Episode - 24 - American cycling is better than European cycling let's fight!

🔥 AmazinglyEnough Episode 24: Lake Life, Race Highs, & Pro Swagger! 🔥

The AmazinglyEnough crew is back in the Boulder studio, dusting off the desert from a "work trip" to Lake Powell that was anything but typical! We toted podcast gear to the middle of nowhere and... didn't use it. Instead, we soaked up 103-degree heat, dodged sleep in a "hunk of junk" houseboat (seriously, if there was a fire, someone would "put it out when they're done with this"), and enjoyed the slowest work week ever thanks to you, our amazing customers, who clearly listened to our "we're out of town" memo. Get the full, mostly uncensored, chaotic recap of how to vacation like true road warriors.

Then, we hit the ground running (literally!) at The Business of Running conference in San Diego. Why is this the bestgathering for race organizers? Think epic community, collaborative brilliance, and mind-blowing insights, including a deep dive into how AI's rise is making real-world human connection more vital than ever—and why that's fueling the running industry's resurgence to pre-2014 levels! We'll spill the tea on rubbing shoulders with industry titans like Mike Nishi (Chicago Marathon) and Jack Fleming (Boston Marathon), and share the powerful mantra of "leaving a legacy, not a scar."

But hold onto your headphones, because we're not done! We dive into the thrilling (and occasionally technically challenging) world of live sports broadcasting. From a nail-biting IRONMAN 70.3 Swansea broadcast (where ESPN calling you mid-show is never a good sign!) that tested our tech and our sanity, to the hidden magic of voice isolation, we'll give you the inside scoop on what it takes to bring these incredible races to your screen. Plus, we celebrate breakthrough performances from athletes like Kat Matthews and the insane run pace of Daniela Kleiser, proving the future of triathlon is blazing fast.

And if that wasn't enough, we welcome our incredible friend and pro triathlete, Laura Siddall, for an exclusive, heartfelt chat as she bids farewell to professional racing after Challenge Roth. Laura opens up about the bittersweet reality of her final race, the unparalleled magic of Roth (7,000 volunteers, people!), and what's next after an illustrious career. You'll hear why this legend values our humble opinion and why she's eternally grateful to her "underrated" coach.

We wrap things up with a rapid-fire rundown of the epic endurance events we're tackling next, including IRONMAN Lake Placid (can we finally get live footage this year?!), the terrifyingly awesome Foco Fondo cloud broadcast, and the never-before-done Leadville 100 live show ("guaranteed failure," anyone?). We'll also lament the perils of airline travel (broken bags, anyone?) and pay tribute to a broadcasting legend.

And because we love a good story (and a challenge), stick around to hear the hilarious AI song we cooked up for our friend Chris Heisler, inspired by a truly outrageous "Family Feud" answer. Your ears won't believe it!

Thanks for tuning in to 500 Cats!

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on social for more behind-the-scenes content and updates on future episodes!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

amazingly enough episode 24 recorded right here on our houseboat at lake powell as promised as promised it's going to take us a bit to release it you know due to internet restraints but So we did tote podcasting equipment all the way to Lake Powell and back and did not use it. And now we are back in the studio in Boulder. But let's start with that. The whole company, not the whole company, two staff members chose not to go, who we won't mention their names on air, Lane and Ryan High. And Tom. And Tom. Tom lives in Poland and he's under house arrest. But he could have come. He could have come. If it was important, he would have made it. He just couldn't go back to home. He couldn't go back. Very different. We had a great time. It was great. And no major laws were broken, but there isn't a whole lot that we can talk about. Other than we just had a great time. We did. And I said this on... So traveling with your co-workers... I think has a lot of potential for failure. Yeah. But our team travels together as it is. Yeah, we're professionals at traveling together. And it worked out great. Everybody did their share. I probably did less because I hurt myself. Day one. Day one, I bruised my heel or lost a leg or something. And it went great. And I said this as a joke, but it was so true. On the last day, I said, man, it was really great to have all you guys here. And you guys kind of just looked at me for the punchline. And it was because I was like, because I didn't get any email from you guys. And that was, honestly, it was the slowest work week we've ever had. Yeah. I think people actually listen to the podcast. They must. They must. Yeah. And we even got some emails of... people saying, can you do this? And somebody else would be like, yeah, they're out of town. They're not going to do that this week. Yeah. Like from their team. Yeah. Like, yeah, you can't bother them. So thank you to our customers. I do not feel. Even slightly refreshed. No, I feel run down. Because the way we vacation is the way we put on events and it's full steam ahead. And it was 103 degrees. Yeah, the low at night was like 85. And so after like one or two nights, nobody slept inside the houseboat. Yeah. Are you sure the low was even in the 80s? Yeah, I don't know. Maybe 90s. The houseboat was a hunk of junk. It was. It was so awful. Which worked out well. It was perfect for us, honestly. Because it would be like, hey, there's a fire, and somebody would be like, I'll put it out when I'm done with this. Yeah. So we had a good time. Back to work. I mean, whiplash was understatement when we came back on Thursday night. back in the office on friday getting ready for a busy event weekend and you guys went to san diego yep we on saturday for the business of running how was that it was awesome honestly have gone to like either attended or worked a bunch of conferences at this point and for me i'm curious if dylan feels the same way it's the best it's the best conference there is It's something special because it doesn't feel like a bunch of people talking at you. It feels like the community of run race organizers getting together and collectively getting better. Yeah, truly collaborating and sharing experiences to bring up, you know, the new small guys and, you know, it's just like you said, a community. There were town hall conversations where truly everyone in the room Wanted to put up their hand to talk talk on the mic and share their experiences, which is incredible and a lot of stuff that like Helped each other like you could tell somebody had someone in the room had the answer to any Question that was asked because everyone has had so much experience and so much unique experience that The one that stands out is I can't remember exactly what was said, but someone asked a question about like how to logistically do something. And the flying pig marathon was like, Hey, we've done that exact thing. Here's what we did. And it's, it's just really cool to see that level of collaboration from what are on paper competitors coming together collectively to make the entire industry better.

UNKNOWN: 4:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 4:55

Yeah, I learned that from my business mentor a long time ago. He said, get to know all your competitors here in Boulder. This is back when we were an IT company. Get to know all your competitors. Go out to lunch with them. Be friends with them. There's plenty of work to go around. And sure enough, one year we had a tough year, and our biggest competitor gave us a ton of work. And then when we closed the IT business, we essentially gave him our business. Yeah. Yeah, no regrets. So that's awesome. I kind of wished I was there because you guys sounded like you were having more fun than we were here back at home. And what a privilege to get to go. I mean, people pay to go to these things and we get paid to go to these things to do the AV and to coordinate and stuff like that. And it was super relevant and valuable to us because we work in that space. We're not just the sound guy, which I am curious how many people, like other than the ones that we talked to, like the guy from the flying pig that like, no, that we're not just like some sound guys in black shirts in the black corner, but like, no, no, we're like running space people. Yeah, well, I saw a photo of you guys with Ted Metellus, who's a longtime friend. And who are the two other gentlemen? I can't remember. Mike Nishi from the Chicago Marathon and Jack Fleming from Boston. Yeah, so the three big, biggest. They were on a panel, me and Dylan. After it, everybody was kind of clearing out, and we were like, We need to get a photo with them. That's some of the most important people in the running space, and this is what we do. Mike mentioned between the three of them, they have 100 years of experience. Yeah. I have known Ted since I started, and I was telling Marcus this story. I met Ted. I don't really remember, but we were in Lake Stevens, Washington. We used to have an Ironman 70.3 Lake Stevens there, and he was– leaving another job and he was doing some IT work. And I said, why would you waste your time with this if you're already out? And he said something that stuck with me ever since then. He said, I want to leave a legacy, not a scar. And I was like, wow. And this was a job– I don't think he left on bad terms, but I don't think it was his choice. And to have that attitude that– and I've had that attitude when we've had customers that it didn't work out. Like, here's all your footage. Here's your projects. Like, I'm not going to– there's nothing to be gained by holding that over your head. Although I would do it today. My attitude's changed. I'd burn the bridge this time. And you guys said the vibe was amazing. It was awesome. Like, everything– you know, and they do cool stuff like– They rented out a bar and invited everyone, paid for everybody's Ubers so that they could be safe drinking. And it was like a game bar. So there was pinball machines and arcades and all kinds of stuff. So it's like the vibe is not you're at a conference. The vibe is like these are your coworkers. Let's go hang out. The vibe is you're on a houseboat in Lake Powell. Yeah. It's cool. I think it's a good vibe because it's just like we've said, it's a good community of people and the running industry, I think, is in a good space right now. Yeah, true. It's evolving into something newer, bigger, better was a big talking point by a lot of people. Yeah. New demographics coming into the scene or just evolving and a lot of technology changing the space in good ways. Yeah, I mean, I think the running industry is in a good space. I think one of the most interesting things that was talked about, and it's not something I had ever framed this way in my head, but it was such a good way of framing it, is AI is coming. There's nothing we can do about it. It's going to help and hinder things throughout. We don't know how important it's going to be. We don't know what all it's going to do. But because AI is getting to the point where it's hard to discern reality from fiction with AI images, AI songs, it's going to be even more important to these upcoming generations to find real world spaces to hang out and to do activities. Because if you're there, you know it's real and it's tangible and it's actual human connection. And that's going to be so much more important going forward with the prevalence of AI. And they talked a lot about that. And it is cool. And you can kind of see that in the trends. In 2014 is whenever running started to drop off. It had kind of been in a surge. 2014 was its highest year. Kind of started to drop off. Obviously, 2020, 2021 dropped. tanked it, but not for any reason other than you couldn't go outside. You can tell it's an outlier. Exactly. And now it's almost back to 2014 levels and on the rise. So they're projecting that if it continues to grow at this rate, next year, 2026 will be more people than 2014. And I think we kind of knew that just from our little bit of interaction with running races the boulder boulder was off the charts this year and some of the rock and roll marathons that were a part of were were bigger than usual totally so that's good to know and go ahead it was uh there was a like kind of the other little thing about that was someone made this uh like out connection that we're in this like uh new space of like you said you know experiences that we've come a long way from at the beginning we were producing races and then for a while, like in the 2014 era, it was, we're producing events, you know, but now today it's all about that experience, that human connection. Yeah. And so that's where those are going. Like, and they talked about this like Diplo run. It was like a music festival with a 5k on the side and it's exploding, uh, and totally changing the game for like Gen Z. Yeah. And yeah, it's called Diplo's Run Club. Run Club. Which I think is, it's intentional framing of what it is. It's not, this is not a race. This is, let's go have a 5K and a party. Yeah. Let's hang out. And I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure he runs. Like I get, he puts on a run, but I think I remember seeing he did the New York City Marathon or Half Marathon or something like that. Yeah, I believe that is correct. Yeah. Cool. Big thanks to Christine Bowen. Yeah. Because she was a client of ours with another customer and took her, took us with her to this endeavor. And I think we've talked about this on the podcast. We've really struggled to come up with a mission or something like that for our company. But what we do have is we want to work for people that we consider friends and we enjoy to be around and we enjoy their events. And she fills that bill and the business of running fills that bill. Well, and And I told them this in person, too. So Christine, Alex, Dave, all the people from the ASICs apps, they're so awesome. They brought us in and include us as part of the team. The way we work, the way we work everywhere we go is we're part of your team. We're not the sound guys. We're part of the team. We're going to help however we can. And they feel the same way about us. that we're part of their team. And that's huge. That makes you want to go to bat for somebody and work even harder. Yeah. And then I think you guys told me that they were like, see you next year. Yes. And man, does that go a long ways when a customer tells you, see you next year for an event, you put them on the schedule with or without a contract and you plan on being there. And sometimes it doesn't happen, but more times than not, It does or it's outside their control. Yeah. And so looking forward to next year. I said today we should intercept her and say, how about Boulder? Yeah. It's a great place to run. Alex said they need to find a place. Yeah. boulder boulder colorado the julian hotel four blocks from the 500 cat studio so and then we have a whole list of things to go through today chronologically let's go back while we were at lake powell was challenge roth yeah and there was at least two people that we had a bunch of skin in the game and one of them was bob gets some He's been a longtime fan. He was on episode one. And his big goal was to get to challenge and finish under 15 hours. And unfortunately, it didn't happen. And he got yanked from the run course. um mile seven or yeah something like that so uh bob we love you dude who cares like we i know you care bob but right um you're still like our hero and to go through what he's been through he's been through an awful head-on car wreck that he probably shouldn't have lived from and then came back to iron man and triathlon and has done kona and then was like i'm gonna do challenge so I assume that story's not over. Oh, 100%. With him, it never is. Well, and it's interesting because I read his post-race report and it was like he swam an extra 0.7 miles. That's a bad idea. He was like, I don't know how I did it. It's a canal. How did I do this? And his whole recording is just zigzags all the way down the canal. And he was like, that just burned me. I had a bad day on the bike and then got pulled mile seven on the run. So it's unfortunate. Yeah, he's not the only other one that had, according to her, not me, had not a great race, was Laura Sadal. And Laura's a co-worker and a friend, Springer Spaniel owner, so that goes a long ways. And she's retiring, and it was going to be her last race. And we were lucky enough to catch up with Laura and have a chat with her. All right, I'd like to welcome our friend, first of all, and pro athlete, Laura Sedalda, 500 Cats.

SPEAKER_00: 15:21

Thank you. Thanks for having me here.

SPEAKER_01: 15:23

Yeah, cool to have you here. So if you don't know who Laura is, she's a pro triathlete, but she's also a commentator for Ironman. And she was in the studio recording the Athletic Brewing Post Race Show, which she does every A day or two after each of our shows, she comes in and records like a recap show. So one of the things we learned a couple weeks ago is we have pros in our office every week to snake them over for our podcast. But she was nice enough. You just came home from Challenge Roth.

SPEAKER_00: 15:52

I did, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 15:53

And you didn't have the race you wanted, but you said it was incredible.

SPEAKER_00: 15:56

Yeah, it's... For me, that race is like just the best. The whole... event, the atmosphere, the Voltoffer family who run it. And it's just got bigger and bigger. And I hadn't been there for, well, it was my sixth time racing and my ninth time in Roth. But I missed, I wasn't there last year. So I go back this year and it just boomed again, like the expo looked like it was on steroids. So yeah, I didn't have the race I wanted. But you know, that's kind of sport, but the whole week and atmosphere and, you know, even the finish line, I had a great Great finish line and the party goes on into the evening and the flames and fireworks and laser show. And yeah, it's a pretty unique special race.

SPEAKER_01: 16:39

And you chose that race intentionally because you... And that's one of the things I want to talk about. You're retiring.

SPEAKER_03: 16:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:46

From pro sports. And you chose that. And I think you said to me, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you would have liked it to be Kona.

SPEAKER_03: 16:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:55

But... Roth wasn't, not necessarily like a second choice, but it was one of those two. And so you chose Roth.

SPEAKER_00: 17:02

Yeah, like Roth is the first race that goes in my calendar every year. And it has been since the first time I did it in 2016. And I've had a rough couple of years, so I've not raced that much with various sort of injuries and health problems. But I wanted to go out on my terms. So this year was about trying to get back to racing. And... Yeah, the fairy tale year was to do Roth in the middle of the year, but to have already qualified for Kona for one last time. It's all women's day in Kona this year, and it would have been great to kind of finish out also sort of the calendar year and have that in Kona. But I realized pretty early on in the year that it was going to be a big ask to get an Ironman done and to get that qualification. I am... older than most of the women racing these days I've certainly found it a struggle to get back to the level I used to be and part of that is the last few years part of that is just age catching up and the way the sport is going it's just getting faster and faster um so I just decided that I think Roth is actually that's the race that probably means the most to me and it just then made sense to go okay let's just make that the that the last one and have the final fling

SPEAKER_01: 18:17

Tell us about the end that, you know, there had to be, there's the carpet, there's the finish, there's after the race. Like tell us like the emotions and stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 18:28

So because it wasn't a great day, it was then kind of like a real struggle to get round. It wasn't, you know, you're trying to enjoy it and take it all in. But when you're really struggling to put one foot in front of the other on the marathon, it's hard work. And I kind of knew it was going to be a long day. But yeah, I was determined to get to the finish line. There was no plan B. There wasn't an option for me not to finish. And, you know, Roth, as I said, I've been there for nine years. I have such good relationships with the whole team there. And they all came out to see me finish. And whilst I was way behind the winner and, yeah, a fair bit down, they'd all... Waited around and Roth has a tradition as well. The champions get kids with balloons following down. Well, they got kids with balloons for me. They gave me a big welcome, got the stadium all standing ovation. All the team were down at the finish line. Alice gave me the medal, which is the mum of Felix and Catherine, who it is their event. And just so many friends and familiar faces. And then when the evening sort of entertainment starts, the finish line party and it's getting dark, but there's lasers and flames and DJs and it's just this big pumping stadium. And you've obviously got the majority of athletes finishing at that time. Yeah, they called me up into this. They've got a stage in the middle of the stadium. They called me up there, presented me with a gift and they'd put a, compilation of images and stuff up on the big screen so yeah it was it was pretty special

SPEAKER_01: 20:14

nice wow it sounds amazing what makes Roth so special I know why it's special for you and you kind of nailed it but in long distance or full distance triathlon it really is two races it's Iron Man and Kona, the Iron Man World Championships and Kyle Okona and Roth. What makes Roth... How does Roth measure up? We know it does. Yeah. But what makes it so outrageously popular? I

SPEAKER_00: 20:42

think it's just... It's a family atmosphere, which is crazy because it's this family that have created and built this. But it is a huge race. And I think the people as well are a huge part of that. You have... 7,000 volunteers. There's a wait list for volunteers. There's local regions in the area that are emailing Felix saying, can you change the bike course and the run course so it comes through our town? Because we want to be out there supporting. And you've got generations, like there's adults now that first watched the race as kids and have grown up, like their parents volunteered or were involved in the organization. And now, and they have been as kids and now they're adults and their kids are all involved. It's just this all-encompassing, incredible relationships with the whole region. You genuinely feel so welcome to be there. And there are some, you know, Kona has some, and I understand why Kona is special, and I think they're just different. Roth, you know, it's iconic, the swim star in the canal, the mist is coming off, the cannon fires, there's hot air balloons rising up in this little, you know, German church. Solara Berg hill on the bike course is the closest a triathlete will get to riding the Tour de France up a hill. It's packed with crowds. You can't see the road. You sort of come around this sweeping bend and you look ahead and it's just a sea of people. And you're like, where the hell do I go? But as you get closer, they just part and you have this narrow single track up. Like the tour. Like the tour, exactly. Like you see all the famous climbs. And then I think like the finish line stadium, there's no other race that has a finish in a stadium, which is just pumping as a party goes on and on and on. And I just think, obviously Roth, you know, Kona has the world championship title and it means so much to people. And I totally understand that. And it's the history of the sports. And there's, you know, the magic of being down at Digby Beach and then the just barrenness of the lava fields. And Roth is just this totally different atmosphere. And it's a region that just, loves the sport and people come out in their thousands and then you get people camping overnight to get a slot the next year it's yeah it's just crazy

SPEAKER_01: 22:58

wow it you it looks awesome but you make it sound awesome you describe it well so retirement is it scary

SPEAKER_00: 23:07

yes yeah it's a little I mean obviously I've been I've been thinking about it it's not a complete out the blue but it's And I've been thinking about it for quite a few years, like what is the plan after? But it's also then hard in this last few months, I found it hard to do too much afterwards because it was taking so much energy just to get to the race. But yeah, I mean, obviously, I've been having lots of conversations with people, which has been really good, just to try and get a gauge on what could be good, what could be out there. I would love to stay in the sport in some way. That would be my passion. And, you know, I have worked corporate before. I spent seven, eight years, probably 10 years in the corporate world before I then did full-time athlete. So I know what it's like. I'm not sure I want to go back to the nine to five, having for the last 10 years lived my life of, yeah, my own plan. But yeah, it's scary, but it's exciting, I think, because there's opportunity as well.

SPEAKER_01: 24:13

Yeah, and... you know this, you just said it, but being able to look at something and saying there's opportunity here, as much as it sounds scary, because the profession I'm in doesn't have anything to do with my physical skills.

SPEAKER_03: 24:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:28

You know, it's, so I probably have years left, and like you said, we are getting older, but the sport's getting crazy fast. Yeah. And so there's this pressure that maybe wasn't there 10 years ago. Maybe it was, and I didn't notice it or something.

UNKNOWN: 24:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:44

What's next?

SPEAKER_00: 24:46

I mean, I've been back a week, so it's just a bit of decompressing. I seem to be busy looking after everyone's dogs, but that's fine. And you've

SPEAKER_01: 24:56

got a Springer

SPEAKER_00: 24:56

Spaniel. And I've got a Springer Spaniel. So they've, to be fair, they looked after him for the last two weeks. So the people on the podcast

SPEAKER_01: 25:02

know that we have a... Cocker Spaniel because they come in the studio and bark. And if you noticed when we recorded your segment, the door was closed. But now we're doing 500 cats. The dogs can come in the studio. So Springer Spaniel owner, so that gives you some

SPEAKER_00: 25:15

extra credit. So that, I mean, I hope, he's 11 months now. So I hope like when he gets older, we can do adventures and stuff like that together. Coru.

SPEAKER_01: 25:23

Kauru.

SPEAKER_00: 25:24

Kauru. K-O-R-U. It's a Maori New Zealand name. Nice. I did spend some time there.

SPEAKER_01: 25:30

And obviously, New Zealand and Australia are special. Yeah. Because you've had quite a career. You won Ironman Australia four or five times?

SPEAKER_00: 25:38

Three times. Three times. But New Zealand once as well. Yeah. And you've had a

SPEAKER_01: 25:42

very storied career.

SPEAKER_00: 25:44

Yeah. Like, I think this next few weeks, months, it's trying to take that all in and appreciate that. Because I think at the time when you're in it and with athletes, as soon as you've raced, you're sort of almost on to the next race and how can you be better and you've torn that one to bits. So it's kind of trying to look back on what I've done and what I've achieved and think of all the good memories. I would never have dreamt as a kid I would be a professional athlete and living in Australia, New Zealand, out here in Collet, Boulder and stuff like that. So... Just trying to take that moment to appreciate it before sort of, yeah. Because I probably didn't give myself credit. I don't think we ever do whilst you're in it.

SPEAKER_01: 26:32

I don't see how you guys could give yourself credit or after winning Australia, you qualify for Kona and then now your life is focused on Kona.

SPEAKER_03: 26:42

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 26:43

exactly. And so it never stops for you guys. And just doing a single Ironman and it burning six months of my life to think of doing that For how many years? I saw the results on the web go back to like 2012.

SPEAKER_00: 26:57

Yeah, yeah. I started triathlon as a complete beginner 2009. So age 29 as well. So a little bit older than most athletes. And then did four or five years as an age grouper. I should say amateur. And then in 2014, I think, turned professional.

SPEAKER_01: 27:16

Nice.

SPEAKER_00: 27:16

Which, again, at the age of like 33, 34, went most... athletes are retiring from professional sport and I'm just starting my journey. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 27:25

and then had a great career after that.

SPEAKER_00: 27:27

Yeah, it's been amazing. And then I think when I moved to, well, when I joined Julie Dibbons out here in Colorado, she gave me almost like a second lease of life in triathlon. I think before, with my previous coach, and we split on very good terms, he was what I needed at the start. But I almost was thinking about retirement back then because I was approaching 40 and that was like, oh, we all retire at 40. And then moved to Julie and she just gave me this new belief in what I could achieve. And we had some, we had a 2020, we obviously went through COVID, but then 2022, I came two top tens in the Ironman World Championships. And I never would have dreamt I would have got one top 10, let alone two in the same year. And then, you know, going into 2020, The next year, in 2023, I was probably in the fittest of my life. And then unfortunately, I'm in Brazil, got hit by a car. And I think just since then, everything else has sort of caught up and it's been harder to get back. I think if I'd have, you know, got through Brazil, I think momentum and I still felt I was getting better and I still felt we had things we could improve. But I think that kind of was a... okay, and then everything's just been harder to get back and everything catches up on you. It was almost like I was holding off age until then and then it all sort of went back. Oh, you were.

SPEAKER_01: 28:52

I mean, you had great results later than a lot of people do. So what, if you look at your career, what was the worst race? What was the worst experience or worst race? It could have been the position you finished in or it could have just been emotionally the worst race.

SPEAKER_00: 29:10

I think there were some races when I was very new into triathlon as a professional in a career and I was still sort of learning how to race the Ironman but they're so long ago I've probably like dismissed them unfortunately the worst race performance wise was actually the last one here in Roth just now which is it's kind of being bittersweet because like you just the race means a lot to me and I trained as hard as I could and yeah I wasn't going to win we knew that but I still felt I could have a decent race and you kind of you always want to have a good race there just to give back to everybody and also being the last race. But I just think it was kind of probably mind and body just saying, yep, you've had a good run, but this is one race too far and we'll get round it and we'll get to the finish. But kind of that's it. But I've never been, I've been really lucky in my career. I've never been completely humbled by the marathon. I've always kind of got through, but This time in Roth, it was really like down to walking those aid stations and giving myself a talking to at times and being in some pretty bleak places.

SPEAKER_01: 30:22

But you finished.

SPEAKER_00: 30:23

But I finished. That was the goal. The goal was to get to the finish line, so yeah. And they gave me a great send-off, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 30:28

What was the best race in your career?

SPEAKER_00: 30:31

Ooh, the best race. I would say, well, I came second at Roth twice, so... to the then current world champion. So I think probably the Roth race that means the most was in 2021. So we'd missed the COVID year. And then in 2021, it had moved from July where it normally is to September. And I was a reserve guide for British Paralympic triathlon team. So I was actually out in Tokyo the week leading into Roth and then flew straight to Roth in And so I was fairly sort of unsure where I was at in form and came away with second, which was probably a huge highlight. But I mean, I can't probably split up, you know, every win you're just grateful for because they don't, well, for me, they don't come around that often. So like the first time I won Ironman Australia was definitely special. I started triathlon in Australia. So sort of having the first win there and a lot of friends had come to watch. You know, that second year where I went back and I was given the number one bib, which is not very common for the women. You know, that's really special. And then I won in the third year in a row. I'd come into the race with some real difficult months of training. So it was an incredible feeling to get that win. And then, you know, that same year or 2018, I then won Ironman New Zealand as well. And that was incredibly special and such a high because I spent six months of the year in New Zealand every summer sort of thing. So, yeah, it's hard to pull out one race. Those wins have got, yeah, special memories.

SPEAKER_01: 32:14

Are you going to stay in Boulder?

SPEAKER_00: 32:16

Yes, as long as my visas and things work out. Yeah, things have

SPEAKER_01: 32:21

changed in the States,

SPEAKER_00: 32:22

which is what we hope you do. Yeah, that's the short, long-term plan, I should say. I love being here and being able to, like, I'm looking forward to exploring the mountains and... Still running and riding and probably some swimming just to keep fitness and exercising and movement because it's such a part of our lives that we want to keep doing it. But yeah, maybe not as much structure.

SPEAKER_01: 32:46

Last question since we just sidetracked you into the 500 Cats podcast. Is there somebody you want to thank or, and maybe it's two things, somebody you want to thank and something you want to point out that helped make you successful or is it all one thing?

SPEAKER_00: 33:02

Gosh. I

SPEAKER_01: 33:04

mean, you mentioned Julie Dibbins.

SPEAKER_00: 33:05

Yeah, I mean, and I just posted actually today, like a massive thank you to her. Like I said, she kind of gave me a second lease of life to my career. And also since that accident in Brazil, she's been an absolute rock to me. And I know it's been hard for her at times. So I think like she's got me through everything. a lot the last few years and got the results we have.

SPEAKER_01: 33:31

She's everything she's cracked up to

SPEAKER_00: 33:33

be. She is. She's one of the most underrated coaches.

SPEAKER_01: 33:37

And it's funny when you say underrated, but they coach world champions.

SPEAKER_00: 33:40

Yeah. But

SPEAKER_01: 33:42

that's, you're right. There's certain bands that you can say, you know, they're underrated, but they're like, hey, they're one of the best bands in the world. They're better than that.

SPEAKER_00: 33:50

She doesn't like the limelight. She doesn't. She hates, you know, she'll hate anybody talking about her or anybody you know, try and get her on a podcast and good luck sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01: 34:00

She's only been in the studio once or twice in all our years. Yeah. Which is amazing to

SPEAKER_00: 34:05

me. That's, yeah. But she's, when she does speak, she's got so much knowledge and experience. Incredible. And I think she's the best coach I've had contact with in triathlon. And I just think, yeah, not enough people realize how good she is. Yeah. So it would be a massive probably thank you to her and her dog Dakota because Dakota got me through a lot of dark times and the reason why I got my dog. But, you know, yeah, thank you. And she

SPEAKER_01: 34:35

has like a Springer thing

SPEAKER_00: 34:36

too. He's a small Munsterlander. Which is some kind of Spaniel. Which is very, very similar to a Springer Spaniel. I saw her out at the res. I was

SPEAKER_01: 34:43

riding my bike. We just passed each other, but she had her dog. Interesting. Well, yeah. And just on everybody that listens to the podcast knows we do video and we interview people. She's turned me down. Not that many times because I stopped asking.

SPEAKER_04: 34:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 34:58

Like she's standing there in Boulder at the race doing absolutely nothing. Can I get a soundbite? And she's very polite. I'd rather not.

SPEAKER_00: 35:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 35:05

And then now I just say hi.

SPEAKER_00: 35:06

Yeah, yeah. And you know, she's great when she says stuff. She's great either way. She just does not like that kind of attention and focus. But yeah, she's...

SPEAKER_01: 35:15

She's modest.

SPEAKER_00: 35:16

Yeah, yeah. But she's been amazing. And I mean, gosh, I could list a whole host of people and family. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 35:23

Awesome. We've loved working with you. I remember when we first met you, you came into the studio. I think it was maybe 2019 for Ironman New Zealand.

SPEAKER_00: 35:31

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01: 35:32

And we were like, my attitude's changed a little bit on pros. The last thing we need is a pro in the studio watching us do our thing. And we struck up a conversation. And without me asking, you said how important the volunteers are. And I said, yeah.

UNKNOWN: 35:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 35:48

She's

SPEAKER_01: 35:48

all right.

SPEAKER_03: 35:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 35:50

It's been great working with you. You're not retired to me because we have a athletic brewing post-race show next week to record after Ironman Lake Placid. So thanks for giving us your time. I know you didn't plan on it today.

SPEAKER_00: 36:02

No, thank you. It's been great to catch up.

SPEAKER_01: 36:04

Good luck.

SPEAKER_00: 36:05

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 36:05

See ya. I like her. Yeah, Laura's amazing. I work with her like me personally work with her once a week. As we mentioned, we do the athletic brewing post-race show. So she's here once a week and we get to catch up. And I've mentioned it before. She values my opinion. Do I need my opinion valued? Probably. But it goes a long ways. Yeah. And especially when you're talking to a professional triathlete and you're like, I think this. And they say, oh, you know, that's interesting and consider this and that. And so I like that. And so kudos to her. And as we mentioned, she's part of our team and stuff. 100%. Moving on. So we started with Lake Powell. Then we went to Business of Running. Then we went back to while we were at Lake Powell, Roth. And then back to this past weekend, we broadcast Ironman 70.3 Swansea. It was rough. Yeah. Yeah. We had technical issues on our end. Oh, right. And they aren't typically on our end. And here's how you know when you're having technical issues. is when ESPN calls you on the phone. You know, that is a pretty indicative sign. And when we're... It's at the very beginning of the broadcast, so nobody missed any racing, but we're having an audio problem. And these guys are real pros. But it comes up on my phone as ESPN, Bristol, Connecticut. And they don't call to say, good job. And I don't mean that in a bad way. But that's just not what they're there to do. We did get it fixed, but we had to reboot a piece of equipment during the show. It was during the pre-show, but nevertheless, it's during the show. And it's just rough. Like that gets you started off rattled, throwing an interception in the first quarter. Starts off on the back foot. And all in all, from the viewer standpoint, I think the show went well, but internally it was just a nonstop battle on little technical gremlins. And we did something different. We had two of our hosts were in the field and So we had Matt Lieto here in the studio. Matt does a great job as always. And then we had Joe Skipper and Fraser Cartmel in Swansea on a live view pack. And they did great. Everybody did great. But it took a while to get that interaction between our hosts here in Boulder, communicating with our hosts in the field and have it be smooth and have them not talk on top of each other. And one thing is, We were like, let's not set up this remote broadcasting area near the speakers. And in the very opening scene, there's like a scaffold with like towered speakers, like awesome, right there. Like they're tent covering part of it. And so to get a little techie, there's a feature on the TriCaster that's called voice isolation where it knocks out background noise and it literally doesn't work. But it was so bad, I had to give it a try and it worked great. It was a silver bullet. So it works whenever it's the worst conditions possible. Whenever it's really, really bad, it works. But if you're just doing like a corporate AV and you want to cut out that room noise, it doesn't work. But if you have a hundred thousand dollar PA pointing at your, it knocked that stuff right out. And then we got to the end. where they weren't near a PA. And I was like, oh, I'm going to turn this off just to see how much different. And I was like, nope. And so that was a rough one. I'm glad to move on from Swansea. But again, if you go watch the broadcaster stuff, you won't notice a lot of that stuff unless you're in South America. How did the event actually look? Amazing. Whales and... Bluebird Day. Nice. Great race. Great racing. Our partner on the ground... ASO, Let's See TV killed it. They did a great job. We were told we were going to have sell issues, and they didn't really have sell issues. And from an athlete standpoint, nobody talked about last year's winner, Harry Palmer, until he was in the lead and won. And credit to the hosts, they admitted it. They were like, man, none of us called this guy, and we should have. And then Cat Matthews just did what Cat Matthews does. she didn't have a great swim came out a couple minutes down and i don't think anybody was worried even though there was a decent field and she moved through the field on the bike into the lead and then never looked back yeah so um she's incredible i saw like one of the big story points was the the third place female it was like daniella kleiser kleiser crazy yeah and like the in the pro press conference, she's like, I'm going to do a three 15 kilometer run pace. And everyone's like, okay. And she basically did. It was like three 30. I checked it out. That's awesome. Yeah. And Kat was like, bring it. If she could get her swim and her bike tightened up, uh, she's going to be dangerous. Yeah. I mean, as soon as that comes together, she's going to be a world 70.3 world champ contender. Yeah. Because of that run. And yeah, they look good. And then, uh, One last thing, going all the way back to Lake Powell, we did get very few emails, but one of them was like, hey, we want to do a four box. Yeah. And we're on the lake, of course, just minding our own business, nothing else. And while we're at the lake, we created a four box, sent it off to our partner in Europe. And then the four box came up during the broadcast and looked great. Yeah. I was impressed. And then some other people in the industry said like our petition is what made this happen. And And so now it's gone. It wasn't the petition. It was the, it was the guys at Lake Powell and Tom and Tom. So yeah, just sitting, sitting on a lake and nothing but a swimsuit. And what a bad coincidence that I heard that challenge had done it. Roth had done it a few days earlier, but we were in, we didn't get to see it. Yeah. But then everybody's like, you guys just copied these guys. Apparently we did. Yeah. So, so kudos. We're second. Great minds think alike. Yeah. So anyway, we had a couple other races last weekend. Muscleman, I heard everything went well there. And then Muncie, Ironman 70.3 Muncie, and our good friend Corey was our representative. Corey and Eric from our team were there, and Corey called me and he said, you know, this might be our best event. And I agree. Muncie loves Ironman, and it's just the coolest laid back. If you're looking for a good... A good event from any level, but especially if you're a first-timer. Yeah. Amazing event. And then the last thing about last weekend is every single team's flights were messed up. Every single one. Dude, it was insane. Even you guys coming home from the business of running got home. Our two-hour flight was six hours? Yeah. On the plane. We were on the plane the whole six hours. And then we had to leave a guy in muscle man because he needed to be at Lake Placid and he wasn't going to get home in time. He wasn't going to get home in enough time to go home and sleep and get up and go back to the airport, which we probably should have just left him there in the first place. Right. But Michael LaFiles stayed in Muscleman. And then big thanks to Miguel, who works for Ironman. I think Sight. I'll be honest. I don't know if I've met him. Gave him a ride to Placid. Nice. And then those guys go into Placid, which is this coming weekend. Their flight was messed up. So luckily... Michael LaFiles got there earlier in the day to start getting things set up because the rest of the team came in in the middle of the night. That's crazy. Every flight. My bag got broken. Yeah. And fortunately, it's an Osprey bag, so they're probably going to fix it for you. Yeah. The airline isn't. No. What did they offer you? They offered me a Samsonite. that they stole from someone. I hear that's good stuff. Is that on par with Osprey? Not even close. You can get this stuff at like Walmart. Yeah, Samsonite's a good Walmart brand for sure. I have an Osprey bag and there's lots of good, I like the kind and North Face and stuff, but I have an Osprey backpack that's now like five years old and still looks new. Yeah. And my mom just recently had one for 20, I didn't even know they were around 25 years ago. And she sent it back to see if they could fix a pocket. And they just said, we can't, here's a new one. Awesome. I'd be interested to see if there's a way to find out how many miles this bag has gone through. It's gone around the world. I mean, almost 10 times probably. And, you know, with my whole career at this job, so like seven years of, that's just, it's like other than just they rip the zipper open. Like it's like it dragged on like a corner and it like cut the bag at the zipper. Yeah. Other than that, it still works great. Like you could probably look at your mileage for United and then add like 25% because we have, and then we drive sometimes too. So true. Well, and it was, it was my wife Kate's before we even met each other and she took it to Kenya a couple of times and Hawaii a few times. And yeah, it's a, it'd also be interesting to see how many places it's been.

SPEAKER_04: 45:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 45:44

Even, even outside of mileage. Yeah. Yeah, Osprey, man. I'll be a customer for life. That's for sure. I think we joke about being professional travelers, but it does matter. It does. And I think it really showed when we went to Lake Powell that everybody was professional travelers. And from an operational standpoint, besides breaking the boat, everything went really smooth. But getting a good backpack and good luggage, something that... I don't really care if it has wheels, although I did migrate to wheels a couple years ago, because those usually break, but I got a DeKine suitcase and the wheels haven't broken yet, but getting the right travel gear it doesn't have to be expensive right but it has to be something made to last yeah that's what's so hard which is expensive yeah not the samsonite hard shells you gotta the issue is to get something that lasts you do have to it does have a price tag on it and yeah you can go to walmart and buy the duffel that's 50 bucks but you might have to buy another one in a couple days or you can spend 200 right now and not buy another one for five years I will just disagree a skosh on the Walmart side of things that in Kona, I bought that green military looking backpack like 10 years ago. And it's like my third string backpack. I take it to like Red Rocks when I will be okay if it doesn't make it home. And that thing just keeps on ticking. And it's hard to tell at Walmart where did they suck the life out of the company and where did they– Because they sell like these great Realtree fishing shirts for 20 bucks that are usually like 85 bucks. Yeah. So who knows? I bought a duffel. That was a real world experience. I bought a big duffel going to Florida last year because I was bringing your skateboard. And so I was like, I need another bag. Anyway, I need a big one. And so I got one that would fit the skateboard. And it had like a pocket underneath that was zippered. I was like, this is perfect. And I did it. And it came off of the plane. And the zipper was open. And my stuff was spilling out. And I shoved it back in. Everything made it. But it's just on the ride up. The zipper just opened. All right. So, buy the right stuff. Buy the right stuff. Next subject, the tour. We... We took a Starlink to Lake Powell so we could keep up on work, but so we could watch the tour. So we watched the tour every day. Every morning. Even down in like slot canyons. Yeah. The Starlink worked. The one time we were in a slot canyon, it would buffer every few minutes. So it wasn't like perfect, but it was in a place where there was absolutely no cell service, absolutely no nothing, and the Starlink worked. Yeah, it was awesome. We were basically parked under an overhang like– The direct view of the sky was, like, you know, perfectly straight up from us was not direct view of the sky. Right. No, 100%. We were in a cave almost. And there was that cool, like, iron oxide mark on the wall. Yeah, where the water spills down. And, yeah, it was spectacular getting to watch the tour. But, you know, one of the things I've taken away– so I've loved watching the tour. Kudos to– All the athletes. It's just wildly exciting. And this is going to be a hot take. If we had a YouTube comments section, this would light it up. They would blow up over this. I like American unsupported cycling better than I like you have nine bikes today, and if you don't break all nine of them, you'll finish the race. Yeah. Because it seems like– and I get it. This is just the nature of the beast– But it seems like money, I get it. The NFL, all major sports are this way, but money has a big direction in how successful you are. And not take it away from Tadej Pogacar, who looks like he might win the tour again, although he lost the jersey yesterday and didn't get it back again today and had a wreck, but got back up on his bike and kept going and didn't give up really any time. But I just, you know, we started covering American cycling and there's no support cars. You're out there on your own. If you break down, you kind of got to fix yourself and get back going. And essentially American cycling is gravel. Like the road stuff isn't taking off as much as we all wish it would. Except, I mean, I don't want to leave anybody out, but Levi's race was wildly successful. Levi's Gran Fondo. But gravel is kind of American cycling. And Levi's Gran Fondo was, even though it was on paved roads most of the way, it was kind of like a gravel race. With all the gravel athletes. With all the gravel athletes. And some sections that were just gravel. Those are just California roads. So I personally love watching the tour, but I think... trying to compare American cycling to the rest of the world is probably never going to happen. I don't know that we're ever going to see that kind of cycling come back to the States because it's so much more popular everywhere else than it is in the States. But I kind of liked the way we do it. Do you think Keegan would stand a chance in the tour? I don't know. I'd like to ask him that. I mean, he's like one of the best on what we're calling American cycling. And unfortunately we, I don't know where you could compare his results to, you know, Matteo Jorgensen, who's in fifth right now in the tour overall, which is amazing. You do not usually see a U.S. flag in the top ten very often. Right, yeah. And you do now. So kudos to him and all of them. They're all having a great race, and I can't wait to see what Sepp Kuss is going to do in the mountains because he was out injured. Oh, yeah. And so anyway, I love cycling, period, but I love— I do love the way we do it, and a lot of people don't. I think it's so interesting because looking at it with support versus not support, strategy is so interesting how different it is. Like Pogacar, sorry, Pogacar. You can call him Pogacar. Pogacar. Pogacar. He's such an amazing cyclist. And his strategy has to focus on being the best cyclist. And then there's a support car right there if something else goes wrong. They can fix it. They can put him back on a new bike. They can hand him a water bottle, et cetera, et cetera. Keegan has to do all of that on his own, more or less. Yes, there's an aid station somewhere in the 200 miles. But if he goes down, like he went down in Unbound, you got to get back on and keep going. Yeah, and there's no team car and stuff. No team car. No one's going to help you. No one's going to stop if you fell and had a boo-boo, you know. It's interesting to watch the way the strategy has to play out differently when you're not supported. That's kind of why I ask because, you know, they're arguably different enough sports that, like, can you really compare Pagaccia and Keegan? I don't think you can. It's hard. You'd have to see them at the same time. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, it'd be interesting just from a mechanical perspective. Again, there's no YouTube comments, so just save it. But I'm guessing a lot of these U.S. cyclists are better at fixing their bikes because they have to. Yeah, I would agree with that. They don't have mechanics. They practice it and do it themselves. Even like, yeah, they have teams and sponsors, but I would wager a guess that when Keegan is out on a training ride– on the weekend and like he carries stuff with him and fixes his own flats and training and I think he's probably like a cyclist like we are and goes out and rides by himself and it's just probably just different. Yeah. And one last thing where I'm going to give U.S. cycling props is in the U.S. women cycling and men's cycling are closer to popularity than they are on the global scale. Yeah. That when you go to Europe, yes, they have the tour de France femmes and stuff like that. And which is amazing. And I watched that also, but in the U S like in Levi's or sea otter unbound, They're on equal platform, equal pay. Yeah. And I don't know about for their sponsorship, but prize money. Yes. And that's not the case everywhere else in the world. So I think one thing U.S. cycling has done a great job at is leveling the field. Totally. Between men and women cycling because we just talked about Keegan and all these men, but there's all these amazing women cyclists. One of them we're going to be– Following this weekend, Lauren Stevens is doing the Foco Fondo. And we're going to be part of a race in Fort Collins this weekend called Foco Fondo. And we're going to be doing something that, for lack of a better term, would be called like broadcast light. That, you know, it's four or five cameras rather than ten. and a single commentator, and we're doing it from a van on site, and we're doing a cloud production, which is scary. Dude, I'm so nervous. I know I can do it. It's just, I'm just nervous. It'll be our first time doing a full cloud not coming through Boulder. Yeah, and I think it'll all work out. And I think expectations aren't the same of having a zillion person crew that it's different. Yeah, totally. So a huge weekend coming up, moving on from American Cycling. You guys will be part of American Cycling at the Foco Fondo, and that's in Fort Collins, Colorado. And we've got a great team, professional moto drivers, professional cameramen. And then also we have Ironman Lake Placid, which is kind of, you could say it's the big show in North America. I mean, I think Texas is also the big show in North America, but incredibly deep field. Yeah. extremely difficult venue because of the ruralness of the Adirondack Mountains. And we did a camera test last week with Starlink and it was a million times better. A million times better. This might be the first time we see Placid live, like legitimately. Yeah, true. Maybe. Maybe. I mean, no promises, but maybe. Yeah, you never know. It's like when you start putting five Starlinks out on course and motos and batteries and blah, blah, blah. It's a lot of work. So I'm looking forward to that. And that's coming through the studio here in Boulder. And that's always fun. Yeah. Scary. Yeah. Like I, like I've slept well the last few weeks and I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about just hardware and software and things that didn't go right last weekend and got no sleep. So, and then we have Ironman 70.3 Ohio and we have Ironman 70.3 Oregon and Yeah. Which I think is a super cool race. I haven't been to Ohio or Oregon, but I've seen photos and video and they both look awesome. Yeah. And then kudos to Ironman announced a new race this week in Dallas for lack of a better term, but Little Elm. Yeah. So, and that'll be, I don't know if I love this idea or not, but that'll be the first race of the season for us doing 70.3s because- Yes, it's two weeks or three weeks before. I didn't pay attention to the date. I didn't either. Mid-March. Oh, right. Yikes. Yikes. I don't know. They're just creeping earlier and earlier into our ski season. And I don't know if that's good. Yeah, that is during the ski season. So that could be an issue too. Yeah, I'm sick that week. Sorry. And so if we live through this weekend, then we'll get to fight another day and just to touch on a few things coming up. first year race, Ironman Canada in Ottawa is a monster. Monster. And some of it happens like on the Capitol grounds and, you know, like I'm going to just predict right now you're not flying a drone. You know, I know they say I would agree with that. It just seemed we're prepped not to fly a drone. They did say that the, they want drone shots of the Capitol. Yeah. Which we're happy to do, but we weren't able to get the, permission to fly over the Capitol in Wisconsin, which is a state Capitol. Yeah. And this is their parliament building. Yeah. Yeah. So obviously in the U S the exultant ruler is the FAA. People like to say there's permits and blah, blah, blah. It's just between the pilot and the FAA. What does it look like in Canada? Is the one Oh seven, is it just meaningless there? Is that like, I used to have a hobbyist permit that in Penticton, uh, the police department showed me how to get so I could fly underneath the airport. Basically, the airplanes come in right over the venue. And he walked me through everything I needed to do to make that happen. But that was six years ago. It just came up on my memories. Nice. So six years ago. And then we have the Littleton Twilight Criterium, American Cycling. First time we'll have covered a criterium. A little scary again because we have to do the whole production on the ground because there's a bunch of LED walls on the ground that have to be in real time. And that's usually not our problem when we're here in Boulder and they're in Swansea. Yeah. You know, we're like, sorry, it had to come to Boulder and back to you guys. It's five seconds behind. But here where we're going to do it on the ground and we're going to lean on DJI wireless and DJI drones. Yeah. A bunch. And the city of Littleton has been solid, tight. Yeah. I mean, it's a big initiative for them. They know what they're doing. You can kind of tell, I think, that there must be someone behind the city of Littleton that is pushing cycling. And not only because of this event, which has grown in popularity over the years, but when we went down and did a site visit, you can just feel like the city is kind of like it's cycling friendly. There's A ton of cycling shops and signs that say bike path this way and two miles to the bike shop that way and protected bike lanes everywhere. You can tell someone cares about cycling. Nice. Which is cool. I'm really bummed I won't be at that one because that's the same weekend as Ottawa. So I'll be in Ottawa. I really wish I was helping with the crit. Yeah, I wish you were too, in all honesty. because you talked me into buying that lens, and then it's just sitting on the table. And then after that, the following weekend, Leadville 100, live broadcast, never been done before. Guaranteed failure. Guaranteed failure. That's where we shine. Guaranteed failure. We might go down, but we're going to go down swinging. I think we're going to do great. I agree. I look forward to it. But it's going to be challenging because it's not just the mountains. It's the high mountains of Colorado, 10,000 feet and above, Leadville, Colorado, lack of cell signal. But we have a chopper, which won't have cell signal probably. We're closer to the Starlinks. Maybe. That's how that works, right? Yeah, that's exactly. And the summer just keeps going. And we'll talk more on the next episode about after that is Gravel Worlds, which is kind of the people responsible for getting us into cycling because they said nobody can cover our race. But do you guys want to give it a try? Because we're friends. Not only that, nobody can cover gravel racing. And now everybody's doing it. Yeah, we started that. We did. In North America, for sure. And then the last thing I just want to touch on, our leader, our friend, yeah, the guy who runs the broadcast at Ironman, Mark Mosbach, is leaving. He's moving on to golf, moving back to golf. Yeah. Which seems... Yeah. For cyclists, it's hard to. But I just want to, for one, say how important he's been to me personally, but also just as a company, BCC Live. He is one of the most chill, positive leadership roles. He just is. If I could do anything, I'd like to be more like Mark. Yeah. And he listens. Yeah. And he doesn't get run over. He says, no, this is how we're doing it. Just do it. But he's a great, great person, and he's going to be missed. And hopefully, like Christine Bowen, he'll take us with him. I love golf. I love golf. I love golf. For real, though. the data in golf is awesome. Oh man. Yeah. Like in broadcast golf, like I would love to have an insider look at how they track the ball and take us. I'm sure it's related to like indoor golf, but it's cool. We've designed a golf ball that has a GPS device in it. You heard it here first, just like we did for Ironman. That probably just got us axed from golf. Yeah. Right. So Mark, uh, I can't imagine you still listen to our podcast, but if you do, we're going to miss you and you are one of the best and you're partially instrumental in our success because long before gravel worlds, you gave us a shot. Yeah. Yeah. You said, why don't you guys try this and we'll take a shot at you guys. And then we got lucky. Yeah. And it all went well. And then everybody was like, hey, these guys can do it. And it was pure luck the first time. It's not anymore. I'd rather be lucky than good. Yeah. What is that called? Dunning-Kruger? Yes. Like after our first broadcast, we're like, wow, we're pros. And then they never went that good again. That's exactly. So thanks, Mark. Yeah, thanks 100%. And then on to a busy weekend. Have fun in Fort Collins. You guys all have fun here in the studio. Oh, we're going to have to figure out how to divide up all the Unity and all the live view packs. It's going to be challenging. It is. Only tune in to one broadcast. Please do not try to watch both. I support that, yeah. And just pick one. Damn it. I keep forgetting to write an AI song. We made one. We did make one. So the host for the Business of Running Conference was Chris Heisler, who we work with at Rock and Roll. Great dude. Great dude. I gained a lot of newfound respect and joy in knowing that guy. Yeah. We got to sit down with him at dinner and talk. And I... He was so good at making you feel seen he started going through all these like icebreaker questions and we were having these deep conversations Just amazing stuff. Like it was it was so cool. So like He and his he and his brothers have a thing or he and his siblings have a thing where You have to pick five celebrities music movies what five famous people that you're allowed to ask for a photo you're like buddies like first name basis like hey man let's get a photo together you can't ask anyone else and they always approve and you know so so you're not allowed to ask anyone outside of those five so you have to pick the five people that you would would want more than anyone else in the world to get a photo with a celebrity or you know anytime you want anytime Dylan's making his own version of this. That's what it was. It's not like you just get one photo. It's like, no, no, that guy's my dog. Let me go take a picture with him. No, no, because you approach him and you say, hey, I got... Anyway. We can debate this later. Regardless, it was like icebreaker questions like that that you start thinking about these really deep stuff, and you're like, oh, man, if I could only have five people that you just run into and could ask for a photo, like, oh, well, if... um, let's Tom Swenson. Yeah. If, if Keegan Swenson is on your list, but, um, Sophia, uh, the, uh, the, uh, fine yet. Thank you. Uh, if she's not, you couldn't ask her for a photo, but you could talk to, you could still be like, Oh, Hey, it's good to meet you. But if Keegan's on it, you could ask Keegan for a photo. It's, it's a really interesting, like, Oh man, who are these people that you, uh, It would be Mick Jagger anyway, but... Ooh, that's a good one. Sorry, Keegs. Anyway, so it was stuff like that. And we talked for like 30 minutes, an hour, going through all this stuff. And it was a lot of fun. He was on Family Feud. He and his siblings, they did it for his sister's 40th birthday. And they were on three nights. So they won two nights and lost the third. And... The third night, they lost to the other family only answered two answers correctly, but they stole the last one, and that let them win. And the last one was, if I were to say to you, if you looked at your loved one and said, your eyes sparkle like blank, what's your first answer? Stars. Yep, that was number two. Got another? I said like a diamond. Diamond was number one. And that was 90 of the answers out of 100 of the survey. So all the other ones they had to guess. So they guessed several and missed them. And the other one, the other family guessed glitter. That was correct. So the other family won. And who says that? Your eyes shine like glitter. Yeah. And so Chris was so mad. He was so upset. And he was like, I just hate glitter now. I hate everything about glitter. And I was like... Oh, you messed up, man. So we wrote Chris an AI song about Family Feud and Glitter. The Glitter Confetti Blues. Let's hear it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:55

Chris walked in, sharp as a tack. Family feud, no turning back. Steve Harvey's stare, oh, it could kill. Glitter rained, he lost the thrill. Glitter! Shame in every round Chris said no, but fate said yes Glitter, chaos, what a mess The board lit up, but not his name That glitter cloud, it sealed his shame steve's eyebrow raised judgment fell chris's moment a spark