2024 Western States 100 Recap Show

we are back with another episode of the single track podcast this time joined by Brett hornig from trails and tarmac and conversational Pace Danny Marino from the subhub podcast and team Adidas TX to recap the 2024 Western States 100 we're about 48 Hours removed from one of the most exciting races ever at this race and uh you know we keep saying historic but the race keeps delivering Innovations year after year there's a lot to talk about we were chatting Offline that we could be all over the place this episode storytelling talking about data talking about highlights from the men's and women's field pacing commentating Etc so all I can promise is that it's going to be entertaining starting with you Brett um do you have any like immediate overall takeaways or feelings from Saturday that um that are top of mind right now I mean the biggest thing was just I'm just like still dumbfounded at how fast everything was I mean it wasn't just like if one person on each side ran fast I'd be like I mean yeah that's always going to happen one person's going to have like the best day of their career but like if 15 people on the men's and women's side are having like quote unquote like career defining days then it's probably not a career defining day and that's just like how good they all are and and it's like wow if they didn't have that career defining day what does that day look like because like there's no chance that you know 15 people have the absolute best day of their lives I'm sure in that top 10 15 a lot of them didn't feel good at points and it's like how how did this happen I haven't crunched the numbers maybe one of you have was it a low attrition year overall oh I can pull up the drop rate real quick um I think it was low I think it was very low I'll see what it was well I can't compare it to previous years but um Danny what about you just just being there in person it seemed like it was very low I mean of the top 10 women I only saw one woman drop out and it was due to some foot issues Shen Linn who yeah I mean I'll get into her at some point in this episode because she was running an insane race for her Western States uh debut as well but other than that like everyone like stayed in yeah I mean we saw it's funny we saw like what looked like we're like oh that's going to be a massive blowup but it kind of really was more like just a fade um uh 24% drop rate so 89 drops that I think that's kind of in they've had it under 20% before I I want to say 2019 was under 20% um so it's not like it was super low it was lower but you know I think we've had into the 30s upper 30s before that's a pretty high drop here but um I think we had an a station Fireball stat at one point last year where it was kind of like the drop rate doesn't swing that much if it's between like 90 degrees plus if it's below 90 then the drop rate like stays pretty low but if it's 110 out the drop rate doesn't increase that much cuz people just plan for it so it was kind of a normal droppery but one thing that I actually was just kind of scribbling down right before we started recording because I I was just everything was so fast at the front I figured we probably broke the records for sub 24-hour Runners as well um but what I'm now seeing at the trend is at least western states is following the trend of like like the marathon where the very faster getting faster but that's not bringing everyone El faster um you know like like like the Berlin Mar like any the World Marathon Maj you have like your 203 group yeah and then you have your 240 group and there's like no one in between um you know one of the exception like Grandma's Marathon and cim are like our two blue collar sort of marathons um so 2024 had 109 sub 24hour finishers last year was 110 2019 was 130 and then 2012 I'm I'm just like naming all the cooler Years 2012 was 148 so of those last four 109 this was the the smallest sub 24 of like the last I don't know four like quote unquote cooler years and I I I guess I could extend that stat to go look at the number of golden hour finishers but um even just looking at the results like on the men's and women's side around 10th place is you know plus or minus few there's a massive Gap in time after that so there was like those who were competing for the top 10 there were those who competed for the top 10 and then fell way back and then there was sub 24 like there's not much in between yeah I um I really loved Chris Brown's story I don't know if you guys follow him but it says there's been a lot of talk about how fast Western States was here but believe it or not Eric San's iconic 23 hours in 78th Place in 2019 would have played him 78th [Laughter] again yeah that's awesome yeah Chris Brown also one of the great comedians in our sport I was laying in an aid station cotton next to him because we both got dropped Chris survived way longer with Rod than I survived with Caleb but we were both sitting laying down in CS in the med tent at the track just like regaining our senses our faculties Etc and when he went to lie down I looked to him and recognized him was like you know Chris I just want to say like that squirrel's Nut Butter steak cooking reel that you made five or six years ago is one of the remains one of the greatest pieces of content I have ever consumed and my wife and I still laugh about it and think about cooking meals with uh you know Squirrel Nut Butter as the base fairly often yeah you had a great day out there can can we hear some pacing stories because Danny I know you got some great or scoop on like the last mile of Rod and Finn we need to compare stories on what happened to you out there because um western states there was a lot of drama outside of just the race so like there was a grass fire that started not too far over so there was all these rumors going around of like is the race going to get cancelled people were getting turned away from Green Gate for a while um so so there was all that of like oh my gosh it's the greatest race to ever happened like not going to see the Finish Line is it going to be the greatest race that never was so on and so forth then we had a real like where in the world is kmen San Diego kind of moment with Finn where like my wife Maddie she texted me when I was at poter Rock she was just like I just saw Finn cross the river Caleb crossed the river a long time ago and I was like oh cool that means Finn got dropped and then then I then there then I heard other things from other people other Crews coming in about Finn I was like dude I wonder what happened to Finn and then when we had the live stream going at pointed rocks we saw Caleb coming in on the track and we saw you sprinting it in with him we were like oh okay he's at least alive because they were like he has no phone he has no food's our Pet's heads are falling off so what happened I'll tell my story so we can get out of the way and then I want to hear the more important stories like Danny pacing ingvi but it all starts back at Michigan Bluff Brett you and I were hanging out there you were there for commentating duties I was there as sort of the last spot that I would see Caleb Olsen who I was pacing who had a phenomenal day before meeting him at Forest Hill to start running I made a fateful mistake well I made a faithful mistake way before that just purely by by doing our media blitz from Monday through Friday just burning the candle at both ends but uh about an hour and a half before pacing Caleb I picked up one of the burgers from the little makeshift restaurant there at Michigan Bluff and did you just I just ate one but it was one of those weird days where like we were crewing at Dusty corners and we were crewing at um Duncan Canyon so we were on Mosquito Ridge Road all day and all we had in the car was like plain bagels and like peanut M&M's so I wasn't getting any good calories and like last minute I got super self-conscious I was like I need to get something solid in my Bo body to feel good about doing this you know 18 to 20 miles with Caleb ate that burger and like 30 minutes later I could feel like a grumbling in the stomach and I was like ah this is not good like that did not digest well I wasn't even running it like it just it didn't digest well what's going on but I had so much momentum that when I saw Caleb at Forest till like those first three miles together you know leaving dropping into Cal street I was like this is going to work whatever we're just going to get through it it's going to be an adrenaline type day right around three miles in um uh things totally fall apart for me like I I I even told Caleb like verbally I was like Caleb I'm not going to lie like I was expecting at some point in this section I'd have to put on my brne Brown CAP or Tony Robbins cap and give you like the most motivational speeches ever to like get you to the river I have to tell myself those stories now like I'm already deep in the pain cave like I can feel whatever is in my body ready to come out both ends like things are going to get brutal I think I lasted two more miles and you know we're only going like I shouldn't say only but we're going like 7:30 to 8 Minute great adjusted Pace like not anything out of the ordinary not anything that Caleb and I haven't ever done before he drops me five miles in and then it just becomes an absolute Vision Quest for me like I takes me like another three hours to get to rucky Chucky the most embarrassing part was I got to rucky Chucky and I think it's fairly uncommon for a Pacer to get dropped so when I got there and I tried to cross the river myself they were holding me back saying hey your Runner dropped you're not allowed to continue on the course and I had to explain I had to explain to them that it was totally reversed like I was the one that got dropped and I was just trying to get to my crew so anyways make it across the river get to Green Gate and I've only ever run the race before so I didn't realize that when you get to Green Gate your day as a Pacer is not done you still have to make it up this like two mile fairly steep climb to this road and at that point like I haven't had calories for hours I've probably thrown up five or six times diarrhea five or six times like things are bad and I'm just taking these like I'm finding any shade sections I can get like I'm taking these like two minute siestas under trees this is when I get my first hitch so there's this ATV guy that's going up the road and I'm just lying on my back underneath this tree and I just put my thumb up in the air while I'm lying down on the ground and he stops out of pity and he'd like and I crawl into the back of his ATV and he brings me up the road and I'm like okay I'm good like I think I'm all set things are great my crew is going to be there they were all gone so I'm at the top of Road they're all gone I have no way to get to the finish and I'm like turns out there was a fire going on too so I can't get to the Finish Line I have to make it to point of rock somehow everyone's everyone's been getting turned around at Green Gate or before getting turned everyone's been getting turned around meanwhile like I'm at this point I've the guy drops me off and I've fallen to the side of the run again I'm just in my own pool of throw up I keep throwing up and whatnot and then Cole Watson's crew somehow find Rems me and they're like hey you know we just talked to the a Station Road Captain here we can give you a ride and I was like oh thank you we go to pointed rocks that ride takes like 15 to 20 minutes we're stopping multiple times so that I can get out and throw up on the side of the road they Dro me off at pointed rocks I am passed out on this uh you know Stone table they put like a towel over me to keep me warm because I'm shaking continue to throw up and I go into this like dream state and all of a sudden I hear um Caleb Olson's wife Morgan like in in my dream and she's like talking she's saying something and I'm like Morgan and I kind of wake up from the stream and she had been walking behind me in the pointed rocks parking lot and she's like hey and she comes and finds me and basically they I'm still throwing up at this point this is like five hours after finishing pacing Caleb they throw me in the car um I kind of come to and at this point Caleb is like minutes from the track we get to the track with minutes to spare I run out there and that photo of you of us on the track there that's just like me the first time I feel decently enough good and I guess adrenaline takes over but yeah it it was like a six hour Journey it was insane um and ended up lasting for like 24 hours like I don't think I had my first real meal until like 2:30 p.m. yesterday so I don't know if it was a combination of stress food Caleb having a historic day but I was like I was heat trained I was ready for the pace like I was doing workouts before like everything was great it it was rough though like super super uh and I also I hate I hate like those you know moments where like the RAC is about somebody else and then it inadvertently becomes about you like I'm supposed to be the person in the shadows just like shepherding somebody to Greatness or supporting them and like you know my wife got worried she was also crewing Caleb like Caleb's whole family got worried I was like ah this is this is terrible so a lot of funniness but uh how does that check out with with Cole's Cruise story okay so so I'm at pointed rocks it's my last leg of of the the live stream uh field commentary actually before we get that I got a real life like real life stat for you that I just pulled up so like the Strava flyby feature still exists alive and well you and Caleb both you and Caleb both have it enabled and I just looked do you know how much time Caleb put on well do you know what the Gap was between you and Caleb crossing the river because I I know the time do you want to hear how much time and he dropped you it looks like around Cal 2 uh it was was it was right before the second aid station so it been to yeah yeah yeah so I'm guessing it was 70 minutes did he put 70 minutes on me no not not quite that bad between c 2 and the river Caleb put 30 minutes on you oh my gosh yeah so you cross the river 30 minutes after Caleb did but anyway so I get to pointed rocks and um I'm there and then I see uh Joselyn Cole's wife and then the rest of Cole's crew show and they go hey hey Brett um your your buddy Finn's not not really dead I'm like I heard he got dropped um yeah and then they were like oh okay you that's all you heard I'm like yeah and I'm like yeah what's what's up and they're like oh we were coming back up from pointed rocks and we see Finn like get thrown off of this quad and just like left to die on the side of the road cuz they're like walking up and you just like roll of some dude's quad up on the top in the dirt parking lot and then they're like yeah and he's just in the shade under a tree throwing up and we're like dude I love your podcast and you were just like I can I thank you but like I cannot form thoughts right now and then they were like you know we could take you we can take you anywhere but like we can take you in somewhere and you're just like yeah like I need to just get out of here and then they were like yes so we'll take you to pointed rocks and then you didn't actually make it to the Aid Station you got left at the pointed Rock's parking lot exactly exactly like for for people who haven't been to pointed rocks before you park at the cool fire station and then you walk like a mile to the pointed rocks aid station so this is why I never saw you because I was at the Aid Station and you were just at the parking lot and they said yeah we left in um we left in like a jug of water and he's just lying on some table in the parking lot cuz he said he had a ride and they were like they were this close to walking back over there one of them was going to jog over there just to make sure you weren't like dead in the parking lot but they figured like if that was the case there's lots of people coming through that parking lot so like we would have heard like sirens or something U but then yeah then an hour later we saw you on the live stream spring they were like wow he came back to life I of curiosity did you take anything with you while you were pacing or did you just go yeah that was a question I wanted to ask too what did you bring with you so I brought like a full pack you know two bottles like I was pretty taken care of in Terms of fluids and calories and I was feeling pretty confident heatwise because I did a pretty significant sauna block like six weeks out started hitting like I have a sauna in my garage so I was hitting it pretty regularly you know getting up to like 180 190 wasn't worried about that didn't do much in the way of topical cooling but had like arm sleeves and like gloves so there was some protection I have longer hair so like covering my neck and stuff uh but if there's a visual that I could communicate for anybody that's seen the movie Team America World Police there's a scene where the guy is sitting in the alleyway just like continually throwing up and you think he's GNA be done just's like Okay Okay Okay and like the symphonic music just comes on again that was me for six hours like I thought it was done and I'm somebody that can rebound so well from throwing up like I figured if I just booted one time or a couple times it would be done but like it just went for like six or seven hours oh man do you think it was from not eating all day and then just finally eating then finally eating like what was clearly like a very high fat burger patty I ate a Burger I ate one too and I was like o this is very rich tasting like the Buns were buttered heavily and it was a thick Patty and it was juicy and I'm feeling like you might have just like lubed up your insides with cow fat dude yeah and I also think I mean it's hard to say if there was like an autoimmune response that happened from Monday through Friday but like Brett and I burnt the candle at both ends like we were performing for like six or seven hours a day doing our own media Ultra and then even in the night time just doing a lot of like logistical clerical work you know following up on emails and DMS and stuff and so I was sleeping like three hours a night so there's probably a lot of there was a constellation of factors your body might have just shot down on you yeah but I'm I'm just so lucky that Caleb had an amazing day and didn't need a Pacer to begin with because I this would be a terrible story if like Caleb was truly depending on me and I let him down so like I was having nightmares after he dropped me that like something would go wrong for him and like I failed my duties so I'm glad we can laugh about it I certainly am but like I mean I don't know Caleb but he could have gotten a good confidence boost from dropping you that was what I was going to say I was like do you think it made Caleb feel good being like oh wow look at the hurt I'm laying down on Finn like yeah go me so and you were like really haming it up with all the extra vomiting and was like that's J way to like way to like stroke the ego a little bit for Caleb but yeah long story short Caleb had a historic day ran 144th overall fastest Western States debut ever and um people know who he is now he's he's he's amazing and it was it was he looked unreal freshh like in the in the short in the short amount the time I was running with him he looked unreal fresh he was cognizant he was like I think he made a joke to me he's like hey man you picked up your license I was like what it's like your hunting license we're going hunting so yeah he was uh he was with it he was impressive um but yeah was they set a stat at the um the day after at the awards that he was the fastest debut but is that not true or fastest 100 mile debut fastest Western St debut fastest Western St debut yeah for sure it was previously Tom Evans 2019 in 1459 so like if Caleb didn't run what he did John Alban would have gotten that record too because they both went under Tom Evans 2019 time yeah wow Danny What were what was your experience cringing build um I would say very I mean looking at Caleb moving up all day she had a very similar day just you know I think in your first hundred if you want to have a good experience you do you don't know when you can start going and So the plan is you know feel good through halfway and then see how much you can pick off I think that's a pretty safe plan for your first go um so yeah she just like our thing was also we were going to start hunting at Forest Hill uh where she ended up getting picked up by Tony mccan and they started moving up picking off people and then when I picked her up I had studied all the splits like the fastest possible female splits for that second half and my goal was just to obliterate them with her if she was feeling good and um yeah going across the river was really fun that was my first time going across the river and I kind of did like I didn't even put my feet on the ground I kind of just like hovered across which was pretty cool like I'm short enough to where that worked out um and then going across the other side just started hauling as fast as we could and there was a couple moments that were especially uh you know reminiscent when thinking back as we got to the top of Green Gate and Katie asmith was Karan Ester and she looked at us and she was like what the heck where' you guys come from and I was like okay we're doing good we're doing good she's like you guys look so fresh um but yeah crew or pacing inil was probably the best situation possible because I just felt like I was unleashing a stallion running with her and originally when me and Tony picked our spots we thought Tony was going to be more of the drill sergeant and I was going to be like we're doing great you're going to finish but it end up being the complete opposite and I apologized to her multiple times afterwards for how mean I thought I was being to her just not letting her hike and pushing the entire time and um it I think like 10 miles out I realized she was going to break 17 and so we just kept Hamming it um but one of my favorite things was that I took Tony's headlamp uh for because of the Green Gate situation we had D driven to Green Gate we I was planning to start on the other side of the river uh we're told we couldn't go it was a big stress point of like what am I going to do Tony can't run all the way to the finish that wasn't the plan um am I going to start Point of Rocks we hauled ass all the way back to rucky Chucky and my team manager gave me like this giant bag just pump with ice and everything for all of our teammates and I just hauled down to rucky Chucky sprinting downhill with like this giant pised on foot yeah oh my gosh and uh that was a really good warmup um and anyway so part of that was I didn't know if I was going to see crew again at pointed rocks like if they were going to start evacuating people so I just took everything like six flas headlamp extra food um but anyways when I crossed the river I think Tony's headlamp broke so when it finally became time to put on a headlamp I didn't have a headlamp and I didn't want to stress inil out and so I just ran in the dark all the way pretty much to No Hands Bridge just sending it just like using part of her headlamp but I was like in the shadow of it so I couldn't see a lot of the time um and that was I feel like I just unlocked a new downhill skill in my toolbox I've never run in that darkness that much Darkness just sending it on those trails and then I ended up taking my phone out for like the last part of it um but luckily I just run Canyon so I knew what that last section looked like but um yeah it was pretty crazy trying to make up like two minutes in the last you know six or seven miles you're just giving it everything that you have and uh yeah she ended up actually cramping up up to Roy point and perfect example Tony yelled at her you're doing so good we're so proud of you and I was like suck it up we're going to finish this give me everything we are not stopping at this point and Tony looked at me kind of slightly terrified I was like you didn't get this far we're going to haul ass all the way to the finish and uh yeah she was very responsive um but similar to Caleb like fastest uh they said fastest debut for 100 mile I slightly confused at that because maybe it's but was it last year Katie Shy's debut or no what was finish time 1650 50 oh Katie was like 4 yeah so second I don't yeah cuz Katie hadn't run Western States before right yeah that was Katie's Western debut it wasn't her 100 mile debut it was her Western but like some maybe that's what they're going off of cuz that was 100 mile debut which is pretty insane honestly yeah which that would fall in the same realm as Caleb but like if we're looking outside of Western States I'm sure some lady has debuted a faster like flat havina would come to mind yeah I don't know yeah it's either way ridiculously fast and I got to see it in person you and ingvi ripping through pointed rocks because I was there commentating and the the Emily hogood ingvi casperson Eden Nelson Trio had been absolutely ripping since the river and that was was like like Emily came flying through the Aid Station like quick transition sprinting out and I was like Wow Emily is really working to catch Esther and then you and ingvi come in same exact like Vibes sprinting out I was like oh my gosh their hunt the hunter is being hunted by another Hunter and then Eda came through because the gaps got bigger by the Finish but at pointed rocks Emily was 1552 ingvi was 1554 and Ida was 1557 so it was just absolutely insane to see uh such a tight Bunch essent because I was like well if Emily's fighting for the podium and ing's fighting for Emily that means ingi could be on the podium same with Eda like we could have a five-way or a four-way Sprint on the track for third as as far as I know so it was just it was nuts to see that level of competition so late in the race and same thing happened for um Rachel Leah and Priscilla um battling out for eth n9th and 10th they all came spring because it was like Rachel's a hard closer I would like the only person who I would be like more fearful to have running me down other than Rachel is Leah who was running down Rachel and then Priscilla came through going just as fast as the other two and I was like dude this is like dividing by zero how do you figure out who catches who it was it was just it was mind blowing like I loved seeing just that level of competition so late into the race yeah I will say too like AA actually passed us there was someone with a GoPro that got this battle for like 3 minutes so whoever that person is please share gosh but I saw her coming up behind us and I I memorize stuff I memorized course I memorize splits that's just my vibe and I was I saw her coming behind us and I was like that's like the last person I want hunting us down right now the other people are the people that we are actively hunting but people that just are so strong on runnable stuff and I saw AA coming and inil was like is she coming I was like she's coming she's gonna catch us but it's okay we stay calm we stay calm because in the back of my head I was thinking we had just run a lot of downhill so that means she made up four like close to four minutes in like 3 to four miles so I was hoping she wasn't going to be able to climb very soon which was coming up and uh yeah we went back like twice e a pass we made a move e a p us and then I kind of pulled back with inil and collected her with me I was like when we pass now that's it we're not we're not slowing down and she just like nodded her head and then I just kind of like did a little hand thing I was like go now go now go now and then just I feel tiny compared next to these tall beautiful Scandinavian women too women you know they're so tall and I'm just like trying to push inil up this hill um but yeah e a world class but on straa my segment from the river to the Finish was 343 inil hasn't updated her yet and I'm the number one spot now so she was running with me Eda was 34143 so we're just like we're talking the historically some of the fastest times ever on on the course on Saturday Danny and this will end up being a question for both of you guys but like you said something earlier uh that you you especially as a rookie you don't know when you can start going and to me I totally agree and and that's why this year was so impressive like you think of fuia ingvi Rachel John Alban Caleb like just amazing debuts despite maybe having some uncertainty about like where to make moves how to position themselves you know inside the race and it makes me wonder like in this era of ever evolving standards like what what now constitutes smart racing I feel like three years ago we had a very like easy straightforward answer to that question but like is is it more risk driven now like I don't know Brett you were out there commentating seeing things unfold like do you have any do you have any thoughts in in this regard so I think what it is it's it's before there was just a greater window of wig room for like what was quote unquote aggressive or not and for the most part people were just going out like way too conservative and still having successful days we saw a massive you know front men's pack and a lot of people attributed that to being to going out really aggressive but truly going out aggressive I don't know to me kind of indicates maybe going out harder than that person should like relative to their Fitness and that clearly was not the case like none of them were going out harder than they should relative to their Fitness they were just going out like more like correctly evenly like on the fastest Pace that they could go out while still having a good race you know like if you're going to you know most of the world records for the last like 15 years in the marathon have been under like just ever so slight negative Pace or even like it's like a plus or minus 1% it's not like someone just went and ripped like their second half six minutes faster you know I think the the hunters in the years past are kind of doing the equivalent of that where they're just like jogging for the first 50 miles and then massive negative split whereas now you know the front people are running that same time in the second half but the first half significantly faster because turns out they actually probably could have afforded to go out a little bit faster and we've seen it done enough times now where it's like yeah like this is just the new standard like if you want to win this race you're probably hitting more or less these times you know on this course for this day like they there's enough data now where it's like okay the weather's going to be this the snow levels are this we probably are hitting Robinson flat here we're probably hitting you know last chance here we're hitting Michigan Bluff here and if we do that it'll put me in a position to be able to race for the podium or race for the win and if I don't do that I'm not catching people and that's exactly what we saw no one ran up on anyone like late into the race like Caleb moved well but he was you know in the second half of that top 10 with a group of like five people and then moved up to the front of that group but there was still a there was still a decent margin the whole time between like him and say Dan Jones yeah I one of my takeaways from this weekend and it was kind of like an inkling I mean we saw this with CCC a couple of years ago but prior to last year where you know Abby Abby Hall was in the top three and then the following year her time got you like 20th Place um there was like two thoughts that came to my head one of them is to me the race no longer like starts in quotes at Forest Hill I think that's been a theme for so long like the race starts at Forest Hill the race starts a Forest Hill it's like no the race starts when the race starts like people were getting up the escarpment and starting to make moves Katie sh by 50k had 20 plus minutes on the next woman and she was racing from the start um so yeah that was one of my biggest takeaways is like the race starts when the race starts and Forest Hill is like the last 10k of a marathon whoever's the strongest hold on yeah I actually love that the start to force is like the first 20 miles and then for finish is like the last 10K it's like yeah you better have good legs there but at the same time you also better not dilly dally too much before that part because if you have great legs everyone else is going to run away from you anyways Danny any other like overarching top takeaways from Saturday whether it was related to athletes the Ambiance being there how you're influenced terx stuff yeah I mean I I think some another another thought that came to my head overall is like we've talked so much about you know a rising tide lift All Ships and like really seeing that come to play but for some reason in my head I kept coming back to the Katie effect like Courtney is goat right she's incredible um but Courtney does have this kind of unhuman about her sometimes like almost Untouchable whereas Katie shy is very transparent with her training uh you can see exactly what she's doing all the work that she's putting in and I think by doing that she shows people that you can get there with a lot of hard work and a lot of attention to detail um and so I think by being transparent she also is Pinnacle like I I don't want to see her compared to Courtney uh anymore like they are their two own individuals and like with them come their own effects and yeah I think a lot of women in the field are you know benefiting on off of the KD effect and then um on the men's side don't let your team run with you if you're running down second place was my other takeaway why why you say that last one elaborate this one this one is like so Bittersweet and heartbreaking um I would say more Bittersweet so broad favard my Mountain brother ran an an insane race like you know I was losing my while pacing not being able to watch him finish but you know staying focused on my athlete and so I'm hugely RW biased you know compared to a lot of people with that being said going into the last mile he got picked up by Tim tosson and you know at that point he was like seemingly a comfortable second place you know bringing it in rough battle with the greatest right now in our sport um and Tim tovon was running with him and just happened to look back and see a sea like a sea of white t-shirts who were running with Hayden Hawks who was chasing down rod in an insane like River to finish um just I don't have Liam stats but Hayden ran 310 from the river to the finish and Rod ran 321 so Hayden made up oh do you have give you another stat well I have the pointed Rock split which is what blew my mind the most when cuz we were watching on the live stream and um Rod was seven full minutes ahead of Hayden at pointed rocks which is like just over five miles to go so like that was why I was like oh Rod's getting second and maybe if he really hammers he'll because he was right in between he had Jim had nine minutes on Rod so it was like almost the same of like Jim to rod rod to Hayden I was like well it's it's pretty much set unless you know Jim blows up but it didn't really look like that um yes continue so 7 minutes with five miles to go that's insane I mean considering I me and inil were trying to close 2 minutes and didn't that he made up seven minutes is mind-blowing um but yeah so anyways Tim looked backwards and then he pretty much told Rod like you need to go now like this point and I think they've looked at the Strava segments at that point but Rod starts hauling Hayden starts hauling both on the track at the same time and like out of anybody in the field besides Jim that is the last person you want behind you is Hayden Hogs what was your quote Brett beat Hayden oh yeah yeah I was like Rod did you ever think you'd be able to say that you out kicked a sub4 minute 5K guy on the track like Hayden's got Hayden's got some seriously good track PRS and Rod had decent running in high school and college but not like 1340 in the 5K and it's like you ever think you'd be able to say you out kicked that dude on the track just straight up head to-head um yeah yeah insane it was incredible I mean good for Rod coming out on top considering the what the punches that he was throwing against the Keen um but yeah incredible Applause to Hayden too like that's unworldly and it makes me wonder like what happened in the middle of the race like why was he having to chase down so much time at the end yeah I mean maybe I mean it could have just been a fact of like Hayden thought I mean everyone gets pulled to the finish at a slightly different rate and you know maybe it was maybe Hayden was getting fed false information towards the end for the like for the better of like oh Rod's only two minutes up when it was actually seven or something like that um giving him that that hope and like maybe prior to that it seemed too big to to bridge and then maybe he just started getting those thoughts of like maybe this can actually happen like maybe this is a thing um but yeah it was it was nuts apparently yeah I mean I got to read this progression to you because it's amazing so Rod's now done Western States four years in a row 2021 he dnfs 2022 41st Place I think Brett you probably remembered that year was that the one when he's in the cop yeah I passed I kicked his ass his ass see bass if so if so facto I could run so fast 11th Place in 2023 and then second place this year what a progression patience progression stick tutiven resilience it's not over till it's over like I just I just love like the faith in the process and I mean I have to assume a belief that no matter how many times he doesn't have his day he knows that there is greatness to ultimately uncover I just think that that's for anyone out there that is wondering you know if and when they'll have their day at this race or if and when they have what it takes I think Rod is a really good example I think Katie and Rod are both really good examples of commitment and sacrifice and hard work and obviously they're both great athletes but like you said Danny like there's like an approacha leness to how they've achieved what they've achieved um Rod being very transparent too you know one of the greatest bloggers out there I can't wait for his Western States recap to drop there people forget that like Jim failed at this race too before he's gotten it multiple times in a row um and honestly huge day for Hayden too like compared to his last go this race it's been I mean everyone progressed and Tyler running the same exact time and getting seventh instead of top three is yeah the sport has changed yeah and this year I mean I guess that's this is probably Up For Debate but like I mean this year was the course slower this year than last year because on the one hand it was warmer this year than last year but on the other hand the high country was much better conditions yeah um and and I I keep going back and forth on what's better not because talking to lots of people from last year it was pretty split where half the people were like I actually prefer the snow in the High Country because I'm I was running all winter I like running on snow it felt like it you know saved my legs the extra cushion it forced the pace to slow down I was able to rip the second half some other people were like I hated the snow I don't like snow it's slippery I had to work extra hard to stay upright and then because of that it like burnt some matches so I don't know which course was actually faster but you know it kind of goes back like Danny what you said the KY effect you know I think noticed the gym effect on on this side as well where you know it every year like the two the last two years that Jim won the race in 2019 and 2021 there were people who put up massive fights to try and beat Jim they just there just wasn't anyone quite yet to the level of either Fitness experience or a combination of both for this yeah just sheer sheer courage for this course you know the closest that anyone got was Jim's own training partner in 2019 and like 2021 he won by one of the biggest margins ever because everybody just exploded so catastrophically trying to run with him and this year we see kind of like what we saw last year you know Courtney always brings out the best in everyone like I know that pretty much everyone was like yeah she's going to win but it still like elevates this level of competition where seeing that we saw that again this year with Katie and for Jim everyone was like everyone was like am I going to accept the pressure and the responsibility of I have to show up full 100% like I have to show up with my aame or I am going to get absolutely dusted out here and there were so many people who fully committed to that not just on race day like that that commitment starts way before the race starts um and then because of that we saw en large the fastest year ever on not the fastest Day Ever yeah yeah I did hear from multiple people that they thought the the course this year was in the best condition ever and I don't know if that's because of the late snow uh storms that like Palisades in that area had and maybe it wasn't as dry um but I did hear that from multiple people that have run it before that the high country was in really good condition and then having the transition not go along the road after Forest Hill and just getting straight down to the trail this year again um I think a lot of people actually prefer that over going down that terrible Cement Hill last year yeah that's true the course was also one more year removed from the fire so like the Devil's Thumb like last chance to Michigan Bluff area oh and part of C Forest Hill to Cal one it was freshly rebuilt last year and you know even as good as you can rebuild a trail it's still a little bit soft underfoot it like needs to just get run down a little bit um so you know by having a Canyons go through it this year and last year's Western States probably helped the dirt out a little bit but that still doesn't explain nobody blowing up why why did nobody blow up you know one of the things that Jim in his exit interview with iron far was saying was he got the sense that the the collective intelligence of the sport has raised like categorically in the last five years like he was comparing he was talking with Brian po saying like between 2019 and 2024 I can count on more than two hands the number of people in the race that are taking the logistics and not just like the pure running aspect of it but like all of the small details that he would sweat in 2019 there are like 20 Jim womsley in the race now with with that level of focus and so um that was his theory that like he no longer has a competitive advantage in terms of like trying to outsmart people on the logistical side of things which which I thought was a very interesting comment to me huh I that oh sorry he was prob I was say so he was probably ahead of his time he was ahead of his time 2019 2021 he actually thinks that there are now people according to that interview people that are smarter than him he actually thinks like he's like I basically ran back the same iies that I was using in 2019 and 21 and this year made me realize when I come back in 2025 I might need to switch some things up when it comes to like Aid stations and uh carrying a little bit less or or or just carrying better equipment in between stuff like that like it was actually he was kind of doing like a taking stock of everything and thinking like I that was one thing I was maybe a little bit lazy about was just like people might have even gotten ahead of me in terms of innovation I would say the sport as a whole is just very very transparent like I mean if you compare to track and field and Road marathoning uh you take straa alone and there's no Professional Road marathoners on Strava aside from maybe Molly cidel but even now she's even like pulled some stuff off and like chooses here and there um whereas like you could look up rods in uh straa Hayden straa Jim straa you can watch videos listen to podcast and people are very open open with their knowledge which yeah just kind of helps the whole bit um and Aid stations was really cool I feel like we should definitely get into that just watching like Jim versus Rod um even our TX group uh like having to sign jobs and something interesting with the TX group this year is like historically people have had their crew like their one crew whereas we split up the eight stations at some points where two people stayed there for all of our Runners and knew exactly what each Runner needed as they came through so that other Crews can be at different spots and like taking into consideration like emotional support at some spots um yeah it was really cool and then yeah the gym versus Rod at Forest Hill what did you guys think about that well I was just gonna say soich yeah because I was crewing Caleb I was sort of in tune in early Aid stations and so I got to see Jim at Duncan Canyon saw him at Dusty Corners saw him at Michigan Bluff I was shocked by how much he was taking his time at Aid stations and then sort of relying on his ability to catch up like when we were at Dusty Corners mile 38 I mean Hayden and Dan blew right through the Aid Station and passed him and Jim is sitting there watching him totally unaffected leaves like maybe 30 to 45 seconds maybe even a minute later like he was really like if I'm Jim one of the first things I'm thinking about is like how much time can I shave off Aid stations like he was and maybe that maybe he benefits from sort of stretching it out and he kind of takes a counterintuitive approach but he was slow yeah I mean one thing that Jim said in his post race interview and I heard from his crew as well was that he started something started bugging his foot up in the High Country um like a blister was or a hot spot was forming so he changed his shoes sign ific anly more times than he planned because he changed shoes at Robinson I think no he didn't change shoes he changed shoes at what's after that uh Dusty Corners he changed shoes at Dusty Corners he changed shoes at Michigan Bluff he changed shoes at uh Green Gate like you that's unnecessary for someone like Jim you know I mean I'm sure if he he would have done one shoe change if everything was going to plan but like just sitting down and having to take off your shoes and socks and you know do like a little bit of foot care like making sure my socks are clean making sure my feet are dry he lost so much time just in Aid stations alone from two additional shoe changes um which yeah and then like going to Rod like I saw him at Michigan Bluff I didn't get to be at um Forest Hill but Michigan Bluff was the first like robins and flat I'm like okay these guys are all really close together that's you know everyone could go out with Jim to Robinson flat they're all good Runners of course you can run 30% of the race through with Jim like the gaps will blow up by Michigan Bluff Jim comes down Michigan and then all of a sudden Rod comes down Hayden rounds the corner Dakota rounds the corner Dan Jones rounds the corner and before anyone left the top five men were in Michigan Bluff together Jim's like changing his shoes again all Rod does is a pack Swap and then he leaves in first the the timing match showed Jim in first at Michigan Bluff but I think the lives the cameras and then what I could see I was like bro Jim just lost the lead at Michigan Bluff this has never happened ever and then like he left with Dakota Hayden and Dan I was like this Rod's now leading this like absolute Allstar Chase pack of four Dudes right now like four goliaths are running down Rod this is absolute insanity and then yeah and then apparently the same thing happening at Forest Hill uh it reminded me a lot of last year when um Dakota was pressing Tom through the aid stations because Dakota's aid station transitions were really fast and Tom kept wanting to like change his shoes and do all the stuff and like Dakota would look back on and be like like Deuces and then Tom will be like a and get up and just like abandon everything and leave the only difference is like Jim has a confidence to not abandon his aid station plan he's just like they can they can leave I'm going to have to catch them but I got to take care got to put on my my oxygen mask first before I go um Danny what' you see at Forest Hill it was interesting hearing like people talk to their Runners uh some a few notes that I heard people coming down the Road was stay calm stay calm stay chill stay chill almost like not letting the craziness of Forest Hill get to them and like getting hype and stuff um I think that was different for each Runner and yeah just honestly these are the fastest Forest till eight stations I've ever seen I've always like historically when I've been at Western States when people are Forest Hill that's a big stop like just by default they sit down they take their time but I don't know if it's like the strategy changing that they just want to start heading to the canyon but this was by far the fastest yeah and like Rod had some of the fastest atation transitions of anyone I saw um with just pack swaps like it was just pack swaps and maybe some ice additional water but like it never seemed like he had to Pivot anything um you know like that's what I talked to his crew at Michigan Bluff I was like what's going on right now and they're just like he's basically just said he's having a Canyon's 2.0 where nothing's going wrong and I'm like do you guys have you guys had to change anything or are you just going like exactly as it's written down they're like we're just have it exactly as it written down like we're not going to change anything until he tells us to and it didn't sound like like how nice would it be if you know the race plan that you write down you just ended up doing 100% of it like how cool would that be at Western States you know how in our pre-race chat with Katie shy and we were you know asking her about high carb feeling her response was reasonable carb fueling I wonder if there's some sort I wonder if Jim proves out this aid station equivalent where it's like reasonable stay Aid stations you know like well that's like the Euro style he learned that at UTMB and like Fran was like no sit down have a have a bagette yeah like just chill like eat some food you'll be fine but um I do feel like his stop oh sorry um his stop at Green Gate like I think so much about that cuz he stopped for 3 minutes and Rod was running ahead of him and between Green Gate and Auburn Lakes Trail he made up that time yeah and part of me is like that is the longest gym has ever run with somebody at Western States and so I'm thinking if he was like sitting down reentering himself I don't know I haven't asked him and just was like I need to do it now and I need to do it hard because when he passed rod um Rod basically said was like that's why he's the goat like he just passed him with basically the same pass as Zach at UTMB he passed and he was gone and Rod was like I'm I'm not gonna catch him again yeah wow huh um I was just thinking like if you took out Jim's aid station time stoppage what do you think his running time was he doesn't have it on he doesn't have it on straa it's not on straa but rod on straa it shows his stoppage time is being um was it like 23 minutes or is that right and and we're taking this at face value oh sorry 13 minutes not 23 minutes 13 minutes of moving time versus elapse time according to stra for Rod like if if Jim says spent double the amount of time which I think is fair he could have spent more than that so if Jim has 30 minutes of stoppage time we're now looking at a 134 43 running time maybe next year 14 14 degrees warmer this year than it was in 2019 when he ran 1409 did you see the other difference makers comp competition competition but it was a dog fight then too like I mean yeah Jared Jared was always behind him not really gaining or losing yeah Rod passed him a couple times like there was that like being in touch with somebody but that's a wild Delta to me yeah I mean it's the other I'd say the other two yeah I was going to say the the Mary and the kill um you know two things that Jim and like Jared didn't have in 2019 that's you know just much more normalized now is like better Footwear and better nutrition um you know I think 2021 Jim was went full Morton I don't recall I can't recall what he did 2019 was he still goo at the time like fastest yeah but no wasn't he Cliff bar at one point he had like a cliff bar hat yeah no shade to Cliff but I think his two dnfs were cliff okay all well not too de he finished 2016 but then he was go first smidge and then he went Martin first smidge and now he's never second um another you know I guess like you know we'll talk about fueling you had some great notes about just the fueling Brands if we're because we've always trying to rank it by like who's running for who from a footwear standpoint but you're like there's a lot of people with nutrition sponsors but um you know Jim's under never second now and he even said something in our preious interview that was really interesting where he was like I don't love the powder too much but I really like the passion fruit gel so I just dumped them in the bottles and I was like oh you're going back to like the old school cycling days except with like new school gels um so and you know Rod has had an absolute feeling um like Renaissance this past year shout out Vic Johnson that's been a huge thing for Rod I honestly think with Jim 2 like yes like taking those logistical boxes has helped but part of me also thinks that him living in Europe for a couple of years and just changing up the training from being at flag and the Grand Canyon and he probably climbed more than he had ever done before for when he was living in the United States and you know they say that like insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result it's like yeah throwing him and like really chiseling his Mountain skill set for like a couple of years and honestly his win at UTMB like historically he had a rough time there when he got past he kind of like shut off a couple of years in a row whereas this year you know he fought his way back he stayed with um germon he made his way back to Zach and it's like he already was an incredible athlete but really chiseling and refining that mental skill set and mindset I think he's a different gym coming back to the US and coming back to Western States like he kind of threw himself in a different Gauntlet and he's coming out a better and stronger Runner yeah that's a great Point Danny are you able to share publicly what you and Rod talked about pre-race just about like his goals for the race oh yeah you yeah you youw you gave us some great teasers in the predictions episode yeah I'm sure he wouldn't mind me sharing at this point the biggest thing was like calling your shot you know just like really challenging each other to call your shot like what do you think is possible on the day and he gave himself third place when I asked him that he said Jim Tyler him uh like two very tried intrude uh Western States gentlemen um obviously it ended up a little bit different than that yeah do you know if Rod had any intention of leading the race I mean really as early as he did or even being in like thinking about being in that conference because if he was thinking like third to Tyler I my in my mind it's like I'm going to be with Tyler and fifth or six that Michigan Bluff and then we're going to run up onto the podium whereas Rod's taking the lead through Michigan Bluff um and trying to seemingly run away with the win yeah I think he's learned that you have to put yourself in the conversation if you want a shot and which he did and executed well at Canyons and so yeah I think putting himself in the race was always part of the plan and he's strong enough now and he knows like I mean last year he was 11th he was in that position where he started going too late and um just knowing like how to not race to never to not end up in that situation like you have to go out like even if you're in the top five and fade in the last 20 miles as we've said like people just there wasn't Carnage there's not as much Carnage anymore it's like it's more of the outlier situations that equates to Carnage like something happened to your foot you're coming in with injury like you miss an aid station cuz your people didn't show up because of traffic and it's like situations like that are equating to Carnage now um yeah so I think it was always like part of his plan to just go for it yeah CU like I mean so like Cole Watson by I mean it it looks like he blew up like if you saw like he was like like zombie joging at pointed rocks and I was like oh man like yeah the Dynamite's fully gone off but then when I went back and look he ran 1644 like he was less than an hour slower than last year and last year was like a great breakthrough race for him when he got ninth and then all of a sudden he's like not like if you blow up you're hours slower than your best time but he was less than one hour slower even though he was like oh yeah dude by the time I crossed the river I could like barely move I'm like well then how did you only lose 45 minutes minutes after the river like that it's just it's nuts and then run 1644 and get 18th Place like that should be we should be looking 10 yeah pretty much every year at that time and so he was I mean we were talking this morning he was just like dude I am like just like it's incredible at how good people are you know like there really were 10 guys or more yesterday who could have won the race I have even on the women's side I just want to highlight because I know we're focusing a lot on the men but like absurd you if breaking 17 didn't win you the race this year it got you six it got you fifth it got you fourth it got you third 1620 was second place like yeah and like 1733 was 10th like Leah piard by it 15 more minutes 15 minutes broke broke 18 hours like last year 10th place was 1811 it was Meg Morgan and that was the fastest 10th place by eons and then Leah knocks 40 minutes off of that for the same place like almost exactly the same for em hoga 38 minute PR you know fourth fifth she was fourth last year Finn you said in our preview episode you were like like I think five men are going to break 15 hours and all 10 are going to be under 1530 and I was like you're full of it and then you were like oh I bet we see what did you say did you say top 10 women would be under 1730 or 18 hours I said top 10 women under 1740 and I said at least five men under 15 hours I'm gonna yeah I cannot yeah I really like that was like I mean I thought that was as hot of a take is like Courtney not winning band I was like bro those are just so those times are just so unbelievably fast if you go back to the YouTube live you can see Brett looking away in disgust I was like no like you're you're telling me like I totally I would believe you more if you said one p like if you were like Courtney will run under 15 or Katie will run under 1530 and Jim will break 14 hours then it's just like one person on either side having amaz day but you're like all 10 people are just going to run amazing and like butterflies and unicorns everyone's just going to be happy go-lucky world peace everyone's just going to run perfect I'm like no dude that's not how Western States works there's Carnage there's blood there's tears throw up but turns out it was just all the Pacers who were blowing up this year I threw up for everybody gosh is yeah so then to just to see the Times Rolling In I was like and one of the things too is like I think the level of competition elevated the times because someone was always chasing someone who was always chasing someone pretty much all day like um the the carrots seemed much closer together late in the race than they really had ever been um yeah because you know like I we I mean Danny you saw it live like there was just such an intense amount of racing where there was like there wasn't a single minute for the top 10 women to like look around and enjoy any part of the course like it was just like look down make sure you don't fall eat your gels yeah freaking Hammer there was a part with ingv I feel bad I was like don't take in the view look forward there was like a beautiful sunset about to happen um something that I want to highlight on top of that like the level of competition raising the entire field on the men's side headline American men showed up only three international men in the top 10 American sweep of the podium considering the international lineup like that is huge seven out of the top 10 men American whereas on the women side America China uh I forget where Esther's from I always mess this up but International she living in Hong Kong she's from Hungary oh Hungary that's right then you go America Norway uh Norway technically Emily's from Zimbabwe oh Zimbabwe yes so it's like no that's four five straight International so only Katie Heather Rachel Priscilla Leah so five American women in the top 10 but they were mostly after sixth place there was only one American in the top six and I I feel like France is probably trying to claim Katie after that result too yeah it's a tug of war between flag and France yeah it was it was a very International women's field uh for sure it was also a very professional women's field we were speculating in the predictions episode for how many people in the top 10 would be unattached and I think the only person that I can recognize is Maybe Priscilla forgi yeah yeah she was wearing like I think sore brand kit but then she was just rocking a pair of uh TX speed Ultras uh so I mean her own shoe Choice yeah and I think also the for the record she was wearing the Adidas um men's top 10 was all fully Pro fully Pro well I yeah can we well can we do fully Pro and that they were all yeah like many of like Caleb's Works uh John Ray Works Tyler green Chris Myers but they all have a shoe contract um I think if they wanted to they could be full-time running like well yeah at like a minimum threshold like they have like they wouldn't be sleeping in like a bathroom the Night Before the Race like a you know ouse thing so at pointed rocks I was joking with uh Kim uh Katie's crew was there Topher and Kim Gard were there and we were watching the men's finishers come in and I I look over at Topher and I was like can you how does I was just like to give me your take on this Rod is the fastest Northface athlete to ever run Western States and he's on their development team and like Topher like giggled a little bit and then I was like think about who has run this race with a North Face kit and he was just like Hal kerer Timothy Olson Rob cwr Steph and it's it's Rod favard who is now the fastest Northface athlete ever and then to was like and he's on the freaking development team he's like are you kidding me right now like I was I was like I'm just thr on the PSA out there like this is a crime that like Rod either needs to get massive contract BMP from North Face or other brands out there who are listening I know you are fans of the sport I know your fans of the sport and you are listening to this episode he should be absolutely number one on your pursue list for 2025 I'm just throwing that out there yeah and I mean you had nor other North Face great in the race John Albin I did hear that he got sick the week before Western States so was coming in not in top that's why he was on the bike um so coming in a little under but John Alban Yen and who was the other Northface go Deng the he was in the mix like most of the race and ended up 14th like yeah John Alin and GN Shen alone like their results world class across the board yeah I know like I know a petition I will I will be a I will be an agent for rod for free I will be a free a free agent a free agent I love it I have I have two phenomenons that I want to run by you both to get your takes so it was interesting to me that both winners on the men's and women's sides did not have Pacers Katie went Pacer list Jim went Pacer list I actually heard Katie say in her post race interview that she felt based on her personality it would be a disadvantage to her to have a Pacer because if she's with someone she feels like maybe she loses energy to them in the sense that she has to sort of like talk with them entertain them she's more of an introvert this is interesting because we've always had this like statement about western states that like you know maybe there's sort of an asterisk next to the runner experience because there's the assist from Pacers but Katie sort of brings this argument to the table that not for everybody like not for every personality type Brad I see you nodding your head do you have do you have any thoughts just because I know Karen Malcolm is listening to this right now and she's yelling she's yelling out of into she's yelling to nobody on a run as she's listening to us years Jim picked up an emergency Pacer at pointed rocks did okay yeah um his name was Ben pointed rocks the last five miles because he didn't have one anywhere else but then you know it because it was close like it was that close like some guy named Ben was ready to roll and Jim was like let's let's go and so he for the last five miles Jim did have like uh like a slight security blanket okay with him and I don't know if that was always planned or not like it seems weird to plan to pick up a Pacer for the last five miles but I feel I feel like he was like in the reserve and then Jim actually you know called him up but how about this sort of statement from Katie that like it's it's not it's not like settled science that that having a Pacer is necessary like for some people it might be a disadvantage yeah um I mean I I think it's cool I Katie's also run so many races with where Pacers aren't allowed you know over in Europe and stuff like very minimal crew minimal she talked about it a little bit on previous interview too I feel like there's um like an environmental part of just sustainable racing you know because she was talking about like should there really be even be Crews on the Green Gate side um you know because it's just like so much extra like they're literally right there two miles down the road um you know pacing is a very having a pce is a very American thing you get to share the miles but like it's also just like one more person on the trail one more person that's driving out or flying out to your race um you know from a sustainability standpoint it's not the greatest call and I and I think Katie does think about that a lot um so I I think you know combination of things of just like being in Europe for so long being like I I run I've learned to run very well with P she's confident enough that she's not going to let things slip um and maybe there's a part of it that's like no I'm going to back up my thoughts on needing a Pacer as well like so maybe she's getting the same exact motivation as a Pacer being there just by being like I don't need one and I'm going to prove it to you why yeah I think it's just in the end preference I mean rodad two Pacers uh Esther had Pacers um the rest of the top 10 and winners in the passive had Pacers so yeah I think it is yeah it's like a fun thing um and yeah very American but I love it I think it's such a special part of our sport to like be able to share that with you know people and uh your person and stuff so just coming down to preference when when it's all said and done I for sure I have something I want to talk about please top three women coached by Jason coup yes I thought that was very happened before that a coach sweeps an entire Podium I I mean I I feel like people having coaches is still relatively new let alone like coaching the podium um I was surprised didn't have coaches at all too in the top 10 yeah I didn't realize fuou Jang was coached by Jason Coupe as well um but because she she was ran like a textbook race um you know just kind of steadily sneaky moving up the whole time and then absolutely ripping from the River to the Finish yeah yeah I mean yeah hats off to Coupe he uh it's hard to do much better than that yeah just collect more market share in the top 10 next year I guess um seriously Danny any other well we could talk about Katie for a while what what else stood out to you about Katie's performance um I mean same as the guy side just literally racing from the beginning getting to this garment and just getting to work um I feel like we've already seen that with her but seeing it this year versus even last year just attacking and being under course record and just going for it regardless of what the conditions were and I did appreciate like her smiling and you know like hand hitting and stuff like that um whether that I I just don't know her personally but I thought that was pretty cool and yeah the second woman to ever break 16 hours which I can't believe we're saying I can't believe you just said second woman to break 16 hours I didn't think there was going to I didn't I I couldn't believe there was a first last year because it was like the course record was a dozen years old it was 1640 something like so sub 16 40 minutes are you kidding me um Katie looked so smooth and just unfappable on Saturday like that was really The Vibes that I got was like yeah she was running fast she was there to do work but also like still was able to enjoy you know I mean I don't know what she looked like when she left the aid stations you know maybe it was kind of like the Courtney thing where it's like you put on the smiley face get some energy there and then you're immediately like Stone Cold like straight back to work once the Aid Station once you leave the Aid Station but whatever Katie was doing um to stay in like the right head space uh I I want to read that book because just from a confidence standpoint she seemed like the most unable of really like anyone in the entire race men's or women's like it didn't seem like there was ever a doubt that she wasn't going to run this well I wonder if and again it would be it would be so hard to measure this but just based on what I've heard her say in our interviews and in other interviews she rarely you know listens to podcasts or music while she runs I think she just kind of goes on natural and it sounds like she's incredibly comfortable in her own head for very long periods of time and I wonder if there's just that like run overrun week over- week practice of just that mindset and she's had a competitive disadvantage or Advantage I should say over other runners in the field who you know when it comes to race day like that experience of like being alone with yourself is like brand new whereas like she's been like in that Solitude forever just practicing yeah I mean I don't know I mean she lives in a super remote area over in France too like doesn't she trains solo a lot I mean we saw that she went on some runs with people and ran into people but most of the runs you know it seemed like in the canyon and stuff this training block she started by herself and was yeah you're right it seemed like she was practicing being by herself and first this entire training block and then when it happened it was like this is lovely and then she just made such a massive commitment too like she lit she's like I you know Jal and I are going to be away from each other for two months I'm going to specifically move to Flagstaff again so like over the last two years spending you know four plus months training alone in Flagstaff to get it done like I just think it's so cool that she made a massive sacrifice massive commitment nothing is Promised on race day and like yeah I mean she said herself she got a glimpse last year of what's possible came back this year got it done and I don't think she's coming back next year I think like you know she it was mission she won she won it was a huge sacrifice I don't know how sustainable that is from like a lifestyle standpoint year-over-year sounds like if she does come back to the states to race again it's going to be hard rock maybe she's a Dale's pick she said that in her pre-race yeah postrace interview was like hard rock to us maybe too like hard rock would be the next one that would that would Jive well with being able to ski through the winter and be you know right multisport athlete which she likes something I would love to ask her because she was what was the most time she was under course record it was like 30 minutes right 30 minutes yeah like not like somewhat early into the race like or Michigan Bluff yeah part of me like last chance or something yeah I would love to ask her if she thinks sub5 is the next step for women because Courtney ran 1529 and Katie comes off as someone who's like very calculated so I wonder if she was like I'm going to be the first woman to break 15 um and another thing that was really shocking to me is like Courtney was sixth last year and Katie with that time was not even in the top 10 yeah yeah I know I don't know what to make of that yeah I just think both the men's and the women's Fields showed up on an equally impressive level I think like some years will say you know this was the story about the men's race some years it's the story about the women's race I just think both both races showed up do you think this is it's I mean I always leave the like I'm definit I initially left this race being like dude Western be boring as hell next year or like is this just a standard like I mean I've been to the US Olympic trials for track and field twice and they were equally as exciting both times this year's trials I wasn't there because we were at States uh just as exciting and it's like every year I like couldn't possibly one up the previous year and then it does somehow so it's like is this just the standard for Western States now yes I think so I think so like on the women's side next year it wouldn't surprise me if the entire Podium was under 16 minutes now because people see that now like you have to break 16 if you want a shot yeah and like the entire top 10 will be under 17 hours ex that's what I think I think the entire top 10 under 17 hours next year I think on the men's side entire top 10 under 15 hours yeah um can we talk training leading up to this race a little bit cuz we know what k was doing um we know what Esther was doing um do we know what fua Jang was doing I mean she's train runs for coup but like do we know where she was training and like building up for most of's race because Katie and Esther both put in most of their training blocks in you know on the west coast like Emily hogood did most of her training in the Auburn area um like what about yeah what about fuou and what about ingvild um ingi also was in Flagstaff before ingi was also in Flagstaff y um yeah I would love to know what Fu's training was like leading up to this I mean I could have an idea like Coupe tended to go somewhat on the the more volume heavy side with like backtack long runs like not a ton of intensity um a lot of uh yeah big days um you know we you could see eda's training as well uh same deal like pretty high volume like Mountain like high high volume big vert like even Heather talked about that in in in her pre pre- interview with us where she was like yeah I got up to 100 110 120 miles a week i' never run that much ever and you know she spent a good amount of time on this course and if you're running the middle parts of the course and hitting 100 plus miles a week you're going to just organically hit 20 plus thousand feet of Earth as well so one of my big takeaways and same thing on the men's side I feel like as much as we say it's like a a runner's course it's fast blah blah blah it's those who had kind of mountain legs had pretty good success here like we're we're seeing a decent amount of running and pretty hivert are yielding the most success out of both top 10 and I just think it's really fascinating how it seems like we're starting to climb more at least publicly for Western States than in recent years memory it looks like fua she came out for the western states camp and then just stayed in Tahoe and biggest week was 114 miles with 11,000 ft of Earth 12,000 ft of Earth okay so that's actually one of the lower vert people of because KD was hitting 20 to 30k Esser was hitting 15 to 25 um actually Emily Emily has hasn't been putting anything on straa right no I don't think I mean not even on straa um AA runs a ton yep lot of ver Heather's main goal was to season the legs that that's that's chef talk for a lot of vert um yeah I just think it's interesting like it Finn do you think like or Danny you too because you you're really yeah Danny you're you're the professional here we're not do do you see this do you think there's a trend of like if you want to be successful at Western States not gotta live Western ways um you have to put in a commitment of a pretty significant amount of time to the training are the days of quote unquote low mileage Western six success are they ending I hope not but I think they are it's changing yeah I to me like looking at people's training 120 is the new 10 like that's just what yeah everyone keeps saying is like 120 is the new 100 I guess I should say like 80200 miles um but you know Rachel Drake was running 65 miles a week and she still ended up in the top 10 Leah Leah Rachel and Leah yeah for sure um but but it's not half yeah I mean we're looking that's two of 10 that means the other eight we're putting in I'm hoping that people like compared to previous generations maybe are I think there's a lot of Science in ultr running like I think it's getting more scientific it's getting more scientific um and people are hopefully paying more attention how to not burn out because you know in previous eras they were putting up pretty big miles too but we saw a lot of those folks you know be around for a couple years and then kind of disappear amongst the ranks and so I'm hoping with because I personally would marry high carb um that stuff like high and fueling and just the science of being prepared more prepared for the race is actually tearing people less down as they're going through these cycles of racing yeah it it totally seems like the sustainable 120 mile a week exists now where it just didn't seem like it ever existed before and like you said I think a lot of it's coming down to not so much the running itself but the fueling during and maybe the recovery afterwards um also having the time like if you're working 40 hours a week and running 120 miles a week that's that's a that's a recipe for disaster but you full-time full-time and you're pretty fit running 120 mil a week is is is not I'm not going to say it's not hard but like it's still enjoyable maybe the maybe another like overarching question is and you guys are kind of hinting at it is there an overarching playbook for like top 10 success at western states that any Elite athlete can more or less follow and hit the mark at this race with or is it still super personalized for everybody like is is it like if you want to break four in the mile you need to do X Y and Z exactly which like that's kind of where it's at now oh Danny what do you think is there a playbook for Western States now because it feels like that's what Jim was basically saying he's saying that like I feel like I had the playbook in 19 and now I feel like everyone else like also uncovered whatever like the Lost Scrolls were how they found it they found hayen or they found Jim's long lost yeah freaking tapes from like I thought I was the only one that had these and no man I found him too they're sick um it's it's really hard to say I think there is like minimal qualifications now that you need to tick the boxes for I think we are getting closer to the point where people aren't phased by the heat anymore like heat training doesn't start a month out it starts three months out it's starts four five six months out so that's like a big part of it um but I still just see so much variations in the training to be honest like comparing yeah Rod's training to like Hayden and Dan's to me it was very different to be honest like there's new there's some things that are very similar but there's a lot of nuances to it and then yeah I honestly haven't looked at Jim's Training but I would guess the same it's non-existent okay he's Strava dark here's another crazy thing and I know that there were many more out on the course but I was with Caleb Olson all day he had a personal nutritionist with him pre-ra at every single aid station during the race and postra pre-race they were sitting down for 30 to 60 minutes and having a very in-depth chat about how Aid stations would be executed what the handoffs for bottles and gels and shoes would look like um the guy was writing down you know basically the transcript of how every single interaction went they were analyzing it post race um it was amazing that that was another level to the going back to Aid stations the crew experience for the front of the pack that was you know evolutionary to me this is um Precision Precision Precision yeah shout out to minty at Precision who was sort of his uh his his nutritional concierge throughout Western amazing it's like dude this is we're F1 is this F1 now maybe maybe there is a little bit of scroll like magic Scrolls cuz now that I think about it inil casperson's coach is um Tom Evans and from what I understand it was more or less what he did to prepare for this race yeah she followed that Playbook yeah I I mean not probably play byplay but you know roughly if I were to guess if I was him it's like well what worked for me is probably going to work work for you so maybe Tom and Jim have the Scrolls yeah and Jason coup C and Katie they all think they have their own like super top secret Playbook but then they'll like finally all look at them at the same time be like oh wait it's all the same thing it's like the Spider-Man meme where they're all pointing at each other yeah that's turns out that everyone's actually all doing like more or less the same thing but um yeah that was one of the notes that we had written down was like you know we talked about well we haven't we haven't Dove too deep into like the brands of who is represented in the top 10 and like their shoe choices but from a nutrition standpoint I mean is this just so never second sponsors Jim Walmsley and Katie shy and Rod oh really Rod's never second I I more or less I think okay so then have they both won the race what is this never second having the best nutrition out there or is this never second having the best marketing team out there they have really good nutrition um yeah I do like their gels I've been an Ever second fan for many years now yeah I mean they have Oscar yuken Dro who is like considered the pope of Sports Nutrition he's been the lead nutritionist on the jumbo uh sport of France team for multiple years and you know that's who is is their lead nutrition scientist when they were creating all this product so yeah you got you're in pretty good hands when it's Oscar leading your nutrition team but Precision fueling I mean they sponsor Hayden Daniel Jones Caleb Olen like they Tyler like pretty good team as well yeah yeah and it's interesting how they kind of go about the two brands are actually pretty different if you look at their products um the biggest one being Precision is like pretty adamant to not put any sodium in their gels and then they it's all added separately like in the water um in the fluids that you drink whereas never second is just a classic like two well it's actually pretty high sodium gel like it's 200 milligrams of sodium per gel um and they they make a a medium carb or a low carb and a high carb drink um but they kind of got you know you can the multiple ways to skin a cat I guess yeah CU well their C30 has 200 milligrams but their C90 has 200 milligrams for the entire 90 carb so that's also low sodium and then they also have a sodium additive that you can even make it more salty so at minimum if you were to take 90 carbs an hour 200 milligrams divided by three is what you're getting you're going 600 yeah yeah I just I thought it was interesting how like Precision I I guess Precision you can be more precise because you can add exactly what you want but then at but then never seconds like no it's just 200 milligrams base and then that seems to work perfectly fine too um again it goes back to like like Tom said this before one of the races where he's like people put way too much emphasis on the salt during the race uh and I'm just like yeah as of right now from a salt standpoint it seems like from a carb standpoint they're getting pretty well figured out of like you take these ratios of like maltodextrin and dextrose drink some water you're good salt I feel like Salt's still up in the air um Precision definitely puts a pretty high value on salt because they love putting the numbers up on their Graphics which I think those are awesome I love seeing what everyone's test numbers are um but uh it seems like the two big nutrition winners were never second and precision yeah it would be interesting to know what fua and both well fua was dowy noodles like a baddie using Chopsticks mid hund mile awesome photo or video circulating social on that that which was amazing yeah and that's like very very Euro style yeah I mean even though it's it's Asian it's like International race style you don't see that at States every day who are you guys most surprised to see in the top 10 on both sides um on the men's side it I mean on the men's side it was Caleb Olsen I knew he was primed to have a good day but if you had told me beforehand that 10th place is going to be 1518 Caleb's going to get fifth in 1440 or fifth place will be 1440 I'd be like oh well okay like I don't know if okay it's it's hard to believe someone's going to knock that kind of a race out on their first year it's like oh well then clearly everyone's like returners coming in and they all crushed it but like Caleb's first 100 mile First Western States there so many variables and then for him to just like have that absolute Banner day and just prove to everyone that apparently western states is not that hard um that was definitely a big surprise for me I mean and then on on the women's side uh fua Jang like 1620 is absurd her pre her postrace interview on the track she said her time goal going in was 1830 and then it was just like I felt great and I just kept rolling with it 1620 I think so fast I think this was the first year this was sorry this was the first race Brett Danny that we've ever recap or talked about where after the race and I look at the men's top 10 women's top 10 I had no there were there were no surprises to me it seemed like everyone totally belonged like if if I was looking ahead to the race every single one of these people belonged they had a place there like you said BR maybe some of the times would have changed maybe placements would have changed but like the the overall content of the top 10 uh there were no surprises to me like it was pretty stable yeah how about you Danny um yeah fuou J and honestly Heather Jackson like she just won a huge gravel race like a month ago right like yeah Unbound was not that long ago I thought that was in and as far as Endurance Sports goes an insane double um coming with that back to back and also just I was stoked to watch her figure it out you know she had a rough go she rolled her ankle last year we knew she all had it she had it in her seeing Havalina and stuff like that but yeah I was just really stoked to see her up there and then on the men's side also Caleb Olson just because I didn't know if this course suited him to be honest like he's had so much success on like more technical stuff um and I I know you guys probably know him more personally but like from an outsider scene like grindstone and UTC being like his big runs coming into this I just wasn't sure where he was going to land but yeah incredible first performance honestly like where do you go from there I mean you try and take off another 20 30 minutes and you're knocking on 14 flat I know I mean I think I I mean Finn you can probably test this but I feel like it's going to be like pulling teeth to get Caleb back at States again oh no agreed yeah he loves he Caleb loves exploring gotcha yeah he loves exploring mountains and just going and adventuring I think he really likes competition in this race really satisfied that itch I'm not sure he loved the training that was required for West States I think there were a lot of days where it was very easy for me to text and be like hey let's go do some Peak bagging and be like oh yeah yeah yeah we we'll just we'll find a way to justify this so yeah I think um he's gonna enjoy the rest of the summer I don't I know he signed up for CCC I don't know if he's actually going to pull the trigger on it I think he's going to just see how recovery goes but um I think in future years the utm's the ccc's the World Championships maybe the biggest mindset shift shift for him could be that like and he said it kind of on one of his social posts like okay maybe 100 miles is kind of fun so maybe the biggest change of mind here after Western was like I can grapple my mind around the 100 mile distance and maybe I'm starting to gain some interest in just the distance in general and if it's not Western States it's like you know UTMB or like Grand raid or something like that so yeah I what if this is one what if this is one of those moments in Caleb's career where it's like he loves big mountain things but he's actually better at some of the more runnable stuff that's a that's a hard um like Crossroads to Grapple with yeah um because like I mean yeah if like Caleb loves Mountain stuff and like wow you did this good at 100 mile I'm like dude Caleb go run UTMB this year but I know Caleb's not really much of a prolific racer he goes all in like once or twice a year right but it's like dude you're clearly super fit right now you like Mountains go do the full loop just strike strike while the Iron's hot yeah I understand that struggle the being good at runnable stuff but loving mountains stuff um Team performances yeah this one I mean prior to this we we figured like Trix and uh North Face North Face Hoka Hoka had a solid day um so like going through women's top 10 just looking at it Northface Hoka Hoka Adidas Adidas craft Hoka Nike unattached Lululemon yeah Hoka wins Hoka wins Hoka wins and then on the men's side let's go through it North Face Hoka terx Nike Northface Nike Northface Hoka Solomon is that Hoka again then I think Hoka takes North Face North Face a close second with two five eight but then hoko went 1 three nine that's close it is very close yeah it's and okay so Hoka Adidas North Face what do they all have in common they have super shoes they they all have a they all have a pretty fun shoe the only one that we have not yet run in Finn is the Hoka the tekon X 2.5 or the three but we've run in the North Face vective Pro 2 and the Adidas a gravic speed Ultra and we both were kind of like yeah if you're not wearing a shoe like this on Western States you're you're giving away time yep did y um and and we said it too with our speed Ultra review I mean Danny you've run a lot of miles in the speed ultra um that was the first shoe that I tried on where I I felt like I was actually getting something on the trails I mean I've run Road things and Road Super Shoes and like 100% like no doubt in my mind I'm faster in those than a regular trainer but I had never quite felt felt that way in any Trail shoe that was expensive until the adid until I put the Adidas one on my foot and I was like oh I am for sure getting free time on this course or on on the trails you know um and and I did get a a a hint of that in the North Face shoe as well for slightly different reasons review coming soon on conversational Pace um but is interest and then the Hoka one as well is built with similar materials to uh the Adidas one where it's like a plastic foam and there's a plate in it and a very lightweight upper and the sho's Very bouncy and it's very light so like I imagine it checks the same boxes as the North Face and the Adidas shoe and you know going down the list further you know who I'll just go like like how I wrote down so of the top 10 men 10 women so that's 20 people how many of them for the majority of their race were wearing a maximal stack shoe with bouncy foam and a plate of some sort of the 20 17 were wow that is not a fluke no that's amazing did you count them yourself yes yes I did but yeah it's like 17 of the 20 were wearing some form of bouncy bouncy shoe that's been converted to not break ankles for Trails it's like I feel like we just witnessed in real time the Super Shoe revolution of Western States can't say if it will be the case with like a race like UTMB um or hard rock but for Western States I think we witnessed Super Shoe Revolution yeah thought Danny well I just think of the road marathon when suddenly you know not just to select few had the first carbon shoes but it started being widespread and then you know the women's 242 now became 238 and you know X that against 100 miles then that immediately makes me think that there's probably one or two more extra drops in time at Western States before it starts to level out yeah yep I agree and if the shoes right now are like where the 2016 uh like Nike 4% was that sho's trash compared to the road Super Shoes now you know eight years later if we're just at the infancy of fast trail shoes you know in in you know the Tech's going to trickle over quicker so we might be like we might only be like three or four years down the road from from that kind of advancement um yeah it might just be like an an like it might not even be in the conversation anymore it's like a like of of course of course you're wearing an ice bandana you know of course you're topical cooling of course you're wearing high rebound shoes yes yeah of course you're running 120 miles a week gosh wow are we really is this is this like a what is like a polygamous relationship I'm marrying Super Shoes I'm marrying High car heeling I'm marrying topical cooling because it's yeah you have to you have to marry all three now and I feel like you're marrying a multi-training block leadup to Western States it's no longer like a a two-month three-month project like people are thinking of Western States a year out and like how they can get in shape for Western States there's at least one thing I want to covered before we go and that is the live stream Brett we haven't even talked about your experience on the ground as a field reporter and I want to hear about that but I also maybe the first thing because we got this on Instagram one of our like responses to like hey here's here here are some things we should talk about in our episode people want to know about uh that moment when Hayden and Rod are finishing and there's still that interview going on I think with Jim right plus there was also some confusion about like where Rod is in relation to Hayden vice versa um have you had any conversations or did you have any perspective on sort of like how that might be navigated in in future years so I was watching it I was watching it two ways as it as it happened so I was at pointed rocks but we our live stream like all of our equipments was set up to a Macbook that was there and we had um like kind of like the not quite like the full director's view of the stream but I could I could see what everyone else was seeing but I could hear more than what everyone else could hear because there was other mics that were uh going on in the background so I could hear a little bit more than what was going on and then we were watching it on there and we're watching it on like topher's phone and I think really what it come came down to was like no one actually thought there would be two people racing over Robby point at that time like I think there was only one Runner cam going over Roby point and um when Rod went over Roby point I don't think they were up and ready because then there was I think there was going to be another cam right down on the track to get Rod coming in so then this Runner Cam went to Hayden and Rod had already gone by um because on the tracking this is where it got even more confusing it showed Rod going over Roi point on the ultralive tracking but Hayden's had not updated but Hayden was being shown visually being on Roby point so like a lot of people at the point of rock agation were like oh my gosh Hayden passed rod and we're looking at second place whereas I was like I don't know Rod's time had updated like two minutes ago and we're now looking like I know where this is on Robi point and there's no way that Hayden would be here and Rod would be behind that if Rod's passed the timing mat that long ago I think Rod must be just up the road but we just don't have eyes on him and then the commentators in the down on the track didn't know either because they were so PR occupied with Jim coming in and just all the chaos of the start and finish like I was in a nice quiet Meadow where I got to watch everything and have refresh my phone and a computer you know it's almost you know we've talked about how it's easier to spectate the race when you're not there um that's basically what I got to do and I was like no I think Rod's up front but then it was you're right it it just got lost and it was chaos and I bet it will never happen again because the the podiums never been decided that closely in the age of live stream at Western States and at pointed rocks the Gap was 7 minutes like chances are it was going to be Rod gets to enjoy his Roby point to the finish so Will Hayden if anything it would be a ha a Hayden and Dan battle because that Gap was only two minutes at pointed rocks and Hayden was asking what the Gap was behind him to Fourth not what the Gap was in front of him to second he was already thinking in his head I got it work to not get past so just based off of all that feedback what we had gotten from Pointer rock it was like there's not going to be a race that close and um yeah and and the runner cams plus also they're going five minute pace down the hill there um you need some super badass Runner cams to to do to have that um so I think it's one of those things where it's like not in a million years I thought this would happen but then it happened and now they'll be prepared for that to happen every year from here on out and it'll never happen again yeah I'm also curious to know like will they change the format at all about interviews at the Finish Line like will they in order to account for that too like does like do the podium interviews happen you know maybe like 30 minutes after a certain time frame do they happen you know all at like awards ceremony I personally think the on the track stuff is super cool like I don't want to see it change but it is weird to like have the interviews being conducted and then like someone's on the track right and they have to like pause the interview celebrate that person maybe restart it or like the person has to like you know go to Medical for whatever reason I don't know if you have any thoughts that Danny or or Brett well the one problem that I have with it is it when the men's top three are coming in well one it's is like disruptive to Jim came in they're going to start interviewing him and second and third are not that far behind you know historically at Western States the race has decided like halfway through and then we like oh we have 45 minutes it took away so much from one of the most exciting parts of the women's race yeah that was the part that was kind of frustrating to me was they're like sitting there interviewing M1 M2 N3 there's freaking chaos going on from like Al through pointed rocks and like Katie there were Katie was coming through pointed rocks and they just had track interviews going but like there should have been a a hotter mic at pointed rocks to more quickly because I was giving pretty hot takes at pointed rocks after each man came through but I didn't get to do that for the women it came more in chunks and like I had some like great crew dirt from Katie right after she went through but I had to wait like 10 minutes to give that and then at that point it was like it's still valuable for me to say this but like the moment was kind of over and like that and that it's yeah like you said like the the the the live interviews on the track are super cool but like the races are almost getting too close for that and like something's got to give and I don't think it should be the quality of the race coverage in the last 10 miles I would agree with that too like I think I personally would love to see like them take the top three do almost that couch setup before the awards and just have a bunch of people be able to listen because there's people crewing out there there's so much chaos still happening from M1 to F10 that like personally I would love to sit and listen to you know the top three the top five sit where the awards are going to be have them be more relaxed not like throwing up and cramping on the side asking okay we need to cut this interview again because you need to go lay down and like take care of yourself um and personally for me like when I finish a race like that I just want to be with my people like I I don't really want to be talking to people um like on a microphone and getting interviewed I get the coolness of it because it just happened and you're getting First Reactions but I think there's better ways to do that and especially with like the women's race coverage too I haven't watched rewatched the entire live stream but I wanted to rewatch that part specifically like M1 through M3 and yeah I could see everyone's frustrations in the YouTube chat of how did we just miss the biggest Sprint finish of all time um and yeah I think that's saved with an in like onfield correspondent like right before the track or you just have like a high setup at the 200 Mark where you could get a full view of the track click into that at any point um yeah so I don't think it's going to happen again either like I think they just you said it's never happened before unless it's like later in the race when things have kind of calmed down yeah and like this is only the fourth year of the western states live stream yeah I believe that's what it is and like and they probably doubled the amount of time that Runners were on the screen uh this year like there was a significant amount more coverage and it's definitely still not perfect um yeah and like yeah it's like yes two of the things that are like going to be difficult to navigate and again it's always been the case with Western States is like changing things no changing things changing anything at Western States is always hard because it's like how much do we do this new age stuff how much do we not like if we don't do the on the track interviews we're not catering to the fans that are on the track and instead we're catering to this live stream people who who should get priority Yeah It's Tricky it is tricky I loved the split on the live stream this year by the way the like live top 10 I thought that was a great addition yeah when the timing system and the live like the when the production team and the live stream and the timing team are working together we've seen that with air Viper races to see that again with Western States like that that definitely elevates things for sure um and I I know they're going to be working on things like like live time gaps as well populating up on the screen that's one of those things that they could write that into the timing software is like when someone you know when when you know rod and Jim Cross the timing mat at Michigan Bluff you know maybe they add one on the in and the out now all of a sudden we get and and they're accurate because they used to handr write the ins and outs back in the day but say we actually do have accurate timing for ins and outs now we're getting accurate aid station splits we're getting accurate time gaps yeah in and out like those are all things that like no one would have to do any work for those to show up on screen and like I'm sure we're not too far around that you know Jam um he like quadrupled the amount of drone coverage yeah that there was at this race um which I mean that's that's just one of the magic I don't know Jam isms is he just like is very connected with the Drone pilot Community um okay hear me out this is kind of wild idea and I think it would probably be rejected because it's going more in like not rootsy trail running stuff but if at certain points in the race maybe like Michigan Bluff Forest Hill and something like Green Gate and Cory Road maybe even pointed rocks you have one of those like giant construction signs and as you're running through you can see the top 10 people who have come through and your like active gaps behind them or the time that they came through boards yeah because it's so hard being out there and not knowing how much time you're gaining on the next person yeah that would definitely be I love that and I you're absolutely right that would be so heavily debated yeah whether there should be like live timing checkpoints for the runners but like to like your like counter arguments like well half the crews are already updating on their phones for their Runners like we're just making it a Level Playing Field for everybody that's exactly and when you're running a marathon your time is like right up there it doesn't have that but as you're going through certain checkpoints the big marathons you could see your active time the entire time yeah yeah absolutely here so I'm on the western states YouTube page right now and just based on well two things first according to YouTube Western States was the largest sports related live stream on the entire platform this past Saturday I don't know whether or not that's impressive I don't really know what it was competing with from like a a sports standpoint yeah yeah what else was happening on the 29th of June it's cool to say it sounds awesome so I'm I'm gonna I mean the Olympic trials there was multiple finals on that day were they live streamed but not on YouTube not on YouTube okay yeah so yeah this is like a very Niche stat I'm taking that duve well and they mentioned it at the award ceremony too and we were all just kind yeah we're taking that uproaring we're like ah let's go yeah and it looks so I'm I'm I added up the views the total views for the threp part live stream this past Saturday compared it to 2022 and 2023 currently the numbers look about the same in terms of total views between this year and last year but I don't know how many of last year's views came significantly after the race ended and people were kind of watching in the Wake like you know us three will probably go and watch some of the live stream this week and those will count as views like I don't know what percentage happened on race day versus after but even if it doesn't change it it feels like it was still a significant W this year and like things were better than last year right like we felt the presence of Mountain Outpost the Innovations Etc the the peak viewership was bigger cuz what what were we saying it was like just under was it just under 20K last year for the peak viewership I think so and we were betting J and Matt right we're saying like was it gonna be 30 and what did it end up being yeah just over 30 I think when I don't I forget when exactly it was but I think they said peaked over 30 and then I saw on Mount Outpost uh Instagram re this morning I think they said they had 500,000 unique views yeah uh I'm seeing I'm adding it up here 420 yeah we're looking at just over 500,000 but that was last number yeah yeah I guess I'll be curious to see if they have the analytics of like within the first 48 Hours what did it look like right for both year-over year because like that's kind of where we're at now um Danny any any final J and team on that that's huge yeah thank you Jal for everything that you do 100% yeah yeah it was this was the most robust um live stream like that I've ever been a part of like I know um like I've been it's funny to say like I've been doing it for a long time because the first one was like January of last year but the kits and the setups have changed so dramatically much in the last like year and a half um and like what was being used this year was on just such a different level and a total hats off to the producers because anyone who was producing the western states live stream this year could absolutely hold their own as a producer in like an NBC studio with the amount of different camera feeds and audio feeds and like monitors that they were juggling in the studio and on the track and with all of us and there was you know like you having to manage getting the service from like either starlink cell service or Wifi like that changes things a little bit the way it comes in to get produced and to be able to manage all of that is yeah it it is amazing like it was absolutely nutty to see and we're like we're hauling we were lugging around like a $20,000 camera to you know pointed rocks and Michigan Bluff and all this stuff like it was sweet it was awesome it was also scary because it's like don't drop this and please don't like spray this with a hose I know I'm excited to see all the content come out after this with how many cameras I saw out there this weekend yeah there's there better be some good movies coming out Danny any final thoughts for viewers and listeners before we go about the weekend that was uh just that the game has changed and this is just the beginning I feel like it's a tsunami like the water is sucking in really fast right now and we're just all getting sucked into it and the tsunami is coming very soon in a good way um and honestly it's getting me more excited for races throughout the rest of this summer like it just felt like a good chaoticness between Broken Arrow and Western States laber Mont Blanc Marathon just records going down everywhere and so you know thinking about the shaman Super Bowl coming up end of August uh I'm kind of thinking on the ultra side since we're on your podcast uh like top three women under 24 hours and top three men under 20 hours like that's just going to be the new Norm as time's going down more and more and the last thing I'll say is just you know shout out to Rod um making the men's race just so thrilling I'm so happy for him years of hard work folks like just keep getting after it and learn from your mistakes and yeah shout out to my T's teammates too really proud of them how about you Brett dude I'm it I mean we said it last year last year was so fun you know year one of the single track podcast live at Western States chaos so awesome year two we're like a well-oiled machine we've got the freaking Batcave out there um and it was amazing it was so cool and then to cap it all off like running around the course following the front of the race giving my takes from the aid stations um I hope yeah I hope uh I hope we can deliver again in year three I mean we we were already talking some funny year three ideas and what we intend on doing and uh yeah I would absolutely love to love to run it back for year three and then some we will yeah I'm going to start uh going start carbo loading now yeah I don't know if it's if the term is red pilled or blue pilled but it's it's super hard after like a week of in-person conversations like doing our predictions episode together it's hard to do remote again like there's just that special feel that you get in person um my takeaways I'm always going to be the biggest booster for the Salt Lake City Trail scene all are welcome to come join our growing movement here but to see Leah and Rachel Tyler Caleb in the top 10 um we'll we'll get we'll get Hayden in there to East Southern Utah but Utah showed up got a special shout out Caleb uh 11th at Mile 53 to fifth at the end in 1440 to finish a time that would have won the race most year shout out to him and then I guess my last thing is just I loved the um here for the women's race shirts that uh Hillary and and Karin put out those were really cool it was good to see like uh I don't know that was a great marketing case study but also just like a cool movement in general and uh it was fun to incorporate that into the the studio as well yeah we're not done with that so if you didn't buy a t-shirt um we're working on it there might be another race coming up soon in the US where you can get one uh so as soon as we get that confirmed we'll share that information and yeah just being a part of that group like we've been working really hard and that was a really great case study and now we're just going to roll with it and keep going um so yeah shout out to Gran Hillary Katy asouth MK Sullivan Sophie power the list goes on uh lots of work ahead of us so thanks for all those that supported