The Steep Stuff Podcast
Your Source for all Things Trail, Mountain & Skyrunning
The Steep Stuff Podcast
Ares Reading - Post Sunapee Scramble (U.S. Mountain Running Championship) Interview
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
One wrong turn can end your day, or it can reveal what you’re made of. Right after the U.S. Mountain Running Championships, we link up with Ares Reading in the airport for a quick, honest debrief on how he ran himself into fourth place and onto Team USA, right behind names like Christian Allen, Dan Curts, and Mason Coppi.
We walk the race from the opening climb to the moment Ares, Mason, and Christian all followed the wrong markers into the woods, and the split-second mental scramble that followed. Ares explains how he settled back in, where he regained ground, and why the technical downhills are still the biggest separator for him. If you care about mountain running, trail racing tactics, and what actually changes performance week to week, this conversation gets specific fast.
We also dig into training with coach Matt Daniels, including fatigue resistance sessions, long hill reps, and a hill ladder workout designed to simulate pushing hard on tired legs. Ares shares how getting dropped on technical descents at Canyons flipped a switch, why he’s leaning into more technical downhill practice, and what he’s most excited about next at Broken Arrow and beyond, with international goals on the horizon.
If you’re chasing your own breakthrough, hit play, then subscribe, share this with a trail friend, and leave a review so more runners can find the show.
Follow Ares on IG - @ares_reading
Use code SteepStuff for 20% your cart on Sidas.us
Follow James on IG - @jameslauriello
Follow the Steep Stuff Podcast on IG - @steepstuff_pod
Follow Sidas USA on IG - @sidas_usa
Post-Race Blues And Big Result
SPEAKER_01What's up guys? Welcome back to the Steep Stuff Podcast. I'm your host, James Lariello. And today I am experiencing quite the post-U.S. Mountain Running Championship blues. You know, but we're gonna keep things rolling. I'm so excited this time to be joined by Ares Redding, fourth place finisher at yesterday's U.S. Mountain Running Championship, uh, just behind the likes of Dan Kurtz, Mason Cope, and Christian Allen. This guy is on the come-up in the sport and uh definitely has quite the bright future. Already got himself a win at the Big Alta 28K, and a second place to David Sinclair at the Canyons 25K. Ares came and made a statement uh at the U.S. Mountain Running Championships yesterday, and uh will be racing at the U.S. uh well, will you be racing on the U.S. men's team uh at the Defee Day Calor race that's gonna be taking place in October? It will serve as the WMRA championship. Uh hope you guys enjoy this episode. Definitely uh just a quick one. Uh I wanted to get a debrief from him, talk a little bit about his race, and uh talk a little bit about his background. We'll have him on in the coming weeks uh for a full-length podcast. So I hope you guys enjoy this one. Without further ado, Aries Redding. This is the game!
The Ceta Sox Footcare Break
SPEAKER_01Interrupting this episode to talk to you guys about Ceta Sox, the official partner of the Steep Stuff Podcast. How much do you guys love your feet? I mean, I do. I love my feet. I really care about my feet. But I also care about your feet. But not in that way. Get your mind out of the gutter. Ceta Sox, keeping your feet stable, protected, and in control since 1975. Bringing you guys an anatomical fit and superior hybrid composition materials. Cetus incorporates odor control, ankle support, and anti-slip grip strips into some of my favorite models. Check out the Run Anatomic Comfort and the Run Anatomic, two of my favorites, online at CDUS.us. Cetus is the official footcare partner of UTMB in Western States. Cetus, your foot company.
Race Debrief And Wrong Turn
SPEAKER_01Alright, Aries Redding, welcome to the Steep Stump Podcast. How's it going, man? Good, good. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. So excited to finally chat with you. Dude, I was saving you for a good moment like this. We can uh we can get you on. Dude, I gotta ask you this. You're like a fan favorite. You're like uh I've had more people in the live chat talk about you than any other athlete. I love this. What do you think it is that like uh that has you capture the hearts and souls of uh our uh our trail running community? What's the deal?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh I don't know, man. Uh I mean I just started trail running. Uh I've been loving it. It's amazing. Uh best choice I ever made for sure. Uh but yeah, no, the support's been great. Had a lot of people like reaching out to me and stuff, especially after this race. So it's been pretty cool to get that positive reinforcement, you know.
SPEAKER_01It's amazing. I mean, you executed an amazing race, fourth place. You made the U.S. team right behind Christian Allen, Dan Kurtz, and Mason Copi, some of the most well-rounded and best athletes in our sport. Uh let's get into it. Let's talk about the race itself and how it unfolded. Uh, it seemed like you were, dude, you were in the mix the entire day. I mean, at one point in time you were in third. Seemed like you bobbled back and forth a little bit uh with Dan, and then didn't look like you were challenged very much at the front. Um maybe talk about how the race went for you, starting with the opening climb, how you were able to kind of assert your dominance. You caught, it seemed like you caught Mason and uh Christian relatively early. They were never too far in front of you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I mean, uh I was planning on taking it out like a bit more conservatively. Um, but then maybe like three minutes into the climb, I was like, all right, I I can definitely push harder. So I I was in like 15th maybe, and so then I was just made a move and then uh just try to like catch them as slowly as possible rather than do it all at once, you know, because if you I didn't want to over fry myself on a on a big climb. Um yeah, yeah, I caught them like you know, I was like 10 meters behind them at the top. Um and then we actually all three of us made a wrong turn. Uh talk about that. Did you panic? Yeah. Uh yeah, yeah. I was pretty I was pretty flustered because I was like so like content with where I was. I was like, oh, this is awesome. Like we have such a big lead, like this is great. Um but yeah, and then we we just went into the woods at the wrong point. Uh there was like two poles with orange like circles and the flags were orange, so I don't know, I I was just following them, and then yeah, we all just stopped in the middle of the trail and were kind of like looking around. Uh but yeah, I was I was pretty flustered. They they seemed fine, but I was kind of freaking out, and then Dan just blew by us all on the downhill like immediately when we got out of there. So then I was like, oh great, now I'm in fourth, and I was like looking back, but yeah, I was I was able to I was kind of like pretty flustered on the downhill uh for the rest of the first loop, and then once we hit the next climb, I was like, all right, it's time to like lock it in, like let's see if we can like make up lost lost time there.
Technical Downhills And Fast Fixes
SPEAKER_01Um talk about the technicality of the course. This is something where I actually in the pre-race interview or the pre-race uh uh breakdown, I my biggest concern about you going in was you've performed so well on non-technical courses. You obviously live and train at a boulder, Colorado. It's not super technical. And my big question, Mark, was how would you how would you deal with the technicality of this course and just the different like how different it is compared to other courses? And you passed with flying collars. Talk about the technicality, especially of that second climb and how you were able to handle that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think yeah, it's like kind of the biggest thing I've been working on since Canyons. Um, David Sinclair like really just blew my doors off on the like more technical downhill section, and so I was like, all right, like this is a real like thing I need to work on. So since since Canyons, like I've been trying to do like a lot more runs that have like technical downhill sections, and not even necessarily like push them super hard, but like try to run them more efficiently. Um so yeah, I've been getting better at that. Definitely, definitely have a lot to improve on. But um, yeah, the technical uphill was actually like pretty fine. I think it went well. I I made up a lot of ground on Dan. I almost caught back up to him fully, but then you know, downhill happened again. There's nothing, it was out of my hands in that point. But um, yeah, yeah, I was I was pretty pleased with how how I was able to like I definitely noticed a big improvement in how efficiently I was running downhills uh in comparison to Canyons.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um so yeah. Well, I mean amazing it's just amazing that you had the wherewithal and understanding to learn from that interaction with David Sinclair and say, all right, I'm gonna make this adjustment very quickly and and see how I can how fast I can make that adjustment going in. What were the conversations and the workouts like with Matt, your coach Matt Daniels kind of going into this race? Anything specific, like workout-wise you guys did to kind of prepare for the two loops? Um what did that kind of look like?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, I mean a lot of like you know, the classic like fatigue resistance uh workouts. So I did a lot of a lot of hills, a lot of longer hill reps, and then um like one specific workout I did like two weeks out was I did um like a ladder of hill reps. So I like started at 10 minutes and went down until like two minutes. Um and then I like ran for like 10 minutes and then I hit a hilly loop like pretty hard just to kind of simulate that, you know, like tired legs, and then you gotta you gotta really push on like a hilly loop. Um so yeah, a lot of stuff like that, a lot of longer hill reps um with like longer recovery sections to kind of like get the legs like feeling pretty pretty bad and then try to hit it hard again.
SPEAKER_01Very nice. Dude, Matt Daniels called you the fittest man in Boulder. What do you have to say about that?
SPEAKER_00Uh I don't know how true that is. Uh it's all it's all relative. I don't know. I'm fitter than I've ever been, but I don't know if I'm the fittest one there.
SPEAKER_01What did you, and I I'd love to hear this. Like, what did you think about that front group? Did it blow your mind at all? I mean, especially because like now you've gotten to see David Sinclair who's one of the best in the world, and you just saw three of the best we have to offer in the country, if not the world, in Mason, Dan, and uh Christian. Did it give you a ton of confidence knowing that you can kind of hang with these guys?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, yeah, it really did. It was it was pretty cool, like, especially on the first climb, kind of like being up with Mason and Christian and being like, I'm still running within myself, like I'm not like running hard enough to where I'm gonna like blow up right away. Um so yeah, that like gave me a lot of confidence. And then obviously still still some things to work on, but yeah, it's it's pretty cool to see the the momentum shift here for me.
SPEAKER_01And before we things when you say things to work on, what do you what are you specifically like implying? Like where do you where do you after learning from this race, like what what do you want to improve on? What do you think you can improve on?
SPEAKER_00Uh definitely still the downhills as like a major major skill thing for me right now. I'm still like yeah, just just learning how to run them hard. Because like a lot of times I'm getting dropped and it's like I'm not necessarily like overcooking myself, like I'm not pushing myself over the limit, but it's just like I can't run faster because I'm not like I don't have like the skill, like the technique to go down any quicker. So yeah, that's definitely gonna be a big thing for me uh going forward here with broken air in a couple weeks.
SPEAKER_01Very cool, very cool. I mean, dude, just uh obviously Dan's an anomaly because he's like literally like you know, probably the best we have to offer on the descent. Yeah. But um the rest of the guys, I mean, I think it's great for someone like you to be able to, especially having Mason as like a former teammate from Furman, but like also good to see someone like Mason who, you know, just a few years ago was in a very similar position to you, you know, just kind of you know, making the teamer just all kind of on that bubble, and then look at the improvements he made, and he's now one of the best we have. So definitely the ceiling is extremely high for someone like you, which is crazy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure, for sure. It's very exciting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, talk about broken arrow, man. How excited for you uh are you to kind of transition and come off this high and uh you know get back into some training and get ready for things in a couple weeks and just two weeks away.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, no, I'm I'm pumped. Yeah, I gotta make sure I recover well this week, but yeah, I think I can still hit a couple solid workouts um again with more downhill practice, but I am very excited for the ascent. Uh it'll be cool to do a race where it's only uphill. Um I'm really excited for that one.
SPEAKER_01I'm excited to see you in the ascent, dude. If you were that close to Christian and Christian won it last year, like you've got a good shot at uh at a very solid race there. So it's gonna, and you'll get to see more of the best guys that we have to offer that in the world. Patrick will be there. You get to see, and you'll get a rematch with David Sinclair. Maybe you can get one on him, dude.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, that'd be that'd be good. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01What does it mean to you uh to make
Broken Arrow Plans And Team Meaning
SPEAKER_01this US team? How important is that?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I mean, it's it's awesome. It's something that I've always like kind of you know dreamed about. Like, you know, when you're a kid, it's like, oh man, how cool would it be to represent the US like on the global stage and distance running as a whole? Um so to do it in trails, which is like something that I've always kind of wanted to do and haven't done it till now. And doing it so early, like in my trail career, is like so exciting.
SPEAKER_01It's kind of surreal, honestly. That is crazy, man. You came onto the scene very quick and had and have had a ton of success thus far. How how old are you, if you don't mind me asking?
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, I'm I'm 25.
SPEAKER_01Oh man, dude, you got a whole you got at least a decade of of doing this, if not longer, which is crazy. Yeah, I hope so. Um all right, let's let's quickly transition a little
Origin Story And Trail Preferences
SPEAKER_01bit. I can ask you about like how how did you find out about the sport? Maybe take me back to college. I understand that you were uh teammates uh with Mason Copia at one point in time at Furman. Talk about kind of your how you found the sport and how you got into things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, when I was in high school, I always loved like trail running. I never necessarily I didn't do like a bunch of like runs on the trails and stuff, but every now and then, especially move to Boulder, like every now and then in the summer, like I'd have friends and be like, oh, like let's go do like a trail run instead of just like you know the more like flatter dirt roads, and I just loved it. I thought it was so cool. I was like, man, like I didn't even know like professional trail running was a thing at the point. I was like, man, how cool would that be? Like to just like go race on the trails all the time. Um so that was just it's always been in the back of my head ever since I was pretty young. Uh but yeah, I went to Furman uh for two and a half years. I ended up transferring to Santa Clara to where I graduated uh two years ago. And then I uh I joined uh a team, a road and track team called Roots Running Project at a boulder. Um so I did that for a year, and then I was just like, man, yeah, this this really isn't for me. Um you know, I just wanted to try the trail. So yeah, reached out to Matt Daniels, and here we are.
SPEAKER_01Wow, dude, that's crazy. Uh what what a transition you've made thus far. Let me ask you this like now you've got to see some of the more mountain classic stuff, some of the more technical sides of racing versus something like a big alta, which you've had a lot of success at, and canyons. What do you prefer more? Do you like like maybe those longer 25Ks that are more runnable or something that's a bit punchier like what you experienced yesterday?
SPEAKER_00It's on a bit of a lot of people. Um honestly, yeah. I think I kind of like the more like punchy, like shorter stuff. Kind of like almost has like a feeling of like the 5k on the track, which like I like that feeling, like that like type of pain, that type of like hard effort. Um kind of reminded me of that. Um I would say that I'm probably more like naturally talented at like the more runnable, kind of like 25-30k stuff, but I do think that uh with some time, I think I could be pretty good at the like shorter punchier stuff.
SPEAKER_01Very cool. Yeah, I want to go back to Senep. There's a question I missed uh that I meant to ask you about that just like struck me about the live stream I was thinking about. Um on the descent, when you almost caught so Dan got away, Dan caught Christian. How close were you to Christian on that descent? Because it looked like you were not like maybe 15 seconds back? Tops? You didn't look like you were that far off.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn't I wasn't too far off. Um but like every now and then we'd hit like a like a steeper section, then I would just see him get like further away from me, and I'd be like, ah dang, and then it would kind of flatten out, and then I kind of even it out, and then again, yeah, steeper section, he'd get away. Um so yeah, yeah, it was cool, but I was like, ah, I'm I'm not catching him here.
SPEAKER_01Uh I I was just curious because it looked from the from the television, I mean from what I was looking at, it looked like you there was there was a chance that you could have you could have picked him off, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Not fully Christian's course, but still everybody had a great race. But I was happy to see Dan, you know, kind of resemment himself to where he should be, and it was good to see Mason uh do what he needed to do as well. So yeah, for sure, for sure. Um what else what else can I get into? Maybe maybe your upbringing. Like where where are you originally from and how did you even get into running?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I started running uh like competitively uh high school. I grew up in San Diego, California. Um I moved uh my junior high school though to Boulder. I graduated from Naiwat High School. So uh yeah, I kind of had a slow, slow like uh upbringing, I guess, in terms of like the ranks in high school. I like really uh kind of came onto the scene like my senior across country just in the nick of time. I was like, oh I don't know if I can go D1, like blah blah blah. And then yeah, I was able to run pretty well in cross-country there and you know end up going to Furman um out of there. But yeah, I I've always loved cross country. I've always been like objectively like a lot better at cross-country than track. So like that's kind of like why I like the trails even more because it's just more so hard and rugged, it's not flat. Yeah, yeah. Exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER_01What uh besides broken arrow, what can we expect to uh what will we see you at this summer?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um we're gonna see. I'm gonna take like a little down week after Broken Arrow. I've been training pretty hard since like January, so take like a down week and then uh kind of talk to Matt, honestly, after after Broken Arrow and see. Um got Canada in October, so that'll be cool. Um yeah, maybe something something like Mammoth Trailfest kind of excites me. Um and then potentially uh doing a 50k by UTMB to qualify for OCC for next year. Cool. Cool. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_01Any chance that maybe I mean we'll see after Broken Arrow, but like any chance we can get you into like a golden trail series race or something like that as early as this year and get you abroad and get you kind of racing internationally already. That could be something. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. If the if the opportunity presented itself, I certainly would not be opposed. Um yeah, that's kind of my goal is I just want to race the most competitive races I'm like I have the opportunity to race at this point. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01I love it, man. I love the confidence. It's very I I think we're in, and maybe
U.S. Depth And Big Goals
SPEAKER_01you can tell me what you think about this or whether you agree. And like we're in this really interesting time on for the North American men, or especially the American men, right? Taylor Stack is kind of starting to come into his own. Uh, we've got guys like you know, Mason, Christian, Dan, and now you're just one more guy to join this, like, you know, this this starting to join this group of uh you know incredibly strong and talented American men that'll go compete on the international scene. So I feel like this is a really exciting time in our sport, an exciting time to be a fan for short trail in the United States.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I know totally. It's it's crazy. It's been cool too to see like all these people on the trails like go do a road race or a track race and run like crazy times, like running super competitively against like professional roadrunners and track runners and stuff. That's why uh yeah, like I've always I've kind of followed Christian Allen for a while. He's like one of the first uh first trail athletes that I follow. He's like ran 209 in the marathon, like so fast. Yeah, it's it's it's cool to see, and I think it just makes everyone else more competitive. It's like, man, like this guy's you know run some crazy PRs on the track, and then he's you know crushing a 50k on the trails. Like it's pretty it's pretty cool to see the range and the the depth of talent. Um definitely makes me want to work harder to you know get towards the top.
SPEAKER_01Did you get to connect with Christian or any of the front men after the race and and kind of debrief your guys' race and chat?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I talked to I talked to Mason for a bit. Uh we cooled down together. Yeah, like like you said, we were teammates for a bit, so it's kind of kind of cool to catch up with him. Uh, you know, we still got lots of mutual friends, and it's kind of cool that we both ended up here, like doing trails and stuff. Took very different paths, but here we are. So it's it's pretty cool. Yeah. But yeah, I talked to him mostly. Very cool.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, what uh any lasting things that you want to end on at just the excitement level and just uh yeah, I I think my biggest question is like it's always hard for these to come down and then just kind of reprogram the brain to go right into something else, like broken arrow. Yeah, do you think that transition will be easy for you? Because obviously, you know, you're right there. Now it's time to go back to business for something like uh the broken arrow set.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I yeah, I think it'll make it easier for me. The fact that I was relatively close but didn't didn't quite get there, you know, wasn't quite in the top three. So I think that's like super motivating for me. Like I like like if I could race tomorrow, I would. But um yeah, I think I think I'm very excited. I think it'll be a good transition here in like 11 days or something like that.
SPEAKER_01One last question for you. What's your goal in the sport, dude? Like, what do you want to be? Who do you who do you want to be? What do you want to do?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I just want to get like every every ounce of myself that I can out, you know. Like I I think I can be one of the best in the sport, and I think it's gonna take some time, but I think if I do things right, um I could be up there, you know, competing on the global stage. Um so yeah, that's that's what I want to do. I love it so much, and I'm like so grateful already, like in such a short period of time that I've had all these opportunities. So I hope it just keeps uh keeps compounding. You can see where that takes me. I love it.
SPEAKER_01Aries Red again, I'm a fan. I'm so excited, dude. Uh thank you so much for coming on the show. I told you this was gonna be a quick one. I know you're in the airport chilling. Uh good. We'll do a longer one, maybe a rounder after Broken Arrow. I'll be out there. Uh or or maybe after we'll we'll figure out a place and a time to uh get you on for an hour or two for a long-term chat. So I really appreciate your time and uh thank you. Congratulations again, man. You should be so excited on this result. I appreciate it for sure.
