The Steep Stuff Podcast
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The Steep Stuff Podcast
#137 - Chad Hall
The plan was simple: go test the 100K waters. The reality was a masterclass in pacing, hydration, and what happens when marathon instincts meet an eight-hour mountain day. Chad Hall brings candor and clarity to his Kodiak debrief—why he went out hard, where the wheels came loose around Snow Summit, and how he’ll rebuild for another shot. From there, we widen the lens: short trail versus ultras, why 50K deserves more respect in the U.S., and how cycling’s strength engine can transform uphill running without sacrificing leg speed on descents.
We trade notes on altitude strategy for Pikes Peak, the balance between sea-level power and high-elevation adaptation, and practical ways to integrate strength—heavy lifts, bike blocks, or ski mountaineering—when schemo isn’t an option. Chad traces his arc from triathlon to domestic elite cycling to trails, and explains how coaching, long mountain days, and flat-speed workouts all fit inside a program designed to resist fatigue and stay smooth on technical terrain.
Then we go deeper. We push on the professionalization of trail running, UTMB-style event culture, and the line between authentic partnership and hollow consumerism. Chad is honest about sponsorship: only promote what you’d buy, center the mountains, and protect the community’s soul. We also challenge the hype cycles of social media and the attention economy, where presentation can outrun performance and algorithms shrink our view of the world. Finally, we wrestle with AI and work—what jobs mean, where meaning comes from, and how a conscious buyer base can reshape the outdoor industry for the better.
If you enjoy conversations that braid training insights with bigger questions about culture and purpose, this one will stick. Follow Chad on Instagram at @chadoflife, hit play, and then tell us: are you team short trail, team ultra, or somewhere in between? Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review to help more curious runners find the show.
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Welcome back to this Deep Stuff Podcast. I'm your host, James Lariello. And I'm so stoked today to welcome Chad Hall to the show. Athlete, a man of many talents. I also include him on there as a philosopher at this point after listening to this show over again through editing it and actually having the conversation. Yeah, really excited to have had this conversation with Chad. As most of you should probably know that name, Chad popped off on the scene a few years ago with top finishes at races like the Broken Arrow, Sky Race, as well as the Mammoth Trailfest. He's a multiple-time champion of the Mammoth 50K, has won the Mammoth Triple Crown. The guy has done it all in the sport. He came on the show, we debriefed his Kodiak 100K race, which was his first long trail race, talked all about that, got into the nitty-gritty, talked about training, and we talked about life. We got into Chad is a deep thinker. Like I said earlier, he is a philosopher, in my opinion, closest thing to a philosopher I've ever had on the show. And we talked a lot about life and consumerism, the sport, the sports direction, all kinds of fun stuff. I gotta be honest with you, this is probably the most fun I've had on a podcast, uh, as far as show-wise, just in conversation, since I started this thing. So without further ado, I hope you guys enjoy this one. We got deep. Chat all. Chad Hall, welcome to this Deep Stuff Podcast. How's it going, man?
SPEAKER_02:Good, good, yeah. Just uh I'm up here in Big Bear Lake and it's like I don't know, seems like it's like 70, 75 degrees in November, so can't complain at all.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, dude. Good weather, man. You getting some training in or what are you what are you working on up there?
SPEAKER_02:Just yeah, yeah, I'm getting a little bit of training in. Um yeah, I always kind of pop back up to Big Bear. And actually, I just recently moved back from San Diego. Um, but it's always kind of been like my training venues during the summer, anyways. Um, but yeah, I I just did the can or not canyons, the Kodiak 100K up here, um, which I DNF'd uh spoiler alert if we ever talk, if we talk about that.
SPEAKER_00:I was gonna actively avoid that one.
SPEAKER_02:No, it's it that one was interesting. I learned a lot. But so yeah, kind of jumping back into things because that one, I mean, I really ran like 45 miles of it and then walked a bunch back to the town. Um, but so yeah, kind of getting back up and running again and starting to get the wheels turning on what's next here.
SPEAKER_00:Ooh, all right, we'll get into that in the pod. Dude, first of all, how's your how's everything going? How's your day going? How's recovery going from Kodiak? How's uh how's how's life?
SPEAKER_02:It's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, like I I'm somebody who again, I kind of I love being outside. I love being outside when it's warm, especially. So like fall for me is um it's such a beautiful time of year up in the mountains. So I'm always just kind of loving life at this point where it's like getting that last little bit of warmth before things get properly cold. Uh so yeah, life's going good. Recovery is coming along. Like I think it's um that was my first 100k that I've ever done. So it's always interesting kind of getting, and granted, I didn't make it through the whole thing, so I'll still have to check that box later. But uh it's always interesting kind of noting like how that process is recovering from varying distances and different types of racing. Um where like, you know, it feels to me like the longer the distance, the more like energy kind of takes a while to come back around. We're like maybe like uh deeper into runs now. It's like like I did a properly long run yesterday, and there's like 26 miles of trail running, which like prior to Kodiak would have felt pretty normal and standard uh if you're just running easy pace, but like my legs were starting to kind of tie back up again. I was like, okay, I'm not completely not completely recovered from that effort yet.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, interesting. So do you think you're gonna continue to dabble in the ultras? Or because I know last few years you've done obviously Mammoth 50K have had great results there. You've done almost pretty much an ultra in a weekend between doing the ascent, the 26k and the 50k. So is that kind of like the next frontier for you?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, that's kind of what I'm dabbling with. That was very much like uh getting into it a bit at Kodiak and seeing what that 100k distance is like. Um, which is funny because I I know a lot of people will do like a 50 miler before they do 100k. And to me, that seemed like an unreasonable step. I'm like, ah, what's like there's not that big of a difference. But then at 45, 46 miles into this one, I was like, oh gosh, I wish I was running a 50 miler right now. Um, so yeah, so like I'm I'm kind of checking out that distance. I think uh I think I'll have to give another 100k a go at least before I kind of decide if that's kind of the trajectory for me, because um that one just didn't seem very or that didn't seem like a good representation of how it could go because I went out blazingly fast and kind of put myself in a very difficult position. Um, but yeah, so I'm kind of playing around with it. Like uh, you know, I come from also triathlons and then mostly cycling in between uh sort of my stints as a runner and back to a runner. Um so I I do like the longer duration stuff. Like um, you know, Leadville, I think took me like 640 on the bike. So like sort of that seven-hour-ish range, uh, it still seems like something I can do very well. Uh, but running is just different, you know, it's like it's a different thing when your legs start to lock up, and if you don't get the hydration quite right or you just mispace it, um it's a different animal where your legs just start sticking to the ground and it's it's less of an energy thing and more of just a musculature thing of like can you force your body to keep moving? Is it has it been conditioned to that? Um, so yeah, I think I need a lot because again, I learned a lot of lessons. I think I need some long days in the mountains because I think I come from like faster running, so that part comes pretty normally, but I think sustaining that for eight plus hours is like a it's a it's a new thing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Would you say, I mean, I I I make the argument all the time, especially because like you've had such success with the short trail stuff. I would almost argue it's a different sport. Like I feel like it's a completely different sport. Whereas like once you start hitting that over I don't know, over six, seven hours and things start to get a little weird at that point, like muscular fatigue, nutrition, like there's so many other aspects that I feel like play such a like a huge role in it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. And I think I'm I'm learning a bit of that, or in the process of learning a bit of that. Because it's really it's just always like you're operating on some end of the spectrum of say, like, um, more like the high performance thing of say, like, if you're a 5K runner, like how fast can you turn things over neuromuscularly? And um, there's a whole bunch of other factors at play into like running a fast 5K versus like these really long things, it's like resistance to fatigue just becomes such a big portion of it, right? Where you just need to condition your body to just enduring for a long period of time. And and then like the nutrition and hydration support that and like strength stuff to support like all these things that tend to break down on you. Um, so yeah, it's interesting. I think it it is fun. Like, I also coach runners, so it's it's always interesting to kind of expand your experience and get like a real touch point of like, okay, that's what the that's what that feels like. Like, I kind of can understand um some of the properties that you train to like prepare somebody for that, but it's a totally different thing when you're in the midst of it. You're like, okay, I really feel like what this feels like when you get into the deep end of 100k and things start to go south on you. Like, what what are the real limiters here?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Dude, if you don't mind me asking, I I mean I gotta ask you because like you took it out pretty hot with my coach Michelino, who's also a good friend of mine.
SPEAKER_02:Oh Michelino coach is okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, I yeah, no, he's Mikelino's bright dude. He um, but I was just interested to see like you know, how did how did the the front dynamics play out with you guys? Like, were you just chatting and and enjoying yourself? Were you pressing the pace pretty hard from the start? Like, how how was how was it together and kind of with that front group in in the beginning?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, that was that was funny. That's where I I feel like uh a real dope about the way we race the front end, because uh we were on the start line and Melino was like, uh he's like, How about uh between myself and Eli and him? He's like, How about gentleman's pace? Like getting started. And I and I was kind of like, no, no gentleman's pace today. Um and I always I've always raced that way, like especially in like a 50k. Um, I feel like I I really like to just ride that line. Um and I think it's like say coming from a marathon running too, where it's like that's kind of how you run fast. You get on that line and you just kind of tread that line the whole way of just like what's sustainable. Um whereas I think like in a hundred K, and kind of like you were talking about it being a little bit of a different sport, I think you just start to get into these this area where like the margins aren't as fine on that, like what's a what's the pace you should be running up front, right? Like you can get back 10 to 15 seconds a mile, I think pretty easily on the back half if you've pace yourself well. But if you've gone too hard, like you there you can't come back from like getting that pacing wrong. Uh so I think that was like a major lesson I learned of like why you didn't need to take it out that hard. You kind of just need to get through the front half of the race and then really start running on the back half, especially with the course that we were on. Um, so yeah, I took it out relatively hard. Like I I got a gap pretty much immediately on the very first like little road climb. Um, and then at various points uh where like the trails would kind of switch back or like the dirt roads would switch back, uh, I realized like heading into the first big climb, which I think is like 11 miles. Like I didn't really have much of a gap, like maybe like 30 seconds or something. Uh so yeah, it felt like I had tried to kind of sneak away from people so I could just run my own pace, and then that did not really work out. Um, but I think I extended a bit on the climb. Again, like probably went a little bit too hard of effort, but it felt good, you know, it felt really good compared to like how a 50k feels, which feels a little bit more aggressive. Um but yeah, I think I I made a little wrong turn uh coming towards the 50k mark. So um Mickelino after the after the big climb up sugar loaf, and then we came back off, and then he must have been kind of motoring on some of the uh this dirt road section coming back over towards uh like the main chunk of the back of the course. Um and so he passed me and he passed me pretty aggressively too. Like he came by with like some intention. Uh but so I kind of like just progressively like latched back on to him because there's always those moments that are funny when you when you try to run away from everybody, when it catches back up to you, there can be a little panic moment where you're like, that didn't work. Like I didn't establish any gap there, and I was working pretty hard to do it. Um, especially when somebody comes by you, like the strong move on his part to like look really good and fresh and come by with some speed and be like, just try to establish, like, I'm going by you and you're never gonna see me again. Um, but I latched on to him, and so like we kind of got back on onto this little road section, and we hit a climb, and I I even commented to him, I was like, strong move with a hard pass, and he's like, It's worth a try. Uh so anyway, so we had like a little back and forth, and actually it's so dumb. I made like a wrong turn turn on the the road section because I actually, when I was a road cyclist, I used to bike through that section of the course all the time. And so I was just on autopilot, where like I every time come up over this climb, drop down, make the right turn. So I just do that, and then I'm looking back and I'm like, I'm by myself, like I'm definitely on course here. Uh so I had to run back by like um at that point, Eli and I forget the guy's name who I think ended up in third. Uh came by two. So I was back and forth and had to run by those two guys, and then I ended up catching back up to Mikelino, and I think he was starting to cramp um when I came by him. So yeah, at that point in the race, like I actually I was taking kind of look at the other as it at these other guys when I'm going by, and I was thinking, like, I'm the strongest guy in the race right now. Like I'm still feeling really good and moving well. Um, but yeah, I think just like there was maybe I I needed a few more bottles along the way. Like I didn't take a feed coming back cross across one of the feeds, and I think I should have got a few more bottles there. Um, because by the time I got to the top of Snow Summit, which is like 37 miles into the race, and you had to go down some like pretty technical single tracks in between there too. Um, my legs just like all of a sudden turned into mush. Like all of a sudden I went from running feeling really good even on the climb to like running with some of the I think 21k race was up there and just some of the back of the pack 21k people, and like they started going by me on downhill sections, and I'm like, this is not good. Like I I should be moving, I should be moving much better than this on downhills when I'm running, you know, like eight minute a mile pace. Like that should be where you start to just cruise along easily. So so yeah, it was really just a lot of management uh trying to kind of rally, but then yeah, I blew through my water too fast and just got totally dried out. So yeah, it got it got rough from like 37 to uh uh to like 45-ish.
SPEAKER_00:There we go. Gotcha back. Sorry, I lost you for a second. No, you're good. Um interesting, man. Do you think, and not to pivot too hard, um, what are your thoughts on like I'd love to see you at like a JFK or something like that. I think you because it's an East Coast race, especially living in like in your Big Bear area, being at altitude, like I feel like you could destroy that race.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. I almost I almost went to JFK last year. Um last year I was trying to I actually had to drop out of um Kodiak last year. I was gonna do 100k here. Um, but I was dealing with plantar fasciitis, which ended up like persisting for a pretty darn long time. Um, but yeah, that one's been on my list because that one, you know, like um for people who have and like I'd kind of consider myself a rhythm runner, so like faster running courses tend to benefit me. Um, you know, that one obviously has a ton of running where it's like like fast running on that path. So that one's definitely been on the list. And I would say probably I thought about maybe throwing a Hail Mary and trying to jump in this year, but I think probably, yeah, maybe next year I might give it a go. Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Where do you see that? What do you think now? Do you see yourself kind of gravitating between the short trail and the long trail? Like, do you think you'll you'll still mix it up at races like the GoPro games and stuff like that, maybe broken arrow, mammoth? Or do you think like maybe the long trail might be long-term career-wise, like what you're thinking more?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, initial thoughts based off of um, you know, this one kind of jumping up in duration. Uh I'm I'm very I have mixed emotions about it right now. Because I feel like I need to again kind of give it another shot. Because you don't really, it's kind of my philosophy on making decisions, is you don't really want to make decisions based off of like when you have like say one thing that goes a little bit amiss, where it's like that could have that could give me a lot of negative emotions about the hundredk, like I hate this distance, like that was just a suffer fest and hurts. Well, it's like also a lot of times that's how your first go at stuff ends up being, uh, especially if you do things that kind of set you up for it to go that way. Um, but I think that my thought that maybe pushes me back towards like 50k, and I think 50k might kind of be the sweet spot for me. Like that just is a very good, like I I just like that duration of like around about four hours because you can still run hard, um, but you do have to have like really good endurance uh to uh be able to sustain hard efforts. Um but I think my my one my one um iffy part of going up in distance is like you do have to slow down, right? So it's like you you can't run that same effort uh that you can run. Like I I think that I was thinking I could back it down, say like five to ten percent, the way that effort feels, and maybe it's actually significantly more than that, especially on the front half. And I don't know if I really want to run that slow. Like uh, I think in some ways I like to run fast. I like, you know, it's like on sugar loaf, it's like was the one sort of technical part of the the course. Um and Mickelino, he ran really well on that whole section too. Like sometimes you just want to let it go and then run down a trail fast and not have to like be thinking about being able to sustain that effort and not beat your legs up because you gotta be able to run another, you know, 30 miles. Um so yeah, I'm I'm kind of up in the air about that. But also, it still does seem to me like guys do get to run, like I think as you get conditioned to those distances, you do, you know, and this is kind of true of a lot of different things where it's like as you get conditioned to the longer distance, now you can push the pace a little bit harder and you can kind of maximize uh your effort over it. Um but yeah, at this point, just like I I feel like I don't have the that sort of strength for a hundred K that allows me to run right on the edge that I like to run on.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I say I mean I kind of the comment came kind of selfishly because I we don't want to lose you uh, you know, to the longer distances. We love to keep you on our on the short trail aspect of the story.
SPEAKER_02:Well well then well another thought about that too is I think like um sometimes as a trail runner, a lot of times there's this sort of uh push. I think just because there's a lot of um like there's a lot of people who just really like the long stuff and it's a little bit of a spectacle. So it seems like sometimes there's sort of this push to go towards longer distances because there's like maybe just more sponsorship opportunities or more interest in general. Um and I mean the sport kind of I feel like for whatever reason feels like it's very much kind of based in the long stuff, and then we also kind of like do the shorter trail stuff, and it kind of sometimes falls under that banner. Um, so I think in some ways, like I'm uh I'm I'm definitely a person who tends to be a little bit of a contrarian, a little counterculture where like I just will resist being pushed in directions just because that's like the status quo. Uh so I think I'm I'm in some sense going like, you know what? Like I think uh like the 50k is a great distance. Like I think that race should be just as um legitimate in terms of like uh viewing as winning a 50k just as much as like that's as worthwhile as winning a hundred mile race. Like granted it's further, but I just think oh gosh, reconnecting. Uh I just think it's cool to just value things and yeah, just just value like the high performance nature of just doing any distance well, um, where it's like it doesn't have to be some mega long distance for it to be interesting or entertaining.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, dude, this drives me yeah, this drives me crazy. Like I feel like it's such a valued thing in in America that we value like the long stuff and like the short trail is valued highly in Europe, but like not in America, which is I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:I don't care that yeah, it's funny because we had um, I think as Brooks uh had some um uh film festival thing that came through here. Uh and it was interesting watching all these different running films kind of one after the other. And um I'll space on the girl's name, but there was um a girl over in Europe somewhere, and she was trying to set just like some cool record that was a short, is a relatively short, I mean, compared to you know, a lot of the longer things, um like probably like 10 miles total in duration up and down this like really cool looking mountain, and they had cool drone shots, and like the town was really um interesting and unique and like very small and tight. Um and like to me that was so cool, like and so interesting to watch. And some of the longer ones of uh and again, I hate to say that like uh what somebody's doing is not as interesting, but I just think like when you think about the visuals of running very slow and long, um, like those stories can be really deep. And I think especially the amount of suffering and persistence that you have to have to do those those things. But like I I felt myself less engaged with the story of like this girl doing the Arizona trail, where it's like that's a really big endeavor, but it didn't it's not quite to me as a stimulating, is just ripping it up and down a mountain super fast is like is really cool. Then to watch somebody do it well and move through the mountains in very fast and precise ways is like such an art form.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's it is, it's interesting, and and a lot of it depends. I mean, I think we're gonna go ahead and hopefully build, continue to build the fan base in the United States. But yeah, it is interesting as to where the Euro and I think it's because of mountain culture, dude. You know, like it's another thing. Like most of us didn't grow up in the mountains, or a lot of us didn't, and a lot a lot of folks like in the sport probably come more from you know traditional cross-country track or soccer backgrounds, less skiing and mountaineering. And I I wonder if that influences it too. It's where it's something longer and runnable seems more interesting to people than you know, this like let me run up, I don't know, some some crazy peak and rip back down. And I don't know. It also creates, like you said, it's more visually interesting too watching someone like Dan Kurtz or yourself like rip down a peak, you know, yeah, running sub five minute pace, you know, where any wrong step you can literally kill yourself. You know, it's it's I don't know, I think it's fun.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I I I agree. I think maybe there's something like um maybe to like humans having this inclination to get like uh all tripped up on numbers and numbers being such like a satisfying thing that we go after. Um, because again, like as I coach people uh who a lot of times their marathon time might be like four hours or something. And it's like I get I kind of get the marathon thing. Like uh like it's it's kind of like if you do a marathon, people know what that is, and you can tell your friends, like I did a marathon, and they have some reference point for what that means. Whereas, like, you know, more people can do a 10K and a 5K, but if you tell them your time, most people they don't know like what does that mean for you to run a 30-minute 10k or 5k or whatever. Um, so I think sometimes it's like we get caught up in the spectacle things where it's like 100 miles just seems to anybody like, wow, that's crazy that you ran a hundred miles. So it's really easy to do that and then just tell your friends about it, and they're gonna be impressed with no actual knowing of like what any of it means outside of just knowing what that distance is. Um, whereas I think like the times are kind of irrelevant, right? If you have um it's only relevant for say a specific course where you're like, oh, I'm going after the FKT up and down this mountain. Uh, but the times outside of that don't really mean anything. It's really hard to translate to any discernible meaning for anybody else, uh, for you to tell somebody what your time was on a certain course. So you kind of do, I think that's where the video stuff does help a lot, where you kind of immerse somebody in like, this is what that looks like, though. And like, how crazy is that? And I think for people who like you were saying, if you have that sort of integration in a mountain culture and you've been out in the mountains, like when, say, you're doing a route that takes you up to some gnarly peak and it's like 11,000 feet or something or 12,000 feet, we're like, whoa, I know what that's like when you're out in the mountains and you're up in that high elevation, like you feel exposed. And that's a crazy thing to be running fast out in those exposed places. Um, so yeah, I think yeah, that thing of familiarity and relatability, uh, I think is definitely a big component of it. Um, but yeah, I think it's I I don't know how that process happens. I do think like the media does help a lot. Um, definitely like live streams, like Mammoth Trailfest, like when you have the live stream going and you have just these epic backgrounds, it's like that gives you a good sense of what what the sport is doing or what you're doing in it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Well, dude, I think mammoth's a great one. Dude, Pikes Peak too. I mean, you've been at Pikes a couple times now. Like that's a that's that's a great race where I mean, dude, like it's such like if you run under, I don't know, 217, 215 on that route, like that's so respectable. You know, like it's that's such a wild, like uh such a I don't know. You could tell me more because you've run faster than I have on it. But like it's it's pretty legit, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's like like that race to be able to just ascend like 7,000 feet pretty much straight up, like with bare barely any reprieve, right? And going up to 14,000 feet. It's a experience. Like there's not a lot of races, like, or that's the only race I've experienced like that, where um and I think it's what makes trail running interesting. It's like a lot of say, like a lot of road races, they might have their own sort of character to them. Um, but a lot of races are gonna have very similar feels, right? Like a lot of, especially because there's a big inclination to try to make courses fast. So fast courses are all gonna feel relatively the same. Whereas trail racing, it's like you get such a different experience on different trails and the way they feel and the the nature of how they roll. Um, but that one just being like you're experiencing trying to run hard at 14,000 feet, and again, you kind of you learn. I think as I've run, say that course a number of times, it's like you kind of learn the rhythm of it and you learn how to run uh an individual course. Um and yeah, so like that one, that one's crazy. I mean, that one is pretty remarkable. Uh, I think the way that that one feels is very unique. It's like anything that high, just I find my energies all over the place. So you have to go through these real like deep lows, and then you kind of survive them, and maybe your legs come back around. So yeah. Have you done that one?
SPEAKER_00:I have so I live in Colorado Springs, but I have never actually raced the race. Like I've done my own personal time trials up it, and like I in order to get the best of you, like it's uh dude, it's a it exposes you. It's such a hard race to nail. Um yeah, I don't know. Probably next year. I think I'm gonna finally sack up and do it probably next year or the marathon. We'll see. I don't know. Okay. Um, but I know that course intimately. Um it sucks though that we always have to like compete with mammoth for the same weekend because I'd love to see you come back and give it like a proper pro I mean, you've obviously given it proper rips, but like you've never been a champion on the course. So it'd be cool to see you come back and try to give Joe a hard time one of these years and finally finally get it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I I would too. That's a course where I feel like um, you know, uh again, like every every route, especially mountainous stuff, is always different. But I have I have like um San Gregorio close to here, which goes up to Levin. I forget the exact elevation, but I feel like that one, like I've gotten you like you kind of know when you feel satisfied with the effort. You're like, that one I really nailed. Um, and I've yet to feel that way on pikes. And I think partially just because again, that that level of elevation is just a totally different game. Um, but I spent actually like a month. Uh I was filming an actual local mountain bike girl do Leadville this year. And so I was kind of filming all her preparations. So we were out at Bryanhead, uh, then we went out to Leadville for the Leadville stage race, and then uh we were out in Breckenridge. So I ended up spending like a month around 10,000 feet, uh, which was great for her preparation, right? Racing around that elevation. But that was the first time I'd been at like that high elevation for a sustained period of time. And I know Remy spent a bunch of time in Breckenridge before he uh set the record. Um, and that makes a considerable difference. Like I definitely felt way different going up, like I was doing a bunch of 14 uh 14ers and like 13,000 mountains. Um, and that made such a big difference by the end, like just the way those efforts felt, where it's like, okay, I think to do pikes proper, I think you do need to have like some sustained time at high high elevation.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the only way to nail it. Unless you're a genetic freak, which even I mean, you have the genetics on your side. I think it's a matter of just getting the altitude adaptation, right? To sleep at 10,000 feet for a continued amount of time. But there's trade offs too. I don't know. I've thought about this a long time because I also like I raced on the East Coast a bunch. And it's like the trade off of living at 6,000 feet and then going down. I can't, I just can't generate the same amount of power at 6,000 feet or 7,000 feet that. I can at East Coast on the East Coast. So it's that power trade-off versus like the recovery trade-off. Whereas like if you're sleeping at 10,000 feet, that's gotta be substantially more stress on the body, you know, to actually get the full recovery. So I don't know, it's like a kind of a funny trade-off.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, it's funny because that's um like with cycling with power meters, you see like a lot of metrics in a more tangible way. Um where like say when I was a cyclist, I felt like I actually got a really good jump in performance when I moved down to sea level. So I was like down in Solvan, California. Um but prior to that, I was actually out at Colorado Springs, and then I was back up here in Big Bear. Um, and you're right, like there's that trade-off. So I think like the best thing you can do is sort of have uh like stents, right? Where you have like a period of time where you're at sea level and then a period of time where, say, like right prior to the race, you're getting your body adapted to altitude, but you're still bringing the training and that power that you built up uh elsewhere.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's interesting because Remy, I mean, I don't I don't know if Remy actually lives at altitude in Switzerland. He must. Or I think maybe before the race he was sleeping in an altitude tent and then went to Breck. I don't know. I'd have to do some digging into it. But yeah, there's some I feel like there's a series of events that you can kind of nail, and if you get them proper, I think that like it it's like the perfect mix for something like that, which is I don't know. I love that like nitty-gritty trying to figure out like the extra like one to two percent stuff that you can kind of do to get the most performance gains, it's to like geeking out over it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. And um it it I think it's especially intriguing with say something like that, that's like just a straight uphill race, because you're and something I'm still playing around with, because again, I come from a background of like road running, like flat stuff. Um and so it's so interesting, especially with like the trail running where you get this intermixture of like people come from ski mountaineering or even like cycling, or like actually my transition back to running and trail running specifically was through cycling, where it was very curious, where I think those really strong legs just start to pay dividends, both uphill and downhill. So that that nature of like how to run uphill fast is is interesting too, where like say even like from a technique standpoint, where like Remy is very like lopy, like he does not kind of utilize like a really strong, like fast turnover like a lot of people do. Like he kind of has this sort of bouncy up the mountain um thing about him, which is is cool to just see how successful you can be with different different ways of uh even your running mechanics.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, I'd be so curious to see how much time he actually spends in the gym or something like that. Just because you know, you're right. He he does have a bouncy stride, it almost looks inefficient for running uphill, and it's crazy fast. I mean, you've gotten you've been close to him in races and you've kind of watched it yourself. So it's like, I don't know, it's it is interesting. I wonder, like, do you spend a lot of time in the gym? Like uh like what is your training actually like specifically look like?
SPEAKER_02:Uh yeah, I mean, that's where I feel like uh I I question a little bit if there's other things I could be doing in the gym, like if it's worth say, doing like heavier weights and actually getting more legitimately strong, as opposed to I think a lot of historically my gym work has been more like injury prevention, um, and maybe like small gains. And like occasionally I'll I'll do some like proper lifting. Um, but I kind of float in and out of it. Uh but yeah, like uh yeah, so like a lot of my stuff is preventive stuff, but I think that's something I'm actually considering more is um specifically for uphill running. And it's some of it I do think is helpful. Like a lot of people are into like either ski mountaineering or like split boarding or some doing something like that, right? Where I think that's actually a really good strength movement that you're just doing over and over again, um, which I think is why maybe Remy's style is that way, is that like he is operating out of a lot of leg strength that he built up just from doing like coming from that that sort of background. Um, as opposed to like I think if you're coming from a like faster turnover type of running, maybe like working that uh that strength is more of a necessity. Um, which I think I would I'd put myself in that capacity. And even like the fact that I haven't been on the bike very much, uh, I feel like I was very fit coming off the bike because you can just put such a huge workload, and again, you're getting like good actual like muscular strength in that process too. So I I tend to like to try to do things in ways that are more interesting and entertaining to me. Like I'm not a huge gym rat type of guy. So like I would prefer to like I'd prefer to find it other ways if I can find it there.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I I like where your head's at. I mean, and the reason I say that is because I don't know, like I would imagine, I I actually did not check your Strava before before this conversation. But my guess is like you're doing a lot of flatter running. It seems like that's you know the how you get the most volume. That's how you obviously get, I don't know. I I run predominantly flat stuff more, but I've been wondering lately. It's like, man, like the I don't know, you make you capture, you kind of mix that in with cycling as well. And because I I just have felt always found that cycling helps my uphill running a ton, but then throwing in the gym, you know, and you kind of throw those three together as a recipe. And I think that does actually work. It's a good like supplement if you don't have schemo, I guess, in in your in your back pocket, you know, and you can kind of you know combine all the other three. So it's interesting.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, totally. Yeah, like a lot of times you're trying to yeah, it's utilize the resources you have available, right? Um, and try to like cover those same bases that you could get in in different regards. Um yeah, but yeah, I I do think uh yeah, something like like I do think having these other outlets like cycling, like ski mountaineering or something, is is useful where you're like in trail running, I think with just the nature of like a lot of stuff getting a lot of races having really steep sections of them, right? Um, where that just becomes such a different thing than running fast. So I think it's it's useful to I think you can get some of that from running fast on the flats, like um, because it is like becomes a powerful movement again if you're say doing really fast like four hundreds to K repeats or something, where you're actually like really moving along. Um, and I think that's actually really helpful too for your descending, where like now you have that sort of like leg speed to keep up with the descent and being able to use uh downhills well. Because I think that's where probably a lot of to me, I think amateurs maybe give away sometime is um they're not taking advantage of the downhills quite as well as like a lot of elites can just let it run a little bit better. Um but yeah, but yeah, I think cycling though is a great thing for trail running. And I keep every time I jump back on the bike because I'm injured, I'm like, you need to keep riding the bike, like stop letting it go. Because again, like even I say the whole thing about humans and numbers because I get caught up in numbers, and like you're you're saying, sometimes you're like, Oh, I'm gonna run flat so I can get this many miles per week or whatever. And it's like that's satisfying to the mind, but it doesn't really matter if that's keeping you from doing the thing that would actually help you get prepared for the thing you're doing. Which, like, so for me, I kind of tend to operate more out of time in the summer and just go do a bunch of trail running and and try to use that to condition uh the legs. Uh, because yeah, like you kind of at some point for trail running, like you gotta get the conditioning to the downhills too, because like that's gonna that's the other half of the battle, really, is it's the the pounding that your legs take.
SPEAKER_00:So true. Dude, it's so funny you say that, and then then I'll get off training after this. But like I got injured back in April and probably did like a solid block on the bike, um, because that's what the body would allow on the gravel bike. Dude, as soon as I started running again, like I'm a big gap guy, like I love looking at the grade adjusted paces, like especially for like steep climbs. My gaps might like so put it this way, like I don't know, normally I don't know, like it was a lot easier to get in like high five, low six minute grade adjusted pace after being on the bike. And I was like, holy shit, like how is this possible when I haven't been I haven't ran in a month? Like, why is this? I don't know what it does to the muscles, but yeah, it it definitely I mean my downhill was shit, but like the uphill, I I was actually like thoroughly impressed. So I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. I mean I I think you just look at it even just from like um something you can observe if you look at elite runners versus elite cyclists, right? Where like you're gonna get a lot more quad development and elite cyclists because you're actually it it's just because it's such a it's such a strength thing where it's like you don't need to have the most efficient pedal stroke. You just need to push down really hard, essentially. Like that's where the majority of your power is coming from. Um, and then some of the pedal stroke smoothness is like kind of just getting the other leg out of the way so that you're not creating sort of dead weight for the the foot that's actually doing a lot of the work. Um whereas like running fast on the flats is like such a rhythm and such like um a fine-tuned, like skilled movement. It has a lot to do with just like you're wearing in neuromuscular pathways, so everything's firing super fast and you're running efficiently. And that's just so different, right? That's a completely different system than like having the leg strength to just push really hard, and that's really like a musculature thing. Um, which is why I think like you get then in you know the best marathoners in the world, like pretty like not a lot of like quads going on there typically, right? Like not a lot of muscle mass in general, uh, because it's really just like an efficiency of keeping momentum moving, uh, which is a lot more about the skill of it and yeah, again, like firing things really fast and dealing with that sort of fatigue that comes with um keeping like a high rate of turnover and like a very consistent thing where you're like hitting the same pace over and over and over again. Whereas like trail running, it's like you get such variety, it's like you have to push up a super steep thing and then you gotta be able to drop it down something steep and kind of break and manage all that. So, like such it's just interesting how different the demands of like road running versus trail running are.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, it dude. It's it's such a weird sport, such a fun sport. How did you uh I'm gonna swift shift gears like massively now because I I actually didn't know this and I couldn't find it in my research. How did you get into the sport? Like, how did you find trail running?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's funny because um I'm gonna film something with this path project company uh later this week up here in Big Bear. Uh and so we're going out to a trail that like I used to hike with my family on when I was a kid. And uh it's like it's called Castle Rock Trail, and like you end up with like a little rock scramble, but it's got like bouldery things the whole way. So like we would um when I was a kid, we'd play like kind of like the floor is lava and try to like stay on the rocks as long as you could on the way down. So like I kind of grew up like going on hikes with my family, being outside, uh kind of learning to enjoy the outdoors when I was young. Um, and so uh yeah, so like my path kind of took me from uh running in high school and college and a little bit out of college, where I was training with my brother as he was training for like the London Olympics and the marathon. Um, and then from there I kind of got this bug to go try do to do trathlons because my dad had done the Iron Man when I was in like fourth grade. And that was actually sort of like the the groundwork that laid that he laid for like us like future runners as he coached us in high school. Um, so anyway, so I always kind of had this notion that maybe I'd go into trathlons at some point. So I kind of made that leap uh as part of this collegiate recruitment program that like tries to uh take division one runners and turn them into like uh non-draft um like Olympic path triathlete, which is like that was a very intense, kind of weird period of time. Uh because you're just training like crazy, like you're professional, but you're not a professional. You know, you're brand new to the sport, but you're like fully in it straight away. Um, and that's funny because actually I did that for a year. Then the next year I was part of this like sister program as I was trying to go towards like long course trathlons. Uh and Eli was part of the Khlegi recruitment program. So Eli and I had this sort of like crossover and trathlons first, which is uh it was funny to come back and let's start to race each other on the trails. Um, but anyway, so yeah, so like ultimately trathlons don't really work out. I mean, I probably could have kept it going, but I was I had like really struggled to get a hang of the swimming. Like I got decent, but like for especially non-draft, you have to be really, you have to be darn close to the front pack to really be in the mix. Um, so like it just never quite clicked. And honestly, I kind of hated swimming. I was like, look looking at looking at a dotted line for hours, just not not my favorite thing in the world. Uh, but I really fell in love with cycling at that point. So I came back up here actually, um, started getting more on the road bike and just like because I like we did some fun stuff in that program. Like we did this thing called the Underground Crit, which is like a criterion at nighttime out in Scottsdale. Um, who like there's actually some like amazing pros that came out of uh some of the juniors guys that would come and race out there. Um, this guy Brandon McNulty in particular. But, anyways, uh so I kind of came back here and was like, okay, like I I love cycling. I've been struggling with the triathlon deal. I'm just gonna let myself like ride a bunch and maybe try to do some bike racing. So jumped into road cycling full on, like, really try to give that a full go. And I I made up to being on like a domestic elite team and race pro-nationals uh my last year and race some like the bigger races stateside. But we have like a very the the road cycling scene here is interesting where it's not really representative of the type of racing you get over in Europe. So like most people are going over there from the time that they're like pretty young to get that sort of experience. So it's like it's actually a very difficult pathway to go, like is especially like a semi-older athlete to try to get to the elites uh by going by pathway of like racing in the States. Um, but anyway, so yeah, road cycling also added in mountain biking as I was just like up here training Big Bear and couldn't I was like mad at myself for not being out on the trails. So got a mountain bike and got into mountain biking um and really fell in love with mountain biking because I mean it just again, these ways in which like you expand like how far you can go and see stuff. Um, but yeah, like at the end of it, I would like the way I would kind of categorize it was like wasn't good enough at swimming to really do traffons full on, but it was really good on the running and the cycling. Uh then it's cycling, like I was just kind of too late to the game. Like uh I was decent enough, but it was like any and even like you can be strong on the bike, but the really good guys have typically also been doing it when they're young because you do get like a really efficient pedal stroke, and you just have that sort of underlying power that just takes time to build up. And it's what's great about cycling is you can just build that engine. Like, I think it builds a little bit more consistently to me than it does with running, where running seems to me to have a little bit more plateaus, probably because injuries pop up a lot more frequently for us. Um, but yeah, so I was just kind of thinking about uh well, for when I had done this race out in Solvang, that was like I was a cyclist, and um there's a Spartan national championships was out in Solvang. So I just jumped in it and I got second to Andy Wacker and like almost won. I was in, I was out in the lead and I started to get like some side cramps. Um, but like came darn close to winning and made more money than I had made at all in cycling. So I was like, maybe maybe I can't avoid the fact that I'm a runner here. Um so anyway, so that that kind of like gave me a little bit of an inkling to maybe go back into it into trail running. Uh and I think trail running, trying to think what year that was, maybe like 2019. I felt like trail running has just kind of been on the up and up too, I think progressively. Um yeah, yeah. So I think I I kind of thought like where like I'm trying to do all these things that I don't really have roots in, and I'm decent at them, but like what am I actually rooted in? I was like when you're a kid, you were out jumping around on rocks and like having fun, like uh being out on trails and stuff. So uh to me it was kind of fun to go through this pathway of like exploring all these other different um sports and things that like it was fun to learn and to go through that process of picking up something new. And I think like learning is a skill set in itself, but then it's nice to go back to the thing that like you're just good at because you've been doing it forever, like you have the foundation. Uh so I think for me that's kind of been trail running a bit and why I like I I love running down trails fast. It's like I have a little bit of a basis for that. I've like jump around rocks since I was a kid. Um, and that that's it's helpful, right? Like your body gets even conditioned to be able to do those things that you uh that you condition it to.
SPEAKER_00:So you've been around the sport now for a few years. What do you think so far? Like, do you do you like the professionalization of it? It continues to move what it seems like on a professional trajectory. Like now we have worlds, we're or we've had worlds, obviously, but it seems like worlds is starting to get a little bit more legit. There's a lot more discussion now about it being an Olympic sport, uh, at least within the next few decades. What do you think so far? Are you are you impressed by it? Do you think it's still small and growing? Do you think it it's got a few more years before it really pops off into the scene? Like what are you especially comparing it to cycling uh and uh you know primary running or I don't want to call it primary running or running that's not trails, let's put it that way, marathoning uh or track. Like what do you think?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, it's an interesting question because I do think like um trade-offs to everything, right? Like I think there's certain things that we love about trail running when it feels like that grassroots trail running scene that I think we all kind of know and love a little bit. Um and the pro vet professionalization of it definitely brings sort of the contrary to that, where it's like you do get a lot more just of the hubbub, right? Of like media and sponsors and like sort of the more corporate um mingling that goes on with that. And I think like I've never done a good job of the business side of it, um, where like I haven't really pursued sponsorships all too much, even though I really should, because those it's how you get opportunities.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh, you know, it's like that's how you get yourself places, and I think like I think I've I've seen the error of my ways in that, and a bit of like you just kind of, you know, that's how you get a team around you. That's how you kind of get those uh social networks that also provide their own form of meaning. I think in some ways that sort of demonized the corporation of things, um, maybe to a fault. Uh, but I do think there's a balance to be struck there where it's like um I don't know, like how that re how those relationships get managed, or maybe just like the types of stories that we push towards the front and kind of how we how we kind of portray the sport uh and how we go about it. Because I think sometimes there can be like I think what we all don't like, like this is kind of my one thing with like UTMB, like at Kodiak, like there's this sort of thing where like to go into the venue, you have to walk through the whole Hoka store where they force, they funnel you in here. It's like you're gonna have to go be a consumer and maybe buy some things, and you gotta walk around and and kind of partake in all that. You're kind of forced down that. Um, where I want there to be maybe a little bit of balance of this sort of like retaining the sort of like organic grassroots feeling to it, because to me it's like that's what trails are. You're you're not on the roads out intermingling with like just um human culture, like you're out in nature, and I think to try to retain that sort of like authentic feel, it is it is something I think to be I like I hope it just gets managed well uh by all the people that are involved with that that influence. Um, but I do like, I mean, uh the fact that there's like uh any interest for it to be an Olympic sport, which I think is makes a lot of sense to me. Like I look at like um like cross-country mountain biking, and I think it'd be cool if we had something like that where it's like say like a circuit that has like interesting trail features where it's like very viewer friendly and you get kind of like a circuit trail race that you can you can put on because like XE mountain biking is super engaging and fun to watch, and I think trail running could very much be that way too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Oh dude, you you brought up the consumerism part. I gotta ask you about this because I find I I think I think we actually have a lot of common ground on this because and I think we share a lot of the same thoughts. Like I see, like, for instance, uh and this is I I mean maybe this is shade, so whatever, but like I I see like Satisfy running, and they sell like three or four hundred dollar shoes, and I see like we gotta throw shade on Satisfied. I mean, dude, what are we doing here? Like uh like the moth tech. Like my favorite, my favorite ever photo was like Jackson Cole took like a t-shirt and like cut holes into it and was like moth tech. And it's like you're gonna sell that for a hundred something bucks. Like, I don't know. I I just hate consumerism for the sake of consumerism. Like, let's buy this shirt, even though it's a t-shirt with holes in it, we're gonna charge you a stupid amount of money. It's like, why that's not the that's not the reason we're in the store, that's not why we do this. And I I see a lot of brands going for the money grab these days, and it's just like I get it. If you make really good stuff, you only really need one really good thing, and that's gonna help you do what you need to do, and you wear that forever and you destroy it, and then you get a new one when it's done. I get that. But it's like you don't need all the bells and whistles to enjoy the sport. I think that's a little crazy, and I think we've we've gone a little over the boat with that. I don't know if you would agree or what your thoughts are there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, I I guess like like just my thought on consumerism in general is I I just don't like, and I maybe it's like in some sense, I think it's part of like a huge problem in our world right now. It's sort of like the exploitation and manipulation with certain aspects of being a human. Uh so I think like advertising is something that should be very there, they're like there's there's ways of doing it with integrity, and there's ways of doing it not with integrity, right? Like if you're trying to make people think that they need something they don't need, I don't think that's a good thing, right? And I don't really want to be a part of that. Uh, I also don't like sort of inauthentic advertising too, like sort of the issue of satisfy. It's like you guys are kind of trying to make a brand that looks um like dirt bag style, but like with these super premium prices. And I'm like, what is this? This is confusing. It's oxymoron. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like it bothers my brain a little bit where I'm like, this kind of pisses me off. Um where I like I just want things, you know, it's like don't dress like a like, I don't know. It's like, how can you hold both of those? It's like I do kind of love like the authentic dirt bag lifestyle, just go and pull in on something, but that's like not when you're spending$400 on like a pair of shorts or something, those two things just don't jive and it hurts my brain sometimes.
SPEAKER_00:I agree with you, and plus most of the dirt bags we know aren't wearing satisfy.
SPEAKER_02:And how you like pretend dirt bags, is that a thing now? Like, I want to look like I'm poor, but I'm not. I'm actually like very well to do. Uh yeah, again, I'm like, I just yeah, it hurts it hurts my brain a little bit. So, yeah, like the the just that that nature of like trying to I don't know what what is that? It's almost like its own like appropriation in a way of like a kind of culture that's like the rich also pretending like they're not rich or something. Like it just seems like a weird branding thing to me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I couldn't agree more. I I and I think it's like I don't know, if that's your jam, that's your jam, I get it. And like it satisfies just a too easy of an example for me to throw at the wall. So that's why we're we're picking on them. But I don't know, I see it a lot in the sport, and I do agree. I think it's and I'm gonna I'm gonna take this question one more further because you know you have the potential to obviously you you anytime you want to probably could be a professional athlete in the sport with a big brand deal. How do you grapple with that? Or how would you grapple with that? You know, because there is requirements for social media, there's requirements usually I mean for for most contracts, you know, generally there's some kind of how how would you keep it authentic versus inauthentic?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think that's kind of what's paused me from trying harder at it. And I have tried, like I had an agent at one point and like we didn't get any deals. Um granted, I think we were pretty much going mostly after um shoe deals, uh, which can be harder to get it, especially time timing on it. Um but yeah, I've grappled with it a lot. I think in like it's an interesting thing when you're of my generation that like um and having been like in very close uh relationships with people who've had contracts for long periods of time, like I've just been in the sport for a little while, uh, where like there weren't there were not the same stipulations prior to like social media, right? Where it's like that was kind of something that progressively was integrated into it. And so I think a lot of my resistance was seeing also this like athletes becoming these like marketing agents, where it's like you gotta do the stupid freaking show you the product thing, right? Of like, I use this and it's like helping me get to where I'm trying to go. Where like that's it's a part of it, it's a part of it. Like, that's how you create those relationships in which you get support. Um, but I just like authenticity is so important to me that it is hard where it's like I wouldn't want to have I wouldn't want to be involved with companies I wouldn't truly want to use that, I wouldn't pay my own money to use their stuff, right? Because to me, that's sort of the litmus test. Is like if I wouldn't pay for it, then I really don't think I should be encouraging other people to pay for something that I wouldn't, right? That seems um inauthentic to me. So I think that'd be one contingency is like uh just really believing in the companies that I'm working with. Um but I think on the flip side of it, I think something that I've realized like a lot of it was sort of some like not completely thought-out frameworks of like sort of this judgment towards the consumer side of it as a whole. Um, where there's also like, I think what I feel better about now and potentially pursuing a lot more um trying to get sponsorship opportunities going, is like I do believe in the things that I need though, right? Like shoes get me out into the wilderness and get me to very cool places. So like I think I should feel good about getting a good pair of shoes on somebody's feet because a good pair of shoes really can make the difference in terms of you getting out into a cool experience out in nature or out in the mountains or wherever, and having a good experience. And like to me, that's such a massive part of like mental health and feeling like really like human in a different way than how we experience being human, like in our normal, sort of like more human, like our interactions a lot of times are more in like human constructs as opposed to out in nature. Uh, so like I feel good about that, and then like nutritional products that get people out and feeling good, and there's lots of uh ways in which like innovations on that front, like it allowed people to take in more fuel on board and perform better. So, like, there's a lot of I think legitimately good products out there around that the outdoor space. And I think the outdoor space is a good place to exist in too, um, just in that that's a good endeavor to get people outdoors. So so yeah, I feel like I've kind of kicked myself for like sometimes being overly judgmental about some of that stuff, um, and trying to like ditch those unhelpful uh frameworks. Um, but I think there's also a lot of things to be cautious about because yeah, I think like uh you know, we all do contribute to the betterment of like our society and culture, right? And like whether we take that responsibility seriously or not does kind of end up going downstream and like affects like what we end up all having to deal with.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, dude, we could we could do a long podcast. I I I have so many questions, so many things off of this. Because I think you and I think very similarly, and I I'm a very deep thinker in a lot of the stuff and I do grapple with a lot of things. I let me ask you this. This is gonna we're we're making a left-hand turn from from sponsorship. But like are are what do you dude? Are you like stoked with like where like the future of things are going, like in the world? Because it seems like you've pondered this and you think about a lot of these things.
SPEAKER_02:It's a good question. I mean, we're in a very, I think, interesting part, especially in the stateside, right? Like, we're in a very kind of interesting point in history right now. Um, where like you can kind of just feel the energy, I think, that's kind of built up uh all over the place where it feels like there's things happening, right, for better or worse. Um, but yeah, I've I've done a lot of pondering on on my own, of just like my own belief systems, uh, because I was raised in like a charismatic Christian church, and I think uh I've been somebody, and maybe this is like part of the process of being a deep thinker, is you tend to take in a lot too, and like kind of looking outside, being observant, taking a lot of information. Uh, and sometimes that can be like confusing initially, because you have to do sort of this sorting process of like, okay, what do I make of all this information? That I've collected here. And I think I felt that very intensely. Like I think during the pandemic, I think that was starting to build where like you just get this sort of like underlying uh divisive thing going on, uh, like sort of energy again, kind of being expressed, I think, at this point in time. Um so I think I I went very deep into my own mind of like what do I believe about things on like a very foundational level and philosophical way. Um, and then kind of building that back up. Because I think what I see going on a little bit is like I think that sometimes you can have like cracks in your foundation of like, what are we shooting for here? What are our goals? What are our shared goals that we all have for like our our um country and our communities around us, right? Um, so I think for me, I had to go back and kind of like very much clarify for myself uh what I think about things. Um and actually I feel that process actually makes me feel a lot more optimistic. Uh, because I think when I look around, I kind of see most quote unquote normal people, right? Like most of us, uh we have very similar goals. We have very similar things that we want out of life, right? Like, and most of us don't really need that much. Uh, so I think it's just a matter of sort of like I think I see a lot more problems with ideas and sort of the narratives that we tell ourselves about our lives and life in general, right? Where we we create these really big divisions on things, I don't think matter as much as we make them out to be. Um and I kind of observe that like I think like you can do this in meditation, you can do all really just like it's it's very straightforward. But like if you look inside yourself, your biology, even like the way your personality feels, like I'm like it's relationship the whole way through. Like my body is a network of relationships, even the way I uh feel towards myself is a network of relationships. Um, where I think if we prioritize right relationships between each other, which like really a lot of our systems are trying to serve, we kind of can get past this thing of just trying to be right in like my team winning and my uh thought and idea being like the right thing, right? And people get really caught up in their way of thinking about things being the right thing, and they just totally run over each other with that. And it's like I think that's out of basis. Like, I think that's what's out of whack is like we're working together, like let's work together, not be not be clashing into each other.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think I mean at the end at the end of the day, I think we are so much more similar than we are different, and I hate that people forget that. It drives me nuts. Um yeah, I I don't I've actually never really gone political on the podcast, and I probably never will, but like I'll keep it, I will keep it at that. Like, I'm very much one of those people that like I'm just like, dude, why can't we all just get along, man? Why we gotta why's everybody gonna hate everybody? Um, all right. So on the on to continue our left turn, dude, what's your take on AI?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, on AI. Interesting. Um gosh. I think for one, I think just like kind of the way that we're going about AI and the way like AI is so interesting in that like you interact with it in so many different ways. Um I think it's like for one, just showing the recklessness of human nature, right? And the humans at large, like we cannot help ourselves sometimes. We're like, this may be to our doom, but let's go for it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Off the cliff. We're going off the cliff.
SPEAKER_02:It's crazy. But again, the I I think the thing that I I really don't like about AI right now is just the like incessant marketing of it. Again, it's like this kind of thing of like you just get as a human in our culture these days, it's like you get pounded in the head over and over with this marketing stuff. Like, you need to use AI for everything. And certainly, like there's there's ways in which it's helpful, but then there's all sorts of like problems too. Like, I think um it takes a lot of clean water to like cool those systems. So there's like issues with water supply, there's like huge consumption of energy, and then it's like that doesn't get connected, where it's like use AI, but also be aware of like what the cost is. And I think like as humans, a lot of times one of the things, or at least like say for modern humans, I think one of the major issues is like a lot of times the harm of like what we do is disconnected from us, right? Like, I think factory farming being like a very easy to grasp one, right? It's like you just pick up the meat uh from the grocery store and it's all nicely packaged up for you to go, you know, whip out whatever dish you're trying to make. But like you have so dis much disconnect from the animal that that was, right? That like it doesn't even seem like an animal anymore. Um, so I think across the board, it's like when we start to have all these disconnects from the actual harm, uh, I think it's like we just start to live inauthentic lives. And I think it's it's becomes more and more difficult to actually live authentically when you don't directly see the harm that gets caused. And like certain like in the West, I think like the the hard truth is I think we all probably use more resources than we really should. Uh it's like it's not sustainable. Uh it's not sustainable for everybody to pursue the sort of lifestyles that we pursue. So, you know, I kind of love um like I kind of fell in love with Buddhism, uh kind of coming out of Christianity and wanting to uh expand my perspective a lot more. And uh I think there's just like a strong notion there of kind of like take only what you need, uh, which is so like counter to like Western culture where we're kind of like consume as much as you can afford, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh which is such a different way of viewing like us as humans, of like, is it okay to take more than you actually need? Like, is that morally justified? And I think we have all these debates about morality, say, like, um, with all sorts of issues, but it's like there's a sort of morality that I think we all avoid to a certain extent because we're all a little bit fallible, at least in like more well-to-do places.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, dude, everything like our cell phones, literally the computer that we're recording off of this, like the amount of resources that went into that. Like you could just go spend 1500 bucks at the store and just buy it, but you have people have no idea the amount of resources that go into making something like that. And I do, I I do agree. We are in a weird world, like where and I think it is very much a Western culture thing. I think it's also traditionally like more so an American thing, too, where like we get into cool, we're going deep here. Um it's just it's like, I don't know. And I have a lot of so dude, I um I work in corporate finance for my day job, and everything is shareholder value, and everything is let's make more money and more and more and more, and let's like I I think we get to the point where we just like forget about the people aspect of it. And it'd be just because it's like so how can we just like in um I don't know, I'm kind of all over the place here, but I have a lot of friends that work in like investment banking and corporate finance and and in these like very well-paying jobs. And it's like, well, dude, when is enough enough? Like if you could feed your family and really just live a very fulfilling, happy, healthy life, like you don't need the Mercedes, like you don't need you know, the bigger car, the better house, the better watch, the better this, the better that. And we just get so caught up in that it's a very uniquely human problem and a very uniquely I don't know, just a unique problem that I just see more and more. Um and I just don't know where we go from here with it. It it's it I grapple with it very much as a person because I just hate the keeping up with the Jones shit because it it just doesn't go anywhere other than just more consumption, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, it's it's funny because um I love actually Ecclesiastes in the Bible where like King Solomon's talking about like vanity, vanity, it's all vanity, it's all just man chasing the wind, trying to gain advantage over fellow man. And it's like we've been in that cycle forever.
SPEAKER_01:Right?
SPEAKER_02:Where just where it just turns into like a game where like you're just trying to get to the top of the hierarchy, you want your bank account to have a certain amount of dollars in it, right? Where like you can start to you can start to gamify life where it's actually you're again disconnected from it, but there's real human suffering around you that's just getting totally ignored. Um, and that's where I think like I I think like why I think there's a certain amount of people I think wanting to return to like religion and sort of these sort of foundations where um there's like a real rooted history in them, right? Um, where like I think there is a real wisdom to that. And I think we do kind of run into, I mean, you see this with athletes as well, where it's like a lot of athletes when they actually achieve their really big goals they've been training for forever, they go through this huge low afterwards where you're like, oh, that was kind of unsatisfying. And I and I think that's rightfully so, because it's kind of like back to the thing of like everything's relationship. So if you're actually operating in a way that even if you're disconnected from it, I think there's sort of an authentic knowing within us that knows when we're kind of operating in a way that's not it's just not the best way we could be operating. And like I I do always come back to like sort of just um the Bible having a lot of great things, especially like the teachings of Jesus, where it's like that thing of love thy neighbor as thyself, right? The golden rule, do unto others as do unto others as you want, done unto you. It's like to me, that's like the high goal, where it's like uh if you've experienced like really deep love with somebody, to me, that's like the cessation or the cessation of that like that incessant pursuing of things, where it's like that's where I feel truly satisfied. So like I think the times where we're operating more authentically out of that, of like taking care of each other, if you're getting satisfaction from uh increasing somebody else's well-being, like it's so much more deeply satisfying than just watching your own wealth accumulate, right? Because there's there's a point at which, like, I think there was a documentary I watched a long time ago called Happiness. And they'd done some study that showed that like up to a certain point, like how much money you make does affect your happiness because you're taking care of your needs, right? Now you're not as stressed. Um, but then there's a point where it kind of maxes out and it doesn't really increase your happiness that much. But imagine if every person past that point started getting their satisfaction out of giving to each other and helping see somebody else like come up into the world or move out of poverty or something. Like, I think that we just don't know. And I think most things come from like a lack of knowingness or lack of lack of experiencing something, where I think if you know the satisfaction of doing that, I think it could just become incredibly addictive where like people who have a lot of money get addicted to like helping people with it. Um that's where again I kind of I kind of see a world in which like that could be possible because I think that is the truth. Like I think the truth is that is the most satisfying thing, but marketing, marketing and things, it's like we kind of have this consumerism thing that needs to push us towards uh earning and buying and being part of like the economy more so than being you know a fellow human to somebody. Um, but I think the great thing too though is like uh and maybe where I see things could potentially go very well is like in a free market economy, like the buyer does hold the power. So like we are supporting uh sort of these like fractures in the system that push money into like funnel money into these like groups that maybe are not doing good things, but we are supporting them. We are choosing to spend our money where we choose to spend it. Uh so I think like I think why I kind of like the philosophy of things is like if you can like the mind can change on a dime, right? Like once your mind changes, and I think you can get cultural movements that change the mind of a lot of people where things could shift very quickly in a positive direction. I think that like there just has to be some corrections of like some of the ways in which, again, I kind of view it as like humans getting a little bit manipulated into doing things that just serve more of an economic um outcome.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, I agree. And I dude, I think you know, there's flashes of our sport that I see, and I I get hope in, you know, even though I just bash pretty much every consumer that buys satisfies stuff. I I I do see uh I see more conscious consumers and more conscious people um I think within our sport, and that does give me a lot of hope. Where I think people are very like a great example, whether you agree with it or not, or whether whether anybody agrees with it or not, is uh I think when UTMB signed DASIA, people were pissed. And they uh they had a lot of concerns about that, you know, because it wasn't, you know, within uh I guess environmentally friendly. I totally agree. It's a car. That said, people voiced their opinions over it and chose where to spend their money and where to put their money, and soon Hoka became the sponsor. Whether we're stoked about that or not, there was some change that took place, whether good or bad. I think that uh you can look point to that or something like that and say, well, you know, change is possible. Um I don't know. As far as in the big picture, though, I I don't know, man. Like I I try to stay very optimistic. I do worry a lot about AI though. Like I I as someone that works in the corporate life and sees I find it very uh hilarious in a lot of ways where they corporations tell you, oh well, we need to be agile and adopt AI. But it's like you're gonna adopt something that's gonna take people's jobs. Why are we getting excited over this? And then people don't have jobs, and what are they gonna do? What are they gonna do? You know? So I I I ruffle with that. Like that that that worries me, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, I think it's it's like maybe one of the main issues with AI is it's funny that it's they're not funny. I think the unfortunate thing is that like we're kind of letting the technology run its course first, and then we're chasing it with maybe some like um things that we do socially to take care of all the people who lose their jobs, right? Like um whether like some universal income becomes a thing because there's less jobs available, whereas like we just let the technology run out front and do whatever it's doing, and then we're picking up afterwards, right? Which like maybe that's a little bit backwards, and we need to learn how to slow down a bit. Um, because I'm with you, like uh I got some ad from like some Tony Robbins thing, and he's talking about how what what an issue like AI is, and then it's like, but let me give you this course on how you can use it and fire all your employees. God.
SPEAKER_01:So bad, dude.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think that I hate it when it's like you're kind of like bringing up a thing and then you're jumping directly and being a exactly a part of the problem.
SPEAKER_00:You're like you profit off of it, right? Yeah, yeah. Well well, the thing is too, is it's like I don't know. If anything, I'm pro-human. Like I I think humans uh I don't know, like I I don't think I'm alone in this. I think most people listening to this will say the same thing. Like people want in they want to chase something. They want to, they want to there's gotta be something that gets you out of bed in the morning to go chase your dreams, your goals, whatever it is. And I think you know, a lot I think it's an unfortunate aspect of America where people are so tied to their jobs in the sense where like it becomes and that's fine, like it becomes your your thing, uh where you seek um meaning from. And I don't think I've never thought that to be a healthy thing, but I think what happens when that gets taken away and you can't find another thing to find your meaning, and you have thousands and thousands and millions of people that are missing their meaning because a robot you know replaced them, and it's like, well, what do we do? That's that's I see that's what worries me the most. I I find that to be quite uh a scary thing. So I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, I mean it's an interesting concept of like um like a lot of I feel like what we get sold with any sort of technological advancement is like how it's gonna make your life easier, right? Or how it's gonna help you in some capacity. Uh and then it sort of does, and it sort of doesn't. And I think like maybe there's a little bit of and and certainly technology like can help in a lot of ways, say like a watch when you're out in the forest, like having your route on there can save you from getting lost. There's like obvious use cases. Um, but I think in general, in terms of like the minimizing the amount of overall work and like sort of it stepping in and doing things for us. Uh sometimes as humans, I think it's actually kind of nice for us to just have something to do, uh, even if it's not terribly significant in any regard, like going out and just like raking up the yard or something. Sometimes it's nice to just be able to do that. And I think I question a little bit whether we want to get rid of all the jobs and just have this sort of vacancy for us to try to figure out other things to do. Um, it's like maybe there's something nice about us having the simple jobs to do, and we don't want to just uh subsidize those to a robot or something.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. The other thing too, like I I find it oh I I kind of almost call it a fallacy where people really believe that like it's uh this is really gonna twist of minds. But like people really think that like we're gonna get to the point where just like people become in the country like infinitely wealthy because AI you know takes away all the jobs and we're gonna have to do something with uh some sort of universal basic income. And maybe that is the truth, but the only way that's gonna happen is if people like get really pissed because they have nothing to do. And it's like when and listen, like I I mean I could say this first and foremost because I work in the corporate world, and it's like when have you ever seen like the wealth get distributed down? Like that never happens, um, unless people get pissed, you know. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, I I'm I'm very much with you, and I thought about this recently of um like we're still at a point where I think you could say like the collective masses have some leverage, right? There's still a need for humans to to have these certain roles and do jobs and things, right? Whereas like we're also now, I think the crazy thing is say with something like AI, we're also the thing supplying and training it, the thing that's gonna take our jobs, uh, and then also take the need for us, right? Like, I think that's a real dangerous thing when you go now, those people who have most the control over most of the resources don't have a need for the rest of us. So, like, what leverage do we have anymore? Right. So it's like I think that that outrage has to start coming up while you are still needed. If you just give it away absent-mindedly, which I think there's a little bit of that going on, um maybe bad results. Yeah, I think it's definitely something to be aware of. And I think, yeah, like there is, yeah, I think it's something we should all be thinking about a bit, you know, like uh because uh I was just talking to a buddy the other day, like um I I like foundational truths or like things that you can hold on where you just make things very simple, especially when the world gets very complex and hard to navigate. So I do love that sort of concept of the golden rule or love thy neighbor as thyself, where there's an aspect of love yourself there too, right? And I think part of that self-love is protection. Um, and I think that that's where like the common person is at these days, is like in some ways, um we're unwittingly having like that protection of self-violated a little bit, where it's like you kind of get all the marketing schemes and these sort of mind manipulations that tell you to buy into things that maybe you don't know the outcomes of that, right? It may not serve you in the long run, but you're being told it's going to. Uh, and I think that like maybe some of the things that we're getting, especially like um like the millennial generation, right? Where you kind of get sold. I think a lot of people like go to college and get this degree and you're gonna end up with a good job. And then it's like, nope. Like maybe it panned out, if panned out for you, or maybe it didn't. So I think there is some notion I think that is good that's coming up that I think um there's a lot more questioning, I think, happening of like, uh, I think I'm gonna be more critical about the things I'm the ideas I'm being sold because they don't seem to always work out that way. And I think that's the nice thing about I mean, honestly, like truth, I feel like has become a hard thing to get where I think there's a sort of purpose there where you have to get a lot more critical when truth gets harder to access. And I think it makes us a little bit more engaged with that pursuit. Uh, which again, to take an optimistic output, I think it's gonna be helpful in the long run because I think we're I think that us and younger generations are a little bit more forced into being engaged with like that pursuing of of what is actually true.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Dude, I I feel bad I'm taking up so much of your time. I just you're good. You're you're a philosopher, dude. I didn't Francesco did not tell me about this.
SPEAKER_02:Um Teddy Tonelli was not hitting me with these questions, dude. We were just talking about haptites and stuff.
SPEAKER_00:That's true. That's true. Uh as as someone that consumes and uses social media, what is your take on it?
SPEAKER_02:Oh gosh. I have to force myself to do social media. Like, I still haven't post about Kodiak, and I'm like, I need to I need to engage there. But it well, it's such a um I think it's such a paradox because I think it can be such a useful thing, again, like when you're trying to unite a lot of just very normal people, like there is that democratization of being able to put out media yourself and your opinion out into the world. And I think that can be a very good thing, um, where it gives us some amount of like ability to rally together. Uh I mean the problem is also then then like the platform is controlled by like a corporate entity. So it's a weird, I don't know, it's a weird intermixing in that regard. Um, I think that my my thing is like uh I get very concerned, and this sort of I feel like the predecessor to AI is just like algorithms and how people get siloed by algorithms, where like your worldview gets moved so small because it's kind of funneling you into things that will you'll engage with. So your worldview can so easily get smaller and smaller and smaller as opposed to like getting wider and more um inclusive. Uh so I see that being a major issue, just in that like people kind of have their own curated media being presented to them. So like just people can get so divided in that front because they're just seeing different information. Like we're just now interacting with a totally different part of the world, seemingly, but just like how our media is getting curated to us.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's I don't know. I I struggle with social media in the sense where I I I I find it more a net negative anymore than a net positive. And like you said, a lot of it's echo chambers, people getting stuck and only getting their ideas reinforced, which I think is very dangerous when you know you're constantly told you're right and you're getting the look at the things that you want to view. I just don't see that as positive. Um but even more so, I don't know. I think in sport, I guess it's also used as a marketing tool. And I guess it it's a great one if you're a brand. But I I wonder as far as the athlete goes, like that it's almost like a social contract, right? Where like you want to put what you can out into the world and share as much as you can, and that can be a positive. But also it's it's still a tool used to sell you things. So it gets, I don't know. For me, it it's always been very squirrely, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I I I think what I don't like is the way that um what's happening on social media then like bleeds into the real world. Where like for me, I think part of my resistance, like sometimes I just want to go for a run and I don't want to have to stop and take a picture and a video of something and set up a little shot in the middle of it. Like I just want to go for my run and enjoy that because I really enjoy that process, right? Of just going out and being in the forest. And there's a disruption of it, there's a little compromise that happens there. Um and then yeah, that yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Sorry, on that thought, no, no, no. The the the best example I also want to make of social new media just not being real is like, so you'll take an example like an athlete like yourself, who I would argue on your best day is one of the best athletes in Short Trail, right? But like you have a significantly less of a following than some influencer dude that is followed by a gazillion people. Someone's gonna look to that person and think that that's one of the best people in the sport. They have no idea that you exist, which is so weird to me. Where it's like you have to look outside and see like who like that just goes to show like what's on the internet is not real compared to what you're actually seeing results in in in the real world, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, totally. I it well, it's such an interesting thing in terms of um, and maybe it's a little bit of like as humans, we tend to be lazy, right? So it's like if something's if someone's presented to me as like a knowledgeable person at running, I'm gonna kind of tend to probably just believe that if I don't have like a a uh preceding knowledge that would disagree with it, right? So like if you're getting into anything new, you don't really know who people are, right? So if someone says, like, I know something, they present themselves confidently to you, you're probably gonna accept that unless you're like taking your due diligence to look into it. But again, I think as humans we tend to be more lazy. So if an algorithm pops something up because it's a popular thing, uh, like I kind of can't blame people for just taking that content that just got delivered to them, right? Um, but it is funny, I think, like when you are interacting with the real world of it. And a guy that I always think about who's a he's a he's a nice guy, uh the vegan cyclist on YouTube. Um very popular, very, very popular channel. Um like he's I don't know if he's cated up now, but like so cycling goes like uh cat five to cat one. They may have changed it since I was racing. Um but like you have to go through this whole process of getting upping your categories until you're one, which is like pretty much racing with the pros. Um, but he's like a cat two guy, right? Like and sort of like a halfway decent one, but he's like one of the most popular bike people on YouTube that would be a lot of people's main contact for any sort of bicycle knowledge. And I'm like, he's a very mediocre racer. Like he's not, you know, it's like for me, I think for somebody who comes from like high performance sport, I'm like, I I know that it looks nice, it sounds nice, like it's like because you do the video stuff well, people think that that justifies you being like a good resource for the other thing. And a lot of times those are actually contrary, where like the best people at doing videos are oftentimes not the people who have the most knowledge because they're actually fully engaged with uh the sport itself. So it is funny, I think, like when you kind of see behind that veil a little bit of like it's a lot different than I think how things get presented. And I think that's what maybe bothers me about social media and sort of like uh like what do they call that? Um it's like a tension economy or something, where it's like sort of sort of this notion that like uh you get yeah, you get a lot of value about just presenting yourself in certain ways. Like, and then a lot of times there is a little bit of and not always, but sometimes there's a gap in terms of like the authentic knowledge that backs that up, right? Like if you can just put a good presentation now, that's all that matters. And I think people just get so twisted up by things, especially like I mean, not just in sports, but it's like the whole like health and wellness industry is just like riddled with crazy ideas.
SPEAKER_00:Charlatans, yeah, yeah, yeah. People and yeah, a lot of these people have no idea what they're talking about. I mean, dude, the best thing I can I put it towards is like a laugh is because I'll see some influencer that just re ran like Leadville. And I'm like, that's awesome. Like you just ran the Leadville 100 mile, that's amazing, great accomplishment. And they're like talking about this like they really know what they're talking about, kind of stuff. And like I'll look at this person and like look at their followers. I'm like, all right, none of the people that I like that are really in the know in the sport actually follow this person. It's 100% of outside people outside of I guess our sphere follow this. So it's like, okay, that's the projection of our sport that's being projected out to the world, but it's not really the actual people that are like that are in the sport actually follow this person. So I find that to be very interesting as well. It's very weird. Um social media is a very strange thing. I I I don't think I'll ever understand it, and I I really don't think I want to, actually.
SPEAKER_02:No, it is, yeah, yeah. I think it I think it is, especially just yeah, and those interactions with like um yeah, something like a sport, the sporting world, and how those all that stuff ends up interacting down the line, right? Like how you how you end up navigating the sport from a business standpoint. Trying to do it full on, like it definitely looks a lot different. And then it's like there's just a lot of different ways in which um you know, it's like I feel like companies, it's like you would sponsor really good athletes because that kind of gets your brand out there, right? And it kind of gets you exposure, whether that be like in newspapers or like on TV or something, if you're sponsoring like somebody who's in the Olympics or whatnot. Uh but now it's like there's so many avenues where uh and it's kind of nice, I think, for like growing companies to be able to do things a little bit faster, but like you can just send product to 30 different amateur people who just have a good community outreach, right? Uh where it doesn't cost you almost anything and now you get exposure for very little. Uh and like I think whether that's a good thing or not, like it is kind of up in the air. Um, because I do think like it can be a detriment to maybe uh the professional side of the sport that's trying to make a living off of it. Um, where it yeah, presents other avenues for companies to not have to do that. Uh and so yeah, it's like for better or worse, it's like I don't I don't really know because it is nice to have like more amateur engagement um where there's opportunities. But it's crazy to me with social media though, what people will do for a little product or for like uh Oh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Free TV.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, people like yeah, yeah, they'll sell so much for so little. And so it's like I mean it's a process with like um like when it was when there was less integration of social media, like it was more of like a problem, say, with just in professional sports, where it's like if you take a crappy um contract, like that kind of hurts the professionalism of a sport as a whole, right? Like you get a bunch of people selling themselves for very little, that devalues everybody a little bit. Um, so that process now is just stretched out across like the whole community of runners, where now it's like not even just professionals, it just everybody can sell themselves for nothing. Uh and that ends up costing somebody else, right? Where it's like uh the demand goes goes down.
SPEAKER_00:And for what? Like for a brand affiliation, so you're like in the it crowd? Like that that's that's the one that makes me laugh. You know, I don't know. That's I mean, do you we could do a whole nother that's a whole nother episode right there. Uh especially on the oh my god, I just had Nick Nick Cornell on who's a um uh he's an agent in the store, and like we were talking about that, just like the like pay. And then because like uh what was it? Uh Kelly Newland went on Finn's podcast and said, you know, there were some runners making half a million dollars plus a year, and and that created like a big thing, and you know, and it makes you wonder like what is the wealth spread of of the store? And it's it's I guess it's pretty wide, which is kind of crazy. Um yeah, I don't know. It's a crazy, crazy thing.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, I can't speak all too well to it, but yeah, I I would say that though. It's like um Yeah, well, I I think it's funny, it's uh to me another like human thing where like we we're funny in the way that we evaluate things, and it's a little bit more straightforward with a sport where like you can sort of say like this performance is worth this amount or whatnot. But just in general, with like how humans are, we tend to it's like if somebody thinks something is shiny and good, like everybody else will glom onto it. We're like, oh, this person starts to get some traction. All of a sudden everybody's all about that person, and it's like it's funny how it won't just spread out more evenly dispersed, where it's like um, like my valuation is based on whether other people think this is valuable or not. Uh, and I think that happens with athletes a lot. And like, I mean, I think it's just kind of the nature of fame, uh, where it has this weird vortexing quality to it. It does. It does.
SPEAKER_00:Well, dude, I think we're I'm gonna I I dude, this is really crazy. My my thing just let me know your battery has less than 20%. So I'm gonna that is wild. Um, I'm gonna let you uh let you go on that one. Dude, we gotta do another one sometime in the future because there's a lot of things I didn't ask you. I feel like we could talk for hours. So I I want to say thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's a great conversation. Um definitely will not be the last one if you're if you're more than willing to come talk philosophy with me. Um I really appreciate you and I appreciate your time.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks, James. No, I appreciate it. Yeah, dude. And I I love diving in deep too. So we'll uh we'll circle back when AI starts to take over the world, I think.
SPEAKER_00:There you go. There you go. That'll be part part two. Thanks, Chad.
SPEAKER_02:All right, thanks, James.
SPEAKER_00:Well, what'd you guys think? Oh man, I want to thank Chad so much for coming on the pod. Guys, I'm really sorry about some of the audio quality. I uh just switched over to Riverside, and I don't know what is going on with my mic, but it keeps clipping when I'm in the middle of these shows, and I don't know that it's happening while I'm recording. So, yeah, if anyone is like audio engineer that wants to reach out to me, might know a thing or two about this that maybe AI or Google, uh well, don't ask AI, uh, but maybe Google might know or someone, I don't know. Um, moving on. I want to say thank you guys so much for listening. Uh, I'm sure Chad appreciates it as well. The best way you can find Chad and support him, give him a follow on Instagram or Strava. You can find him on Instagram at Chad4life. That's right, Chad for Life. Um, and yeah, and uh give him a follow. Let him know what you thought about the episode. Guys, if you enjoyed the podcast and you've been enjoying some of the changes and things we've been making and uh things have been going really well with you guys, um, if that's all going well, give us a five-star rating and review on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. If you are enjoying the video episodes on YouTube, please subscribe. We're trying to grow that channel. Uh yeah, it's not really that big. So we're trying to get there. Um yeah. Also, you can support us by supporting our brand partner. That's Ultimate Direction. Hop on over to ultimatedirection.com, use code Steep Stuff Pod, one word, Steep Stuff Pod, and it's gonna get you 25% off your cart. Um, all kinds of good stuff. We are in holiday season times. Um, if you got a loved one and you're interested in getting them a pack, I think there's a lot of really good stuff there, pack wise from UD. All kinds of new stuff dropped this year. Uh the new Ultra Vest and the new race vest are definitely two things to check out and keep on your uh on keep on the holiday list. Again, that's code Steep Stuff Pod. All right, guys. Uh, this is a great good week of podcasts. We've got a lot of good ones coming out next week. Um, a lot of conversations going down the line and good stuff in the pipeline. So loving it, having fun. Thanks for tuning in.
