Nutritional Revolution Podcast

Holiday Replay: Ultrarunner Kilian Korth, A Master of 200s

• Season 5 • Episode 166

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To close out 2025, we are replaying a couple of our most popular episodes, starting with our conversation with Kilian Korth, ultrarunner and expert in the 200-mile distance, who set the record for the Triple Crown of 200s in 2025.

Kilian Korth lives and trains in Western Colorado, spending time traversing mountain ridges and desert canyons alike. He is an ultra runner and full time coach, focusing on the 200 mile distance and other multi-day efforts. This weekend he became the Moab 240 champion AND Triple Crown Winner, setting a new record after winning the 2025 Bigfoot 200 and Tahoe 200. We chatted with Kilian about some interesting nutrition and mindset strategies he uses, as well as achieving this monumental goal. Other notable running achievements include:

  • 1st place, DC Peaks 50 Mile, 2022
  • 1st place, Mogollon Monster 100, 2024
  • 1st place, Red Rock Canyon 100K, 2024 
  • 2nd place, Bigfoot 200, 2023

Ultimately he wants to evolve and strive toward longer and longer distances, eyeing some of the notable long trail FKTs in the United States and elsewhere, like the Colorado Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and Appalachian trails. 

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Hello everybody and welcome back to the Nutritional Revolution podcast. Today we have for you guys Killian Korth and he lives in trains in Western Colorado, spending time traversing mountain ridges and desert canyons alike. He's an ultra runner and full-time coach focusing on the 200 mile distance This year he became the Moab 240 champion and triple crown winner, setting a new record after winning the 2025 Bigfoot 200 and Tahoe 200. We chatted with Killian about some interesting nutrition and mindset strategies he uses as well as achieving this monumental goal. Ultimately, he wants to evolve and strive toward longer and longer distances, eyeing some of the notable long trail FKTs in the United States and elsewhere, like the Colorado Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and the Appalachian Trail. This is a fascinating episode, learned some unique things that Killian does that I have not heard other athletes doing, so enjoy the episode. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Nutritional Revolution podcast. We have for you guys, Kilian Korth. Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for inviting me on. I'm excited to chat with you. We are excited to geek out on all things nutrition, hydration, all the nuggets. um But as our listeners know, we like to start our episodes off with our two truths and a lie. So I'm going to let you break those down for me. Sure, I'm just gonna make the three statements and then I'll just, you know, I won't add anything else to them. All right, on a trip to Ireland when I was six, I nearly fell from the steps atop the cliffs of the Ski-Leg Islands, which are known for being a filming location in the most recent Star Wars trilogy. I have a 10 inch scar on my back from where my parents accidentally ran me over with a tandem bicycle on July 4th when I was 11. And then when I recently got an allergy test, I was allergic to 55 out of 55 potential allergens they tested for. Oh my God. Woof. Okay. If that is, that is true, I'd be very fascinated to learn more about that. Um, I hope your parents didn't run over you with a tandem bike. That sounds horrible. Um, man, these are very specific too. Um, I kind of hope for your own sake, I hope the allergy one is a lie. So I'm going to go with that. But don't don't tell me the answer and we will reveal it at the end of the episode for the listeners. All right. Those are going to be some fun stories at the end of the episodes. Hang on, folks, because I'm just as excited and curious as you are. Will you killian first kind of take us? Obviously, we're going to touch on Tahoe 200, then kind of. relatively fast turnaround doing Bigfoot 200 and just hammering both of those. So before we get into all of that, do you want to share with us a little bit of your background and what got you interested in running and running very long distances? Sure, so I was a swimmer all the way through college. I was a competitive swimmer basically from the age of eight to 22. ah Swimming is a really, really hard sport. It's low impact, so you can train constantly. ah And so when I finished swimming, ah I still had the appetite of a swimmer. And so I kind of realized quickly, I was like, need to do something else or I'm going to... uh grow some pant sizes here very fast. So signed up for a marathon, this is 2018, and then ran that marathon, it a road marathon, but it was in the mountains of Virginia. So I had a lot of climbing and then signed up for 53 months after that and 103 months after that. So it quickly dove into the ultra running side of things. And now that I'm a coach, I'm like, that was a really dumb way to do it. So was too quickly, too fast of an entry into the long distances. But... You know, I've kind of had an endurance background my whole life. My family's been super active. I mean, when I was the summer, I turned seven. So, or I'm sorry, the summer I turned eight, but we started when I was seven. My family and I, my parents and my brother and I bicycled from Fort Collins to Seattle. So, you know, 46 days on bikes carrying all of our own stuff. So I don't think my parents were like, you know, we're going to create great endurance athletes, but I see a direct continuation from that to what I'm interested now. Um, early on in my ultra running career, I kind of knew that I would be focusing on the longer distances, you know, obviously a hundred miles is a long ways, but you start doubling it and tripling it and you're, you're talking, you know, 200, 300 miles, multiple days dealing with sleep and stuff. And so I kind of knew, you know, I'm not the fastest, you know, I'm never going to be an elite marathon or, or, you know, doing these runnable hundreds and 14 hours, anything like that. But, uh, I knew that I had. know, the willpower to keep moving when things would get really hard. And so that sort of drew me towards the longer distances. And so for the past, this is my fourth year focusing on the 200 mile distances. And I sort of see myself getting into longer trail, FKT, so fastest known time attempts, things like that. But uh yeah, the multi-day events are certainly where kind of my focus is and where my heart lies for the time being. That's amazing. Where does that mental willpower to continue on and keep pushing through 100 miles come from or 200 miles? Yeah, I mean, part of it is probably, I think part of it's just innate. Like uh when I was three years old and I was in swim lessons, uh you know, we got these like patches for how far you swam. like 200 meters, 500 meters, that sort of thing. And the older kids, like 12 year olds, 10 year olds were getting the thousand meter patch. And so when I was three, I was like, I'm going to do that. And so it took me two hours or something, but I swam a thousand meters and I was three years old. so, uh you know, it's like, I think that was There's something innate where I was just like, I knew that I had this ability to push through that kind of thing. And then obviously the experiences with bike trips um as a kid definitely, you know, fostered that even further. And then the discipline required to be a collegiate swimmer and to go through high school, know, in high school, I was swimming nine times a week in practice. And so would wake up at three 30 in the morning and I would eat breakfast and I would sleep for 40 minutes on the way to swim practice, swim for two hours, go to school. So for two hours after school. so like the discipline needed to train for these things was just a part of my life basically from the time that I can remember to now. So ah yeah, I think a mixture of genetics lucky with the kind of innate ability to do that and then just continuing to foster it as I've grown older. Yeah. Do you feel like the collegiate sports setting helped from like a nutrition pre and post fueling prep for what you're doing now? No. Yeah, no. Yeah, my, I feel like when I was in college that I ate anything and everything and didn't notice any difference in how it affected me. So I was like literally eating, know, heaping bowls of ice cream from my dining hall every single day. And you know, I'm never gaining weight and I'm not waking up feeling like garbage, you know? But then, you know. I think everybody has this experience, know, mid to late twenties, or most people do, where you just like things start to slow down a little bit. And then all of a sudden I'm dealing with chronic inflammation and, you know, I'm like all of a sudden intolerant to gluten, like all of these things where uh there's like big changes that have occurred in my diet over time. yeah, essentially nothing that I was doing in college uh has any bearing on the way that I think about food and nutrition now. yeah, a big, big evolution. think in endurance nutrition in general, even in the last five years, for two years, it's changed so much. so OK, so let's start diving into your 2025 season and we can jump maybe to the Tahoe 200, which was June. Correct. And then we then you took on Bigfoot 200, which was just this. We're recording this in August, end of August. But that was just a couple of weeks ago. Right. like August 11th or something like that. So with that, okay. So first let's talk about Tahoe 200. Let's back it up prep wise. What did your, or I should say, how did your nutrition change in maybe like the week or couple weeks leading up to something like Tahoe 200? Do you change your nutrition at all? No, can I go back a little further to kind of my evolution and like how I've, how I feel for these things over the, over the years, because that's, that's sort of, that'll get me to the answer to, to, your question really. Um, so I was actually a vegetarian for a while. and I think I quickly realized I was like, this is not optimal for recovery and that type of thing. I'm sure that you can do it, you know, but I wasn't willing to put in the work to like get the amount of protein and that sort of thing. So I then changed, started incorporating meat back into my diet probably in like 2020. And then, you know, when I was looking at getting into the two hundreds, the best guy at the time and one of my, you know, the people I look up to in this work, name is Mike McKnight, he has a low carb diet. And so he was kind of one of the pioneers of that for endurance sports and talked about how it reduced inflammation and that sort of thing. So I was interested in trying that out. So in 2021, I basically went full ketogenic for a little while. So like no carbohydrates, totally focusing on burning fat. And then over time and the nomenclature for these things changes, but basically what I'm calling it now and what other people in the sport and I think probably outside of it too are calling it as like optimized fat metabolism. So OFM where uh You know, I periodize my carbohydrates around large efforts and, um, you know, on recovery days, I'm probably getting, you know, less than 30 grams of carbs. Uh, so it's like, but, but then on a day where I've got a big six hour run, I'm getting, you know, more than 500. So it's kind of all over the place there, but really focusing on protein intake. You know, I try to get a minimum of a gram per pound of body weight per day. So kind of moving forward with that, I've noticed, um, you know, much better recovery, especially from like lifting sessions and then big efforts running. And so ah with that sort of long-winded answer in the lead up to Tahoe, my feeling has been really consistent basically from the start of this year. I try to eat essentially only whole foods. So I'm not eating really anything processed and it's a lot of fats, a lot of cheese, red meat and a lot of protein. know, eggs. ah I do a protein shake every day, because it's like the only thing that I get that's sweet ever. So it's just kind of nice to have like some cocoa flavored ah whey powder. ah And then around bigger efforts, I'll do fruit and that sort of thing for my carbohydrates. I will add in rice or potatoes every now and then. I mentioned earlier that like I took a long enough break from gluten that like it's no longer an option. The last time I had a pita, it was like I'd been poisoned. So that's like. It's going to happen again. But uh in the lead up to Tahoe, don't change anything from my daily routines. I'm not like carb loading or adding in anything else. I like to keep things really consistent so I know exactly what's gonna happen with my digestion overnight. know when everything will be taken care of so that I'm ready to run. ah I don't like to mess with things too much. will. like the morning of the race, know, I'm eating a much bigger breakfast than is normal. um typically I do a pound of ground beef, a half cup of rice and some cheese and butter and stuff and just kind of mix that all together. So I'm getting fat and carbohydrates and that sort of thing. So a little bit unconventional in that way, but yeah, really consistent is kind of my philosophy with the diet. Wow, okay, so I have so many questions on all that. Okay, no, but that's really helpful and like, yeah, awesome information. So, okay, first question, gluten. When you say you felt awful, what are your symptoms when you get gluten, as I call it? Yeah, so I was, uh the last time I ate any gluten, was in Greece and I was like, screw it, I'm gonna eat a pita, know, I'm on vacation. And uh I, like my fingers swelled up, my feet swelled up, I had brain fog, like my joints felt all creaky and awful. Like I was going through this museum, this awesome museum that I would have loved to enjoy, but I was like having to read all the information like multiple times to actually like understand it. So it was... I don't even exaggerate really when I was like, was like minorly poisoned. It was rough. And I think I never had that as a kid. So I think that's just a result of taking multiple years away from it. Yeah, yeah. The gluten thing is very interesting. I'm diagnosed celiac actually shortly after I got out of high school and we have athletes who are celiac getting diagnosed much later in life. But I know the symptoms can be so all over the board. I had one uh client where they give her husband cut a piece of gluten bread, and then she used the same knife. She would be like vomiting. Like it was Like, you know, there's just so many different levels to it. But, um, so I do think, I think a lot of athletes actually, well, just people are misdiagnosed with celiac and they tell, you know, they get told it's like IBS or something like that. And to find out, because it can be certainly damaging to the intestinal lining. Um, okay. And then jumping back to the keto stuff, I'm so curious. This is very fascinating to me because this is kind of like opposite of what we hear a lot of our guests share and talk about. And so. When you initially transitioned to keto, more ketogenic years back, how did your performance feel? So I did it during my off season. So it's not like I was doing it during a really high volume training period, which is definitely what I would recommend if that's what people are interested in doing. So I didn't notice anything too much like while I was transitioning, you people talk about like the keto flu and I didn't have much of that. Within about two weeks, I noticed the cool thing about being like fully ketogenic is that my energy level throughout the day was like perfectly level. No spikes, no lows, anything. And like, I would say like my energy level right now is pretty level, but I still don't have, it's not like a perfect straight line like it was, which that was really nice being fully keto. What I will say is like, you know, at the top end of like speed workouts, that type of thing, is like I had much less pop. And so when I was training, uh I probably waited too long to kind of explore adding in more carbohydrates again. Mm-hmm. But, you know, I was kind of obsessed with this idea of like, wow, I can just do all of these things fasted and my body's just gonna like pick on my fat and deal with it. Like, so it sort of became an obsession, which ultimately wasn't, you know, optimizing for performance at races or for these long runs or anything. But it was a good way to learn about how, you know, all of these energy systems are working when you're doing these things. And so it probably took about a year of experimenting with like super low carb to then start adding back in, you know, the typical running foods like gels and fruit and other kinds of, you know, low inflammatory options for carbs. Yeah, awesome. And out of curiosity, did you do any Fatmax testing like before or after the... Okay, I'd be curious if it moved that. My propensity to actually like do the lab tests on myself in all of the ways is pretty low. I'm like, it's it, cause it's just mostly worked out for me when I've been experimenting. So it's like when it's been working, I just haven't been like, I want to go pay for this extra thing, you know, to learn things that I already feel like I've got a handle on. Yeah, totally. I think there's a lot to be said for that. There are, I think, a smaller handful of athletes that are very attuned to listening to their body and the responses and knowing how to manage those properly. And that's really important. you can, when you can do that properly, you can, I think you can really excel well because you like, yeah, like you said, you know what's working for your body or not. So as we approach Tahoe 200 and kind of coming off of the ketogenic but then incorporating some more periodization of like higher carb and lower carb days. Does that mean like tapering into 200? Does that mean you're doing a higher, I'm sorry, higher fat, lower carb diet? Yeah, typically, mean, the periodization follows just kind of like an intuitive structure. So when my intensity gets lower, my carbohydrate intake gets lower too. ah But, you know, I feel like, you know, I basically trained for Tahoe from March all the way through to the end of May. So, you know, your body is so used to what's happening at that point that like, I'm not worried about showing up on race day being like, oh no, what if in the... past two weeks of tapering my body all of a sudden became intolerant to burning carbs and stuff like that. So it's just, I feel like you practice enough on the long runs that it just all kind of uh takes care of itself on race day or it should if you've put in the amount of time and effort that I typically have. Yeah, yeah. So, okay, so touching a little bit more on this because this is, think, very fascinating to me, but I think also a lot of our listeners, because again, we don't have as many athletes on that are following a little bit more higher fat or focusing more on that. So on a day to day training, if you've got a zone to easy run planned, does that mean are you doing any fueling at all during or is it based off of duration? Are you going? purely no carbs during something like that that's more aerobic. Yeah. So my rule of thumb for myself, and typically what I tell the athletes I'm working with, depending on, uh, what their goals are, is that any run over two hours feel like you're going to feel on race day. Um, and then for, you know, so if I'm, if all I have is an hour and a half long zone one, zone two run that day, I don't, I'll do that fasted. I'll feel fine. I will eat essentially no carbs. The only carbs I'm going to get that day are from the milk and my protein shake. ah And then if, but, know, it's kind of rare that I have those days. Cause like typically my zone one, zone two run will be scheduled with a lift. And so around lifting, I'll typically intake quite a bit of fruit so that I'm getting some carbs before and after my lift. And so ah it's, it's periodized both around the running and around the strength training. And so I think that, you you really, the goal with the optimized fat metabolism is obviously to, you know, One, bonk proof yourself in a race so that if you're having stomach issues, can't eat, your energy level will be lower than you want it to be, but it's not gonna be like rock bottom, uh as if you were only burning carbs. But also is to keep your muscle glycogen topped off as much as possible. And so like with strength training, anything that's like ratcheting up the intensity, I want my muscle glycogen stores to never be dipping so low that... uh my body is wondering what to do about the extra 20 % of energy that I'm gonna be getting from carbs, even if I'm a super efficient fat burner getting 80 % from fat. So even at that like 80-20 ratio, which I don't even know that that's where I'm at. That's just kind of where someone really optimized for fat metabolism will be. I am still attempting to keep that 20 % of muscle glycogen like as topped off as I can. Yeah, yeah, I think that's smart. And the intestinal receptors too, from a carbohydrate absorption lens, I think are important there. I think there was a study, was probably five or more years ago now, where they were looking at full ketogenic diets leading up to a race and then only using carbs during the race. And there was just a massive amount of GI distress because the carbohydrate receptors weren't upregulated. what is the, well, first off, what time does Tahoe 200 start? during the day. it a night start or a morning? thankfully their morning starts. is 9 a.m. Okay. What are you doing for dinner the night before the race? uh I have the most boring uh meal plan of all time. I pretty much eat the same thing every day, which is a pound of ground beef split into four burgers and then some cream spinach that's essentially like an Alfredo sauce and like cheeseburgers. And so that's what I do before the race too. Wow, this is so this is like blowing my mind because this is totally opposite of like what all the literature says and like what a lot of athletes have shared with us. So until do you ever experience GI issues on race day? Like it seems like your guts got to be very trained to tolerate that amount of fats. Yeah, I mean, I'd say infrequently since I've transitioned to the OFM kind of model, like really infrequently, I used to have stomach issues a lot more than I do now. And I mean, that's not to say I'm immune. I think things can just happen on the day that are totally unknown variables that can cause problems. But I mean, like I mentioned earlier, my breakfast the morning of I'm doing some carbohydrates, but I really noticed that if I take in carbohydrates at night that I sleep a lot. So I just don't, I'm not messing with that. You know, going into a night when ultimately I'm gonna find it hard to sleep anyway. You know, it's like I'm not gonna mess around with carbs when I know they'll affect my sleep. Yeah, you would be a very fascinating athlete to have in a research study. I would love that because yeah, just like, yeah, so much literature stuff is popping into my brain where it's like carbohydrates consumed in the two hours before bedtime will support sleep quality. It's like, but for you, it's totally opposite, right? And I wonder, yeah, is that because you've transitioned and trained your body more for a higher fat diet versus probably the participants in this study? we're not trained for a higher fat diet. I mean, I also think that there's just enough biological variability that there's going to be people who are tolerating kind of everything across the spectrum. know, I think I mean, I know other ultra runners who I would describe as like essentially garbage disposals, you know, like they can eat literally anything all the time and stomach whatever. And it's like, that is not me. It's never been me. So, you know, I think the nutrition puzzle, especially for endurance sports is just so individual. Yeah. like I'm there's only a few things that I'd be willing to say where I'm like I would universally recommend this to people and I always tell this to my athletes, you know, it's like I'm very I'll qualify all of my statements with like this is what I do. These are my opinions, but there's just so little that I'd be willing to be like everyone should be doing this, you know, so uh Just to just to qualify everything I'm saying here with that caveat for sure Yeah. Well, and I would, yeah, I'd kind of, I'd back you in the sense that every piece of literature out there is based off of usually a small, like for the majority, a smaller sample size. And there's always outliers in that. And yeah, and maybe it's like only 20 year old males that are collegiate athletes that we're basing some information off of. So it is certainly important to test on oneself and know what works for you and makes sense for you. So yeah. don't think there's that much, there's more coming out, but there's just not that much that's been studied about ultra running specifically. And like, you know, it's, it's going to be so different for a 50 mile or it's going to be different for a hundred. And then it's going to be super different for 200. Like once you start going for multiple days. So it's like, even within the sport itself, I don't think that even if, even if we had like really good studies to support stuff, like I doubt that there would be these universal recommendations, you know, cause it's going to be. so different to fuel for a hundred miler that's gonna take 14 hours versus a hundred miler that's gonna take 30 hours versus a 200 that's taken two days. It's like kind of all over the map. And that's what's fun about it is because you kind of just have to accept the unknown. Whereas like with Ironmans and marathons and stuff like that, I do feel like we kind of have it down. But with ultra running, there's so many different approaches that people are successful with. And there's a lot of wiggle room to experiment, which is, That's what I enjoy as both a coach and an athlete. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is a fascinating space for sure right now. OK, so as we get into Tahoe 200, so we talked about your night before morning breakfast. How much time are you giving yourself to digest that breakfast? OK, and then anything coming in between that breakfast and the start line? Yeah, typically in the hour before the race, uh I use precision gels uh and I'll slowly sip on one of the 90 gram ah carb precision gels in the hour before the race. nice. um then you start off the race. What's going, what are you starting with? What are you, how are you transporting your nutrition? What does that look like? in my running vest and I'll use a mixture of gels and liquid calories. This has also been a huge evolution for me this year where I used to think like, for these long races, I want to focus on real food, but that is not the approach that has been successful this year. So I would say 90 to 95 % of my calories are coming from gels and liquid calories with a tiny portion coming from like some buttery cheesy rice that I'll get from my crew when I see them. And it is nice to every now and then to just like put something solid in your stomach. I think it does make you feel a little better, but uh like during the run. So ah for Tahoe specifically, I was probably getting between 70 and 80 grams of carbs an hour for about the first hundred miles. And then, you know, typically as your intensity ratchets down, I'll go down to about 60 grams of carbs an hour. And that's ah once we get to big foot is that was a little bit mirrored. There as well, even though I was actually probably a little higher for the first hundred miles to Bigfoot. But yeah for Tahoe 60 or 70 to 80 for the first hundred miles during the day every three hours I would take a hundred milligrams of caffeine from a gel and then during the night every other hour I would take a hundred milligrams of caffeine Switch back during the next day and then during the last night. So like the last 12 hours or so of a race I just just going all in on caffeine, like whatever I need, energy drinks, that sort of thing. It's just like, I'm trying to keep my brain alive as much as possible. And so I uh estimated, and I think it's pretty close to accurate that for Tahoe over the course of 52 hours, I had 3,100 milligrams of caffeine. ah Yeah, a crazy amount. uh But almost, I mean, almost all of that was focused in the last 12 to 20 hours. probably 2000, 1500 to 2000 milligrams of it in the last chunk of the race. So you're just like trying to get yourself across the finish line as much as possible. Yeah, wow, that's incredible. And with the caffeine, is that a precision, caffeinated precision or? so almost all from caffeinated precision. will, I've done um during Tahoe, I had three Celsius energy drinks, which are like 200 milligram doses. But that's a little bit riskier because it's just like, it does mess up your stomach. And like every time I've chugged one of those for like 30 seconds, I'm like, I'm going to vomit or die, you know? And then it like all kind of calms down, but sometimes it's worth it. And I'll save it towards the end of a race because you just need. like a big dose now, like I'm getting, you know, I'm only sleeping five minutes during these things. And so like before I took my five minute dirt nap for both Tahoe and Bigfoot, I took a 200 milligram dose of caffeine from a Celsius and then slept for five minutes and woke up feeling, you know, as refreshed as you could expect. my gosh, that's wild. Is it literally five minutes? Like you set a timer and that's all you look. it's actually six minutes is what my brother has set the timer for so that it gives me a minute to fall asleep. But yeah, roughly roughly five minutes. Wow, that is and how do you determine when you're going to do that? Your five minute dirt now. once the brain, it's like once the brain's not working anymore, like I'm like swerving and I can't, my foot's just like not going where I expect my foot to go and I can't stay awake. often I'll literally like have my eyes shut on the trail for 20 seconds or something and I'll be like, okay, well, this is the moment. And I don't plan my sleep. So I do wait until I know that I can fall asleep and it works the best in Tahoe. But I I hit the dirt and I was in the nether world for five minutes, like blackness, know, like I had dreams, it was crazy. And then I woke up and you know, it's kind of like, you know, your computer's freaking out or something and it's just pressing the on off switch. It's like, that's what's happening in the brain and it just needs a quick reset. Wow, that is amazing. em And so you talked about carbon take per hour. What about fluids and sodium? How are you thinking about that? Yeah, so I have never really had issues with my electrolyte balance. And so I haven't been, you know, the most mindful out of, you know, I have athletes that I work with who we have worked together to come up with like a more specific plan than even what I have. But typically I am getting, you know, probably point eight, my flasks are point eight liters and I'm probably getting close to point eight. So 800 milliliters of fluid with 500 milligrams of sodium an hour. Mm. Mm-hmm. Wow. Increase during the day, decrease during the night for oh heat and it getting colder, but that's probably the average. nice. Do you find that you're able to tolerate less fluid towards the like back half of the race or are you trying to keep it the same? uh will say like typically as your intensity drops off and you just slow everything slows down, you need less fluid. I look often look forward to the night when I just don't have to take care of myself quite as specifically, you know, cause you're just drinking a lot less when it's, you know, 30 degrees cooler. ah But no, I think the, the fluid has never really hasn't often been an issue with me. I've had a couple runs where I've over salted and that can cause some, you know, some pretty significant GI distress, but that's, think that in my entire, you know, since 2018, that's happened two times. So I've just made that mistake, but for the most part, the fluid doesn't give me any issues. Wow, that's great. And have you done any like sweat testing to determine your needs or is it more base? I yeah. said, it's like I haven't had problems. I'm working with Precision now, so I am affiliated with them and I think um they would support me getting a SWOT test, they might foot the bill for that, in which case I'd probably go for it, but it just hasn't been an issue, so it hasn't been something that I've been like, I need to address this. Yeah, yeah, that's great. OK, so we talked about fueling hydration. What are you once you cross that finish line of Tahoe 200? What are you taking in any recovery? You have zero appetite. What is that like? Honestly, part of the relief of finishing these things is just like, okay, I don't have to take care of myself for, like you're, force feeding yourself for, you know, the last day of a race. Typically it's not like anything sounds appetizing, but that being said, it's like, know, you need to eat. So I'll have a protein shake. Typically I can manage to get to get that down in the first hour after finishing. And then basically the only thing I'm focusing on in the week following is like protein, protein, protein. I want my muscles to rebuild. Let's like give the body the ability to do this. so, um I mean, following Tahoe had, you my typical kind of burgers type of meals I had the day after I went to breakfast, two hours later went out to lunch. So the night you finish typically your appetite is kind of nothing, you know, it's like everything just feels super off. But then the days following, I have just a week where I'm like, whatever I feel like eating within the parameters of my diet, know, but however much I feel like eating, like it's gonna happen, you I'm just gonna eat. And so like getting in as many calories as possible almost, I think is pretty good. And then just focusing on protein, you know, I've, read a study, uh there was only an N of two. So was like two athletes in the Wasatch hundred, but their metabolism was ramped up for the next five days, you know, like it was this very slow drop. in like how many calories they're burning. So I think it's a really important post race to be mindful. Like let's refuel, let's get the building blocks in place so that you can actually rebuild from us, especially since I had the two other races after Tahoe. So uh with the race series is even more important. After Moab, I may just be like, whatever. But uh after Tahoe, with Bigfoot looming. Yeah. in less than two months, was like, we need to, this is non-negotiable, you know? yeah, yeah, hammer home the recovery. On that note, do you ever utilize any supplements like omega-3s or performance like creatine or beta-alanine or any of those? creatine every day, Omega-3, vitamin D every day. I take a supplement called Tongat Ali, which is like a male hormone support. It was first studied by the NBA. And then recently I started, so I am also affiliated with Currens, but I started taking them before I was affiliated with them. But it's like a black currant extract from New Zealand. And I have noticed significant benefits. So that's, That's kind of my routine. I also take a glucosamine supplement. My dog has arthritis, so I was like, maybe this would help me too. So I take that and yeah, I mean, it's hard to know when you're doing so much for recovery, it's hard to be like, this thing definitely works. I'm willing to say that about currents, because I noticed on long runs, if I didn't have it, I would be more fatigued and that sort of thing. So I'm willing to that. I'm willing to say it about the Tonga Ali with the... the hormone support, there's some very obvious ah indicators that your testosterone is low or where it needs to be. those are two that I'm willing to be positive about in terms of what I think works. And then creatine has been studied enough that I just don't question it. So I don't have an Andrew Huberman level supplement routine, but I feel like I'm at an adequate place. Nice. Do you, did you notice any water retention when you started creatine? no. No, not really. No. No. OK. I think that's helpful for our listeners to hear because I do think in certainly in cycling and in running, I think there's a lot of fear of this like water weight to power ratio or all of that. And yeah, I think it's. some of that gets overblown, like trying to hit a race weight. I've been the heaviest I've been going into races this year and I felt the best I've ever felt. So I think that people can get sucked into like, I need to be 150 pounds or whatever, but it's like be the weight that you feel the best at. Like that's what's most important. uh I'm definitely thicker and heavier than most runners, but it's working for me. Yeah, I think there's so much to be said for that. I think it's really important that athletes share that too. And then the opposite side of the spectrum too. I know a lot of athletes are starting to open up about whether they're like getting injured or yeah, just immune system and hormones are tanking and yeah, you just don't feel super great. so, yeah, taking care of your body, obviously it pays off as we can see here based off of your performances. So with that turnaround time, Tahoe 200 to Bigfoot 200, What kind of things are you, you mentioned the currants, the other supplements, what other things are you trying to do to really prioritize recovery and supporting performance and prep for Bigfoot? Whether that's Norma Tech Boots, like what does that look like for you? I do have some compression boots that I typically use every day. I have a sauna that I am typically in every day. The sauna after races, feel like is, uh it's almost like magic. Like I get into the sauna limping around and then I get out of the sauna able to walk. Like uh I will proselytize about that for forever. It seems uh too good to be true in some ways. But uh I mean, I... I'm prioritizing rest. It's like after Tahoe, so most people who run Tahoe get some kind of breathing issues because of the pollen. um And there's just so much of it. Like it's just an upper respiratory obstructive issue, but it sucks big time. like I had 70 miles, 20 hours of like oxygen depletion going on. And so it took me a really long time after Tahoe just to feel normal. um I will admit to having a moment of panic the week after where I was like, oh my God, I have another race in seven weeks. What have I done? Like, this is totally insane. But once the breathing came back to normal and all that, was, know, it was my mentality shifted to like, okay, we can do this. Like, I know what's going on. But I mean, Focusing on rest is the main thing. It's like prioritizing sleep, prioritizing doing all the little recovery things that you can do, starting up mobility once it feels like you can tug on your muscles a little bit, that sort of thing. I firmly believe that motion is lotion. So like going on walks, like simple low impact cardio like that before you got back into running. And then with the race series, it's like, just took a, I feel like... I've had to accept like, I'm not going to show up to Bigfoot or Moab in the same shape that I showed up to Tahoe. Like, that's just like, I think is just a fact, you know, it's not arguable. uh And so I was thinking, you know, like in the seven weeks between the races, I'm like, if I can get in training, that'd be great. But ultimately I'm going to optimize for showing up on race day as healthy as possible. So kind of having the mindset that like the rest of my year after Tahoe is about mate. Like we are attempting to hold on to as much of the fitness and the strength that I built up before Tahoe as possible. So kind of just shifting your mindset from this like hammer training to, okay, we're gonna take care of myself as the number one priority and training is gonna be the secondary priority. Yeah, I love that. And so based off of that kind of mindset shift a little bit and going into Tahoe 200, what does anything change going into Bigfoot 200 from a nutrition lens in that week? No. OK. Keeps the same. super consistent. Yeah, it's like, I feel like for me, I know what works now and it's just like, I'm happy eating the same things every day. I'm like really diligent about my diet. So it's just, I'm not adding in new things that could potentially be inflammatory. It's like with endurance sports, especially after one of those races, you've got so much inflammation. It's like, I don't wanna do anything to... uh press the button that could increase that at all. Yeah, yeah, that's smart. OK, so then at Bigfoot 200, uh same dinner the night before, same breakfast, anything different from a fueling lens during the race at all based off of slightly different weather, temperature, terrain. Yeah, um a little bit. I, excuse me, I was feeling really good the first hundred miles. I actually felt pretty good most of the race, but I pretty much average 90 grams of carbs um for the first hundred miles. So I upped the carbohydrate intake a little bit. I started having, wouldn't call it stomach problems. Like I wasn't having to stop and pull over on the trail a whole bunch, but stomach distress, like, you know, kind of feelings. And so I bumped that back down to about 60 for the second half. So. um sort of a similar mirror image of Tahoe, uh with a little bit more aggressive carbohydrate intake on the front end. But other than that, very similar. mean, what, like both of these races, it's just seemed to work, you know? And I'm just not trying to mess with the formula when I feel like I've got this like momentum and it's working. I I said, I'm gonna show up to Bigfoot in worse shape than showing up to Tahoe. And I do think that's. probably true from a physiological perspective, but Bigfoot was the best race of my career. I can't, know, everything went swimmingly. Yeah, amazing. no muscle cramping, just a little bit of that GI, which you managed. then, amazing. Were there hotter sections where you had to prioritize cooling? And if so, how did you do that? No, I got really lucky with temps. So like my high was probably 75 during the day. So pretty easy. know, I feel immune to heat from a mental perspective anyway, because I sauna so much and my sauna gets up to 230. So it's like, if I spend 20 minutes in there at 230 and it's humid and I get out and I'm dying, it's like a hundred degrees feels whatever. But yeah, I got lucky with temps. I finished on Sunday morning. And then later on Sunday when I had some friends finishing, it was like 97. So I missed all of the heat. so, yeah, no, I never focused on cooling or anything. was pretty comfortable the whole time. And similar caffeine consumption too during Bigfoot. Wow. Amazing. Okay. Touching on the sauna since we've talked about it a little bit. Do you do a specific uh heat training protocol or blocks or is it something you just do all the time? Yeah, so typically, mean, almost every day I'll say like probably an average of five times a week, just given that I'm like out and about, you know, some of the time. But I have been spending 20 minutes in there starting around 210, ending around 230 ah with a couple couple steams and intermittently. then uh I drink about a liter of fluid and a thousand milligrams of sodium while I'm in there. And so that has worked. for Moab because it can be a really hot race. I've lowered the temperature a little bit. starting more around like 190, getting up to 210 and uh increased my time. So I'm up to 25 minutes now. And so uh kind of working there. I've gone a little too aggressive with the sauna in the past where like, I was like, I'm gonna train myself to be able to process tons of fluid. And I spent an hour in there and then was like, like my skin like started to like shrivel up. So there's like a balance, know, and you don't want to dehydrate yourself and whatnot, especially since I'm using it mostly for recovery and then that passive heat training. But I mean, I will say after 20 minutes at 230 or 25 minutes with a little lower, it's like I get out and my heart rate is at my lactate threshold. Like I'm at 160 sitting around doing nothing. So, you know, it's. It's been, think, really beneficial just in terms of the mind being totally immune to heat. It just never bothers me. It's never a question. I hope races are hot, because I know it'll affect other people more. And then I'm sure physiologically, your sweat response and all of that's getting trained. And then, like I said, after races, there's nothing better to just loosen everything up. It's not like I want to stretch and tug on things. So it's almost a little bit of a... Miniature cardio with some mobility added on because you just break everything down Yeah, that's great. I love that. um And with the fluid consumption while you're in there, is that like iced down or is that kind of warming up to the temperature? OK, nice. Yeah. use it as like when I get 10 minutes in and I'll drink, I'll take like five sips and then I count my breaths for three minutes and I take five more sips and I like use it as like milestones because sometimes the last 10 minutes is just like miserable. know, I'm like, God, I want to leave. Yeah, yeah, I started bringing in like a hard copy book into the sauna because you can't like bring a phone or anything in there because it and I mean, it ruins the binding for sure. And the book starts to fall apart. But you get to the end of the book. But for some reason, it totally helps like distract my brains. I'm sitting in there with like a shared sauna at our gym and I'll go in there. people will come in and be like, my God, your breathing is so normal. Like, how are you doing that? It's the book is just like so distracting. um yeah, I don't know what, but yeah, sitting in there without a book, I think I would be having to count my breaths too. Yeah, I mean, I'll typically like switch off between kind of trying to meditate my way through it or the floor of my sauna when my level is 230, the floor of my sauna is like 80. So I can keep my phone on the ground and listen to a podcast or something. So I'll do that too for a little bit of, know, to ease the mental anguish. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. um OK. Kind of moving on to kind of outside of race stuff. do you do any regular blood testing to check on lab markers or anything like that throughout your season? No. I saw that in the email he sent me and I was like, I have nothing to add to that, unfortunately. all good. It's all good. I mean, again, you're very good at listening to your body, it sounds like. So there's not like a need to follow up and be like, what's going on? em that one time I had a race where I ended up in the ICU afterwards, because I had some serious breathing issues. This was back in 2023. So I got some blood tests then, and it was pretty interesting. I have a friend who's an ER doctor, and I showed her all the results. And she's like, man, at the end of these things, you're basically dying. Your kidneys are working really hard. So the indicators are like, if this was just normal, you'd be like, someone might be entering kidney failure. There's like, measures of cardiac tissue breakdown, which are like 16 times higher than the normal. And so was having other health problems, but I'm sure that, you know, at the end of these races, if you were to just look inside that the markers would all be like emergency level problems, but obviously with a known cause, you know. Yeah. Yeah. That is fascinating. I have a friend who's a, PA in a cardiology clinic as well. And I remember her, I was telling her about, I think it was creatinine levels and one of my athletes and she's like, my God, that's like levels where we would be treating somebody. Like that's like wild, but, yeah, it is an interesting thing that we, that we put our bodies through. Um, we, have not run 200 miles, but, but, and endurance sports in general. Okay, so we talked about supplements, we talked about recovery, um any strategies or I should say maybe struggles that you experienced with your nutrition journey that just, I mean, over the years that you feel like you've had to tweak? Yeah, definitely. So, I mean, like I said, when I started my ultra running career, I was a vegetarian ah for moral reasons. And I still would agree with all of those arguments I would have made back then, which is why I like, I try to get my meat from local farms where, ah you know, I know the cows are being treated nicely until they're one bad day at the end. ah But all of that aside, ah I think the big lessons for me is like, and I think that this has been ah increasingly talked about is just like, think endurance athletes are probably totally under utilizing protein in a lot of ways. Like I think they're not taking it enough. I know a few different ultra runners who've started working with nutritionists and nutritionists has been like, hey, we're going to address this problem right away. And I mean, if you look at uh ultra runners who have the longest careers, Jeff Browning um being the example that comes to mind, he's very much focused on the protein intake. So I think that's huge. um I think that, ah you know, working with a lot of athletes, it's like, you need to encourage them to experiment as much as possible in training, you know? Like, I think that people, it's hard to encourage that so much, because running stuff is expensive. know, gels are expensive, all these things, but if you want, especially if someone's trying to be competitive. It's like, listen, like this is what has to happen. You can't show up on race day and think I'm gonna fuel with 40 grams of carbs an hour and run a really fast hundred or run an effective 200. Like it's just not gonna work. ah So I think, you know, the experimentation side of things, like be willing to try new things. ah I would say, and with some qualifications that people should embrace caffeine more. It's a legal performance enhancing drug like. Mm-hmm. it's doing a lot of good for you. There's no reason to run 100 and be tired during the night. There's no reason to run a 200 and be tired during the first night. It's just, we can solve that problem. We have the ability to do it. And I think just thinking of fueling, it's sort of, I just think of fueling in the same vein as I think of shoes or packs or the training itself. It's like, all of these are tools. You're assembling a toolkit to be successful. And so trying to, be as objective as you can be about what works. One of the issues I have with talking about nutrition sometimes is that it can get kind of ideological. And it's like, I try to avoid that at all costs. It's like ultra running, to be successful is just like an inherently practical project. can't base it on beliefs. It has to be based on what has actually worked for you. Yeah. I don't know if that actually covered what you asked, but that's that. perfect. I think you bring up a great point, and that is exactly why we do this podcast, because we like to have kind of a 50-50 balance, right? As we have on athletes and we want to know what they're doing in real life, what is actually working. And then we'll have researchers that will present on what's been done in the lab or a controlled setting with a small sample size and what did we find. And yeah, we want to educate our listeners so they can take those two sides of it and apply it how they wish and what makes the most sense for them. And I think you're a fantastic guest to have on because like I said, you're one of the first ones who's really been em kind of more outspoken about doing a little bit higher fat throughout your lead up and yeah, like really strong specific periodization of carbohydrates. So I think that's really, really fascinating and good for our listeners to hear that there's another side out there that... uh they could experiment with that maybe they haven't so far. So I love that. um Yeah, tell us. Yeah, go ahead. are dealing with chronic inflammation, which is part of what urged me to make this, which I think, you know, that is bad in so many ways. You know, it's bad for your longevity as a human being. It's bad for your brain. It's bad for, you know, obviously it's going to be bad for recovery and that sort of thing. So like, if that is an issue, it's like, why not, you know, go outside the bounds of what... ah is thought to be kind of normal or recommended by, you know, such and such authority. Yeah, yeah. And with kind of on the chronic inflammation notes, just for our listeners sake, what kind of things were you noticing or lab tests that showed that you were having chronic inflammation? So was mostly just, again, I'm not the, I don't have the lab tests to back any of this up. So, but it was just, you know, ankles being sore, knees being sore, like all of these types of things, like not recovering how I expected, you know, being at work and like bending down to pick something up and kind of being in a lunge position and noticing that at the bottom of the lunges, like when my knee bottoms out, I like experienced kind of severe pain sometimes, you know? And I'm like, why is this? Like I'm doing all of the things that I should be doing to be strong and ready for this. So. And then, you know, just paying a little more attention to like, okay, so I ate a steak and some potatoes the night before a long run and I felt really good the next day. And then I ate something similar afterwards and I recovered really fast. Or I had pasta and mac and cheese with some protein and some meat, but you know, I noticed that, ah you know, I'm recovering much slower. So kind of just over time, uh you know, listening to those songs and just like, Yeah. of kind of how you feel I think is important. I feel like sometimes I'll ask my athletes I work with, I'll be like, what's the meal that makes you feel the best? ah And if you don't have an answer to that, I think you're not paying enough attention to how it's affecting you. Yeah, I think that's a great question. I love that. So on the coaching side of things, tell us a little bit about your coaching business. Are you taking on any athletes? What is that? Tell. Yeah. I work with Everyday Ultra, Joe Corzine runs Everyday Ultra and I started with them earlier this year. ah And unfortunately I did just close myself off to new athletes since with winning the two races and joining Everyday Ultra and yeah, the last few months have been kind of a whirlwind for me, but I am a full-time coach now for the first time in my life. So that's pretty cool. ah But yeah, I mean, I'm working with a variety of people who are running anywhere from like a 50K up to some other people who are doing the Triple Crown along with me. ah I do have two athletes currently in the Triple Crown, both like fighting to podium for it, one man, one woman. So it'd be cool if I won the Triple Crown and then a couple other athletes that I'm working with were on the podium, that would be pretty fun. ah yeah, I mean, I try to, I think that um Good coaches are uh people who have had struggles in the sport. If you think of team sports, it's not often the best football player, best soccer player that's making the best coach. It's someone who had to work at it. And so I feel like that's kind of what makes me a good coach is that I've, especially for the 200s, it's like I have failed constantly for the past three years before having any taste of success. So it's like, I've just learned a lot along the way and being able to. pass that on to people is very rewarding. Yeah, yeah, the life experience and the navigating and adapting is an amazing skill set. em OK, so I want to let's see, I'll do some final lesson learned. We have a couple audience questions, which we may have answered a couple, but was there any big takeaways from doing the two two hundreds back to back? Yeah, it's hard. That's the biggest takeaway. I don't think at the beginning of the year, I fully realized what I was getting myself into. was like, cause I'd done two hundreds before. And so I kind of knew, you what to expect from one race. But then immediately after Tahoe, was like, Oh my God, like, okay, like this is a different thing because you know, it's a race series. yeah, I mean, I think just, If you're gonna do a race series like this, you just have to accept that the rest of your year after race number one is maintenance. I think it's totally delusional to think you could show up to the last race being as optimized as you were for race number one. So I think accepting that is important. I've talked to my athletes who are doing the Triple Crown about the same thing. It's like safety first perspective. Show up on race day as healthy as possible. the mindset and the ability to push yourself through these things. Like, you know, your fitness is secondary to the fact that you want everything to be solid showing up. And so it's like, that's, think the lesson I would take forward if I was like helping someone try to attempt this is just like, it is about, ah you know, optimizing for race one and then attempting to, you know, halt the slide as much as humanly possible for the rest of the summer. It's not about uh trying to make gains necessarily. That's great. I do see a lot of athletes where they granted it's usually smaller races leading up to like an A race at the end of the summer. Do you have the same thoughts around that if they structure their racing that way? So personally, I'm really not a fan of tuneup races. Like for me, I can't enter a race and think of it as a training run. Like that's just not the way I'm gonna, that's not the way my competitive brain works. It's just not going to happen for me. So I don't do tuneup races, but that being said, that is not a common strategy, like plenty of people do. And I think if you're training for, know, if you're, it's so different than a 200 is so different from even a hundred, you know, like, Yeah. can have successful hundreds a month apart from each other. And I think can pretty much perform equivalently in both. not equivalently, but close to. But you're not suffering the sleep death. You're not taking the next week to just get yourself waking up and not feeling tired, which is all you're doing the first week after a 200 is just attempting to wake up in the morning and be like, I feel kind of normal. ah And so it is really different. So I think if you have shorter goals that take about a day, you can definitely make tune-up races a thing. And I know plenty of really fast, solid athletes that'll use a 50K as a jumping off point for 100, about three, four weeks out. You wanna give yourself time to recover, but you can also get some really good training adaptations from something like that. So it's always a balance, but I'm definitely not opposed to structuring training with a more aggressive approach towards those kinds of tune-up races. Yeah, that's great. Okay, I'm going to jump to our listener uh questions. So I'll go short for once first. Have 200s become more competitive? Yeah, absolutely. Triple Crown record I'm attempting to break was set in 2019. I know Mike McKnight and I think he would agree with me on this. Those races used to be, you used to be able to win them and spend time at aid stations. like, I wouldn't call it casual because he was running fast, but it was more casual. uh These races are now run like hundreds. It is 100 plus sleep deprivation is kind of how I think of it. I mean, my longest aid station stop for Bigfoot was 12 minutes, and my average was two or three minutes. So I'm not spending time not moving, and that's the only reason I won the race actually is aid station stops and efficiency. yeah, 200s are much more competitive now, and I think they will continue to grow as, know, Cocodona 250, the live stream, these types of events become more more popular. Yeah, wow. uh How do you battle the lows during the race? Man, this year I've gotten so lucky. I haven't had any significant lows during these two races, which is just kind of seems like a miracle. I'm like waiting for it to happen. But that being said, you know, it never always gets worse is a cliche, but it's also kind of a truism is that if you're taking care of yourself, you're eating, you're doing what you need to do. You don't have, you know, pulmonary edema. You don't have like something that's going to put you in the ICU after you're done. It's going to get better, you know. It's hard to believe that until you experience it for yourself. And I think that it objectively, physiologically doesn't make that much sense, you know? But I've had races where the first 50 miles, I feel like garbage. And then at mile 150, I'm running nine minute miles. Like I don't understand how that happens. You know, I have no theory of mind or body about what is going on there, but it's true. ah But until you experience it yourself, it's hard to believe that. And so just... I'm a big fan of mantras, thinking about one exact thing. During some races, I've just thought over and over again, the line, I am the task, and trying to separate myself. It's like, I'm not my body, I am just this thing, I am the objective. It's like, the ball in basketball, kind of. yeah, so having mental strategies like that, having a pacer and a crew can really help. Mm-hmm. having company while you're out there and someone to tell you like at your ass and gear if you start being kind of a whiner ah is important. And then, yeah, it's just, it's kind of a matter of experiencing it yourself and knowing what works. I do tell my athletes, it's like, you know, don't do this because it's easy. You you do it because it's hard. The reason you're out there is to experience the low. And so it's hard to pull back in that moment and tell yourself that, but if you can and you can be like, like, The limit is what I want. I'm not here because I wanna be comfortable. I'm here because I want to be uncomfortable. And so the low is almost your reward. If you can kind of, there's so much of this that's mental. And so if you can shift your mindset into thinking about like this kind of awful suffering as being the positive experience that you've been searching for, like that's a good way to come out of it and be like, yeah, embrace this. I love that. That's so great. Do you work with a sports psychologist at all? Do you read any like self-help books or where do you get all this good, good nuggets from just experience? and I mean, I'm a big fan of philosophy um and I meditate. there's like some Buddhist kind of stuff. You you can't suffer if there's no one there to suffer. And I kind of believe that what we think of as the self is an illusion. And so, know, there's certain types of, you know, esoteric beliefs that sort of underpin a lot of my philosophy there. But I mean, I timed, I read, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius in college for the first time. And then I timed a reread of that to coincide with Tahoe. So that was kind of helpful. So I'm a big fan of the Stoics. I do think that they can be a little bit joyless, but uh for this specific endeavor, a lot of what they say, know, be the rock that the waves crash upon, those types of things. um So no sports psychology, but a lot of what you might call ancient wisdom uh that I totally embrace. Amazing. I love that. OK, what tools do you use to plot out your own long adventures when it's not associated with race? Yeah, so if I'm just gonna be running on trail, I really like the app Trail Run Project. That I think has the best and easiest interface in it. It doesn't have all the trails, but it's good for like showing you to a new area that then you can use like Gaia to explore. think Gaia is probably the best. ah If you have like a GPX track you wanna follow or anything, I think that's the easiest. um I'm a big fan of just kind of Googling an area and reading about trip reports, that sort of thing. I love looking at maps, you know, so I've got a lot of those trails illustrated maps in my garage. And typically if I'm gonna go explore a new area, I will buy the map for that area. But yeah, I mean, we are so blessed with like the amount of resources that we have. I always think about people, you know, going to explore remote places back in the day who just had nothing. ah But yeah, I mean, Trail Run Project's my favorite. backcountry ski too, I use OnX Backcountry for backcountry skiing. It's got kind of the best interface for that. And then Gaia for trail running. So there's a whole bunch of kind of GPS tracking options for you out there. All right, and we kind of maybe talked a little bit touched on this, but how do you manage the aid station stops and making them that efficient? So practice one, I mean, I've got a lot of experience in this now. uh Having the right crew, you my mom was crewing for me for Tahoe and Bigfoot and she is just like an unflappably non-stressed individual and is like perfectly organized. So everything when I get into an aid station is set up the exact same every time. So I know exactly what to expect. You know, I go through with my crew the day or two before like what to do at every single aid station that they're gonna see me at. uh at non-crued aid stations. don't really use any aid station food. So I have drop bags. I've got my gels that I'm gonna take for the next section and a little Ziploc. I've got all of my drinks pre-mixed in Nalgene's that I'm just gonna pour into my soft flask and take with me. you know, the logistical side of these races is semi-complicated and somewhat tedious, but you can make steps towards being much more efficient at your aid station stops ah just by, you know, preparing ahead of time. And I mentioned it earlier, but I think it uh is worth focusing on for one second. Like uh at Bigfoot, the guy who came second, his name's Brody. He's only 18, by the way. He's gonna be an insane athlete. He's gonna be so good. He already is really good. But his moving time during the race was more than an hour faster than mine. And the only reason I won is because I stopped for more than two hours less than he did. So. Whoa. it's like aid station efficiency can literally win you races or it can be the reason that you make a cutoff or don't make a cutoff, you know. Wow, that's wild. And so having that plan and detailing all that out, I imagine that's got to help with race nerves and all of that stuff in preparation to race day. Definitely. And honestly, after Tahoe, I haven't even really experienced, like going into Bigfoot, had like no nerves. uh Maybe Moab will have more because there's going to be a little more pressure on this race. There's a lot of things happening around this and I've got the chance for the clean sweep and the triple crown. So maybe I'll have nerves. I don't currently, but after Tahoe and I, you know, I've always had this belief that like I should be competing in these things even in 2022 when I first toed the line at a 200 and tore my hamstring. You know, so um I've always, I actually wrote a blog post called Delusional Self-Belief. So I've always had this like delusional self-belief with no evidence that I should be competing at these things. But after Tahoe, once I knew that I could do this, it's like, okay, like now I just, I'm just so relaxed going into these now that it feels really good. And I mean, um I've just got so much practice with my mom or my wife, Karim, me that we've got all of these. you know, kind of ritualistic level systems going into it where it's like, we are so prepped and dialed that there's just not, it's, it does sort of help with the race nerves, but there's just not a lot of questions around it. You know, it's like, it's, I just have, I'm sure that I will face new challenges in the future that will get added to what I prepare for. But for now I'm like, I have a very good system to control all the variables that can be controlled. And so, yeah, it's just, it's It all feels very natural. That's great. Yeah, there's there is that line that you cross when you actually do something and then in your mind, you're like, I can do that. Like and yeah, the outlook changes, you know, moving forward. OK, jumping back to your three statements here, two truths and a lie. OK, so you I might miss parts of the details, but you had almost fell off a cliff. think you said in Ireland, which was a Star Wars filming location, do you have a tangent, 10 inch scar? when your parents almost ran over you from with a tandem bike and then you tested positive for 55 allergens on a 55 allergen test. um I was thinking that one or hoping for your sake that that one was the lie. But after you sharing stuff, I'm wondering, maybe I got it wrong. So which one was the lie? So the lie is the almost falling off a cliff on the islands. I did go to those islands and they are a Star Wars filming location, but I didn't fall almost fall off a cliff, thankfully. But my parents did run me over with a tandem bicycle on accident when I was 11 on July 4th. And I did test positive for 55 out of 55 allergens. So yeah, fun stuff. you do that allergy test when you were getting noticing all that inflammation or the joint stuff? I actually did that. So I'm racing the Cocodona 250 again next year. And I've DNF that race two years or actually in 2023, didn't DNF. I finished the race, but I ended up in the ICU. um And then I DNF last year with breathing issues that I think are brought on due to allergies. um And so I did test positive for 55 out of 55, but I think 18 or 20 of them were like serious enough to address. so um for the six months, so going into that race, I'm to be taking allergy shots and for the next five years, I'll be taking allergy shots. But hopefully they take about six months to really start to show positive effects if they're working. So hopefully um I will be a little bit better going into, prepared for some of the specific Arizona plant life that wants to kill me, um going into Cocodona. so it was full plant testing, not food specific allergies. was mostly plant. I also am allergic to pineapple. So they tested pineapple and just confirmed that. that was, know, also that. Gosh. Wow. Yeah, that's that is. Yeah, certainly would make a difference on someone if they have pollen allergies and they're going to race, like you're saying. And yeah. Wow. Wild. man. Well, I hope that works out the allergy shots and gets it all figured out. And and so you said next thing on the radar for you is Moab. All right. So we're going to be October 10th. We will be. So do they live stream that? No, unfortunately. um the Triple Crown is put on by Destination Trail, who doesn't, hasn't quite entered the live stream game as effectively as Kokedona and Aerovipa. um but there will be, there's live tracking and there'll be um portions of it that are ah on a live stream, but not the whole race. um There will be a little documentary that's coming out about me in the Triple Crown this year. So that'll be focused on Moab. So there will be, I will have some videographers out there filming with me and stuff like that. So uh that'll be something to hopefully look forward to. Hopefully the story has a happy ending. ah But yeah, really excited. I feel incredibly motivated now that I have kind of the opportunity to get the first clean sweep in the Triple Crown since 2019 and break the overall Triple Crown record. So yeah, a few things within reach that are really exciting. So cool. So cool. really fascinating. And like I said, the diet stuff too, I think is just so fascinating. And I think great for people to hear and again, see what's working for people that's it's a little different, right? Than what's being pushed from the science and all that. So I think that's super great for our listeners. um Where can people find you and follow you? Sure, so my Instagram is @runtoughmindset And then just all one word spelled exactly the way it sounds. And then I have a sub stack uh that I write about running and uh where you can find like race reports and I do a really detailed uh Tahoe breakdown of my fueling which was the same for Bigfoot. So I didn't do one for Bigfoot, but uh that is also a sub stack @runtoughmindset same across both platforms. Perfect. Well, we will link those in the show notes for the listeners. this has been, like I said, so fascinating. I loved every minute of this episode. So thank you so much for your time, Kilian. thank you for having me on. This is really fun. I was excited when you sent me the outline of some possible topics. it exceeded expectations. This is really interesting. So yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. This has been awesome.

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Kyla Channell, MS

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