Tom Evans | 2026 Hardrock 100 Pre-Run Interview

Tom Evans is back on the show! We last chatted after UTMB last year, so there was a lot of ground to cover: recapping the first half of 2026, his most recent treadmill workout, which garnered a lot of commentary on Instagram, the "why now" for Hardrock, his analysis of the competitive field here, and his reflections on how he's prepared for the opportunity. Thanks as always for tuning in.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

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SPEAKER_01 1:14

Finn, thank you very much for having me. Uh I'm very well. Um being in the US over the Football World Cup is great because I got uh yeah, got to watch the football this morning. Um England thankfully won by the skin of their teeth. Um so yeah, nice to watch it at a normal at a normal time. But no, yeah, things are really good. I've been uh been stateside now for uh two weeks. Um and yeah, the San Juans are something completely different, which has yeah, been amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

We have to start here because it's it's sort of like the storyline of the moment. How are you approaching the uncertainty of whether this race will even happen?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Um I think in complete honesty, like having been having driven through Uray, the the town of Uray is completely open at the moment. Um being very, very lucky with the weather and uh fire crews and everyone are doing the most incredible job. I think with things like this, like there's nothing I can do about it. Um if yeah, I am approaching it as if the race is 100% going ahead and it's so out of my control. Um, and I feel with things that are so out of your control, there's no point in wasting any in any energy on that, and what yeah, what will be will be, and if it yeah, if it happens, like yes, the race is really important for me, but at the end of the day, it's only a race, and it will be here next year and the year after, and yeah, the the safety of the crews and the volunteers and the runners has got to come first, and if they make that decision, that's the decision that they make, and yeah, roll with it and shift focus slightly. Um, but yeah, for me, it's until we're told, then it is what it is.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Inside the race, you are notably one of the most prepared athletes out there. You have plan A through G, it seems. It's you're you're so prepared. Are you so is it valuable for you to have like alternative project plans in the event of cancellation?

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Um I think that where trail running is at the moment, it's very easy to flick between if something doesn't happen. Like I think, and I know the way that Jim has previously described trail running and ultra running is your training is like a bank balance, and you slowly build it up, build it up, build it up, and then you just spend everything in a race, and I'm in really good shape. Uh in possibly like slower shape, um, because I've been at altitude, it's been very altitude focused with lots of hiking. So had I have yeah, would I have run sub-14 at Western States last weekend? Absolutely not. Um do I think I would have run quicker than I'd run there before? Probably, but only just um, which would have put you eighth or something. Um so yeah, there's definitely there's definitely a few things that I I would do. Um I spent a lot of time in the UK this year in the Lake District Um on the Bob Graham round course. Um that would be that's definitely not slow, it's incredibly quick. Um, and Jack's record is ridiculous. I don't know where you're finding time. It's all it will all it will be down to the weather um and the conditions underfoot. And Jack had one of those incredible days with really good conditions, and uh yeah, I'm not sure we're gonna see that being being beaten for a very long time. I think we'll see it people trying to beat it quite a lot, and I will hopefully be one of them. So yeah, Bob Graham could be on the cards. Um, but then yeah, I need to I want to race this summer. Um, and I guess the obvious one is just uh you actually look at the training you've done. Oh, you've done a four-week pretty big volume, really good quality training camp at altitude in the big mountains. Does that work for UTMB? Maybe. Um maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. I don't know. But um yeah, the I'm approaching it very much that the race is on.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

What attracts you most to hard rock?

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Um I think I think the way that the sport is growing, and it's you've got to be careful as a professional athlete because we can only be professional athletes because the sport is commercialising and the sport is growing and brands are more interested. And brands are interested in the sport because they can sell more stuff and make more money, um and hopefully develop the sport. So I think as a professional athlete, you have this amazing opportunity to do more than just race the big races, and that yes, uh there are some things with every race that people don't like, and you can't just because a race is bigger than another race, or some people don't like it, some people do like it, and there's obviously UTMB. For me as a professional athlete, UTMB is the reason why there are so many professional athletes and why the sport is growing so much because people can focus on being a professional athlete. Um, because that's where sort of the visibility, the huge visibility of the trail running world is on the sport. So whereas I think for me, like I got into the sport not trying to be a professional, I got into the sport through my love of running, and I just wanted to, yeah, I did it. I found out, I found out that I was good at it by accident. And I think with hard rock, it's kind of taken me back to my roots of I know it's a run, it's not a race, yet there will be people, myself included, who are racing during this run. Um and I think it's just yeah, from a from a personal standpoint, it really peels back the levels of complexity that the bigger races are making a bit more complicated. Um take hard work for example, people here really want to help you and really make your life as easy as possible, whether that's helping drive your crew around or people volunteering and offering to help drive you round, whereas you get to a big race in Europe, and yes, it's great for the pros because if you've got a certain UTMB or ITRA score, I'm not really sure I I don't worry myself too much about this, it's actually really difficult. You then need to get a bus, and it's and I I understand the reason that they're doing it, but it's just making the sport more and more and more complicated. Whereas with hard rock, for me, it just goes back to the grassroots of the sport where people just try and and do their very best. And I think what makes it really special, and I guess what I hadn't really appreciated before I came out here, firstly, just the vastness of the mountains here, but also that the trails in Europe have pretty much been made for recreation, for people to participate in hiking, trail running, cycling. Whereas the trails here, most of them, the trails that we are running on here, have been made for gold mining and silver mining and iron. These trails aren't meant to be run on. And when we're there complaining with our tiny packs and shoes with carbon plates and all of these, I sort of just think about how hardcore and how incredible these miners were going up with these massive packs and yeah, blasting away up the mountains and the rocks for their livelihood. And they've sort of really paved the way, that not paved the way because there's no pavement at all. Um, for us to be able to do this and being able to link together these some small communities and yeah, is incredibly special. Whenever people ask, you sort of hear the English accent in Teleri or Uray or wherever, and they say, Oh, what are you doing here? It's like, oh, I'm here to race hard rock. Everyone's heard of it, everyone's so excited about it. And whereas you take someone like Chamini, all the locals leave because they hate it. Um, whereas here it really brings everyone, it brings the community and the runners together. Whereas in a big race like UTMB, the Chamonix Town Council like UTMB in some ways, but the locals don't like it in lots of other ways. Um and they don't like all the runners. And yes, the runners are all there together, but there's a lot of friction. Whereas here, everyone's just so stoked that you're here and you're running and yeah, can't wait for you to witness the journey that you're gonna embark in just over a week.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

So I was looking at the first half of your year and prep for this conversation. I see the three peaks fell race back in April, Mickledon back in February, and it made me wonder is if you add that to hard rock, is this part of a concerted effort to be more focused on the grassroots of our sport, or did it just kind of happen that way?

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Uh I think it happened that way a little bit. I the so Mickledon fell race, I guess over winter I spent a lot of time focusing on faster, more technical, more aggressive downhill running, um, which is probably the not the chink in my armour because there's definitely things that I other things that I can improve on, but it's it's definitely one of the things that it was the low-hanging fruit that I had lots of areas to improve on. And I thought, right, well, why don't you jump into some fell races where probably the best, fastest downhill runners who can see lines that I can't see, and they take them and have what an incredible opportunity to learn from them and to be able to run a sub-five minute miling down a 20% grade that's super technical and risk it all. And so that was really that was a really fun block, and I guess the yeah, the Milkerdam fell race was uh yeah, the the end of that block, I guess. And then the three peaks, yeah, again, going back to sort of community grassroots level, um, but also for another reason, there is a um cyclocross race on the three-peak cyclocross race. That's probably the runners would say the uh the fell race was bigger, the cyclists would say that the cyclocross race was bigger. But I have sort of made this unofficial record for the fastest combined times of running and cycling in the same year. So I will, yeah, post hard rock, my uh I'll be doing a lot of riding. Um, and I'll spend, yeah, I'll probably spend the winter doing a lot of cycling and I will do the three-peak cyclocross race um and make a yeah, a really cool sort of mini documentary about grassroots, endurance sports, um yeah, which is really fun. Um and yeah, I think it's for me, it's like after last year of UTMB, like in reality, nothing's gonna beat that. Um going back to going back to UTMB, you go and you win again, yeah, it would be incredible. But you're coming off it from a high beforehand where you won the year before. For me, sort of last year coming off two DNFs and being super disappointed, it really was like the fairy tale ending for me. So rather than looking for, oh, what's next? What's the sort of next highest point that I can reach in my career? It's almost sort of the opposite of okay, great, I've sort of I've stood on the start lines of some of the biggest races in the world, and I've been so lucky to be able to do that. But actually, my love of the sport, you only race these big races two, maybe three times a year. Let's say you do 40 hours of racing these big races in a year, but I spend 30 hours a week training. Um and it's at a grassroots level. So yeah, for me, it's it's really important, and it's been a yeah, a passion project that sort of kind of started just through the love of the sport and is turned into a bit of a project rather than planning to do a project and fighting with it. It's been a, oh, this is what I want to do, oh, that might be a fun project. And it's yeah, kind of just rolled with it and yeah, it's been really fun.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

What do you suspect is more difficult? Being a rookie at a race like Hard Rock or trying to defend a title, like coming back after having had a lot of success at one of these races?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Oh I think it's in why too. I think if anyone is gonna defend their title fiercely with maturity, it's gonna be Ludo. Ludo and I are incredibly, incredibly different athletes, and I've been he's been amazing out here and have done have done a lot of training with him on the course, and there were no secrets. There were, oh, this is the better line to take, and hopefully he's telling me the right things and not sending me the wrong way. I'm sure he's not. Um I think I guess it depends how you approach the run. Like, yes, in one way, like I think I think pacing is the most important thing on this course because you go a little bit too hard at the beginning. Game over. And I think combining that the pacing with the acclamation of the altitude, which again is the big thing that a lot of the Europeans, with the exception of Ludo, have really struggled with is yeah, pacing and the altitude and how they sort of work with each other, because you can feel great for 10, 12 hours, but then actually the wheels, it's very easy for the wheels to fall off. So yeah, being very deliberate with the training for this. So I guess going back to your question, what do I think it's more difficult? I think it depends on your mindset with it. Like it's if I win this race, great, it's really cool, it would be an amazing race to win. But actually, I in like in all honesty, I just want to get I want to get the best out of myself during the race. And if that's a win, that's a win. And if it's if Ludo wins, if Dylan Bowman wins, if Jimmy wins, if David wins, because it's not just me and Ludo here. That's and I think that's the I know so that's sort of a bit of the the storyline for these two Europeans coming over, but a lot of guys who are very, very good and have got history on this course and know how to run it and conditions change and being able to read these mountains is different to being able to read the mountains in Europe. So I think yeah, I think for me coming in with I guess coming in where I am, where I run the course one and a half, one three quarter times, is really fun because there's still that excitement with the course and there's no boredom with it. But having said that, these mountains are so incredible, I don't see how you could ever get bored. The conditions change every year, like there's barely any snow on the course this year. It will be different, and it will almost feel like a different race for almost feel like a different run, sorry, for Ludo, and those guys who have done it before. Um I think sort of keeping keeping calm and keeping yeah, keeping your head on a swivel, I think is more important than anything. And I've been lucky enough to race in some some really big races and very tactical races, and have had some success, some not so much success. And um, yeah, I think a a mature performance here is what's needed to have your best race, whether that's at the front of the race or the back of the race, but yeah, going if you're if you do a sort of a western states pacing plan and get 30 minutes under the course record in the first six hours, uh funnily enough, you're not finishing.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

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SPEAKER_01 19:34

It depends on the athlete. Um I think Ludo is Ludo's incredibly strong in this race. And I think the playbook to beat Ludo is ignore him and pretend he's not there. If you try and race Ludo on some climbs and on some descents, he's gonna break you. It's what he does, it's why he is one of the greatest, and he's had the most longevity in the sport, and he's been able to perform at the highest level of this sport for longer than anyone else has across different races. Yes, he's not he's not won Western States, yes, he's not won UTMB six times, but he is proving year on year that he's as good as he ever has been. So I think I think if you try and race Ludo, then yeah, if you try and race Ludo's race, you're gonna get beat. The way that you run a faster time than Ludo is you do the preparation, you respect the race, and you do your own thing. And I think typically in this race, you see a lead happening and then the lead extending and extending and extending. Whereas what I what I foresee in this race is a constant lead change. And that's how I think that's how I think one runs their very best race is yeah, they respect Ludo, but actually you're not here to race in his race, you're here to run your very best race, and you need to concentrate on yourself and you yeah, you ignore that he's there as he will for everyone else. I think if people get tied up in trying to race at Ludo's intensity in some of the areas, especially high up, then that's where things tend to unravel, and that's what we've seen in the past few years of people in the yeah, above 3,800 meters try and run with Ludo, and funny enough, it doesn't work out that well.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Talk about, and maybe even going back a few months before even arriving in the San Juans. Uh, talk about how you have worked on your physiology to get ready for racing at altitude.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Yeah, I think it's just been it's a different race for me. Like for UTMB, we don't put any focus at all on altitude training. We do heat prep. Um, but I think now heat prep. Five years ago it was sort of a bit of a secret, but now everyone, now in my opinion, if you're not heat training for a race, even if it's a cold race, then you're leaving a lot of time out on the course. Um yeah, I think for this race, it's been yeah, it's been very specific with the sort of training that you need to do. So from a yeah, from like a muscular load standpoint, that resistance to fatigue piece is really important. And because the course changes every year, I think this year going clockwise is a slightly is a better, it's a faster course, I believe. Um the climbs are a little bit steeper, but the downhills are a lot more runnable, and you don't really have any of the gradual road climbs that you do on an anti-clockwise loop, you get to run those. And I think if you can run it six-minute pace, six thirty is pretty comfortably on those roads and not wreck your legs, then that's a really good thing. Um, so yeah, a lot of a lot of downhill conditioning. Um yeah, focusing on like the eccentric load so quads don't blow up after moving, after being able to run relatively quickly and then go straight into a big climb. Um the altitude's obviously been a big thing, and living in the UK, we don't have altitude. Um have natural altitude, I should say. So yeah, spending a lot of time at simulated altitude. Um most people would spend more time sort of sleeping at simulated altitude, but funny enough, with a 12-month-old baby, um sleep quality outweighed, for me, sleep quality massively outweighed altitude. Um because yeah, if you're my sleep is it's yeah, no, it's it's not it's been worse, it's been definitely been better. Um but trying to add on an extra element of stress would have, I think, would just wreck my training in my recovery. So focused far more on yeah, training at altitude, and then it's then the reason why we came out here three and a little bit weeks before the race to just make sure, yeah, I can acclimate and acclimatize as well as possible, not just to the heat, but to the humidity, to the it's so dry here, and I think it's Americans and get come over to Europe and say, Oh my god, it's so humid in France. And we don't really feel it. It's kind of normal as I come out here and I've got not six humidifiers in my room, and yeah, just trying to slowly get used to things. So, yeah, I think the training's been very specific, but I think for a race like hard rock, the metrics have to be a little bit different because you're so high up, you don't know what your body's really gonna do, and you've just gotta adapt and keep thinking on your feet and yeah, try and put out the best performance that you can. And I think that happens in training.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

So, one thing I'm curious about did did the simulated altitude that you trained in did that end up feeling pretty similar to what it actually felt like on the ground in the San Juan's running?

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Um Yes and no. Yes, it's that you're struggling to breathe. And actually, I think doing the we did a real mixture of intensities at sea level, but training at altitude. Um I think yeah, doing the high intense the more high-intensity stuff in the UK at simulated altitude felt harder than here, but going for an easy run here is hard. So I think sort of pace management and effort control, because it's really easy for your to feel like you're going really slowly, but your heart rate's really high, and actually you're working really hard. So you think, oh, I need to speed up, so I'm going slowly, but actually just being fine with that. And so yeah, I think it's it definitely taught me a lot. And yes, it is, there are similarities, but it isn't the same. Um, so yeah, my I guess yeah, my learnings from it is would if I was doing it the block again, I would do it the same way because I think it is really, really beneficial. And so looking at uh the hemoglobin mass before we left, it'd been proved loads from like a yeah, from a hematology standpoint. By doing the altitude, it changed um changed values quite a lot. Um we've not done any out here because it will be what it will be, and there's not an awful lot you can do now. Um so yeah, I think yeah, in anything, in an ideal world, you'd spend longer here. Um, but you spend ages here, you build up fatigue, you then need to take a massive taper, and it's a bit tricky. Um, but having family in the UK, and my wife's a my wife Sophie's a professional athlete and is now back racing, and yeah, being away for almost a month is is really hard. So and she's doing an absolutely incredible job. Um, but yeah, you need to you need to spend the time out here in order to make it worthwhile.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

So I can't remember exactly when it was. I think it was in one of our conversations pre or post UTMB, you remarked that, well, you you your hypothesis was that you wouldn't be as strong a runner altitude because you weren't born, they hadn't spent a ton of time there. But then you just mentioned a lot of the lab testing you did, the hemoglobin stuff. Can you talk about sort of the before and after results and whether there's any indications that actually you are a responder and like, you know, things will work out? Like what's your sense coming into this?

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Yeah, I think there are definitely people who are better. I I guess I I think it's tricky. I think if you it's very easy to plateau with your training, whether you live at altitude, and I think a lot of the a lot of people who live in who live at altitude 365 days a year, they'll drop down for race and they'll do well. But you spend you live in Flagstaff uh yeah, or wherever, somewhere at two and a half thousand metres, and you then spend six weeks in Europe, you then lose everything really quickly, and yes, you then get it back quickly, but your body is so used to what your body is so used to. So I think sort of shocking the system is uh is a good thing. And yeah, we saw, I don't know the exact values, but really, really positive increases in red blood cell mass, uh hemoglobin mass, um, all things that you would expect to see when you're at altitude. And there is, I guess it's similar with heat that the people you there's the science seems to change every other month. That with heat, some people say, Oh yeah, you have to do it in a heat suit. If you're doing it passively, it doesn't work. Whereas other people would say, oh no, actually doing it in a sauna or a hot bath is as good, if not better. And I think it's the same with altitude. Some people, sort of the old live high, train low, or live low, train high. And there is no from a marathon standpoint where there's or from a pure athletic standpoint where there's been quite a bit of research about training at altitude but then racing at sea level. Lots of money has been spent on that. There are very, very little studies on training at altitude and then racing at altitude. Um, there's a race in China on a on the bike that is at altitude around something lakes. Um, and there's hard rock. That's it. No one's here collecting data and taking measurements and doing it. So actually trying to do it from a really scientific standpoint is is really difficult. So we're sort of taking taking what we know and yeah, trying, trying to do it. And actually, we've we've done our own study on it that is being written up, um, which is really cool. And it will be really, really interesting to see yeah, how you can live at sea level, use simulated altitude, and then uh altitude block to then hopefully be able to perform it in a high altitude race. Um, so yeah, sort of it's it's been really fun. I'm sure we've made a lot of mistakes, but there is no, I think with a lot of this, it's a lot of intuition. And the one thing that we did very wrong is we did a big altitude test six days before Transgrand Canaria. Um I had a headache for four days, and funny enough, had an absolutely terrible race at Transgrand Canaria. So we learnt that even if you're at altitude and moving slower, at but you're still recovering at sea level, you put yourself in a hole, you put yourself in a hole for a very long time. And then you sort of compare that to being out here. Yep, I've not done crazy volume, I've not done crazy sessions, nothing, probably like 20% less volume than I would have done it three weeks before I did UTMB because of the altitude. And I think one of the big mistakes that people can make over here is just copy and paste. Oh, this worked for UTMB. You had a really good race there, you ran fast. And then just thinking, oh, I know what I'll do. I'll just this blueprint worked really well. I'll just copy and paste that across to a hard rock build. But the race is it's completely different. It couldn't be more different, and the altitude has got to be, yeah, massively, massively respected.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

So two bits of context for this next question. One, I know we talked a bit post-ETMB about your work with Paul Booth uh on the nutrition side of things. And then I was thinking about what to ask around that. And then I recently read a blog post by Rod Farvard who was recapping his Madeira experience. And one of the takeaways was that like you really can't like port over a Western state's fueling strategy to these longer races in the mountains. I think in his experience, it gets a lot more complicated than that. I would love to know if you guys have done any measurement around carb oxidation, especially at altitude, and whether you would agree with that. Like, is it more complicated? Uh is it just like is like the banner just like high carb regardless of the situation? Like, what is it gonna be like what did those results yield for uh your hard rock training?

SPEAKER_01 32:45

That is pretty much what the study is on. Um, carbohydrate oxidation for elite athletes at altitude. Um so I can't give too much away, but from an exact number standpoint, but my my carbohydrate utilization is from the data, is pretty similar to the majority of other professional trail ultra distance trail runners who have been measured. I have the same carbohydrate oxidation altitude that they have at sea level. That's my superpower. That's what makes me, I'm not genetically talented because I've got amazing slow-twitch muscle fibers, or I've got, yeah, or my body works a certain way. My where I am at my best is my carbohydrate utilization. And actually, like we had to, we actually ended up doing the same test twice, and we were only planning on doing it once because they said this the machine must be broken. The the these results, we've never, it was the yeah, it was the most, it was the whether you call it highest or lowest, it was the least amount of carbohydrate used at altitude that pool and the UK had ever seen before. Um and they're actually very, very similar to yes, it's a little bit more than at sea level, but marginally. Um which is why we had to retest it because they said this machine must be wrong. You these these are abnormal, abnormally low or high, whichever way you look at it, levels. Um see, I think, and going back to Rod, I read the same um the same post, that I think it is way more complicated. Um I think the at sea level, yes, you can't have a generic fueling plan for a hundred different athletes. It needs to be a little bit different, but if you're in a ballpark range, you're in a ballpark range. And I think it's to a certain extent you can carry that across for um for stuff in the high mountains or altitude, but it needs to be I really think it needs to be far more specific and specific for that individual athlete. I think with obviously for Western states, like your stomach's going up and down because you're doing a lot of downhill running, and I can't imagine any of the top 10, certainly in the men's and probably top five in the women's, ate any real food. Um I don't think you need it for a sub-17-hour race. Um, in my opinion, or certainly I don't, when I, yeah, both my times at Western States, I didn't even cross my mind to eat to eat anything. It was liquid and gels. Um I think for this it's a little bit different. There's far more hiking, that's far higher muscular load than running. Um, you are using more, you're burning more because you're not using your fascia system, your like spring, because you're hiking so much, you'll probably are burning more calories. So I guess the testing that we did was not just like uh carbohydrate oxidation running, or like we did flat 5%, 10%, 15% running, 20%, 25% hiking, and seeing what the differences are. So then you can work out on this on a certain climb. Okay, well, we know when you're climbing up handies in that 30 minutes that it takes to do the last climb of handies when you're already really high, you're burning far more there than you are when you're descending into your A, for example. So, yes, it is a bit more complicated, but I think that's why I work with Paul. Um, so he can do all the, he can collect all the data, do all the difficult stuff, and then tells me what to try, tells me what to test, and I test it and see how it feels. Um, and then we can take it from there and put it into a race environment.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

How similar or different will your fueling approach for hard rock be to what you did at UTMB last year?

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Um it will be it will be a little bit bulked up, so probably 10-ish percent higher in total carbohydrate. Um, and that's a combination of the altitude, but then also the muscular load from having to do more hiking. Um there will definitely be more real food. Um, but in terms of sort of a structure, and I know I spoke a lot about the sort of traffic light system with it, um fairly similar. I guess the exception is there is very, very little flat running at Hard Rock. So it's a little bit more complex, and yeah, a lot of some of the downhills you're doing with poles, which is almost impossible to fuel during, um, especially coming down like Grand Swamp Pass. Um if anyone fuels down there, fair play because I'm I'm at the I'm at the limit there. So um, but yeah, I think it's it will be similar. It would be a cool from this aid station to this aid station, this is what you need to consume. Um, and if your stomach goes, I've tested everything that they're gonna have in the aid station. So if something goes wrong or whatever, then I know what things look like. And I know, okay, cool, this is the equivalent of 40 grams of carbohydrate or 60 grams of carbohydrate. I've tested it. We've tested it on the trails, we've tested it at home. I know that I can consume it. Yes, I'm still planning on using my own nutrition, but yeah, thankfully it's a pretty tasty one uh rather than other races that I couldn't drink if I was paid a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

I don't know about you, but in the hour or so before run, especially the early morning training runs, I find it helpful to have something easy to grab that actually keeps me going and not feeling like I'm operating on empty right off the bat lately. That is why I have been slotting in Kodiak bars to my morning routine. I think everyone has that bar that has earned a permanent spot in their glove box of their car. This one is mine. They come with seven grams of protein per serving, and they are made with whole grains and real ingredients. I am partial to their chocolate chip in s'mores flavors. Find them at Kodiakcakes.com or your local grocery store. They are the ones with the bear on the box. This episode is also brought to you by Momentous. You can use our discount code with them on all sorts of products. I can highlight anything I want: vitamin D, Ashwagandha, a few other supplements that I take daily. But the one that I want to highlight here is their signature spec creatine. Honestly, I have been on and off creatine for the last six months. I was taking it all through the winter. Then I backed off candidly after some weight gain concerns, but I am back on it now doing a bit more research and tuning my diet. I am confident in the ways that it can indirectly help with training adaptations and exponential recovery in endurance contexts. I'm now taking about five grams a day. I think this stuff is the best as it screens for PFOS and microplastics and has two to five times tighter heavy metal limits, which is an unparalleled standard amongst creatine supplements on the market. If you want to try Momentous uh signature spec creatine head to live momentous.com forward slash creatine and use code single track at checkout for up to 35% off your first order. A few more training questions. Uh, we we have to talk about this reel that you posted maybe a few weeks ago, uh, which it must have a million views at this point, but you were essentially running downhill on a treadmill at maybe 30 to 40 percent grade. Um, you had this exotic headband on, it looked like it was weighted. It drew a lot of support, a lot of criticism. Regardless, it was there was just it was it was highly watched and commented on. Um, I know that to some extent, in some ways, you are limited based on where you call home for race like hard rock. Uh, what more can you say publicly about uh this training methodology?

SPEAKER_01 41:19

Um yes, it's not trail running, but you've got to use what what you've got access to and being able to. So I guess, yeah. So in that video, we did one of the best sessions that I found before UTMB was using the VK uh in Chamonix, basically hiking up with weights, running down without weight, and then hiking back up again. Um and I imagine we'll see, yeah. I feel anyone who's touristing around Chamonix in the month before UTMB, I apologize to everyone who's going to be doing a fairly similar thing because I think there will be. I documented that quite a bit, so I think there'll be quite a lot of people who do that this year. Um, but just because one person does it doesn't mean that it's going to work for everyone. Um, so with the downhill running, the I guess styling with the headband, it's a company called Omnius, big in um, very big in triathlon. They sort of use these little cooling things on your head and it makes it feel nice. Does that actually cool your core body temperature? No, probably not. Um, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. So the I'm not sure, but it feels nice. Um, and I was testing it, and I won't be using it at hard rock, but you've got to test this stuff, and I'm lucky enough to be wanted to test lots of people's products, and it just so happened that I was wearing it during during that session. Um and yeah, there's no there's no magic science behind it, it's not uh yeah, it's not particularly clever, you can buy them online. Um yeah, it would have been some 30 to 35 percent decline. Um and yeah, it doesn't go particularly quick, but using the weighted vest just in order to simulate doing yeah, like an eccentric contraction going downhill, because if you can afford, yeah, if you can do that on a very controlled environment and then measure how hard it is doing it, you can then actually track your training and track how you're progressing. I think a lot of it happens, uh this sort of training happens in convention athletics. And you speak to if you read articles from Jakob Ingebrickson, for example, and why would you wait until the race to find out if you're in the right shape? To me, that just makes no sense whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

It's surely it's better to figure out whether the if the training that you're doing. Is working rather than just wasting your time training. So is it lots of people saying, oh, this isn't and 99% French people, this isn't the spirit of trail running? It's like, well, maybe it's not, but actually, if I can then improve myself as much as I can at home, be as happy as I can be with my family. And then when I then get out to altitude and I start running down these big downhills, I'm ready for it. It'd be like sleeping in an altitude tent or doing altitude prep before coming out here. Like, why would you not, like, why would you not prepare yourself for the challenges ahead as well as you possibly can? It'd be like going into an exam, doing no revision. It just, for me, it just makes no logical sense. And I, yes, it's not for everyone. People don't like the treadmill. I much prefer being outside and being in the mountains than I do on the treadmill. However, there are two, maybe three, close to a thousand meter descent in the UK. That's it. We're not we're not blessed with massive mountains. The mountains we've got are incredible, but it's not like being out here or being in the Alps. So you make do with what you've got. And I guess the alternative is not doing the work and expecting my quads to be absolutely fine running a thousand metres downhill and then being able to climb again. Um, which for me just seems yeah, you're not you sort of prepare yourself as best as you can, and then funny enough, when you get out, when you prepare well, you get out here and you descend a thousand metres at race pace, and you're then absolutely fine. Um, because you've you've done the work, same with heat training, people say train hot, race cool, you get hotter in the races, you get sorry, you get hotter in your training, so then come race day, it's a little bit easier and you're used to it. It's exactly the same principle, but because it's a little bit different, I think there are the trail running values that some people have aren't the trail running values that other people have. Um and just because one person thinks one thing is right and one thing is wrong doesn't mean that it is or it isn't. So yeah, it's uh an interesting one. But I I guess you could say my argument to it would be if if you're racing and you're trying to earn a living and be the best version of yourself, then you prepare for these races the very best that you think you can. And maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but if you don't try, then you'll never know.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Um, one one follow up on this. Uh, and it's it's sort of philosophical. Do you anticipate that as the sport professionalizes, more of the training requirements are going to be moving into these controlled and or laboratory settings, or will just just simply being out in the mountains running and hiking be enough? Because I think, and sorry to add this addendum, I think that there are even pro athletes who are concerned that like that reel that you posted is gonna become like one of the predominant aspects of how you prepare for these races. So, what are your thoughts there?

SPEAKER_01 47:35

Um I think I'm probably the only person in the world who's ever done that session. Um, so I don't think the whole trail running community is gonna start doing it. I'm the only person in the UK, I think there are four of those treadmills in Europe. So you don't need to worry about everyone doing it because they don't exist. Um and getting it to be able to go backwards like that or go at that incline and go backwards is really, really difficult to override the software and the hardware. So, yeah, don't worry. It's this isn't gonna be, not everyone's gonna do it. I think, I guess from doing it in, I guess you look at it in a different way. Why do on a windy day, a track athlete who's racing 5,000 metres outdoors on the track, why do they do an indoor workout? Because you can control the conditions, you can see if you're getting better, you can do the work that you need to do. And if funny enough, if you can't do it on the treadman, you can't do it in a controlled environment, there is no way that you're going to be able to do it in the mountains. So if you can get, if it's almost like a minimum foundation that you lay that foundation, cool, you can do a your sort of vertical ascent, let's say you can get it up to 1300 meters an hour speed. If you can't do that on the treadmill, there is no way you're gonna be able to do that in the mountains. So instead, it's from a pacing perspective, at least you know when you get out there, cool, this is what I'm capable of doing. I guess on the other side of the coin, yes, that specificity, the treadmill is not the same as the mountains. I completely get that. I do probably average like three runs every two weeks on the treadmill. For some reason, I saw some staff saying, oh, Tom Evans does 80% of his running on the treadmill. I'm not totally sure where you've got this information from because yeah, from a I looked in my peak weeks, um yeah, there were just over 30 hours of volume. I did three and a half hours on the treadmill in 30 hours of work. To me, I'm not I'm not the I'm not a uh mathematician, but I don't think that's 80% of volume. Um so I think it's it's very easy to I think a lot of people think, oh Tom only trains on the treadmill. Uh I do one session, and yes, for this, for this block I spent maybe a little bit more by doing some hypoxic work to preparing for altitude, because funnily enough, I'm not dragging an altitude generator around in the mountains with me because that's impossible and there's no other way to do it. Um so yeah, I'd say 95% of my training is is outside in the mountains and it is supplemented with training on the treadmill. Do I think that's where the sport will go? Um I don't know, but if yeah, if you can't do it in a controlled environment, in a controlled environments are great because you can see your progression. Whereas if you were doing if you were measuring a vertical kilometer, for example, and seeing your improvement on that, what if one day you've got a headwind? What if the next time you've got a tailwind? What if it's then really hot and then it's raining the next time? How do you, how do you know if you're improving when the conditions change so much? Because actually your time might be slower, your heart rate might be higher, and you don't actually, you can't actually see the progression. Whereas you do it on a treadmill and the conditions are identical, and actually you can then say, okay, great, you can see the lint you can see the progression in your training. Okay, great, this is working. Or you don't see it in your training, okay, this is not working. Let's figure something out and let's do things a little bit differently. So then you get to race day and you know what you're capable of doing. You know if you're capable of running at 13-hour pace for Western states, or you're not. Um and it just, yeah, it helps you then have your best, your best performances and your best training when you're on the trails because you know what you're capable of doing or not doing, which I think is more important.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

Just a few more questions because I know we have to boogie at the top of the hour. Um Okay, I'm gonna put you on the spot if you don't mind. What I know you work with Joseph at Enduradata for pacing. Based on your fitness, what does he think is possible on race day for you?

SPEAKER_01 52:39

Um, I in all honesty, I don't know the exact timings. Um because funny enough, the we don't know what the weather's doing. I give you a marathon uh every degree above 12 degrees is a second a mile. Um so we don't know, and it will continue to change until we get there. We don't know what the air quality is gonna do. That makes a massive difference, and something that I've actually really struggled with out here has been the air quality. Um I seem to be a little bit more susceptible to feeling terrible. Um or maybe I wasn't acclimated, I don't know. So I think I think if the conditions are good, I think it will be a quickish year. Um I think it's possible to go, like I think you look at Ludo's Ludo's splits versus Killian's splits, um, and Ludo ran a Ludo ran an incredible race. I think in in his words, he had the dream day. Um whereas Killian was fairly reserved until the last aid station, and then yeah, and then very, very nearly would have over would have been quicker than Ludo. Um like I think I think Killian took something like 15 to 20 minutes in the last 10 miles or something. So or he was he was almost, I think he was pretty much a mile, a minute a mile quicker than Ludo was in the closing stages. So there's more than one way to run this race, and I think typically what we've seen in this race, like I said earlier, is a gap goes and the gap just extends and extends and extends, and you just end up running your own race. Whereas I think this year it could be a little bit different. I think there will be yeah, changes, changes till pretty late on, um, would be my guess. And I think if you've got two people racing at the front or three or four people racing at the front, then I think the the pace plan will sort of slightly go out the window because you're racing. And I think that's the the pacing plan that we use for for UTMB, for example, the pacing plan was from Shamini to Kormaya. That's it. And it was it was done. Funnily enough, I DNF'd the two years before because I went too hard at the beginning. So the only reason we had a pacing plan was so Tom, myself, doesn't go too fast at the beginning. Then the pacing plan gets ripped up and you run on field. It's a limiter so you don't go too hard. It's not, I think people think it's oh, so you can optimize and you can run the quickest you can possibly run. For some athletes, that might be the case, but for me and the relationship that I have with Joseph, it's the opposite. And we use it for portions of the race, predominantly the first half of the race. And then it's a okay, cool, you've protected yourself, you've looked after your body, you've not gone too fast. Now you can race, go have some fun. And I think you see people fading in races, um, and a lot of the time it's a stomach issue, and 99% of stomach issues happen because you've gone too hard. Um, and actually, if you slow down a little bit at the beginning and you run a slightly more sensible first half of a race, the results from in my opinion, and for me, and for the athletes that I coach, um yeah, you can gain more time in the second half of a race than you can in the first half of a race. Whereas I think everyone thinks that I've sort of got mile splits from mile one to mile 100, which I don't I think at the moment the plan is to have a pacing program from the start to teleride, so to mile 27, and that's it. Because that's because that's the section of the race that you can come if you cook yourself by mile 30, you're done.

SPEAKER_00 57:00

Yeah. I think this this this could be a good place to to end with this question. So, and this is actually it's motivated by watching Western States last week, and I never know how much to read into things and whether to overreact or underreact. And but I this is kind of motivated by just seeing sort of what happened to people like Jim Walmsley, Killian Jordanette, Hayden Hawks at Western last week. If you look back at the last 10 years of your career, which have been really performed at a very high level, what letter grade would you give yourself in terms of how much you still have left in the tank, how well you've managed injuries, how well you're able to still perform at a high level despite being, you know, a 10 plus year veteran of the sport?

SPEAKER_01 57:48

Yeah, I think. I think it probably depends on the race. Um I think with racing, there are, and like you look in other sports, like there are forced errors and there are unforced errors. An injury, it's like Jim and Killian, I know I'm not sure about Hayden, but I know Jim and Killian have been sort of battling with injuries and have been battling with injuries for a while, but thought, right, get on the start line, let's see what happens. It it's a race that means so much to them, and you get a you get a ticket or you get a bib, and it's very, very difficult to turn it down. So for me, that's an unforced error. It's not it's not their fault. They've not done anything wrong. Their bodies just aren't their bodies just weren't ready for it. And fair play being said on the start line, you never know how these things are gonna go, and yeah, wish them both a very speedy recovery and hope to see them both in the summer. Um whereas then your unforced errors come from doing something, trying to do something physically that you're not capable of doing, and it's not like trying to run in 800 metres where you sort of get hit by the lactate sniper with 70 metres to go and you can jog it in. If you get to Forest Hill and you've gone too hard, you've got a really, really long day ahead of you, or you're not getting to the finish line, and so I guess from uh using like Jimmy Kenning as an example, and there are some things that you can't control, you to a certain extent you don't know what your body's gonna do, and you've got a recurring knee injury, such as life, and you try and find out a way to to fix it, but there's not much you can do. So, from like a grade standpoint, from that side, like it's it's kind of out of your control. And I think for me, sort of the grade there are some in I take Hans Troyer, for example, who I think is going to be an absolute superstar in the sport, and I think he's really, really exciting to watch, and has got up there with the most raw talent that I've seen racing, and some and I think 100k, you can get away with raw talent. I completely that's that's kind of what I did. That's how I tried to race UTMB two times with talent rather than a sensible older athlete's head on. Um, I think when you step into the 100-mile distance, especially the longer 100 milers, where you're 20 plus hours, so sort of using UTMB as sort of the fastest of the 100 milers, UTMB and slower, I think that maturity and racecraft is more important than raw talent. Understanding how to read the mountains, understanding layering systems. I think when Jim got to, the reason why Jim didn't win UTMB before he moved to France wasn't because he wasn't talented enough. I think he needed to learn and he needed to understand and spend time learn about how his fueling works best when he's in the mountains. How I know he suffers with the cold because he's a desert boy. And him understanding how layering systems work and when to put a long sleeve on. It all sounds really basic stuff, but it takes you making the mistake once or twice to then learn it fully, and then you try and race a race, like I tried to race um Trans Brand Canaria with minimal maturity and just say, right, I'm in good physical shape, let's just go super hard. Let's carry the lightest rain jacket that I have. And funnily enough, I got found out because I made the wrong decisions on the day, because I thought, right, let's just race as fast as I can, let's not be mature about this. Whereas I think you then get to a hard rock and you get in hard rock especially, where it is a slower race, like the average pace of a course record is just outside eight minutes per kilometre, which is a minute, give or take, a minute slower than a UTMB per kilometre, which seems like an awful lot. Um so yeah, I think your raw talent is your raw talent, and you can't change it much. But I think the where the best athletes, you take the Francoise and you take the Killians, you take the Ludos, you take the Jims, you take the Vincent Bouliards, who's now in this conversation 100%. Yes, there was obviously a lot of raw talent there, but the way that Vincent raced UTMB and the way that he raced Western States is a true veteran, true mature performance. And that's the reason why he won. Not because he was the most physically talented on the day, but he made the right decisions when it mattered. And I think from a grade standpoint, that's yeah, you can't do anything to change how naturally gifted you are. Yes, you can do training, but everyone does a lot of training. It all comes down to the decision making on race day.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:21

Tom, thank you so much for the time. We wish you the best at Hard Rock later this month. And uh yeah, hopefully we can chat soon again. Awesome. Finn, thanks very much.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:30

Take care.