Jim Walmsley | UTMB Takeaways, Career Reflections, What's Next

Finn (00:00.842)
All right, so talking about the future, I'm really curious about how you see yourself defining this next objective. Is it about stringing together multiple UTMB victories? Is it about a return exclusively to Western states? How are you thinking about the future right now?

Jim (00:16.34)
Yeah, so I think as an athlete you have to continually adjust your goals and essentially evolve with your goal setting. I would say for sure. I feel less, yeah, I'm not sure what the next step is exactly. What I'm going to be most motivated for. At this point, I'm re-qualified for.

UTMB already. I don't have to do a 16k and break a pelvis to get into UTMB next year. So I'm qualified with Istria earlier and then I have plans to still do NIS 115k in two and a half weeks. We'll see. I'm doing a vertical race on Saturday just out.

like this vertical that I look out at my door. So I'm pretty excited about, I really like doing some of the local vertical races, which like the Americans never hear about, but I actually do a lot of races these days, but a lot of them are super low key and no one hears about. And then even if you did, it's kind of just the French that get what they are, but it's been pretty fun. But yeah, Saturday is gonna be a really hard race against.

Finn (01:14.965)
Oh, nice.

Jim (01:40.524)
Yeah, we'll see. But I've been riding a bit more my bike for recovery. But I actually took a little bit of a fall yesterday. So we'll see how it goes. Not feeling getting back into training quite as quick. But more or less, Nise sets up at least potentially opening the door for Western States next year. And then. I know I've never done.

anything on the Canary Islands, whether it's Trans-Volcania or Trans-Grand Canaria, but timing with Trans-Grand Canaria seems to be interesting and fun. Obviously, it's one week after this year, I think, Black Canyon. Black Canyon seems a little less interesting being just seven, eight hours and full gas on trails I know really well. And plus weather.

sometimes just floods that course, you never know. But Trans-Gran Canaria seems to be pretty interesting. It kind of seems like the closest thing Spain has to a big ultra event. So that seems like a very entertaining idea for winter. I know last winter doing skiing, I missed running as much surprisingly, so, or unsurprisingly, but.

So we'll see how to mix things together. But at this point, I would say I'd like to open up the opportunities to kind of pick and choose what I wanna do. But even if I'm in a certain race, maybe I'd do something else that's not as famous. But yeah, I don't know. I guess like in your opinion even, I'm curious just to get more opinions on everything.

what would be next trajectory or this or that, like that you would see anyone doing.

Finn (03:47.003)
Well, so I put this question out on Twitter, or not Twitter, on Instagram, and there were probably 38 people that said they want you to do hard rock next year. That if you are one of Dale's picks, or whatever they call it, that you should drop everything and go do that race, which I think could be very interesting. You know, I just think...

Jim (03:47.696)
What's your hot take?

Finn (04:10.218)
For me, it comes down to where is the highest density of competition and can you exploit that during the prime year career? Because it's so difficult to get so many people of high caliber on the same start lines, it just happens to be the case that every single year it's either Western States or UTMB where that opportunity is. I have a whole list of races I would love to see you race, but I feel like there's a time and a place when you're in your mid 40s and you can still win or rip a course record.

I think I wanna see you keep going back to UTMB while you're still at the height of your powers.

Jim (04:44.772)
Yeah, because the other big idea could be comrades, but I feel like I dedicated two years to that anyways with doing kind of a unfulfilling marathon, but also uninspiring to go back to the marathon adventure. Didn't really enjoy that block a whole lot. In retrospect, it was just full consuming energy and time.

I would say to train many more hours on the trail is to me a lot more stimulating and enjoyable. So, I've enjoyed the trail running side of things. I think another crazy idea that could be fun is doing the Golden Trail Series because you're talking about some really classic races and then some sharp racing with some of the best runners in the world.

Finn (05:28.779)
Yeah.

Jim (05:38.516)
trying to come back to UTMB, trying to pull off the Western States UTMB double. I would say Hard Rock and Grand Raid are a little bit in the same boat.

Jim (05:55.464)
I mean, I got unfinished business at Grand Raid for sure someday. I'm not sure that time is yet, but I hate that race, so we're gonna go get it someday. But in the best way I say I hate that race, and I think it got me good in 2017, and I just know that I need to be ready before I go back. So yeah, and then there's like the really old...

records that still stand whether it's Leadville, Jim O'Brien and Angelus Crest. I think people have thrown out Jeff Rose at Wasatch. Some things like that but yeah and then you're racing time, not necessarily currently the race. It's a new endeavor and I think it's a disrespect to any of that.

Finn (06:32.462)
Pikes Peak.

Jim (06:49.)
to walk in and think it's gonna be a one year wonder and just like, oh, swept it up, here we go. Cause especially for me, I think most people have known it not to be as simple as that through some of the better wins in my career.

Finn (07:06.854)
Well, I guess the question I have for you is in your mind, what do you want it to all amount to? Like at the end of the day, do you want people to recognize that you were the greatest to ever do it? Is it some other motivation? Like when you think about race construction and why you schedule what you schedule, what does it come down to for you?

Jim (07:28.796)
I think I'm withdrawn towards the competition side of things. So I would say Hard Rock's tough decision because I would say it doesn't have the competition aspect. However, both myself and my wife are totally in love with the San Juans. We love the area. We love the route. We love the course. Yeah, we got married in Silverton.

Jim (07:58.249)
So yeah, it's difficult to say but um...

Yeah, and then even kind of maybe scheming a race to do together with Francois or Killian or both, or getting Tom healthy on his first race. I don't know, some of it could be just kind of coordinating amongst, I mean, that's come up over the years many times, whether many of the people in that group and more obviously get together more and just choose our own race.

to do rather than the UTMB. We just do, well, we're gonna go here. This is a place we all want to go and race and call it the common ground. Something like that would be really cool to do. I mean, talk about a tectonic shift in the sport if everybody did that the same time and did that and everybody stuck to it, sticking it to a race or organization like UTMB that doesn't give a lot back to its athletes.

Finn (08:41.93)
Yeah.

Finn (08:53.732)
Oh my gosh.

Jim (09:03.092)
especially its elites, there's not much of a kickback other than, hey, we'll give you a pass to drive to the aid stations and your crew doesn't have to get lost in the chaos of the shuttles and whatnot. So it's a super important part of doing that race that kind of makes you in debt to, you need the pass, but yeah, there's not much kickback.

from doing UTMB that you couldn't organize at a different race. And I think there's an underappreciation from them, from the elites and Western States arguably as well. But I mean, being a nonprofit, I think we kind of understand more from Western States, last of a kickback towards the elites because I would say they're also elite based. However, it's not a for-profit business model.

Obviously people make living off of it, but people work in non-profit for careers, like it's a thing. Um, it's limited. It's not based on growth and, and growing, or buying other races. Um, so it's easy to pick on UTMB that way, but, or does UTMB, you continue to give them the power to grow and set up this kind of stadium of events and whatnot. And.

If you can conquer that series, then you can kind of say you're the best in the sport. That's pretty cool too. It would be weird to think about everybody organizing to go to say, Ultra Trail Mount Rosa, which is in Switzerland, maybe one, two weeks different, super beautiful loop. Or say you did the tour, the tour 100 mile distance with 12,000 meters, so 2,000 more meters of trails in Aosta Valley.

um say everybody does that but then it's vacated who's doing UTMB someone's going to show up and do UTMB and get that like golden ticket of like I'm the UTMB winner now and it's I think all of us have chickened out and said I still want to do that and be that person that gets a bid for that.

Finn (11:02.167)
Yeah.

Finn (11:11.286)
So we've actually talked about this quite a bit on the pod. And I'm super energized by what you just said. And it sounds like you already get it. But like the only question in terms of creating a new race or shifting what is considered important in our sport, it really does come down to organization on the athlete's part. And if you can convince...

five or even just five or six other athletes of your caliber like Tom, like Killian, like Francois, Dakota, you know, Adam Peterman. Overnight, there's a seismic shift in the sport and what was indisputably, you know, the world series and the most popular and the most important race in our sport changes overnight in one year. Like it's, it doesn't take 10 or 20 years of tradition to change things slowly. Like overnight, you guys would, uh, would change what I know.

For example, I focus on from a media standpoint, it would be fascinating and, um, you know, say what you want about UTMB that it would be fascinating to see maybe for the first time in history, athletes taking it upon themselves to organize and to, um, to, to just create new importance in the sport somewhere else.

Jim (12:24.412)
I think it's narrow minded to say in history, I mean you've got to look at track and field in the 70s and just American track and field I guess but amateur sports sort of stuff. Yeah it's a 40 year old sport, organized sport maybe but trail running is longer than that.

Finn (12:31.906)
but just trail ultra trail running now. I'm talking ultra trail running.

Jim (12:47.628)
Yeah, it's something hypothetical to... Yeah, I don't know. It's easy to say, I could do that now because now I have one UTMB. If I was one of the guys without a UTMB win, I think I'd be pretty hungry to still keep going back.

Finn (13:00.27)
Thank you.

Finn (13:09.102)
Gosh. All right, a couple hypotheticals here that I wanted to ask you before we close out. I really appreciate your time. I know we've been going long. A couple of these are from the audience too. I know that, you know, well, I'm assuming, I'll assume that you wouldn't want to change much about your career because it all led to this moment, which was a UTMB victory, but purely out of curiosity, if you were forced to relive one year of your ultra running career with the knowledge you have now,

Which year would you choose and why?

Jim (13:46.92)
Yeah, I think just going back to the first wins of whether it's this year, it feels pretty sweet or 2018. 2018 definitely had kind of the mojo still from the group of guys we had in Flagstaff. I would say that was a special time of group of friends trying to just conquer everything and ultra running in the world and everybody having a like-minded goal that...

got probably pretty shaken up with relationship wise just kind of during COVID not talking as much and lack of communication is what I would boil that down to just growing apart. But yeah I mean the biggest thing is like essentially what sucks is there was a year off of racing anything big and important with for everybody.

Jim (14:41.148)
That's kind of a bummer in how it took away from being able to do ComRants. But 2018 was a lot of fun. This year is pretty fun. I think they're on par.

Finn (14:58.026)
What's the race if there is one from earlier in your old training career that you look back on and you think to yourself on a physical level? I don't think I could ever replicate that again. And why?

Jim (15:10.621)
Well, I still scratched my head on the Grand Canyon FKT. I know I cracked. I ran 120. So, pretty much was pretty perfect. The way out, I think, was perfect. I was begging, basically with my eyes, to the friends that were helping me on the north side. They were like, hey, job done. We got a FKT warm across the rim. Who's going to give me a ride back around?

And like everybody's like, dude, you got to get back in there. And I'm like, uh-huh. And I think I, I took four minutes on the north side. So there's some time there. Uh, I know I went number two at Phantom Ranch on the way back. So there's some time there. And then, uh, the climb out was one 27 and I think there was 10 to 15 minutes. Like perfect climb out on rim to rim to rim would be closer to 72 minutes.

which is pretty solid just on a day out in the canyon. I mean, over under of a good climb up North Kaibab, I've always said is 70 minutes. Under 70, like you're pretty fit, doesn't matter. So if you could hold on for that, I mean, you get to 17 minutes there. So I like thinking about that one. But then again, you put it all together and like typically not gonna ding, perfect.

That was pretty good. I threw a Lake Sonoma 50 mile in there. That one felt really good. Which yeah, everybody starts to change courses nowadays. So I don't know.

Jim (16:47.584)
Yeah, because Speed Goat was a surprisingly good one. I don't think I was focused for that. That went into 2017. That was a good preparation year because I think I tagged Kendall Mountain before Speed Goat and was just like, oh yeah, things feel pretty good. I think we'll go out to Speed Goat. Seems like a bunch of UTMB guys are going to do that as a prep race. I'll go do it too. And that went really good, but then they made the course a bit different, which...

then Adam ran pretty much comparable enough to knock it off by 30 seconds. So, yeah, that was a good one. What, 100 miles? I mean, okay, so yeah, given the exact conditions, 2018 I think was my best run at Western States. So 2018 I would take as maybe out of all those, that's the one I just had the perfect day.

2018, Western states. Not 2019, 2019's faster. 2018 was the best run ever.

Finn (17:54.918)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. This is from the audience, but I share a similar fascination. Again, I know it's debatable. There's a whole history here. There's people that came before you, but in my mind, you're one of the first athletes in our sport to really comfortably, and I want to stress comfortably go pro. Like you got to, from what I understand, you got a pretty good contract from Hoka and maybe Cliff back in the day, Wahoo, all that whole combination.

What was your experience like going pro on the business? I think, did you get an agent? How was that navigated? How did you land with Hoka versus like Adidas or, you know, Solomon, like, what can you share there? Cause I just find this so interesting.

Jim (18:35.123)
Boom.

Well, I signed a contract with HOKUN in 2016. It was kind of a weird time to come to it. And then just given the circumstances I was living, I didn't need too much. I think it was more in the dirt bag, trying to make it runner world. I could have been, especially in the beginning, like pretty okay with just getting shoes and clothing and stuff and like.

Sure enough, but I mean I think realistically I only got offers from Nike, Salomon, Hoka, Adidas wasn't in it, North Face, the job at North Face was vacated, so technically they weren't in it. What other brands?

Jim (19:30.188)
on wasn't in. I think all throw was around but more just yeah I think there's a lot more competitive choices right now and I think people are really seeing that trail running's on fire which I think just as a sport we need to continue with that momentum and even now I think pushing forward with.

the top athletes trying to reach for more bigger contracts is going to have a trickle-down effect on everybody. So it's pretty important things. So when I first started, I talked to my college coach from university and she hooked me up with a guy that was in the industry but hadn't had any agent experience but had interesting background. Overall, I would say it didn't work out great.

a couple other people signed with him, but it didn't really go how I thought it would. So then...

Jim (20:35.068)
But yeah, I ended up going with Hoka because they gave me the best livable salary that I could work less and have reliability of being able to put more into running. So that was the most important thing for me was the freedom to go all into the sport. And then I would say it snowballed from there. And then since probably 2018, I have not had an agent.

Finn (21:10.414)
Two more questions. And maybe I already know the answer because you had some pretty interesting thoughts on UTMB, but given that you're not the most active person on social media, if we were just having like a dinner conversation or we were out on a run, shooting the shit or as Brett and I call it a long run archives type conversation, what areas of the sport are you the most opinionated about and why?

Jim (21:36.773)
Um, you need an

Finn (21:41.986)
Or where do you have the strongest feelings? What are some things that, with this particular opinion, I'm gonna die on that hill, because I believe in it so strongly.

Jim (21:49.656)
Maybe nutrition and I get into a lot of debates with people about nutrition and then as well as a bit just kind of training philosophy. I'm pretty stuck in stone on what I like doing and I just kind of double down on what I like and it's not what everybody does. So I would say that's where I get more in conflicts with the masses of people.

Finn (22:16.41)
Um, all right, we'll, we'll end on a philosophy. Well, we'll, we'll end on a, on a, on a philosophical question here. Um, I don't want to say it's like legacy based, but what do you think you've brought to the sport? Like what's one thing that comes to mind when you think about your impact or your influence on our sport to this point in our career, like if there's one thing that you want to be remembered by. Um,

Jim (22:17.264)
Which I don't do.

Finn (22:43.234)
for just like something you changed in the culture or influenced in the culture or strategy. What's one of those things?

Jim (22:52.356)
I know a longer term effect I would like to have and maybe still not have fully fulfilled, but I'd like to try to give younger people like 20, 22, sort of more of an idea that they can go into this as a potential sport and profession rather than just a hobby, something for fun. And like when you're done with college running, you're done with running.

that it's equally as respectable to do and good athletes do it. I think that you could be 32, 35. I mean, I think Rob Carr hit the scene really at like 32.

Jim (23:40.64)
and just like took over the sport for a couple years. So that doesn't matter the age, but really like, and then if you look at a global scale, the number of athletes, especially coming from different sports and with a really athletic background, and you look at running, I think it's different than cycling or skiing that we all run to a degree. So a natural transition into

running is a lot more fluid than saying to start hopping on the bike or to or to start skiing like you kind of need the feel for it but we all run with our feet so technically we all have a pretty good competency of a feel with our feet to begin with so I think it's a sport where you can transition into really interesting so I really like the stories of people

different backgrounds.

Finn (24:42.986)
All right, I know I said that was the last question. I have one more I got to ask you, because I'll shoot myself in the foot if I don't ask it. Again, this requires rewinding the clock a bit and examining 2016 to 2019 in your career. I always felt as a fan, this was the height of sort of like the Walmsley hype train. Like there was the wrong turn dock, the light my fire series, hook a project X, some of those classic pre-Western iron fire interviews, the New York Times feature.

Generally you were lighting it up and there was that you were given the media like so much Awesome content and discussion. It was so fun to be a part of is there anything you Remember from that phase or career of your life that you know fans might be Surprised to learn about or maybe they didn't appreciate given the amount of exposure and pressure you had

Jim (25:34.623)
Um, well I'd say kind of bored.

Finn (25:35.758)
Because it feels like you've changed, right? Like you've gone like media dark and stuff. So I'm just like, you've changed and not in a bad way, but like you've changed.

Jim (25:39.552)
No, I technically post the same. I had a good friend at the time that was more into, I let other people have login info to just tweet or post whatever sometimes. And now I have people cover races for me because it offers a really great insight and look from my perspective of what I'm doing on things.

without me having necessarily do the work, but I had a really close relationship with a friend and he was all into like, we'd have a lot of beers and basically just, yeah, kind of the unfiltered long run stuff would more or less make it to bigger media side of things and not to mention the ignorance of just coming from track and just thinking you can roll in because you think you're faster fitter blah blah, but I guess it also boiled down to inner...

thinking that I had a big talent that was under recognized on the track and still believing in that through trial running and that trial running could be the medium for that.

Jim (26:47.76)
Yeah, I don't know. I think given the right backing from a brand at the time, it would have been a lot bigger moment in career wise instead of just like, I think I didn't really get an early easy break from getting picked up by anyone, I would say, comparatively, maybe. But that's okay. I think.

if people can get picked up earlier and have an opportunity to do this sport. I mean, yeah, I think, uh, Debo says the best of just like trail running can change the world and it's definitely changed my world. And I think people that get outside trail run hike, um, are better for it.

Finn (27:33.346)
Do you feel like there's been pressure to self-censor your views on the sport or your projections about what you can do in the sport? Or has that just been part of the process of being in the sport longer and, you know, talking to the media, talking to me is exhausting. And it's like, I'm just going to like say minimum, the minimum that I need and go back to work.

Jim (27:55.764)
I don't know. I've always thought about making an anonymous handle on Twitter or something, but more or less I just don't care enough to do it all or keep up with anything. It's not really in my personality to be chit chatting and arguing with anyone. I prefer just not to have that side. Yeah, no, I don't think the hot takes have really calmed down within my friends and small talk, but...

Finn (28:02.683)
Thank you.

Jim (28:26.116)
it's not my personality to type it in the Twitter, I don't care. It's more theoretical talk and it's lighthearted. And a lot of times if it makes the Internet, it's taken too deeply. So and I think ultimately. Most of us, if we want to say anything. On a bigger scale, if you break it down and pick it apart, you're probably wrong. So there's no point trying to.

preach anything out like too loudly. I don't feel like I have a cemented philosophical reasoning behind what I'm doing, kind of shooting from the hip and blah blah, but yeah. So I, no I'm not, I don't think too much has changed for me personally, but at the same time I think it's just maturity and

more speed bumps and stop signs along the way that kind of slow me down. Maybe not the best thing to say.

Finn (29:33.194)
Well, Jim, I can't thank you enough for your time. Really appreciate just the great insight on UTMB, on your career, on what might happen next. We'll make sure to link to all your social media and the show notes. Any final thoughts, anything you wanna leave listeners with before we go?

Jim (29:35.06)
Thanks for watching!

Jim (29:49.124)
No, if anyone has the best ideas to where to go next, keep them coming, let me know. Oh yeah, it's exciting to kind of try to do some ideas that more or less the sport wants or sees to do too. I think fun ideas for the sport are fun ideas for me too, so that brings kind of the excitement to things.

Finn (30:19.422)
Awesome. Thank you.