The Steep Stuff Podcast
Welcome to the Steep Stuff Podcast, your source for all things Sub-Ultra Mountain Running
The Steep Stuff Podcast
#86 - Garrett Corcoran
Few athletes embody the perfect balance between professional intensity and joyful participation quite like Garrett "The Parrot" Corcoran. A mechanical engineer with degrees from UC Berkeley who now develops sustainable jet fuel, Corcoran brings the same methodical approach to trail running that he applies to his technical work - but with a crucial difference: he never forgets to have fun.
Corcoran's journey from sub-4 minute collegiate miler to mountain crusher reveals a refreshing perspective on elite athletics. Unlike many who make running their entire identity, he maintains a challenging full-time engineering position while still competing at the sport's highest levels. This balanced approach hasn't hindered his success - in 2023, he qualified for two separate World Championship teams, represented the US in Innsbruck with a top-20 finish, and recently shocked himself by running a blazing 2:15 marathon on minimal specific training.
What truly sets Corcoran apart is his philosophy that athletic performance shouldn't come at the expense of enjoyment. "If you're going to make it your entire self-worth, I sure hope you're having a little bit of fun with it," he reflects. This perspective has served him well through injuries, including a notorious cramping incident caught on video that went viral in the trail running community. Rather than being embarrassed, Corcoran spent the entire post-race party sharing the video and laughing at himself - a testament to his grounded perspective.
As he prepares for another World Championship qualifying campaign in 2024-2025, Corcoran reminds us that balancing professional ambitions, athletic goals, and genuine enjoyment isn't just possible - it might be the secret formula for sustainable success. Follow his journey on Instagram @GarrettTheParrot96 and discover how elite performance and life balance can beautifully coexist.
Follow Garrett the Parrot on IG - @garretttheparrot96
Follow James on IG - @jameslauriello
Follow the Steep Stuff on IG - @steepstuff_pod
This episode is brought to you by Ultimate Direction, use code steepstuffpod for 25% off your next purchase !
What's up, fam? Welcome back to the Steep Stuff Podcast. I'm your host, james Lauriello. Guys, I'm so excited to bring you today's episode with none other than Mr Garrett Corcoran. Garrett the Parrot joins us on the pod.
Speaker 1:Really fun, super exciting conversation. It was fun to catch up with Garrett and see what he's been up to. It's funny. It's actually our second conversation on the podcast, our first one that we had done. We were unable to do for audio qualities, so we were unable to do for audio qualities. Uh, so we're able to come back on and redo it and I really want to thank Garrett for for doing that.
Speaker 1:Um, guys, for those of you who don't know, garrett's been super popular on the golden trail series scene. Uh, over the last few years, specifically last year, he went and raced the golden trail series final um, despite some setbacks, um around mid, with some stitches in his knee, he was able to come back and have great races at Mammoth Trail Fest as well as Headlands, not to count out a super good race that he also had in Japan at Kobe Trail. Garrett is probably best known for some of his finishes in 2023, including actually 2022, where he did one JFK, as well as 2023, where he technically made two world teams. My guy got fifth place at the vertical at Soonape and qualified for the US uphill team as well as first place at the Breakneck 42K, which got him on the marathon team where he subsequently went on to go race the marathon at Innsbruck and Worlds and got himself a top 20 finish, probably one of the most highly touted prospects.
Speaker 1:I know he is a goofy guy and like doesn't you know he's like not as serious about the sport because of you know he likes to have fun and enjoy himself, but like as far as prospects go, like probably one of the most highly touted, just straight up talented dudes to enter our sport, having run at the University of California, berkeley at a super high level as well as a high level in high school, california Berkeley, at a super high level as well as a high level in high school. So Garrett tells his story. It was really fun to get him in for a long-form conversation and, yeah, I hope this isn't the last time we chat. I'm looking forward to seeing him at SUNAP as well as Broken Arrow. So, guys, without further ado, I hope you enjoy this one, none other than Mr Garrett Corcoran. We'll be right back.
Speaker 2:Ladies and gentlemen, we are live.
Speaker 1:Listen up, guys. The Steep Stuff Podcast is brought to you by Ultimate Direction USA. Guys, I am so excited UD just dropped their new RaceVest 6L and UltraVest 12L in two beautiful aesthetic colors. You guys got to check these new vests out. They're dynamic in ways like that you just have never seen from an Ultimate Direction vest Very stretchy, lots of storage, beautiful aesthetic colorways coming to you in a new, like a white and blue and an onyx and green Just absolutely beautiful vests. I think these ones are just like some of the best products we've ever dropped and I'm so excited for you guys to try them out.
Speaker 1:Hop on ultimate directioncom and use code steep stuff pod Again, that's steep stuff pod for 25% off your new vest. I mean, they're already affordably priced, but 25% off is just going to make it so much more affordable for folks in an already increasingly expensive trail running environment. So hop on ultimate directioncom, get yourself a new vest, a pack or any hydration solution and let me know what you guys think. Garrett Corcoran, welcome back to the steep stuff podcast. How are you, buddy?
Speaker 2:Pretty good man. How are?
Speaker 1:you. Good, man. I this is kind of funny. We're doing this round to the audience doesn't know this, but we recorded an episode that we we didn't use, so we're coming back for another one. Um, yeah, man, start to have another conversation with you. How's, how's everything going, man? It's been, it's been like a month or so, so what's up with you?
Speaker 2:yeah, uh time's really flown, I feel like since the last time we talked uh, just doing a lot of running and skiing and working yeah, yeah, how's the new job?
Speaker 1:you uh super busy these days, yeah yeah, yeah, we uh.
Speaker 2:Luckily I'm not working any overtime, but we're staying a lot busier at work than I was at my last few jobs, so that's been nice and rewarding.
Speaker 1:How's the uh flow between, like, skiing and running going these days? Are you starting to run more, getting ready for summer objectives, or are you still skiing a bunch?
Speaker 2:I keep thinking I'm gonna start running more, and then the snow keeps, you know, coming in and being good. So yeah, uh, yeah, I skied a lot more in march and april than I did in prior months this year, just because I was training for a marathon leading into march and then finally had some time to ski a little more march. And yeah, last week I think I skied four times. Uh, but still trying to squeeze some running into that was pretty solid, dude.
Speaker 1:Do you find it like, is it a pain in the ass for someone like you to have to battle? Like it's like I don't know, like you've got a big boy job and you also run at a high level? Like is it a pain in the ass to have to juggle all that for you, or is it pretty just natural?
Speaker 2:um, I'd say it would be a pain in the ass if I was trying to train like a lot of my uh friends that you know don't seem to prioritize their work schedule that much, just like I'm not I'm not gonna go and run at like 10 or noon on a weekday, and if I constantly felt like I wanted to be doing that, yeah, it'd be a little bit pain in the ass, but like it's still pretty easy to fit running and skiing in around an eight hour work day, like a lot of other people can do it, why can't I? Especially if I can go a little faster than a lot of other people and fit something in long or in a short amount of time than other people, can you know if other people can be out there for four hours after work? I can be out there for two, it's not that hard.
Speaker 1:Are you remote? Are you in the office now?
Speaker 2:um, fully in the office, oh man, yeah, we're like we're building a factory uh, my current job so I'm in there. We don't really have any, uh, operation staff at the moment. So all the engineers and all the PhD scientists are in there, like you know, physically screwing in all the pipes and connecting all the hoses and using, uh you know, big pipe wrenches, welding stuff, um, so it's been pretty fun, but it's definitely been a little bit of a switch up from what I've done in the past, where we just had operation staff to do all that stuff and we just kind of watched him yeah, you were.
Speaker 1:You were in defense contracting before, right before you got into what you're in now yeah, um.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was working for north of grumman for almost six years and then I worked for another smaller defense contractor, l3 harris, for a few months before I came over to where I'm currently at, which is called clean jewel, which is kind of adjacent to defense contractors.
Speaker 1:Also, we're, um making jet fuel and one of our customers is the government, so, um, yeah didn't really escape it, I don't know, I feel like you know, every time I think of northward grumman and I think of like you know, lockheed. First thing I think of like is ufos and shit. So it's like I don't know, it's like it's kind of cool, I don't know different yeah, uh it's.
Speaker 2:You can say you work on cool stuff. I wouldn't say it was that exciting yeah sorry if anybody from north earth's listening to this. It's boring as hell.
Speaker 1:There's a reason I'm not there anymore I had a buddy from grad school that I think he worked at sikorsky and he like was he does. He was a mechanical engineer and like design or did something with like blackhawk helicopters and was like what a cool job man like so different. But I don't know, it's hard to, I guess hard to get into doing stuff like that individually, I guess yeah, definitely it's.
Speaker 2:They put you in really narrow swim lanes and uh, yeah, I think when you're just focused on this one small little thing, you lose focus on the big project and just gets really not that fun and you're constantly waiting on other people to get your work done. Yeah, fair enough fair enough.
Speaker 1:All right, man, let's, let's talk running for I know a lot of the audience, especially in the sub-ultra scene, like know who you are. I'd say the. The first and probably redundant question I'm going to ask you is, like, where did the parrot moniker come from?
Speaker 2:like, let's, let's dive into where garrett the parrot like originated um, yeah, I guess that started when I was probably three or four. Like you know, not long after I learned to talk, my cousins all started making up names that rhymed with my own name. So for a while I was Garrett the carrot, I was Garrett the ferret, I was Garrett the parrot. When I first made my Instagram, I was actually Garrett the carrot and I decided I was gonna do like a new year, new me thing. The first new year. That occurred after I made my Instagram and decided to be Garrett the parrot and for some reason that one stuck and while I was in college I got also doubled down on the parrot thing. So I would just parrot everybody's little catchphrases or whatever jokes we were making around the team and just run them into the ground. So the parrot name really stuck and haven't really gotten rid of it.
Speaker 1:I like it, man, it's a fun one. You know, I think we need more like catchy names and you know, in the scene and I think Garrett the Parrot, it's a good little like, I don't know, it's a catchy name, dude, I don't know.
Speaker 2:So let's talk running. It's a good little I don't know. It's a catchy name, dude I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you like it. Let's talk running. Obviously, dude, your relationship with running is crazy. You were probably one of the most highly touted as far as prospects going. You ran for UC Berkeley and you had a crazy cool career there. High school was probably pretty crazy for you as well. Maybe talk about what it was like training at a high level and running at a high level in high school was probably pretty crazy for you as well. Maybe talk about like what it was like training at a high level and like running at a high level in high school, and like the recruitment process going to cal and like getting recruited to go d1 at a high level yeah, it's kind of funny looking back on that, like running at a high level meant a lot different back then, or it meant something a lot different back then.
Speaker 2:I didn't spend nearly as much time running. You know, when you're 15, 16, 17, like most high school coaches don't want you to run too many miles, get burnt out, start getting injured and then not be able to have a longer career, uh, so my coach didn't really have me run more than 50 miles a week and I was just running really fast all the time, like I would go months without running a mile over six minutes. Um, so the time I spent running was you was maybe five hours a week, which really wasn't much, but it was high intensity. Yeah, I grew up in a really competitive running area, just with such a high population in Southern California, so I constantly had chances to run fast when I was in high school, so I did end up running pretty quick. I had two guys in my immediate league that um both also went. Uh, one went on to winning multiple d2 championships and another one went on to go run at the university of oregon. He ran 401 in high school. Um, awesome to agno, and before them there were plenty of other fast guys that were always around to race like almost every week, sometimes multiple times a week, um, so I feel like we all kind of rode the wave of each other's success and, uh, you know, continue getting better because of that, and I feel like that was a benefit I had in high school that a lot of other people didn't like.
Speaker 2:I know you've talked about dan curse before. Um, yeah, he grew up in rural maine and didn't get the chance to race people that often, but when he did go race he would race really well. Um, but he like didn't really get those chances until he was a little bit older, whereas, like, I always had somebody faster than me to go race, like almost always. So, um, yeah, that made it easy to, uh, I guess, run fast enough to go to berkeley and, uh, yeah, had a fun career there. I feel like sometimes I didn't have as much fun as I probably should have and took the running a little too seriously, but uh, you know, found, found balance after a while dude, I gotta ask you so like your, your story is very interesting.
Speaker 1:Like you pursue running at a very high level, seriously high. You're a smart dude, like bachelor's and master's in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley. Obviously, uc Berkeley is an amazing institution to go to. What were you like? An AP? What was it? Were you a National Merit Scholar as well, or something like that? I did some research into you, dude. Everything you pursue is at a very high level, like was that instilled to you? Like in your childhood? Was like mom and dad very like serious about academics and things like that, because you're you're a bright dude. Like where, where does that come from? Or is that personal for you?
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, I don't know. My parents always just told me I was special and after a while I started believing them, and I think they told me that too many times. So you know, sometimes I walk into things thinking I'm the best one. Maybe I'm not, but you know, the confidence can carry you a long way. It's true, it's true.
Speaker 1:What was it like getting? Like did you have your pick of schools coming out of high school to go to college?
Speaker 2:Like what was the recruitment process like for UC Berkeley for you, yeah, I guess I had a lot of schools reaching out to me.
Speaker 2:I had really wanted to go to an Ivy League school. My dad caught wind of the fact that they don't give out athletic scholarships and my parents' household income was a little going there without consulting me first, which hurt a little bit. It would've been cool to at least have gone on a visit to I don't know I was talking with the coach at Cornell and liked him and I think that would have been fun to go on a visit there Princeton or Columbia. But yeah, I was mostly just looking at schools on the West Coast. By the end of the recruitment process it was arizona state, berkeley, cal poly, slow and usc, um, and I had been really trying to go to stanford, um. They were my number one school at the beginning of the recruitment process but I didn't really have a great uh conversation with their coaches and decided to go to Berkeley to stick it to them, cause that's the rival school and never really ended up sticking it to them.
Speaker 2:I had a couple of good races against some of their athletes but, um, you know, lost to Grant Fisher every time I raced him. And you know now he's a double Olympic bronze medalist. You know certainly nothing to hang your head about, but I certainly wasn't going to stick it to him by beating all their guys every time I raced him, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:What, uh, what was the program like at cal? Like was it? Because I know dan was pretty candid about like what iowa state was like and he had some things to say. Like some people have great experiences, some people have terrible experiences. Like, what was your experience like have great experiences?
Speaker 2:some people have terrible experiences like what was your experience like um, cal was definitely a d1 program that seems to prioritize having fun a little bit more than other schools. Um, we, our track house was like right on the route that we would drive away from campus for long runs on saturday or sund mornings and we'd meet at the locker room. We'd get in vans. We had like three vans that each held like 15 people and the coaches would drive us down to go to a long run. They'd always wrap themselves right by the Fulton house to see if there were any cans of beer laying around the front yard and, if so, how many. So they kind of knew what we like, what most of the team, was up to. But, uh, you know, like, yeah, we had fun. Uh, there were there were times when, you know, we got down and got serious. But I feel like the the thing that, like looking back, that I remember most was or I guess not what like left a big impression on me. Years later, after I like graduated from college, was my freshman year.
Speaker 2:The fastest guys on the team were all partying really hard like every weekend and um, at the time I couldn't figure out how they could keep getting away with it. They'd run a really fast race on saturday, get hammered saturday night. Uh, sunday morning, get up and go for a long run. It'd be like they'd run 60 minutes at 10 minute miles for their long run and it'd be like how the hell are they even like still running fast if that's what they're doing? But like they weren't sacrificing stuff and to just to run fast. You know they, they were working hard and playing hard too and like you know that can catch up to you if you're not giving yourself the time to recover and sleep. But if you do that one night a week, especially when you're like 21 years old, like you can get away with that as long as you give yourself time to recover other days.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I feel like that was one of the bigger lessons that I took away from that is just like don't forget to have fun alongside with your running, and like the running should also be fun too, like we had fun on our runs.
Speaker 2:We were a pretty close group and it was felt like it was a big team of individualistic people, like everybody was their own person and like had very individual personalities which, looking at other teams, didn't really seem like that was the case. Like a lot of other teams were just like a lot of like cookie cutter looking dudes and we were all just like I mean, you know, being at berkeley like it's a little bit more countercultural and like people would have stick and poke tattoos and like bleach their hair. But like everybody looked like their own person, acted like their own person, like outside of practice, we'd hang out a lot, but we also, like everybody had their own social groups that they were a part of as well. So, um, yeah, it was. It was a fun place to be. I I don't have any regrets about going there.
Speaker 1:Oh dude, I wouldn't. It sounds like a blast, bro, let's get into trails. So after school, after college is over, you moved to Salt Lake for a job, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had been in Baltimore for a little over a year before I came to Salt Lake. But yeah, when I did move to Salt Lake it was for a a job I was working at north of grumman already in baltimore and I coerced the hiring manager for another job with north of grumman in uh clearfield, which is north of salt lake city, basically into hiring me when I was out here on a ski trip and then two days later everything shut down because of covid and I moved out here like six months later after that kind of settled out. But yeah, that's why I originally came out here was to work, but I wanted to come here because it was close to the mountains.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Did you grow up skiing? I was wondering because some people move to the mountains and just teach themselves. I think I've heard in other podcasts and stories of you, I think I think going doing like ski trips and I think it was like jackson or something like that. Like, did you grow up doing that or did you teach yourself when you moved out?
Speaker 2:I grew up, uh, basically skateboarding on a big ski resort in, uh, southern california I don't know if you've heard of bear mountain, but uh, it's basically an extension of southern california skate culture. Like everybody's wearing dc and volcom, like I had never heard of heli hansen or, like you know, ross and y'all or any of these like ski brands when I was uh growing up snowboarding down there. But, um, I would. I got a season pass a couple of years. I didn't snowboard a whole lot, but you know, everybody's just riding park there.
Speaker 2:It's not the same as out here where you have deep powder skiing, like there you don't really ski powder at all. Like there's only snow on the groomed runs because it gets packed down onto the groomed runs and everywhere else it's bare. Um, so that was kind of my experience. Yeah, that was kind of my experience skiing growing up. Um, I actually broke my leg snowboarding in eighth grade. I ran into a tree and just like snapped my fibula. So I remember that when I was like starting to get more serious about running at the end of high school and during college and I didn't, I didn't snowboard for like six or seven years and then picked it back up when I graduated, so I guess, long story short, I did grow up snowboarding, but not in the way that I snowboard and ski now.
Speaker 1:Not in the way that I snowboard and ski now, not in the traditional way. No, the reason I ask is just because, like you're, you're out there, you know you do a lot of backcountry stuff so and it's I don't know. It's pretty cool seeing you know runners kind of get out and do mix it up and do both things. Dude, what when you moved out here, like, or moved out to salt lake, like what got you hooked on trail running? Like what? What? Like was it a social scene? Like what was it that got you stoked on it?
Speaker 2:It was a social scene for sure. I was pretty burnt out on competing when I moved out here and I just kind of wanted to find people to go run with, cause running was my favorite social activity. Um, and I moved in next door to a couple of guys who hosted this like pancake breakfast. Every Sunday they go for like a road long run and then invite people over for pancakes, and a couple of those, some trail runners showed up and I started getting invited on trail runs and I kind of started realizing I could just like hike around in the mountains and like run some of the downhills and call it running and people would just think that's a run.
Speaker 2:And there were a lot of people out there that wanted to do stuff like that and go to really, you know, go really cool places, whether it was like on the weekend or after work or before work. So I just kind of got into it for the community and, just like you know, I was hiking places and it was taking me like four or five hours to do something that like now that I'm running a lot of, it takes me like an hour and a half, two hours and I could, you know, just cover a lot more ground in a shorter amount of time. So that was also something that appealed to me. But yeah, more than anything, just finding some people that enjoyed it and not wanting to run alone and, um, yeah, just getting kind of roped into it, eventually ended up signing for some ultras and, uh, now, sometimes race too much so dude, your, your personality with the sport is very fun.
Speaker 1:Like you just seem like, like you're you genuinely enjoy it like you're, you're very stoked on it like you're. It's like I see so many people man, and I talked to so many pros in the sport and like people make it a job, like they make it such a grind and it's it almost sucks the fun out of it a little bit like when I talk to people they're just so serious, you know, and it's and yes, it's a serious sport to a degree, but it's also not so serious, I don't know. I just really admire and like your style with it, where you just you just like having fun, like you still compete at a super high level, but it's also very fun yeah, I mean it should be fun, right, like if you're gonna make it your entire self-worth, I sure hope you're having like a little bit of fun with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, um, and yeah, I don't know, I feel like some people that I got into trail running with uh, maybe kind of lost the plot a little bit and don't have as much fun with it anymore as they used to and we don't run with each other as much anymore because of that. But, um, yeah, everybody's, I guess, got their own, their own reason for doing things right, like it's not just about having fun for some people. So I get that. But yeah, for me, I wouldn't be doing it if I wasn't have, if I wasn't having fun doing it. Yeah, there's not much point.
Speaker 1:What's your take on this now? So, like you came into the scene very early. Like what was it like within the last four years? So within the last four years, in the salt lake scene, finn started single track, caleb signs with nike, like all of these athletes kind of explode on the scene, you know. And what's your take on this? Like, is it just like? But what are these people always good? Are they just like? How long? I don't know. I'm just kind of getting your thoughts on like the salt lake scene and why and how it's exploded. Like what is that?
Speaker 2:uh, there's always been a lot of fast people here.
Speaker 2:Just not all of them have always been pursuing contracts or racing and stuff like that. Like there's so many people out here, you go on strava segments around here and like there'll be so many people you've never heard of on these like top tens, on, like you know, pretty big climbs or descents, um, just because not everybody really wants to race, but like there's a lot of fast people here and it lends itself to developing fast mountain athletes. Just being in the Wasatch, we don't have a lot of terrain like this in the US, so it's a good training ground for people. But, yeah, there are always fast people in the trail running group. There are always fast people in the road running groups that are around and people come and go. Some people stop having fun with it and stop running at all, like once they decide they don't want to run fast anymore. But, um, yeah, I guess I met caleb and finn, both of them like well before they had started their ventures.
Speaker 2:Finn started his podcast maybe a year after I moved here. Um, I remember thinking like, especially after he'd started it, he quit his job like not that long after he had started the podcast and I was like, what's he doing? Like how's he gonna make any money off of this? Like, are you kidding me? Um, I personally don't really listen to a lot of podcasts, so I didn't really listen to too many of his of the episodes early on and like still don't listen to like that many episodes of his podcast now. And not because like I don't like him or anything or I don't think his podcast is interesting, it's just not the kind of media that I typically typically consume. But uh, yeah, it's been cool seeing what he's been able to do, like you know, kind of against some odds at the beginning, because I I didn't really see the vision when he was first starting it, but he clearly had a big vision and grown into something pretty big and you know he's actually found the time to, you know, get pretty fit on the side of doing the podcast too, which has been pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Um, and he's put together at a couple of races in the last couple of years, which has been cool to see. Because it was funny when he first started his podcast he just he was running less and less. Like he would talk about running more, you'd get more excited about running and then, like he stopped running almost all together from what most of us could tell and I definitely talked, talked a lot of smack on on him for that because, like, why, why you get like isn't the whole point so that you can center your life around running, like don't you want to run more? But he's, he's turned it around the last like year or two and, like you know, found, found some reasons for his own running too, which I think is pretty cool. Yeah, um, and yeah, I guess caleb's always been pretty fast.
Speaker 2:I think uh, he's one of those guys that has benefited a lot from uh actually going and taking uh his performance seriously. Um, and he, uh, he really, you know, exploded on the scene when he decided to like really start focusing on certain races and uh has laid down a lot of good performances last couple of years, um, which has been cool to see. I feel like the more he's been racing at a high level, the less it feels like he and I have been running together. I haven't seen him in two months. I haven't seen him since before he won TGC, but he's got very specific things he wants out of runs and if I'm just trying to screw around uh, he doesn't always want to do that with me, so understandable dude, why when you guys first got into the sport and I I guess I'm centering like picking on like you and caleb, because I just noticed like the one result I was looking at was like canyons, 100k.
Speaker 1:And then what 2022? You did that. You also ran speed goat, you ran jfk. What was your fascination with the long stuff? And then getting into the short stuff, like what got you stoked on that first?
Speaker 2:um, everybody that I was training with was stoked on ultras so I just signed up for uh, there were like six of us seven of us from salt lake that were all like sort of trained together for canyons in 2022 and I got talked into signing up and, um, I don't know when I first got into trails, it was a cool challenge to see how, how much farther I could go, rather than like how fast I could go on trails.
Speaker 2:I feel like that's the the main thing for, like american trail running media, that that makes it a lot easier to market ultras is a lot of people who don't know what you know, don't know trail running, don't really understand, like, how the terrain affects how fast you run. Or don't understand like it's difficult to run uphill and downhill like fast. Like you see these results that people are putting up and they're running like 10 minute miles for a eight mile race or something like that. You're like that's slow as hell, like these guys aren't impressive. But you can wrap your head around the challenge of like these guys went a hundred miles. These guys went a hundred K.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I, you know that that's that's like a very difficult thing in itself, no matter how slow you're going. So I guess I was kind of wrapped up in that also and, like you know, wanted to do canyons 100k see if I could run that far. Um and speak of 50k is my backyard. I'm signed up for it again this year um I think you'll probably get it right.
Speaker 2:Dude, that's a hard race to nail oh man, yeah, I got kind of close in 2022 to nailing it. Um, I think I didn't really hydrate well enough, as I tend to cramp during a lot of my races, but I was definitely cramping that day too. Um, yeah, caleb was training for both that that one and canyons, uh, with me together. We placed pretty close to each other in both of those races too. I think I was sixth and he was like eighth or ninth at speed goat, and then I was eighth at canyons and he was ninth. He was ninth there and we didn't run a step of either of those races together. Or canyons, we ran like the first maybe two or three miles together and I didn't see him the rest of the day.
Speaker 2:And then speed goat, I don't think we're gonna step together um so kind of funny looking back, because we ended up like kind of close to each other in both those races but very different racing strategies. Especially at that point he's coming to his own a little bit more in terms of um, you know, being able to push himself early in a race. Uh, back then he would just start really slow and that's why I wouldn't see him, because I would get out way too hard and then probably end up fading to where I ended up. But uh, we just never quite yo-yoed back to each other in either of those races. That's funny what?
Speaker 1:um, oh man, there's so many things I can ask off of this, but like, all right, so let's fast forward to 2023. Then, because I gotta ask you, what? What flipped the switch? Was it just wanting to run for team usa that sent you out to go do breakneck and soon to p, or like, because those are obviously sub ultra races? Like I'm just kind of curious, like what uh made you make the switch from ultra to sub ultra on that end in 23?
Speaker 2:um, I wanted to race more and the way, the way I saw it, like if I was running shorter races I'd be able to recover faster and race more. But yeah, I went out to the east coast to go race at sunup and breakneck I wanted to, you know, run on team yosei.
Speaker 2:That was the big goal for that year at least. So after I'd run jfk um in 2022, I just kind of like stepped away from training hard for a month or two and then got back on the grind in like February 2023. That was doing a lot less. It's a little easier to manage your time when you're, when you don't have all the time of the day to run. Like, if you want to run fast, then you can do speed development a few days and, like, your recovery days are inherently going to be a little shorter.
Speaker 2:So, um, that was that was kind of the main reason I got into sub ultra in 2023. Um, there were some cool race series I wanted to, you know, go participate fully in, like the cirx series and golden trail series, um, and it felt like the only somewhat comparable series at that point in ultra was utmb and I just didn't really have that much interest in running out of the races. So, uh, made sense to try to race a lot and do some sub ultra stuff, try to get faster at running trails, and that would inherently make you better at recovering longer.
Speaker 1:Anyway, yeah, what? Uh, all right, so soon to pee and break neck. Obviously you go and you smash both of them more or less. I mean soon to pee vertical. What'd you get? Fifth, so you qualified for the vk and then you go and win the marathon. Dude, how did you make? Because you only raced if I remember corrected in spruck, you only raced the marathon. What? What kept in Innsbruck? You only raced the marathon. What kept you from going to do the VK in Innsbruck as well?
Speaker 2:They were back-to-back days VK was the first day of World Champs and Marathon was second. I could have done both. I think if there was a race on that schedule that I could recover well from, it would be the VK. But I'd run the VK one day and then the up-down the next day at Senepe and just didn't feel good the second day of that and I wasn't really training that much to do back-to-back days like that sense to me to, um, you know, run the vk and then not be my best self for the, the short trail, which is one that I was a little bit more excited about competing in anyway. Um, so I, yeah, I gave it my spot in the vk to allow somebody else to take it.
Speaker 2:And then they originally gave my spot to jim, who was already signed, who was already going to run the adk also, which was two days after the vk. I saw who they gave it to. I was like, well, that's not why I gave it up, like if jim's gonna ride, I could have gone and done it. And then jim ended up getting hurt and not going to world champs and the spot trickled down to, I think morgan elliott ended up running the vk, yeah, um, and he was already out there for the short trail. I was like, well, if that was the case I maybe could have gone and run the VK. But I still feel like I wouldn't have run as well in the short trail if I had done the VK. So that was why I ultimately didn't do it and why I'm not going to try and do the VK short trail double this year, because at Broken Arrow it's VK and 46K one day after the other.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, and that vk is gonna do that's so deep. I mean, we'll talk about that when we get into 2025, but like I don't know, just feeling like going back to back days is heinous, especially with the level of competition that's gonna be there. It's gonna be bananas. Uh, let me ask you this when you, when you made the team, what is it like? When you make that team like, is it also a little surreal that your story is intertwined with Dan's as well, whereas you guys knew each other all the way back in high school and then now you're on Team USA together years later. Is that weird?
Speaker 2:Maybe a little weird, but not that much so. The way that we had met when we were in high school was we were at the Brooks PR Invitational, which was where in high school was we were at the the brooks pr invitational, which was where, like top high schoolers in the nation all got invited to go compete in track meet after everybody's state meet was over and give you a bunch of brooks gear. They like, have you raising brooks singlets that are different colors? Like you know, they give you like two different colors and everybody's out on the track raising in brooks. Um, and it's like all the fastest people are there. Like uh, I mentioned grant fisher earlier.
Speaker 2:Like he was there, he ran the two mile. I think dan ran the two mile. There too, I ran the mile. Connor mance was in the mile. Um, like there were there a lot of like the biggest names in the sport today were at that meet. Um, so it I guess it made sense that, like if dan and I were both going to get into trails, like we'd probably be there, end up in the same place.
Speaker 2:That makes sense, yeah but yeah, we were two of the only people I think we were the only two people that were at that meet that year that you know ended up finding our way to the trails. So I guess. Yeah, it was kind of funny that we both ended up finding our way there in different ways let me ask you this with now that you've made I mean, here's the deal.
Speaker 1:Like you, you go to inspruck, you have a great finish. I mean, obviously, what are you top american in marathon distance? After that, though, now that you're gearing up for 2025 to go, try to go back to worlds, do you put pressure on yourself like to make that team again?
Speaker 2:a little bit. Um, you know, I'd not there's an expectation on myself that I'd like to be there. Um, yeah, it's kind of what. When I was looking at goals for 2024, I was sitting there at the end of 2023, beginning of 2024, trying to think of what I wanted to focus on and like the only thing that the the main a goal race that I could really circle on the calendar was 2025 worlds that year. So last year I was starting out the year without much of an aim, trying to figure out what I wanted to do for the year, but it was mostly just try to get ready to make the team and run well, worlds in 2025.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I don't know, it's not like a big pressure thing, though. Like I've already kind of considered the options. Like if I don't make the, the team, I'm just gonna have that time blocked off for pto anyway and go do something else cool, probably in the us, or maybe I'll just go out there anyway and like have a flight booked already and if I don't make the team, I'll just, you know, go run all day for like 12 hours a day and, just you know, bop around pyrenees not a bad deal, dude yeah, and then you know, get to watch people run, tell tom hooper when they're racing, just if I don't make it like, bring me as an alternate, just in case.
Speaker 2:That way you get a plane ticket booked and just hang out uh, I mean like I would just be booking my own plane ticket beforehand and then hoping it would get reimbursed if, uh, if slash when I do make the team. But yeah, I mean it's not the end of the world if I don't make the team. Um, it would kind of suck not to achieve that goal, but, um, the end of the day, I've got a lot of other things going for me anyway.
Speaker 1:So yeah, what are you more excited for soon at P or going to broken arrow?
Speaker 2:No, broken arrow. Yeah, um. Yeah, don't tell Tom Hooper this, but I'm not really that excited about son of P and I haven't even booked a plane ticket yet, cause I'm not even sure I want to go. Um, I was actually just looking at tickets a couple days ago and I was trying to figure out how I could get over there without using any pto, and it seems like the best way for me to do that is either it's probably flying saturday morning, the race is on sunday, and then fly back sunday night, and that's just gonna be a heinous travel weekend. But I haven't booked that that flight yet. So, um, yeah, I think it'd be fun to be out there. It's just a lot of travel for something that's very close to my A goal race, which is Broken Arrow. So I don't know, I'll probably talk myself into going anyway, but definitely more excited about Broken Arrow at the moment.
Speaker 1:The fields are going to be crazy and Broken Arrow man, I think you got it like a solid. I mean it's going to be super deep, but like you've had success there. I mean you raced the 23K and went top 10. Like, didn't you go like a week after going to Worlds, like coming back from Worlds?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that was the beginning of the end for me in 2023. Was coming back from Worlds and trying to rush into racing broken arrow. Um, yeah, I flew back sunday, um, pretty much all day sunday flying back, um, after I'd raced at worlds. Um, I remember getting back, it was late evening. I went over to a friend's house, had a few beers and then, like, went to work the next day and I was working 11 hour days because I was almost out of pto and um was trying not to use any to go to broken arrow.
Speaker 2:So I worked like 11 hours monday through thursday and then drove out to tahoe on thursday after work, I believe, uh, because my friend, jacob grant, who I was driving with, was running the 46k at broken arrow, so we were driving out together, um, and we drove like halfway out, slept in winnemucca like cowboy camp next to his car and then kept driving the next morning, um, and I was sitting there on my work laptop like working while he was driving and we were also watching the live stream of the vk that morning, um, but, yeah, got out there and I got my legs felt like shit all week, like I was figuring the race wasn't gonna go very well. They didn't feel good when I was warming up the morning of the race. I think I rolled my ankle while I was warming up and like um, I saw you jogging around the parking lot.
Speaker 1:I was like who is this fucking guy running around? And I think you were wearing like a reagan bush 84 shirt or something like that it's like, oh my god, this is hilarious.
Speaker 2:Yeah I was, I was trying to show. Yeah, I was wearing reagan bush 84 at a usa visor, on like red, white and blue pit vipers, uh, stars and stripes on the shorts and my socks. Like I looked like a fool, but uh it was awesome, yeah, I was. I was having fun, but yeah, the gun went off that day and like I felt so bad, I think I went through the.
Speaker 2:It ended up being a two lap race because it was windy and they didn't want us going over uh, the top of the main course. So we just went up to the top of kt and did like the 11k loop twice, which actually didn't even end up being it was. It was like 19k total.
Speaker 2:It was like way shorter than advertised um, but I came through that first loop and I was in like 12th and I was just like you know, I got passed by like five guys on the downhill and I was like, oh, this isn't going well, like this sucks. And then finn was down there and he told me that the top guys were like five minutes in front of me or something like that. I was like, well, this sucks. I guess throw in the towel now. But I guess I got a second win on the the climb and I ended up in fourth by the time I got to the top of the climb but I still couldn't see mika or chad or eli by the time I got up there.
Speaker 2:Um, and then was kind of battling town hole and henry aimand on the on the downhill and ended up getting out sprinted by henry in the last like 100 meters. Like the second he saw the finish line, he took off and I'd been trying to drop him for the entire road section. We were going downhill for like two miles and I put in a surge like thought I got away from him and I hear him coming back and, uh, do it again, do it again and never quite got away from him. And then he asked for an enemy. Um, but yeah, that was. That was definitely the beginning of the end, because I was already really tired going into that race, um, and then just didn't stop afterwards. I figured I could just bike the whole next week and then, rather than just taking time off and then getting training really hard for circ series and golden trail series, and I just kind of went downhill the rest of the year.
Speaker 1:But uh, yeah, good lessons dude, that's what a crazy story. What was it? I don't want to, I don't like going back in time too much, but like, dude, what was it like being like top american in the uh, like at insbrook, in the um, in the marathon? Like was that life-changing for you at all? Like was it weird. Like did you have brands and everybody like reaching out to you after to congratulate you because, like it's a pretty big deal. Dude, like, what was that like?
Speaker 2:for you. Uh, no, I didn't hear from a single brand after. Really, no, I think maybe if I had finished like on the podium, it might have been different, but I was 14th, like americans on the whole didn't do all that well in that race. Yeah, um, I was. I was pretty proud of what I had done in the race but definitely felt like I maybe could have gotten a little bit more out of myself if I, you know, maybe hadn't or maybe had like hydrated better, fueled better, like.
Speaker 2:Looking back, I like wasn't really taking in all that much. I was thinking it was more than enough, but I was cramping the whole second half of the race, just like fighting those off. I spent I was on camera like standing there working out a cramp when I was in like 12th on the last descent. They like saw me stop. Someone took a video of it and sent it to me and I was just like standing in the middle of the trail, not moving on the final descent. And then, like a few minutes later, after I'd started moving, I actually fell and like sat on the ground for a couple minutes Like because I couldn't get up, because my legs were cramping. They were just like stuck like straight leg um.
Speaker 2:So like, if I could have figured those things out, I think I had a pretty good shot at finishing top 10, because I was only a couple minutes out of top 10 that day and if I just didn't spend those couple of minutes cramping like, not moving, that would have been the difference right there, at least getting like 12th or 11th, um, but yeah, I think, like, all in all, like I ran as well as I could have that day, um, definitely left it all out there, um, but yeah, I. That's another one where I feel like I have a little like you know, a little bit more left to prove. I think I could do a lot better, so would like to get the opportunity to do it again.
Speaker 1:Oh, hell, yeah, dude. Yeah, I'm dude. I think this it's going to be exciting to see, like, what's going to play out this year. Besides, uh, sunupian, broken arrow, what do you think you're gonna? And? Um, what was it? Speed goat? What do you think you're going to put on the schedule for this year?
Speaker 2:um well, we talked about this last time we talked. But uh, for this year? Um well, we talked about this last time we talked. But uh, um, tell you, ride, mountain run. Uh, pretty excited for that one, I I don't know. At the beginning of the year I told myself I didn't want to just go run like all of the most competitive races, I wanted to go race in some places that inspired me or just um, you're not not just pick a race because that's where the competition was. So that was part of the reason why I ran the napa valley marathon last month. It's just because I wanted to run something that wasn't that competitive but I could still go run hard at. And tell you, red mountain run, like I haven't really spent much time. I've never spent any time in the san juans in the summer. I've been there for a ski trip once oh, dude, you're in for a treat.
Speaker 2:It's insane, yeah, I mean I see pictures every year when people are out there for Hard Rock or just out there on their weekends and it looks amazing. We got married on there.
Speaker 1:I wanted to give myself a reason to get out there Last July. Yeah, it's amazing, you're in for such a treat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, so that'll be fun. And then, yeah, World Champs is the only thing that's for sure circled on the calendar after that.
Speaker 1:Nice, dude. That's a sweet little schedule, man. It's perfect. You don't have to travel too crazy far other than California is not too far away, but obviously Sunopi is on the other side of the country, but other than that, you know, and worlds, so this should be fun. It sounds like a good one, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm excited. I guess I'm also signed up for the twisted fork 30k, which is a week before broken arrow and that that well that that one.
Speaker 2:Again. It's like it's a week before the like my a race, so I'm not really sure, but I mean it would be fun to be out there as long as I don't, you know, totally kill myself trying to run really hard I think you know could be a good. Last little long run. Tune up, it's not like it's a lot of vert. Should take less than two hours and I've raced pretty well running to like racing two hours one weekend and then racing something similar the next weekend. So I think I can manage it. I just have to be smart about it if I end up doing it that's fair.
Speaker 1:that's fair. Yeah, I have a couple buddies going out to do it. Like I'm like man, I don't know, it's just like where it falls in the scheduling. Like there's just no way like I could fit something like that in there for you, Cause we just I'm doing all the Cirque series races this summer and then we'll probably be at soon to be as well, so I'm just like there's exactly.
Speaker 2:That's the only reason finn was able to talk me into signing up dude, what I'm so curious?
Speaker 1:because I'm guessing you self-coach yourself. Like what does your training look? Like man, like especially for sub-ultra races. Like do you still hit the track for speed workouts, or like no, do you just play in the mountains? Like what do you do?
Speaker 2:uh, that answer is varied a lot over the last few years. Um, 2022, I hardly, you know, ran any like intense workouts at all, like, especially if I was running like training for 100k, like just go, spend a lot of time on your feet. Um, you know, train for like a mountainous 50k, just get a lot of burden, spend a lot of time on your feet. I was doing more marathon training for jfk that year and I was running with some more serious marathoners in salt lake who, like one of them, went on to run 217, uh, not too long after that, which was kind of validating for me getting dropped by him the whole time I was running, or, uh, training for jfk, I was just I would run a few miles before we started our workouts or our long runs, just just do a little bit more volume than him, but wasn't really keeping up in a lot of the workouts. But 2023, I was trying to work out a couple times a week, or work out once a week and then race once a week and just kind of digging myself deeper in a hole all the time. I think the balance I found towards the end of last year was uh, you know, run, run hard when, uh, or put in a hard effort when I'm like able to, but don't force it. So, um, yeah, since I ran napa valley marathon a little over a month ago, I haven't run any workouts, just been trying to build up volume and I'll do some more intense efforts before, uh, broken arrow.
Speaker 2:But I'm in no rush, like I've kind of realized, especially this year.
Speaker 2:Like I had, um, I had to go back to the marathon that I ran. Like I really only had like a good four weeks leading into that where I was like actually motivated to run workouts and I was running one workout a week and then a long run, and then sometimes the long run would have like a little bit of intensity in it. But like I had four weeks that were over 80 miles, um, I wasn't even running over 10, 10 hours those weeks and like wasn't skiing as much as I normally would during during the winter, but just kind of stumbled into fitness and ended up running 215 and um, just a good reminder to like I don't need to put in a bunch of volume, put in much intensity, like put in all this work months out and then get fit too early for a race. So, um, yeah, right now I'm just trying to make sure I stay backed off and not not overdo it, because I definitely have a tendency to do that Just put too much work in and then go into the race tired.
Speaker 1:Smart Dude, you far exceeded your own expectations, for the marathon too. 2.15 is smoking fast. What was your expectation for it? I remember you telling me, and it was way off of what you actually ran, which is crazy.
Speaker 2:When I signed up for it I said my goal time was 2.23. I remember they they would. They would have given you a free entry if you would run under 227 before and I haven't run, or before that I hadn't run under 227 for a marathon. So I didn't try and like spin my trail results to be like, hey, you should give me a free entry. It was just like I'll just pay for this um, and I didn't really think I'd be motivated to train that hard. So I was like, yeah, 223, like averaging 530 per mile sounds kind of hard. Um, I'll just put that as my goal time. And then I was training at about that pace for most of my most of my like training, leading into that um one of my key workouts. I think I averaged like 525 per mile for three by three mile and like felt strong doing that. But I didn't really feel like I could have gone any faster. But, um, yeah, two weeks out from the marathon I like I had skied a 10 000 foot day on saturday and then on sunday I was getting out to ski with a friend and we were gonna go ski pretty much all day and then we got to the top of our first run I noticed I didn't have my probe with me. So we just turned around and skied back because I had lost my probe the day before and actually his girlfriend ended up finding it in the place where we were skiing a few days later. So I didn't have to buy a new one, which was pretty cool. But I got home and it was like 8.30 in the morning I was like 8 30 in the morning. I was like, well, I guess I'll go for a long run now and uh, ended up running 20 miles where like I didn't start that fast but I did a few like hard miles in the middle of it and uh, finished out just like continuing to run like 5 45s and I averaged like 550 per mile for 20 miles and like felt really good during it.
Speaker 2:This was two weeks out from the marathon. I was like, oh, maybe I can't run a little faster than I thought. Felt really good during it. This was two weeks out from the marathon. I was like, yeah, maybe I can't run a little faster than I thought. Um bought some super shoes and I think those made a big difference too. Um, but even the morning of the race I said best case. I told my girlfriend best case scenario I run 217 when she was trying to figure out when to be at the finish line. I was staying on the start line. I had like a a half liter soft flask in one hand and I was wearing a belt with a few gels and like another half liter soft flask just sitting in the belt like bouncing around, and uh, the guys that were staying on the front of the line were kind of looking at me like this guy's deal yeah, so yeah I carried a liter water from the start or a liter of uh, I guess drink mix from the start.
Speaker 2:I had like 90 grams of carbs in each bottle, um, and, like you know, most most road marathoners wouldn't do that. Like I was talking with a friend that was running the half the the night before and she was like you're just gonna carry that the whole way, like have you done that running fast before? And I was like, yeah, like every like hard training run I did, I would carry a bottle, like that way I'd keep myself fueled during the run. It's not like it's an extra pound about to like for each half liter. It's like really not that much weight, especially for me. Like I haven't weighed myself in a long time but I'm probably around 170 pounds, so like what's two extra pounds? Yeah, um, but yeah, um, I guess yeah, ended up exceeding the expectations and uh, ended ended up feeling pretty good that day. But recovery was a little rough. I was I was walking kind of kind of funny for a few days.
Speaker 1:Did you have fun in California too, after or?
Speaker 2:uh, the race was on a sunday and I had to be at work on monday, but, yeah, I got wine. I got wine tasting the day before the race. I flew in saturday, uh, drove my girlfriend through berkeley, uh, just kind of like showed off a few of my favorite places there, and then we went over to napa and we went wine tasting and, I guess you know, went to the expo, picked up it, went to sleep that night and then went and tasted where we went to brunch afterwards and then, uh, drank a bottle of wine at another place in napa before having to drive back and then barely made our flight. But uh, yeah, had some fun, but it was a quick weekend.
Speaker 2:I remember I had won 12 bottles of wine, plus like the big magnum uh, it's actually sitting right over there like a big three liter bottle of wine and I was trying to figure out how to get it back. And one of my friends was driving to salt lake city from san francisco, um, a few days after the marathon. So I dropped my drop, all my wine, off at his house, like on the way to the airport when we were passing through san francisco. Um, just like a real quick drop, because my flight was like an hour and 20 minutes after I had been there, so just like oh hey, see you in a few days.
Speaker 1:Like nice, nice. Do you think, uh, now that you ran so damn fast, like, do you think you might pursue it like an oqt?
Speaker 2:uh, try to try to get in the qualifier for uh, olympic trials I haven't seen any news on what the uh, a, what the qualifying window is or, b, what the standard is, yet, um, I mean, if they, if they're trying to keep the field size about the same, then the standard shouldn't change that much from prior cycles, in which case, like, yeah, I could you know train to go run another one, kind of like to do boston next year anyway.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, um, be cool to uh have the chance to run at the trials if I, you know, desire to in 2028. But, um, I don't know, that's not like. If that was something that I really had valued, I probably would have tried to do it in 2024 and maybe even in 2020. But uh, yeah, maybe, maybe my values will be a little different for the 2028 cycle, especially now that I've gone and uh run faster than the olympic trials qualifying time from past cycles, like, as long as it's not too much faster, it doesn't seem unattainable, definitely could be a goal. But I mean, if they make the standard like 210 or something like that and they want to keep this field size really small, then it'll start seeming a little unattainable. It's like, you know, I could go try and run fast, but I'm not going to expect myself to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, 210 is so fast, jesus christ. Um, yeah, dude. And the other thing too is like it's got to get you stoked. You know it's like I don't know different. People are different. Like for me, I just really enjoy being. I don't know. Something about killing yourself up a mountain and throwing yourself off of it is really fun. But like trying to run really hard, really fast on a track is like you got to be inspired for it, or on the road, I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's like a different, just a different vibe, different want you know, yeah, you end up in a lot more beautiful places in the training with trails. Like it just doesn't feel like training that often, cause you're just like, oh, I'm running up a mountain, like yeah, gotta get back down. Um, you know, I get to get up to the top and see these incredible views. I get to go through really cool terrain on the way there. Um, train on the roads and the track. Like you know, I guess I I'll be talking shit a little bit here, but like everybody that I know that's still pursuing the road and track life, like you know, their straws are so boring and they're always doing the same loops and like a lot of their long runs are like four mile loops repeated six times.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like right on the track, you just run in a circle around the same place, like it isn't as fun and like people still find joy out of it, but like it inherently isn't as fun. It's like hiking around on the trails and then running downhill.
Speaker 1:Dude, it's funny you say that Like I'm on a speed block now. It's like a quick four or five week speed block and I did a track workout on what was it Saturday, and it's like right at the base of Pikes Peak in Manitou Springs and you like look up and you can every every time I dude, I was like 12 miles of just like running in a freaking oval. It was driving me crazy. But like you look up and you see the peak and it's like all right, this, this is why you do it is to get fast and fit for something like that. Like it makes sense. But like man, I don't know how, like people like run on the track, like like full time or all the time, because it does, it's, it's pretty rough yeah, I mean, I used to do it like I.
Speaker 2:I understand the life to an extent.
Speaker 2:But you you have to. You have to enjoy the competition and you have to enjoy. You know the little minimal improvements you make um and like enjoy, you know running two seconds faster in the 5k. Or like beating somebody you haven't before in you know some distance that you haven't beaten them before, like you just find joy in slightly different things and like people find joy in those things in the trails too. But there's also just it's a lot easier to find joy in all of it when you're in these beautiful places all the time yeah, dude.
Speaker 1:So being a sub four minute miler, do you ever like, is that a little weird for you? Like because that's so fucking fast, like that's on another level of speed. Do you like? I know in the trail world we hold that metric to such a high extent like when people introduce you they'll be like you know, you and matt daniels and people like that all sub four minute miler. But do you like, does it really register in your head like, oh yeah, that's, that's insanely fast. Like what does that? What does that feel like to you?
Speaker 2:uh, it felt a lot more insanely fast when I did it than it does now. Um, I feel like, yeah, it was nine years ago when when I broke four in the mile and like back then like think people were already getting faster, like the ncaa was already getting significantly faster than it had been before, and I think I was like 33rd in the mile and like back then like think people were already getting faster, like the ncaa was already getting significantly faster than it had been before and I think I was like 33rd in the ncaa that year. So, like you know already, there's like 32 guys that are faster than me just in that like small, not really small, but in that group of competition, like not including all the the pros that are post-collegiate or like never were in the collegiate system. So like it was fast. It's this barrier that everybody holds in this high regard and like seemed impossible for a long time before andrew banister did it and like it was really fast and I was like that was that was one of the happier moments of my life was after I had uh broken four. I remember like I ran an 845 minutes later and like won the slow heat at our conference championships and, like you know, was cooling down after that, just like you know, on a high, like it was so cool.
Speaker 2:But I feel like it kind of fades as, like time goes on and like you kind of start seeing all these other people also doing it, that you're like or like running faster than I had run and it's like, oh, like I didn't even think this guy was that fast and now he's running. You know three, 57 or something. Like you know three, 59 doesn't really seem all that impressive anymore. Um, so I feel like you know, as time goes on, you're just like not going to be quite as impressed by your own achievements but like, yeah, that's a fun.
Speaker 2:I still leave that on my, my resume for like professional jobs. Like, yeah, so sub four in the mile, just like it's a talking point. Like I, I got my original, my first full-time job I got because I put that on my resume. Like the internship I worked at Northrop Grumman. The hiring manager saw that on my resume and only wanted to hire or only wanted to interview me because he wanted to talk about tracking and ask me like a single technical question and just like, gave me the internship and then I got a job because of that.
Speaker 1:So, um, you know, definitely a cool talking point well, it's just crazy to me it's kind of crazy too because it's like outside of like our crazy sport, like it's just rarefied air you will outside of the sport. You'll never meet another person that's ever done that, other than people that have, you know, in running in general. Like it's just meaning, like it's one percent of the one percent of the one percent, very few.
Speaker 1:So yeah I would leave it on the resume too, because it's a good talking point. Uh, dude, as we wind down, I do want to get back into golden trail series. I didn't, I know, in our last pod we did, we kind of got into it, and this time around we didn't really get too much into it. Last season, obviously you raised a bunch, um, obviously had a great finish at mammoth. You know you were at tatra but kind of you like ripped your leg, didn't you like cut yourself or something just before that mountain biking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, yeah, beginning of August, which was it was like eight days out from Sears and all, which was like that was my big goal race last year, like that was the one that I really wanted to train for and do well at, was Sears and all. And uh, yeah, it was eight days out. I was going for a mountain bike ride. I was like. I was like I'm doing a good thing here, I'm not going to run today, I'm not going to push myself too hard, I'm just going to go for a fun mountain bike ride with my buddy. And we started it was actually on the course for the 30K at Twisted Fork. We were on the Flying Dog Trail and it was right at the top of the descent. I just rode off the trail and kind of took a tumble, ended up in a bush and like stood up and nothing really hurt and I looked down at my knee and I could just see my entire kneecap. So I got, I got 12 stitches on my knee and wasn't able to run Sears and all. But I had just quit my job so I could go out to Europe for a whole month and like race Sears and all, race Tatra, and then just like do whatever I felt like for another two weeks. Um, so I went out anyway and, like it was probably the most painful plane ride I'll ever be on, was sitting there, like having to take a little bit of Advil like every four hours because my knee was throbbing so bad and I couldn't bend my knees, I couldn't get into my original seat, so they put me at the front of the bulkhead so I could like stretch my knee out and I had my own row, which was really nice, you know, grateful, and I had my own row, which was really nice, grateful I was able to do that.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, I was out there and didn't race Sears at all, handed bottles to people instead and almost missed that because they closed the road for the race, because the race starts, it crosses over the road right at the beginning, and so they closed the road for like an hour and they've got multiple waves of this race like a, like a major marathon, um. So I got stuck behind the closure and I wasn't able to get up to, uh, chandelier, where we were handing out bottles, until, like, killian ran by as I was getting up there, um, and I was up there to hand out, uh, no, williams and kieran nays bottles and like I had to text them before the race started like hey, I might not be there. I'm really sorry because I had like dropped them off at the start line and then, like they were expecting me to have their bottles up there but ended up getting there, got them their bottles the following weekend at Tatra I was hopeful I'd be able to race. I cut my own stitches out of my knee because none of the doctors there were going to. Like all the doctor's offices were closed for national holiday and they just wouldn't do it for me. And like nobody had scissors, I had to like walk around to so many different pharmacies before I finally found some scissors to cut them with Um, but yeah, I wasn't gonna be able to raise that day.
Speaker 2:I remember like limping over to the like 11 K aid station where they ended up stopping the women because the storm was raging too hard and they didn't want people going up to the Ridge, and like thinking like, yeah, there's no way I'd be able to be racing right now. I was like running seven minute miles on like the flat and like that was about as fast as I could go and then they ended up canceling the race anyway and we had a real nice time afterwards. It was one of the better parties I've ever been to. I think partially because everybody was so pent up, like people were ready to race and then, just like you know, didn't get really tired during the day, so they had all this energy to get out.
Speaker 2:At the party afterwards they had like an outdoor DJ. It was raining while we were um, just like in the mud, like dancing around to like all your favorite songs from like 2008, 2010. We were like passing around this, like lemon vodka We'd gotten a dinner and like Elezine was out there, like dancing in the middle of the circle and like taking a little pull from the lemon vodka. It was a fun time.
Speaker 1:That's hilarious. Dude Elezine parties. I didn't realize that. That's hilarious A usin parties. I didn't realize that that's hilarious a little bit.
Speaker 2:You gotta, you gotta, coax him into it. He's uh, he's, methodical about it, but yeah, he doesn't. He doesn't just not come out to the party. He at least shows up and he'll be in his, like you know, traditional moroccan garb and like we'll dance for a little while does he speak english?
Speaker 1:like well, have a conversation, he speaks.
Speaker 2:He speaks eight languages what, oh my god?
Speaker 2:yeah this guy's interesting yeah, he well, I, I know a decent amount about him because he loves trying to hang out with the americans at all these golden trail races. So, like I've I've been in, like you know, multiple hour conversations with him, um, but yeah, he speaks. He speaks eight languages, like french is probably his best language, I think is what he was telling us. He speaks English. I think he speaks Spanish. I think he said he spoke a little bit of Swahili Interesting. But yeah, he started listing them all out and I forgot most of them.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. Is he full-time in Morocco, or is he like half-time in Morocco, half-time in Europe? How does he?
Speaker 2:I think he spends most of his time in Morocco, but he also spends a lot of time in Switzerland. There's an area where I guess he gets paid by the tourism department or something, because he he posts about that area pretty frequently like, yeah, this is where I come for altitude training, and then like tags the tourism department for I forget what the area was called, but not a bad gig yep, that's what happens when you're fast like that.
Speaker 1:That's right, yeah, dude's. On another level, holy shit, what, um I mean so? So what I was trying to get out with getting you to tell the story was like this story of almost like redemption Cause you came back and then absolutely smashed it at mammoth. Maybe talk about like that race and how it unfolded for you and came out pretty good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, I think the race I had at mammoth was a result of actually having taken some rest time when I um I was I was probably training too hard. Before that. I definitely was like looking back, I like you were asking about if I do speed sessions or not, and like I was doing flat speed sessions leading into cs and all and then also trying to do a bunch of vert. Um, so a lot, a lot of my speed sessions would be like I'd go run like a not I wouldn't run like a hard vk, but I'd run up a vk and then like come back down and then do some flat intervals as fast as I could and like I wasn't taking any easy days, like my easy days were like I was easier effort, but I'd be up for like three hours just like bushwhacking and get like 5000 feet of vert and like you're not really recovering when you're not really giving yourself some like days off or like easier days. So I was pretty tired when I did fall and hurt myself, uh. So I think having to take a few weeks backed off was really good for me and then, since I'd quit my job, I was able to recover pretty well, like in between bigger runs that I was doing. After I was able to start running again, um, you know, I was able to sleep more and uh, not stress out as much not that I was really stressing that much at work, but it's just stressful getting yourself to and from like a you know big boy corporate job sometimes. Um and yeah went and raced, uh, headlands and like it didn't go super well but it went well enough. I was 15th there and like, um, yeah, at that point I was looking at like trying to get into the golden trail world series final and I figured if I finished 15th in three races that would be enough to get me there. And I finished 15th in japan and then I finished 15th at um headlands. I was like, okay, like, yeah, reasonable to assume I could probably finish 15th. Mammoth um, yeah, just took a easy week. I was staying in mammoth the whole, the whole week beforehand and did some cool runs, explore some new places. Try not to go too far. Um went and ran the race and like just felt inexplicably good when we were warming up. And then when the race started and um, yeah, found myself in fifth for most of it and then dealt with some cramping towards the end, which I seem to do in almost every race I run. Uh, so faded back to seventh.
Speaker 2:Uh, when the italians caught me, daniel and marco and it was kind of funny too, because, uh, me and marco and sam hendry were kind of fabricating a little rivalry or at least I was fabricating the rivalry with Sam and then with Marco individually and we had finished 14th, 15th and 16th at at Headlands the week before Mammoth, and Sam was 14th, I was 15th, marco was 16th. And then, you know, as I'm getting close to the end of the race at Mammoth, like Daniel passes me and then I hear this guy just like grunting behind me. It's like he's, he's I. I hear him, he's clearly gonna pass me because he's like running me down, like the grunts are getting closer and closer.
Speaker 2:But, um, I turn when he gets next to me and it's marco and I was like damn, you're flying dude, gave him a high five and then, like tried to latch on when he went by me, but I like wasn't really able to bend my legs because I was cramping. I'm just kind of like running straight leg the rest of the way. Um, but yeah, it was really cool to finish. Uh, like, yeah, he finished six, I finished seventh. It was really cool to finish that close to each other, like we were about 40 seconds apart in both races, which was pretty funny. That's amazing, but yeah dude what.
Speaker 1:And then you get, you go to the final and you become like I don't want to say a meme, but like this, the video of you cramping going down. That looked so painful, dude it looked I guess I've had cramps like that before and that looked excruciating. Like going down like a muddy hill trying to straighten your leg, like maybe talk about that and provide some commentary yeah, uh, the race had been going pretty well until I don't know five minutes before that.
Speaker 2:Um, uh, everybody was tired from the, the prologue that we do at, uh, golden trail final. Um, so like it wasn't any different for me. I was also tired backed off during the first climb and like, and I probably I probably had the top of the first big climb in like 15th or so. Um, it was just kind of like latching on to people on the downhill, trying not to lose too much ground. Um, and I was like running really well at the, the second big climb, which was, I guess, the last big climb there's really only two big ones Um, and right when we got to the steep part at the top of it where we were going up something similar to where that video was, it's like a similar pitch, just like a 40% grass Hill um, in the mud, I was I don't know maybe in like 14th at that point and I looked up I could see a lot of the top 10 and I was like, okay, cool, right where I want to be, I'm going to like torch this climb and then like keep momentum on the downhill. That was kind of like the race plan beforehand and everything just fell apart.
Speaker 2:The second we hit that steep climb. Like I started going backwards. I hit the top of the climb and I could feel some cramps coming on, like my arms were starting to cramp, which I knew that my legs were going to cramp pretty soon, if I like didn't manage it and uh, the downhill started like not that steep, so you're just like flying down this like six percent grade or something, um, and I can like usually manage the cramps on a grade like that, but like once it gets steep, that's when it gets bad. Um, and right, when it pitched down, um, underneath the ski lift and like we were going down this, you know, 35, 40% grade, uh, I made one little misstep, I like kind of tripped on a piece of grass and then, uh, the, the cramps came and I sat down and you can see in the video I'm just like straight leg, like hold my leg, trying to like get it to move again and I like stand back up because it's like frustrating you can't hear in the video because I put like music over it but, like you know, just like screaming in frustration. It's not like because it's pain, like it is painful, but I'm not screaming from the pain. I'm screaming because it's just like. This is so stupid.
Speaker 2:Like, uh, yeah, marcin Kubica went by me as I was sitting there on the ground like in the video, and then, uh, I ended up cramping, like I managed that, got up and then ended up cramping again like not much later and, uh, miguel Corbera passed by me while I was like sitting on the ground after the video was over and like I've lost two places just because I was sitting there cramping. So it was frustrating, but it is really funny and I'm really happy that somebody finally cut it on video, because that's happened to me quite a few times during races and like none of my Salt Lake friends like understood what I was talking about when I said the cramps got to me during during races. Like there's like oh, he was like getting a side stitch or something and then complaining about it. Like no, I just like can't move, um yeah, like I'm stuck.
Speaker 2:Um, so that it was. Yeah, it was real funny that someone caught it on video and then, like at the party that night, like it was a romanian guy, he like walked over to me, he's like, hey, I got this video of you and he showed it to me and the air dropped it to me and I spent the whole party like running around showing people the video because we thought it was funny and like I was just laughing the entire night like at myself. Um, so, yeah, it was, it was funny.
Speaker 1:Hope if that happens again, someone catches on video like I said, I felt, I felt, so I felt for you, man, because I've had that happen to me on the incline a couple times, like usually it's funny like you just have to be super fatigued on an extremely like steep like area I don't know what it is, but yeah, I've had it happen a couple times where the muscle fire. I can, like look down at my calf and see the muscle fibers like firing. Oh yeah, it's, it's disgusting, dude, um yeah, and kind of painful, um. So yeah, dude, um. Let's, let's transition. I want to start getting into some uh like closing, maybe some closing uh comments. I'm very curious to see who inspires you yeah, um, try to remember.
Speaker 2:Last time I told you, uh, I guess my answer is yeah, it's still gonna be the same. Um, just in like the the trail running world, at least in my immediate community in Salt Lake City, I feel like Rachel Drake is probably one of the more inspiring people around here. She's in residency, she's a full-time mom and also really fast across really any distance she decides to run really fast across really any distance she decides to run. Like, um, she's one of those people that kind of proves that you don't need to spend, you know, 30 hours a week training to be fast. Like you know, just do what you can in the time that you have and, um, you can be really good at all these things. Like you know, she's in one of the hardest professions and in the the hardest part of like learning to do that hard profession, um, and is also an incredible mom and like runs at a high level. Like, yeah, really does it all and always with a smile on her face.
Speaker 1:Like she's maybe the most positive person I know such a nice human like she's, so I met to meet her at cirque series alta uh this past year and talked to her for a couple minutes and I was just like blown away, just like sincerity, super kind yeah, yeah, her and tyler is also her husband.
Speaker 2:Like, uh, they they're both incredibly nice people and like also tyler also very inspiring, but he doesn't have the residency aspect. So that's why rachel takes the cake in that couple, in that uh comparison, I guess that's fair.
Speaker 1:That's fair. Now. I think it's a great selection and sorry for the redundant question. I got one more redundant question for you. Uh, what's your walkout song you listen into? What are you listening to before a hard effort or like a workout or something?
Speaker 2:oh, that that's constantly changing. Hey, I feel like I might be different.
Speaker 2:Last time you asked me, I think I said it was like a surf rock song. Yeah, um, I don't know. I was during, uh, during the the marathon build that I was doing. It was actually a lot of like naked and famous and like grimes that I was listening to. If I was like training by myself and I decided to wear headphones.
Speaker 2:I like don't usually listen to music while I'm running, but there were a couple of times where I decided to throw some headphones on and like, um, we just throw on like a naked and famous album and then like a grimes album and like just kind of space out. It was not like a main character like I'm I'm super badass kind of moment, but just like it helps me focus on like what I'm doing at the moment. But if I had to pick like a walkout song that I want everybody else to hear, um, I don't know, I think last time I told you six pack and cigarettes by alex sucks with my walkout song, um, just like that's. That's what I listened to to hype myself up before I ran the golden trail.
Speaker 2:Final, um, there's just like a, it's a, it's a fun song. Like it comes, comes back on in my head in the middle of a race, like, uh, you know, get a smile on my face and like, yeah, start having fun again if I wasn't so, um, that's, that's kind of what I'm looking for, more so than like getting hyped up especially for a trail race, like even the sub ultra stuff. Like it's usually a two-hour race, you've got a long time to build up some adrenaline during the race. You don't need to be all amped up on the start line.
Speaker 1:It's true. That's a good point. Are you a big sports guy? Do you follow any other sports?
Speaker 2:A little bit If you're going to ask about the NCAA tournament. I did not watch any of march madness this year. I think it's the first time I haven't watched any basketball all right, my wife's like super into we watched.
Speaker 1:I watched a lot of it, more than I probably wanted to, but it wasn't too bad. But like baseball, basketball, football, any of that stuff, or nah, yeah, I watch sometimes, but I don't follow super closely.
Speaker 2:I don't like religiously. Uh, follow a team. I don't say I wouldn't say I have a team, but we followed it a lot more when I actually played those sports. Yeah, it's true, fair enough all right, dude.
Speaker 1:Last question, pretty sure last time I asked you about the aliens with northrop grumman. I don't know immediately what I think of. Do you believe in aliens, bro, like what's? What's your take on that?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Infinite universe. There's gotta be something out there, you know and it's not necessarily there.
Speaker 1:They're like yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean not necessarily their, their higher intelligence than us, but some sort of life out there. Um, and yeah, of course, like you know, don't tell anybody this. But uh, you know we have aliens at at the North of Grumman site and Roy that, uh, you know I'm letting out a lot of secrets right now so I could probably get killed if you you let people know about this. But uh, yeah, tap each other up every time I went into the office. They're a little sad that I'm not there anymore because they're kind of stuck in the little closed area. But yeah, yeah, my boy, steve, steve the alien, he's a real one.
Speaker 1:Oh man, dude Garrett, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, dude. Actually, thanks for coming to the podcast twice.
Speaker 2:We'll probably do this again at some point, obviously not the same conversation, but we'll.
Speaker 1:We'll have you on for pre-race interviews for soon to be in broken arrow, but appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. All right, thanks for having me. Yeah, bro, thanks, what'd you guys think? Oh, man, what a fun episode.
Speaker 1:Want to thank garrett so much for coming on the podcast. Uh, you know what man? I just really appreciate his, the way he looks at the sport, um, and just the. You know, he just likes to have fun, man, he wants to enjoy. It's not, you know, not take it as super serious as some people do and still operates in an extremely high level. Um is extremely talented, human, um, as far as you know the running scene goes. So I really want to thank gary for coming on. Uh, inspiring guy and uh excited for what his future holds. You know, wouldn't be surprised to see him back on you know's team racing in the Pyrenees this year. It would be pretty fun to see him back there. So, guys, before you get going, hop on Instagram. You can find Garrett on Instagram at GarrettTheParrots96. I almost said 69. That would have been too funny. But yeah, garretttheparrots96. Give him a follow, send him some DMs, let him know what you thought about the episode and send him some words of encouragement. He's got some big races coming up in June, both at Tsunope and Broken Arrow. But yeah, I think that's all I got for you guys today.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a 5-star rating and review on wherever you guys consume your podcast, whether that be Spotify, apple or YouTube. And yeah, last but not least, some cool stuff coming out of the pike from ultimate direction. This episode and the podcast is actually brought to you by ultimate direction. Use code steep stuff pod for 25% off. Some good stuff coming out. Like I said, the official official I just got official word that the official official unveiling of the race and ultra vast that I've been talking about for the last two months and probably shouldn't have um is going to be dropping fully on the site this upcoming week or over the next two weeks.
Speaker 1:Um, use code steep stuff pod. Um, like I said, there's gonna. They come out in two beautiful color ways this like really aesthetic white and um. This like onyx and green. Um, which are two beautiful colors. Yeah, they're stretchy, they're like, they're very dynamic. They're just completely different vests than anything we've made before, so just really excited for the world to see those. I think Ultimate Direction really nailed it. Their designers kind of killed it with these and excited to see what you guys think. So before you get going, hop on. Ultimate directioncom Doesn't matter if you need a vest, we also carry belts. We got soft flasks, you name it. Use code steep stuff pod for 25% off. Have a great rest of your week, guys. More to come, thanks, thank you.
