Jon Rea | 2023 Western States 100 Pre-Race Interview

Welcome back, or welcome to the single track podcast. I'm your host, finn Melanson, and in this episode we are talking with John Ray ahead of the 2023 Western States 100. Before we get started, though, this episode is brought to you by features.

Morton.

Hoka and Rabbit Head over to the show notes page of this episode for discount codes and product releases from each of these four sponsors. With that let's get started. Johnny Ray. welcome back live in studio Olympic Valley to the single track podcast Hey guys excited to be here.

Johnny Ray, one of the coolest names in sports Period of now. Hopefully this gets heard and taken over to the live stream on Saturday.

Yeah, you heard it here first Yeah, yeah, on the baseball field I was always Johnny Ray. Growing up I'm become like a mature adult, so introduced myself as the formal John or Jonathan more often, but Johnny Ray I'll take as my athlete name.

I think the first question I want to ask you because we have had you on multiple times after Bandera, i believe, right before Javalina, so it's been six or seven months In terms of your intensity in the sport, in terms of how you prepare, how you think about racing, the level of involvement that running has in your life, are you the same runner right now or do you find yourself to be a more serious runner?

Over the last year. I don't think that big of a change. It's like kind of an a nine-year trajectory of like becoming incrementally more and more professional. Like my first ultra marathon was in 2015, i ran the Dirty Thirty in Golden Gate Park in Golden Colorado and I was. I wore that. I wore basketball shorts. Nice, i was wearing the new balance Minimus, inspired by Anton Classic. Did not know that much about what I was doing, like I thought, you know, a camelback with a liter and a half of water was enough for a five or six hour run. But learning more and then, like every year, just noticing one thing will make me a little bit better. Another thing will make me a little bit better. This year I feel like I've started drinking way less as a primary thing, like I've always wasn't a big drinker, but I'm just like zero appetite for it. Yeah, it's a little more attention to sleeping, a little more running. So I don't think any step change in the last year, but definitely continuing on that spectrum and I don't know exactly how much further it can go. I'm like close to the level of doing everything I can.

The no-drinking thing is interesting. We've heard now, i think, three or four athletes your contemporary Jeff Colt say the same thing like part of their renewed focus in 2023 is cutting that out. Do you find recovery benefits there? sleep benefits, like talk about that.

Yeah, i think so. I don't know. I don't think too hard about it. I'm not like a anti-alcohol person, i just like, naturally haven't had an appetite for it much, and so I think that's just symbolic of wanting to feel good the next day, and not that I know nothing more than that really.

Maybe before we get into like the X's and O's of your preparation. Your Strava's been fascinating and there have been some good I think you know your own comments in the descriptions of those runs have been fascinating to break down. But I do want to down Ask you a few questions about the 2022 Western States, because you Undoubtedly added fireworks to that race. I believe you were as high as fourth or fifth place at some place on Cal Street. A lot of us in the live chat that day I think even Corinne might have commented like you look like you're hard charging. You could be this dark horse Contender for the podium that day. Things did slightly fall apart. But was that your focus? to kind of creep up on the competition and, in surprise, some people that day like how Are you feeling? until it went wrong?

I Didn't have a plan to do anything, just like this year. I don't want to forecast or tell the story of the race before it happens. I want to be there and do the race while the race is happening, not beforehand. And so you know people think about oh, i want to be in 10th place at Robinson flat or whatever, and I just what whatever happened would happen. And naturally I wasn't about 10th place and Robinson flat. And then I took so much ice coming out of dusty corners felt incredible Running out of that aid station and then the two canyons climbs felt so easy like I was just Expecting to be hiking the whole time, but I was like looking around being like I think this is too easy, i'm gonna start running up this and then I ended up passing a bunch of people in the canyons to move up to fourth at Forest Hill. So I didn't prescribe that or like have a plan to attack in a certain place or anything. It felt natural and just like What my body was doing at that time.

Are you Because are you naturally a pretty strong climber. Did you think that the canyons would be a spot that you would excel at the course, or did that kind of surprise you?

It surprised me because I think of myself as a downhill runner and I'm better on technical terrain. Okay, so I've worked. Most of my workouts are doing uphills, so that's become like the focal point of Trading for the most part, and I guess it's gonna come good enough that I can make up ground there. But I also feel like the people I passed on those climbs were just suffering a lot. And so they're walking really slowly, and so like I just hadn't crashed at that point, whereas that's when people had started falling off.

After you finished Western States, I'm sure there was a lot of you know major takeaways. How is that shaped? You know these 12 months between last year and this year.

I still hadn't done a good hundred-miler and I was hoping that Western States last year was gonna be my first one. But I wanted to figure that out like that's what Brought me to the sport in the first place, of being inspired by the fact that people can run 100 miles. So that's why I wanted to do have a Lena. As I saw it as a bridge distance, it's like basically halfway between 100k and 100 mile in terms of effort, and so that was a test to see if I could transfer what. I had done in 100k's before, do it at have a Lena, and that's like a stepping stone towards actually nailing 100 milers. So Yeah, that was the main thing from Western States of being like okay, like maybe I need to do a bridge race somewhere in between, where I can't step up all the time. You know something that takes 16 hours instead of 8 to 10 hours. I need to do something in the middle and then I can really figure that out and then it feels like an incremental step. Then It's not a big leap, it's easier.

Yeah and have a Lena seemed like it went pretty well. Grab the golden ticket there In terms of, i guess, the training. I guess now that you've I guess the training's all done now In the core training block for Western States Was there anything that you did quite a bit different this year versus last year? Or do you think that most of the improvements for what could happen this year comes from the actual race day strategy and execution more so than the training?

I think a lot of it happens during training. I did a lot of the same workouts that I did last year, but the timing of them was a little bit different. I waited a little bit longer in the winter before ramping up and then my big weeks were peakier. I didn't spread out training over a longer time, i waited a little bit and then had a couple of really big, focused, concentrated periods, but then and then some of those same workouts that I had done last year. I just did them closer together And then I think that just concentrated volume and effort.

Yeah, definitely, yeah, there's been. I don't wanna say your Strava has gone viral, but there's definitely some people like opening their eyes a little bit and be like, oh yeah, like John's May and even like early into May. June. Yeah, it's has been pretty big. Have you found that you find a lot of benefit from some of these fairly lengthy, long runs?

I think so I don't know if I have enough experience. I haven't done that many really big long runs, But I did so. I ran 46 miles a week and a half ago. Everything I've done has been told to do by my coach. I've not been going off the training plan, i'm just following instructions here Trust the process. And he thinks I can do it. And I was really scared about that one. To be honest, I checked in with my coach three times on it to be like, are you sure about that? That sounds too close to the race. I think that's too big. Do you sure He's like, yeah, you can do it. I think it's a great last long run. You're fit enough you recover quickly. Yeah, we're like pushing fatigue closer to the race than in past, but because this training walk's going so well, I think we're gonna be able to get away with it. So I was scared of that, But I did the same run actually last year, but I stood at three weeks before the race instead of two. But if you keep the effort low enough, then I think you can learn a little bit from having gone from. I did a seven and a half eight hour effort, and being out for there for longer just means you have to face a few more variables, a few more logistics, and practicing some of those logistics is a good thing.

Are you still doing those cluster runs too? Was that a part of your Western States build up?

I don't need to do that once for Javaleeda, where I did like two hour runs.

You needed six two hour runs, six, two hour runs within a 48 hour period.

Yeah, that was a one time thing, just for that one. If you were to run Javaleeda again, would you throw that in the training walk?

I don't know it was entertaining, i think it was good to mix it up, but I think the fact that it's different each time, like I've seen other runners trying to copy training plans that have been successful in the past and be like well, okay, jim Walsh, they've run 130 miles a week for three weeks straight. That's what I'm gonna do too. It's not necessarily the best way to get yourself ready for it, and I appreciate that my coach just kind of throws in some curveballs every once in a while because just new stimulus is probably I could like make you mentally stronger and just confuse your body a little bit.

It's like the P90X of ultra running training muscle confusion. Keep the athlete guessing.

I see a bunch of insanity workouts.

Okay, so you're familiar In the basement of the Kapasig fraternity.

that was the baseball team fraternity in college And we had a bunch of insanity workouts back then.

So it was all about confusing the muscles Confusion.

I mean, i'm learning a lot this weekend. The double threshold workouts, the cluster runs, the eight hour long runs two weeks out, like we're in this era of experimentation, it's kind of cool.

I love that so much that we're not to a point where everyone is doing the same thing. You know, you kind of see that on the track. You know if you're on a run of world class 1500, they're more or less all doing the same workout. That is not the case at Western States And I think even after this year we're not gonna see like a type that emerges And that's super exciting.

You talked about gaining experience at Javalina in sort of like a middle distance between the 100K and this type of 100 miler. That adds some predictability to this year's attempt. Are there any other elements of your training or the logistics of this or your nutrition where you feel like it's a bit more predictable than last year?

I think more subconsciously than just consciously. I came, so I came and did the Western States training camp. I only got to do one day of it because I had a wedding to go to, and that was actually my primary reason for making the trip to California in the first place I came for a wedding and then happened to be able to add in a day of Western States training camp and then was able to add in a little bit of time with family and then also spend some time on the course, just to like if I was gonna make the trip then I could extend to do all those things. But because I've been on the course a whole bunch more and last time I was going in blind I hadn't been on it at all Then I think just having been there before makes it feel more comfortable and more natural and less intimidating every part of that course, and so it's more like my subconscious will be able to relax a little bit more and be at ease, rather than the experience being necessarily like, oh, like this is a specific thing that I learned. It's just like it's familiar, it's there, like it feels just a little bit lower stress and easier.

So a lot of athletes approach kind of like goal setting for this race very differently. I'd love to know, like how does Johnny Ray quantify what a successful day at Western States would be?

And I'll add to that, because we've heard people say I'm racing for self-discovery. I am very explicitly Jeff Colt style racing for a top three here. We've heard it all. We've even heard, like you know, it's just all about celebrating the training. So how do you categorize yourself there?

The statement I have in my head is that I wanna do Western States right. I want to avoid any of the multi-hour mistakes and if I leave a few minutes out there, that's fine, but I wanna be close to my potential. So, yeah, i like, without time or place attached to that Like I'll know the feeling of being like yeah, i executed, i did it right, i like did my best and I was close.

I dig that. Yeah, that was an awesome answer. I think that's a great time to introduce you to our single track, hq 2023 Western States guest tradition. It seems like every time we like announce this, the name of it gets longer, so We're not sure which one works, or are we? I think they both work.

I think it was just okay last time.

So this is the official watermelon Yeah, we hold this for you Of the Western States 100. We would love for you to do two things. One is you're going to get 15 seconds to draw your best cougar on here, and then we'll have you sign it. And we're still trying to figure out what we're gonna do with this watermelon on race day.

It's going to the track We can add other people's cougars.

They're also small.

We didn't know how many people were gonna be signing this USA room for like at least one or two other people. Yeah, we'll let you get situated and get ready, and then we'll start our time.

I'm gonna count down three two one, and then you have 15 seconds. So three, two, one go.

Oh no, is this the bad Sharpie? Where's the other one?

10, 9, 8. Well, now John needs a new Sharpie. Sorry, we're having technical difficulties.

Someone in Sharpie. I think it's something about the wax of the melon. When you go really fast, it goes invisible.

We are paused at 8. Let's see if that works. Let's see if that works. Oh, so this is like a Let's do the whole thing over again.

I was not. This is like a red flag.

We've called a 30 second timeout from the sideline. We're resuming the race. Ready set go 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

I can see it.

I can see it. I can see it. Hey, you're still in the process of painting a masterpiece.

OK, so this is actually a unique approach that we've seen is going for the details on the face. A lot of people get tripped up trying to remember what a body of a mountain lion looks like, So just going for the face is actually wise tactic. So we'll just have you sign your name under that on that one.

It's good You guys are making sure our trail running doesn't get too serious.

Yeah, and it's turned into a very interesting social experiment. We're not really sure what kind of conclusions we're able to draw from this, but there's been a lot of diversity of the careers.

John, before we go I just want to say I think you're an absolute stud of a runner in this sport. I think you might not still be a household name yet, but for folks that are watching this keenly looking to fill in their fantasy, free show picks do not sleep on John. Don't sleep on Johnny Ray.

Don't sleep on Johnny Ray Don't sleep on Johnny Ray.

OK, Don't do it, because I think you're making a huge mistake. I think you're one of the best runners in this race And I'm very excited to see you self-actualize on Saturday. So hell yeah.

Thanks guys, bye chai.