, but it, yeah, it's different. Different. Yeah. I mean, and it's also, I was so excited when I ran a hundred mile or after focusing on 200s for a while. Yeah. For the one night things, they asked me that at the beginning. I was like, I'm going to be done in a day.

This is amazing. But also, like having six and seven miles sections. Yeah. Like, dude, the average section in Tahoe is 18 miles. Right. Right. And so you're talking a minimum. If you're moving really well, you're talking four hours.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. And, you know, when I was moving. Most people aren't. Most people, right. Yeah. And when I'm moving at the end, when I can't even breathe, you're talking almost six hours.

And like, damn. I know. Well, that's a big difference. I remember when I did Bigfoot, it was just like we were like 130 or something like that. I can't remember what it was. But the section was exposed and it was hot. Oh, you're talking about Courtsridge. Probably. And it was like 20 miles or something? Yeah. Was it the one where you start out by the river? You go up, you go down. You go up. You go down. And then yeah, that section is 17 miles of seven and a half thousand feet of climbing and four and a half thousand feet of descending.

That's the one. Insane. I had. So the guy, it wasn't the first year. the race but the guys who I was with had done it before and I said so what do we figure in for this section for time and they're like I would just say two miles an hour and I was just like two miles now it's like holy shit so if it's 25 you're 10 hours out there but it's just under but that's a long time so when you're thinking about getting fluid and salt and in high in uh fuel fuel it's like 10 hours worth of shit yeah that's a lot yeah and you're carrying

All the required gear. So you've got all the stuff in Casey Freeze. And I mean, yeah, that specific section, I think, is one of the hardest sections in any race. Because you lose elevation that you gain for miles. And it's like pretty technical, it's steep. And you just get off the river. Go back down to the river. Get off.

Like, if you were in a low for that section, it would suck so bad. Yeah. I happily, I wasn't. My pacers was with me and we were cruising for the section, right? but yauza that is a beast of a section that was brutal i remember that i think i did pretty good in there too but yeah if you're struggling that could be the descentics on that race it is my favorite section of that race though because i feel like there is a section of each race that just like that's the spirit of that race and that's the one for me plus you pass uh i've got the waterfall

tattooed on my arm yeah right here the lewis river waterfall like it is one of the most beautiful spots that I've ever been. It's like, yeah, I love that race so much. Man, it's legit. Okay. Last question. Okay. This is a question I asked to Courtney, but if you could swap minds with any competitor

during a race, who do you think you would? Mines. Interesting. You know, I think going into David Kocken's head, probably for like a minute. That would be intense. Yeah. I think that would be, I know, it would be pretty interesting.

It would be a fascinating, like, yeah, detour would just be like, hmm, okay, I'm out. Yeah, yeah. No, he, whatever his mind does works perfect for him. Yeah, yeah.

And yeah, I don't think people, yeah, he's, man, I love that guy. I mean, the fact that he, you know,

he's put in so many miles. I mean, there was, he's had years, which, have you read his book? I've read the first book. first book. So, or books, I mean, but I think in that book he talked about like 7,000 mile years.

Crazy. 20 miles a day for the whole year. Yeah. And did like 800s, eight weekends in a row or something like that. So to put on that many miles and he's 50 and he did two 200s this year. And I mean, that's hard. Yeah, for sure. And just like where he came from. Yeah. The even. Even someone who doesn't like David Gagins, like the persona, has to respect the story. I would think. I don't know. You can't not.

He gave me this. Yeah, that's cool. I noticed that. Yeah, his would be interesting. I mean, I bet I'm trying to think of someone who I know that would be like way smarter to me. Like if there's someone running who's like a quantum physics kind of guy, I'd like to pop into that mind for a little.

just to be like, what are you thinking about, man? I know. Yeah. I never thought, yeah, I don't even know. I wonder what Courtney's mind would be like. Probably just be like, this is so awesome. I love everyone. And me, I'm just like, I hate everyone. I wish I was dead.

Yeah, I know, I know. I know. So I have moments in every single race where I'm like, what the fuck doing? Like, I chose to do this. I paid thousands. of dollars to be here. Yeah.

Typically it happens in the second night. The first night, I'm like, this is amazing. Look how cool you are. You're running so good. Yeah. I'm like, this is the best. You're running through the night. What a badass.

And by the second night, I'm like, this is the stupidest thing I've ever done. I'm like, can I make up an injury? Yeah. What could I say happen to me? I know. Like, it's, I have that thought. And I asked Rachel Endrickon if she ever had, she has those. And she's like, not really.

And I was like, kudos. Dang it. That's a little depressing. Because I was hoping you're going to say, yeah, I do. But she said that and then she also said she never chafes. And I was like that. And she also wins every race. Is it a super power?

How does she? And how many races does she won in a row? I think it's like 21 at this point. Yeah. Maybe 22. Rachel, sorry if I got that wrong. Yeah. Well, you're, I love, I love her.

I've never met her, but she seems like a badass. Yeah. Whenever you get her on, show you guys will have fun. Yeah. That sounds good to me. Well, dude, I don't know. I mean, this has been a great. I learned a ton about you.

And I'm a huge fan. Love all the success you've been having. I know you're going to have even more. And it's like I said, it's an honor to get you on here and talk to you about your 200 mile domination. Can't wait to see the rest. Well, thanks. I mean,

I've had a few moments throughout the day where I've been like, I'm running with Cameron Haynes. Well, so I really appreciate being here and the hospitality and everything. And thanks for giving the platform to the trailer and everything. Oh, I'm sure it's going to be a great documentary. Yeah. Trailer looks great.

I'm addicted to good ultra-running films, so I can't wait to see it. Yeah, well, it's going to be a good one. I have confidence there, but, yeah, thanks for everything. Thanks for everything you've done for the sport. I mean, just as far as I've had this conversation with people, I'm like, who has done the most for the sport, I mean, you, you, David Gagans, Courtney, Killian, you know, it's like easy answers. So just appreciate everything you do for, you know, runners, who are putting in the work.

I know you respect the grind, so it's awesome that you, you know, both walk the walk and lift up others while you do so. Oh, thank you. Well, I know people are going to enjoy this discussion, and so I want you to blow up.

Let's keep it going. Keep hammering guys. Thank you, killing. It's just the beginning. All right. Love it. Someone to blame. They said that, hey,

it fuels my pace. I am Roy tough. I am the change. The fuel in dirt. Filling like. Hamings Oh Give me the mods nobody wants I'll give you my heart I care me to work

Give me that unbreakable curve Give me that right-th-thuff question on earth