500 Cats

30 - Panama Kitty Beach

• BCC Live

Share episode

The BCC Live crew recaps nine wild events—from Ironman Kona to the LT Games in Minneapolis and Ironman Florida. Hear behind-the-scenes chaos, broadcast hacks, and heartfelt moments with the One Percent Better team. Tape, travel, tech, and teamwork—this is life on the road doing what we love.

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!



SPEAKER_04:

Episode 30.

SPEAKER_02:

Episode 30.

SPEAKER_04:

On the tales of Catanooga.

SPEAKER_02:

And we are now in Welcome to Panama Caddy Beach.

SPEAKER_04:

Panama Caddy Beach. And in all honesty, we've really wanted to do nine episodes since the last episode, but we've been busy on the road.

SPEAKER_03:

As hell.

SPEAKER_04:

And so after Cattanooga, Marcus, who's here, and let me tell you who's here with us. We got Eddie. Hello. Julian. Hello. Margarita. Marcus. Hello. And Eric. Fidiglio.

SPEAKER_00:

Fidiglio. It's pronounced Fadiglio.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, we should restart this one. Nah, we never do that. That's for sure. We never do that. So we had Kona and that was a rough 12 days or whatever. It's a long time on the island and it was hot.

SPEAKER_03:

That's what I hear.

SPEAKER_04:

It was an amazing studio experience for the athletes. They I think it's the greatest event in the world, but it's hard. It's hard as a staff member. It's hard. And we're going to skip over Kona for the most part. But I do want to shout out the King Cam. Nick and Aiden from the King Cam made our week amazing. Those are two of the best human beings on the planet. They like really care about what we're there to do. And everything they did meant the world I could talk, I could do a whole episode about the staff at the King Cam.

SPEAKER_03:

Aiden was calling before anyone got on the ground from our team, saying, hey, I just did a speed test here. I just set up the AP, I just set up like making sure everything was how we wanted when we got on the ground.

SPEAKER_04:

And I would say they're like IT guys, and they're great IT guys, but they do so much more than that. It would be it would misrepresent to just call them IT guys that like they are involved in audio and video and rooming and everything. And I've bragged about Marriott and my relationship with Marriott, but I want to give a shout out to Nick and Aiden on because of Marriott. Like they because Marriott's been important to us as a company because they've taken good care of it. These are the two best guys nationwide at Marriott, are Nick and Aiden. Ohana. The Ohana. The Ohana. They're the Ohana. A couple things to touch on in Kona. We stopped using RF for the broadcast. We swapped that out for Wi-Fi. It worked. Everything was good. The broadcast looked great, but it was a ton of work. Yeah. I know why they rent helicopters and fly above the event and do RF now. Because installing RF everywhere that the chopper used to go is hard.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Because you just have to pay money for a chopper and RF, but you have to do a lot. You and BCC has to do a lot of work to do Wi-Fi only.

SPEAKER_04:

Me and John Michelle and Ryan High and Dylan taped down, not even to exaggerate, like 3,000 feet of cable. And it was all cable we planned to run Arial. And then we found out once we got on site, Ariel wasn't an option any longer. Because they'd always done Ariel, and we had to tape it down. And we we got good. Well, I've always been good at taping cords down, but as a team, we got good at taping cords down. Julian laughs. I'm not bragging, I'm just being honest.

SPEAKER_05:

It's a great skill.

SPEAKER_04:

It's a great skill. And we taped them down and we did gorilla tape, we did duct tape as like a protective layer. And the funniest thing is as soon as we got like 3,000 feet of tape down, somebody like we don't mind if you drive your forklift on our tape job, but like don't turn the wheels and drag pallets across it. And immediately somebody dragged a pallet across it, but it lived.

SPEAKER_01:

And it all worked. So let me ask you a question. We're talking about tape. Do you like gorilla tape or duct tape?

SPEAKER_04:

They're two different products. So there's three kinds of tape, in my opinion. There's gaff tape, which is not meant to be outside. Because once it's once it gets wet, it's ruined. It's done. And then there's duct tape, which is great, but it's not super durable and it's not super sticky. And then there's gorilla tape that's gonna pull up the laminate of the basketball court you taped it down on. So you gotta be really careful we use that. But if you're in a parking lot, it doesn't really matter if it pulls up the laminate.

SPEAKER_01:

No, no.

SPEAKER_04:

For the most part. No.

SPEAKER_01:

You got a pre-sweep. Got a pre-sweep.

SPEAKER_04:

So and if I said we weren't gonna talk about Kona, but I guess we are. So getting a broom, first of all, you have to go buy one. And then they don't sell brooms on the island. Did you have to go to snakes? So we we got one from Home Depot, and a whole nother episode should be like how awesome Instacart is. Dave discovered Instacart at Hawaii. Actually, a guy that worked with us, Matt, was like, you should just have Instacart bring it. And I'm like, I don't have time for that. I'm 56 years old. And it was there like 10 minutes later. But brooms are old school. A leaf blower is how you blow sand off a parking lot. And so we leaf blowed the spot we needed to tape down, and then the tape sticks. If you don't sweep or leaf blow gorilla tape, it doesn't matter, it don't stick. So anyway, we taped a ton of stuff down. And one other small note, we use like we as a company own like a hundred Honda generators that they don't sell on the island. So we bought some Generac generators, and I get everybody right now is like, how'd that go? It worked out okay.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, uh Generac is just a misspelling of the word generic.

SPEAKER_04:

Maybe we learned a valuable lesson that the generac generators are safe, so they have a carbon monoxide alarm, and so if you have another generator blowing on your generac, it shuts it off. But we figured it out really quick because it it has like an LED readout that says carbon monoxide warning. It says it expensive. That's what it says. Expensive. They were about a third of the price of Honda generators.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, generac, if you're looking to sponsor anybody, we are open for sponsorship.

SPEAKER_04:

They were all yeah, absolutely. All in all, it worked out. So, anyway, Kona was Kona. The greatest event in the world for the athletes, one of the harder events in the world for the staff. It's hot, it's long hours. Um, well run. Like Diana, and we talked about her last year on our podcast. She runs the whole thing. I like working for Diana. She's like, here's what I want, and you go do it, and you're you're a hero, and it's really simple and stuff. But that's where the last forever weeks got difficult. And meanwhile, while we're in Kona, Ryan and Eddie and Scott, and who else was with you guys were at the Little Sugar Mountain bike race. And it's a single-track mountain bike race, it's literally impossible to cover. There's no choppers, drones don't do much because they're down in the trees. So we hired embedded riders. So these are like pro mountain bikers. They rode electric mountain bikes that we supplied, and they rode in the field.

SPEAKER_01:

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_04:

We had to uh that morning set them up, and some of the athletes were willing to wear cameras for us, which is amazing because everybody said everybody said there's no athlete out there that will wear a camera for you. And we said, Why don't you just let us ask? Eddie can talk.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. We we had a couple actually wear it on their shirt, right? Center chest. So you know, it was kind of cool that they were very, very open to it when they turned them in that night. They were like, Man, this was awesome. I'll do it again.

SPEAKER_04:

And the footage was amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, it makes all the difference.

SPEAKER_04:

So we had embedded riders, we had pros. I think the winner had one on camera, had our camera showing them across the finish line. Coolest thing ever. And what was the best was the audience absolutely hated it, crushed us. Crushed. I feel like every episode were like, How much more can the audience hate us? And this set a new record. So go check it out. It's on YouTube. It's called the 2025 Little Sugar Race Highlights? Race Highlights by Lifetime. I love Lifetime, by the way. We'll talk more about that.

SPEAKER_01:

And what they're audio stand is is the plate we had to drive around the two days before we rode bikes to find spots that we could actually see what was going on. Otherwise, you see a half a second.

SPEAKER_04:

And the common message was why can't you cut down all the trees and just shoot the whole race from a chopper?

SPEAKER_01:

There you go.

SPEAKER_04:

But that's not an option.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, I uh I'm actually impressed with how dedicated some of the haters haters are. They put real effort specifically. They don't know who we are, but they hate us like they raised us. I used to think my parents love me. I just want to put that out there.

SPEAKER_04:

My parents love me too. I used to think and I used to think this about Iron Man too. They don't hate us. They hate them. But one of the things I've learned in October of 2025 is they hate us. Yeah. They hate us very much.

SPEAKER_03:

They don't know who we are, but they hate us.

SPEAKER_04:

We sing shock rock.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I I I really think that they don't hate us. I think they're just disappointed that they can't race and they can only watch it from their mom's basement. So I mean, if you couldn't race and you you were watching it from your mom's basement, it would be you might be upset at the coverage.

SPEAKER_04:

And this isn't a plug for Gary Vanderchuk, but I do wish he would come on our podcast because I think he would be a good fit for us. GaryV.com.

SPEAKER_03:

You can follow the link from 500cats.com.

SPEAKER_04:

He said the same thing that Justin Metzler said that nobody trashing you guys is doing better. And and thank you, Gary, for set pointing that out.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. But we appreciate the shout out.

SPEAKER_04:

But he's right. That people because we're going to talk about the next nine videos we made on this podcast. And how much people hated him. And how much people hated him. And I think one thing that's important is the only kind of people that matter today, maybe not tomorrow, are our customers. Yeah. And they're happy with what we did. So anyway, Little Sugar, Bentonville, Arkansas, amazing. Uh, we worked with amazing people, and the lifetime people are great, and they bring a great vibe to the event. Yep. And they are bringing cycling back to the United States.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_04:

Which is cool.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So then go ahead, Ed. Well, no, the I was just gonna say the the expo they have is such an inviting place to go into, and everybody talks to everybody, and everybody hangs out there, and that's what's cool.

SPEAKER_04:

Did you did you meet Nat Ross?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Man, what a cool guy. We'll talk about him with the big sugar classic. So moving forward, because we have 19 more events to cover. Exactly one week later. Yeah, we're still in I'm still in Kona.

SPEAKER_03:

You're still in Kona. And then you fly in the uh flight from hell. I was Kona.

SPEAKER_04:

I was on a flight that made the news.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes. Because it took so long.

SPEAKER_04:

Because we were stuck on the plane for some crazy like 20 hours. Yeah. I mean, and this is on the airplane. Like, this isn't like in the air or anything. Yeah. And so we backed away. And so I was sitting next to another videographer, and some of you guys know who this is, Kenny Withrow. And he's a good guy, and I like him, and we're kind of friends, but we're sitting across the aisle, and I fell asleep the minute the plane backed up. And apparently we went and waited out on the tarmac for an hour. And then we pulled back to the gate and they kind of lurched when they got back to the gate. And I woke up and brushed slobber off my face. And I looked over at him with like a big smile, and he's like, We haven't left. And I looked at my watch and it was like a I don't know, we were supposed to leave at let's just say seven. And I looked at my watch, it was like 8:30. So it wasn't the end of the world, but they had to fix the airplane, and then they got it fixed, and we taxied back out, and there was a medical emergency. So then we went back and got the medical emergency off the plane, and then we taxied back out, and there was another mechanical. So then we came back to the gate and they were like, This flight is canceled, but you can't get off the plane because there's no ground support. Which was kind of weird because and one guy was like, peace, he pushed his way out, no way, and it was gone. And I think he might have been from Pitkin County, if you know where that is, but he might have been working with us. And then we so I booked a new flight. I was like, I'm not going down. So everybody who was on the flight couldn't change their flight because the flight hadn't been canceled yet. So I booked new flights, like I knew what I was doing. Yeah. And so I'm like, we're gonna leave the next night. And somebody from Iron Man, who I think very highly of, mouthed to me, we got you rooms tonight. And man, that meant the world to me that here's a big corporation looking out for me. Like, we got you rooms tonight, don't panic. And I was like, I got flights out tomorrow. And then they're like, hey, everybody buckle your seatbelt. We're gonna back out, but we're going to San Fran, not not Denver. So then I canceled my flights. We flew to San Fran, but because they didn't expect us, we weren't allowed to get off the plane. So we were at San Fran for like a half a day. So my 6 a.m. flight, my flight that was supposed to land in Denver at 6 a.m., 10 a.m. flight to Arkansas, got in at like 3 p.m., and we got on a like an 8 p.m. flight to Arkansas. It was rough. But then we were in Bentonville, Arkansas for the Big Sugar Classic. And now we're back in Arkansas, baby. Back in Arkansas. Big sugar. And the rest of the team, Julian here and Eddie here, who are with us, are in Sacramento. Sacramento. No, wait. No, no.

SPEAKER_03:

We haven't gotten to Sacramento yet. We haven't? No, not at all. We haven't even hit Big Sugar and the rainstorm that broke that weekend.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, but that was the weekend to Sacramento.

SPEAKER_03:

No, no, Sacramento was the next weekend.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Right? No. Is it the same weekend? I thought Ed was Ed not in. I was in Little and had to go to California. I'm sorry. No, no, you were right then. I was wrong.

SPEAKER_04:

Alright, so I'm gonna let you guys tell us a little bit about Sacramento. Like Iron Man California is what it's called.

SPEAKER_01:

It it is. But uh, and they have these giant letters that they roll out Sacramento. But uh that race is always interesting. It's a it's a very uh kind of different and wild race that stuff just comes up out of the blue, we're gonna hang something on this tree. And or we never put the the uh jumbotron there. So it's the same thing. You always run up, you know, a lot of people kind of in charge and a lot of people in charge. And I think that's what it does. Sorry. Anyway, um, yeah, no, I love that race. How about you, Julian?

SPEAKER_00:

No, Sacramento went great, honestly. Uh always it's always a wonderful time. It just kind of feels like a rip-off not really being on the beach. You fly out to California and it's all the California prices and stuff, but you're you're really I don't know, a couple hours for from the coast, so it's kind of feels like a I don't know, backhanded California, but everything went wonderfully.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean I think where it's located, the the run path and and stuff like that is really nice. Uh the bike, you get into the orchards and get out, and um you see a lot of uh lot of land, but it gets real windy out there as I was on the motorcycle. Um but yeah, all in all, I think people like the race because it's a downhill swim and you know, pretty much rollers and then flat. So I mean, I think it's a good race. Um it's getting more and more people. Um I'm not sure I'm a fan of Sacramento. You know, I like California, but some of those areas are kind of for me, because I'm a small town guy. So it's kind of the big city stuff. Uh I'm not I'm not all about. I know uh Marcus likes Ottawa.

SPEAKER_03:

Big fan of Ottawa. It's like the uh Raleigh of Canada.

SPEAKER_00:

Had a great time in Sacramento. I didn't see the race video. I don't know if you saw it, uh Dave.

SPEAKER_01:

I know I we enjoyed making it.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, there were a lot of great stories and uh um didn't see the video, but I we had a blast getting all the coverage. And um well, I think the crowd liked it.

SPEAKER_04:

The crowd liked the the video. Who is in the video? There's gotta be somebody memorable from the video. Did you guys go?

SPEAKER_03:

You guys were in California, right? Am I who made the video?

SPEAKER_00:

I we were there, I received a link to the video. Um was told to not download it. Not sure why, but as it goes, um we did switch up the music a little bit, and I think we got some good coverage. Thanks, Julian.

SPEAKER_04:

I appreciate it. Julian Higarita, everyone. I promise we did a great job in California. I personally talked to the race tractor and they said thank you. Do you believe that?

SPEAKER_03:

I a hundred percent believe that. Because Jenny is amazing and would never say anything other than positive things.

SPEAKER_04:

I don't know who Jenny is. I was thinking of Tom Cotton. Okay, so I promise we did a good job in Sacramento. We'll probably edit this part out. So Sacramento went great. Good job, guys. Well done.

SPEAKER_03:

Build it. Um I wish the uh recording hadn't cut out just then because the stuff they talked about and the story is incredible. You know what? I'm glad we got some new batteries now that we're back in Bentonville.

SPEAKER_04:

So back to the same weekend as Iron Man California, which by the way went great. Went great. We had the big sugar classic big sugar and man, that town got taken over by bikes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's always taken over by bikes. That town is bikes. I mean, we we rode the trails on it, you rode them as well. I mean, it is amazing.

SPEAKER_04:

When you heard like Bentonville, Arkansas, the mountain bike capital of the world. Did you laugh out loud? Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01:

I was like, uh we talking about the same.

SPEAKER_04:

And where's the mountain bike capital of the world? Bentonville. Without a doubt. 100% so many people ride bikes, but we were there for a gravel race. And maybe a day before the gravel race, the weather forecast looked awful. They were talking about damaging storms. Yeah. Everything from shortening the race to canceling the race was on the table. But the days leading up to the race were beautiful. Blue sky, you know, perfect weather. So we went about our way. We shot 27 sound bites with the pros. We usually shoot about five or ten. Oh, yeah. But we are worried about uh lack of coverage on the top half of the course, no cell service, no view of the sky, Starlink's not an option. And we did have a helicopter, and it was gonna be our transmitting.

SPEAKER_03:

And what I think is the funniest part of this story is we just talked about Kona. First time ever without RF. It was a pain because we had to do Wi-Fi all over the place, but we did it without RF. It was amazing. And what did we do in Big Sugar?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, we had to hire somebody to do RF. So the technology that we were like is dated. This is old school. We're the new guys. We're young, we're 56. And we had to hire basically the people that used to do Kona to come in and do RF for us. And what that means is that the motos would transmit to the helicopter, and the helicopter would transmit to space or wherever it goes. I don't know where it goes. Live view. Yeah. And so um, we had it all set up. It took dozens of extra hours of testing. We felt really good before the night before the race, knowing that weather might be an issue. And the next morning, weather, sure enough, was an issue. Lifetime made the right call by shortening the race from 100 miles to 50 miles. And when I mean shorten the race, they didn't shorten the course, they put the athletes on a whole different course because there was a 50-mile race that day, anyway. Yeah. So instead of giving people the option to ride the 100-mile course, they forced everybody to ride the 50-mile course. And when I mean forced, uh there was the right call. It was it got dangerous later in the day, but they had most of the people off the course when that happened. But we had to go shoot a live video on a course that we had not tested on or driven or seen or knew about.

SPEAKER_03:

And about halfway through, we lost our helicopter, which means we lost our RF and our overhead shot.

SPEAKER_04:

Because of lightning, because of lightning, and so the helicopter had to land. All in all, I think it worked out well. The audience hated it. Yeah, they asked me to kill myself a couple times. It's the same people in the audience. Yeah, hated it. I was super proud of what we did. Same. I I had the best job of the day that I went out in a specifically branded Jeep, a Jeep that's branded for a company card called Orange Seal. One of the Orange Seal people was the driver. He was an amazing like rally car driver. Like we we were sideways many a time. Not near the athletes. Yeah, right. But where we're trying to catch up to the lead pack. And then we had a field commentator in our vehicle. His name was Nat Ross. We talked about him, like a mountain bike hall of famer, but just a cool guy, positive vibe. And the very first hit we did, he's like, Here comes the pack, and a guy skids out of control by us and fixes his tire right in front of us. It was awesome. It was awesome. And I've always said, if you go out, and I told everybody in our team, if you go out with this positive attitude, it'll come to you. And it came to us immediately, and they got what I was saying. And it was so cool because Ryan told me that they were watching and they were like, you know, what the hell? Why isn't he using his monopod? It's kind of shaky. And then all of a sudden, I was like two inches away from the guy, like pushing the thing into his tube to plug it and stuff. It was awesome. It was cool. What a great race. The skies unleashed. Everything got wet, everything got ruined. Yep. But all in all, we did what we set out to do. We broadcast that whole race. We broadcast the whole race. There were some potatoes, but a lot of potato cam. And um, I thought the best part of the race is after the winner finished and I was shooting his interview, and I had this brand new camera. I'm not even gonna say it's one of the best cameras money can buy. And he goes, Nat says, Tell us about your race. He goes, Well, I'll tell you what, Nat, what a great day. And my camera overheated and shut off. Yep. In the rain. Yep, in the rain. So it wasn't a Sony A12. I don't care what you've heard, it was not the Sony A12. So um, and we'll talk more about the Sony A12, what a great camera it is because and it's overheating issues that it doesn't have. It doesn't have the overheating issues. So that's what we know for sure. But we had a great race. And we did get out of there several hours early. Me and Ryan Kelly and the team packed the van. Um, I think when the team said everything's dried off, they meant we put everything away wet. Yeah. So we jumped. We jumped in the van and we drove from Bentonville, Arkansas to San Jose, California. It's a 26-hour drive, and we did it in like 30 hours. I know that's not set in records. Like I know people drive across the country in Lambos faster than that. But Rad Forest. It was big for us. So we made it to Hollister, California, and then we met up with a bunch of the San uh Sacramento. There you go. We met up with a bunch of the Sacramento team. People came who had a great race, as we talked about at length earlier.

SPEAKER_01:

And the video had a lot of great athletes in it. Yes, it did. And uh, I hate that that recording messed up the batteries.

SPEAKER_04:

We we met the Sacramento team and we did an event um that was called the Twitch Expedition, and it was I I I kind of like to feel like it was an adventure race, but it definitely wasn't an adventure race.

SPEAKER_01:

It was a cross between a lot of those reality races, a reality very reality show, kind of and this was a bigger production than we used to.

SPEAKER_04:

And what I mean by bigger is they had catering. Three meals a day.

SPEAKER_01:

It was crazy. Yeah, gained four pounds.

SPEAKER_04:

Walking through the mountains for five days.

SPEAKER_01:

And you go in there, and if you're gluten-free, they make a special bag for you and they put your name on it. Or if you only want to eat, you know, guinea pig, they fly it in. I don't know how they do it, but it was impressive.

SPEAKER_04:

The chef was amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

Amazing. I mean, I I told him every day. He was like, Oh, yeah, this is what I do.

SPEAKER_04:

And I'm like, and so we had a big team in Boulder, so Marcus and Mel, and we had two separate replay operators in Boulder, and maybe you can tell me their names. Uh, Rico and Steve. And they do real sports, they do real sports, like the nuggets.

SPEAKER_03:

They were like, Oh, yeah, so well, and we don't so when we say replay operators, we've had a replay machine for years, and they walked in and they're like, Hey, I've used this one a while, like like a while ago, but I can't can you kind of remind me? And I was like, Well, here's the play button and here's the like record button, and you can like setting in and setting out. And they're like, All right, no, no, you're good. Go ahead. And and didn't ask me another question. And like two hours later, after our like dress rehearsal, I come back and I was like, So, how are you guys feeling? Sorry, I kind of left. They're like, No, so here's how we're gonna do it. And basically, these guys were so good at what they do that they taught me how they could take stuff off my plate because I was overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I had to do, and they're like, Don't do that, don't do it that way. That's bad for you. We're gonna do it for you. Just take in our feed and we will run it. You just tell us when to hit go. Yeah, impressive. Impress so impressive. They were so good at their jobs and so like thoughtful, like they cared, they wanted it to be awesome. They were constantly in communication with the team on the ground who was like the replay director and knew exactly what to do. I didn't have to, I didn't have to watch them at all. I didn't have to tell them anything. They told me when they had something.

SPEAKER_04:

Pros.

SPEAKER_03:

Pros.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, pros. And we also had a pro from Live View running Live U Studio. Yep. And our guy Tom and Poland running Live U Studio because we had nine streams. JP. What sorry, this is the Live View Studio Pro with Tom. Yeah, JP. And and and all these people sent us an email afterward and were like, Thanks. Yeah. This was fun. I didn't think it was fun. I no. It was fun. So we were on a ranch in Central California. It's about 45 miles. I'm going to say northwest of Northeast. Northwest of Monterey. Oh, Monterey, yeah. Well, nobody knows Hollister. Gotcha. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01:

So, and it was cool. It was called the Bar Z Ranch. And uh Tim and Michelle Borlin were the owners, and they were incredible. Awesome.

SPEAKER_04:

And what a cool ranch, 2,500 acres of like rolling bigger than hills, smaller than mountains.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think 1,500 feet at the tallest.

SPEAKER_04:

And we had a great time, and we did a good event. And more and most importantly, our customer was happy. And their customer, who is Twitch, and their customer who's Amazon, I believe. Yeah. We're all happy.

SPEAKER_01:

So and I mean, what a great crew we had on the set.

SPEAKER_04:

The biggest crew we've ever had, 18 people. Yeah. And everybody, everybody on the team was amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, there was a guy who summited four times, Everest, and carried that's the next week. Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_04:

Next week we'll talk about him.

SPEAKER_03:

That's not the next week. That's two days later.

SPEAKER_04:

Two days later. So let's finish up Twitch. So we got done with Twitch. Everybody in Boulder did a great job. Marcus was like the sub-director. There was a director. Frank, he was very clear on what he wanted. We worked for Boombox Productions. They were amazing, great people. I hope we get to do more work with them in the future. Yeah, incredible. And then one of the coolest things about that event is it was like the old days. We got done at 2 p.m. on Thursday and we went to the Pinnacles National Park. Amazing. And we went splunking with iPhone flashlights. Terrible idea. Yeah. But you gotta die somehow. And we had to do a leg repair. One of our uh staff members had a prosthetic plural. Yeah. And one of them popped off maybe a little bit on the hike, but he got it back on and we kept going. And Nick was a cool guy, great, great drone pilot.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Great member of our team. Super proud to have him on. And Ed got to find what did you find in Pinnacles that you were looking for?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I was trying, I'm a birder. I said it. I said it out loud. I'm a birder. And I hadn't gotten a California condor. So these guys are faking me out coming in. They'd slam on the brakes on the car in front of us because they were in the car in front and like look out the window and hang out and point and stuff. And so they're messing me with me the whole time. But ended up walking in once he lost his leg, Nick. Um, we were kind of hanging there, and then it was like, there's a condor up there. And I shot it, and I'm and it's it's on my page. Come check it out.

SPEAKER_04:

And you needed that for your bird collection, and so you got it. So Pinnacles National Park in California is the most unassuming national park. It has a sign that's the size of a stop sign that says Pinnacles National Park this way.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

And it was the real deal.

SPEAKER_03:

And it's a real shame that the battery's cut out again and we lost all that birding nonsense that Ed said. But you know, uh Ed likes birds, so all the stuff about California and all the stuff about birdie. All that, you know, it's it's uh it's unfortunate that we lost that.

SPEAKER_04:

You and Mel had to pack up after Twitch and pack up like five duffels and head to Minneapolis. Correct. And then me and Ed had to get up at 3 a.m. and drive to San Jose, and then we all converged on Minneapolis, which is in Minnesota. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_03:

And we wait, wait, wait, no, we're not going by that. Where did you think it was?

SPEAKER_04:

I don't know. I I gotta be honest, that part of the country's new to me. You know when I realized where I was? Where? When? And we'll go back to the event, is I got to Minnesota and it was cold. It was, and I've been in California, yeah, and Arkansas and Kona. So I had shorts and t-shirts. So lo and behold, the hometown of Target is Minneapolis, and there's a Minneapolis in downtown, a three-story one.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, uh Target in downtown. Target, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

What did I say? Minneapolis. There's a Minneapolis in downtown Minneapolis. And so I I went to the Target and I needed a sweatshirt and a hat. I lost my hat the night before. Ryan Kelly took me out, and something happened. Who knows? And everything was Vikings, gophers, or Packers or twins. Yeah. And so I wasn't gonna wear any of that. So I got a sweatshirt that said champion on it and stuff. But anyway, Minnesota, we went there for the Lifetime Games, which is one of the coolest, most innovative events I've ever seen. And you go through a series of 17 stations. 17 stations of lifting weights, running treadmills, doing the cross-country ski, doing the row, all these box jump and all this stuff. And what I thought was so cool about it is you had to lift 4,000 pounds. And how you lifted 4,000 pounds was up to you. Do you want to lift 100 pounds a time or do you want to lift 500 pounds a time? And so, and overall it was about speed, getting through the course in the fastest amount of time. But at station one, you had to run a thousand meters. At station two, you had to lift 4,000 pounds. So, how did you want to go about doing that? Obviously, running how fast you want to run. And then when you got to the, I think the first one was like, and I don't want to get the terms wrong, but I would call it a deadlift. Yeah. Where you just have to pick the weight up to your waist.

SPEAKER_01:

And it was crazy to see some of the guys would just stack it on, stack it on, some would just go, you know, minimal weight and just pump it out really fast.

SPEAKER_04:

And I'm not sure which one, but because it was a new event, you saw people be like, oops. Yeah, I mean, maybe I shouldn't have done it like that. Yeah, yeah. But we broadcast it live. Yeah. For a lifetime who we do mountain biking and gravel racing for. And they've really turned into an awesome customer because they took a chance on us to do this new event, a new concept, a new broadcast. And one of the coolest things we did that our guy and Tom created was when we're broadcasting, we have a thing called a multicam. It's where you can see all six, eight, ten, twelve, eighteen cameras. In this case, it was six cameras, and you could choose what camera you wanted to watch. So you could it and I'm gonna just admit it, it's the NFL red zone for for LT games, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

For LT games, but it was a hit, it was. Uh, I mean the other thing about it is so how many times at BCC have you done a broadcast indoors? And I don't mean a live stream, like a single cam live stream. I mean, I mean how many times have you done a broadcast?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, never same. And not just indoors, but the most baller gym that's the size of like 500 Walmarts. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

You could live there. I think I could live there.

SPEAKER_04:

That is I I can't begin to it's like the size of the tennis center in Indian Wells, but it's a gym. And we ate there. I mean, you can eat there, you could you can't.

SPEAKER_03:

And then a bar, and believe it or not, I'm gonna be I had a fresh-made Cuban sandwich at the cafe in a gym.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm gonna be totally honest with you. We did not go to the bar. Not at all. Which is weird. It is because I wanted to, but we have professional standards we try to keep most of the time. Some of the time. Yes, sometimes, especially indoors, sometimes. Indoor sports, yes, but it was fun, and I want to say how much I appreciate our friends at Lifetime. Like they took a big chance on us, and their customers hate us, but they like us, I think. And they're good people, they're just good.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, you you you meet some people and you see people and get introduced, and you're like, those are good people.

SPEAKER_04:

You can tell people that are fake, it's obvious. Yes. So big thanks to them. So then Lifetime Games, you guys. Oh, and we wanted to talk about our camera person, Scott. Scott. We go out to dinner and we're talking about climbing. I don't climb, I don't think any of us climb, but my parents climb and stuff like that. And somebody brought up Everest Base Camp, and he's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, been there. And we're like, Cool, cool, man. He's like, Yeah, I actually climbed Everest. And we're like, What? He's like, four times, yeah, yeah. And then with camera games, and we're like, Why? He's like, Well, I was the cameraman, yeah. So, like, all the cool camera footage you've seen of some of the better movies that have been out. He shot, he shot, and what a great guy, and what a great cameraman. And like the best part of it was afterwards, he's like, I want to work for you guys.

SPEAKER_01:

He only he only got in my shot one time, and that's pretty unusual for a broadcast.

SPEAKER_04:

I got in one of the lifetime content people's guys shot the worst I've ever.

SPEAKER_07:

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, he was standing behind a doorway shooting people coming through the doorway, and then I was shooting the people going into the doorway, and then I got in front of one of them and like backed up, and then like his lens was what made me realize somebody was behind me.

SPEAKER_01:

What's crazy is I would walk up thinking I'm the only one shooting someone, and Scott's hanging upside down, shooting, or under a bench.

SPEAKER_03:

Dude, I would literally be like, oh man, good shot, Ed. Good shot. Scott, Scott, he's on the same guy, he's on the same guy, or the or vice versa. Like both of them, because both of them kind of like would hide behind the gear to get like creative shots, but then you couldn't see him except for one angle. And so I'd be like, that's the that looks like the same. Hey, hey, Ed, Ed, move.

SPEAKER_04:

It was impressive, the athletes.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my gosh. I mean beautiful people, just amazing and stories. I mean, you talk to a few.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I got I shot some I shot some great like post-race interviews or post event interviews, and and they did uh they had this lit wall, and I shot them in front of that. And we have a photo on our social if you want to see the lit wall of us standing in front of it. And the guy that hired us shot the picture, yeah, which was pretty cool. That he saw us lining up for a picture. He's like, Let me shoot that. So that was Lifetime Games. I couldn't, I could everything we've talked about today can be its own episode.

SPEAKER_01:

I got a shout out, Mary from uh Hyper Ice was there. What a surprise!

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and Will and Mary and Hyper Ice are one of our sponsors.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, they are they are literally a sponsor.

SPEAKER_04:

Hyper Ice, Hyper Ice for Life. Best recovery stuff ever. Is it in you? I don't think that's what they say. Oh, man, and it was cool to see her, and she went out to dinner with us. Yeah, and we went to this place called I can't remember, but it was a the giantest sports bar of all time. Tom's watch bar downtown.

SPEAKER_01:

Shout out to them.

SPEAKER_04:

Downtown Minneapolis, which is in Minnesota.

SPEAKER_01:

And they had a pokey bowl.

SPEAKER_04:

And it was very good.

SPEAKER_01:

It was very good. Food, surprisingly.

SPEAKER_04:

And then I left at 2 a.m., which I got to the airport before the counter opened, which don't do that. Flew back to San Jose, picked up the van.

SPEAKER_01:

What did you get before you uh got off the plane?

SPEAKER_04:

And this is we should have a little promo about this called Smart Cot.

SPEAKER_01:

Smart cot. Smart cot.

SPEAKER_04:

And that's the cot that you take your bags in. And when you travel with seven or eight duffel bags, you need a smart cot. Smart cot. So we got the smart cot. I got the van, drove it to St. George, got a night's sleep, drove it to Boulder, caught a flight like eight hours later, to here, where we are, in Panama Caddy Beach. Panama Caddy Beach. And it is caddy. And this place, like no other place, has been such a complete bust this year. Until we interviewed. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

The interview with Chris Nikich, Nick Nikich, the one better than better team. Changed me forever.

SPEAKER_01:

I want those track suits.

SPEAKER_04:

They were these. I mean, it's not hot pink, it's not red. It's like a blush or something. I don't know. It's a crazy hot red color.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, like almost like neon. I don't know how you have a neon in like a fabric, but it felt like it radiated light.

SPEAKER_01:

I have to say I had to adjust my phone because it was like throwing off this big moray off the suits. It was crazy.

SPEAKER_04:

They of all the interviews I've done in my life. And of all the interviews I've done in my life, I think I was most taken back by the lack of visual disability in these people that were are considered intellectually disabled, or I don't even know what you want to say it, just normal freaking people. And they're doing an Iron Man this weekend.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

It blew me away.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, it it's so interesting because when we think about people who are intellectually disabled, people in the Special Olympics, so often we expect uh people to show what they are. I well people expect to be able to see your disability on you, but trying to put that kind of pressure on people that if I can't tell that you have a disability, that means you don't have one is it it was eye-opening tonight to see people who don't necessarily show that disability on their sleeves and understand they have to go through life where people don't know and and can't fully understand without being told the the struggles that they face.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and they also don't believe it, you know, even if they were told, and you you I mean, they were articulate, they were telling their story and and amazingly articulate and the things that they talk about what they had to endure is an Iron Man, if not ten more, you know. So it's it's pretty wild to have that room that we had with them and have that time with them and and watching them interact, you know, it was amazing.

SPEAKER_04:

And we got to meet Chris and Nick. Chris is the first person to finish an Iron Man, and I don't I I I hate to say this, I don't know what the right term is because I just look at Chris as a guy, but intellectually disabled or ID, and it's the terms have changed over the years and stuff like that. But just this guy that fin was the first one to finish an Iron Man, and it was back in 2020, and then he's done the Chicago Marathon. He was the keynote speaker at running USA. And be honest, were you a little worried that he was the keynote speaker at running USA? Like that's a hard job, and he crushed it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, he crushed it. Well, it's it's so much like I wouldn't I wouldn't want to be under the pressure of having to be the keynote speaker. I couldn't do it, and and watching him come up there and just be a natural hit him and Nick got up together and and nailed it.

SPEAKER_04:

And we were lucky enough to get to do the A V for that. We do A V, by the way.

SPEAKER_03:

Um, we do. I you know what? I almost forgot we also do the Denver metro area.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. But um, but that was back then, and it was like this thing that they said it's gonna be a movement, and then tonight, was it not amazing to see that it it's not gonna be a movement, it is a movement, and they're bringing 15 people to the table and guides, and it turns out one of our friends, Daniel Alamon, Alamon, Alamon, Alamon, from who Louis, yeah, but from uh Cattanooga episode Catanooga, and if you haven't heard that, go back an episode, and he's guiding one of them, and he kind of brought it all together, and what a cool thing, and what a great opportunity to meet all those people tonight.

SPEAKER_03:

And I I think Daniel is so two of the people we interviewed, Alamon, uh, is Noah and Esme. And I he I think Daniel is helping guide each of them in a leg.

SPEAKER_01:

Is that what do I understand that correctly? I think that's what it is, but I I mean I want to talk about Esme. I mean, she was giving us times of her halves.

SPEAKER_04:

509 at a 70.3. It's crazy. She beats me by 2.5 hours.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I mean, that's nuts. And and you know, she talked, it was really cool some of the things she was saying about where she comes from and and how things are different here with her being able to go out and do this. I mean, it's it's pretty moving to hear that where you come from.

SPEAKER_04:

And we got to interview Chris's mom, and she was not she was not excited about being interviewed because I said she tried to. Well, Chris's interview, he just referred how important his mom was, and so I was like, Mom, you're up. And she's like, No, no, no, I don't do that. We're like, mom, you're up, and then she did it and she spit hot fire. Absolutely. And the most important thing she said, I was like, Why do you do all this? And she said, I'm a mom. Yeah. Which was cool. It is cool.

SPEAKER_03:

What a cool night in Panama Caddy Beach. Well, something that Nick said tonight, uh, Chris's dad, Nick, because we interviewed his cousin Nick as well. Uh but uh whenever he was talking about, I I believe this is Special Olympics um uh designations was like uh ID two and ID one. And it's it's so interesting that's not uh terms that I had heard before. And their their goal, not not even their goal, what they're gonna do this weekend is set a brand new world record at the Iron Man for ID two for men and ID one for men and women. And he was like, the only reason we're not setting one for ID two for women this weekend is because we haven't yet found the uh person with ID two, the woman with ID two who wants to do this, but we are going to find her. So if you're listening to this and you have anyone in your life who's like, Oh, I think I could do an I uh Iron Man, you're inspired to do an Iron Man with someone who has ID2 or is in that category, man, one percent better. That crew, that's where you need to find yourself.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, amazing people. I I thought tonight of everything I've done in all my years was one of the most cool nights. And Eddie was floating around the room shooting behind the scenes content. Yeah, it was really that made it feel super important.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and watching all the interactions between them. I mean, it they're one big family. You know, that's that's what it is. It's a family. And uh, you know, seeing Esme rub his back when he was he got a little verclimped, I think, when the mom was talking. And so, you know, it's just everybody is it seemed like it was important to them to be there tonight, too.

SPEAKER_04:

I think so. And I don't want to leave out Jill Walker uh separate of everything we just talked about. We shot an interview with her, and she's doing her 100th Iron Man this weekend at Iron Man Florida, and that's kind of a big deal, huge, and then two things that jumped off the page to me about Jill Walker is she said, I said, What's your most memorable moment? And it was the same moment for me, one of my most memorable moments, and it was a a guy named Leo Bourgeois who DNF'd one year by like 15 seconds and came back and finished at Iron Man, Texas. And the fact that she brought that up, I was like, How do you know that? Yeah, and then the other thing, her first triathlon was 2006, Iron Man 70.3 Florida at Disney, and that was my first triathlon. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, and sorry, uh to clarify with Leo, she met Leo, she saw found him on the Facebook group, and like kind of was like, Oh, if you see me, I'm wearing the uh chocolate milk uh jersey, uh say hey, and he saw her and was like, Oh, hey, Jill, and she was like, Leo, and they did two laps together, and then she waited at the finish line to cheer him in uh when he actually finished, when he when he made the cutoff, I should say, because he finished the other time, but when he made the cutoff, and then Jill's barometer for how successful her race is is how many dogs she pets on course, which is kind of whack.

SPEAKER_01:

That's that's kind of your rule, too.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, but I was like, that's pretty impressive. I think she might have pet my dogs in Court d'Alene.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow, so wow, and her PR, which is how many dogs she's pet, is 200.

SPEAKER_04:

But that was a four-loop course, so she's gonna have a hard time beating that. But I know a lot of people brought their dogs for her to pet this weekend. What a special day here in Panama Kitty Beach.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's just started, it's just started, so it just started.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it's been a crazy few months. Sorry for the super strung out, wacky podcast, but we had to cover nine months of events. Yeah, it's we've been we've been busy. But the off season's coming, and we're gonna ski like crazy. Oh, yeah, and this podcast turns into how to ski it, follow how to ski it. Go follow how to ski it, please. And don't worry that there hasn't been an episode for eight months. It's fine. It's fine. We're still in the mountains.

SPEAKER_03:

Julian, any thoughts?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, no, day after day we bust it out and we keep going, and that's what we do. And um, no, it's been wonderful, and we're happy to keep doing it.

SPEAKER_03:

Do you know why that keeps cutting out?

SPEAKER_04:

I love that guy.

SPEAKER_03:

It's a good guy. You know, we'll keep him around.

SPEAKER_04:

So, um, god damn it. I already made the high the song and I already forgot what it was called.

SPEAKER_03:

Isn't it called uh I don't fuck around?

SPEAKER_04:

It's it's do what you love, love what you do. I had it that I had the AI make that song when it was a lot happier about my position and life. It's been a hard few weeks. I made it on the flight to Kona.

SPEAKER_01:

So you know what we ought to go do is is uh turn this off and go swim out to the buoy like we do at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_04:

Jump off the pier. Yeah. Alright, so scratch that song. This is called Jump Off the Pier. Do it, you coward.

SPEAKER_05:

Five hundred cats in the fanny.

Contributor

Dave Downey

Host
Contributor

Dylan Camacho

Co-host
Contributor

Ryan Kelly

Co-host