Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 203 - Mike McKnight

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

Mike McKnight - elite American ultrarunner renowned for his dominance in 200-mile and longer trail races. A multiple-time champion and course-record holder, including victories at the Bigfoot 200, Tahoe 200, Moab 240, Cocodona 250, and Arizona Monster 300. He is widely recognized as one of the sport's top endurance athletes. Follow Mike: https://www.instagram.com/mikejmcknight/  Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Timestamps: 00:00:00 – The Dark McKnight & Winning the 200 Mile Race Triple Crown 00:06:25 – Finding a Love for Multi Day Races 00:13:52 – The Growth of Ultra Running & Grassroots Running Nostalgia 00:19:41 – The Super Bowl of Ultras: Cocodona 00:19:41 – Mike’s favorite Races 00:26:26 – Running at Hayward Track, a Fun Run, & Shooting at The Bow Rack 00:35:38 – Running Cocodona 2026 & it’s Epic Stories 00:49:00 – The Arizona Trail Frustrations & Goals 00:54:00 – Hardships of Being a Race Director 00:57:48 – Trying New Things to Avoid Burnout 00:50:04 – Difficulties of Being a Dad While While Running Races 01:03:09 – Pressure to Perform: Pushing Through the Pain in 200 Mile Races 01:10:40 – Mike’s Goals & FKTs 01:23:05 – Zero Calorie Challenge & Hate Comments 01:25:43 – Training for HYROX 01:30:18 – Shooting a Bow for the First Time 01:34:09 – Hosting Podcasts & Creating Bonds with Guests 01:40:45 – Kilian Korth, Jeff Garmire, Strength & Durability in Running 01:43:52 – Jim Walmsley: Becoming the Best Multi-Day Runner 01:48:03 – Kiss, Marry, Unalive: Taho, Cocodona, Bigfoot 01:51:41 – Is a 100K a Real Ultra Marathon? 01:54:03 – Recovering from a Broken Back & Herniated Disc 01:56:51 – I’ll Prove You Wrong: Race Predictions from Podcasters 02:01:10 – Benefits of BPC 517 & Why it’s Not a PED 02:12:16 – Microdosing: Mushrooms & THC 02:14:16 – Final Thoughts: BPC 517 over Surgery Thank you to our sponsors: LMNT: Visit https://drinklmnt.com/cam for a free sample pack with any purchase Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 10% your order Ketone IQ: https://www.ketone.com/Cam use code CAM for 30% off your first subscription Sig Sauer: https://www.sigsauer.com/ use code CAM10 for 10% off optics MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code CAM for 20% off & Free Shipping Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv use code CAM for 10% 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 move it's so reckless. That is a part of my mind I've been blessed with. Giving my blood so I am relentless. This is the Keep Crammering Collective.

Should I say it right on Keep Hammering? This isn't shit talkers. Okay, so I've got to say, this is a Keep Hammering Collective with Mike McKnight. How you doing? Great, man. Yeah? Yeah. My calves hurt.

This is Mike, how do you say it? Mike McDarknight? Or what, what's it, what's the nickname go? The dark McKnight. The dark McKnight. I didn't make this up. Are you sure? I think.

In the middle of the 200, I might have. Yeah. I think it's cool. So whether you made it up or somebody else, it doesn't matter. I like it. Thank you. The dark McKnight. You're like a superhero.

So for people who don't know, Mike is the godfather of the 200s. The multi-day legend. So you've won more 200s than anybody. Is that right? 200 plus mile races. That I'm aware of. Yeah, okay. It's something I'm made of.

That's okay. No one's corrected me yet, so I think I'm right. So let's go with it. Yeah. But bottom line, you're a badass. I remember years ago, and I don't even remember how many years ago, but it was like, I think we're in this house. But you did something.

You won something. and you did good. I can't remember what it was. And I think I commented. And then somebody, one of your friends sent me a message and said, thanks for like, I, like you hadn't got a lot of like positive feedback. I think it was right when you're first starting. And he's like, oh, thanks for, you know, making that comment to Mike.

Because, you know, whatever, he's like such a good runner, but I don't know, it's like years ago. You never told me this. I didn't. No, I probably didn't. But I just remember it that it was probably. like seven or eight years ago. When did you win your first 200? 2019. That was the year I won all of them.

Oh, okay. Maybe is that maybe is that. Maybe I made a comment on that. But anyway, I just remember that. Well, I, the funny thing is, I had no idea who you were. I also didn't know who Goggins was. Yeah. That was the same year Goggins did Moab. And then he got the hape. Oh, yeah, he did. And then he came back out to the course to finish, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That was all that same year. Oh. So I didn't know you. I didn't know Goggins. Like one of my friends is like, dude, you get a race with the Goggins.

Is that cool? I was like, who's Goggins? So I looked him up and then you made a comment after I won Moab the third race. Yeah, that's what it was. I was like, who's this guy? Yeah. I started following you. Right.

But I never knew that you received a message from one of my friends. Yeah, somebody said that. Like, that was cool just to weigh in on it and, you know, give you props or whatever, which I just always do that. hadn't. I think I knew of you, but I think just winning, because I did Moab, was that 2017? Did you do that? Courtney one. Yeah, and you did it that year too. Yeah, I knew I knew of you. And then somebody, I think you got third, right? Did you? That year? Yeah. Yeah. Who got second? I remember Sean Nakamura. That's right. Okay. So I remember that whole field. And so I knew of you,

but since then, yeah, you've just been badass, dude. I mean, it all just kind of randomly happened. How? How do you randomly win three, 200 mile races in a year? I mean, you and I talked about this. Was it yesterday at breakfast? I know. You've been here a long time.

I know. You live here now. I know. Yeah. Well, yeah, this is my house. Yeah. But no, the better I do, the, I do better when I don't plan. Oh, okay.

And so, like, 2017, I did the triple crown. That was the year you did lab. And, like, I used to be a textbook spreadsheet kind of a guy. And then, like, if I came into an aid station five minutes behind my plan, I started, like, getting pissed and self-sabotage. Gotcha. Yeah. So I realized I just need to stop having a plan. Yeah.

And so I wanted to do the triple crown again in 2019 without a plan just to see how much better I could do. Yeah. And then just, you know, I won big foot. I was like, oh, wow, that was cool. That was my first real big race that I've ever won. Yeah. And then I won Tahoe and then Moab. I was like, okay, if I won two of them, I have to try to win the third.

Yeah. But I mean, I seriously had no plans to win all of them that year. I just wanted to see what I could do after getting experience from 2017. From the year before. Yeah. And having a third place finish, which is like a good, that's like a good sign. Like, hey, maybe I could be good at this. Especially the third race out of the three.

How did you do the other or two? Well, I mean, if it was today, it would have been terrible. Like, back then there was like, like, I got 69 hours at Dickfoot or something like that. Don't be saying terrible because that's faster than me. So if that's terrible, I'm what am I? Not winning material. Oh, okay. Well, I guess that was kind of an insult too.

Hey, it's true, though. Not winning times. Yeah. Yeah. Because like 69 hours today would be like, you'd be lucky to get top 20. Yeah, 10th or something. Yeah. People are cruising.

Yeah, but I think I got like fifth or something. And so like, and I mean, the first time at Bigfoot, I puked for the first 100 miles. So it was terrible. Yeah. And then I rallied and I came back. And then Tahoe, I had shin splints and I T-Ban pain for most of it. Walked probably. I actually dropped Tahoe that year.

I don't know if Candace still, well, she does do this. because Mika's done this before. Yeah. Like I dropped and then I came, I didn't leave, but they gave me my bid back. Okay. I was like, I'm not going to drop. I can walk this thing. So I got my bid back and I walked it in and then Moab, I got a stress fracture at like mile 200 and had to walk the last 40 miles. So everything went wrong. Yeah, that year. Like I can't believe I got third place that year because yeah, I walked. I mean, it was only 40 miles I guess, but yeah, a lot of stuff went wrong.

Yeah, sounds like it. Yeah. Well, I mean, what was the impetus to get into, like, the multi-day races? Why did you, why did you want to do them to begin with? Just to try it. Just to test. And did you know somebody who's doing them? Have you heard the name DJ Lorchester? He's a Utah guy.

No, but it sounded like, he sounds like a king or something. Like. Lorchester. Yeah. Yeah. Like, so, is he a royal family or anything? I have no idea. I met him in a race.

Anyway, no, I don't know him. He's friends with Ben Light too. Okay. I know Ben. Yeah. So I met him at Zion 100 in 2016 or something like that. And we're both Utah guys and I finished faster than him. And then I saw that he was doing the double crown, which I mean, because Moab, the first year

Moab came out was 2017. Right. So it used to just be Bigfoot Tahoe, the double crown. He did that. I'm pretty sure in 2016 and he won the double crown. and I remember following him and I was like, wait a minute, I'm faster than him. So if he could win that, maybe I could win that. And I'd like to win something.

I haven't won anything at this point. Yeah. So I was getting ready to sign up for the double crown. And then Candice announced Moab just before I was about to do that. And for some reason, I was like, two 200s seems doable, but three 200s does not seem doable. Yeah. So I was just planning on doing Bigfoot, again, just because I wanted to, I mean, all those do this is just to see if we could. what we can do.

Yeah. So I've done plenty of hundreds. Let's see if I can do a 200. Right. And then I did Bigfoot. But back then, like, you know, Candice has weight lists for her races. They're so popular. But back then they weren't.

And so, like, I did Bigfoot. And then I was able to sign up for the triple. I changed my mind. Yeah. And I was able to sign up for the Chipple crown after Bigfoot. But I guess it all just came because I wanted to see what I could do. And then I wanted to see if I could win something because DJ won it before. Yeah.

No, that's cool. How were you doing in the hundreds before that? I was finishing top 10. Nothing like I never won, I never podium, but I mean, I didn't win my first. You're doing pretty good though. Yeah, I mean, competitive. Well, they were local races. Yeah.

Like at Western States, I probably would have been like top 100. Yeah, it's, man, the sports changed, hasn't it? So much. Even just in that time, so that's not even 10 years. Right. And now you can't it's hard to get in these big races. They're sold out like in a day. Yep. Yeah. So it's it's crazy how it's went from I would say kind of grassroots a little bit to and it's not quite mainstream, but it's heading that way. You know, it's yeah. I mean, Rachel got it on ESPN a couple months ago. I think in Good Morning America or something. Yeah, something like that too. Yeah. But no, it's grown a lot. It's very different than when I first started. Yeah. Now. Now. You know sponsors you have sponsors everybody's like being kind of like a pro athlete. It's like we were talking about this too because I I feel like it is really hard for somebody with a job which back in the day you could have a job like you did and still compete still win nowadays it I think it's getting it's not impossible but very hard to compete with these full-time pros if you have a full-time job. Yeah. I mean I would say that if you are going to compete you can't have a family. Because, I mean, if you're working nine to five and you have kids and a wife, you're giving up time with them too. Yeah.

I mean, if you're single and have a full-time job, you just have to be diligent and give up, like, a social life. Right. Yeah. But, yeah, it's, and I'm sure it depends on the job, too. Like, if you're out working construction all day, it's going to be hard to go train after that. Yeah, I guess because there's that one ER doctor who won Leadville. So she obviously works. Oh, wow.

I don't know who that is. Yeah, so she won Leadville, like, Anne Flowers is her name. And she's an ER doctor and won Ledville. So there are some amazing people out there who somehow can get it done. But I think by and large it's going to be really tough. It's like you almost have to. And that's a hundred-mile or which I want to talk about this too. And we spoke about it.

But it feels like to me there's a marathon. You can be really good at a marathon. then there's a 50k, then there's a fast 100, then there's a mountain 100, and then there's multi-day. And all those are basically different races, in my opinion. And if you're a good marathoner, you might be a terrible multi-day person. And you may be way faster than any person ever in a multi-day,

and you might not even be able to finish a race. Yep. It's just, it's crazy how much it's. So I think what I was leading up to is, So Anne won a pretty fast hundred, which might take less training than trying to get your legs up for like a multi-day 200. So maybe she can get away with a little less and she's like super talented. But that's rare. That's amazing.

Yeah. But then you could also like argue like what are her hours? Like is she working through the night? Does she have a weird schedule? Yeah. Because she might thrive at a multi-day event. I don't know, maybe. Because I mean the sleep depth.

It might like. aside from like some random like weekend where I might do like a 20 on a Friday and a 30 to 35 on a Saturday like at least in my experience the training for 100 miles is not drastically different than training for 200 miles it's getting used to the sleep deprivation and then it's um just like the the volume the back-to-back stuff yeah so I mentioned dead leg miles basically yeah exactly yeah the miles you don't really want to do that you'd want to do any other than get more miles. Yeah. Get out there. She might, I mean, if she has a weird sleep schedule and I mean, she might just need to throw in one more long run. Yeah. And she might be fine.

Maybe. You never know. Yeah. I had kind of like moved past and had decided that nobody can compete until I started saying that story right now. And then I thought of her and I'm like, okay, well, there goes my whole theory. Well, Jesse Haynes. Do you know him? Yeah. And that goes against what I said too because he's a construction worker of some sorts. There are there are some outliers and he won moab a few years ago yeah I think right before max one yeah yeah so we just both ate our own words I mean there's always exceptions but just by and large I just think it's getting very tough for somebody with a full-time job to compete at the top of the field nowadays because it takes like if you look at you know what I always want to do is like 20,000 feet of a week of gain

100 miles of course some people do way more some people do less and you know that's usually like over 20 hours of training yeah and then if you're just training with that much climbing your body needs to recover so you need massage cold punch sauna recovery sleep how do you do all that that's a that's a long lot of time it's like 30 hours there yeah i mean for sure 30 so to work full time on top of that nuts yeah there's 80 hours yeah Yeah, that's hard. But I don't know, it's just what are you, what are your thoughts on like where the sports going and like what it looks like compared to when you started?

Are you pumped with how it is now or what? It's mixed. Yeah. I mean, the way I describe it is like, like I have a wife and two kids and I love my life right now. But every now and then, so we live two miles from the high school I went to. And from what I understand, not everybody had this experience, but I had a great. great high school experience. Great friends. We had fun all the time. And so every now and then when I drive by my high school, memory pops up and I'm like, man, I miss high school. I would love to be back

there. But I'm not saying that I hate my wife and kids. I want to give that all up. You know, so I have these times where I'll reminisce and want something different. It's the same with this. Like it's really cool to see how big it's gotten, just like meeting you, meeting Courtney, meeting killing course. It's cool seeing all these new amazing people come in, getting to meet them and seeing what they're doing. But there are moments. I'm like, man, I miss signing up the night before.

Getting fourth place because no one else showed up. So I do miss the grassroots vibe. And I mean, I guess you can still get races where they have that. Like that's nice about little local races. Like you can still have that. But overall, I'm happy with, where it's going because it provides more opportunities for people that want to do something with it. Yeah, and I think, you know, because we talked about what it requires with the training and recovery,

to see what people are truly capable of. It's you almost need to be a full-time pro, you know, to get to get the most out of yourself and to put the most into the sport just so we could, that's how we all get better. But I do miss, I mean, there's a, there's a phase, and I think maybe Ben even did it, But like, remember like just wearing the button up Western type shirts, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, that, and Taylor was doing that. And then like, so now I see all these, like, everybody's got this kit, right? They're all pros.

So now I went back and I just like cut it. Now I just wear old shirts like that because I'm like. Yeah, I'm like, okay, I'm anti. I'm not good anyway, but I'll be anti-pro and just be like the old grassroots guy. So. That's fun. It is fun. I wish we could pull up a picture of how Ben used to dress.

Yeah. Like he had on the full length compression sock. Yeah. He had the Iron Man half tight. Yep. A flannel button shirt. And he also had this huge full brim hat. Oh, son hat.

Like he's, but huge. Oh, okay. Like he's going out fishing. Like his style was very awesome. Did he have any fishing lures in the hat? Probably not. I do miss that. That was a fun era.

All those flannel shirts. Well, and then there was like the Anton, I think he goes by Tony. I don't know, I don't know him. But no shirt. You know, he looked like running Jesus out there basically. Yeah, big beard, long hair. And he was getting, I think he was getting like 200 miles a weekend. Didn't he do like crazy miles?

Yeah, a ton. Yeah. And he won Western State. Well, I don't know if he did that. I don't know if he won Western, but he's won a lot of races. I mean, hard rock, I'm sure. Yeah, I don't remember. It's been a while since I, like,

looked at what he did yeah yeah he hasn't ran for a little bit he's been like cycling and stuff right but no and he even like inspired a lot of people to look like him yeah like you see some people out running your race and like is that Anton is I don't know it's some dude that looks like Anton little tiny shorts yeah tiny shorts long hair barefoot shoes I know and just crushing it yeah it was so cool I mean when I think a mountain people I like that same I like that just that I don't want say vibe because that's like nowadays but i just like that whatever that was that look or that attitude kind of just free spirit yeah like carl melzer too yeah still has that no well and jeff browning kind of was like that too he's like now he's sort of a pro now he's kind of changed

with the times basically but he seemed like he was like that too just love to be out in the mountains and i mean i you don't see him like changing either like he he has like a nice kit and stuff but like It's still got like a grassroot's vibe to it. Yeah. Like a shirt with like he cut the sleeves off himself. Like yeah. And he likes to lift. We lifted over here.

He's great at lifting. Yeah. He's a stud. He's one of my favorites, dude. Jeff Browning. I mean, Bronco, isn't he like a legend?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's been my coach for like seven years. Yeah. And I mean, if he's listening to this, he knows that I vary from his plan for me quite often.

But I just love having him there to talk and like, Yeah. Like I texted him this morning. I was like, hey, I didn't do really any kind of vert this week. And my wife's doing a bike race tomorrow. I kind of want to do that. Like, you think it's going to mess me up if I... So it's great to have him there for questions.

He knows so much. Yeah. Like, for anybody that's talked to him and you could see it with your podcast, like he can take like a two-second answer and spit out five minutes of information. Yeah. He's very knowledgeable. Well, he loves it. I mean, he loves all of this stuff.

The science to the, than training and the shoes and the gear and all of it. Everything. And so I can see why you just want to, as a coach, or him as your coach, it's fun just to talk to in like you absorb that type of energy and you're better. Yeah. Like his energy makes me better running with them. It's just like I feel, you know, like I'm a better runner because I'm just around somebody

that's having fun. Yep. And, you know, it's positive. Oh, yeah, we had a great time too. But yeah, I just like, like, for some reason, And I don't know why. I just like to reminisce on the old days. Same.

I like where it's at. I mean, Coca-Dona right now is it's like the Super Bowl. I mean, everybody's got film crews. It's like... It's only been around five years, too. I think six. I think this was a sixth year. I guess that math made sense.

21 to 26, yeah. I thought I heard somebody say that. 21, 22. Yeah, you're right. You use my fingers. But. But the fact is, it's like, in six years, it's went from whatever it was where you could probably sign up. You know, I remember Taylor did it the first year.

What was the year you won it? Where you were way back. 23. 23. The 21 was the first year. Okay, yeah. Yeah. And now it's just like crazy.

A wait list. Crazy. And the live stream. A thousand people on it. A thousand people. The race costs, what, 2,000 bucks? Yeah. I mean, it's not like.

It's just, you know, you just sign up and go because, okay, and think about this too. If you're a pro, so it's $2,000 for the race, but then you're flying there, then your crew got to get there, then you got to rent a van, then you got to, it's like. Some people are hiring crew too. Yeah. We were talking about that. Right. It's probably people are spending 10 to 20,000 to do this race.

Yeah. I know. And they're coming back to do it too. Like I I coached 13 people at Cokadona or it's like Sister races this year, Sedona Yeah

But like most of those people have done it already And a handful of them are doing it again next year Because it's a lottery But like people just keep Like I've been there every year Like Garmeyer's been there every year I know a couple people that's been there every year Like people love the vibe of that race

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with all those down trees hit your head well that yeah that sucked too yeah no like Tahoe is so beautiful it's seen the lake 90% of the time when you're up on those ridges so scenery Tahoe but definitely the vibe of koka donas hard to walk away from it's so fun that start line and everybody yeah I mean every like this year everyone was there Oh, 100%. I thought last year was competitive, like with big names. I think this year was even more competitive. And I'm sure it's going to get more competitive. Well, I guess I have the entrance list out.

I don't know who's doing that this year, or next year, I guess. Oh. I'm sure it's going to get more competitive every year. Are you in it? No. Oh. But I was told if I wanted to. Yeah.

And I don't know if this is going to make people hate the RD for saying this. I'm sure they know that like they have spots for yeah people but they they people complain about anything I know it's like oh you want a free entry why don't you get better at running well no no it's not a free entry oh it's not like I paid for this last year okay it's just a spot to skip the lottery oh I got you okay so okay you want to skip the lottery get better running how about that I'm not I'm not gonna say that I say a lot of stupid shit on here but no i mean i'm not signed up right now but i i get a feeling that i'm going to change

do you need me to open that for you my my broken thumbs not let me do it oh look at that that's so easy see this he is jacked jacked and can run far thank you you're welcome you can have one if you want i just had one before i got here is it bad to overdose on these things you don't want to OD yeah i get too smart I need like 10 of those just to get up to average IQ

And I've never taken 10 So I've never been up there Well this is a type of alcohol, isn't it? So isn't it going through your liver? I haven't, I don't, is it alcohol? I don't know. I mean, there's something that I think is alcohol So it's going through your liver.

I don't know. I mean, anyway, but no, I might have one later. Okay. Well, so tell me about your, How has a visit been? This has been. Tell me about it. We did a lot.

A lot. And we didn't really plan. I don't know. We didn't plan on. I didn't really have a plan. Just get you here and I'll just be like, we'll figure it out. And even part of the plan, you left out some big details, in my opinion. That or I wasn't paying attention and you told me the details and I just blocked it out.

I doubt it. About last night specifically at the Hayward. Oh, yeah. What was that? So I mean, so this, so I was supposed to be gone yesterday. day. Yeah, I know. Oh, that's right. Yeah. We did change that. Yeah. So Cam invited me to stay another day. And part of that was, from what I remember, I kind of want to pull the text out to see if I'm exaggerating this. But he's like, hey, do you want to try to race a mile with me? I was like, what are you talking about? He's like, someone's just going to help pace me to see how fast I can run a mile. I want to go under five. I was like, okay, cool. That sounds fun. I don't do track workouts, but I'd love that. And then we get there last night. And like we have to pay to get in. I see spectators walking through.

We walk in. And it's like a legit, well, I mean, it's not like a legit race. I don't know. There's some kind of race. We were given a bib. Yeah. And there's heats. Yeah.

And instead of just what I in my head thought was me and Cam. At a high school. At a high school. Trying to run a mile together to see if we could break five turned into like other racers. And Mike Lordina. Wardian. Wardian. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Mike Warden was there. Who's a legend. Yeah. Jen, your friend. Yeah, Jen Hayworth. Jen Hayworth.

Yeah. And a bunch of fast high school kids. Oh, so fast. And they basically say, okay, who's going for under five-minute mile and then you walk up there? And there's like all these kids. Yep. And us, old guys. We're like, wow.

Well, this can be fun. But yeah, so, yeah, so, yeah, that was quite the experience. And it was at Hayward, which is where the Olympic trials are. So it wasn't a high school track. No, no. And people were spectating. I know, I know. So, yeah, no, it was fun.

I mean, we did that, which is good because I've never done, or I haven't done that for like 14 years. So it's fun to just see what I could do at a mile. And then, so I guess rewind the day before I get here at like 1230. And, you know, you're like, I'll pick you up at one. We're going to go for a nice, easy fun run. Yeah. Word for word. It was fun, wasn't it?

It was fun. In my head, I was like, we're going to do a 10K. Yeah. So I threw on my waist belt and one bottle of water, which I guess was more than you because you had no water. And we ended up doing like a 15-mile, what felt like a sprint at times, up a few different mountains.

I forget the name of where we started. Yeah, Blanton Heights. Blanton Heights. Blanton, I was way off. Yeah. And then the Spencer's But, than to Piscca, yeah. There was one part I looked at my watch and it said like 450.

We were running hard sometimes. Yeah. So that did not feel like a little easy fun. Well, it's fun. It was a different fun run than what I thought it would be. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

That was, and it was hot too. So hot. It was pretty hot. I was drenched. I was like thinking, I wish I would have brought a bottle. because I got dried, which I think heard us in our fast mile yesterday. We probably got so dried out. Yeah.

I probably could have done a, I don't know, I don't know what I could have done. I could have done faster. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. We did not optimize. No. We didn't eat anything.

No, we did. I didn't. Yeah. So we didn't taper for a fast mile. We didn't, we got completely depleted and dried out. Yeah. And yeah, so it was perfect. Yeah.

It was great. It was fun. The rope swing was great. The rope swing into the river towards, so the funny thing was, there was like, how long is that road section approaching Piscott? Oh, a couple miles. Yeah, couple miles. Cam's doing like 620 pace and I'm fading. And he would do this mind trick with me. I realize now where he'd like, oh, crap, I'm going too fast. Sorry, then he slowed down next to me. And then I'd start running with him.

And then a minute or two later, looking by watching, we're holding that pace that he said was too fast. The trick was like hopefully most people think, okay, we slowed down, but we didn't slow down. Yeah. My problem was I'd look at my watch because I was fine until I looked at my watch. I was like, we go at the same freaking pace. Yeah. So yeah, he is burning me and I see this beautiful river. And I didn't need to cool off. I had a headache. Yeah, it was hot.

Yeah, it was really hot. But I did also just like say, hey, I need to dip off because I'm hot. But I also just needed to slow down. So, yeah, it was a good experience. This was fun. We did, we went off the 3rd. rope. All I remember is like there's a couple of girls there that were jumping in. I talked one of them into trying a dive. And she's like, I'm going to belly flop. I'm like, it's still good

content because they were filming, her friends were filming. And so she did turn to dive and did belly flop. It was hard. It was like, oops. But man, that felt good. Yeah. And I've watched that video a couple times and I still can't figure out how you swung into a dive. Yeah, it's impressive. Oh, I used to, I did so many crazy things back in the day. Like, that was my thing. Like, I'd do flips off bridges. I'd pull my truck up to a bridge and do a flip off of it just into. But that would make kind of sense.

You have a level surface area. You're on your feet. Right, right. But you use your arms and body to somehow do a dive off of a rope swing. Yeah, I don't know how you do it. You just do it. Just do it. Okay.

Well, yeah, I didn't do it like the girl did it. So I didn't land on my belly that bad. But yeah, so that was good. Then we got another summit in. So we did Pisc after we did the river. And I saw people going, oh, you did two more miles with wet shoes. It's just like, that is the least of our concerns. No, do it 200.

I was like, if you're worried about wet shoes for a couple miles, you're never going to do a multi-day race. Never. But you can't say that. No, but it's true. I mean, me and a friend went running last week and we had a few river crossings and I just went through it and that stuff and watch him

and he would like take two minutes like trying to find these rocks that I just get your feet wet. Yeah. He's like, I don't like that. And he's done a 200. Yeah. And word for word, I was like,

you need to do more 200 except if you worry about your feet getting wet. Yeah. I like, I look for reasons to do that to make my feet tougher. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like that running with the wet shoes,

I didn't even think about it, but it only helps us when we get ready to do a race. Yeah. Yeah, you get more comfortable with it or. I want to say I'm trying to make my feet tougher. Yeah. But like. I wish I, that's my goal, but it doesn't work. No, the feet are hard to toughen up.

They are. But I mean, like the benefits of it usually outweigh the negatives, in my opinion. Because like a Tahoe this year, it was hot. And I was just struggling. Like, oh, I was having leg issues again from Kocodona and the monster. And so like every little cool pool of water I would see, I would walk into it and kneel down for a minute and like ice my legs. And so like in my opinion, like the feeling that I got getting out of that water, like loosening my legs up, like whatever, whatever happens to my feet, I don't care. I can deal with that.

Yeah. I can run faster with looser muscles. And cold water does help that. I mean, it does kind of reset your muscles a little bit. It feels like or like we convince ourselves that helps. Yeah. Well, Aaron Cabala, who. who won Tahoe, I coach him, and he told me at least once that his quads were shot,

and he got into the river and knelt in it for a minute or two. And then after that, he felt fine for however many miles. Yeah. I mean, it definitely makes a difference. I go lay in the river sometimes when I do that run and when I have to run, if I go do the run we did and I go from Piscca home, that's 26 miles. Oh, from Piscuit to your house. Yeah. So if I do that whole thing, we did, but just go all the way home. So sometimes, if I go, I go to Piscay, then I'll go in the river first and then run home. Oh, nice. Yeah, it kind of breaks it up.

Is that, is there more trail or do you have to do the road the rest of the way? On the road, yeah. It's pretty much on the road all the way from Piscay. I'm glad we didn't do that. Yeah, no, it sucks, dude. It's just like cars are close and just not fun. But what we did is what my kind of my go-to. I love doing that run.

No, that was perfect. Yeah. You get some climbing. I think you said, what did we get 3,000 feet? Yeah. And then 15 miles. so it's a good day yeah road road trails yeah get some fast miles on there a couple hiking spots um so this year you won Arizona Monster 300 and top 10 at coca don't know that's good well top 10 mil okay top

I think I was like 12th or 13th overall okay gotcha um so are you are you satisfied with those results obviously the win you're happy with oh very much yeah yeah that's that's a huge one Especially because I was supposed to get surgery, like when was that? Two months before that race. That's crazy. I didn't even think I'd be doing much this year. Because of your back. Yeah, back surgery.

So what happened there? Herniated a disc, slipping in some laundry detergent. Oh, man. Nothing epic at all. Not cool. No. Yeah, at least you want to have a good story to go with it. Nope, slipped in laundry detergent.

Well, you avoided surgery. Voided surgery. So, you know, to win and set the record, the monster with that was pretty exciting. Yeah. I mean, I expect more of myself, so I'm slightly disappointed with Cocoa Dona,

but with how competitive it was, I mean, to get top 10 male, especially like, you know, there's podcasts like, it was like predicting top 10 males and females. And I think the only one that I was in for the top 10

was the next aid station podcast. Everybody else wrote me off because of the monster. So that was like a small win to, like crack the top 10 for Mel's even when people that were saying I couldn't do it. Yeah. They're thinking you'd be too fatigued, too close to Arizona. Too fatigued and then just like, you know, rightfully so, like I haven't done well at that race when it's competitive.

And so like just with my history of like, I've won at once, but for, from a competitive standpoint, like, I think people are thinking I can't win that race when there's high competition. So I think it was those two factors. I think, yeah. I mean, you ran a 520 mile yesterday. I think that's fast. And that wasn't even optimized, as we said. So you have speed.

And obviously you have durability. And you're very mentally tough. I don't know. It feels like you can compete with anyone, anywhere. I mean, I think I can do it. But I had a wake-up call. I can't do it three, four weeks after running 300 miles. Yeah.

Like that has to be an A race. if you want to win Kokadona. Yeah, oh, for sure. Yeah. No, I mean, to be top 10, I think that's almost about as good as you could expect that close to a 300-mile race to be top 10.

Yeah. You know, I don't think it's realistic to think you're going to win them both. But yeah, if you just said that was your A race, then who knows. Right. But yeah. How did it, we ran together a little bit at Kokadona,

didn't know, at the beginning? Yeah, yeah. It would have been shorter. I tried keep it up with you for a little bit. But yeah, I think we ran like a mile or two. It wasn't too long on the climb up to Lane Mountain. Yeah, that kind of a grind right there. Yeah, that whole climb is so long.

That first up into Crown King, or I guess it's kind of downhill into Crown King, but for most of it, it's a climb. To land mountain. The very end is down. Yeah, that Lane Mountain climb. Oh. So long. Yeah.

Hot. This year wasn't, well, this year was weird. I don't know if you felt this way. Like the sun wasn't out that much. Yeah. But like I was drenched. I sweated way more on that climb than I have in the past. It's more humid probably.

Probably. Because of the clouds. Yeah. Yeah. So it felt hotter than I thought it would be. Yeah. But you battled back and you know, you're struggling. You said your legs were dead.

I remember you saying that when we were running. And we were hoping they're going to wake up. And it's like, this is crazy. like normally you'd start a race and if your legs are dead they're just dead but when the race is a three-day race they might come back yeah so you just keep going and you'd find out but and they did come back it just i mean i almost dropped really i got to um whiskey row and i probably stayed there for two hours oh okay i didn't know that yeah yeah i was i was struggling mentally because like i wanted to drop but I didn't want to.

Yeah. I was like, I got to finish this thing, but my legs are so dead. And whiskey rolls only 70 some in? Yeah. You still have 180 miles to go. And this is just crazy because you've already went 75 or whatever,

which is so far. Yeah. But it's not even close to... You still basically have 200 miles left. Jeez. So I get it. You know, your mind starts playing justifying tricks on you. Like, because I'm laying.

up there, I'm like, oh, I've won this race. I've finished it four or five times. Like, what do I have to prove? So, like, you start justifying it. But then, you know, you start trying to talk yourself out of it. So I thankfully talked myself out of it and felt fairly good after that. And I was, I had, I had like a small moment where I was like, all right, this is going to be 20, 23. I'm going to make a comeback. I'm going to catch up to Rachel. Yeah. But when I got to the top of me, I'm like, no, this isn't going to happen. I'm just fighting to finish at this point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. of Dominguez is it that's another grind yeah getting up that thing and then especially when you know what's

coming up i hate the descent all those kind of big rocky it's hard to run on that road that road is a mess and there's more climbing than you think there'd be yeah yeah i went good on that section last year for whatever reason it's just kind of like a weird timing thing if your body responds or yeah or something and then you have but i had a good section i remember i that's i passed uh you uh you Shelby Farrell in there. She was running good and she had a really good pacer. But I was feeling good. So it's like for me,

I like that section. Yeah, because I had a good experience in it. But I remember thinking it is hard to run kind of those babyhead rocks or about like this big. Yeah. It's freaking hard to open up there. Yeah.

There was what my wife pasted, paste me in that spot. Yeah. It was the funniest thing. Like, like we had a perfect view of Jerome. And like I, guy asked her, I was like, you good? And she's like, oh, I'm so good. And then like half a second

later, I just hear, oh, and I look behind it. She just face planted it from tripping on a rock. I felt so bad for her, but just like half a second after she's like, oh, I feel so good right now. Things can change in a hurry. Yeah. Yeah. I know when I did it, when I was coming down through there, it wasn't this year because I got hurt this year. But last year, it was pouring. Oh, you got through in the rain? Poor. I got down to Jerome soaked. Yeah.

I've never been so wet, but I don't know. It's... Do you remember where... Do you know the Cottonwood section? Do you remember what that is? Yeah. So I was running that last year and it was hot, but I looked over at Mingus and I just saw a dark cloud over it with like, you know,

you can see the rain. Yeah. And I could see that. So that must have been when you were there. It looked awful. So you were ahead of me then, I'm sure, right? Last year, yeah. Yeah.

Where did you finish last year? Like, it was just before 72 hours. Okay. So I think if, because you finished in the evening that I finished. Yeah. So I finished probably like 84. Yeah, like 12 hours of year. Yeah, yeah, gotcha.

Yeah, so you miss the rain. I got to enjoy it, a pouring rain. It looked awful. And also, you're 100. Mingus is like 108. And then you're going down to. I don't know what Jerome is. It's halfway.

It's 125. 125. Yeah. So it's a nice little stretch in the pouring rain, but after 100 miles, but whatever, those, can you believe we do these things? No. Freaking so hard, dude. So much work.

But it feels, and seeing everybody working so hard for the same goal. Yeah. I like it. I just love the environment. What's that? I love the environment and just atmosphere. And like last year, that little. native boy ran with me. It's just like there's all these little things that happen during three days

that are just epic stories. That's a special about 200s. Yeah. Like at 100 it's like, I mean, at least when I do it, like 100 is just like go fast and you're just like more focused on yourself. Yeah. And at 200 you might start focused on yourself, but there's a very good chance something's going to happen and you start paying attention to everybody around you because you're suffering and you realize they're suffering and you kind of latch on to a group that's going the same pace as you and you become friends with them and like it's way more like group oriented in my experience yeah kind of it kind of is and then i use ketone IQ when i need to stay sharp for the long haul long runs lifting before i shoot my bow even when i'm podcasting anytime i want steady focus

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pacer is a good, a good match for you. And your pacer. Yeah, your pacer. And that's always a roll with a dice because people are always like, I'll come patient and then they probably like leave going, I'm never doing that again. We walked for 20 miles and he just complained for half of that. Yeah, I know. I was like on that one, Taylor had had me during the night going into a

Fort Tuttle and we went the wrong way. I couldn't even focus on anything and I was got mad. I'm like, I can't afford to get lost. It's like I have no, I got no. I got no extra energy. I can't be doing extra miles. And so I was getting mad at that. And then like when I look back at my thing, I went 260 miles. So I'm like, yeah, I would,

would have like to have those four miles back, you know, four extra miles I did. So grumpy. Yeah, still mad about it. But it's just middle of the night, raining. It's, it's easy to miss trail markers sometimes, you know. And it's like, you're kind of in a groove. You're not always looking at your watch or phone or whatever. It's And any extra step you have to take is just so demoralizing.

I know. It's like if I think I'm the wrong way, I'm stopping. I'm like, stop. I'm going to figure this out before I take one more step.

Yeah. It's awful. I just can't afford because you think like 250 miles, I take about 2,000 steps a mile. So 500,000 steps we have to do. It's a good day.

That's a good amount of steps. And that's just your body, you know, said, you can't afford a bunch of extra ones. Because your body's going to be kind of broke down for $500,000. Yeah. Yeah. And then your pacer has to hear you complain about it.

Yeah. There was this time I did the Arizona Trail. Yeah. And it was up on the, I never know how to say this. It's an Air Viper race. Ben says Magalan. Okay. Mongolia?

No. No, it's, I think it's Moeon. The Moeon area. Yeah, right. Yeah. The Arizona Trail goes on the Mogeon. rim. So I've tried the years I'm going to show off three times, two times.

It's been your nemesis. It's been my nemesis. Yeah. Next year's the year. Okay. But I've tried it north to south twice and south the north once. And both times I've gone north to south. I get on top of the Mogi on rim.

And it was the first year, it was just the day after a rainstorm. And the mud up there is the type that where you gain 10 pounds per foot as you walk through it. Yeah. And so like the first year, it was just so miserable. I hated it. And then the third year I did it again, I had a pacer this time. And as we're getting up there, it starts pouring rain and it starts snowing on us too.

And I get up on there and it's the same thing that mud comes. And I just start having flashbacks to two years earlier. And so I am in the grumpiest mood. And anybody that knows me knows that I don't cuss often. But when I was up there, I think the amount of F words, I've said in my life, went from like two to 200 in that night. Yeah. And my Pacers is this sweet girl named Brittany.

She's like, she just heard me like a side of me. She's never seen before. And she just kind of starts laughing. And I just turn around and look at it. I'm like, why are you laughing? There's nothing funny about this. And she's just like, I don't know what to do right now. I'm sorry.

I felt so bad afterwards. It was not a good experience for her. because of how grumpy I was. Oh. And was that, what time was that? Was that the third time or the second time? That was the third time. Third time.

Yeah. And so you're probably like, I've been, what do I have to do to get through this freaking, well, it's not a race, but it's a, are you trying to set the FKT? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is it still 14 and a half days or something? No, it's like, I don't know how this works.

So like the supported record is like 12 and a half days. a little bit less. Yeah. But somebody set, this is crazy, somebody set the unsupported record and it was faster than the supported record.

How does that work? I wonder. That's what I'm wondering. Yeah. Yeah. That doesn't seem. I mean, I think rules are rules. I think technically the supported record

is what I'd need to go for. But I mean, knowing myself, like knowing that somebody did it without a crew faster than that, like I'm going to target that. What is their time? Do you know? It was under 12 days.

Was it? Yeah. And it's how many miles? 800. 800. Yeah. So how many miles is that a day? What do you got to do?

70. It averages out to... 75. Well, I don't know what the 11-day record is now, but the current supported record, it's like basically 100K a day. Oh, 62. Okay. Yeah. That's a big day.

It is. Yeah. And anyone that's been out there, have you hunted, like, in the superstitions? No. Or any... Like, there's this three wilderness, three different wilderness. this is in a row. It's like, Jamil Curry calls it the Maddis Hells.

I think it's the Madazals, technically. Matazols, four peaks and superstitions. And specifically, the Matazols and the superstitions are some of the most rugged remote trails I've ever been on. Okay. Like in the Matazals, there's, like, you have to go like almost 40 miles without crew. A lot of climbing, a lot of light, some of the most technical trails I've ever been on.

And every year I've done it, one of those two ranges just like breaks me. Yeah. It takes way longer than I plan. you're just out like like those sections are hard that that's a rugged trail where are they like depending on if you go north does it make would it be better going one way or another to get to there earlier maybe when you're fresh they're right in the middle oh in the middle okay so as you're coming out of the the the the madazals if you're going north or sorry if you're going north the south it's you hit the halfway point there so i guess so it's basically right in the middle yeah i mean the

The superstitions are directly, what direction would that be east of Phoenix. Mm-hmm. Okay. It's basically right where the Arizona monster starts just right by the superstitions. I gotcha. Yeah, so 800 miles, 62 miles a day. Seems doable on paper. It does.

And then he hit those three wildernesses. Because we go, like in Kokodona, what do we do? Like 80 miles a day, kind of about? Yeah, but you're only out there for three days. I know. You're not out there for 12. I know. But on paper.

On paper. Why do you think I've tried it three times? I know. Okay. So next year's the year, huh? Yeah, I mean, I was going to try it last year, but then I hurt my back. What is, has anything changed? Like, for me?

Yeah, from when you first tried it to now, would you do anything different? I'm going to go. So, I mean, this answer is like all over the place. I'm sorry. Yeah, it's all right. So there's a two. and Jamal race, I'm race directing. And I was supposed to do it this year,

but I just learned how hard it is to race direct a 200 as a new race director. So I postponed it to next year. And people love criticizing race directors. Yeah. I'm not going to let that happen. I mean, Candice just gets just raked over the coals all the time. I wonder if Jamil does.

Probably. Probably. I mean, and it's just like, guys, what, give them a break. Yeah. And especially like with Candice, it's like everybody says, Oh, women need to, we need to lift up women. And then people are like, here we have a woman kicking ass making cool races.

And people just want to, you know, criticize her all the time. It's like, what are we doing? It's like unless you want, I mean, there's more that's popping up. I don't want to say there's not others. Yeah. But like if you want to do like, if you don't want to do a 200 that's 10, 20 mile loops, you have very limited options. Yeah.

And her races are almost half of those options. Right. And there's always going to be things that come up, but I talk to a lot of people that say they have a great experience doing them. Yeah. And so. Yeah. But it is hard. Like to your point, it's like, try it.

Because you say you're going to try it and you're like, wow. I can't do this. Yeah. Yeah. No. And I can understand too. I mean, what I don't fully understand quite yet aside from it's just it's a business like why it costs so much. But I can see why it costs more, like more than double than 100.

Like the amount of stuff you have to get, the permits, like, it costs money. Yeah, for sure. Like I've calculated, and I think I'm off, I've calculated about 50 grand of expenses. So it's an expensive thing to put on, especially if you want to compensate volunteers in some way. Oh, yeah. Like those last A-State, like, I've created the spreadsheet for my race. And like the last few aid stations, unless you get teams of three different groups, those people have to commit to volunteering for like 70 hours.

Yeah. It's a lot. Because some of those races are like they're five, six, five and a half days. Yeah. And the longer the race goes, like the first four aid stations, like it's a typical 100 mile volunteering experience. But yeah, if you're at mile 180 aid station between like the front runner to the last runner, They're like, they're there for 70 hours or you have to get three different groups to, and like, so yeah.

So, yeah, like, anyway, where I'm going with that, part of the reason I postpone the race is I realized I can't race a bunch and put on a race. So my plan next year is no racing to put on my race and then the Arizona Trail after that. But I'm still going to train, obviously. So the thing that I'm going to do differently for the Arizona Trail is I'm going to go out. and just try to have a good experience in those three wildernesses and fast pack them for a week. Yeah. Because those are the three spots that break me. And so I see those spots and then like instantly think negatively about them.

So I just want to go out there and enjoy it. Have a positive experience. Yeah. So that's the one thing I'm going to do differently. Okay. I bet that makes a big difference really. I hope. Yeah.

Because you know when you can anticipate what's coming, you're just more mentally ready for it. Yeah. And yeah, just having some positive emotions tied to it instead of negative. It makes a big difference. But okay. And I've also been burnt out a little bit. I'm learning with my personality that I need something different. And so like I was like, you know, I tried high rocks for a little bit.

I cycled last year with my back injury. But I would say that like the high rocks followed by the cycling kind of like brought a fireback. for me for ultra running because I was feeling burnt out for a couple years. Yeah. And so just like the passion to be training again and like, because I'll admit, the reason I quit my last Arizona trail was because I just didn't want to do it anymore. Yeah. Like I was fine.

But I got to mile 500. I was like, I don't want to do this. I want to go home. Yeah. So like I, and if you're burnt out, it's easy to have those feelings. And people would say like, oh, you almost made it. It's like 300 miles. Dude, what are you talking about almost?

Yeah, you win a long way. 500 is crazy, but you had a long way to go. Yeah, that's the days. I know, I get it. I get it. It's like, yeah, again, on paper, that's like, oh, we're more than halfway. It's all good. No.

And like my kids are there. I don't want this to sound like an excuse, but it gets harder to do this when you're a dad. Yeah, no, for sure. Like, you just want to be, like, do you ever feel like that in the middle of you? Like, you just start getting lonely and you're just like, I'd love to be with somebody right now and just, Well, I mean, and it doesn't help also when like your wife's going, you got nothing to prove. You don't need to do this. We don't, we love you either way.

You know, we don't care that you do this stuff. We just want you to be home. She's just like, don't tell me that. I want to divorce. I don't need this pressure on me. That does not help. No. But, yeah, so our family loves us no matter what.

Yeah. We don't need to earn their love. So when you're out there and you're just like, I. I could just go home and be like pampered. That sounds kind of cool. Pretty great. Yeah, right now. And then you get home for one day and you're like, this sucks.

Yeah. Why did I quit? Why did I quit? Yeah. And then your wife is like, why did I talk him into this? He's a grump. Yeah. Get back out there.

Pouting around all day. Yeah. Feel like a loser and I'm a fraud. And I'm supposed to be tough and I quit. So that's what I do. Okay. Does your wife crew you? You need to get her to cruise.

you. No, she, she, no, she doesn't want me to do any of it. So she's like, that would be like her helping me kill myself. But what, in her mind, though, you don't, you don't come home a loser. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. She doesn't, I don't think she'd like it. So my wife used to be like that. Yeah. And I stuttered down once. I was like, listen, you knew I was into this when you married me. Yeah. I don't expect you to be out here. So I need you to. either just stay home and don't talk to me while I'm racing. Yeah. Or I need your full support.

Right. And so she chose the full support route. Okay. But like she's ruthless now. I don't know if you've heard the story at Moab. No, I've seen like some, like you want to, you, you were going to quit. And she's like, no, you're not quitting. And she drove away.

But she lied to me before. Oh, really? Yeah, it was a Moab. Okay. I ended up winning that year. But I got to mile 70 and it was like the first spot I could see her. Yeah. And I was like, hey, I, my back hurts.

I want to quit. I'm done. And she can usually like see like, he just needs me to like. If it's real. Yeah. Yeah. She can tell. And in that moment, she could tell I was done.

So she's like, okay, that's fine. The truck has a bunch of stuff in the passenger seat. I'm going to go take care of it and fix a spot for you. And so I'm sitting in my chair staring at the ground. And I look up and I see my truck driving off into the distance. And at this aid station, there's no service. I have no idea where she's going. I wait for 10 minutes.

She doesn't come back. And so I'm pissed at her. In my head, I'm like, we're done. She just leaves me here. Yeah. I'm hurting. Yeah, I'm hurting. And she lied to me and she left me here.

And so at that point, I'm like, I don't know where she's going. I guess I'll keep going. And so I go to the next aid station. And I was like, hey, I'm like, I'll show her. I'm just going to drop without her now. So I go to the next aid station to drop. And they're like, yeah, you can drop, but this is in the middle of nowhere. You have to wait 12 hours and we'll drive you out.

I'm like, I'm not going to do that. No. And so I go to the next one. And I eventually feel better. And I go on and finish and win. But like, she, she took my challenge or whatever it was to, like, support me to finish these things. And she took it to a whole other level. That's amazing, though.

Yeah. Dude, so you would have DNF. I would have D&F. And instead you won. And set the course record. Crazy. Yeah. That is amazing.

Yeah. I think Taylor had some. Taylor was going to drop. I think he's only done Coca-Dono one time, but he was going to drop. And Greg, his stepdad, or my stepdad, his dad, I think got the van stuck, like trying to turn around on those roads. And so he couldn't get, so Taylor had to keep going. Then he got top 10. Oh, nice.

But he's going to quit, too. Well, that's the crazy thing, dude. Like, people don't realize in a 200 how fast things can turn around. Like, if you actually quit, and obviously, I mean, I guess I can't say this around you because you ran Coca-Dona with a broken foot or whatever. Yeah. But, like, obviously, like, if you're injured, or, like, the year I dropped Coca-Dona and went to the hospital because I was pissing blood.

Yeah. Like, obviously, there's reasons to quit. Yeah. But, like, 95% of the time, you're probably fine. Yeah, for sure. And in these scenarios, are you going to get top 10? Are you going to win instead of course record? I know.

What are you giving up because you chose to like siss out? Yeah. Because you're tired and hurt. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. But it feels so overwhelming sometimes. Oh, yeah. Even though it's not like life threatening or anything, the pain and like you're so

so beat up or like beat down that you're just like, I just want this to be over. I still got two to four days of this kind of stuff. Yeah, you're just so focused on how much you're suffering right there and you forget that it's most likely going to go away. Yeah. Like in two hours. I know. We just got to keep,

we got to remember that. Yeah. Just always remember that. It's a mental game. And also I get, I mean, you've done a lot more 200s than me, but it feels like I'm telling myself a lot that I'm never doing this again.

Yeah. And then, like, even though I had a terrible coca dona this year, I still cannot stop thinking about doing it again. Going back? It's like, why? You want to hear something funny? Uh-huh. So I finished coca dona and I told Sarah my wife, I'm done. I'm taking this break, I promise. I need a break. And then the next day, I was like, do you know what would be epic? What if I ran it backwards, camped out for five to ten hours, hopefully, and then ran the race?

There you go. The Coca-Dona double, 500. Yeah, that's just like taking a break. Yeah, the next freaking day. One day later. One day later. After saying you're done, I'm going to get a regular job. I'm going to sell insurance.

Yeah. Actually. What if I do the double? Yeah. I think, didn't Harvey Lewis do that at Badwater? Yeah. I think he did that. Yeah.

But he raced it. He didn't do like what you did. You were going to do it backwards before the race, right? And then race it? Yes. Because I think he raced Bedwater and then went backward after the... That would make more sense. Yeah.

Yeah. Because then you're fresh for the race. But I'm pretty sure when I got to Flagstaff, I won't be going back. No. Even if that was the plan. The only way I'm doing it both ways is if I do it backwards. That's true. And you're in the race.

And then you got support, you got the other people there. Well, and I paid for it too. Yeah. Like if I finished the race, it's like, I got what I paid for. Yeah. But if you run it backwards and then don't finish, it's like a D-NF. Because what if also, like, could you imagine you go backward to warm up, a little warm up, and then what if you crushed it in the race after doing it double?

You'd be the king. You would be. But 20 minutes ago we were just saying how you can't do a 300, four weeks before it. Right. And win it. But you might be able to run it backwards and then win it the next day. Take a day off. Yeah.

That's more doable. We're not. We're not smart. No. But it's like, I don't know, it's like we talk about these things. And I think for me, I always just get so when it goes well, you feel invisible. I do. And like, then talking to Courtney and she's always like, she wants to do a 500 mile run.

You know, it's kind of like your thing with the 800 or doing the double. It's like there's these big, like, what could we do? How far could we go? Yeah. And you just want to find out. And that's why part of me wishes I just had a normal job. Yeah. Because there's always, at least I feel it, there's always this pressure to perform.

Yeah, I know. I feel that too. Yeah. Because no matter how many times you did it, it's like that means nothing today that's in the past. Exactly. Yeah, I got to prove myself today. Yeah, there's all these new fast young guns. Yeah.

You can't beat them. And in your head is like, well, yeah, because I tried Kocoda double. Yeah. And they're like, well, you idiot, you should have treated that as an A race and showed up and tried to beat them. But like, we're just like, we want to try something epic. I've done Kocodona five times. I'd rather try the double now. Yeah.

I know. It's like, and also when I see those young guys or whatever, I'm always like making an excuse for like, well, if I do this, if I do that, I think I could hang with them. Which there's probably no chance I can hang with anybody, but I trick myself into thinking I could. I think you could. You just need to learn how to taper and train specific. I just need to learn how to race. I can run.

I can't race. Part of racing is like tapering. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I don't know. But anyway, I like, I love, I'm addicted to lining up and racing. That's what you're addicted to? Yeah.

But I'm just not good at preparing my body to do it. But I love like, like yesterday at the track or any race I do or I've did 10 miles or the 10K I just did in the 4th of July. I just love putting a bib on and like racing. Yeah. But I'm just not good at like making a good plan to be at my best. I would say with like how you train and don't recover. You race really well. Like for what for what you accomplish and like I mean I just got a glimpse of it.

I don't know your life. Yeah. But like from what I could see this week like you're really good at a lot of stuff. I think you could be great at one thing if you focused on it. But like we're talking about. running. Oh, okay. But for, like, how you train, like, you do really well at a lot of stuff.

Hmm. I don't know if that makes sense. You mean, like, running? Yeah, different distances. Oh, okay, yeah. Like, like, because most people, you were the one that was talking about this, like, the track stars or whatever. Yeah.

Like, they have a plan. They'll run with you. But if they had, like, an hour of strides, even though they did 20 miles with you, they still go do their hour of strides. Yeah. They stick to their plan. Right. So like, and you, you admitted this.

I'm not saying this. You said you don't have a plan. No. So like, like, I think if you actually had a plan and you're like, I'm going to be a good marathon runner and you trained that way, then you would be great at it. Oh, thank you. Yeah. It's always just been like a, it's just to help me in bow hunting. I mean, I know.

I give my best when I race. You know, like, it means, that means everything. thing that day, but not on the training days. Training days I just want to be exhausted all the time and feel like I did something. So if you're addicted to that, then I don't know. Right. So anyway. But yeah, I mean, it's a, what's like what's your goal?

So you're going to do, we're going to get that Arizona Trail, FKT. Do you have any FKTs right now? This episode is brought to you by Mountain Ops, a brand I've trusted for years to fuel my training, power me through the backcountry, and help me recover strong so I can do it all again the next day. Whether I'm deep in the mountains on a hunt or pushing hard during a workout, Mountain Ops has been a constant part of my routine. I worked closely with the team of Mountain Ops to create a full line of products that match the way I train and live every day. We call it the keep hammering line and it's built to help you show up strong physically and mentally no matter

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Get serious, get Hoyt, and keep hammering. I have the Colorado Trail, but DJ. the guy that got third place at coca dj fox did he get we had fourth yeah he got he ended up getting third men's fourth overall oh okay because on our video it says fourth yeah fourth overall does it say fourth overall in the video yeah okay is it's in my my stupid video as like it was just like where i was when i got knocked out or whatever but uh no dj and dj's coming on here. Oh, cool. So I don't know why were we talking about him? Because you, we were talking about the Colorado Trail.

Oh, yeah, yeah. He took my Colorado Trail. Oh, he did. Okay. A year or two ago. Oh, man. So he's freaking good too. Yeah. Yeah, he's awesome. He's a stud. Yeah. Wow. So that was my, my FKT and the heat. Okay. I had that for I said it in 2020. Um, I can't remember if it was last year or the year before, but I had it for four or five years. And was that unsupported or supported? Supported. I'm bougie. Yeah.

And then what was, what was the record? My record? Yeah. Seven days, 13 hours. Oh, so you must have got it

after Courtney was trying? Yes. Because I thought when she tried was eight days. Yeah, the record I took was eight days and seven hours.

Right, okay. No, that, so everybody who knows anything about Courtney loves her.

But you hate her. Absolutely. She's the worst. that's where I thought was going. She sucks. No. No. The thing, like, this experience made me grow to love her even more.

Because we were teammates for Solomon that year. And the year that she didn't finish the Colorado Trail and went to the hospital. For some reason, I had her number. I don't know why. But I texted her and was like, hey, sorry that happened. You were crushing it. Hope you get recovering. And like she did not acknowledge her situation at all.

Oh, that's her. Yeah. So irritating. She's so nice. I know. Dwight her. Yeah, just kidding.

But her reply was just like, hey, if you aren't doing anything, you should go for it. Because I think you should, you could get it. Like after she just had that terrible experience. She was going for what she told you to go for and kind of pumping you up to do it. Pumping me up to do it. See, that's not normal. No. She should be sabotaging you.

She should ignore me. I know. Well, that time I went to help her, and she was like, even struggling, this is like day four, but she already had this cough in the blood and everything. And so she was, had been pushing hard already and had that like that cough thing, which ended up messing with her oxygen level in her brain. But she was like, how are you doing? I'm like, no.

No. I'm not falling for this shit. Don't ask how I'm doing. I just got here. So that's what she does. Yeah. She's like miserable and beat up. I remember me and Kevin, we were with her in one section.

It was like pretty real steep. You go up and there's some lakes on the other side. Leadville? No. It's like going into maybe Twin Lake or is it? Twin Lakes is Leadville. Oh. No, I can't remember where it was.

Anyway, do you remember where she dropped? Ledville. Oh, she did. So right before that, what is like there's a really steep climb and you drop over and I think, I thought there was a. Is that Mount Massive? I don't know. Now I can't remember. But anyway, point is, me and Kevin are going, she was struggling and we're going pretty good.

And I thought, oh, she's going to be probably, should probably some should go back with her. And I turn around, we're pushing. I turn, she's right there. And I'm like, as she's dying. I'm like, how? I'm like fresh and giving all I have. Yeah. And she's like almost a corpse and still right there.

I'm like, what is going on? She's an animal. It's nuts. And I mean, they're both so nice. Like I've never met Kevin before. So anyway, I ended up going for it like three weeks after she told me to go for it. And you got it. And I got it. Nice.

But it was around, I think it was around Leadville or a little bit before. But like her husband showed up to support me. Really? Never met him before. He's just like, hey, Courtney told me you're out here, just coming to say good job and keep it up, and he hung me out for a little bit. Wow.

They're awesome. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. I don't know. When I always think about I need to be a better person, I think of them. 100%. Yeah. That's who I need to be like.

But instead, I'm like myself. And that's not good. I mean, I think it's impossible to become like them. Yeah, probably too late. too far down the road for any of us too many bad habits yeah but yeah um so get we're gonna get the fk t uh yes on the arizona trail and then like then what after the arizona trail yeah yeah i don't know i don't have a plan i've told you that um i'd love to do the appellation or the pct one day really one day yeah but yeah i don't know i talked to some guy who did somebody did all three of them

Because there's a PCT, the AT, and then the one in the middle, like through Montana. Tontanel device. Yeah. And can you do all, you can do all those, right? Yeah, it's called the triple crown. Yeah. I think, I don't want somebody to say I'm speaking out of turn, but I'm pretty sure it's called the triple crown.

That'd be a test. Yeah, I can't do that with a family. No, you'd be gone for like, see you next year. Yeah. I don't even know how long I would take. Well, I don't know of any. Did this person run it? I think hike

I think most people hike all three of them I don't know if anybody's tried running all three of them What about Transcon You ever thought about that? Is that the one across the United States? Yeah It's too much road.

Yeah I hate the road, dude. Right. No, I don't know. I'm in a weird situation where like I love what I do but I need to try new things. Yeah.

Like I'd love to start focusing on high rocks again but I'm also an ultra running coach so I need to keep dabbling and ultra running and doing well at that. Yeah, I just get bored easy. I like trying new stuff, but I get it. So yeah, I don't know.

Like, yeah, we'll have to see how my race does too because who knows, maybe I'm going to retire and just become a race director. Yeah, race takes off. I don't know. Could do that. And you're setting up a 200-mile, right? Yeah, in Utah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, this year I am doing that race in Italy toward a gents. Oh, man. And I'm excited for that. Like, like, yeah. Have you raced out of the country much? No, because I'm bougie. Yeah.

I like, like, you've never done UT&B then. No. No. No, I, like I, you might know who they are. I think they're called like 507 tactical. Yeah. Er. Is it 507?

Or is it, 511. 511. That's what it is. 511. Yeah. I got one of their, like, it's a huge bag. It cost me like 500 bucks. But like, I have everything in there. Like I pack my closet basically. Like I have for the race. For races I do. Like I have 10 different jackets, 10 different shirts. And I'm like, I'm not going to use 25 or 75% of these, but I'm going to have them just in case. Right. And so like I've hated the thought of like trying to like figure out what I actually. need and pack it and ship it over to a different country yeah so yeah that this this is my first one i'm going to have to figure that out get dialed in a little bit yeah and this race is tough it's like the 80 some thousand feet of gain right yeah i've seen 80 to 90 yeah i think it's closer to 80 though yeah for 200 miles and uh yeah what's your goal there can you win i hope yeah what's what what usually wins at what time um from my from what i've studied and i try not to study too much to cycle myself out but

it's like mid 60 hours okay um and how far is it to this 200 okay but i mean it's like double for anybody that's done big foot it's double the amount of climbing of big foot or more in the same distance yeah that slows you down for sure yeah but like like i was saying earlier like i need something new to excite me oh yeah like like the arizona monster was a new race i did well at it yeah um And so I'm hoping that because this is new and different, and I mean, with my training, I'm pretty excited. Like, I'm, I feel the passion again. So I'm hopeful that I can do pretty well at this one. Yeah.

And I'm a good hiker. I'm not a good runner. And this is like a hiking race. 520 mile. You could do even faster fresh. Yeah, maybe. We'll see. You're a good runner.

I wonder, a marathon could be another fun goal. That does not sound fun. that's not that's fun pushing well for me it feels like sprinting for

two and a half hours yeah red lining for two and a half hours yeah yeah I don't know but yeah but I like just doing weird crap man

you know that yeah like I just need to start doing more of that kind of stuff that like my zero calorie 100

like just weird stuff like that but then again you have the people that so like I just the zero calorie thing twice. The first time I did it just to see if I could do it.

And then I had a bunch of, that was like the first time I like a really experienced hate. Oh, yeah, that's, okay, yeah. All these people saying I have eating disorders and I'm promoting an unhealthy lifestyle. Like, it was the weirdest, like, I saw like a news clip on me in Spain. That is, that doesn't make sense. It was the weirdest thing. Yeah. I had a friend of mine who knew Spanish translated and was this dietitian saying I'm going to die of kidney disease.

And I'll settle down. It was crazy. Yeah. Everybody's got an opinion, don't they? Yeah, they do. Yeah. And so, like, I did it again at a 24-hour race. Yeah.

But with blood work. Okay. Just to, like, see what was going on. Yeah. And, like, I ended up getting third place at that race. Wow. No calories. Jeez.

I did, like, 120 miles and 24 hours. That is good. But the blood work, like, nothing was wrong with me. I had elevated cortisol. Yeah. Which, anybody's going to have that after. sure but your kidneys were good everything was fine yeah yeah because people would say like rabdo is what gets a lot of people and it just is that the kidney mark i can't remember what the

marker is but ck levels yeah ck levels yeah so you were fine then everything was fine yeah but anyway like when i did that and this is the thing like trying to make a living with this that you got to watch out for it it sucks but like i had people like i don't know if it was reddit or let's run or something something stupid, saying stuff like, oh, McKnight knows you can't win that kind of a race. So we had to do a stupid zero calorie thing to give him a crutch. Yeah. And so it's like when you want to do weird stuff and fun stuff like that, you're always going to have those people that.

People criticize. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they're doing nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's just, it's, it sucks. But like, you know, what I've told Trued is like, that is how you make money is you have to make people care. So if they're talking shit or they're celebrating, they care, you know. And it's like, and so doing what you do where you do rely on sponsorships, bad can be good too, you know? Because it's like you got that engagement. Because all brands care about is anybody looking at what you're doing.

If nobody's looking at it, they're like, we don't got anything for you. Yeah. But if a lot of people are looking at it, they're like, yeah, we can work something out. But so I think I think it's good too because you're kind of good at a lot of things. I mean like I mean you want to be a hybrid rock star right? Oh my gosh. No, but but just I think you could be really good at that at high rocks. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean if you train specific because you have trained specifically and you did you made the what the world championships right? Yeah. Qualified for worlds. Yeah. So I mean I bet. Because you're strong and you got that endurance, which we talked about, like, high rocks is a lot of cardio. Oh, 100%. Yeah. That's where I made up was my running.

Right. But you're also bigger than most, like, most ultra runners. So you got more muscle. So you can do like, because there's muscle to sled pushing shit. If you weigh 130 pounds, you're not pushing that sled anywhere. That sled push is hard. Yeah. You need a way for that.

I saw they had like four plates on it, don't they? Yeah, I haven't looked at it for a while. But it's like, it's like close to 300 pounds. Mm-hmm. If I remember right. Yeah. So, I mean, you've got to have some muscle to do that. Yeah.

But yeah. Sled push, sled pool. Um, the farmers, the wall balls, dude. Really? Have you done those in a workout? I have, but not in a one. A hundred wall balls. Ooh.

With 20 pounds, a 20-pound wall ball. Is it, is it unbroken? Or how do you do it? Uh, I mean, I mean. You don't, you don't do any other movements in between? No. Just 100 straight. 100 straight.

I mean, you could stop and catch and take a break. You probably get gas, don't you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was on target for under an hour. I got an hour and a minute. And I was on target for that, but my wall balls sucked. Yeah.

Like I had to do a lot more than 100 because I didn't go up high enough or I didn't squat low enough. They weren't counting. They have a counter. But yeah, the wall balls are where I really screwed up. Yeah. Yeah. And when you get fatigued, does it make anything in the other stuff easier? It's the last event, too.

Like you do that and then sprint to the finish line. So you're already gassed. Yeah. It's hard. I mean, people make fun of high rocks. Yeah. The name sucks. Yeah.

Well, Hirox isn't bad. Hybrid rock star. It's not cool. It's not cool. It's very, there's some words to describe that. Yeah. But the event itself is. It's James.

Because we don't want to say, we don't get canceled or saying what it really is. So we'll just say it's James. Very James. Yeah. It's the most James name I've ever heard. But the event is cool. Yeah. No, for sure.

And so can you get sponsors with, I mean, what do your sponsors think about that? Like, because that's a different category, obviously. My main sponsor will support me no matter what I do. Okay. I mean, they supported me through my, my injury. So who's your main sponsor? Let's give them some love. I mean, they're a competitor of one of your sponsors, I think.

Oh, I don't care about that. Redmond Relight. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Yeah, I don't even have any element here. So we'll give Relight some love. Okay, thank you.

Yeah. So if they're your main sponsor, they make me happy. So good job, Relight. Yeah. And like I said, they support me through everything. They support me through my injury. They're supporting me for my race in Europe, even though that was totally different than what my year was supposed to be.

They supported me through the Hirox scene. like anything that I do, they're happy. Sweet. And then who's your other sponsors? In Gingi, I think they would be cool if I did high rocks. They were cool with me biking last year, like through my injury. Squirrel's nut butter would probably be fine. Yeah, those are my main ones.

Yeah. I'm probably forgetting somebody. Yeah. It's good. Well, yeah, I mean, as long as you're getting attention out there and you're qualifying for worlds and your names being mentioned, Yeah. That's all they want. I mean, it wasn't an official sponsor, but Puma sent me a bunch of gear for high rocks.

Oh, really? A couple of shoes and apparel. That'd be a good one to get if you could. Yeah. They have good shoes. Yeah, I don't know. Do they have trail shoes? That's what I wore for our run on Wednesday. Okay. Yeah. So are they carbon? Or?

The ones I had are carbon. Okay. They have some non-carbon. Yeah. Basically the trail ones that I wore or what, at least an older model of what we wore last night at the Hayward Mile. Yeah. Yeah. They're fast.

Hmm. Yeah, well, that'd be good. And so we'll just keep it fresh. And now you got, now you're a bow hunter too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to.

So look at this. Let's talk about this for a sec. Tell me about your experience shooting your new Hoyt. I got a bullseye on my first shot. You did. You shot good, dude. You are good. Definitely.

No, it was great. Yeah. I thought it was going to go terrible. terrible because my son has a bow a toy bow and he can do better with me on that do better than me on that yeah well he's in for a rude awakening now yeah you can shoot his arrows and break him no it's good this is fun like um i've never hunted before i i've shot very little guns in my life too um funny story i actually own a gun um when biden got put in i heard all these things about how we were going to be able to buy guns again.

Yeah. So I went out and bought one, but I haven't, it's still, it's still in the packaging. That's a lot of shot it. A lot of people, like, even when they thought Hillary was going to win, they're like, oh, we're going to, they're going to, whatever. So, like, she was the best gun salesman ever. And, like, I think the stat is like half the people who bought guns have never shot them. I'm one of those.

Yeah. So it's like, it's pretty common. Yeah. You know, people think it's a good idea to have one to protect themselves or whatever. and it is a good idea, but there's another part to it. Learning how to shoot it. Get the reps in. No, yeah.

That's still nice and packaged up. I could probably sell it for some good money. Oh, what was it a 9mm or something? Yeah. Or 3.80. A Cig? Yeah, a Cig. Okay.

Probably 9. Yeah. That's, I mean, they're good. But yeah. Well, now you're shooting. Yeah. Now I know how to shoot a boat to protect myself. There you go.

Be legolus. Yeah. But no, like, I've never been hunting or anything. but I've had a couple people actually message me since sharing stories of being out here where I live that are bow hunters. Yeah, I saw somebody say there's a place to shoot like, I saw a comment. Somebody said a place to shoot like right near you. Oh, I didn't see that.

Oh, yeah, it's like another archery guy. I think you mentioned a shop somewhere. Oh, yeah, I don't even know that. Yeah, so I saw that on maybe on one of the posts. Yeah, I'm going to try to do it more. Yeah, cool. I'd love to get into it. This is a great bow.

What I always say is it's, you know, we're so, we get so obsessed with goals and things like that. But when you're shooting, when you're shooting a bow and you're just focused on, there's so much to remember. Like Wayne told you like a million different things. It's like seriously about a million things. So when you're doing that, that's all you're thinking about. So you're not distracted with the pressure of sponsors or this race or whatever. You're thinking about. So it's like very third.

therapeutic because it's like this is all you're thinking about it so you get a break from from all the other stresses of life and i feel better after i you know get out there watch a few arrows fly and sink in the target and you're just like okay this is this is a good reset well and it forces you to it forces you to calm down yeah because there's a couple times like like where i was like shaking and like i just kind of like blinked and as i started like controlling my breathing i was like i need I like calm down and relax my body. So it is a great way to just like distract yourself but then force yourself to like really calm down.

Yeah, yeah. Because it's hard to shoot if you're shaking. Dude, you did great. You shot really well. Well, thank you. That was very impressive. And I'm just like, I'm so thankful. It feels like I talked to you into stay in another day,

but it feels like we did so much fun stuff and hard stuff and cool stuff. It's like, and then we got to go and meet Forrest Frank up there on Piscay after the track meet yesterday. And I mean, that was amazing. Yeah. You know, those guys were incredible. Yeah, praying on a mountain with them. I mean, speaking of like your abilities as a podcast host, like Dylan, I think it was his name, the one that had cancer for his own.

He was asked him, he was like, so how is it being out here for Cam's podcast? And I told him everything we did. And he's like, dude, that's so awesome. Like, he has a following. He has like almost half a million followers. 400, some thousand. Yeah. And so he is telling me he's been invited to podcasts and he gets out there and he doesn't

see or talk to the host until they're like this. Yeah. Like he just interacts with the assistant or whatever. They do their show and then he's gone. Yeah. They don't do anything. So when I told him everything that you were doing, he's like, holy cow, like, he's a good podcast host. Well, I mean, part of it is because I'm not a good podcast host.

So it's like, like Joe, like Joe, who is the best at podcasting, he could do like what you just described. Just have the guy come and sit down and make it a great conversation. For me, I do better when I know, like have a connection or we've done some things. We shared some suffering or we've talked and we have like a bond a little bit. Then I'm like, because to me it feels like I know when I'm talking to somebody, if I don't know them or really kind of trust them at all, I'm not going to say the same type of stuff. But if I know somebody's like kind of on my side and believes in me, it'll be a better conversation. So I'm just trying when I have guests out here, just I just want them to know I'm not doing a gotcha.

I'm not like, you know, don't want to make you look bad. We're on the same. I want to be positive. And so people like, oh, okay. And then not let your guard down, but just be more open. And that just makes better conversation. I mean, I feel like you're at a level where you don't need to do that. Anybody that's going to come out here has a fairly good idea on what kind of person you are.

In my opinion, at least. Maybe, but I mean, I'm not telling you to stop doing this because this is sweet. I just love doing it also. I mean, I love, you know, I wanted to run with you. You're the best, you know, multi-day ultramarathoner in the world. And it's like what I want to learn from you and get better. And, you know, try to, you know, talking to you the whole time and just trying to pick up tips and things that will help my life. And I like your demeanor too.

So I'm like, I'm trying to get better from my guess. It's like, I always say it's selfish. It's like people think that, oh, I get a bow. I get that. It's like, no, I'm doing this for me. This isn't about you. I'm not that good. But I just love sharing it with people my life.

Well, it's great. It was fun. And I mean, I want you to be honest, how much of you, like, slightly wanted to put me in my place on a couple of these runs? But, okay, this guy thinks he's good at two minutes. I want him to, like, is there a small part where you're just like, let's see if he thinks he can do something like this? No, I don't, I don't want to, I mean, I have had people here that I did want to do that, but not you. Honestly? No, no, no. I want to be offended if you did.

No. Because it's good to be put in your place sometimes. No, I mean, that's if people deserve to be put in their place. You know what I mean? But it makes you better. Yeah, but. Like after last night, I was like, okay, maybe like once a month I should try racing a mile. Yeah, no.

I think this could benefit me. Yeah, I think it would benefit you. But no, I never have a plan on, I mean, I don't want to say never, because there are people here who I know have talked shit. about me and it's been in the past but I never forget and some people to talk shit and so I'm just like I remember what you said and you're going to pay for that so but that's not you. Okay. And no with like with anybody else like with you or Jeff or like any of these like people

who I look up to in the sport, I just want to get some miles in. Okay. That's it. That's it. And, you know, I'm competitive. I don't want to be the guy like everybody's waiting for. So I want to have a good performance out there. But I don't, yeah, I'm not trying to send a message other than on some people.

Well, I didn't mean to send a message. Oh. Yeah. Just like. What I like, okay, I'll be honest. What I like is I just want to know what you're capable of. Like when Rachel came out, you know, she's top of the world right now. I didn't know if she was fast.

So I'm like, we ran on that road like where I think we ran maybe 520s. I can't remember. Tapiska. Going to late where we met him at Lane. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like on that kind of that, remember I said, be careful. Yeah, yeah. So she ran 520s there too.

And I just, I thought that was cool. I'm like, shit, I didn't know you had that speed. So same with you. It's like, I just want, I like doing stuff. stuff to see like I just want to know no more about you is like I didn't know you were that fast okay and so that's cool okay so I like doing I like doing the climbs there's that that I always do that same from Blat and Heights to Piscuit with pretty much all the good runners and then I just wanted so I can learn like what are the good at what are you know and not even like a test but I think

it's just cool to see that you can run that fast and like Rachel could run that fast I talked to Courtney, you know, asked what her fastest mile was. And she said, like, 504 or something. And I was just like, what? Damn. So I just love learning stuff about that. So she could have beat you last night. Or no, what?

I guess. No, yeah, for sure. I think she said 504. And you ended up getting like 506? I don't know. I saw that Mike put up that he got 506 and he beat me. So maybe I got 507. Okay.

I don't know. So she could have three seconds? Yeah, she could have. She's fast. Yeah. I know. She is fast. And then it doesn't make it as surprising when you see how good she did at CIM. You know, that 238 marathon. I thought she was just like this mountain kind of slow grind out eight and a half minute miles. No, she is fast. I mean, I think the lesson that we're, that I'm realizing right now is if you want to win even a 200 mile of race, you got to have some speed. Rachel Courtney. It feels like. I don't know how fast Killing is. Do you? I don't. Because he seems very, just very durable.

Yeah, he's strong. He does a lot of weight lifting. And he's strong. So I think that is for multi-day, that's huge. But if he has speed on top of it, yeah. It's no wonder he's having this success. But I just, so that's why he came out.

I don't think we did. I think it was before I was kind of doing track workouts when he was here or, but we never did any track stuff. Oh, okay. So that was like I kind of missed. I would like, I would like to know that. about him. That's why I like to do this stuff. Just so I know. Tell us, Killian. Yeah. What do you do? How fast can you do in Lyle? Yeah. And we'll show up to the all-comers meet, race against kids.

It's fun. Next year? Yeah. Yeah. Because that's over. Yeah. Let's do it. What did you and Jeff do? What was the track workout you did that Jeff? Oh, I think we just did. We, Truitt was here. Oh, that's right. Yeah, Truitt was doing. What, what? Did we do a race to it through it? Was it the daffodil run? You ended up doing daffodil, but for the track workout, it was just, like, you guys hung with Truitt doing his, I think, 74s. Oh, 400s? Yeah.

Yeah, so we were just doing 400s with Truitt. And you dropped Jeff? I mean, he was right there, basically. He was right there. But it's just different, sprinting to 400. Yeah. Yeah. But we did, me and Jeff ran the same from Blanton Heist to Spincers like you and I did.

And then instead of going over to Pisco, we dropped down to South Eugene track. So it was like a- And then you did the track workout, like right then? Yeah. Yeah. He didn't get a day break. No, it was like kind of a nine-mile run to the track and then we did the track workout. Awesome. Yeah.

But he's good. He's a good, I mean, he's a good runner. Obviously, he, you know, one 30-some 100-mile races. So. He's got some speed, too. Yeah, he does. And some fast shorter stuff. So I like, I just like learning that about people and just seeing what they

can do and yeah it's just fun well i think i guess in the future then if i really want to get pushed i need to start talking crap about you do it so that you can remember that and put me through something yeah i mean it's all it's all love i like i like getting pushed myself too and and just like because like when these olympians come here obviously i can't hang with them but i try i want to see how I like seeing how good people are, you know, because it's like we just want to, we're always wondering like how we stack up to other people or I am. And, you know, the Olympians are, it's amazing what they can do. But what I've learned too is like they are really good at what they do all the time. So you take them off the track and put them in the mountains. It's different. You know what I mean? It's you have to

adapt to that type of challenge also. And if they're just on the track all the time, they're best in the world at that, but it's hard to be good at everything. You know, I was mentioning like from a marathon to a multi-day. It's hard for one person to be good at all those things. Right.

And we talk about like Jim Walmsley, Walmsley. Yeah. Best ever like Western States athlete like Olympic trials qualifier in the half marathon, so much speed. Would he be good at multi-day? or would he fall apart?

I don't know. I don't know either. I mean, because the sleep deprivation, the calories, the just fatigue, there's people who crush hundreds who might not be good in those situations. What I think for him, the hard thing would be could he slow down a little bit? Yeah. Because I don't know, maybe he could prove me wrong and he could go out with his speed for 200 miles and not blow up.

I don't know, but I think he couldn't do that. Yeah. That'd be unlikely. So can he just grind out the slow, long miles? Yeah. Or would he just get bored and hate that? Right. Yeah.

Because he's used to like, he runs like a gazelle. Like I remember that first time him coming through Forest Hill, like, probably the first time he won and he had like this holy shirt on. Oh yeah. And they're like, and it's like, I'm like, people run that fast? I just like hop in. I know. So light and the strides were like as long as this room.

I'm like, okay. I will never be like that. No, me either. That seems like a different species of runner. Yeah. But can he dial it back? Because even if his, I think he's got the FKT or somebody does, but in the rim to rim to rim and the canyon,

it's like six hours or something. I think it's faster than that. Five hours? I mean, I want to say four. What? Not like in the fours, high fours. I want to say high fours. Yeah, so me and Courtney.

Can you Google that? Me and Courtney did that, and I was pretty beat up, and it was like 11 hours. Rim to rim to rim. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's hard. It's so hard. That climb up South Kaibab is so steep.

It was so hot that afternoon because we started early, got to the north side, then came back. Sun is just baking. They got the signs of people puking and going to die. That's how I felt. Yeah, people die there. Yeah, for sure, like 12 a year. But and he did that in half the time. But so that made me wonder, well, what about middle of the night on night two with no sleep?

Oh, yeah. Because we were asking that. Has he ever had to go over 24 hours? Yeah, yeah. I don't remember if he has or not. So I was, I was kind of surprised like Dan Green is very fast and he won Coca-Dona. Yeah, first try. Yeah.

So it's like that seems rare. What did you find? The male FKT of rim to rim to rim is Jim Walmsley at 555. Oh, that's off. And then the women's is Cat Bradley, 752. That's good. Well, so six out. I mean, cat.

7.52? Under eight hours? Yeah. That is crazy. For 50 miles and what is it like? It's like 11,000. Oh, is it 11? Wow.

I think it's like 55 up both. Or wait. No, that makes more sense. sense yeah i think i think it's over 10 for sure jeez yeah it's probably just looking like a gazelle going up yeah cat can run too i mean i think she's been hurt a little bit for a couple years now but she's a good runner yeah i think she won western when she was 23 yeah yeah i think you're right yeah yeah i mean just she has history yeah but uh yeah so it's just it's just fascinating thinking about like the the whole the history of ultra and then like what

what makes a good runner at each of those distances? And like what makes a good multi-day? What makes you the best? Just toughness, it feels like. Toughness or what is it? Toughness and speed now. Yeah, speed. You gotta be fast.

Don't sleep on the dark night speed. Wait, dark midnight? Dark midnight. Dark midnight. Yeah, yeah. Come on. You got, uh, the tough McNuggett.

Yeah. Do you got questions? Yeah, I got a couple. All right. But because it's been so wholesome, I had to come up with new terms for the usual first question. Yeah, there we go. So kiss, Mary, unalive. Hug.

Hug. Hug. Hug. Go steady. Yeah. You understand the rules of the game? Yeah. Okay.

Go ahead. Kiss, Mary. What's the other one? Uh, unalive. Oh, kill. Yeah, we don't, we can't say kill. Uh, Tahoe, Kokodona and Bigfoot. Kiss, Mary, or unalive?

Yeah. So, so, so you're never doing one again. Yeah. You're going to do one forever because you're married. Oh, okay. Or you're going to get a little peck, just one time. Which ones? Tahoe, Kokodona, and Bigfoot.

Ooh. Do I go first? You're the only one going. Um, unaligned. Gosh, I like them all. Why didn't you like throw in something else? A one-mile track workout. Yeah.

Or Frank's 20-mile 10-time loop 200 or something like that. Yeah, right, right. Unalive would probably be Bigfoot. Yeah. So that never again there. But which one are you doing every year? Which one are you marrying? Coca-Donough.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm giving Tahoe a little kiss. Yeah, that makes sense. Cocodona's tough to pass up these days. But if I'm a bad person, even though I'm married to Cocodona, I'm going to kiss Tahoe every year still. Yeah.

I mean, it's not really cheating. No. Because, yeah, it's not cheating. I mean, if we're going to put Coca-Dona as a person, it's Jamil. Yeah. And I don't think Jamil is going to be mad at me for being slightly unfaful to him. I don't think so. He seems pretty understanding.

Yeah, he does. I love, I love, I love all the race directors because it's such a hard, freaking job. Oh, yeah. I mean. Well, Steve, we got to give Steve Adderhill a shout out to. Yeah, everybody talks about Jamil, but yeah, Steve is amazing. Yeah. I think he's a race director, is he?

Or is Jamil. He's the race director. What is Jamil? The founder? Yeah. Yeah. CEO, I don't know. I think Steve used to have history.

at Ragnar. He used to be like the, basically the head of Trail Ragnar. So he has quite a bit of experience with this. Man, they've done, you know, the live stream there is like, people love that stuff. That's one reason I don't want to do the race. Because like, everybody's telling me, like, oh, I can't turn it off. And I'm like, I love this sport, but you just sit and watch this for five days? That sounds boring. So are you going to try to have a live stream of yours? Because isn't that expensive? I'm sure it is. I don't think I can. Because it's, I mean, it's in the mountains. Like, there's no service.

Yeah, but with that, they got, yeah, the Starlink. Maybe in four years when it's profitable. Yeah. I don't think I could do that the first couple of years. Gotcha. Yeah, I get it. It's like, people are so used to it now. Yeah.

Because now they'll be like, where's the live tracking or whatever. Yeah. Freaking Jamil. Well, no, I guess the live tracking is different than the live stream. Yeah. So you'll do the live tracking. Yeah. You'll have the GPS.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll do that. But I don't think I can. can live stream it yeah no it's expensive i heard yeah what else you got uh i have to change this question too now that i have upgraded but is a hundred k a real ultra oh yeah so the back do you know the backstory no he he he's like always self-depreciating which he should be because he's a piece of shit but um he because he did a 50k he said that that can't count as an ultra because he did it

and he's not a good runner. He said it's like a marathon with a wrong turn. So because he did a 50K, that shouldn't be an ultra, but now he did 100K. So now in his self-depreciating manner, he's saying because he did it 100K, that's not a real ultra. And so you're asking me that.

Yeah. If you agree. No, I don't agree. I can't say that. You can. I say the only thing that should count as an ultra, is 200 plus miles. Everything else is a fun run.

So Jim isn't even an ultra runner. No, no. No? I'm trying to think of like a witty thing to say about... What about like a 50K and I have a new argument? So with every distance you have it almost, I mean pretty much doubles. So like 5K is a lot of people's first little race. And then it goes to a 10K.

and then a 10k after that you have a half marathon and then obviously double half marathon you have a full marathon you can't just add five miles and count a 50k as like the next big step it's got to at least be 50 because we've been doubling yeah and then if you're at 50 you might as well just add 12 to that

and if I can do it then it surely doesn't count well by that math a 50 miler's not even an ultra it'd have to be 52 miles if you're doubling a marathon 52.4 there you go I heard it here first I'm trying to think of something witty I could say about you though

to We can cut out the dead space Take your time No it's okay I don't have anything Yes 100K is an ultra Okay that's your answer Ask a better question

Yeah idiot There's the witty thing Don't ask me dumb questions You're wasting my time See what I'm talking about Makes me sick What else you got? I got one more

I'm sure you've talked a lot about this on other podcasts, but just surprised you haven't really touched on it here. But as far as like when you broke your back and you were told you were never going to walk again and here you are running 200 mile races, how often does that still come into your mind when you're out there and you're hurting and you want to quit? And do you think about I shouldn't even be walking, let alone running these 200 mile races? Yeah, every race, every race I think about that. because like it when you when you get put in a spot where you're where you think you're stuck in a wheelchair or stuck in a bed for the rest of your life especially at age 22 which is what I was like that puts a lot of things into perspective because like up to that point in my life I was as lazy as they come and so yeah every time I want to quit and I mean even more so after last year

with my herniated disc, I kind of got to relive it because honestly, herniating my disc was worse than breaking my back. Like, I couldn't even walk, dude. Like, I would stand up straight and just the pain, like, from

the nerve, I need to show you the MRIs, but like, you know, you have this thing of nerves, and my disc was pressing into them so much that the MRI, you could barely even see my nerves. Wow. And so just the, the, standing up straight just killed my leg so much that like I would go sit at it like we put my kids in a run club every summer where they like run it's a third of a mile track for 30 minutes and they just accumulate miles throughout the summer and get prizes and like usually I'd go there with them and run with them and I couldn't do that last year like I'd go to the park and I just have to like sit hunched over on a bench and watch them do it I couldn't even walk that that is depressing.

depressing. I was so depressed. Yeah. Like my wife had to help get me out like I'd snuggle with my kids before they'd go to bed. And then there's some nights my wife had to come help me out of bed because I couldn't sit myself up. Yeah. And so like that's honestly why my fires come back because I got to relive breaking my back in a way. But yeah, every time like at the Arizona monster, there was a couple of times I wanted to quit. And I was like, no, like I much rather would be here than sitting on a bent. watching my kids run miles because I can't do dittily squat. Right. So I think about a lot. Yeah. I mean, peaks and valleys. We're not always at the peak. So the valleys we can learn from too.

And then kind of look back and appreciate the peaks. Yeah. You know, where if you're always up top, how would you appreciate being down? Exactly. Yeah. But it's, yeah, I was, you kind of mentioned it earlier. I was just thinking about this. How much do you listen to like the, I.

I know when people mention me on a podcast, I'm just like, wait, what did you just say? You were talking about me? But how do you listen to other podcasts, like talking about like predictions for races and like puts, does that put a chip on your shoulder sometimes? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you, I really think I could have done a lot better at coca dona.

I mean, obviously if I had fresher legs. But I, I mean, you calling me at coca dona. Dona helped a lot. But there was that thing in the back of my head. I was like, these guys think I can't get in the top 10. Like, I'm going to prove them wrong.

Right. And so it's the same thing. Like, I did that zero calorie 100 again, but with 24 hours, I'm like, they don't think I can do this again. They think I'm unhealthy. I'm going to do it again.

I guess I'll podium too and like really rub it in their face. Like, yeah, I, that is one thing about my personality is if you say something about me, like I'm going to really try my hardest. to prove you wrong. Yeah, yeah. That fires me up. That's what I was, me too. I mean, it's like, and people, I know that sometimes you, like I mentioned people on here too. And it's not like,

I'm just want to rake them over the coals, but to them that hear their name, they know every word associated with whatever I said, right? Oh, yeah. It's like, and I'm the same way too. If I listen, like, because I had this scandal come up recently. And so I was listening to these podcasts and I'm just be like, okay, I thought we were cool, but guess not. Watch out. Yeah, so it's, I just didn't know how much you, how much attention you put into that, but. No, I seek it. Yeah.

And I think it's Goggins, right, that like records. Yeah. People talking shit. Yeah. And then he plays it. I don't do that, but I write, I write stuff on a whiteboard in my room. Oh, nice. So it's the first thing I see when I wake up.

Like, what's one example of what you wrote up there? Well, the funny thing is this person was actually right. Okay. But like, you know, I had the Arizona monster, Coca-Dona and the Triple Crown. Yeah. And somebody commented on a post that said, like, this is a hefty goal that you have. I predict you're only going to finish two of those. And then I finished Arizona and Coca-Dona and then got pulled from Tahoe.

Yeah. And then I ended up deferring. the other two to another year. So they were right. But three of those, there's like an asterisk. Yeah. Got hurt. I'm coming back. Yeah. And you're coming back. So it's not like you tried and DNFed. Right. So yeah, they weren't 100% right. They made me quit. Yeah. Yeah. They put that in the, in the zeitgeist. Yeah. I think that's what it's called. But yeah, I had that written on my whiteboard. Yeah. And now it's still there. So I got to see that every morning. be like, yeah, I mean, I've left it up there.

So I can, like, they were right. Yeah. But I'm going to go do better at Tor. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, fair play to them, I guess. Was it like a podcast host or just a person? Just a, I have a, that's what it says.

It says, I predict you're only finishing two. And then it says random Instagram user. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just a random person. Yeah. Because I listen to the podcast who they're,

they're supposed to be like fair and objective and then when they're not then it's a little different when somebody just normal person is just talking shit i'm just like whatever i can but when somebody who like knows a sport and it's like i remember that we're a little opposite it's the random nobody that fires me up oh okay like if somebody like i'll just say his name like finn at the single shrap podcast he's the one of the ones that said i'm not getting in the top 10 and like when he said that I was like, he's got a good reason. Yeah. But I do want to prove him wrong.

Yeah. Like, so it's like, I acknowledge his reasoning and I still want to prove him wrong. But as some random dude says that about me, I'm like, you suck. I'm not going to let you be right about that. Yeah. Finn was one. He's got one of my favorite podcast, but he was, did have like, I think he's getting pushed back because they were sort of said that like I've been influential in the space or whatever.

and then people are saying like, oh, doper, like all that. And so then he had to walk that back and be like, you know, he's like, there's no place in ultra for doping. And like, I'm like, yeah, I'm like, come on, obviously. But can we look? I mean, come on. Can we fucking look at this a little bit and just like, so anyway, I just remember he said that like, because he's kind of like addressing the crowd.

Yeah. that we're talking shit. And I'm just like, I don't know. I wish you would have been a little more objective about it, but whatever. I put myself out there. Yeah. It's my fault. Can I say something about that?

Sure. You're a freaking cheater. Exactly. Just kidding. Okay. No. That's a wrap. That's the only quote from this podcast I want out there.

Yeah, no. I mean, yeah, you can say whatever you want. I'm good. I said it. Yeah, perfect. Love it. No, I, because you're honest, I want to be honest. I've taken BPC 157.

And if I get canceled for that, I don't care. People like coach have taken it because I recommended it. Like I think, and to give some context, like, and the people who want to cancel us for this, like they don't care about the context. Right. But for those who do care about the context, I heard about it because I lift weights. And last year with my herniated disc, a lot of my gym friends said, you should try this. Like I had a bad shoulder for years.

I took this and my shoulder's fine. And I kept pushing it off because not because it was on Wada's list. I didn't even know what was on Wada's list. And that's another element to the story. I do 200-mile races and I know people are going to say because I'm a coach, I should know Wada's list. Yeah. But because that's not a thing in 200s, I don't study that list. Right.

So, but it's not approved by the FDA. There's not a lot on it. So I was like, I don't want to touch this stuff. And so I kept putting it off. I kept putting it off. And then I got set for surgery on my back. And that was a wake-up call. I was like, I've had back surgery.

I was a very unique experience where my surgery didn't put. put me out forever, like quite the opposite. I ran a 10K five weeks after I broke my back. Wow. But I know that's not always going to be the case. Yeah. And so I'm desperate. I don't want to get surgery.

And so I talked to my gym friend. I was like, tell me about this BPC 157 stuff. He connected me with a nurse, a registered nurse. She came to my house. She taught me about it. She mixed it up for me, told me how much to take a day and I should stop taking it in eight weeks. So I ended up taking two injections a day for eight weeks, and I was able to cancel my surgery.

That's amazing. Like, that stuff did wonders for me. It should be celebrated. Yeah. Because a surgery gone wrong, maybe you'd never run again. Right. And is that what people want? There might be some people that want that.

Yeah. Because that's the clean way to do it. I just don't get it. And it's, you know, and they talk about this FDA thing. Like, do you know how much poison is FDA approved? Oh, yeah. I mean, so what does that mean? But it does make you kind of scared.

Like, at least it made me scared. Yeah, I mean, you want it, right. You want there to be like a bunch of human trials and like, oh, it's safe and effect. But they said the COVID vaccine was safe and effective. So does it matter what they say? I don't know. I mean, I don't trust the FDA in a lot of stuff. But for that, I did.

Yeah. Because I understand. But like, I didn't even, like, the only reason I found out it was like, this is all before your scandal. Yeah. God. But the only reason I found out was on WADA is I started having people messaging me on Instagram. Because like I canceled my surgery and then I announced I'm doing the monster, Coca-Dona and the Triple Crown.

Yeah. So I had person after person messaged me saying, hey, like I thought you were getting surgery. What changed? I have back problems. Like what did you do? Yeah. And there's two things that I said. Like there's this book that I read that essentially told me that all of my back problems

are emotional. Okay. That disc pressure on your nerves was emotional? That it lasted so long. Oh, I see. Gotcha. It's a doctor that was like a disc injury should only last a certain amount of time. But if it lasts more than that, it's most likely emotional.

Oh, I didn't know that. That's, yeah. I heard that. So anyway, so I was like, I read this book and I took this peptide called BPC 157. And then they're like, oh, cool, thanks. And so I recommended that to like 10 people. And then one person was like, BPC 157. And you know, that's on Wada's list, right?

I was like, oh, no, I didn't know that. I'm sorry. And then I pulled up Wattah's list, and that's when I started studying it. And, I mean, I'll admit another thing I dope on. I have a medical marijuana card because I have insomnia and T.C helps me sleep at night. Yeah. And so I learned, like, oh, I'm also doing this every night.

And I'm going to get in trouble for that. So, like, and I want to be objective. Like, I get the crowd that's saying you need to, follow the rules. But I also get the crowd like me and you where it's like, if I can avoid surgery, yeah, then I'm going to do something that's legal with the world. Yeah, it is. It's 100% legal for, it's just like if you're going to the Olympics, you can't.

Or if you prize money, I guess, or whatever. Or if Coca-Donough is going to test you, okay, I'm not going to do it. That's the rules. Okay, fine. Yeah. But I wasn't signed up for. Coca-a-Donah, I was just trying to get my back better. Exactly. Yeah, it's a, and, you know, cutting on you should be the last resort, you know, is that surgery. I know doctors love to do it

because they make money. Right. You know, they don't make money if you're not getting surgery. Right. So they love to do what they do. And so they're going to recommend surgery. But, I mean, I did this from my foot where I was trying to avoid surgery. Like, I had surgery in my thumb from Cocodona from falling after I hit my head. And it's still like that joint, you see how much bigger that is right here? That's pretty nasty. But it was the same surgery I was going to get on my foot

where a piece of bone broke off and the tendon was going to have to be, this was a ligament, but have to be stretched back. It might work and might not. But if my thumb is like that swollen, what would my foot have been like? And that's going to affect my cadence,

my running. Your gate. That's not, to me, it wasn't worth the risk. And I'm like, no, I'm going to try anything I can to avoid surgery. And look, I'm running better than I ever have right now. So it should be like, oh, that's okay. Good job. Amazing.

That's awesome. But instead it's like, no, you're a cheater. It's like, what? Well, and in your case, too, your doctor recommended it. Yeah, it's all through a doctor, yeah. And who in their right mind, when they're trying to avoid surgery and a doctor recommends something, is going to be like, well, hold up, let me pull up Wada's list and make. sure that that's not on Wada's list.

No, because even Connor McGregor, he talked about this, too, because they were trying to get him, because he got out of, and the fighters can get out of the USADA testing pool. And then when they come back, they just have to test clean for six months. And so he got out because he snapped his leg. And he was doing, he said he didn't even know what they put in his leg or did to him. He didn't care.

He was, I just want to build a, I want to be healthy. Yeah. Do whatever it takes. Yeah. I don't care what. He says, he said, I don't even know what they did. So, but he's healthy now and he's fighting again. And he's like, that's all I cared about is that I can, you know, I put my, my life and my body on the line for this.

And I want to be able to play with my kids. So, you know, when I'm retired, so why wouldn't I do whatever it takes to be healthy? And that's all we did. We're just trying to avoid surgery. We want to do what we love. We're not going to the Olympics. We're not taking prize money from anybody. And it's not part of the rules that we, of the races we signed up for.

So what are we talking about? about. Exactly. And it's a if they, and you just said it too, and I've said it before too, if they were part of the rules, then I'd, I'd follow those rules. Right. I mean, I've followed rules my whole life. So it's like, that's no problem. I just need to know what they are. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I, you know, I don't know. I know there's no way to monitor this, but like, and maybe you disagree with me, but if somebody's like getting BPC 157 or something like that and they're just like shooting it up every night because it's like, oh, I just want to recover. Yeah.

They're not injured or whatever. Right. Okay. That might be some cheat. I don't think that it's, I mean, we've had people say it's a powerful PED. It's not a performance enhancer. It's like injury recovery. It's like.

I do understand Sage, though, that recovery is a part of performance. Right. Yeah. And if that is helping you recover faster and you're not like facing some kind of injury, then okay that might be like a form of cheating i think they're trying to say like you could have a super hard training day one day take something and then train just as hard the next day and not be fatigued you can't do that with bpc 157 right and so that's what i'm saying it's different than that that's why that to me i look that's performance enhancing where and joe explained this to me too

where it's just basically helping repair tendons and ligaments right it's not so much like the the actual muscle muscular right and speed and things like that so it's it's a little different i mean there's a lot different but there's a difference and that's what i say can we look at this stuff with nuance because even like ufc used to go through usada but they wanted their fighters to be able to take bpc you said no it's banned so ufc went they're like doing their own thing oh and they're just like yeah there's like no we think this is a good you know know this peptide is good and we want to be available so that's what they need to do yeah and hopefully that happens more so wada will take it off yeah i mean eventually it's usually like a money-making thing

that they want to be able to control it and things like that so i don't really know i don't really know how those lists work i mean i try i don't either i tried to go look after all this came up i tried to go look and and i still couldn't even i wasn't i don't have time to go through it's like it's a big list It's not my job either. It's like I'm a bow hunter, right? I'm a shitty runner half a shitty racer and a bowhunter. I don't need to study this list. Well, and I asked you this too.

Like, do mushrooms is a psychedelic. Does that like make your body feel good? I've never done mushrooms. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what like microdosing. I don't know. I've just heard like microdose. I'm not sure.

Because I asked that because like when I found out THC was on the list. I was like, well, wait a minute, like, because I started going to cure, I started going to start going to this rabbit hole because of your stupid scandal. I know, sorry. It's okay. But I was like, well, wait a minute. Like, Michael Versteig, everybody loves him. Yeah. And he openly talks about how he was on mushrooms the year he won Coca-Dona.

Yeah. So I'm like, well, wait a minute. Like, why aren't people mad at him? And then I find out mushrooms aren't on the loose. So I'm like, why is THE on it, but mushrooms aren't on it? Yeah. Like. It's weird.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I just think that like I get the intent. And I'm supportive. And I've said this before too. And I'm like friends with Emma Coburn. And I know she's raised against people that have been found, you know, that they were doping later down the road after big world championships or Olympics. And it's like 12 years later.

And then a runner might get a medal. They should have got that day because other people ahead of them were doping. I don't want that. That would be. That's terrible. That is. I want. whatever we need to do to avoid that to where people can compete fairly,

do things the right way, and everybody's awarded the place they deserve, right? And they earned. That's what I want. These multi-day 200s aren't that. It's just like there's people out there doing, I mean, there's so much pain. Who knows what they're taking to try to get past through the pain?

I ran by runners that were smoking THC on the race. It's a different world out there. to try to apply Usada type testing to like random races like this it just doesn't make sense. No. And they're going to miss

like we talked about this too like BPCs out of your system so fast. Oh yeah. Like they're going to miss a lot of stuff with how fast stuff can be out of your body. Yeah. It's a but I mean my thing is like we're not like they made it sound like it was some big

scandal and like some big cheating like what it's like no i don't i barely know anything about this shit it's like yeah i went to waste well i got to my foot i didn't want to get surgery that in 2024 and that's as much as i know it's just like i just want to run and again a doctor recommended it to you yeah yeah it wasn't it wasn't the back alley like hey frank i got got your stuff you know so whatever i mean i mean it feels to me in some ways it feels it feels better just to be honest instead I never want to feel like I'm like hiding something so that's why when he commented on my thing I'm like I don't care I'm gonna say I got nothing to hide well and that

should show that you're not trying to dope secretly like I got nothing to hide yeah like I've said what I've the whole time the whole this whole time I've been doing this for years and like go to waste well get stem cell do these different things get IVs I've always said what I got and like 100% I'm not trying to trick anybody so I don't know I feel better just being honest and yeah that's what I say if you saw it wants to send a message and do something to me fine do it so I think it's respectful yeah and that's why I wanted to say something well I was hoping the opportunity would come up to say something and I forgot about it but then you yeah yeah said that and reminded me but yeah like being honest like that's respectful yeah and I think that's how that's the best way through this otherwise

people just kind of, they pretend like things are not let, they pretend like reality isn't real. Like we're saying what reality is, what we did and why we did it. We didn't want surgery. But so many people would say, like you asked them, hey, have you ever taken anything? Without even knowing what's on the band list, they'd say no. Yep. No, I would never do that. Yeah.

I found three things on that list that I was taking that. So are we worse than the people, like I said, like all that I said was, why? would anybody after this why would anybody tell the truth oh no because i just get right through the cold exactly but everybody has a point where they're going to go to that yeah everybody has a point like there's a guy i know yeah that lives by me and when he found out i took that like he said this he's like oh that's you can't take that stuff but he's had knee issues forever he had like it's his meniscus and a few months after like he finally came to me as like okay how do i get a hold of this stuff like you get desperate.

Like I want my knee to get better. Right. When you just want to live. Yeah. That's what I was saying. I just, I love running the trails. Yeah.

I will do anything to protect that. Yeah. To allow me to do that to my dying day, I don't, I don't care what list it's on. Yeah. This is my life. And I know you just said you're addicted to the start line.

Yeah. But I'm sure if you were given a one or the, like I'm sure if it came down to it. I would give up all the racing. Just so you can. keep running. Yeah, that's what I say. It's like even if you saw to ban me, I would, I'm going to run every day. I don't even care. Yeah, I love racing, but I don't need racing like I need just to be active to be in the mountains and to feel, you know, I feel the sun on my face, the rain on my shoulders,

the wind, and just experience just what it means to be, you know, just a human alive in the mounds pushing themselves. I would do anything to continue that. The racing, what? It's just kind of fun. Yeah. But I need to run. Same here. I need to be out. Yeah.

And so, yeah, we're just going to do whatever it takes to make sure we were able to do that. But, yeah. And I mean, most of my, like, my livelihood, like, relies on this. But, like, I'm the same thing as you, man. Like, like, if I have to go back to a nine to five. Mm-hmm. Because saying what I just said means people don't want me to coach them anymore. Yeah.

Then I guess I'm going back to nine to five because I'd rather just be running every day too and staying healthy. I would rather have a coach just honest and not, you know, and just even, because it's like, it's really easy to be honest when there's nothing at stake. Right. You know? But when people can turn it into whatever and you're still honest, I respect that. And I think most people do. Yeah.

They're like, you know, I mean, most people are pretty pretty. fair and objective and look at this the right way and be like yep that makes sense i'm on board with that i think most people i coach are like that and i want to beat a dead horse but one of the people that recommended bpc to me was somebody i coach yeah um he had a chronic achilles issue for years and he started taking that and it went away well i mean and so we're how are you going to say that he shouldn't do that right i mean come on well at the time i didn't know it was on wada's list but Even now, I'm not going to say that. No.

Like, hey, I'll probably encourage it. Like, hey, this other person I coach it fixed his Achilles issue, it might help you. Yeah, try it. Yeah, I usually just say, all I ever say is I just get your blood panels done, talk to your doctor, see what they, you know, just go through a doc, go through somebody, you know, just. And if they recommend it, because who am, I'm just a guy, but I know what worked for me, you know, and I know that I didn't get surgery. And I can say that, but I would still say, still talk to a provider. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Because you can get this stuff off a website for cheap. Yeah, I know. You don't know what it is really. Yeah. I paid probably three or four times the amount just to get it through a company with a registered nurse. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, it worked. Yeah. You're out running. No surgery. Five minute miles. And I've even had, sorry, last thing I'll say. Like my docked, so I saw the, the, the, PA of my surgeon a couple weeks ago.

Our kids play baseball together. And so he's falling up with me. He's like, did you get the surgery? How are things? I'm like, no, I didn't get the surgery. Everything's fine. He's like, seriously? Like, I had a 19 by 11 bulging disc or herniated disc, which is huge.

He's like the nerve, like he had nerve damage. Like, you did nothing? I was like, oh, no, I took this stuff. And he was like, oh, I've heard great things about that stuff. Like, that's amazing with where you were at that you didn't. it gets surgery and two months later ran 300 mile race won it and like it's amazing fine that see to me that should be celebrated that should be like hey look at look how effective this can be and look what can happen and what i found out is like the the regular like family practice doctors

they're pretty old school they don't like like even if i say stem cell they'll be like doesn't do anything and i'm like what do you just want to write a prescription for something or schedule surgery Whereas like the wellness clinics, like Ways to Well or these other clinics, they're more about we want to help you feel better. We're not trying to make money off of cutting you. We want, let's do your blood panels. Let's see how we can make you more healthy or you have an injury. Let's see if this peptide might help.

So they're more like the cure instead of the symptom. You know, they just address the symptoms and they take these pills, do whatever like the family practice doctor. So it's like you can talk to your regular MD and not get and maybe, get that shot down. Right. Try and non-invasive measures for healing because they're just used to what they know. Yep.

So it's like, that's all I would say is like I would talk to like your doctor, but then also talk to maybe like a wellness clinic and just make sure you understand the full scope. Well, then like in my case, like I didn't cancel my surgery. Like I said it. I had it for like it was two months out. I'm grateful it was two months out and not like the next week. Oh, man.

But like I had it set. had it scheduled. I was planning on it. I was like, in the meantime, I'm going to try this. And then legit five days before the surgery, I called and canceled. So I had the plan. Yeah. Like I still was going that route. Right. But yeah, I tried something else too. And like, so would people rather have you have surgery just so you would stick to the USADA, whatever? It's just like, and then like my brother's had multiple surgeries on his back. He still has to battle it all the time. Taylor? Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, like, would you prefer that?

Somebody just, or you're healthy now. I mean, come on, guys. Right now, I'm sure they'd prefer that. Yeah. But I hope more conversations like this makes it so they at least consider that there might be a gray area

for this kind of stuff. Wow. Yeah, some people probably will never get there. Yeah. I mean, I think most people, most reasonable people will understand that. Yeah. But, well, dude, Mike, thank you so much.

It's been a huge honor having you here sharing my life with you for the last few days. Thank you for I tricked you into coming out here just so I could learn from you and I appreciate you. Yeah. Nice to have me out here. It was a blast. All right. Keep hammering guys.