The Hobby Jogger Podcast
Welcome to The Hobby Jogger Podcast, where elite athletes and ham-and-eggers lace up their stories. We explore the common ground that running creates from the world-class runner to the hobbyist hitting the pavement, trail or treadmill. Expect a blend of inspiration, laughter and the shared joy that makes every step count. Join us on this journey, where every run is a story worth sharing.
The Hobby Jogger Podcast
E70 | The 2026 Hard Rock 100 Adventure With Zac Wilson And Crew
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Welcome, Heat, And France Training
Casey KozaThank you for joining us for this episode of The Hobby Jogger. I am Casey Coza, once again, joined by my co-host, Mr. Rob Myers. Rob, getting ready to go over to France. How's the training coming?
Rob MyersI'd love to say great, but it's it's it is what it is. It's hot. We all know that it's humid. It was what, 95% humidity today? I am moving very slow, but I'm getting the miles.
Casey KozaSo that's all we that's all we can ask for. That's all we really need to do is get on our feet and get out there moving. But today we've got an awesome show. We have a packed house. Uh, we have Mr. Zach Wilson fresh off of Hard Rock. We also have his crew and pacers, Stefan and Troy, with us. Stefan, Troy, Zach, welcome uh to the hobby jogger. How are you guys doing today?
SPEAKER_04Good. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00Super, super. Yeah. Trying to figure out if I'm glad to be here or back on 75 miles at Hard Rock with Zach. I I might rather be here. I don't know. That was some hard work.
Casey KozaThat is some pretty hard work. I know I've I've heard a lot of of the course of the I well, I guess it's not a race, it's an endurance run. Um, which, yeah, that's I think aptly named. So that that's uh yeah, uh a key discrepancy, I guess we should point out. Not a race, but it is an endurance run, although some people do race it. So uh yeah, very excited to talk about that. But first, Zach, I wanted to start off. How how did you get into trail running? Uh it seems maybe you were influenced by someone on this panel here to get into that's true.
SPEAKER_04That's accurate. I'll say um generally an active person and you know had been doing a lot of different outdoor activities. Also, like, you know, coach, uh, I'm an educator, so coaching athletics has a whole thing, and was, you know, at the I think right before trail running had been doing a lot of dabbling with some rock climbing and paddling sports. But um, those are things you need people to help you with, ideally, right? To be on ballet
How Zach Finds Trail Running
SPEAKER_04or just to be safe out on the water. You need other people to help you. And at the time I was living in Marietta, Georgia, and it was a little more challenging to find someone to go out with me. And we were having kids. I'd stopped riding motorcycles, I'd stopped doing more dangerous things, and I was like, you know what? I think I'm just I just like being out in the woods. I'm gonna start uh trail running at some point. Uh so started getting rid of some of those other things. I was like, I can do that by myself, right? I don't need anybody to be out in the woods and run with me. But the uh the irony of that is once you get into a running community, like there's tons of people that want to run, it's really easy to find that. And so those barriers just aren't there like they are with other outdoor sports. I'll also say I think I misspoke. I wasn't in Mary at the thing yet, but I was still living. Uh Stefan Edy, who's on here, uh, we were let's get how the deep do we want to get in this? We were living together at the time with a lot of high school girls, and this sounds really weird, but uh it's gonna get weirder. Um, we uh my wife and I are both educators, so's Stefan. And at the time, my wife worked in the same school as Stefan, it's a boarding school in northwest Georgia. So I'm glad we clarified that up. That was yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, I wonder if Zach and I are living in a girl's dorm.
SPEAKER_04What more do you want to know? We were sharing meals. Um Meals and Miles. Meals and miles. So yeah, so that was a fun thing. Uh we had a pretty fun little group there. People who really, it was funny, like uh kind of like a little commune. So Stefan still lives there, not in the dorm anymore, I guess. They finally kicked him out too. But we would, you know, we would eat in the dining hall together. We would go and run miles together during on the weekend, during the week as needed, doing a lot of fun things. What got me into their group, honestly, though, is they had gone and done um, what'd you guys done? Was it uh a tough mutter? A tough mutter, right? Yeah, so they'd done a tough mutter, and there are all these stories about people shenanigans during that, whether it's like the electrodes and stuff, and getting, you know, kind of really sounding like a bad time, but one of those bad times that's fun to tell stories about. And I was like, oh, I need to be doing some of that. So that led into us uh trying out for to do an obstacle course race, and we were getting ready for a longer one of those that it was a Spartan beast, and it required a half marathon distance of running. And I realized I'd never run that far before, much less the obstacles. So we did a went one did a first trail half marathon, and I guess that was kind of the first real big thing was just training for the running side of that. Sweet. So it sounds like you have a lot of good influences around you, right? Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we uh Yeah, we only accelerated from there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I was gonna say in that phase of things for at least a couple of years, that so that made us like not good at anything really for obstacle course racing, because you have to also have a lot of strength for all the climbing and that sort of thing. So we were trail running and doing a lot of crossfit at the same time, which just means we were just always sore from one thing or the other and like good enough to have fun, but not really like uh be competitive.
Rob MyersWell, before we get into the race, uh tell me about Ridge and Valley Adventures. I mean, done some research. It looks pretty cool.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. We um so again, I mentioned I'm an educator and we moved uh recently. I'm a Georgia boy, but we recently moved to the Chattanooga area in the last couple of years, and um I work still on the Georgia side in Walker County, and I was just trying to figure out places to run. And my wife's aunt is actually one of the endurance horse riders, like like the uh Tev uh Tevis Cup that's the precursors of Western
Building Ridge And Valley Adventures
SPEAKER_04States, and she was telling me I go out to Pigeon Mountain and stuff all the time, and I started looking at Pigeon Mountain. I was like, nobody runs here. There's here's how you know there are no Strava segments out here, right? Like that's an easy way to figure out nobody's running. But there are people doing all these other activities. So the horse riders, it's a uh world-class caving destination. There's a big bouldering area, there's a there's some cycling, but nobody was running. So I went and checked it out. Um, and it's just this amazing, beautiful place where you know there are waterfalls. You can run through these, uh, go through these old mining tunnels where they mined iron and they had a single gauge railroad going through it. And I was just kind of like honestly inspired. I was like, somebody needs to put on an event out here. Like, who can I talk into doing this? And the more I thought about it, the more I realized, like, oh, it's just gonna be easier for me to do this rather than to like convince somebody else to do it. I'm already motivated and passionate. So that was kind of the idea behind that. And the more we talked, and with my job now in the school system, I'm kind of out in the community a lot working with different people. So uh the county has a farm in that area, and so we were able to work and we staged the race at Mountain Cove Farms, and we're able to offer for that race. That's what started all. We have a 50K, 30K, and 10K. It's next year will be our fourth year, and we've been ramping up. We had, I don't know, I'm gonna say like 200, 250 runners this last year. We've gotten been able to partner with Fleet Feet here in Chattanooga. We've had Hoka sponsor it the last few years. So just like a lot of like goodwill because me, Stefan, and Troy, we're out volunteering at races all the time. We've uh you know, we run an aid station at Pine Mountain, the Pine Mountain 40, which is an old school Ultra put on by Guts. Uh, we have an aid station at Cruel Jewel. We started an aid station at Penhode lately. So, since we go out and help so much in the community, we had a lot of goodwill coming back to us to help put that race on. It's just a special place and it helps bring uh dollars into honestly a remote rural area and it helps kind of benefit the economy there and bring local tourism dollars to us.
Rob MyersYeah, well, I think Casey and I are running that next year. What do you think, Casey?
SPEAKER_04Oh, sweet, hit me up, I'll give you a discount.
Rob MyersAbsolutely. You gotta look at some of these pictures, man. You're not kidding me.
SPEAKER_04I'm wearing the shirt right now. I don't I don't know if this is any YouTube part of this, but I wore it just in case. But yeah, shoot me a link. I'm always happy. Um, and maybe you can put a link to Ultra Sign Up, we're on there. And we've got a smaller little 5k, 10K we do with the city of Chickamauga coming up. I'd like to put on some more races. I've got a couple of things targeted, but hey, if anybody in the greater Chattanooga, Northwest Georgia era, you got a trail that you feel like people aren't getting out to and it needs some love, let me know because I'm not in this for money or anything like that. I just want people to get out, you know, and see the natural beauty that's around them. And that that's the whole thing. It's just kind of like a passion project.
Casey KozaYeah, looking looking at it now, looks looks pretty sweet. Looks like my type of fun for sure.
SPEAKER_04Well, it there's a couple of cool, I don't know if you're uh there's a couple of if you go to the media thing, there's a couple of YouTube videos. We had some runners do it. I'll I'll sorry, Martin, who is the ultra crowd. I will say that the the wolf the wolf guy did a better video. But uh yeah, if you do the 50k, you go through is it four? That's kind of a funny story, but at least four of the old railroad tunnels. At least three, maybe a bonus, yeah. Maybe a bonus tunnel. Maybe the first year we were doing it, we cleared tunnels from one side, then another day I cleared from the other side, and we didn't really have a good count on how many tunnels we cleared. And uh we had a surprise tunnel.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was out there photographing at the first tunnel, what I thought was the first tunnel. Here comes our two leaders popping out of the ground in front of me. And I was like, that was not on the course, but cool, like now it is.
Casey KozaWait, so not just like an old train tunnel, like an actual tunnel tunnel, right?
SPEAKER_04So um, like it when you say train tunnel, yes, train, but not not like chew chew kind of train, like a mind train, like it hauled hauled by mules on rails, if that makes sense.
Casey KozaThat yeah, a little little scary.
SPEAKER_04Uh yeah, oh absolutely. Uh it's a choice. So we put it as a choice during the race. You can go up and around the trail, actually goes up and around the tunnels, so it's totally your choice if you want to do it. And you need a headlamp during the day. Like there's a couple of them are like 50 yards long, so you go in this tunnel, it's pitch black
Tunnels, Headlamps, And The Bible
SPEAKER_04in the daytime. The first time I went by myself, and I haven't seen it since. Uh, may there may be, you know, I may be an unreliable narrator here, but I swear I got in the middle of the tunnel and I've just got my cell phone going along, and I see something out of the corner of my eye, and I look up to the left on the rock wall there, and there's a there's just a white Bible sitting there. And I don't know why, but that really freaked me out. And I was like, I don't know if I should be praying or what's going on here. I don't know if why I would need to find the Lord at this moment. I'm just gonna get out of here. Did you leave the Bible? I left the Bible, yeah. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00It's part move. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk about hallucinations when we get into hard rock, maybe a little bit more.
unknownOkay.
Casey KozaUh that's pretty awesome. Yeah. I mean, that looks like I'm just looking at the the uh the website here, but that looks, yeah, definitely looks like my type of fun, my type of math.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, come on down. We've had people come from, you know, all honestly, it's funny. Ultra sign up, uh not to plug ultra sign up, but the way it is, it just gets the word out, right? So, like we've gotten people internationally come to this corner of Georgia to run this race and Colorado and Idaho, and it's just like, huh? How did you land here? And it's just like, well, I saw it and I had to be in the area, and it's like I thought I'd give it a try.
SPEAKER_00It's a neat race, it's got a lot of good variety, it's it's what runnable, quote runnable, you would say, but it's got 5,000 feet of climbing too. So it gives you a little bit of everything. I mean, you uh you are in a pint of beer at the end with us and a maybe a little bit of a little hamburger or whatever. Zach Zach would call it runnable, I would not.
Casey KozaYeah, there's there's different levels of runnable. I certainly understand what you mean. Yeah, yeah, that's good. So the moving on a little bit here, because what I want to talk about, uh what you guys all want to talk about for sure. Um the hard rock endurance run um that you all participated in in one way or the other. Uh Zach running, uh you guys, uh crewing andor pacing. Um first, how did you can someone break down the qualifying for this thing for me? Because I I don't think I quite understand it. I is it like a social club? How did you get into this race?
SPEAKER_04That okay, so I'm about to just put it out there and get a lot of hate a little bit. Um, we went
Hard Rock Lottery And Community Culture
SPEAKER_04uh and did Bighorn in 2021, right? And Bighorn, until recently, is a hard rock qualifier. Okay, and so and I'll I'll just before I get everybody hating me, I will say I've been trying to get in western states for 10 years. I've I will have 256 lottery tickets this time and have been completely unsuccessful. Stefan's gotten in it, my buddy Kevin got in it, like you know, so I'm not necessarily that lucky, but with Hard Rock, I was super lucky. So on it's also fun to point out on like Hard Rock, uh Hard Rock Western States lottery weekend is also the Pine Mountain 40 race weekend. So we're always down there running an aid station. Um, so we're getting ready for that that weekend and kind of watching the lotteries as we're getting ready. And um I'm sitting there, I'm thinking I'm actually at a high school wrestling tournament at that time, and I'm like just watching Western States, been trying to get in for like five or six years at that point. I should click over there to Hard Rock. So I click over there and I just see my name up on the screen, and I'm like, I guess I logged into my profile or something. I don't know what's going on. But uh no, I got in Hard Rock off one ticket, one lottery ticket that year. And to people hate our group as a whole, Kevin, who I just mentioned, got into Western States off one lottery ticket that same year. And we were then going to run the aid station at Pine Mountain. I don't remember any of that year of the race, just to be honest with you, at the aid station. Um, so that was huge. Hard Rock was, even though I hadn't really qualified for it at that time, that was kind of like my dream race. So we definitely, Kevin and I made a handshake agreement. It's like, I'll pace you at Western and you pace me at Hard Rock, right? So we're gonna both get to try these races out this summer. So that's like the fun part of it. The scary part of it is then I just completely realized, like, I have no idea how to prepare for this race. And so this was in 2022. Um, and you know, started trying to figure things out, and and we had that put things even funnier that we uh that's the summer we moved to Chattanooga. So in the middle of like training for this race, I'm also planning on having a big move, move my whole family as a result. Um, and so like that just you know added a little bit to the fun and the stress. And the cool thing about Atlanta, I will say this for all the Atlanta runners know this, you can hit an interstate and be on or a highway and be at the AT like quick, like within an hour. You can be to Anaclola Falls and get on some AT mountains. So that's that was the plan then. Um uh I'll I'll we're mainly talking about this year. I'll just say that that first year I figured out enough to be dangerous. Uh went and paced Kevin at Western and then immediately flew to Silverton and started trying to get acclimatized. And uh about you know, pretty quickly in there, kind of thought I'd made a mistake. Uh went up, started scouting the course. I went up to the top of a little giant, which is for the direction I've done both times, it's the last climb of the race. And it's uh you climb about 3,000 feet in less than two miles, which is which is stout. That's stout alone. But the exposure, this Georgia boy was not ready for the exposure. And I was like ugly crying at the top. I was up there by myself, like snot bubbles, like, why am I up here? I'm gonna fall off the edge of this thing. I've got a family, I've got so much to live for. I don't know if I need to be doing this, and it was just it was rough. I was, I think I called Steph on. I don't know if he remembers that or not, because I was also switching jobs.
SPEAKER_00There was a lot going on. Yeah, you called me because I was in Oregon. I was like, I'm driving that way, Zach. Stay, stay there. I'm coming.
SPEAKER_04So um, the thing that saved me, if you this is a guy you should have on your podcast at some point. Uh, he he's a character. His name's Andrew Barney. Andrew Barney has finished more Rocky Mountain slams than anyone ever, and he's got like six or seven, and I'll just let your listeners, viewers, look up what a Rocky Mountain slam is because it's crazy. But I I was staying at the hostel, the Avon in Silverton, because that's what got recommended to me by a previous finisher. And I met Andrew, and he had the sweetest dog, he still does, he's got another one too, named Ruby, and he invited me to go on some training runs. And once I got up there and I saw this dog chasing marmots and running around all over the place, like I totally like chilled out. Then I started noticing that people are like carrying babies up to the top of the Pandy's Peak of 14ers, and there's like people's grandmas, and I'm like, this isn't that bad. I'm just not used to it, right?
Casey KozaYeah, yeah. The the altitude's a different kind of hits you a little bit different for sure.
SPEAKER_04It's the altitude for sure, but I'm telling you, that it's really I don't know how to explain the exposure. Maybe these other two guys can a little bit, but like when you're not used to the ground just sliding out from under you all over the place and the steepness of it, and just like, hey, if I'm not paying attention, I take a digger off Bear Creek, like I'm done. It's a thousand, you know, it's not a thousand, but it's like a several hundred foot drop. That it still we've gone back several years in a row now just to go volunteer. It still has taken me like four or five years to not be like shaky.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the scale of that race is really hard to convey. I mean, it's beautiful, absolutely beautiful, but so difficult. And you know, right when you think you've hit the peak, you just realize at the top of that hill is where you can see the top of the next hill, and that's the top of the next hill. And you know, the A station will be here soon, and it's not, it's just miles away, miles away. Um, so every step is epic.
Rob MyersWe find we have people that fall off Signal Mountain every year. We have only 2,000 feet.
SPEAKER_04Yes, every spring. It's like uh to your point, like every spring, you're just waiting for the alerts for the the Walden Ridge. It's usually the Walden Ridge rescue team, right? That they're coming out there and um getting somebody. And I don't want to make fun of anybody's injury or the you know the deaths. Like people just walk off of stuff and work, you know, it's it's nowhere near the level of drop. So it it yeah, you it I sometimes I do think thinking back to what I was saying about doing safe things, generally it is safe, but anything can be dangerous if you're not paying attention.
Casey KozaYeah, and some people think it's just like an amusement park where you're just strapped in and everything'll be okay. So all right, so you got in um via lottery, so you're you're in the race. Now, this is a question for for Stefan and Troy. Did you take more pictures of Ludovic at the start or of Zach? Because you know, Ludo being what is he, 51 now, 51 years old? Pretty impressive guy.
SPEAKER_04I mean, I'm gonna jump in though, real quick. I'm just pointing out uh we haven't talked about 24 yet. So 22, Ludo wasn't there yet. That's when uh I stood in the bathroom line beside Killian. So I just want to that be that being my flex real quick. I was ahead of him in the bathroom line, but that was about it. Sorry, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Uh oh man, we took a lot more pictures of ourselves, it's all about us. So Luda, we saw him, we're like, oh, there's Ludo. Like, oh yeah, but let's take a picture of Zach. It's much better. But there's Tara Dower. There Courtney was laying very low. Uh, but otherwise, it's really kind of cool. You're all just in a high school gym together, just us with everybody, you know, the elites and non-elites. And to Zach's point, the legends of the race who aren't elite, but Hard Rock's such a community, like you know them as just as well as anybody else, you know, the ones that have done it 15, 20, 25 times.
Casey KozaYeah, that's that's one thing I get a sense of hard rock is that it very it's like I don't know how to describe it, but like a group that comes back together every year and hangs out. And not I don't want to say a high school graduation because that probably it doesn't do it justice. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well you asked you asked about the uh qualifications. It's similar to Western in in a lot of ways, in that you get your lottery ticket, you qualify your chances double every year, so one to two to four to eight. Uh so that's very similar, but uh they're different in that Hard Rock has basically four different lotteries, uh, male, female, but also never have gotten in, and uh the the veterans, anybody who's finished a race. Um so like that's that's why Zach got to do it four years later. You you get in once and your chances increase substantially. Um that's part of how that's part of how they keep that culture going. So you know, if you've done it once or more than once, you you you you tend to be able to get back in a little bit more frequently.
Casey KozaBefore I heard heard the race director talk about it and knew why they did that. I was like, that's stupid. Like people just get to come running it back. But then he was like, Look, I don't want 300 people, however many people were in the race, I don't want that many people out there on the hard rock course for the very first time. Like, yeah, much easier to have veterans intermixed with the rookies because they know what's going on, like you know what I mean? They're experienced out there, and and that made sense to me. So yeah, I I certainly get it now.
SPEAKER_04And I'll add, um, since 22, up until now, so the last like four or so years, we've gone back every summer just for fun. Like when we put on the the race in the cove, um, we whatever little profit we make, like I told you, not in for the money, whatever little profit we make, I use that money and I get a place to stay and I get rent rent a car for these guys who help me with the race. And we go out and we do trail work weekend just as a fun thing to do together, right? So we just go out and we volunteer for the week and we Go scout the course, and we whether anybody's in the race or not, we just go do that and we just have a fun time just being out there. It's so beautiful. But then that kind of does add to that layer of um, you know, the camp atmosphere that you get to see those same people each year, year after year, people we did trail work with, we saw them again this year, and talking about, hey, what'd you do? Are you in the race? And that sort of thing. So it just kind of that community aspect, it's I'm like you, like let's more people run the race, but you kind of now that you're in the race, you kind of get it, you're like, oh, it's cool. And having seen Stefan and Kevin in Western, that race is super cool, but it's it's just a whole new crop every time. So there's there's some continuity with the big names, like an Andy Jones Wilkins or um Tim Tolestone, that kind of thing, but you don't it's not the same where it's just these the mid and back of the packer people like me who you know you get those relationships too.
Casey KozaYeah, and and that's one thing I really admire about it is yeah, it seems like that's a very much part of the community and is the community there. So I do, you know, I and I need to make it out there one year for it for sure.
SPEAKER_04Come on, man. You come run the cove, you come run the cove, we'll put we'll throw that in as part of the deal. You come stay in the Avon in Silverton with us. We it's a hostel, and we just like rent out the bunk room, and that's a cool place too, because you meet people doing the Colorado trailer just coming through. There are people from France and Australia and everything coming through, and it's kind of like adds to the camp atmosphere, almost like dorm life. You're just like meeting all these people from all over the world.
Rob MyersYes, it's pretty sweet. Casey, we can't let Zach sandbag too much. I'm looking at your author sign up sign up right now, and uh, you took overall first place just a hot minute ago at a 50k. So, right.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I'll I'll here's what I'll say about that, and this is honest truth. Like, I can I can be uh I can win a race, a small race where nobody fast shows up. That's what I'll always say. Like if I win, then nobody fast showed up. That's the way I look at it. And every once in a while, I'll do okay at a race. That was a fun race, Coyote Ugly. Shout out to Mariah and all her people putting on some good races in the L AJ, North Georgia area. But yeah, we we we try to mix it up. It's fun to do a race where you can have that experience where you're competitive and you're at the front, and then have races like a hard rock when you're just trying to survive and kind of do everything in between.
Rob MyersYeah, I agree. Gotta have both.
Casey KozaAll right. So so we start the race. You start at the rock, right? Uh very cool. Um it's was it 10,000? Silverton around 10,000 feet. Uh no, it's it's like 93.18. 9318. Thank you, Troy. Appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. Our research department isn't real good on this show.
SPEAKER_02So well, it's stamped everywhere in Silverton.
Casey KozaOh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I knew it. I was close. I was close to the nearest.
SPEAKER_04I want to back up for anybody who happens to get into hard rock. I want to give you the one piece of advice. And I've told this, and not everybody has listened. So I've known a couple of people from the Georgia Chattanooga area who've gotten in over the last couple of years. And the one thing you gotta do above anything and everything, you have to go out there early. And I know there's different debates about being at altitude acclimatized, right? Like you can go in the day before or whatever, limit that. That doesn't work for 13,000 feet most of the time. That works for like you're talking like 10 and under. So I've known more than one person who DNF hard rock on their first try, and that's the only try they're gonna get because they're like, I can't
Altitude Prep And Course Exposure
SPEAKER_04swing the work schedule, I can't get out there. Like, if it means something to you, you've got to do that no matter what. That is the biggest limiting factor. You don't have to go that fast, but if you can't breathe, you can't go at all. So this time, last time I went immediately after Western States, this time I drove out to Colorado three weeks ahead of time with Caleb Yon, who's a good buddy. He was in for the first time hard rock this time, and we camped in Cunningham Gulch for 12 or 15 days before these guys showed up. So there was a lot, and we saw 60 plus miles of the course. We got on the course and to, you know, so he could see it for the first time and I could refresh myself. But it that was that's another unique hard rock thing. People will go out to that camp for Western States on Memorial Day just for fun. But for hard rock, there are people out there for like Ludo, to your point earlier. He he ran like two or three soft rocks before the race started. So there you just have to be out there because that's what your body needs. So that builds the community too, because you're just seeing all these people for weeks ahead of the race.
Rob MyersYeah, that's good to know. I I saw you uh on Strava just going up and down Lookout Mountain. I'm like, I hope he's doing something else because that's not enough.
SPEAKER_04Well, that's that's all you can do here, right? Yeah, you're absolutely right. Here in Chattanooga, lookout's the biggest close thing, and I drive by it for work, so yeah, I would just do repeats up and over Lookout Mountain because you can get I I can't remember right now, you think I can remember out, but you could get something like 3,000 feet and eight miles, which around here is pretty solid, but it's nothing compared to out there.
Casey KozaYeah, out there it's a whole I spent a week out in Boulder and man, yeah. You get up to 8,000 feet when you're uh in Ohio and at 800 feet, and it's oh yeah, this isn't good. This is yeah, it's not uh not built for this. Give me back to the heat and humidity. All right, so the race starts and I it seems like a very slow moving race because you're just basically straight up a mountain, then straight down a mountain, right? So this year it went clockwise, clockwise, yes. Clockwise. So the cantina aid station was last, right? What are the Kroger's canteen?
SPEAKER_04Oh no, that's in the middle. That's mile like it's like 50k-ish this direction. It's early.
Casey KozaOkay, so it's towards the end of the other way. All right, that's right. I had it backwards because it does and that is one thing I should note that it does flip directions every year. Some years it's counterclockwise, then the next year it'll be clockwise, correct?
SPEAKER_04And that's correct. And both times I've done it, it's been clockwise. So I was going the same direction uh as before. So and what they say is you have to run both directions to be a true hard rocker. So I'm an untrue two-time in hard rocker.
Casey KozaUntrue two-time finisher of hard rocker.
SPEAKER_04I like there's always next year, right? That's right. That's a oh, that's a qualifying thing to point out, too, that I didn't realize last time, and I ran the bear. I guess I didn't have to, but I enjoyed the bear. If you finish hard rock, that's your qualifier for three years instead of two, which normally, if you run a qualifier for hard rock, it's good for two years as opposed to one for like Western.
Casey KozaOh, that's pretty cool. That's good.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
Casey KozaSo then do you have three entries?
SPEAKER_04Oh. Let's get it. Do you? I don't know how much math you want to get into on the entries.
Casey KozaSo like the entries. We can skip the entries. Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_04If you really want to delve into that, like because of volunteering, and because I'm a Sawyer, and because of all these other things, I and I'm in the finishers thing, I got a pretty good odds. I get my odds get pretty decent. Got it. That's all we need.
Casey KozaThat's that's good. That's I think, yeah, we covered that topic pretty well because I'm sure it gets complicated and whatnot. Um, well, at what point do you get um Troy and Stefan to come in as pacers in in Hard Rock?
SPEAKER_04So here's what I'll say. I'll I'll I'll kind of go through my story of the race a little bit. But it's worth noting that before even leaving town, we're turning a corner to go up the first little hill just to get out of town. And Zach Miller is down in there shouting at people, and just like, whatever. He's just cheering people on. They're like, look, there's a bear. And it's like, oh, that's funny. Somebody put a bear up in that tree, like a stuffed bear. And like, then it raises head. So before even leaving town, there was a pretty decent sized bear just hanging out in the notch of this tree just on the corner. So I I kind of consider that to be a good omen. I don't know if that's the case or not, but that's what I was thinking at the time. Um, and then you go on, you cross Mineral Creek in this direction,
Race Start, Bears, And Crew Logistics
SPEAKER_04you do it immediately, right? And they discourage people from going this way. I had made a plan that didn't really work out and make sense after I did it. I thought I could keep my feet drier longer after the creek. So I was planning on uh changing socks, so that's what I did. So after I get out of the creek, I'm gonna change socks. I also was like, Oh, I kind of yeah, I didn't go to the bathroom, and I also got to use bathroom. That's part of trail running, right? That's part of the thing. So I use bathroom, and then I'm sitting there and I'm changing my socks, and then I realized there's a drone overhead of me that like mountain outposts is like, man, that was about a minute from me being live using the bathroom on the internet. So that's another interesting aspect that's happened this year as opposed to my first year, is now there's all kinds of uh photographers and drones and stuff out there on the course, which wasn't the case before, which it's not a distraction, it's just you know, it's just different this time.
Casey KozaYeah. And pretty good footage they get out there too.
SPEAKER_04Like oh, yeah. Somehow we've uh we still haven't managed. So I can still say that I when I hit Grant Swamp Pass and hit that scree, I just run straight down it. And there's no evidence to the contrary, despite there being cameras out there this year. Uh so I'll say because that's always a place I've like to watch the years I'm not running is to see people go down the scree, but somehow they missed me on it this time. So, as far as you guys know, just ran straight down it like a boss. All we got to go on, so absolutely, yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, so you you know, you're like you're to your point earlier, Casey. Like you're just constantly going up or down something. So I uh what when I leave out, these guys, I'll let them say what they do, but they they have a minute. Like, I don't think they see me till mile 18 just for crewing. Is that right? I'm trying to remember what that's Chapman, yeah. So they go eat breakfast, they go have like we get caught, we get coffee and burritos. Yeah, I need a friend to run this so I can have the fun crew experience because I always hear stories about all the fun things they're doing because they're driving over mountain passes and seeing people do silly things, and that helps you know keep me distracted too. But it's that sounds like a lot of fun.
Casey KozaSo so Troy and Stefan, you guys got to go eat breakfast and have lunch before even because I'm looking at the map here, and there's until Chapman Gulch, there's some serious climbing going on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we have a good breakfast at the coffee bear, the uh Silverton staple, get the burritos there. We drive over uh Ofer Pass, which is a uh a great four-wheel drive pass, and then uh we see him at Chapman, and then we go get lunch and telluride, hang out in Telluride, and and wait for him to show up there, and we still don't get to run with him. We say hey, and then he leaves Telluride.
SPEAKER_00But it's it's fun because we have so much time there. We we know we knew quite a few people in the race at that point, so we just get to be everybody's cheerleaders for a while. Uh so it's it's like a warm-up before uh things start to get real.
Casey KozaNice, nice, that's awesome. Yeah, it's yeah, it's just such a cool story to hear. Um, yeah, so you get to hang out and tell your ride a little bit. Not the worst place to hang out in the world, you know. Uh certainly not, right? Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Tell your eye's beautiful, yeah, it's nice, it's pricey. It's the rich part of uh the circle.
Casey KozaYeah, it's it's definitely not cheap. I've I've heard that before.
Rob MyersSo it's perfect though. You're getting all these little mini vacations, right?
SPEAKER_02We know all the spots for sure.
SPEAKER_04Uh here's my part I'll add. So you've come over Grant Swamp Pass at that point, so that's like the sketchiest climb or scree down, maybe in the whole race. But the next one is going up from Toe Ride, you're going up to Kroger's that we mentioned earlier. So my uh and I'd been up like when Caleb and I were getting ready for the race, we'd went up to Kroger's from both directions just for fun, just to kind of remember what it's like. And it's it's got some scree, it's also just got some steep stuff that's just super exposed and challenging, where you know, you're going up just to slide backwards, two steps up, slide one step back, just because it's loose. But as I'm going up before I even get to the meadow, and I'm, you know, you're just hiking, so I'm taking it easy. I look up and I see somebody sitting down on the trail, and there's like then there's there's two people beside them. As I'm going up, it's Jamil Curry, and he's sitting there just looking dejected, right? He's like sitting there like trying to like gnaw on a sandwich or something. But the funniest thing about it is there are these two girls. I I mean, no offense to them, but this is just what I observed. I felt like they were just fangirling over him, and they have to be in the race at this point. They're like there's no pacers or anything, right? And they're just sitting there talking to him, and I'm just hiking on by and they're like, I didn't know hard rock would be so hard. And I was like, You're teeing me up. I'm like, it's it's in the name, it literally in the name says hard. I was like, You got everything you need, dude. And he's like, Yeah, and I just you know keep on going. But I just that was such a funny, like odd thing to see happening. Was one, because he's such an accomplished runner for him to be, you know, having that low point at mile 25, and then for them to clearly be annoying him and them not be oblivious to it, crack me up.
Casey KozaYeah, yeah. Like, yeah, get on with it. Let me just lay here in misery and peace, right? Yeah, we've all been there. We're just uh just don't, yeah, don't touch me, don't look at me, just uh Yeah, I get annoyed with just the nice job when I'm hurting.
Rob MyersNice job. Clearly, I'm not having a good time. I'm not doing a nice job.
Casey KozaYeah, nothing worse. You're like on your hands and knees, and some guy or or girl, oh good job, you're doing great. Like, no, I'm not. I can barely move. I'm clearly not doing great. I'm doing great.
SPEAKER_04We need to shout out. I I'm I've lost her name. Do you guys remember the lady? She's from Chattanooga that was at Telluride and she helped me out. Do you remember her name? I know Brent Robin. Yeah, Robin. Robin, who she and her husband uh co-founded Badbeard Events that now Jenny Smith runs. But uh yeah, they're at a lot of local stuff here that Bob will know, like with wild trails and Badbeard Events here in Chattanooga. And that's a funny thing when you go out there too, you see these people out of context that are like maybe from your area or something. You're like, wait, what are you doing out here? So that's that's just a fun aspect of it too. Nice.
Casey KozaYeah, it yeah, it's it's like seeing your teacher outside of school, I guess, right?
SPEAKER_04Absolutely, it's a good comparison.
Casey KozaYeah. Okay, so you get uh, and I'm looking at this climb from Telluride, right? And it's just it's just straight up, it's just one line straight up. There's really no, yeah, anything else. So you get up there, and then the the famous Kroger's Canteen, correct? Is there I've heard a lot about it. Uh it's a popular aid station amongst ultras. Can you describe Kroger's Canteen for me, please?
SPEAKER_04Uh, I mean, it's a it's just a notch in the rocks, just to be honest with you. Like I was saying, as you're going up, and it helped that Caleb and I went up there a couple times because you just, you know, even at though you've been there before, you forget that you're just on this little narrow, like maybe a foot wide path where it's just scree above and scree below. So if you go off, you're sliding a long ways. And even on the path, you're sliding backwards as you go. And it's steep enough that, like, in some spots, you the trekking poles
Kroger’s Canteen And High Country Risk
SPEAKER_04sometimes they help, and sometimes you're like, I just got to put these away and I got to scramble up it, right? And once you get in there, it's a very narrow little place. I think maybe if we were all standing shoulder to shoulder, it feels like 10 people could stand there, but that's it, and people are moving around. So you don't hang out super long. The first time I went through, I was in 22, I was trying to outrun a thunderstorm. So I didn't stay very long at all. I was trying to get down low and it started hailing, so that was a whole thing. But yeah, you just kind of hang out and it's uh it's cool and it's fun, but you don't want to be there long. And they have uh they'll offer you, they have more than you think. They got like Coke and pierogies, like they're cooking stuff. A lot of them are harnessed in. There's a shot of Mescal that's optional that I always take them up on, right? Um, and then as you're going down it, usually going down in those places is a little worse. You're trying to pick your way down, and and both times there's been some snow. So at a certain point, I'm like, can't fall if you're already on your butt. So I'll just butt slide the snow as far as I can, which is just you know fun. It's summer and you're in the snow. Yeah. So you get that, and you're uh but I'll say this time one of the highlights um during our trail work, there was a day that uh trail work was for the most part canceled because of smoke, because we had to throw the wildfires in the area. But uh, I was helping the the course director, uh Brett, um, and he he needed to go up there, and there was a reroute plan because of some mine activity just below Kroger's, right before Camp Bird Road. So he and I, just he and I, I won't get into the whole detail of why we had to use my truck, but he and I cut in a quarter mile of trail there, brand new trail, a reroute for the course. Just he and I. And when I was in the race and going down through it, Howie Stern, who's a pretty well-known uh ultra photographer, was there during the race and took a couple of pictures of me on the trail that I cut in, like while I'm in the race. And it was just like, oh no, like really filled my cup up. Just like a little kind of like full circle moment where I was like, that's pretty awesome. All right, like on the trail that you made part of the hard rock course. You got your picture by the the guy. So yeah, he for sure is, yeah. So that was an exciting part there for me.
Casey KozaSo we get to U Ray. I hope I said that right. Uh Ray, right? I I've heard it, I've heard it a lot of ways. I hear your Ray a lot. Your way, our way, their way, every way, anyway. Um that's it the the next crude aid station where you you see Stefan and Troy, right? Yep. You could bring a pacer along with you from from U Ray, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So get into there. Uh I'm probably, I hadn't said this, but I was probably at this point. I think and Stefan and Troy, you can tell me, I think I'm a little behind time-wise compared to where I was in 22 coming in. Not much.
SPEAKER_00You're about 45 minutes behind the time from four years before. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. At that point, okay, that's a good chunk. 45 minutes behind. So I was feeling good. It wasn't like I was feeling bad or anything at that point. Um, so but coming in there, yeah, sit and eat. Now, at this point, my stomach's still pretty good. I I don't remember what I oh I actually I might just be able to identify right now what turned in my stomach, but I was eating pretty good.
SPEAKER_00Was it the Pina Colada mix by chance?
SPEAKER_03It could have been the pina colada mix, was a bad choice. They really hyped that up.
SPEAKER_02Given to you by a doctor.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it was prescribed by a doctor right then. Yeah, it was Jim. Jim's a same doctor.
SPEAKER_06He's like a friend.
SPEAKER_04Oh. Can we can we do a sidebar and talk about his stitches? Sure.
SPEAKER_00Oh no.
SPEAKER_04Go ahead, Stefan.
SPEAKER_00I'll let you introduce you the ones who actually recorded it. Uh link in the show notes.
SPEAKER_04Oh man, we should link that. It might get you some more hits. Yeah. Just pointing out, but these guys come out, you know, like 10 days before the race. So they're all in, right? They're getting acclimatized, having a blast. And we went up, they came over. I dropped them off to come over, Little Giant, and I ran up from town to meet them. And Stefan took a tumble in a creek. And this is one of those moments where like I was like, Hold on, let me get my phone out. All right, now I'll cross the creek.
SPEAKER_00Here, hold hold my beer. I'm about to come across the creek. We we we had had a great run too, by the way. We were flying down the mountain, feeling great, too, too confident. And uh yeah, all I tried to do was tippy toe across this creek, which Zach went across on poles very wisely with his poles. Now I very wisely had poles on my back, but unwisely did not take them out to use them. And um anyway, I blame the rocks. The rocks were very unstable. I was very stable, the rocks were not. Um, and I I ended up 10 feet up the creek. And I don't the rocks are sharper in Colorado than Georgia, much, much sharper. And so, yeah, that that knuckle got shaved right off. Uh happened to be downstream from a beaver dam. So that that made infection real nice of a possibility. So anyway, we got to we got to know the local doctor pretty well there in Silverton. And thank goodness, I think he had only been working in Silverton for about a year, maybe Silverton's first doctor in the uh the old the old miners hospital. The definitely a one-man show. Uh and it's so funny, it's really such a small town thing because I think the rest of the week everyone's coming up to me, how's your finger? How's your finger? Oh, it's it's fine. Thanks for asking. Didn't know everybody knew about that.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think the tetanus shot is the the is makes the community even tighter.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. So I did I got text a tech, literally just a casual text message. This is Becky from uh health, it's you know, hum health and human services or whatever. Heard you need a tetanus shot. Yeah, can you meet me at 515 at the old miners hospital? Uh sure, like that's a lot to ask. It's your day off. She's like, No, it'll help me. I got somebody else to give one to you. So uh, so these guys come over there with me. It's not long after I I had the stitches put in, and uh, we're sitting on the steps, and uh, here comes a jeep, and she person gets out, and we're like, You're either Becky or the other person who needs a tetanus shot. So she literally raises the same middle finger. This is the middle finger I'm holding up on the camera. And uh I say, Oh, you're the other one. So uh anyway, Becky had come over because she had started a batch of uh of uh fudge over at the fudge shop. She just started it, had a little time to kill uh until it was ready to get taken care of. And the other lady, Jennifer, who uh runs uh the the restaurant, which is the old Avalanche brewery in town, and I can't and the the new name of it uh Troy would have to tell us. Alpine, Alpine. Yeah, I forget. Yeah, Alpine restaurant. Yeah. So I mean, it was just like everybody knows everybody. Really, really funny. But um, yeah, so yeah, so I got to pace uh Zach actually with stitches in my finger uh the whole time.
SPEAKER_04And we hiked after you got the cut for like we walked for three miles with you just bleeding on the trail, too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, unfortunately we're three and a half miles outside of town when it happened, so I just had to wrap it up in a shirt and uh hope for the best. And that doctor who is from my hometown, Rome, uh took the stitches out right after Zach finished, or took two of the stitches out right after Zach finished running uh or starting the race. Uh we just did it right in the gym, right in the middle of the crew briefing. You know, everybody's just looking like, what's going on over there? Is this minor surgery? Um, but uh so he took two out. It wasn't quite healed up, and uh, so I ran with two stitches in my finger.
Rob MyersWe're gonna have to have a follow-on podcast stuff on you if we tell that story in more detail. I know everyone that listens is gonna want to know more.
SPEAKER_04So we uh hey, when we could come back and tell, and I was running Cruel Jewel that year, but they had the hiker at Cruel Jewel who got the trekking pull through his whole hand a year or two ago. So they could tell you about that. Yeah, but uh I'll I'll digress a whole bunch if you let me. There's always there's so many stories. Yeah. All right. So URA just saying, so we came out of URA. I picked up actually my buddy Brent, who um is his first time coming out to Hard Rock. He's super awesome guy. He had paced me at Cruel Jewel, he's like a uh recon marine veteran, he's like a dude you want to have for stuff. But when you come up from URA, uh you're going up Bear Creek. So for anybody wanting to know the scariest part of the whole Hard Rock course, in my opinion, it's Bear Creek. Because it is an old mining path, I guess. I don't know how to say it, but it's at some points maybe six foot wide, and it's a rock wall on your left when you're going up, and it's a several
Bear Creek, Porcupines, And Puke Problems
SPEAKER_04hundred feet drop straight down on your right. So if I mean, if you, you know, were to go off the side, it's there's probably not much hope for you. And you're going up in the dark, but I've been up in the day, I know what's there, and it just it really freaks me out. Those guys can tell you because we've done trail work up there a couple of times, and they make fun of me because I'm going so slow and like basically like hugging the wall and stuff. But I was better this year. Caleb and I had gone earlier and I had actually jogged down Bear Creek a little bit and felt better. Um, but as we were going up, we see a couple of runners ahead of us kind of stop and like, what's going on? And they point, and it was at the top of my wildlife list. It was so awesome. There was the biggest porcupine I have ever seen blocking this six-foot-wide trail that you have no way to get around him. All right. I mean, like quills like a foot long, he was huge. And we're in the dark with headlamps. He clearly there's something happening. He just kind of looked over his shoulder at us and went, huh, and kind of waddled along, eventually got out of the way, but it was like, I can't jump a porcupine at this point in any race.
Casey KozaSo I don't know what we're gonna do here. And porcupines aren't really scared of anything, they have no fear of anything. They're yeah, and this sucker was big.
SPEAKER_04I tried, I took a picture, but it's pretty bad. Um, but it was great. Shortly after that, I had uh it started it started going a little bit downhill metaphorically for me. First time ever, I puked in a race. Never puked in a race before. That's just so hard to believe. Yeah, I don't, I'm not a puker, but not gonna get any sponsorships by saying this. But Hard Rock was sponsored by Morton Gel this time, and I've had Morton Gels, I'm sure we all have. That consistency is something different. Suspect a little bit, yeah. Yeah, especially I'll say the first time I had one, Stefan and I were running Boston, and I didn't hadn't had one at all. And it it scared me. I did not know what was coming. Um, yeah.
Casey KozaI think Casey had to it's my only puke in a race two, and it was at like mile, I want to say four.
unknownOh, really?
Casey KozaYeah, I was like, this is not it. I'm can't that must have been a hard 10k. Yeah, it was pretty, it was brutal. I was like, this is not good that I puked this thing up at mile four. Yeah, I I'm with you. It's just the consistency is not for me.
Rob MyersIt surprises you every time, like even if you've had one. Every single time I open it up, I'm like, oh check the expiration date. Has this thing gone bad?
Casey KozaI had never had one before. It was just recommended to me, and I that obviously a mistake, but yeah, I get it. My only puke was also from from a Morton Jones mile four of the Laurel Highlands OTK. Well, that sort of like set off a tipping point, I think.
SPEAKER_04Like when I say Mo, like at that puke, that was like a uh a three pukes in a row all of a sudden it just hit the back of my throat funny and just like set off the gag reflex, some kind of funny. And that just continued the rest of the race, just to be honest with you, where it was like I had to just eat anything slowly, and anything that had a weird texture after that point was gonna cause me to puke. So um, so it started being like, uh, okay, well, let's just manage it, you'll see how it goes. So just kept climbing up. That's a long climb. That's also probably one of the longer climbs. It's something like 5,000 feet in like eight or nine miles. So it's uh, you know, a long slog. We got up to um, let's see, you hang out engineer for a minute. It's cold there, so you don't want to stay long. You got to get out of there because it's cold. Dropped down to this time it was at Grouse Gulch. Saw Stefan and Troy were there. Um, a shout out to Katie Goggin, who's a runner in Atlanta. She volunteers as she is the she's a doctor, she's an ER doctor in general, so she's med staff there at Grouse Gulch. So that's another example. Like somebody at the teacher's not at school, right? Or are you in Colorado? But we knew she was there. And from there, you go up Handy's Peak. And my buddy Jeremy, he had never been up a 14er before, so we decided let's take Jeremy up this part of the race. And he did great. He's super positive, dude. And we just, you know, trekked on up there, and you're getting the sunrise on handies. Um, but yeah, that was fairly uneventful because the night the I will say the previous year, Stefan went up handies with me, and I got really cold at the aid station before and had to like just get out of there. They put me in like a cot and because I was so cold, but eventually I was like, I just need to keep moving. And if I climb up handies, I think I'm gonna warm up, even though it's you know high up, all that work is gonna make me warmer.
Handy’s Sunrise And Crew Travel Reality
SPEAKER_04So I tried to avoid that same mistake this time.
Casey KozaGot it. So in Stefan and Troy, you guys did a lot of driving for this, I imagine. Right?
SPEAKER_00It's that's one of the well, I mean, I'd say one of the toughest things about current this race, and races like it, like even Western's got that where you have to kind of, if you want to go to the other side of the canyon, you gotta drive three hours. And so this has the same same deal. So I I actually wasn't at Grouse Gulch. Uh while they all were there, I was en route to the other side of Handy's, which is where I was going to pick him up. And you know, that is a that was a what three almost three-hour drive um to get there. So yeah, so I was over there and then finally made it and you know got a few hours of sleep waiting on him to come across the mountain with Jeremy.
Casey KozaGood comparison to the western states. When I crewed it, they were like, oh, you know, the aid station one that I had to go to was and I looked at the map, I was like, that's 10 miles away or something. That's no big deal. Then three and a half hours later, I'm going up the canyon to to same same idea, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then this, and you know, that route drive went wrapped around the fire that was going on, the Gold Mountain fire. Um, so it was it was smoky. There had been another fire that popped up. There were a lot of emergency vehicles and a lot of helicopters and airplanes and everything working. So it was wild. It was a little wilder this year than that that first time we went out there. That's awesome.
Casey KozaYeah, it's it's freaky scary too when you see that kind of stuff going on around you, and you're just out there, you know, kind of in the moment, I guess, right? Totally. Yeah, totally. Sweet. So we get to Handy's, that is the high point of the race, about right around 14,000 feet, right?
SPEAKER_04Yep, it's a 14er, yeah, just over 14.
Casey KozaSo you see the sun come up. That's your first morning, right?
SPEAKER_04Yes, that's correct.
Casey KozaYes. So we're 24 hours. Okay, so we're 24 hours in. All right. Okay, got it. So 24 hours in. See the sun come up from Handy's. Got a long way down to go to. Looks like Sherman, correct?
SPEAKER_04Yep, and Sherman, uh, that's like coming down from there, it's it's not terrible, but it's kind of an annoying downhill. It's just, it just seems there's all these log steps for some reason that are weirdly spaced when you're we have stiff legs. But yeah, Jeremy and I ran down there. Stefan was uh uh you stop at Burroughs first. I try uh my stomach was still off. I was trying different things with some tombs and Pepto and that sort of thing, trying to figure that out. And we we go along. Uh the drones are back now because we're on a forest road.
SPEAKER_00Um Zach, I never asked if you had to play Ring Ring the Reindeer.
SPEAKER_04Uh did not stay long enough for Ring the Reindeer this time. And a the previous Ring the Reindeer. Yeah. Go ahead, Stefan.
SPEAKER_00Well, I well, you know, A stations will have themes. Um, I don't hard rock doesn't do that a whole lot, but this one did. Um, and I think that was uh I guess that was a Christmas theme that that year. And so anyway, Zach could Zach had approached that A station. He was he was doing great, but he was really concerned about his feet, so he's very focused on his feet, and they're trying to have a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_04And and Zach my feet were wet, and I did not want to get trench foot this far into the race.
SPEAKER_00Zach is all about having fun, like all the time. We all are, but like in this moment, he just he was not wanting to have fun, like he wanted to fix his feet and keep going. And so, but they put inflatable reindeer antlers on me and gave him these rings, and they wanted to play ring the reindeer antlers, and they got he got some prize if he could get it done. I don't know, he just kept throwing them in my face and hitting me with the rings and like let's get this over with, get out of there. So, yeah, I've been wondering if they did that again.
SPEAKER_04I can't believe that mainly the guy I was asking the doctor there about stomach stuff, and he was just kind of like shrugging his shoulders, being like, eh. I was like, All right, well, I'm just gonna get out of here and hope I get better luck at the next one.
SPEAKER_00Well, I I was sitting, so I'm sitting in Sherman, which is Lake City, and I had been sitting there for a while, it was probably about 10 o'clock. And I'd seen a bunch of people come in, uh including some buddies from Atlanta, like Dimitri came through, um, and then Andrew came through. Uh, and I still waiting on Zach. And then um I see this little skinny guy come running up the road, and I was like, I I recognize those little legs. That's Jeremy, but where's Zach? Jeremy's a pacer. He comes up, like, you lost your runner, Jeremy. Like, where's Zach? And uh Jeremy, he looks a little, he's a little wide-eyed. And he's like, Well, Zach, Zach's been feeling sick and puking and barely run. And he sent me up ahead to see if I can find anything to help or give everybody a warning that he's coming in, he's coming in hot and or not hot, it's his stomach's hot or whatever's hot. I don't know. Um, but he wasn't feeling good. So um anyway, you weren't too far behind him, but it that was an interesting like uh foreshadowing of like we we may uh we may have a little work to do here.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I came in there and it was you know, was feeling all right. I will say they had banana pudding, which for some reason that hit the spot at that aid station, wouldn't have expected it, but I could eat that. And uh we kind of you know, kind of felt like got together, talked to a few different people, felt okay about it. I was excited too, though, because we had done, I ended up doing two weekends of trail work out there. And the first weekend, we had come over to that area, we'd drove driven across Cinnamon Pass, and we had cleared 39 trees off the trail with cross-cut saws, right? Not chainsaws, like manual lumberjack saws, because that's what was required in the area. So I'd been over there and I was like super proud of my work, if nothing else, and just excited to see that spot and show Stefan has seen a lot of the course over the years of us going out there, but he hadn't seen this section. So I was kind of excited about that aspect of it. And I knew we'd be in the shade for a while too, and it was starting to toast up a little bit. So I wanna I'm gonna tell you my version of the this next situation and see what Stefan what he comes up with.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna share two perspectives here potentially.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, go ahead. So we're coming in, and I've carried a water filter the whole race because just in case, and I've had to use it at Hard Rock. You get a long time between aid stations, and I hear them having a conversation. They asked me if I still have mine, and I'm like, yeah. And Jeremy asked Stefan if he has his. He's like, Yeah. He's and I'm like, Well, if he's got one, I mean, I don't have to carry one, you know. I don't want to carry extra weight if I don't have to. There's a lot of water through this area, so we'll yeah, we'll just be fine with one, and that's all I think about it. And I fill up my bottles and we're we're going along for for a while, and I'm like, hey, I'm I'm out of water. Need to get fill something up at a stream here in a minute. And uh we did not have a water filter. So I don't know what happened there.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, yeah. Let let me tell a more colorful story, uh, version of this story. This is good. Uh yeah, I had had my water filter in my pack the entire the entire week. Yeah. Uh and I still don't I still haven't found it. I still looking for I did miss the part where Jeremy or you decided that uh shaving the two ounces of the hook hair in the water filter would be a good idea.
Casey KozaSo yeah, you can't carry that extra two ounces up the yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, yeah, that'll make all the difference.
Casey KozaYeah, the water filter's the first thing you want to toss for sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, there there are um, I guess anybody who's paced uh a runner through a hundred mile in particular, if you get the right section, you know, you you know there are stages of bonkiness. Uh, you know, there there's the puke and rally, and there's also the puk and disintegrate. I don't I don't know where Zach was in that term's at, but I knew he'd puked. He didn't know he'd never really puked before. He was not feeling great there. He was doing okay. And then uh so as we're climbing up there, um Zach, who was very uh typically very loquacious,
The Missing Filter And A Bonk Spiral
SPEAKER_00I guess you would say, was pretty quiet. Uh, but he was narrating, like he said. Uh and so, but he was he was pretty quiet. I could tell he was not feeling too well and making some unusual no noises every now and then. Um we yeah, we we ended up kind of by ourselves for a little while. Um, and we were we were literally getting up this, I don't know, five or six, six mile climb, just counting the trees. I'd be like, Zach, did you cut that tree? He's like, Yeah, I cut that tree. Did you cut that tree? Yes, I cut that tree. And then did you cut that tree? Well, me and two girls cut that tree, and you know, so on and so on. Um, and really as we climbed up, it was beautiful, but as we climbed up, it was just a progression. And so uh there's another stage of bonkiness, I think, where you start to not speak in full sentences. And uh, and Zach did hit that spot. Like he he uh he ceases to speak in full complete sentences. He's he's like, Man, hot, hot out, hot. It's like, yep, it's hot. I'm thirsty, I'm really thirsty. Um, so we went through that phase and we're about breaking through tree line, and it got really hot. And Zach hit the next stage, and the next stage of bonkiness is you can only say one word at a time. Zach Zach got to that stage too. And so he was like, hot. He could just say one word, hot. And I was like, Yes, it's hot, thirsty. I was like, Yeah, he's like, water, out. I was like, Oh, you're out of water. I was like, okay, I was like, no problem, I'll get my filter, no filter. It's he'll get his filter. I looked at his bag, no filter. He's like, filter, gone. Jeremy. I was like, oh, okay, nope. I said, do not panic. I was like, it's 85 degrees, we're at 12,500 feet, we're four miles from the aid station, totally exposed section that we're getting into. Don't worry, it's gonna be fine. We know we know plenty of runners ahead of us. Uh I knew I knew uh Dimitri was ahead of us. There's runners behind us. Uh, you know, we we we would cross a creek, you'd be like, Water. I was like, Yeah, water, but we can't drink, don't drink that water. Keep keep walking. Um, and so we we did eventually uh but beg some water uh off of somebody uh and that fixed that. Um, but then he was like uh tired. I was like, Yeah, I said you're probably really tired. I was like, You want some caffeine? He's like, caffeine. I was like, want some? He's like, no. He's but he looked up at me and with a full sentence, like finally, like a full sentence I know where he looks up at me almost like a toddler might look up with his little eyes, and he was like, I could take a nap.
Casey KozaTake a trail nap?
SPEAKER_00I said, You could take a nap if you want to take a nap. And just then, like a through hiker came by, coming the other direction, if you remember this.
SPEAKER_04Kinda, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And uh, and Zach really perked up, and he he was like, Is there any any shade? Shade? And the through hiker was like, There's shade, is like it's there's no shade until you get over the pass. And um, and I was like, Oh no, crap, we're in trouble. And Zach was he perked up. He's like, Oh, that's just a a mile, a mile away. It's it was like three and a half miles. But I was like, All right, Zach, we only gotta we just gotta get to the pass and get some shade, and you can take a nap. So he jumped right up and we started walking again. Um, and yeah, he was good. Uh instead he just kept saying hot. You were like, you were like, Oh, hot. I'm like, you want to take your long sleeve off? Like, take your long sleeve off, it's hot. You're like, no, like, long sleeve keeps me cool. I was like, okay, but I was like, okay, whatever, whatever you need.
SPEAKER_04I will say when Stefan found was finding me some water, I was like, I he was like, just keep walking and I'll find you. I was like, all right, sweet. So I just kept walking. I was like, I could lay down now. He's not here, he can't stop me, right? So I laid down beside the trail for Oh, I saw you. I saw you. You can see I was caught. It was like 45 seconds, maybe, because when I laid down, then there was just more of me exposed to the sun. And I was like, I got hotter. I was like, Well, this is terrible. And now, like then I didn't want to nap at all. I was just like, let's get out of here. So, my version, after I got some water and we got to the top of the pass, I felt good and I could run-ish, like relative to hard rock run, right? So we started jogging all the way down to the aid station, and from then on I was fine, but that was definitely the low point.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we got you some coke, in you at the pole pole creek aid station. Um, took a little food, had a little Pringle sandwich that they were serving, two Pringles with avocado in the middle of it. Um, and um, yeah, you definitely perked up after that.
SPEAKER_04But that was like this section the whole time, like he's saying it was super exposed, it's beautiful, but it was smoky sun, and you're just kind of brain-baked, and it was like there was nobody around us after Pole Creek. It seemed like you could just see down this whole meadow, and it's just the two of us, and one time he pointed, there's just an elk staring at us, and it's like, and like I'm not sure what's happening right now, but I'm just I know where we are, so I'm gonna keep moving forward.
SPEAKER_00That's totally accurate. You really had no idea what was going on at that point.
Casey KozaIt was awesome. Yeah, because I was gonna say, you're looks like you're still about 12, 13,000 feet up there. So that's oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04You're never except for when you're in a town, you're just always high up. But um, yeah, just so we kept going. We hit Maggie's Gulch, we had some good climbs. Stefan hadn't been to this this sections before. We were kind of trucking along, we were passing people, especially on the downhill, the loose scree stuff. We were, you know, overtaking people that weren't as confident. And that was a bowl of soup. He was really perked up by Maggie Gulch. That was the big difference between this year and 22. Was my I had really strong legs, Bob, from all those look out mountain up and downs. Like I even though my calories have been off, my legs were strong, and like I could run the loose downhills, which I couldn't before. So was feeling good into that. We came across Green Mountain, which uh when you're Green Mountain is on the other side of Cunningham junk gults from Little Giant. And only when you're on Green Mountain can you actually see how big Little Giant is. So that's kind of like a good thing and a bad thing at the same time. It's like I gotta go over that, but first I gotta drop down 2,000 feet before we go over that up 3,000 feet.
SPEAKER_00I was like, don't look, Zach, don't look, Zach. Do not look straight ahead, look at your feet.
SPEAKER_04I should send you guys a link. I I got interviewed in Cunningham Gulch. I made like the mountain outpost or whoever, whatever, like like little video thing has my name and stuff on it, and they talk to me, and I kind of tell them about how I'm feeling, that sort of thing. But we proceeded to Troy, I'm picking up Troy there, and Troy, when I got in again, he's like, hey, he told me at the beginning, he's like, I want to take you over to the end at uh Little Giant. I was like, all right. So like that was his training goal, right? To be ready to quote unquote not get dropped by me. And I'm thinking, if there's no way I'm dropping anybody at the end of Hard Rock. But we proceed to start going up, and I'm feeling pretty good because somehow I despite me wanting to take naps and everything, I've made up time like during this low point. I got ahead of where I was in 2022, and I still don't know how that happened. To me, it was just a time warp, so I don't know.
SPEAKER_00It was completely due to your pacer.
Little Giant Drama And The Finish
SPEAKER_04No, okay. So the amazing pacer there, he just wouldn't let me lay down and I saved an hour. I didn't lay down the last time. Um, but so Troy and I, this is a fun Troy's gonna enjoy telling this story, and I'll get out of his way. But we're going up and we're trucking pretty good, but all of a sudden we're we've gone up uh and it again it's 3,000 feet in less than two miles, and we've gone up at least five, I don't know, maybe a thousand feet at that point, and somebody is gaining on us like crazy. And it's like, well, let's move out of the way. I don't know who that is. So we move over and it's Jamil Curry, and he's caught back up to me, and uh he's back, and I'm like, Well, we're not gonna see him again. And he's got Rachel Entriken, like the winner of Cocodona, is his pacer, and we could just hear her talking a hundred miles per hour. He's not really saying much, but they're just flying up it, and I'm like, we're never gonna see them again. And I was wrong because Jam Jam's tummy was still bothering him. So he kept they would pass us and stop, and we would just go past him, and we would just leapfrog the whole time up a little giant, and like you you just have to take breathing breaks going up that at the end. So I'd stop and I'd look and like, should I just wait and let them pass me again? Like, nah, let's keep going. So we get up over the pass, uh, there at Little Giant, and we're going down. Uh, you you go down along this rocky, little narrow little single track, and they're still behind us. But you come to a spot, if you're not familiar with that trail, and I wasn't the first time, where you're going along and all of a sudden the trail's just not there. But if you look to the left, you're supposed to slide down this scree about 30 or 40 yards, just like straight down the mountain. It's like that's the trail. There's a flag way down there at the bottom. And so, and Troy had been over it already. Troy had a funny video himself where we teased him a little bit where he might have been butt scooting when he did it before the race. Um, so I start going down it, and I get and Troy's, you know, we're spreading out, nobody wants to get hurt. So I get down to the bottom, I'm looking, and Troy starts, and he's good, he's on his feet. And go ahead, Troy, tell him what happened next.
SPEAKER_02I start thinking I had, okay, let's be careful, let's get down. I start, and Jam Jam and Rachel start right behind me. I mean, they are on me quick, and I'm like, okay, now I have to really pick up my feet, I have to stay upright because the last thing I need to do is fall and take down two of the most known trail people in the world.
SPEAKER_04You take down Rachel Entrick. I mean, people probably be divided about Jam Jam, but if you took down Rachel Entrickin, that would be not gonna win many hearts there for sure.
SPEAKER_02So I'm going down as fast as I can, and uh, I make it down probably uh three or four times faster, stayed on my feet, and uh I was like, Zach, you're my witness. You have to back up my story.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, I'll totally back up his story from my perspective. I'm like turned around looking, all right, let's go, Troy. And like they like he's like half a second on it, and they're just winging him either side, and they're coming three wide down it, and I'm kind of like, crap, I gotta move down the trail. I'm gonna get taken out by something here that's falling down. And it would just, it was like so. The best part to me, and Troy won't tell this part, is what they get ahead of us, and uh, that's great, whatever. Not gonna see him again, again, wrong. We gone down, jam jam's got a belly problem, and uh Rachel's standing on the on the trail. And Troy's like, he said he didn't think about that way, but he's like super passive aggressive. He goes, Hey, I'm a he said, I'm a really big fan. Just was you know, really big fan. He's like, Oh, thanks. Like, yeah, and you taught me something. It's like I didn't know I could scree slide that well until you just like went right beside me and didn't give me the opportunity to go down.
SPEAKER_02I didn't know. We're gonna give this to like mile 95 hearing because I didn't say you didn't give me the opportunity.
SPEAKER_04Whatever it was, it was like, I'm a really big fan. You kind of like put me in a bad spot back there, though.
SPEAKER_02I uh that was your perception. I was trying to be a fan. Well, maybe put it out on a podcast forever.
SPEAKER_04But yeah, so eventually then you've got like a I don't know, like a five-mile downhill before a couple of miles to get into town. So we jogged that as best we could, and then I started hitting a low point on like the two miles out of town. I'm just like, there's a picture of me just like sitting on the side of the trail, like scratching in the dirt or something, like because I just was tired at that point. At that point, you've gotten well into the second night, it's probably about midnight or something like that. So I was just fading and just the not eating was had really gotten to me. But I'd still, if I had the energy, I could run. That was just an energy issue. And um, we we jogged it on in. We were ended up being an hour faster than in 2022, despite all the belly problems, and felt really good about that, honestly, because it um like if I had hadn't been low in calories, that's the only thing I felt like was a negative in the race, but I just had a really good time overall.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I would say notable of that was me asking uh where the creek was that Stefan fell in, and he goes, It was the creek back there where we got water. Uh and I was like, Oh, I guess because we both had poles, uh, we crossed that creek carefully. That was it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, Stefan made it sound like a raging river and it was like a little trickle.
SPEAKER_02But the uh but the now, but now when everybody got to Cunningham and was like triple checking that I had a water filter, it makes a lot more sense. Yeah. Because because I did, we did stop and and filter water at the creek that Stefan fell out of. And I'm like, okay, I'll get some water. And Zach just points off over into the bushes, and there's like this pipe that is like half in the water and half out into the in the dirt, and there's a hole in it, and water's just shooting straight up in the air. And you just walk up and fill the water bottle and and and top it off. I was like, Oh, that's that's pretty slick.
SPEAKER_00The this last 10 miles of the race is 10 miles, no A station. So yeah, you had to be ready.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a long haul. Like I'll say this too, going up little giant, like my you know, and it's similar both years. My first mile is 45-minute mile, and then the second mile is an hour and 15-minute mile because you're worn out, but also it's 3,000 feet of climb in less than two miles, and it's at elevation, so it's it's nuts.
Casey KozaYeah, it's uh yeah, I I I really do need to get out of there. It's awesome to hear your story. So you get across the line, you kiss the rock, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, kiss the rock, kiss the goat or the sheep on the lips, right? Like that's that's the only way I know how to do it. Treat it proper. Yeah. And then they walk into the gym, they got like an A station, and it is 95 degrees in there. And I pretty much immediately said, Let's get out of here. It's it's so hot. Just wanted to get out of there. But no, great experience. Next day, they have like in the the other year it was in the gym, and it's almost like a uh school graduation. Now it's out in the park, so it's cool, more spread out. Um, you know, you get that chance to recognize everybody. That's another part of the community aspect. You don't uh Western has that right under the Big Ten at the school. Uh but this was a just a little more spread out, and you can kind of share stories with people and like congratulate them and that sort of thing and find out about their experience because you're not just you're not having to pay attention if that makes any sense because you're all spread out.
Casey KozaIt's really cool to hear. You know, I've read about it, watch some of it on TV, but just to hear the first person account from the three of you, I I certainly appreciate you telling the story. It's yeah, it's cool. And and you know, Rob, we've we've talked about it. We definitely need to make it out there next year.
Rob MyersUm, yeah, we do. We've been talking about it for a few years now.
SPEAKER_04Please hit us up. You got my email. Um, again, if you want to come around the cove, I'll I'll send some links if you need any links for any of that. I appreciate if y'all help advertise that. Because, like I said, we we go out and try to help with as many races here locally as possible. Like I'm on the wild trails race team. I just volunteered at Still Hollow yesterday. So when we put on a race, it's because we want to
Where To Find The Cove Race
SPEAKER_04give those opportunities and we use it to go help other people because that's that's why we're out here. We wouldn't be able to do the things we do and have those adventures if we didn't have that support from other people. So I just really feel like you got to pay it forward.
Rob MyersSo, Zach, where can our listeners find you on the internet?
SPEAKER_04If you go to Instagram, Facebook, where Ridgevalley Adventures is the name of the little race company. So that's probably the best way. I mean, you could find me individually, but I don't post too much individually. If I I can help it, we have a website, it's ridgevalleyadventures.com. Our the Cove is our big race. It's on ultra sign up if you want to check that out. Love to have some more people come down and help support our local runs. Thanks, guys.
Casey KozaWe appreciate it. Certainly appreciate it. Thank you very much. Look forward to talking to you and and seeing you not only down at the cove, but also out at hard rock endoranthrun.