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Finn Melanson and Brett Hornig recap the 2023 Western States 100 - the live coverage, major takeaways, top athlete performances, the possible futures of the event, and listener takes.
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Welcome back, or welcome to the Singletrack podcast. I'm your host, finn Milansen, and in this episode I'm joined by Brad Hornig to recap the 2023 Western States 100. We talk about the live coverage, major takeaways, top athlete performances, the possible futures of the event, and we respond to some listener takes. Before we get started, though, this episode is brought to you by Rabbit, Features, morton and Hoka. Use code SINGLETRACK20 on the Rabbit website, as well as the Features website, for 20% off your next purchases of trail running apparel and performance socks. Also, check out the Hoka and Morton websites for new product releases. All details for all four sponsors can be found in the show notes of this episode. With that, let's get started. We're back in studio. This is Finn Milansen. I'm joined by colleague Brad Hornig to recap both the race and our experience at the Western States 100. And, brad, i think this episode's gonna be a pretty free forum. I have listed down here that we're gonna kinda go back and forth on some interesting questions. We've created some fun facts, general opinions about the experience, and I think we can do a post mortem on our single track coverage. But the first question I wanna ask you and I only thought of this in the last three or four days preparing for this episode? at what point will Western States become more entertaining to consume, virtually like via the live stream, than in person? Are we there yet? Will we get there, or will it always be the case that you know being there in the thick of things is better from a fan consumption standpoint? What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:You know, that's kind of been the case with a lot of trail races Where you go there thinking it's going to be this incredible thing and then it's like especially a point to point race, like you can't watch beyond 50 miles, like we experienced that. Like beyond Michigan Bluff you can't watch M1 and F10 come through, like you can only do that through about halfway at Western States. And then, because by the time we got we watched F10 come through Michigan. We went to Forest Hill and you know F789 were coming through, like we had missed all of M1 through M10, all the top ladies, and then like we would have had no chance of getting down to the river. Like maybe we would have made it to Pointed Rocks But then at that point if you see like Tom come through Pointed Rocks, we have to leave and go to the finish. So like it's fun to spectate if you're watching one particular person, if you're watching the entire race. I mean the live stream this year is fantastic in terms of coverage from every single point on the course, the one spot that I was actually just noticing because I was looking at some notes that I know they'll be able to do this you know better because they were already getting some split screen action going. But Tom Evans crossed over Roby Point right when Courtney DeWalter blew through Pointed Rocks And that got missed on the live stream Allegedly. She ran straight through it and like didn't stop, which would have means she would have gone from from the Corey Road, 8th Station, mile 90, to the finish and just a straight 10-mile push. And I don't know if anyone at the front of a race, i don't know if anyone at the front of Western States, has ever done that before. I've never heard of that happen, where you just do the last 12 or 11, just straight up, like just crushed through. I would have loved to see that on like a split screen on the side, but you know, it's one of those things where it's like that the live stream clearly was not prepared for Courtney to be running that fast. Like the chances of that happening were probably like oh, we did not account for this, but like because of this year, now there's gonna be like way more split screen action that they'll be able to dial into. And I forget who it was. We were all at the finish And we were saying one of the coolest things to do would have a giant like jumbotron up on like the field that does the award ceremony And you like watch the live stream like a movie in the park or drive in theater kind of style with all the crews and fans, and you just hang out in Auburn and watch the live stream and then like pop on over, like just walk right across the field of the track when your runner comes in.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that.
Speaker 2:That would be super cool to have like a big, like a viewing area for the race, Because it's a really hard race to spectate, It's really cool to do it. But we're also kind of getting to the point, and this is just another. One of the unique things with Western States is that you can only fit so many people, you can only fit so many cars on the course, And that's been, that's always been, a problem. It was a massive problem this year at Robinson Flat with Duncan Canyon and Dusty Corners aid stations not being crewable. So there was like three times as many cars getting to Robinson and I heard people in the middle back of the pack crews were spending upwards of like five hours getting to Robinson Flat And like that's just, like that's not acceptable from a runner standpoint. Like the runner comes first. In-person fans, to me, in my opinion, comes second, Even like media people come second. Like it's all about the runner experience first And like if it's crowded to a point where the crews can't comfortably get to the aid station to crew their runners, then some sort of crowd control needs to happen. And if you know, perhaps the incentive is like, instead of watching it, Robinson Flat, go watch it. Watch the Robinson Flat aid station from Placer High in the morning at the big watch party and then drive up to Forest Hill. I think that's a fair compromise.
Speaker 1:To your point and this is absolutely, wildly impractical in the current moment, but maybe at some point in the future at every single aid station there can be some massive projector screen where at the live stream is simultaneously playing. because you know, we were at broken era the weekend before and one of the cool things that was being utilized in the main foyer was the live stream. It was up on that big screen and I mean there was probably a hundred to 150 people there on the ground watching it at any given time and it was awesome And it was a great way to be in touch with the primary experience but also see what was happening on other parts of the course that you just couldn't be there physically for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe there's a scenario where there's one at Forest Hill and then another at the finish. You have like multiple watch parties. Like I think there's room for that, especially with like I mean, the quality of the live stream is. I mean I think it was much better this year than last year. And you know, last year we were like, oh, that was pretty good. And like you know, it's cool that like one year later it was already, you know, i would say, significantly better. And yeah, i mean I like the trajectory, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:But yeah, definitely, at least from my perspective. I'm sure you probably could have done this recording. you know, on the track Saturday night, sunday morning, i felt, just having been out there for 24 hours, that I was very much in touch with individual runners and I saw some really cool things on the ground that maybe the live stream couldn't capture, and it was great to be there at the finish and at Michigan Bluff and stuff. But this was the first year in however many years I've been following the race that I felt incredibly out of touch with the entire pace of the race and where moves were made and stuff like that. And this had to be delayed because I felt compelled over Monday, tuesday, wednesday, parts of Thursday, to watch the first 17 to 18 hours of the live stream, to feel caught up and prepared to do this episode. So I think I'm of the mindset that we're already there, that if you really want to be in touch with the race, the best way to do it is like don't come to Auburn, california, don't come to like, just sit in the comfort of your own home. I feel the same way about watching basketball or football, like I would much rather watch a game on ESPN in my home theater than go to the game. At least if I really want to like follow the pace of the game like of course you can't beat the atmosphere and like rooting side by side with fans. but it's already way better at home And I think we're probably it's wild to think that this technology thing is like. we've been doing live streams for not that many years and it's already arguably better than being there in person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i mean it's kind of like. It's like the argument of like watching a tour de France stage in person versus at home, at home. You, you at home, you get to watch the whole stage. When you're there in person, you get the electricity of everyone going by, but in like six minutes the entire thing is passed And then like oh, it's gone, and like you don't have time to drive to the finish. Or like maybe you go to the finish but you don't get to see any of the other stuff, at least even with the tour. Like you're in a spot where you have phone service and you could like maybe pop on, like you know the actual coverage on your phone, but like you can't watch the live stream and follow the race in person at Western states. Like you cannot do that. Like we even we had the live stream on in our car driving from Palisades. We were on our way to Michigan bluff and we got about 20 solid minutes of uninterrupted live stream before we ran out of service, even just going over Donner Pass. Like we were on I 80. Like we were on a big freeway, like we weren't even close to the remote sections of the course and we already couldn't watch the live stream And then, as soon as we passed through Auburn and hopped on Forest Hill Road, no service. So then all of a sudden, we're dark. We have no idea what's happening until and for most of these people do you have no idea what's happening until you get to Robinson flat and then you have no service there, and then you just see people pop out of the woods and then you just have to paint the picture. But then you, yeah, then you drive to Michigan bluff And again you have no service. You have no idea how anyone's doing, whereas everyone at home who's been watching the live stream, they know so much more than you about the entire race.
Speaker 1:Well, one more thought, at least for me, on this point, because I think we probably got to talk about Courtney DeWalter here in a second. But again, i know this is wildly impractical and it's still early days, but I do think at some point we need to create separate live streams for the men's race and the women's race, because there's just so much going on simultaneously in both races that I think that they deserve their own feeds. And you pointed it out with the example of Courtney rushing through pointed rocks at the exact same time that Tom Evans is crossing the finish line. And those are two critical, fascinating moments in both races, and I think it's a ways off And there's so much administrative support and logistical support that has to happen to make it possible. But I think that there's a case for that in a few years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, gosh, now, then I'd be fighting demons on which ones actually watch, i think, just within the current year or the next year. The ability to split screen and talk about both is totally dual, because I went and watched the 15 minute segment of Tom coming over Roby Point and what would have been Courtney coming through pointed rocks, roby Point yeah, roby Point and pointed rocks. There was absolutely time to like 50-50 split screen it, because it's not like like Tom was at the top of Roby Point, like he hadn't, it's not like he was rounding the track, like he's still at about eight minutes or eight or nine minutes before he finished. So there totally was like a 30 second clip for someone to be like holy shit, i think I just saw Courtney blow through pointed rocks, like there was room for that And I think that comes. That'll ultimately come down to the producers being able to well, it takes a lot of eyeballs actually to monitor all those aid stations too. So, yeah, like it. Definitely it's a lot to juggle, but I think they definitely got one step closer this year And then, yeah, and then probably looking to next year, i think if there was more split screen coverage. Yeah, i mean, there's so many things that you can add to it And like you can't add it all at once, like you try to, it's probably just a disaster. But like they did a great job with this year, it's like I feel like more dedicated split screen coverage, probably the next easy step to add next year. They did a pretty good job of like the banners across the bottom of like the breaking news. You know, the next big step for that might be like time gaps Time gaps at the aid station. The next step after that is like live time gaps with GPS tracking. You know, like we see that in the tour where it's like the gaps like are constantly, always shrinking and growing. You're seeing that in track and field. Now There's all the bib numbers in the Diamond League They have like smart bibs which actually shows like exactly how many meters they are in front or behind of the person next to them. That's easier to do on the track because you're in an enclosed 400 meter circle. But if there's some sort of even just looser like GPS tech that they can just throw there, you know, apparently all we already all have a government chips in us, so might as well just turn those on for Western states and locate us. And yeah, i mean, i think live, live gap tracking would be super cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i want to. I want to reach back into the long run archives and also bring hologram Walmsley back into the mix next year or in yeah, in sewing years. I want to see some of that wave light technology. I want to see like oh, you know, tom Evans is you know? here's Tom Evans on the course. Here's 2019 Jim Walms in the course. Like, oh for sure.
Speaker 2:Okay, so here's one that I thought of. That would have been really, really freaking cool. Um, i don't know what it's like reverse wave light technology. So maybe from a Roby point to the finish, every 100 meters is a set of blue Hoka beacons on either side of the road And from you know whatever the they can figure out, you know whatever, from Roby point to the finish, whatever the average like you know, golden hour paces, for that It lights up. If you are behind the Hoka beacon lights, you are behind the 30 hour cutoff. Like if you did that to the countdown of the race from the top of Robe Point and say what's that? every 100 meters it's a little over a mile, so maybe you have 20 of them, like maybe you have 20 Hoka beacons and it like, and then like comes back down And then 30 seconds later you see the next one, like all the way into the finish And like you have, like you need to be in front of that, and like they're on the track as well. And you see, like, because with the final finisher this year they absolutely would have been racing the blue Hoka beacons. And like that's one like, instead of the course record, because, like, had we done that for Jim's course record, we would have had, like, these lights going off 35 minutes before anyone finished. But, like, with the countdown, like the final 30 hours of race, like it's always going to be 30 hours, like, let's give wave light tech to the final finishers first.
Speaker 1:My instant reaction is that helps create many more golden hour finishers too, especially if they're aware of these lights earlier on. Or, yeah, like an out, make you know 90 to 120 minutes post finish.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it just increases the drama. Like it just increases the drama Cause everyone's like I see the lights coming and like someone's looking up the street right outside of the track and like the light pops up, you're like, oh my God, they have two minutes.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about Courtney DeWalter. So I think we have to entertain the question of whether this was the greatest run ever in ultra running and possibly even beyond that stratosphere. One question I want to bring up because one of our friends texted this to us internally, but I've also been seeing it in our social media DMs People have been bringing up Jim Wamsley's 1409 course record And when you divide Jim's time by Courtney's time you get 91%, which is in that like nine to 11% differential. And I believe in track the difference between a men's world record or course record and a women's course record is typically about 10%. So that data might suggest that Courtney's performance is about equal, about in line to what Jim did when he ran 1409 that day. Do you have any thoughts there? Like is that a fair comparison? Like what initially comes to mind for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like on paper it runs parallel with all the track and field and like marathon world records in terms of like the percentage difference between the men's and women's, like world records, there's no. Like, there's no big trail race for that's even close. Like they're all around 15% for some reason, and then this Courtney's Western States run brought it to 10. So, like, if you look at all the other major races and then Western States, now Courtney's, like four to 5% closer to all the other, like to for like, from a standpoint of like trail course records, like now, all of a sudden it's like 5% close, like. I guess the two questions are like one why does the gap give? why did the gap get bigger to these trailers Like, like UTMB and like Leadville and Western States, when, according to science, the gap is supposed to get smaller? Cause that's like where all the studies are. It's like as the race gets longer, men's and women's ability levels get closer together in terms of the pure endurance. So then, so like and like these are. I don't have the answers to these. These are just my questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:It's like why, why, why? so now, why is this one 10% and the other ones aren't? Is that because this is? is it because all the other? you know the competitiveness of the women's fields historically in trail running hasn't gotten to the level of the you know the men's fields, because you know women's trail running on a, i guess, a whole and professional side is still pretty underrepresented. It's not equal, yeah, equal enough in this in this day and age. And that hasn't created the opportunity for like many, many world class performances Like I would say it's been. It was easier for Jim to set this incredible course record because of all the other competition. Like it was expected, like it was like 1409 was it was really good. But then everyone was like, oh, wow, like, of course, jim Wamsley was flirting with 14 hours And like Jared Hayeson ran like 14, 20, something. It's like are we now going? like is the competitive side of women's ultra running? Like is Courtney? is she like the one that, like shifts the entire field up And like I think the Roach is actually on their last podcast and they've talked about it before It's like the Courtney effect on. You know, when Courtney runs the race, the entire women's field gets faster, but it's really hard for there to be a Courtney, because who does Courtney chase? Which then lends me to believe that this performance is more impressive than Jim's, because it's harder for that to happen. Like I would say, more odds are stacked against Courtney and like the female representation of ultra running on an elite level to throw down a performance like that than on the men's side.
Speaker 1:That's such a great question Who does Courtney chase? From all the interviews that we've done with her and that we've heard out there in the public sphere, her answers would suggest that she's internally motivated and that she doesn't really consider the competitive forces around her. So if that is indeed true and I definitely take her at her word it's pretty impressive that all of this, all of these performances, are internally motivated and she didn't need the carrot of you know, a person in front of her to get this done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's why I think Courtney's like a very like once in a generation type runner, because it's very rarely do you get someone that can say, like you know, get 100% out of themselves with or without other people to race against. Like I 100% race better when I have other people close to me that I'm racing against. If I was two hours ahead of my next competitor, i would absolutely not be pressing on the gas as hard as if they were one second behind me. So for Courtney to still be able to basically pretend that there's someone right behind her and run that because Courtney was jacked up the next day. I've never seen Courtney so jacked up the day after a race To be able to get that much out of yourself with just like internal motivation. In regards to just like that, i wanna see how hard I can go. I don't think we you don't come across that every day And I think it's going to be some time before that record gets with like before someone gets within shouting distance of that record again. You know, the other thing too, with Western States is not every year is a year where people chase the course record. You have to get lucky with the weather. So, like in 2019, we all said like we're not gonna get this weather for another decade, or like seven or eight years. It happened, you know, three years later, like that was pretty lucky. So it's just like how long before we actually get another cool weather year. And during that cool weather year we get world like the best people to show up. You know, it seems like at Western States now, the best people show up every single year but you know, you still never really know in terms of, like the ones who are actually going to chase the course record Cause. Like that's a massive gamble too from the start.
Speaker 1:One question I have for you and maybe for the greater audience, is to what extent does cause you mentioned Courtney dragging the rest of the field along with her, and whenever Courtney's in a race, the top 10, the top five, just as a function of her being there, races faster? to what extent, for the future of Western States, do these 16 and 17 hour performances in the top five and the top 10 just become ordinary or just like that's what you have to do in future years to get it done in the top 10.? So that's the first question I have. And then the second question I have is who is going to be the next athlete in the women's field to break 16 hours? Let's just say for a second that like 15, 28, is this like outer space, other worldly performance, but like who's the next person to go sub 16? So those are my two questions. I don't know if you have any thoughts there.
Speaker 2:For the set. well, for the second question, because we'll have to reiterate the first, I don't even know if that person who can break 16 hours is running alters right now.
Speaker 1:They're born in like 2009. Yeah, like or they're, yeah, they're doing other things And they saw Courtney at 10 years old on the live stream. Like I'm going to do that one day.
Speaker 2:I think we see a generation of people like 15 years from now. Like there were so many kids out there on the course that I saw that like wanted to line up to give Courtney a high five on the course. And like the day after the race, like I ended up taking like three pictures for people. Like I was just a Courtney's photographer on Sunday, where I was like chatting to you, and then someone was like can I take a picture? And I was like, well, i'll do it. And it was a whole bunch of, like you know, little girls who were inspired by Courtney. Like I want to get a picture with Courtney. It's like that's going to be the person that breaks Courtney's course record. We'll see it in 20 years because they have that picture And I think that is so cool. What was the first question?
Speaker 1:Well, just to rip off that for a second, i feel like Courtney running 1528, or whatever the exact number was, at Western States last weekend is somewhat equivalent to Tony Hawk landing the 900.
Speaker 2:And I think you know in skateboarding, and I think we're- just going to see a flood of next generations people do it, breaking four minutes in the mile for the first time Breaking four minutes in the mile Like what was once impossible. Now we have like a nine year old kid just throwing down a 900 on like a mini ramp. I hope that's the case. That would be cool. It was funny Like I think the fastest prediction time I heard for Courtney was around 1615 or 1610. And that seemed pretty ludicrous. And then she went 40 minutes under basically what anyone predicted. Like that's almost like Tony Hawk saying he's going to do a 900. She just busts out at 1800.
Speaker 1:I mean I got to put AJW on blast year because in the preview show you might have said the same thing. I predicted Courtney was going to run 1620, 27 minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I said 1630-ish.
Speaker 1:And I think AJW said like you know you're high on drugs for thinking that And you know she runs basically 50 minutes even faster than 1620. So I don't know Records are meant to be broken Record.
Speaker 2:yeah, that's what I mean. that's what I've been saying my entire running career, and it goes back to the age old debate. Finn, would you rather have like the 5K track world record or win a gold medal at the Olympics? Definitely a gold medal. That's where I stand too. Like you can go run times and, like you know, just go run a time, but like when you win something like time, like regardless of the time. Courtney is now a two-time Western States champion and Courtney won on the famous 2023 year, which might be regarded as one of the most magical years in Western States history, regardless of the time even if it was 18 hours, that can't ever be taken away. You won the race. You lined up against all the people and you beat them straight up, head to head. That's like the magic you get from an Olympic final. You're like all the people who have qualified their way to this very, very elite small field. If you end up being the best one out of them, like you will be cemented in history forever. Like no one cares that. Matthew Centrowitz you know the 1500 meter gold medalist from Rio. No one gives a shit that his 1500 PR is actually pretty bad. He won the race. He won the race Right And like, yeah, so kudos to winning, i guess.
Speaker 1:To bring it back, the other question I had for you and I'll preface it by saying there's a similar example at CCC, where the woman who won the race the UTMB CCC race in 2021, i believe would have finished outside the top 10 with that comparable time at the 2022 UTMB CCC, because that field just the front of the field, like the Abbey Halls, et cetera just pushed it so hard And they kind of set a new precedent at that race. Do you feel like, with the times that were run at Western States this past weekend, are they sufficient to normalize 16 and 17 hour finishes where, like, if you want to be in the top 10, if you want to be on the podium, you have to be in that neighborhood, whereas, like the 18 hour finishes and the 19 hour finishes and even those like low 20 hour finishes from five, six, seven years ago, those are gonna be like archaic and they might get you into the top 20, but women's ultranet has just progressed so much that it's no longer competitive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i mean I don't know so much about the times just because of like the course, conditions and weather and year to year, but from a placing standpoint, like for this year, if you need to be in the top 10, like you need to be under 18 hours. Next year maybe it's 105 out and just a snowy and like top 10 is under 19 hours, but that's actually more impressive than 18 this year. But I think what we're both kind of alluding to is like you have to stick your nose more and more in it every year if you want a chance of like breaking the top 10. We had said on our preview show if you want to be on the podium at Western States, you got to be. what did we say? You have to be in the top five at Robinson or something like that, and like you pretty much have to be on the podium by Michigan Bluff.
Speaker 1:Which basically played out, except for Esther Chilag, who we can talk about later.
Speaker 2:But that pack was so close together it could have been like any one of them moved up that extra spot. But I think that's kind of that's the point. Now is, like that same ideology for the podium I think is existing for the top 10. I think for the most part, you honor the days of coming through Robinson Flat and 20th and running your way into the top 10. Like, maybe you can come through Robinson and 12th and run your way into the top 10. You know, maybe there's a scenario where fifth through 20th place are all within two minutes at Robinson Flat. I think that counts then if you're in 20th But like you can't be that far behind 10th at Robinson anymore because half the field isn't blowing up anymore. You know we're getting maybe one blow up two micro fades. That's it Like hashtag micro fade, hashtag, hashtag, micro fade. I mean Leah was saying that too. She was like it was crazy how I was like went out harder, was in like right around 10th at Robinson And then it was almost impossible to pick people off because they were also just moving that fast in front of me. So then it's like well, in that case the only way I was gonna finish higher was to start higher And like, i think that's kind of almost, that's just kind of almost where we're at with the race And that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, aid Station Fireball gave us some great stats about how and where in the mix you need to be at. You know, like you mentioned Robinson Flat and Forest Hill to be in contention, and I did crunch some numbers and you might find this interesting Seven of the top 10 women who were in the top 10 at Robinson Flat maintained that top 10 stance by the finish. The only people that were in the top 10 at Robinson Flat that didn't get there by the end were Heather Jackson, keely Heninger, who got injured at the river, and Jenny Quilty, who finished just outside of the top 10 and 11th. So you really do have to be in the mix there. And even the spread from like I think it was fifth place at Robinson Flat to like 14th was like a 10 minute spread. It was super tight. So I think we probably should count the people that were in like 13th. Being like 15 seconds behind the top 10 is sort of counting towards that stat. But yeah, you had to be in the mix super early.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it ended up being the same on the men's side too. Eight of the 10. Here in some like recaps from like Tyler Green, you know he was pretty much right around the podium all day And that was very abnormal for him but he knew, like, with where the competition was. He just, like you, got to kind of, you got to risk it for the biscuit a little bit and hope that you're not the one that blows up. Interestingly, i mean, we saw Jeff Cole run what looked like was pretty aggressively, you know, coming through Robinson Flat around. What was he like? ninth or 10th, and then make a big hard push, medium hard push through the canyons and then a really hard push from Robinson Flat through the rear. Okay, jeff Cole was seventh at Robinson Flat, fifth at Lion Ridge, but there was a big group there. Eighth at Red Star, seventh at Robinson Flat, fourth at Green Gate, fourth at Green Gate, ran all the way up to fourth. But the amount of energy that he had to expend surging to get by people, it's not an answerable question. But I wonder if he had just kept the overall effort a little bit higher but steady from the get-go, instead of like easy and then ramping up a little bit too hard. Because he said as soon as he passed Greengate the pop was gone and he started vomiting everywhere. But it's like what if he didn't have to try nearly as hard from Forest Hill to Greengate? but that effort he expended a little bit earlier in the race and stayed like steadily a little bit harder, like that's kind of what Tyler Green did. And then it ended up with a second kind of going back to the point of like it's really hard to move up the top 10 a significant amount now with how little everyone's slowing down.
Speaker 1:I've typically thought of runners coming up on other runners, sort of closing a gap, maybe even overtaking, as being this super demoralizing moment for the runner that had been in the lead. But I think, in the case of Jeff coming up on Anthony Costales around Greengate, i actually think that that maybe lit the fire even further in Anthony and got his competitive juices flowing, which is, by the way, impressive, that 80 miles and you can still be thinking in those terms, as opposed to suffering and just trying to survive, like. I actually think that if we're like deconstructing that move that Jeff made there, maybe it was a little too early and maybe that was exactly what Anthony did in that moment to press hard and focus more on Tyler in front of him as opposed to just like surviving on that climb.
Speaker 2:Yeah. so what was interesting is like I was watching the live tracker and when Jeff was pressing on Anthony and then Anthony, like something happened and Anthony started charging, the Tyler splits and Anthony splits. Anthony was splitting faster than Tyler from like Rucky Chucky to Greengate, to ALT, to Corey Road, And at that trajectory it looked about like Anthony and Tyler were gonna come over Roby Point together. Tyler then found another gear past Pointed Rocks and the gap hovered the same As he's apt to do, But at one point it was like less than three minutes coming into like Pointed Rocks, And I was like, oh shit, we're actually gonna see a sprint finish for second on the track. I wonder if, well, two things, these are just we could just we used to get to play the what if game now, because the what if game is fun, If Jeff doesn't blow up and continues to press Anthony like right behind him, do they catch Tyler Green earlier, like soon enough? where then? like because I think the Tyler stayed far enough away from Anthony, where Anthony wasn't able to like tap into one more gear. You know, because it was like three minutes, four minutes. What if at one point, someone yelled at Anthony Tyler's one minute in front of you? Do you think Anthony would have been able to find another gear?
Speaker 1:It's super tough to say And I'd have to go back and talk more with Jimmy Elam, who was Anthony's pacer. But from what Jimmy told me earlier this week, i think Anthony, from Greengate Onward, was moving at a pretty high capacity, like Jimmy was, you know, talking about how there were a few moments where it felt like he could even have been dropped and Anthony was running like 640 pace on rolling terrain. I'm led to believe he was getting the best out of himself in that moment. But I also know that the addition of another person in the mix there matched with Anthony's competitive fire.
Speaker 2:I know I can't help but think if, like Anthony, had rounded a turn and then seen like the tail end of like Tyler and Rachel coming out. It would have been like fireworks. I can't say who would have won that battle in the last mile. That's a great question. Tyler's also very competitive, the other so then kind of go in the opposite direction. Where does well, what was the gap between Anthony and fourth actually? Oh, it was 10 minutes, so maybe it doesn't matter. But like, if Jeff doesn't run up on Anthony around like Greengate, does Anthony fade? Like a lot can happen in the last 20 miles, you know, like if the edge is gone, you know you could lose 30 minutes there. Is it because of Jeff? and like helping Anthony flip that switch that Anthony that kind of secures the podium there?
Speaker 1:If we can, i would love to talk about what kind of win this was for Courtney, as well as what kind of win this was for Tom, before we get into, maybe, the meat of the men's and women's fields. I took some notes on Courtney's win, so, again, aid Station Fireball gave us some really cool data about, historically, where races have been won in the past. I think, on technicality, this was a high country win for Courtney, like similar to what Stephanie Howe did back in 2014.
Speaker 2:Was it a wire to wire?
Speaker 1:I personally view it as a can't. It was not technically wire to wire. If you go back and look at the Aid Stations, there were a few Aid Stations, like Red Star, for example, where Katie came in like one second before. I personally consider this to be a high country win, which is interesting because a lot of the most recent women's field victories at this race you look at Courtney herself back in 2018, magda a few years before that, ruth Croft last year they've all been high country wins. There was like at most from like last chance before last chance, there was at most a one minute gap between Katie and Courtney. Where she really started to create separation was after that last chance Aid Station. So I'm considering this a high country win. Yeah, what are your thoughts there?
Speaker 2:I agree. Yeah, i just pulled up Courtney's splits on Ultra Live and Red Star Ridge place two. Yeah, not a wire to wire win. It does not say one's across the board.
Speaker 1:Not a wire to wire.
Speaker 2:There's a two there. Courtney was not winning at mile 15.8, according to Ultra Livenet, but I would agree it was a high country win, i think if you I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:Canyon's win. Canyon's win.
Speaker 2:I think it was a high country win.
Speaker 1:Well, she technically took the lead there, but like where she got more than a minute of separation wasn't until like after last chance. Yeah, like there was like 30 seconds to 60 seconds of separation in those high country Aid Stations.
Speaker 2:So I guess technically, it was a high country win but I think because of that ever so slight injection of pace, like had they come through Robinson five minutes slower, i think that gives Katie a much longer chance to survive through to Michigan Bluff or like last chance or Devil's Thumb, but I think because Courtney was the one leading Katie in and out of Duncan Canyon and Robinson flat. I think it was at that point Courtney was like leading and Katie was hanging on.
Speaker 1:Okay, good point.
Speaker 2:And then it became like a you know how, like when we watch like football, the quarter one through quarter four win percentage, how it changes. And then there was like I mean there was that one Sunday night football game of the chiefs and the Rams when it was like 500 to 500 and the win percentage just kept going. I feel like Courtney's was probably like over 50%, probably like 60 or 70% of Robinson flat, and then I feel like by Devil's Thumb it like already went up to like 99. But like a red star it was probably Courtney and Katie was probably 50, 50. When did Tom Evans lock that like 99% win percentage?
Speaker 1:So Dakota actually exited Forest Hill first. I know that they had been doing a lot of battle there in the canyons And when they got, you know, I think we had heard on the ground that Tom was desperately trying to do a shoe change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have some good insight on that.
Speaker 1:Good insight on that, so let's talk about that in just a second. But in Dakota actually exited Forest Hill first, so this was, on paper, a Cal Street win for Tom Evans.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I think that's where Tom Evans shifted the win percentage over 50%, But like with where Tyler was like I don't know if Tom hits that like 99% until like after pointed rocks.
Speaker 1:Well, he had a 16 minute gap by the river.
Speaker 2:on second place, Yeah, like I think I'd give him like 85% there 85 minute situation Cause, like you could lose 16 minutes for sure. Like people just turned off a green gate before And then, like, because he made it through green gate, and like the green gate pointed or not, the green gate, alt Corey Road section of the Western States course is. So I feel like you see more blowups there than anywhere else And I'm trying to figure out why that is. What's your current thesis? I'm just wondering if we put like way too much emphasis on green gate being a finish line. You know cause it's always like make it to green gate, make it to green gate. Like maybe we got to like quickly get through green gate and like I've always debate like between Rucky Chucky and green gate if you're racing Western States. So this year, this year, western States Courtney blew through the Rucky Chucky aid station. She did not stop there at all, she went straight to the boat and then quick crew change at green gate. I think that's the play, i don't know. It's pretty far to go like, say, you got all your aid at Rucky Chucky and then blew through green gate to ALT. I wonder if there's some people who would benefit from not cause, like you're kind of like people push that green gate climb really hard And like when you push that climb hard and your legs are like kind of lack to kind of heavy And then all of a sudden you sit down for three minutes to change your clothes and your shoes, sometimes that pop that you had before never comes back. That was actually one thing that, like Jeff Colt talked about, i think, on one of his Instagram posts was like he sat down at green gate and like after that the pop was gone And like I've had I've experienced that both years at Western States where, like I make it to green gate, i spend a little too much time there and everything's gone. From that point, like I'm almost wondering if I should load up at Rucky Chucky and not sit down at green gate and then like use the crest of the climb to jog out the lactic and like keep the legs or like keep the fire burning. Yeah, i don't know. I feel like green gate is like the crux of the race for so many people, where people explode. Tom.
Speaker 1:Well, one sec to riff off that, like these are the benefits of advanced analytics. Finally, like we're seeing all of these paradigm shifts and it's no longer as cookie cutter. as you know, the race starts at Forest Hill.
Speaker 2:It's way more complicated than that, oh 100%, cause there's the whole day, there's parts where you're chilling and there's also the occasional 10 or 15 seconds where you might be going like above threshold effort. I mean, it's never purely linear, especially in a trail race. That's why I love them, because, yeah, there's so much ebb and flow to the whole thing And it's like I just wonder if some people, the way they run, stopping at the top of the green gate climb, is just like really bad for you.
Speaker 1:What's the intel and the shoe change Okay. What's the intel and the shoe?
Speaker 2:change. So I was. I was just, you know we got to be a Michigan bluff most of the day, so like I got to, you know I was holding a video camera So therefore I'm invisible. Everyone always totally ignores the fact that the video people still have ears. So I'm listening and I'm like here in oh, tom wanted to change his shoes at Robinson but Dakota was so quick through the aid station that Tom was, you know, keying off Dakota, like looking at him and was like when Dakota goes, i go, dakota takes extra time. I will take advantage of that, but I don't want the elastic to snap. So Tom didn't change his shoes at Robinson and left, you know, wanted to change shoes at Michigan bluff. Me and Skyler were betting on whether Dakota would be over or under 60 seconds at Michigan bluff, cause Michigan bluff is usually always a couple of minutes aid station spot. Cause, like most people look like hell at Michigan because they've just gone up El Dorado and that climb sucks and it's really hard, and like everyone looks like shit at Michigan. It makes sense. So I think I said Dakota would be under a minute. Skyler was like no, dakota's going to be just over a minute cause he's finally going to like do something. 28 seconds Dakota was in and out in 28 seconds. Tom wanted to change his shoes again change his shoes and socks, nothing. So then, as soon as Dakota started leaving, tom just got up and left. Like he got all his food and ice but like didn't get to change his shoes, didn't get to change his socks. I was worried at that point cause I was like the ball is in Dakota's like hands. Right now. Dakota's the one laying on the pressure. Tom is the one who's chasing. Tom is having to cut corners through the aid stations. In hindsight, dakota also was because of how fast he was going through them, so I thought Tom was going to blow up. Tom then puts a massive surge on Dakota between Michigan Bluff and Forest Hill, which he trained for.
Speaker 1:By the way, he trained specifically for this moment.
Speaker 2:I am convinced he put that minute on Dakota to buy a minute for shoe change Cause he was like I'm going to spend two minutes at Forest Hill. If I can put a minute on Dakota, then he'll only be a minute ahead of me leaving Forest Hill. So like that's why we saw Tom pop out of Bath Road first I'm convinced it's the classic like I'm gonna run ahead so I can go pee, sort of thing. Like he ran ahead so he could change his shoes because he needed to do that. And then, as we saw, dakota was super quick through the aid station, left Tom And then I think what was one of the more surprising parts of the entire men's race was in what happened between Forest Hill and what was it? Cal 2.
Speaker 1:Eight minute gap. Gotta say one thing before that, one of the best quotes of the entire day, overheard on the live stream Dakota saying I am actively trying to break Tom. That is commentary in the moment.
Speaker 2:race, intel, gold, absolute gold, yeah, and you could see it. You could see it on the live stream. Like Dakota was absolutely trying to break Tom. I wanted that going back. I love playing the what if? game. So Dakota was leading Tom up both of the canyons setting the tempo, and Dakota did that in the middle part of hard rock. Last year too, dakota didn't do that at Javalina. Of these three races, the one that he won was Javalina. Now I know a lot of people are listening right now being like well, javalina was the least competitive of the three, but I think it was the best execution in race tactics to win the race. What if Dakota? he knows his strengths are in the mountains? So, like, clearly it makes more sense to try and break Tom in the mountains, in the canyons. What if he doesn't, though? Like, what if Dakota just gets so comfy that he's like oh yeah, i'll just let Tom lead however long he wants And then he'll come into the aid station and I'll press him through the aid station. Like Dakota was already getting free time on Tom at every aid station. Why did he need to try and get more in between the aid stations? I wonder if Tom would have eventually broken himself trying to just drop Dakota, or speeding up to catch back up to Dakota. We've seen Killian do this many times in races, where he just kind of dicks around with people until they blow themselves up trying to hang with him And like I don't know. Tom might have been too strong, no matter what, for anyone to beat him this day, but I wonder if Dakota finishes higher than he did, if he just like took a chill pill for some of the middle miles of the course? What do you think?
Speaker 1:I mean, first of all, i'm laughing because I just cannot imagine Killian, word for word, saying yeah, my strategy is just to dick around with people until I'm ready to win the race.
Speaker 2:That's how he does it. He's such a nice guy. That's how he wins races. Killian wins races on downhills. He doesn't win races on uphills, which is interesting that the best climber in the world wins races on downhills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i think one of the many things that sticks out for me here and you can corroborate this or challenge me, but I do think we're in this era because the talent level is so high and the preparation level is so high that if you want a podium or you want to win, it's no longer sufficient to quote unquote run your own race, start to finish. You have to be prepared for serious challenges to the plan and people doing things that you weren't expecting. And there is a great Morton article that just came out recapping Tom's race And he talks about the exact moment of. It could have been Dakota, it could have been Matthew Blanchard, it could have been anybody, but he was ready for his competitors to take him out of his comfort zone And he was doing all these workouts that required him to be successful, putting on a surge, and he uses some really interesting language. He's like going into this race, i was prepared to be the main character, and by main character I mean I was either gonna be the person in the second half of this race that was blowing up massively or matching those surges, and surging myself was gonna happen. I was gonna win the race, and that might be another paradigm shift in the sport where it's like the whole wisdom of like run your own race and things are gonna work out. I mean, in some years it might, but you have to be willing to get sucked in in some areas in match and whatnot, to be successful.
Speaker 2:We're seeing that in the track and road world where if you can just time trial a 202 marathon, that's not good enough to win the marathon majors anymore because there's like 20 people that can time trial a 202 marathon, but it's like who can run 204, but drop a you know 415 last mile. Or like a 62 second last 400 at the end of a marathon. Like who's gonna be that strong but then still know how to employ like deploy race tactics throughout the race. Like I understand I could time trial potentially the course record, but if I do that I might lose, because now I'm just essentially a rabbit, cause I don't. Cause we might be getting to a point where it's like there's more than one person who's fit enough to run, say, a course record splits for the day. Just cause you do that doesn't guarantee you're gonna win. You have to then be smart about it now. So I don't. Yeah, like I think you gotta make sure that you don't blow yourself up, but you might also just kind of need to like read the room and like be like oh, we're all packed up through Robinson, we're chilling. Okay, this is gonna be a like a barn burner of a second half, or it's like, oh, we're all going out really hard. It's gonna be a who can, who can micro fade the least. Like Tom was prepared for both of those days And like you don't know which day is gonna come until the race starts. But it sounded like he trained for every single scenario And that's probably why he was the best troubleshooter on the day, because I guarantee his day wasn't perfect. I'm sure there was plenty of things that went wrong for him, but I bet he fixed the most things out of anyone in the field.
Speaker 1:This is not a new thought, but I feel compelled to go off on a tangent After watching Western States in combination with us being at Black Canyon earlier this year. When you said this and I think Mike McMonigal said it too it was this watershed professional moment in the sport. I think we're one step closer with this year's Western States. In my opinion, we're gonna look at 2023 as the pivotal year where you had to be like a full on consummate pro in this sport, like, look at the people that won the race. Tom Evans won, courtney won. What's the similarity between them? They both do this full time. I mean Hayden not a great example because he dropped out today, but the dude went to Europe before this race to get a sweat test. Like above and beyond is the new norm And I don't think that there's any going back from here to amateurism. Very little space left. Like when you take someone as talented as Courtney, someone as talented as Tom Evans and you combine the work ethic and the number crunching, i just think that like you can't compete anymore. And also one more thing like we've typically thought of any running beyond the marathon distance as starting to kind of stray outside the boundaries of predictability. But I think, especially with people like Tom Evans, they're starting to show that you can make these races look pretty predictable. Like I still think there's a lot of unknowns and like someone like Tom Evans is still going into it, thinking like I wonder if that's gonna work at mile 60. I wonder if, like that shoe change is actually gonna pay off and I'll get like an extra 1%. But yeah, i think maybe my hot take for this episode is that we're gonna see more and more amateurs flock to the 200 milers And that's gonna be the new frontier where you can work hard and still be competitive despite not being that talented. I feel like we were in that space with hundreds for a while, but I think it's changing super fast And we're gonna see all of these. Like you know, the ambassador level athletes go to the 200s because that's just where they can still experience the joy of like winning and podiums. But like there's Tom, there's gonna be more Tom Evans. In that It's game over, game over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, if I am out of college and I'm an aspiring pro ultra runner and like it's not sub ultra, like I wanna be like good at hundreds and, like you know, chase the golden tickets. Like run restaurant states, run a new TMB, how do I get? what races should I go to now to get noticed? Like we're probably getting spanked at Western States like year one. I think what Anthony Costales did in year one of Western States, also Shen Josh Yang, like there was a lot of actual one year Western states like three, four, five, seven and eight. We're all first year Western States like rookies. That's really damn impressive. But like, where do I go to get my name out there now? Like is it just kind of like climbing the ranks on the golden ticket races? Like I don't know? like if I just go to some rinky dink race in the middle of nowhere and smash the course record, are people even gonna notice that anymore because I didn't beat anyone? Or do I have to go and just like assert myself in the mix of black canyon for as long as possible, maybe fade a little bit, and then someone's like, oh well, maybe if they had that little extra support they'd make it all the way to the finish, like I'm wondering what the roadmap looks like for becoming a quote unquote pro now looks like With what seemingly looks like the gap between professional and amateur. They're getting bigger.
Speaker 1:This is gonna be a totally self serving, self important answer, and I really, truly don't mean to frame it that way, but I think that they have to go to races that have a combination of media coverage and competitiveness so that when they win, their story gets told.
Speaker 2:I think that's probably two very important pieces. And then, yeah, like unfortunately, there's like the social media aspect as well. Like Jim had Mike Hermsmeyer, mike with a Y, that's what we always call them The ultimate hype, like the OG hype man for like building Jim Wamsley street cred Cause like Jim wasn't really doing it himself, which like fair, but like Mike was just pumping out like fire content for Jim Wamsley and everyone was just like dude, who is this kid? That's just like I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna crush everyone and it like who is provocative? got the people going.
Speaker 1:Okay to that point, cause this is actually a great call to action frame. If you are a videographer or you're a photographer listening to this right now and you're wondering how do I make my break in the sport, how do I become the next Billy Yang, ethan Newberry, hillary, et cetera, like, how do I get to that level? Embed yourself with some of the best athletes, like if you live in Boulder and you know you see Adam Mary out there grinding. If you're out there in fly staff and you see whatever Ryan Raff grinding. Like go find their numbers, dm them on Instagram and be like hey, can I create content for you? No questions asked for the next six months.
Speaker 2:It's gonna bring both of you up. You gotta. Yeah, it's simple. Just find yourself the next Jim Wamsley and create all their content. Not that hard. One thing I wanted to go down which I love about this, which, okay, i'm gonna read off the sponsors for the top men and the top women in the top 10, on each side their shoe sponsors. I looked at this the day after the race and I thought it was one of the coolest things ever. Okay, are you ready for?
Speaker 1:this This year. Okay, so we're going I have a staff we have to this too.
Speaker 2:We're going men's one through 10. I'm gonna read off all their sponsors Adidas, nike Unsponsored. North Face A6, solomon Ultra On Hoka Adidas. The only company that had two people was Adidas. Other than that, it was completely different. Was Hoka in there, one Cole, one Cole Watson, there was one of every other brand and then Anthony was unsigned, two Adidas. I love that it wasn't five Solomon, five Hoka.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 2:That diversity across the trail running pro sphere is incredible. That's what we need to really lift up the sport Like. It can't just be like in track. You see Nike and Adidas. Puma is making a push, but historically it's been Nike and Adidas And it's like boring to look at a Starline and just see eight of the same kit. We have like nine different shoe brands And on the women's side it was the same thing. We have Solomon North Face, hoka Soccany, adidas, adidas Kraft. Where's Priscilla for?
Speaker 1:Norta, Norta.
Speaker 2:Lulu Lemon Los Portiva.
Speaker 1:Okay, so to add that up Two.
Speaker 2:Adidas. Everyone else is different.
Speaker 1:I pulled up that list too. Just to tie it all together, 18 of the top 20 male and female runners were sponsored. 12 of those 18 were unique brands, and that's three more than last year, where there were nine unique brands sponsoring the men's and women's top 10. So we're seeing even more diversity. That's fascinating.
Speaker 2:I think that's so cool Like No monopoly, and basically also what that means too, is like better shoes from everyone. Like we're not just gonna see, like everyone has to wear Solomon's Cause. It's like, well, they're making the best shoes And if you don't fit them you get crap. There's gonna be a good shoe for everyone, because, like you gotta make good shoes for these pros running Western states. So I am excited for that as a sneakerhead.
Speaker 1:I've got one more thing to say about Tom Evans, one comment and then one question for you, based on a quote he had. First of all, tom Evans is two years removed from a femoral stress fracture, from a femoral stress act fracture, which required IT band lengthening surgery. I'm not a medical person. That seems incredibly complicated and uncertain recovery from Rob.
Speaker 2:Carr too. When Rob Carr blew up his knee before his last Leadville win when they went and operated on his knee they also lengthened his IT band which was like a compensating problem. But like that does not sound like that, i think that recovery took Rob out longer than the actual knee reconstruction Cause they have to like I can't, i forget what it was, the cadaver and IT band, like he's just got some dead dudes IT band at the bottom. Like he got, like some, an inch or a centimeter of IT band from someone And they just got to like, stitch it up and grow back to you Like they can't be comfortable. You got to have professional sports people working on you to do that, like I bet I want to know who his surgeon was, because I bet they've worked on some of the top pro athletes in the world, because I would be shocked if Tom Evans had anyone other than that working on him, because Tom Evans is the ultimate pro.
Speaker 1:Putting your coaching hat on for a second. I have a Tom Evans quote for you to react to. He says quote instead of asking how do I max things out in training, the mileage, the vert, et cetera, i'm asking what's the minimum we need to do in order to achieve the demands of this race? End quote. What are your?
Speaker 2:thoughts there. I love that. I mean it's all about doing the absolute minimum to get the most out of yourself Leverage, And I think a lot of people need your reaction. I was like, well, that's a lazy thought, But it takes so much at that level to be optimized for Western states that the absolute minimum is a full-time job. If you are doing any extra you start to sacrifice something. Else. Like I'm convinced that if you perfectly train for Western states, if you overdo it, you heavily sacrifice something. So I think where Tom's getting at with doing the minimum of everything is that way you get in everything properly And I think there's just not enough hours in the day to overdo any one thing and still run well at that level. So it's like, yeah, we have to figure out how to minimally do everything because that's all we got time for.
Speaker 1:I know that we're talking a lot about Courtney and Tom, but they're just so fascinating. With this point I'm gonna make and question, i'm gonna ask I know there's a lot of speculation required Besides the fact that Courtney is a generational talent. what do you think, what do we think she's doing in training to be at this level? Because we've seen Katie Schied is an open book Like if you can go to her Strava you can see that during her peak week she was doing like 16 to 18 hours time on feet, 110 miles a week, 16 K of climbing. She was in flag staff pure speculation. but do you think Courtney was doing more at the same? Like what do you think Courtney was doing? Like if we had access to her Strava files, what do you suspect she was doing to register a 15, 28?
Speaker 2:I bet they'd break the internet, courtney. So this is what I learned from our pre-race interview with Courtney DeWalter. If you haven't watched it, hop over to the single track YouTube channel. I said that so many times last week. Okay, so this is what I wouldn't say I learned, but this is what I theorized after Courtney's interview and actually getting to talk, because I'd never met Courtney DeWalter before And I believe that all of her answers are very genuine. I think, Courtney has figured out what she needs to do to be the best version of herself on an athlete level And for that to happen, you can't publicly talk about all the numbers and the statistics and the training data, like of course she knows how much she's running and how much she's climbing. I'm sure there's a plan, but if Courtney starts to publicly talk about it in interviews, that becomes a piece of her identity And like if you talk about interviews, like you can't, like you're gonna be thinking about it then in your day to day training. I think Courtney is very good at putting the blinders on, of only focusing and doing a very good job of focusing on the things that she knows she needs to focus on to be the best version of herself as an athlete. And for her that's probably not talking about the numbers side of things too much Cause then that takes away from the other parts. It takes away from her superpowers. So that's why I think I don't think she's trying to hide anything. I think it's more that like for Courtney's sake, courtney knows I don't need to waste my time, i don't need to waste my brain space talking about these sorts of things. She keeps it internal. Same way, like most professional sports programs, they keep their training internal. I have no idea what like the top wide receivers in the world are doing like within. I was gonna say the Raiders, but I don't top anything right now but that's for a different episode. Maybe Finn and Brett will do some NFL analysis later on this fall. But they keep all that stuff pretty close to the chest because they don't want reporters hounding the players with questions about were you doing this? Were you doing this Like? occasionally you see the Instagram reel of like Nick Chubb squatting 900 pounds Like. That's pretty cool. But like we also see the occasional.
Speaker 1:Instagram reel. It's a great point.
Speaker 2:We also see the occasional Instagram reel of Courtney being like I wrapped this hill until I hit 10,000 feet today. I don't think she did that for the Graham. I think that's probably just a pretty normal part of her training. So yeah, i mean, i think we'll probably never know like the exact metrics of what Courtney was running like, maybe not until after she's like long done competing and writes her book. But if I was a betting man kind of like she said in her interview with us, it's a lot of running.
Speaker 1:Well, I think you make I mean, I think that's an excellent analysis that we probably haven't heard out there on the internet or in many conversations, So I think a lot of people will get takeaways from that. The only thing that comes to mind for me is just analyzing my preoccupation with it, fans preoccupation with it. I think it probably all harkens back to the fact that there are so few touch points with athletes or really many talking points in the sport that we can discuss outside of races. Like we've talked a lot on this show about how we wish there was a off season in the sport to discuss and how there were unions with athletes.
Speaker 2:Let us talk about contracts.
Speaker 1:So we can talk about contracts and stuff. And I think, because we have so few touch points with the athletes and so few talking points about many aspects of the sport, we default to like the raw numbers and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And Strava has outsized importance, but I think that's a great analysis, Yeah, and I'm sure Kourtney has done a really good job of not getting sucked into the comparison game. I mean, I think, her training. If she publicized her training it breaks the internet either way, Because either Kourtney's either running 200 miles a week or 40. And either way that breaks the internet. I don't think there's a scenario where Kourtney's running 100 miles a week like everyone else. I think it's polarizingly different in either direction.
Speaker 1:Okay, that reminds me and we'll put this in the show notes, but I don't know how Solomon got this, but they got this. There's this video clip of Kourtney DeWalter passing Matthew Blanchard like right before the river, and she's so deep into the race, probably breaking new ground in her figurative pain cave, and yet she has the presence of mind to ask Matthew how he's doing And he says I am doing super great. And she invites him to join him to the river. Come, run to the river. Invites him like please join to the. Yeah, run to the river And we'll link to that. But it just like further. I can't even say mythologize, because we actually saw it in real time happen. Her mindset in the midst of these races, deep in the races, is impressive. Toxic positivity does not have a try hard face, at least not in those moments.
Speaker 2:I know there's moments in the trail where Courtney is straight face like tunnel visioned, focusing on one thing and one thing only. Like I know those moments exist And I would yeah, i would if there was ever an opportunity to do like a deep dive with Courtney on like just the psychology of staying in the pain cave, because we've all entered the pain cave before. But like, the farther you go into it, the easier it is to just immediately exit. You know what I mean. Like I always find myself. Like, like every once in a while you have a great workout or a great race where you're like, wow, i didn't look at anything other than, or think about anything other than what was in front of me the entire time. But, like so many times, when you get tired, your mind starts to drift Like, oh, this kind of sucks, i wonder what so and so is doing Like you saw him get stuck in your head. That's not. You're not in the pain cave anymore. Like I want to know how Courtney has gotten so good at staying in the pain cave, because that that's a superpower Being able to. You know, a lot of people will call it the flow state. Courtney calls it the pain cave. It's to a point where you're 100% present and you know it's like a meditative state and like it's really it's really hard to get to that point and stay there for an extended period of time. Like you know, tons of people practice meditating. They're like oh yeah, it took me a year to get to the point where I can sit still for 20 minutes and actually like meditate and be present and not let my mind wander. Courtney's doing this for 15 and a half hours at Western States. That's amazing And I would love to know if that's something that she was always good at and like that's why she's figured out she's really good at running alters, or it's something that she's practiced and gotten better at And if so, how? And that's not a training question at all, like that has nothing to do with the numbers, that's just a simple like going back to like what Tom Evans said, to like the mind game and practicing the mind game as, or more important than the actual physical part of the training.
Speaker 1:That reminds me of the way. Anytime either Brett or I poses a question in this episode, feel free to follow up with answers in the comments section on social media YouTube, instagram, et cetera. We love to keep the conversation going. All right, brett, i have three, three stats that I want to rattle off to you. You can latch on to any one of them. They're mostly international in nature. The first one Tom Evans ran the fourth fastest time ever on this course. It would have been a course record before 2018. And he's the first European man to win since Killian. That's the first international stat. Another one there were five international runners in the men's top 10, five international runners in the women's top 10. If you include Katie Scheid, so anywhere from 45 to 50% of the collective top 10 was international, and if you compare this to the stretch between 2010 and 2015, for example, there were some years where there were none and it typically hover between five and 20%. So that's fascinating to me The increasing internationalization of these top 10s. The last one I have for you is this is not quite international. Although Edna Nielsen is, she missed the 40 plus course record by two minutes Right And the bots ran 1741 and 2021. Eda ran 1743 yesterday or a couple of days ago, just missed it. So those are the. I just threw a lot of you, but any of that interesting.
Speaker 2:One, i didn't know what the 40 plus course record was. Two, i am floored that some it was faster than what Eda ran. That's amazing because this was like the fastest top 10 on the women's side of all time And Eda is really good at running. So to have missed it is like I figured that was like a gimme putt, naively just looking back at it. So that's amazing. I feel like Eda probably didn't care about that stat at all. It's either seem like the type of competitor that's like, oh, i'll just win the race, like that's fine. International podium or international top 10s. The I'm just the golden ticket world series is working. It's working like where the gold, you know where the golden tickets and where athletes are coming from around the world, like then going in and getting in the top 10. It's clearly working. you know it's making a more international field. It's raising the overall level of competition. I guess let's continue to have more international gold and ticker races, you know, especially considering that we saw M1 and M6 come from UTMB, and F2, f3, f4, no three.
Speaker 1:F3 as well.
Speaker 2:We gave UTMB a lot of shit for being a golden ticket. That makes no sense at all, and look at that Booking dates for my apology tour next week. Look at that. They actually proved us all wrong. So now and then, what do they go and? do They change it to CCC? which it was totally redeem themselves which, well, now it's like well, clearly, utmb is a golden ticket race worked. Now they change it to CCC, do you think? at least in my mind, at least, that seems like a better golden ticket race. Yeah, but I mean, we are clearly wrong the first time. So what if? is this going to be a better or worse golden ticket race, or does it not matter?
Speaker 1:By the way, just saying one quick thing about Esther Chilag, who finished third. She ran the fourth fastest time ever in. Katie Asmuth, who finished in fourth at this race, was just inside of Ruth Croft's winning time. Last year She ran the fifth fastest time ever. So this is out of place, but what a fast women's race.
Speaker 2:So fast And like it was chaos. I mean it was organized chaos, but like from a fan and media standpoint, it was chaos. Like when I was out there trying to film the aid station transitions at Michigan Bluff. It was chaos Because we had like F3. No, it was at one point Esther, katie, emily, taylor and Eda were all at Michigan Bluff at the same time And they all came off the trail and then they all just split And like they're all in their crews and then just leaving one by one And it was so hard to figure out who was where and what was going on. And then we had like the Priscilla, leah, megan, jenny group all come in as a four to Michigan Bluff. So like it was really cool to see how grouped up the women's race was Yeah, and I'm going to call Michigan Bluff like for historically, for the women's race like it was really amazing to see how grouped up it was that late in the race And like it stayed like that all the way through to the finish.
Speaker 1:You know really, a slightly different topic, although we could weave it into the women's race. It seemed to me like there were very few DNFs in this race, so the notable DNFs I have are Heather Jackson, keely Heninger, camille Herron, hayden Hawks and Zao Jiaxu Apologize for the mispronunciation. Really only five significant DNFs in this race A. Does that number seem low to you? And I guess that's a leading question, because I'm asking you because it is like what do you attribute that relatively low DNF rate to? I think like this is the first of many years where runners are getting smarter and they're coming in more prepared, and I mean even people like Dakota Jones, like he faded hard but still finished.
Speaker 2:I think a big, very I think a big factor in the low DNF rate was the weather. Like it was 80, which is hot for racing, like racing and 80 degrees sucks But you're not going to die, you know. Like 100 degrees, 105. If you overheat and you like pop whoops dropped my pen, 105 and you pop, it's like you know the death march percentage goes up a lot. You know the actual like what's going on in the body when you strip it down to things of like we got to keep the brain alive When it's 105 out and you've been racing that hard, that leads to many more drops in 80 degrees. So I think I think weather was a massive factor. I mean, i think we had one of the highest overall finisher percentages of all time, if not the highest. I think the only other time that might have been higher was the 1983 snow reroute year. I think we might actually even have video footage of that from the village when we were watching the live stream with Craig, which was hilarious and awesome, great moment. But I think it's a combo of weather and people just being better trained for the race and just kind of knowing what to expect. You know the race is more public than it has ever been in regards to what you need to do to succeed at this race, with the live stream and training being public and like just seeing, like oh so, and so did this And then they ran a good race. I'm not saying that it's figured out, but it's much more figured out than it was even five years ago.
Speaker 1:This is really interesting And I only saw this two hours ago, so prior to two hours ago I think I would have agreed with you and lockstep. But there's an article that just came out on Irunfar Mallory Richard, who I love her writing. She's got like this great data science column there. She has this article about, just like the temperatures at Western States. She does say in the article that we can't confidently say there's a strong correlation between hotter temperatures and lower finisher rates. It could be a constellation of variables. I think that's interesting to consider as maybe another thing where we just have more data in front of us and we're finding out new sources for you know why people don't finish Western States.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i know It's definitely something that I think would be really cool to do a deeper dive in, like, what about the temperature relative to overall finisher rate and the temperature relative to overall elite finisher rate, like when you're, when you're racing like I'm not saying that people in the middle and the back of the pack aren't trying as hard as at the front, like I believe that. I still believe that if you're a 29 hour runner and you have to run 29 hours to finish the race, i think that's harder than winning the race Like you're doing. You're out there for 29 hours, like. But when you're at the elite side of the things and like, finishing the race is, of course, a goal, but it's a little bit more of an expectation and you're now like it's your choice to make it harder. I think that's where the weather really comes into play in terms of like this show up or blow up rate. I guess primarily the blow up rate Because, yeah, like, when it's one of, like when the temperatures are above what your body's like normal operating temperature is, things start to get pretty wonky, and that's for lack of a better term, because I'm not a scientist But when you get above that point, like shick, it's weird.
Speaker 1:Alright, two more, two questions here to choose between. I want to cover both, but pick one. Were there any runners, either in the men's race or women's race, that you had higher expectations for, that didn't quite have the day they should have had, or any surprise finishes, people that kind of shocked you, like you saw them on the podium or in the top 10, you were like, wow, that person put together in my mind a surprisingly fantastic race to but it wasn't pre race, it was like mid race where my expectations for them changed.
Speaker 2:So you know, not too long ago I just said like everyone looks like shit at Michigan bluff. There was two people that looked like particularly bad at Michigan bluff that I was like, oh, i don't know if they're going to finish, but then they did not fade or they moved up, and that was Daniel Jones and Ryan Montgomery. Yes, like both of them had some moments at Michigan bluff, Yep, and it was like I don't know. And then I got like text updates at Forest Hill because I was like how do these people look? and they're like they look great. And I was like what happened? Like how is that possible? Like Dan Jones came into Michigan bluff, rounded the corner and like had his pack often, was like ready to sit down. His crew was like no, we're like 100 meters up and he was just like, like wanted to sit down, so bad, right there. Crew didn't let him sit down. They put an ice band on him. They let him do his thing. He changed his shoes and he like so badly wanted to take like two minutes And they were like, nope, we checked all our boxes from the crew list Time for you to leave And he was just like you can tell he was like he was like my knees hurt, Like he was in a bad space, but they just pushed him on out of there And that was probably the tough love that he needed to get any of those negative thoughts out of his head. So that worked for him. Ryan Montgomery did the exact opposite and it worked for him. He came into Michigan bluff in a pretty bad place, sits down, change his shoes, change his socks, His you know, there's 85 hands in there just switching out all the things. And he had the confidence to say crew, pause, I need a minute. Like everyone stopped, backed off and he just sat there, took a breather for like I'm sure it felt like eternity It must have been 10 seconds where he just like closed his eyes, took a couple deep breaths and was like, okay, let's go. And I loved that, Like the fact that he had the confidence to tell his crew like wait, just let me chill for one sec, Like I promise I'm making the right decision. That takes so much confidence to be able to do that And I think for both of them that was a pivotal turning point in keeping their days going And they ended up finishing fifth and seventh.
Speaker 1:Ryan. Ryan was mine too. You stated it way better than I ever could. Even going into the details of like the pause, like that was incredible theatrics, we got to clip that or something. Yeah, he was sitting in 10th place there at Michigan bluff And I will be honest, in that moment, if I was a betting man, i thought Ryan was going to DNF. And I actually talked with Ryan on the phone last night Just about just separate topics And I was like Ryan, i have to admit I had doubts about how your race was going to go And you just demonstrated incredible resolve and toughness out there, not just to maintain your position but to actually gain two or three places by the track.
Speaker 2:So hell yeah to Ryan. On the women's side I literally all of them looked amazing at Michigan bluff. Yeah, like they were in full race mode just quickly in and out. Like I didn't see like an ounce of like fear or like weakness or fading in like any of them. I'm going through it and I'm just kind of running through their pit stops in my mind right now And they all looked fantastic at Michigan bluff. So, like you know, on the lady side, i mean Leah was telling us all week She was like watch out for Esther Chilag. She did. Leah was totally right. You know Leah wasn't on our preview show, i understand why, but like off the record, she was like look out for Esther. She looked incredible at training campers. Training's been super good. She's so dialed. Esther's gonna finish a lot higher than people think And she finished higher than I predicted And like absolutely raged the second half of the race which, like people perhaps wouldn't have said, that was like in her wheelhouse to run super fast over the more runnable parts because she got her golden ticket at UTMB. But Esther, full on, crushed that thing.
Speaker 1:Amen to that agreed. I'll offer a couple of people that I was somewhat surprised didn't have better days. The first one is Matthew Machu Blanchard. simply because he's done a lot of stuff in the last year that indicates to me anytime he's on a start line he belongs in the win and or podium conversation And believe he finished sixth or seventh on the day and was never really in it. So I wonder if there was anything behind the scenes going on there or just it was. just it wasn't his day that went on. That was the first one. Arlene Glick was another one. for me I did get a lot of hate pre-race for not putting him in my top 10 and it, low and behold, it didn't happen. I never rude against people. I'm actually, you know I'm a big Arlene fan. We had him in the studio. I am a huge Arlene fan. I love that he's a hundred mile specialist. I love that he's dedicated to the sport, love his work ethic. Very curious to know like was he putting some breaks on at some point in the race to be ready for hard rock? I just pulled up his Strava and three days after the race he ran eight miles at 654 pace.
Speaker 2:Dude, it is so hard to get the most out of yourself on a day when you have something else on the calendar.
Speaker 1:That's like I think that might be it.
Speaker 2:It's so hard to do that, but Courtney did it. But Courtney did it, i know. That's why I want to do a deep dive on Courtney's psychology with this running Like how was Courtney able to trash herself at Western States, knowing hard rock is right around the corner? Yeah, like that's so hard to do, cause there's always that slight amount of fear of like, oh well, unless Courtney was so all in on Western States, it was like I don't care if I don't even make it to the hard rock star line, i want Western States so bad Like maybe you have to be all in on it that way. And perhaps I guess it's probably easier to wrap your head around the double cause for Courtney's sake, because Courtney's run and won hard rock and run and won Western States. Arlen has never run hard rock and this is just the second Western States, so it's the same. It's the same ask. You know, it's the same two races, but I think it's a harder challenge for Arlen just because it just from an experienced standpoint.
Speaker 1:On the women's side. For me I think these are just common names that people probably had in their fantasy free trail, podium or top 10,. Camille Herron, keely, heninger, keely one, black Canyon. Undoubtedly one of the best runners in the field. It did look to some extent prior to her injury that she was fading a bit. I still think she would have finished in the top 10, but did have that just like unfortunate fall before the river that resulted in a dislocated shoulder.
Speaker 2:I think she did receive assistance in that you know I could take at the ending of her day. I could do a two minute deep dive on that as well, as one of our video guys was there and saw the whole thing To just like I have. I mean, i had a lot of respect for Keely prior to that but like, oh my gosh, I have like even more respect for Keely now, just like Keely is so damn tough. Like dislocating your shoulder hurts a lot. I do it all the time. I've only ever dislocated a thumb and I was like in a lot of pain and like your shoulder is way bigger than your thumb joint, so like it must be that many times more painful, but so Keely falls 200 meters from the Ruckichucky aid station, puts her arm out and her shoulder just yonks out of the socket and it's like locked, like her arms, like locked up, like in the air, fully straight Cause when you get out of the socket you can't move it. So she's on the ground just like rolling in pain. And I for sure would have been like aid people immediately come over here and pop my arm back in the socket, but she was still as painful as that was went new. If you guys touch me I can't continue the race. Let me try. And she tried to pop her arm in for 10 minutes on the ground. Med people were there instructing her on how to do it, which was something along the lines of like her left wrist was grabbing. It was holding her right forearm, which was like the right I don't know if the left or right are correct, but it was like holding up the dislocated arm and they're trying to get her to like put her knee in between the hole that she's now created with her two arms and like use the knee as leverage to launch the arm down, to pop it back in the socket. Like they're telling her how to do this. And she's like freaking, doing like core work, now trying to get a dislocated shoulder back into the socket with 80 miles of Western States race in your legs, 10 minutes of that, before she finally, like it wasn't going back in, she tried both knees to pop it back in And then they finally had to pop it back in. Apparently, it was disgusting with how much they had to like move things around to get it to pop in. And then she was fully ready to like yep, my day's over. Cut the wristband off like it's over. And they were like we talked to race command. You were 200 meters out from the aid station. Like we're gonna call. We're gonna like make an executive decision with race command. Like that's close enough to the aid station. we will let you continue. I think that's fair. I think that's a fair call. Like the race can do whatever they want. It's not like she got like an IV or anything. Like they just popped her shoulder back in the socket 200 meters out from the aid station. Yeah, i think that's fine. Then she was like, okay, i'm back in, hops in the boat, goes up to Greengate, and I think just the bouncing from that was like so painful. It was like, okay, my day's done. But like she full on was like I'm out And then recommitted to being back in the race, crossed the river, made it up to Greengate and then called it there Like I can't even wrap my mind around how uncomfortable that would have been, like that entire hour long scenario.
Speaker 1:Well, to add to that, I have primary experience. Back in 2016, on a descent mid trail race, i fell and tore the labrum and rotator cuff in my left shoulder and since then have had subsequent falls where that shoulder has become dislocated. And everything that Keely went through I can attest to as being just like show stopping pain, uncertainty and in tibidness to get back up. It's the real deal, like everything she went through, i can attest to it. It's the real deal. The one thing and again, i'm a commentator, i am not the runner, keely is not even close but one thing I had to work on in the subsequent years is redeveloping confidence as a runner, especially on downhills, you just become naturally timid to not want to re-create that experience again And it's like you almost have to go through like mental exercises to gain confidence on that type of running again.
Speaker 2:It's for real. Oh, for sure I would be seeing that sports psych like 100%, Maybe even a non-sports psych, I don't know. But yeah, it would be, because what are you gonna do? Not put your arm out when you fall, Like I think that consequence of that's arguably worse. So then it's like, yeah. So then it's like, what do you do? But yeah, so, yeah, I just wanted to give a shout out to Keely there because that was like one of the toughest moments I've seen in like sport. But yeah, I mean yeah, kind of like overall, though like what you had said was like pretty consistent day across the fields in terms of just like Very consistent, And it was competitive. Like this was a day of racing, This was not a day of time trialing. Maybe the only exception to that might be Courtney DeWalter of like Courtney was just doing Courtney things, which we've said before, but like everyone else was just full on competing And I was so honored to be up there to witness it. Like what a privilege.
Speaker 1:I've got three more disconnected stats to give you before I ask you some miscellaneous questions. Number one Katie Scheid runs the second fastest time ever kind of plays second fiddle similar to Jared Hayes in 2019. I am so impressed that she was able to maintain and go under course record pace on her own island. I know I've used the term island incorrectly in previous episodes but I'm just gonna reinvest in the island analogy, but for a debut Western.
Speaker 2:States as well For a debut. Western States. That's super impressive. Jared's when he ran 1424, not a debut.
Speaker 1:That was like his third or fourth Western States, so Katie's probably-. And this was not Courtney's first Western States. This was our third Western States.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Katie's probably got some more time to chop off this course, if she chooses.
Speaker 1:Will she be back To do so, yep, will she be back to win? And then two more stats. They're both related Tyler Green, second, fourth, second in the last three years of this race. Only male to finish in the top 10 each of the last three years. Emily Hoggwood, seventh, fifth, fifth. And Katie Asmuth, fifth, ninth, fourth, similar to Tyler, the only two women, i think, to finish in the top 10 each of the last three years, two of those three years being, i think, the two fastest women's races on record. So very impressive.
Speaker 2:So Tyler was in the top five three years in a row.
Speaker 1:Yes, in addition to being in the top 10, the top five each of the last three years.
Speaker 2:Who when was the last? so the last person to do that was Jim Wamsley. Yeah, prior to that, I bet the Scott. Sure, scott, i'm trying to remember what Tim Olsen did in 2011, before winning in 2012 and 2013. Gosh, there hasn't been too many three-time top fivers. That's a great eight-station fireball stat, ooh, okay. Well, here's an interesting, another eight-station fireball stat. Three-time top fiver to not win the race, because everyone we've listed has won the race.
Speaker 1:So Olsen got sixth place in 2011,.
Speaker 2:did not get in the top five, okay, and then first and first, so and then you have like a whole bunch of Scott runs. Yep, Yeah, that's an interesting one. Yeah, when was the last time someone was in the top five three times without any of those places being first? Oh man, Tyler needs to come back.
Speaker 1:All right, brett. I put out the. I lit the beacons on Instagram and Twitter and asked people if they had any questions they wanted us to answer in this episode.
Speaker 2:I saw that episode And so curious.
Speaker 1:The first one, and I'll preface this by saying it is undoubtedly the case that people carry cell phones with them and will stop and make calls as needed, especially if they are running this race, you know, not in a competitive fashion, but this person wants to know. When will racing with an earpiece to be in contact with a crew from start to finish, in constant communication, be a thing like in the Tour de France, like in NASCAR? how far away are we from that moment?
Speaker 2:Yeah, team radius. I mean even just to remove that one step like just being tuned into the live stream. Now, that would being tuned into the live stream, i think would actually be too distracting. If I'm like thinking about racing, i would want my own independent radio.
Speaker 1:Kevin Goldberg does it. He's the only one.
Speaker 2:He's the only one who can successfully tune into the live stream and have a good race. I would get way too distracted. I'd be way too tempted to just stop and start chatting in the chat. Yeah, I mean, I definitely see benefits if you're racing and I, as your crew, am able to tell you exactly the gaps and how people are looking and remind you as we're coming into the aid station, Because you know when you're a couple of minutes out from the aid station, you should be going through your checklist of when I get into the aid station. I wanna do this, this, this, this and this. You ultimately always forget something, But if I could be telling you all right, Finn, when you come into the aid station, when you come into Michigan Bluff, round the corner and keep running 100 meters, we're gonna be on your left And when you get there, there's gonna be a chair, We will take your shoes off, we will take your socks off, we will have spares for you. So-and-so is gonna have the ice bandana. The ultimate X factor would be is if you could press the button and talk back and be like I need this, this, this and this, Cause I think in the tour they can communicate two ways with their manager. That would be hugely advantageous. It's just a matter of like getting that technology small enough to the point where you don't break it with all this water into. It. Doesn't suck to carry because of all the bouncing.
Speaker 1:Next question what are your thoughts on AeroVipa's policy change paying for golden tickets at Javalina in Black Canyon? What's your instant reaction there? This was-.
Speaker 2:Oh, did they announce that? Maybe a week ago? Yeah, maybe like a week ago. So they are going to pay for the entries for those who get golden tickets.
Speaker 1:They will cover the entries. So at Black Canyon I believe that'll be six tickets cause, three on the women's side, three on the men's side and then four tickets at Javalina. So I mean 10, you know on ultrasound.
Speaker 2:I'm guessing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it'll be close to five grand. They're fronting five grand for Western states in entry fees. Probably more. It could even be a little bit more.
Speaker 2:I love that. I think that's great. I think it should be. I think you should get your entry paid for if you get a golden ticket. It's so damn hard to get a golden ticket To take it once like. I would love, love, love for any sponsors out there. You know, if Tom Evans wins a golden ticket, well I guess he's already in it. If someone wins a golden ticket at Black Canyon, aerovipa fronts the $450 race entry, cause I bet it's not so much Western states saying we will comp the entry, i bet it's AeroVipa writing a check for $450 to Western states. Here's my call out to the sponsor, to anyone who's sponsored, who gets a golden ticket, that $450, i want those sponsors to match that and donate it to the Western States Foundation, because AeroVipa is putting up 450. If, like Lulu Lemon has an athlete or Adidas has an athlete that comes into the race, like you know, their brand was already prepared to pay $450 for the race. Like it's probably not coming out of that athlete's pocket, why don't they just take that 450 and throw it towards the race anyways? Like I think that would just be a nice thing to do from a brand that has a lot of money. You know we're. I mean, we've talked about this a lot on, like, theoretical golden ticket race opportunities. Like if you're unsponsored, your race entry is $40. If you're sponsored, your race entry is $4,000. I think it's awesome that AeroVipa is going to do that And like I think that's going to make the races more competitive. Like do you think that would influence someone to come and do the race if they could potentially save upwards of $500 on this race entry?
Speaker 1:Totally And from a branding standpoint, either deliberately or subliminally. I think the impact they are going to have in the professional part of the sport, in addition to everything they're doing in other parts of the sport, is they're saying pro athletes, you are welcome Like you are welcome here. Come here, we will celebrate you, we will facilitate your career, we will develop your career, we'll give you a platform, we will make it easier to be a professional athlete in this sport. They are making very significant, clear moves in many different areas of their business to do that And there's a reason why two of the you know, whatever it is five or six golden ticket races are AeroVipa races. They do a great job at this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. And you know, pro-ulter runners don't make that much money as pro-ulter runners. That's why we're still splitting hairs in regards to like are they a full-time pro? Are they a full-time pro? Are they a member of the Gold?
Speaker 1:Digger.
Speaker 2:Track Club That makes them a full-time pro? Yeah, so then it's like we can't just assume that all the pros that show up to Black Canyon have, if they have, a $5,000 travel budget and they have to pay. Well, it's not even a travel budget, it's just like everything else budget And they've just spent $500 to like just enter the race, like they've wasted 10% of that budget Just to enter the race, like come on brands. We can do better than that.
Speaker 1:All right, gonna need you to take off your associations with the athletes and associations with the RD folks for this last question Should, and if yes, when will we see prize money at the Western States 100? Never, okay. how about should? what's the answer to the should? I don't think we should, it's a nonprofit.
Speaker 2:Okay, i don't think Western States That's not the race. I think there's lots of other races that should have prize money, like I think UTMB should have a shit ton of prize money. The way Western States is founded and is grown and the way it exists like it's a nonprofit race, it's like not for profit. So I don't see why I don't think That's like one of the few races that I don't believe needs to have prize money ever, and That's that's just kind of how the race works. If it became a for-profit race, i think most of Western States loses its magic. Just, you know, getting to learn like. You know getting to talk to Craig and like seeing the race. You know like this is kind of the first time that we got to see the race from like a media standpoint. Like we got to see a lot more behind-the-scenes sort of things than what The average fan gets to see and that was very special, that was super cool and it's like very much volunteer run and like either there because they love to do it and With 300 people in the race There's no amount of entry fee that you can charge. That Runs a profit. Like everyone would have to pay like ten thousand dollars to do the race and then, and then what are we gonna do? Just change the name to Leadville. No, i Think the Leadville entries kind of expensive, but I'm just making that up. So I just don't think there the way that the money flow comes through Western States. It's set up as a nonprofit that also just happened to be super competitive and, like sponsors, will pay out bonuses and, like someone like Anthony, who didn't get any money from this race, it's going to up his stock. So when he does get a contract, It's a lost leader for future. He's going to get a contract but, like this third place Unsponsored is going to net him an amount of money over the course of the next three years.
Speaker 1:All right, this has been an awesome conversation. We've covered incredible ground. We have about seven minutes left only because shout out, redefined physio. I'm going to go do a strength training session with the legendary jimmy pacard here in salt lake city. Get those hips strong. Let's maybe riff for like and I'll offer my own perspective too but maybe riff for like two or three minutes on our Pre-race coverage and our race coverage, maybe specifically honing in on what you thought went well, favorite moments, and what you think we should look to improve on for next year and just future races one, it was like one of the most fun weeks ever, like the people that were there with us all week.
Speaker 2:Like one we couldn't have done it without them. But two, like it was just a good group, like Everyone just got along so well and like it was a full-on, like start-up. You know, silicon valley incubator Vibes were, like you know, in the living room every up to aviato. I'll be at, though There's like six people just on their computers just like pumping away. It's like you're like you. You know, brett, can you rip the mp3 file and send it to me? I'm like on it, send it over and fins over here in the corner like welcome back or welcome to the single track podcast. And then like Ethan's over there with his giant desktop just churning out reels, like it was amazing. Like it was so cohesively, like Like organized chaos, and it was awesome because we had we had no, we didn't know what to expect. Day one, when we walked into the place, we were like, how do we build the studio? Do we have enough internet to go live? Where do we do this? like we figured out so much stuff over the course of week And those are all things that we now have figured out for next year. Like we now have a really good template to start with some things, even for like a lot of our content that You know, i think to the, to the consumer came out very fast and we had a lot. But I know, like even going into next year with some of the templates that now exist for a lot of spots and even things that We talked about over the course of the race of like, oh, okay, we did one through ten, we were trying to do one through ten through the whole day, but, like, actually, after Michigan bluff, we switch, which we should switch to five, and then, like, by the Pointed rock, we should switch to three, and then, like, that allows for more frequent content pieces, like, okay, we have the templates to get those. And like, we can, we can plug and play a little bit more, which will, i mean, which will be super helpful and with the speed I mean, i think, for you know, for first year, like all of the Tech hoops that we jump, jumped through, we had no idea how big or small these hoops were going to be. Um, large credit to you there. I, i mean, i mean they weren't our starlings and we like taught a starlink class on Friday and, like, i actually wrote this down on my notes, we were at Michigan bluff and I accidentally Video chatted just the entire WhatsApp group and then Rue picked up from Robinson flat And it was crystal clear. It was probably like what it was like for for Houston Waiting for people to land on the moon, where they're just like in darkness, just silently waiting and being like they will be the one to Call us first because either they'll get Connection with the starlink at Robinson or we're never gonna hear from them because there's no service there. And then we just got crystal clear picture from Rue at Robinson flat, just being like what's up, guys, it's beautiful here, and we're like, oh my god, it worked, it worked. So that was that was like one of the biggest wins of the entire day for me Was getting the very first starlink up and running by our photo video team. And then just knowing that they were gonna be up, able to upload stuff And then we were gonna be able to curate it into content, that, like that, was one of the biggest highs of the day for me.
Speaker 1:Echoing in agreement everything you said. The only thing that, like I definitely want to study more was the race day stuff, because I feel Like now that we were in it, i almost feel like we have to have two different types of teams for coverage. There has to be like one team that's dedicated to all of the summary content and like memorializing content, like Created or published, like two days post event and then another team that just has total agency And they're at each aid station and they're taking photos and writing updates that go directly to Instagram stories, directly to Twitter, and so that way we satisfy both the immediacy component and the quality component totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, that's a, that's a really good point. Yeah, i think if we Like had some people at various aid stations and we had like very explicit instructions on like when these people come through, you know, make this post and put it up like that's on, like that, yeah, like that's on you, Photo person number one to do that, because then it's like they're there and they can just upload it. But then also to be like now you can even show them like the Tom, the Tom Evans real. It was like You know who who are our story lines or athletes to follow. I guess it doesn't even need to be, we might not even need to have them predicted before the race, but it's just more like these front people, like you need to capture their story over the course of the race so that we can Do these sorts of things afterwards, because, you're right, i think we can do both.
Speaker 1:The other thing I'll say is the entire week was almost entirely constant laughs and jokes and just throwing ideas back and forth. and I think maybe the most important variable in all of it and I'm not saying like I think we would look at this as a success and we learned a ton, and there's certainly things we could do better, but, like, on balance, it was success Everybody was having so much fun, everyone was joking, everyone was in the trenches stoked to Problem-solve and create content. And also everybody was joking Create content and also everybody there I'm pretty sure was a super fan of ultra running. So that constellation of variables I think was so key and we never had to. It never felt like a job. Certainly I felt like a grind at certain times, but I don't ever think it felt like we were doing things out of obligation. It was kind of like this is sick and we're just in the trenches having so much fun.
Speaker 2:There was never a moment where I didn't want to be there.
Speaker 1:Like what's?
Speaker 2:yeah, like I was like I was like like the entire week, like from pre-broken era to post-western states. I was like I don't want to be anywhere else right now.
Speaker 1:I think the only time I finally felt tired was like at 11 pm On Saturday, like that's, when I finally hit a wall, cuz like the 10th, you know 10th place woman had come through and that was sort of where our cut. Well, we did some gold now or stuff, but like that's where the coverage kind of dropped and I like finally was like oh man, we're done, i know.
Speaker 2:I checked out kind of after that and then you know, we got our three hours of sleep and then, and then we got to hop on the, the official live stream, for two hours, which was a ton of fun and it was great to kind of dip our toes in the, the western states. Oh, i didn't share my my live stream numbers that I just pulled off. Oh, so Do it. Yeah, please do it. Do it. 2022 The live stream. Like. So I'm talking like from last year to today. The 2022 three parts of the live stream have about 300,000 views on YouTube, so that, and so that's like an entire year's worth of Watching the live stream. The 2023 live stream is already at 500,000. Amazing, like that's 200,000 more views and it's only been a week. It hasn't even been a full week, like it'll gain more to.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, there'll be plenty people that watch it after the fact.
Speaker 2:That is a massive increase in viewership like, like What is that? a third.
Speaker 1:More, yeah, and I mean we now have some perspective on it, but I got it definitely want to give a public shout out to Billy Yang, who orchestrates the whole thing, and Skylar Hall, who's out there in the trenches doing sideline reporting, and Dylan Bowman and Corinne Malcolm. I mean you and I now have had the experience of Even doing like six hour stretches of live streaming. They did it for 17 plus hours, maybe a little bit more, and they were just as good at the end of that stretch as they were at the beginning. They're they're really good at what they do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i cannot believe that they want to do a 17 hour straight Just stint of live stream coverage. Yeah, it was. It was truly incredible and like above all those things, like Billy even had the time to come over to our studio and Do a live show with us, which was Hilarious and funny, and I'm so glad that Billy was able to come and do that and actually just like You know, check out from his job for like one hour even and just chat with us about the race, and like we got to go through the the prop bet sheet and, you know, talk about all those fun things, which, yeah, i'm so thankful that Billy was able to do that and just chat for a bit. But, yeah, amazing week for sure.
Speaker 1:One last thing to say, because I I got to mention it. We did have someone reach out on the single track channel saying they were a fan of the show and They happen to live at mile 99 of the Western States. Course They make. They're a sourdough Production company. They make the best I can now say this incredible. Yeah, they delivered sourdough bread to us on the tractor in the golden hour And we all sat kumbaya and ate it. And yeah, the bread didn't even. We had two loaves one was chocolate cinnamon, one was chocolate cherry. One of them got eaten on the track and the other one half of it was eaten on the track And it did not make the eight hour car ride home to Salt Lake City. It was. It was so good. So they on Instagram They are chocolate underscore and underscore sourdough. They're huge fans of the sport and they also happen to be Absolute wizards at making sourdough.
Speaker 2:They're amazing. I want, i want to know how old their sourdough starter is and also the ratio of chocolate to bread and the, because I Just had the chocolate cinnamon loaf. So much chocolate in there. Like it was incredible. Like you know, you get chocolate all over your hands and it was perfect. Like you didn't need anything, like I didn't wish for anything else to like put on the bread, like it was nice, it was still warm and like the chocolate chips were melty and Yeah, it was just like. Like wow, what would a time to be alive?
Speaker 1:So we will link to their Instagram in the show notes. Yeah, this has been awesome. Last word any any final thoughts or comments from you before we depart?
Speaker 2:Yeah, i mean I'm still catching up on sleep. This week of last, two weeks of running has been trash, but I wouldn't have it any other way. It's been fantastic. Yeah, i'm so glad. I'm so glad that, like we got to document this whole thing so well, you know, just because we were doing pre-race interviews, like we got a little snapshot of like what was going on every single day. Yeah, i think this is one for the history books for sure, and like We did it, i mean that's the coolest part of the whole thing is like we actually did it. Like the idea turned into something, that turned into an Airbnb booking, that turned into hiring all these photographers, videographers, and then we actually like, like it actually worked, like that's like one of the coolest things is like people have lots of ideas, we have lots of ideas, but then, like this one that seemed pretty outlandish and like massive, it actually worked and that's really cool and that was a really special thing to be a part of.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. Before we sign off, if you are a fan of the show, please consider supporting us with a rating and a review in your podcast player, a donation on patreon or the use of our Sponsored discount codes in the show notes. We really appreciate your support. Thank you so much for listening and until next time. I'm your host, finn Milansen, and you have been listening to the single track podcast. I.
