Episode 488: Ultramarathon Problem Solving | Kilian Korth

Kilian Korth finally cracked the code for a successful race at Cocodona 250 on his forth attempt. It didn’t come without challenges and unpredictable hurdles to clear. Kilian is one of the best problem solvers in the sport. We discuss his approach, problem solving, and what makes Cocodona and multiday events so appealing in the modern ultramarathon era.

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Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] All right, Killian, welcome back. Thanks. It's good to be here. Yeah. You're catching me at a, a little better time than, uh, when we talked after the Triple Crown, 'cause that was only five days after Moab, so I'm, I'm a little more alert and with it this time. You got, got a little more energy in the tank, yeah.

Yeah. It's funny yeah, it wasn't-- it doesn't feel that long ago that you were on here before, and- No ... I just had Rachel Entrick on earlier in the week, and she had come on maybe a few episodes after you did, so it felt like a really quick turnaround with her. But both of you have just been putting in some, some busy work since then, so why not talk again, right?

Totally. Yeah, I mean, it's, I, I'm, I'm always happy to come and chat with you. And, uh, it does- time acts in strange ways over the long haul. It's like I've never-- I don't think anyone will ever figure out how days can go by so slowly, but then years and months can go by so quickly. It's, uh- Yeah. It doesn't, doesn't totally make sense.

Yeah, I'm sure the start of day three at Cocodona did not feel like the time was flying by at that point. [00:01:00] No, no. That night, night two specifically felt, uh, extremely long. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, I was super excited to see your performance at Cocodona for a variety of reasons. I know when you were on here chatting with me last time, it was kind of a bit of an unknown for you, but also a promising perspective, 'cause you had just come off winning all three Triple Crown 200s.

But the, you also had had that aller- allergy issue with, uh, the, in one of the sections at, at Co- Cocodona, so I know you were going into there with maybe your fingers crossed a little bit as to whether you were gonna have sort of, you know, a, a rude awake- awakening at some point, regardless of your fitness.

But watching your preparation kind of between when we recorded last and Cocodona had me super excited for what your potential would be if, with all of that kind of staying under, under wrap. But I assume that that wasn't much of an issue for you. Yeah. No, no allergy issues. I think that, uh, a few factors played into that.

I've been [00:02:00] on a course of allergy shots for about six months now, so that's about the time that those should start making a difference. And then the fact that Arizona had a massive heatwave a month and a half before the race resulted, I, I think, in a really early bloom, and so I don't think, as normally with Cocodona, it's like I'm running, you're running in the peak bloom.

And, uh- Mm ... that definitely wasn't the case this year. And then I was also prophylactically using, not an albuterol inhaler, but an inhaled steroid that I think helped kind of ward off any issues. And just to ward off any criticism there, I did reach out to Aravaipa to ask about therapeutic use exemptions, but they don't do any drug testing, so I took the steps necessary to make sure that that was okay.

And, uh, obviously for races that do drug tests I will do the same thing But I know that there was a, there was a couple pictures of me using my inhaler and, and some people and some comments were, you know, talk- ... talking a little, a little trash about that, so I just wanted to, to ward off any of that from the get-go.

Yeah. [00:03:00] Well, I mean, it's kind of an unfortunate scenario in general just with respect to some of the inhalers and things like that because it's, it's just, I mean, it's a legitimate issue. You- Yeah … I think 30% of endurance athletes do have some sort of asthmatic thing happen. Uh, yours is more allergy based.

I do also have just asthma, so it's like, there's- So maybe you're more prone ... I've got, I've got both things. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, it- it's actually kind of ironic just, you know, g- given that whole scenario because here in Central Texas, we have a really bad allergy based reaction to stuff, where the kind of like the running joke in, in Austin is once you've been here for a few years get ready, you're gonna, you're gonna have a, have an allergy response to… There's this, uh, this oak pollen and then a bunch of other stuff.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, I actually did have a reaction to it this year, which was odd to me, 'cause I hadn't really paid too close attention to that stuff, uh, because I just didn't have any issues with it. Mm-hmm. And the only time I've ever had any sort of allergic reaction while [00:04:00] running was at World 100Ks in 2015.

We were in Winschoten, Netherlands, and I got pulled off the course, 'cause I was, like, breathing through a straw, and I leaned up against a tree to try to catch my breath, and they swept me into an ambulance, and I never really found the exact s- issue to what was going on there. But it was- Yeah … a lot… I was told, "You probably had an allergic reaction to some of the pollen in the area."

So yeah, this winter, I was respon- I was, uh, reacting pretty bad to the allergies. I went and saw a pulmonologist and stuff like that to rule out anything, and they did an allergy test, and I came back very sensitive to the oak pollen, some sort of outdoor mold, ragweed, pigweed, and one other thing.

Yeah. So it's kind of a weird situation, though. It's not that I don't have issues outside of it, outside of Central Texas, or I guess anywhere that those sort of allergies are, and, and I, I… It took time to build up, too. It took, uh, it took me four, essentially four winters to be exposed to those things before- Mm-hmm … I didn't even notice anything.

And it was just a weird scenario, 'cause I c- I'd go out and run easy [00:05:00] and feel totally fine, and then I would try to do an interval session at threshold or VO2 max, and it would just be, like, you just get crushed. Yeah, yeah. What's happening? Yeah, it is strange. And it's strange how different it can be location to location, 'cause when I lived on the East Coast- Mm-hmm

I had no allergy problems, and my wife had allergies for the first time in her life ever, which was just kind of, it was sort of comical to c- to witness, 'cause she's "I think I've been sick for weeks." And I was like, "No, no, you just have allergies." But, uh, then in Grand Junction, where I am now, in the desert I got an allergy test, and I was allergic to 55 of 55 things they tested for.

Okay. Only 23 seriously enough to address in the allergy shots, but still, I was like, "Okay, so the desert hates me, and I just, this is just ha- where I happen to live. That's excellent." But, uh, i- it's, yeah, it's one of those things that's like ha- it's weird to talk about because I, and I, I tried not to talk about it too much before Cocodona, 'cause I didn't wanna make it sound like I was preloading an excuse if things went wrong.

[00:06:00] Right. But I also did, sort of want people to know that if I were to DNF at mile 150, this is gonna be the reason. Yeah. Well, I mean, you ended up in an ICU. Yeah, yeah. Like in a pre… So I think it's one of those things where it, it, there, it's one thing to fake an excuse. It's another thing to end up in an ICU.

I think you had a pretty good, uh- Yeah ... a pretty good documentation of what could possibly go wrong if you didn't have that problem solved, but- Yeah, a reason and not an excuse, perhaps. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so. But clearly, clearly that worked itself out. But as most of these long ultras probably have, uh, there's, there's, it's never necessarily, uh, a total clean run through with, uh, something that… Something's gonna come up, right, that you're gonna have to manage or you're gonna pivot to.

I think maybe, maybe Rachel made it look like there was a path forward to having an absolutely perfect day where nothing goes wrong. But even she, I'm sure, could, uh, identify parts where, "You know what? I would tweak this maybe," or, um, this was a low point that sticks out, and things like that. But- Yeah ... I was, I was, I mean, I was [00:07:00] like most people that got into Cocodona this year.

It was just like one of those things where you're like, at the start you're like, "Okay, maybe I'll pop in and watch occasionally, and check in on where people are on the, on the little tracker thing." And then as the hours pile up, I found my- found myself having it on in the background more often than not while I was doing other things and, and straight-up paying close attention to it and others.

And I think it was, like, it was… Is it, which aid station is the one right around 190? Mund's Park. Mund's Park, yeah. Yeah. I was paying pretty close attention to that point 'cause Rachel had gone through, and I knew you were shortly be- just sh- just behind her. And they had the camera on you coming in, and as you came in, you had mentioned your, one of your glutes just felt like it was not, not operating, and you were, you were kinda accommodating your stride a little bit in order to avoid that.

So I had my fingers crossed. I was like, "Okay, hopefully this isn't something that is gonna totally derail his day." Seemed like it was a problem for you, but not necessarily one that derailed your day. It just maybe slowed you down a little [00:08:00] a bit. Yeah. I mean- I, I, I, I don't really know exactly what happened still, so the best description I can have is that my, my glute just totally shut off.

So yeah, the glute basically just felt like it shut off, stopped working, and then I proceeded to try to deal with it at Munds Park for, uh, you know, 10, 15 minutes or something like that. Uh, lo and behold coming into Munds Park, I had actually caught Rachel a little bit, which was the first time the entire race had occurred, and, uh, she- I think she left basically just as I was arriving.

Mm-hmm. So that was-- I didn't get told that at the time. I'm sure that if I'd been coming in, in a, in re- feeling really positive and feeling good, that, that's, that would have been information delivered to me right away. "Hey, she's not too, too far ahead of you at this point." But then after that, it was like I proceeded to enter just the lowest point in any race that I've ever experienced without actually [00:09:00] ending up DNFing.

So, my maj- my, my most important stability muscle is just totally MIA. And then I leave Munds Park. It's raining. I'm freezing cold, and we just immediately hop a fence and get onto soupy, sticky mud. So, the mud starts to compound my external and internal misery. I'm with Joe Corcione, who's pacing me at this point, and, uh, I feel like he actually got to see-- I'm not someone who complains very much, and I, I don't actually know how much of this was internal versus external kind of bitching about the conditions-

and, and my condition. But I was like, "Man," in my head I was like, "You are being such a baby right now." But it was hard not to, not to spiral because I'm like, "Wow, so this race is going perfectly. I'm having the day that I want to. My plan is going." Everything's going according to plan. My whole idea was to get to the plateau and run everything, and so far, that was actually working.

And then due to something seemingly outside of my control, you know, it's like it starts going wrong, and so the, the, the mind [00:10:00] really lost it at that point. But yeah, it really slowed me down for about that 17 miles that I was with Joe, so all the way to Kelly Canyon. I mean, it was muddy too. That section was just gonna be slow regardless.

And then the flat, not muddy, really not technical, super easy eight miles to Fort Tuthill, we walked the whole thing. I mean, I really couldn't run. It was hurting and uncomfortable enough, and I think there's just a doubling down with the mindset that th- that can happen, where I'm just stuck in this horrible thought spiral downwards into oblivion.

And, um, I knew I was really in the danger zone mentally when the quiet voice that's normally meant to me, normally it's "You're gonna fail. You suck. You-- who, who, who thought you could ever do this?" Blah, blah, blah. That voice changed to this seductive voice, and it started saying things like- You've done really well to this point.

Everyone will understand if you DNF with an injury. Like, how good does it sound to lay down at Fort Tuthill and be warm? And then [00:11:00] the tiny part of me that was still rational was like, "Uh-oh." Mm-hmm. Big, big problem here. That's not normal. And so I was trying to take my normal five-minute dirt naps.

They weren't working. I do wonder if, again, that's just a mindset thing. The Triple Crown, like all my 200s last year, I basically had close to perfect races in all of them, and so my, my five minutes of sleep worked and, and I was in a positive head space when I took my dirt nap, whereas when I was trying to take those this time, I was in the most negative head space possible.

And so then going into Tuthill, I knew that I needed to do something drastic to try to save this train that was just very close to derailing, and so I took my... a 45-minute nap, which I've never done in a 200 before. I think did save my race, and thankfully my wife diligently massage gunned my butt-

for the entire 45 minutes, in the warmth too, so I think that helped. But, uh, the rest of the race I would say my glute slowed me down, but not, not really too [00:12:00] much. I mean, I got out onto the 17-mile Walnut Canyon se- section, which ended up being my favorite of the race because I've never really been a-- I've never had a low that transitions to a high that high so quickly.

Within a couple of hours, it was freezing cold, like sub-freezing, kinda snowing and raining and sleeting, and then the dawn came up, which basically resurrected my soul, and then all of a sudden I'm able to run again. And so my brother, who was pacing me at that point, I mean, we averaged something in the low 4:00s for that 17 miles, which at that point in the race, given what I'd gone through, was pretty solid.

Mm-hmm. And so the rest of the race, it slowed me down, but it was more like a hindrance that I was very willing to deal with, as opposed to that 17 miles where it felt like this insurmountable obstacle. Yeah. Yeah, there's a few things in there I wanna dive into. One is, I actually sent you a text message a little bit about this kind of theory of mine, and I, I kinda asked Rachel about it too, and it's just been a topic I find really interesting to discuss with the both of [00:13:00] you because you're in the arena, so to speak, and can appreciate this variable more than someone like I can, who hasn't done a multi-day, or the majority of people who haven't done a multi-day, and it's always fascinating to me to see how much people just neglect the weight of this variable compared to maybe other endurance events.

That's just the durability component to things. And I've been thinking so much about this, and one part I think is that you have this, you have this very objective variable that is just the king variable for most endurance events, which is just efficiency, running efficiency. Yeah. Like, how fast are you?

And it's so easy to measure. I can take a group of people, I can put 'em on a track, I can run 5K as fast as they can, and we know who's faster. It's very objective. And- It would be silly to think that that's not an important variable when it comes to these long multi days. But I think the way to look at that is you gotta really, really lower the bar that you need to clear to still be very, [00:14:00] very successful or even maybe optimal- Yeah

on a world-class level before other variables need to be addressed. And if you just try to get as fast as you possibly can, there's an opportunity cost there from time and just, you know, training, energy, and things that may come at the expense of other things, like durability, that could potentially keep you upright for the duration of the event.

And your race had me sort of, add another layer to that, 'cause my, my, my first thought about this was all just around being durable enough to make it through the event. Just building a physique or a body that's trained to be able to take the pounding that's required to go 250 miles through the desert, up and down technical terrain and all that stuff, sleep deprived, energy deprived, and, and just not break down.

And then I thought w- with your example, it's like, well, maybe it's more than that. Maybe it's something that could break, and most people would have that thing break, and they would be like, "Well, now I'm done. I'm not going anywhere," and they would drop out. Whereas the most durable of runner will be able to sort of, accommodate that, that, that, that weak [00:15:00] spot and still move forward at a relatively fast pace to the degree where, you know, if Rachel didn't go, like, all-time legend on us, you're sitting at the top of the, the race with a course record, and no one would even be thinking about that as a hindrance.

They would've just been like, "Oh, that's just part of the game." But I'm watching that, thinking Killian just picked up an injury and ran over s- over s- around 70 miles on a jacked mechanic. That's durability, too, being able to change your mechanic enough to stay moving and not break down with something that you probably haven't even practiced.

So having a body that can do that is, I think, very far from normal, even within the ultra-running space. Yeah. I mean, I've thought a lot about this since you sent me that text, too, and it does-- This is gonna sound sort of silly, but it makes me appreciate my left leg. I'm like, "Good, good work, dude."

Like- Yeah ... it, it, it shouldered the burden for the last 20% of the race, which is another thing. When I'm in Munds [00:16:00] Park I've done the majority of the race, but the problem with being 80% finished with a 250-mile race is that you still have 50 miles to go. So it's like you're just not objectively close by really any measure, which it is, it just makes me laugh.

It's like these events are so ridiculous. But yeah, I do think that there's something to what you're saying in terms of being able to adapt to things that go wrong. I will say in my reflections upon my decision-making, if you put me in the, at, at Munds Park or at Fort Tuthill again in the exact same situation, I'm gonna make the same choice that I did, to continue going.

And part of that is due to- Where I was in the race, had my history with Cocodona, all of the lead up to it with predictions and doubt and w- what I perceived as some measure of disdain pointed in my direction before the race. And so there's all these things from an ego perspective that lead into my [00:17:00] decision to, okay, there's no option to quit here.

And then there's all of these things from, I really want to have a successful Cocodona that leads into this. But in the future, if I am in a race and I feel like I did, I will probably be, at least encourage myself to consider being more cautious. 'Cause I do think that my, my messed up mechanic for that 60 or so miles, I mean, I, I got an MRI yesterday.

You know, we had to reschedule our podcast, 'cause I've got a serious bruising on the outside of my heel from where I was heel striking for 60 miles- Mm ... when I normally don't heel strike. And then my, my glute and everything from kinda my knee up to my glute is still just super funky.

And so if this were to happen, I don't think I have a stress fracture, 'cause it's improved dramatically and it just isn't behaving like one, just ruling one out. But if something in my decision-making [00:18:00] at Cocodona were to ruin my plans to go run Tor Des Geants, which is ultimately my number-one bucket list race I would look back at the decision with suspicion.

Mm. So I do I, I'm, I have mixed feelings about the, is it worth being durable enough to continue on the messed up mechanic or not? I, I don't know the answer to that question, and I, I mean, I'm happy that I have the mental space to go to to make that happen for myself. Do I wanna use that same, do I, do I wanna have to go to that place in other races in the future?

Hopefully not that often, and hopefully for not that long. But yeah, I, I don't know if exact- That's kind of a long-winded response, but it's it's just, I have mixed, mixed feelings about the virtue of, of that kind of durability, I guess. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, you don't wanna necessarily rob from the future in order to express that too often, or [00:19:00] it may just be something where it is, you gotta go to the well so hard to be able to persevere in that situation.

There's probably only so many times you can realistically do that in a career before you just start to kind of, not wanna do it again. Yeah. And have a hard time kinda getting up to that sort of a, uh, of a, of a motivator. The other thing that I find interesting about that, too, is, like, when you're running- I'll say pain-free, because I think that's more of a general perspective for someone who's listening to this who's run with an injury or run pain-free with no injury in their training.

There is a massive difference in the cognitive load of a training session or a workout when you're running pain-free versus a nagging injury. Yeah. And when you're running 70 miles, give or take, of a race and you feel something is off, there's a huge cognitive toll that goes, 'cause it's not you- you're not able to free up your mental bandwidth just to focus on moving forward.

You also, in the back of your mind, have this pinging of "Ah, this area in my body- I'm [00:20:00] favoring this." And, and that is super fatiguing, and I wonder how much that fed into that, that necessity to take that 45-minute nap that you normally wouldn't have had to do in your prior ones. Yeah. That's a good point that I didn't really think of.

I mean, if you picture the process of your mental resistance being broken down over the course of 250 miles, and if every single step results in some amount of pain that's unexpected, it's, uh, it's chipping away at that resistance, and eventually it's, some- something's gonna break through there. I remember listening to you, this m- this was probably years ago, before we had ever chatted, and you said something about how endurance athletes, ultra runners, one of our greatest strengths is being willing to tolerate small amounts of pain for a really long time.

Yeah. And I think it's obvious that the flip side of that is a weakness. You know, it's like a, it's like a danger where if that small amount of pain, you know, grows from a, a one to a two to a three to a four, [00:21:00] which, I mean, towards the end of my race, like the last four miles when I was getting caught, I don't know, it was, it was, it was probably a, an eight.

Mm-hmm. So it was like, I was willing in those moments to tolerate just so much more than you normally would be in training. Again, it's like I, if I'm in Cocodona again and I'm in that exact scenario, I make all the same decisions, so I'm not gonna have regrets about that. But it is just this, okay, you have this strength, but you also have this, that strength can easily and quickly become a weakness, especially when you're thinking long-term about your career, the capacity of your body, but also, like you said, the capacity of your mind to continue to desire to do the thing.

Because I don't wanna have to dig quite to that place every single race I run. That would be- Mm-hmm ... that would be, uh, pretty brutal to s- to be signing on to that every time. So it's good to know it's there, but it is not, uh, it's not a room in my head that I wanna visit all that often. Yeah. Well, it is one of those [00:22:00] things where when I think about this, that, that sort of, uh- Either or where you have this thing and it's not inherently good, it's not inherently bad, it just depends on how it gets used.

Yeah. That's so many things in life and so many things in ultra running and running in general, where you have this trait that it can be leveraged for something that is gonna be-- that's gonna put you in a position to achieve something that maybe you would have never imagined you'd be able to do, and it may come very natural to you, and that could be a relative strength.

But if you start leveraging that in the wrong direction towards something else, it can just become incredibly toxic, too. Yeah, yeah. So it's like there's so many things like that. Yeah. I've thought about that a lot since the race and before the race in relation to ego, because there was so much-- I've, I've never gone into a race feeling this nervous or anxious about, about the race itself and what I could potentially do there and stuff.

And so-- And a lot of that, I think, was just brought on by the fact that it's my first race as a professional, so there's extra pressure there too-- now that you have, you know, people putting dollars [00:23:00] behind you to believe in you. Yeah. Right, right. And then all the prediction stuff that people were sending me, like, all the time and, and, you know, definite doubts, if not disdain shot in my direction before the race.

It's not-- I don't think it's good to make big life decisions based on ego. But when I was able, in the last chunk of the race, to use ego as a tool if I could use it and say "Well, what do you want them to say about you after this race?" Is that- Mm-hmm ... my, my, my, my why ultimately? No, it shouldn't be.

But can that be something that you use to throw on the motivational fire during the race? Yes, I think so. And so just like you're saying, there is a balance with everything, and it's-- it would be easy to see the ego side of things slip into unhealthy if you were making race decisions or, or big life decisions based on that as opposed to what I feel like I did, where I was like, "Okay, I need a little bit of rocket fuel.

Here's, here's what's gonna do it." Yeah. Yeah, that is interesting [00:24:00] because if you lean into something that's-- Something like ego, which, like you said, can be a very powerful thing, but it needs to be leveraged properly. Yeah. It can also become something that just makes you super intolerable to some degree, and then also puts yourself in a bad position because at the end of the day what are you actually getting from that?

And, yeah, knowing where those can be leveraged to-- when to leverage those-- Uh, the way I look at it is it's kind of like this- It's, it's this it's this, it's like this boost, this turbo boost. Yeah. But if you run that the whole time, you're never gonna make it to the finish line, or you're gonna get stripped raw and all of a sudden that's not gonna be something that...

Because then you're gonna start trying- then you're gonna start trying to defend your ego, and you're gonna start coping with th- things like it would've been... L- let's say you had leveraged that early on, and then you have that, that glute issue came up, and now your ego, instead of trying to find a way through, you're worried about preserving your ego.

So now you start thinking, "Well, I've got this injury. I've got this huge story I can tell about this injury, and that'll protect my ego, and then I'll, you know, drop out and, and not go forward." 'Cause I don't think that's something that's gonna get you to the finish line, [00:25:00] because it's not your authentic reason.

Yeah. And the fact that it's not and you recognize it allows you to leverage it in a spot where you're like, "Okay, I could use this right now. Let's hit that turbo right now, get through this rough patch, and then we can kinda go back to the real stuff." For sure. And it did its job in the last four miles when, uh, I thought Cody was right on my shoulder and I needed to, to run, and everything hurt.

And I don't know, it was, it's funny thinking about that or- chunk of the race, because during that time, I was even slightly aware. I was like, "This is going to be a peak experience." You will look back on this and be like, "Wow." There's something sublime about being able to dig deeper than you ever have before.

A few layers of the pain cave further than you've ever gone. But if you were to just take the physical sensations that I was feeling and just transport them into another person without the context, they're going to the emergency room instantaneously. Yeah. It's so uncomfortable, and there's so [00:26:00] much weirdness happening with your brain, 'cause you haven't slept that much.

And then I'm, like, sprinting downhill, and my right leg is collapsing, and my left leg is catching my weight, and then I have this weird gallopy stride. It was totally insane and, and, and really crazy. And then right at the beginning of that chunk of the race is when I, I fell. I don't know if you saw that on the live stream or, or have seen any videos of it since, but I slid out on some gravel while I was putting my poles away.

Oh. And so I didn't even catch myfe- myself, and my face bounced off the ground. And then I just got up and screamed as loud as possible, just to get myself going again. But it's so, it's just funny thinking about how quickly your brain translates what is a, just from an objective experience point of view very bad, very painful, excruciating, to wow, this is my favorite memory of the race.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. That happened in less than a day. I don't know. I, I just, I, I don't even understand the process. Yeah. Yeah, so much, so much has to be unpacked from an event like that, I would imagine, where, I mean, you're [00:27:00] probably not at a point where you've thoroughly unpacked everything, and it may take you a long time to really un- unravel everything.

I, I mean, I think it just, how much gets rolled into a 12-hour race, and you have to kinda sit back and just almost let it come to you, like- piece by piece, 'cause it's almost like you put- it's almost like if you, if you just speed-read a book or if you listen to a podcast on 2X speed, or you're just listening to one and were kinda passively paying attention, or maybe you were paying attention, it's just super context-rich, and then you kinda have to go back and kind of like piece it together and listen to it again or read it again or watch it again or whatever happens to do, just to really kind of, take that first pass, which is the, the actual initial experience, and kinda let it all kinda come out.

And then you start noticing things and thinking about things that maybe you wouldn't have when you had it all balled into one experience. And I find that to be really interesting, just the, kind of the things that kind of pop into your head in the, the days and weeks after an event like that, or any, any of these ultra events, for the most part.

Yeah. I did get my race report [00:28:00] published today, so that, to me, always feels like sort of the culmination of the experience. It's okay- Mm-hmm ... I have, I'm comfortable enough to write down my thoughts. And then there is something about the actual process of writing, you know, it takes a couple hours or something, and you get more you eke out a little bit of extra insight just by sitting down to do it.

And so I don't know that you can almost even ever, it's like, you f- you fully grasp what happened, because there's parts of it that I don't even remember. Mm-hmm. When, when you're sleep-deprived enough, I don't remember what happened when I woke up at Fort Tuthill. I asked my wife the other day, I was like, "What did I, what did we do?"

'Cause I know we did something before I went out and ran. And- Yeah ... it's like that is a black spot. There is nothing. So it's just kinda funny to think about that, and then, but I agree. It's like the processing takes a lot of time. Although, I find the aftermath of running a 200 kind of tedious, just how physically bad you feel, and then you sleep badly, [00:29:00] and then, I don't know.

Today, yesterday was the first day since the race that I got through a day without taking a two, two- or three-hour nap in the middle of the day. So there's the, the whole just feeling normal process is kind of frustrating sometimes. But it is rewarding to just take the time to sit and be like, "Okay, this is what I did out there.

Here's what went well. Here's how I feel about it." And ultimately, it's really satisfying for me, with Cocodona specifically, 'cause it feels like a culmination of a five-year-long project. Like- Mm-hmm ... with my history at the race, I just have, I have all of this emotion built up from my previous experiences that then is all getting filtered through the most recent experience.

And so that, for me, has been just nice to sit with. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and if I remember right, you were, like, something like 24 hours faster than your previous finish. Yeah. I mean- Your most recent finish ... my O2 saturation was 82% at Walnut Canyon. That helps. So that makes a big difference. [00:30:00] Yeah. It's just mind-boggling to think about that your perception, 'cause I'm, regardless of whether you're humming on all cylinders or not- You're, it's still, it's very uncomfortable to be moving slower than you can be because something is wrong, like- Yeah

your O2 being that low. So your perception of that event is like a whole nother day. So it has to be somewhat motivating and exciting in the moment as you're maybe getting closer to Flagstaff to know "All right. I'm gonna cross this finish line a day before I did the last time I finished," and, and just know that you were able to solve that many problems.

Yeah. Yeah. I had that, I had that feeling the entire race, actually. Like, when I got into Whiskey Row, I'd never seen Whiskey Row in the daytime. Mm-hmm. So even, even when the race was still going well in 2024 or 2023, I was hours ahead of the ghost of myself, and then getting to Jerome, uh, which is roughly halfway, so I got, and I got there at [00:31:00] 5:00 AM.

I was like, "Dude, I'm here in 24 hours." Like- Mm-hmm ... this is crazy. I did have the thought, I was like, "I'm gonna get to Jerome in 24 hours, and I am not in the lead." I was like, "That is bananas to me." Mm-hmm. Um, and then, yeah, so I was, like, at all these places at different times of day, so that was an interesting experience just in and of itself.

My wife got to see Sedona in the daytime for the first time, so she was like, "I'm really happy that you got there. Sedona's beautiful." So that was, that was fun for her, and then after the big low and nap at Tuthill and I, I rolled into Walnut Canyon feeling good, I, I looked at her and I was just like, "Well, this is way better than the last time we were here," 'cause the last time I, it had probably taken me seven hours to go the last eight miles with all the breathing problems, and I'd had a complete mental breakdown.

And so yeah, it was, during the race, I was already having those feelings of comparison to my past self, and that was- Mm ... awesome. It just felt good the whole time. Yeah. There really is no experience like that when you've had a course that you've done a few times and felt like it's, there's been a [00:32:00] lot of things that didn't go right or enough that didn't go right where you just know you didn't have your, your optimal day out there, and then when you do, just being able to kind of position them against one another.

Obviously much shorter event, but JFK was that race for me, where I did JFK two years in a row early in my career and just could not solve it, and it was just like, I, I, yeah, I mean, in hindsight, I went a little too fast over the Appalachian Trail section, and then when I got to the canal path and the road stuff where I should've been able to thrive, I was just dragging myself through there and, you know, feeling terrible about myself, and, you know, all that stuff kind of builds up and you're, you start thinking, "I'm moving slow," then you get a negative feedback loop, and then you just start kind of giving yourself, um, all sorts of, uh, all sorts of negativity versus positivity.

And then in 2019, I did it again. I went probably a little too slow over the Appalachian Trail and came off in I think I was in 13th place off the trail, and then I just started ripping on the C&O Canal. I was running at a low six-minute pace. I think I was dipping under six-minute pace for a while on there, and I remember every time I looked down at my watch and hit a mile marker or aid station, I'd be [00:33:00] like This is insane how much better I'm moving and how much better I feel at the same time.

And, you know, I moved up to second place in that race, and then kind of just felt, felt okay, there's, there's a few things I'd maybe tweak if I did that again with respect to, like, how much, uh, I'd maybe run, how fast I run on the Appalachian Trail section of that course. But generally speaking, I felt like I kind of, cracked the code, or at least I had something where I could look at and be like, "Okay, this is the way you do this race.

These are some..." It, it, it, it erases kind of that, those other experiences and gives you a whole different vantage point of the event itself. Yeah, 100%. And I had that feeling of comparing myself with Cocodona, and then I had that feeling compared to Dan Green's times from Cocodona. Oh, yeah. So I was, like, I, I kind of had his splits in my head, and so rolling into Jerome an hour ahead of where he was last year, I was like, "Damn, we are really moving."

Mm-hmm. And then just getting my splits I, I lap my watch on my [00:34:00] fi- uh, at, at 50 every time, and, uh, my 50 was a 9:06, and it's a 50-miler with 12,000 feet of climbing. And that was only eight minutes slower than my 50 in Moab, which had 6,000 feet of climbing. So I was like, "Wow, this is crazy." 18:45, first 100.

And then my 200-mile split, which included 10 miles of moving extremely slowly, was a 42:06, which means Rachel's was probably a 41:20, 41:30, and that is a fast 200 miles. Like- Mm-hmm ... it makes me think what could be done at a course like Mammoth, you know, where that's, that's probably a tiny bit more climbing than we had done, but easier trails and stuff.

I'm like, man, there is so much potential on the table. It's, it's, it's cool to think about that. I, as much as the multi-day space has been moved forward by people like Rachel, it's like we are still, I think, just at the very beginning of what's possible here. Mm-hmm. And, uh, that's, that's a cool feeling in and of itself, even as [00:35:00] you are, like, part of making strides to move the event forwards, you know?

It's, uh, it's an interesting t- space to be in. Yeah. It'll be s- it'll be interesting to see what types of people come into these races now because, I mean, we can use Rachel as an example. And granted, Rachel had a lot of momentum coming into this race, too. It wasn't like, it wasn't like Rachel was off the radar and no one knew who she was, and all of a sudden she bangs out Cocodona, is now a rock star.

It's like Rachel was an ascending star, and then this was just kind of like the level that puts her onto now people start talking about, "Was that the performance of the year?" Yeah. You know, where do we position this amongst some of the other great performances we've seen in ultramarathon?

But, like, when you look at just the raw numbers of it I think she added something like- A hundred and-- almost 140,000 Instagram followers after that, just from all the- Yeah ... live stream and then the post ra- I mean, she went mainstream. Like that's, simply said, like she was on like national broadcasts, and like she transcended the ultra world into the running [00:36:00] world, and from the running world into the mainstream.

People who didn't even know what ultra-running was probably heard about her in some shape or form. And it's just like I wonder about that from a standpoint with, we have this event that, for whatever reason, I have a lot of thoughts on. I actually did a podcast at the beginning of the week that was just kind of like news, like a current events news one.

Yeah, I listened to it. Did you? Okay. I'd be curious what some of your thoughts are on that. But like I was thinking, like all the ingredients that le- lead to Cocodona being such a spectacle compared to a lot of the other events that also have live streams. And what I'm getting at with this is like people have to be noticing that and thinking to themselves like, "Hey, maybe I'm in a spot where Rachel was a year ago or where you were a year ago, where I think I've got some skills in this sport.

I think I'm, I'm decently good. But I'm working a full-time job. I don't really have a sponsor. And if I could go and just slay Cocodona, boom, you know, there's gonna be just waiting for me on the other end of that." And given the way I've seen people digest this race and what it takes [00:37:00] to do well here, I think there's gonna be a pretty wide range of people who come in thinking they can go and win it that actually have a shot.

There's gonna be people who think, "Oh, I'm pretty fast, like I could beat Killian in a 5K, so," or, "I could beat Rachel in a 5K," or, "Maybe I could beat Rachel in 100 miles. I'm gonna come in here and just wreck this thing." And they're just gonna have a terrible experience. And then we're probably gonna see a few people who have maybe been in the sport for a while, have kind of gone through the progression of longer events and things like that, and then they do their homework, have a healthy respect for the specifics of this race versus what maybe leads to being, being successful here versus, you know, shorter ultras, and then maybe does have a day where they find themselves in a position where now sponsors want to give them a contract and things like that.

Yeah. I think if you can pair and contrast sort of the Cocodona route to the route I took to professionalization, like obviously I tried Cocodona several times, but then won the Triple Crown, and that's kind of what did it for me. But winning the Triple Crown, you gotta win three of them- Right. ... and then you have to have-- You have-- Uh, like this Cocodona, [00:38:00] my Cocodona made me appreciate my Triple Crown more, 'cause I'm like, what an insane amount of good fortune it really is, what I think it boils down to, to have those three races all go that well in a row.

Mm-hmm. So, if you're thinking about y- the 200s route to like break in- Uh, Cocodona is the one, obviously, and I think part of it is just the quality of the live stream. So they've got really great commentators. You go, uh, like I went to do my Mountain Outpost interview after the race, and that studio is immaculate.

It's like a newsroom. It's "Oh, cutting to camera here. We live in three, two, one." It's, it's extremely professional. So I, I, you have to just give mad props and congratulations to Aravaipa Life Mountain Outpost and Jamil for just pioneering that aspect of the race. I also h- uh, I think Cocodona has taken off in a way, and it's this sort of s- it's a cycle where it has the live stream, and so it attracts [00:39:00] the most competitive people who wanna try the 200-mile distance.

Because it attracts the most competitive people, the most impressive times over these types of distances are thrown down at Cocodona. And because that happens, more people view the live stream because the amount of miles getting run in, in said time becomes more and more absurd as the progression happens.

And so it's this self-reinforcing cycle where competition leads to viewing the live stream, which leads to more competition, which leads to better times, which leads to live stream views. So I think it's just managed to reach this point in the six years it's been around that it is the race. It's the 200-miler in North America.

Which is, uh, it's, it's impressive that it has happened that quickly, 'cause you think about any of the destination trail races that have been around a lot longer. Obviously, they don't have live streams. There's some measure, I think, of controversy with those races and, and some of the people involved within the ultra [00:40:00] community that I think contribute to some level of maybe people not doing those races.

But Cocodona managed to just get in and change the game in a really remarkably short period of time. I also think that it just happened to, to hit kind of-- Its, its growth happened to coincide with the exact moment that trail running was taking off, uh, as a participation sport. And so then you just-- It's like there's so many factors that feed into, I think, the phenomenon itself, that you're not gonna be able to nail it down to one, and I'm not sure how repeatable it is.

Mm-hmm. But it is remarkable. Yeah. I mean, I, I would say if I had to pinpoint a catalyst for Cocodona to get all these ingredients together in the way they did the thing that stands out to me is just Aravaipa- Yeah ... and the way they've structured their media setup, where it's like they've got that set up where when they do something right, it becomes exponentially explosive.

So- [00:41:00] They, they, they, they land on one event, and it's gonna become an event that could basically float the entire organization if it needed to. And, and then, you know, you do enough of them, now all of a sudden you have a situation like Air Viper where now they have a handful of events that could float the organization if it had to.

But it-- the one thing that I didn't, didn't say on that podcast that I mentioned that I find really interesting, too, is, and this just came, this just came to me as I was, like, consuming that event, where as soon as it was finished and we got all kind of like the-- I mean, there's the live stream, which is technically long-form, but it's really just a, it's really just a ton of short-form stuff shot stretched c- piled on top of one another.

And then the post-interview stuff where we sit down on podcasts like this is where you can kinda try, try to combine all that stuff and summarize it. And this is probably somewhat individual to me and just the way I like to consume media, but I could not download the podcast that you did with Joe Corcione and you and Rachel fast enough.

The first thing I thought about when you guys were finished is who is gonna get that first [00:42:00] interview? Because everybody wanted to hear it. And then it was both of you, which was just amazing, 'cause then you get your, your perspectives, and it-- and you two are kinda unique, 'cause you're friends, you did some training together, and stuff like that, and you both have a ton of respect for one another, so it just made for a perfect setup.

And I'm just thinking about that I don't-- I ga-- I know Joe didn't plan it to be this, this way, but that positioning is big for anyone who wants to do something in the the, the media journalism side of the sport, where I, I don't know what Joe's downloads look like, but I have to imagine that has had to have been one of his highest seven-day download averages of all of his podcasts.

Absolutely. And part of it was just because you know, he was, he was, he was there. I mean, he was your, he was on your crew and pacing team, too, which I'm sure was helpful with that situation. But, but I, I'm thinking about it through the lens of just you look at Western States, right? The number of podcasts and media outlets that go to Western States because they want to be able to get that content out to their listeners and their followers within days, if not, you know, live, essentially, during the event, is a huge incentive for them [00:43:00] to come.

So, this whole thing kind of is gonna start drawing in more of that, I think, too. Not that it doesn't already have it, but even more of it, where now you start seeing multiple media outlets all jockeying for position. And then it'll just, you know, as, as it becomes more and more popular, now it's well, maybe I don't get first pass at the winner or the course record holder, but there's 10 other athletes that were highly visible to this that people wanna hear the story about.

Maybe I can get one of them on my show right away and be the first to launch their episode post-Cocodona. And I think that's just another exponential variable that Air Viper kinda has working for them with this particular setup. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think there, there's-- We talked about this when I was writing my piece about influencers, but there's mixed feelings about this type of growth in the sport, which I still just don't fully understand the mixed feelings, just to, to one degree or another.

But Aravaipa is full of embracing that aspect. Mm-hmm. Like, when [00:44:00] Rachel, Joe, and I were running into Crown King, I think we had six cameras on us. And that, uh, one of them was First Form, and they were shooting a documentary for me. One was the live stream feed. But what were the other four? I have no clue.

Right. So, and, and I know Outside Magazine, I talked to, uh, a gentleman there, and they, and he was, he covered the race, I thought really well, actually. At least the front of the race. He covered me and Rachel- Mm-hmm ... really well. And so I think we are gonna get that media ecosystem building out around Cocodona in the same way.

I do think there could reach a tipping point where it all becomes too much of a circus, and maybe Aravaipa will have to do something about that. But to me, I don't think we've reached that yet. I mean, in the starting corral, there were cameras right at the start line until 10 seconds to go, but they all cleared out.

The start wasn't delayed. Nothing happened there. It, the, it's like, at aid stations, it just doesn't bother me that p- there's, there's cameras everywhere. You're so objective focused, I didn't even notice what was happening. You know, there could [00:45:00] be friends at those aid stations that I totally look through because I'm finding my crew.

It's, and so I, I, I'm not, I'm not at the point yet where I'm like, "Okay, the circus is too much." But it is, I, I, I think what Aravaipa is doing by welcoming that aspect, I think is both smart from a marketing perspective, and I think is, is serving to create the opportunities for the athletes you were talking about, who may look at Cocodona as "Hey, this could be my, my stepping stone into professionalism or into the sport further," or it, it just to be able to further my career in, in whatever way possible.

Mm-hmm. So I like the fact that there are races other than the kind of legacy ultras that are relatively gate kept. I like that Cocodona, it's a lottery now, but it's, uh, it's, it's, it's more accessible than UTMB, Western, Hardrock. Those, those, those races that you really have to already kind of be at that [00:46:00] professional level to, to, to break into, to some degree.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, people definitely feel one way or the other, uh, I'm sure, and to some, some are in the middle. It's always a spectrum. But with respect to the cameras out there and the media, for me it's part of me like-- or, uh, I wouldn't say part of me. Most of me is a big fan of that because that example I shared where you were going through Munz, and I got to see on the live feed your first interaction with your crew.

It's that used to be a private conversation that you'd maybe hear about after the race, and then it's muddled with memory, then lack thereof. Whereas I saw, as it was happening, you come into that aid station, express a concern, your crew respond to it. And to me, for me, that was like- Like, I was gonna follow you either way, but had I not known who you were before that, had I seen that, that scenario happen, that scene happen, I'm, like, just a little more excited to tune in every time you come through an aid station there, so I'm like, "Oh, I gotta check and see if Killian is feeling better [00:47:00] or if, if, if..."

You know, it automatically raises the interest. So I don't know. I like it. I think it's kinda fun, and it adds- Me too ... a little more entertainment. So I think it's, it, they're, they're going the right, the way, that direction. But yeah, they definitely struck… I just think it's such a unique balance, too, because you have-- And this is kinda what I mean by the exponential stuff where, 'cause Aravaip is doing their thing, which is pretty grand in and of itself, but then, like you said, there's the sponsor cameras out there, and then you have the influencers who are nowhere near the front in a lotta cases.

They're, they're feeding this experience to people that are there for them and maybe nobody else, at least at first. And because they're doing that, b- take Andy Glaze, for example. Andy Glaze is-- I can't, I don't know where he finished in the field, but it wasn't in the front. But he's out there and he got, he got some pushback for this, but, uh, he's kinda out there just putting up reels nonstop.

And, and his, his followers are loving it, and then all of a sudden they're thinking "Well, what is going on here?" And then they maybe jump in and watch the livestream, whereas they wouldn't have otherwise, and then they're exposed to, you know, Rachel's performance [00:48:00] and things like that. So I do think there's a lot of, uh… It's a lot… It, I just think it's one big example of what I've been trying to sort of suggest in general when it comes to athletes and influencers or the sport and its history and influencers, is that there is a path forward where these things self, these feed into one another in a positive way, where, like, when you do well, I do well, and when I do well, you do well, and we can kind of find these common interests that actually make the pie bigger, so to speak, or make the experience richer for more people.

And obviously, there's unforeseen consequences that go maybe the negative direction or people have their own preferences and some people don't wanna see that, and, you know, my, my general response to that is you know, you can curate your feed. If you don't like it- You don't have to watch it. If you, yeah, if you don't like Andy Glaze, then just don't follow him or mute his Instagram account, and you don't have to see that side of it if you don't want to.

But, but yeah, so I mean, that's probably maybe the last thing I have in the whole media grand scheme of things. Yeah, I th- I think we're [00:49:00] on the same page for the most part there. It's just- I see it mostly as a positive. Every now and then, f- I'm in the middle of a section that I'm, I'm kind of enjoying it because of the wildness of it, and then I hear the buzz of a drone.

Am I initially like, "Ugh, God. That sound is annoying." Like sure, whatever. It- it's, but it just, it's, it's just this tiny issue. Whereas you know, you take Andy Glaze, it's like w- him and I are doing-- we're having vastly different experiences out there. I took no videos the whole race. I don't take pictures, I don't do videos or anything during a race, and I look forward to that 'cause I don't have to be on my phone.

Right. And, uh, he is doing something different. He's telling his own consistent story outside of the actual Cocodona media ecosystem that feeds back into that system. And so it, it's like I don't want to do a race the way Andy does it. I wouldn't want to be taking reels and, and thinking about content the whole time, but he obviously doesn't wanna do a race the way I'm doing it.

Mm-hmm. So it's okay. These things can coexist and, like you said, I think feed [00:50:00] into each other in a way that's positive ultimately. And I think the-- I think a lot of the controversy with influencers specifically comes from professional runners being jealous, and I, I just-- I'm-- I think that that just-- If you Occam's Razor the situation, that's the one variable that explains a lot of it.

Yeah. It's true, and I would say this. I think that's a generational thing that will fix itself. I think- Yeah ... anyone who's in their early 20s right now that has the potential to be a professional athlete is probably gonna come into an environment in which they-- It's not, it's not like me, where I have to kinda go back and be like, "Okay, I gotta figure out this Instagram thing because this is gonna be a useful tool for me to be able to do the job I'm trying to do here."

They're, they're gonna come into it thinking that's just part of the day. That's what they do. Yeah. So- They're already integrated with- Mm-hmm ... the system more so than- Yeah ... I would say even I was. So I, I, like-- And I, I might have been a unique case for someone my age, but yeah, it's [00:51:00] certainly-- I, I think I felt s- more similarly to you and just uh, "Okay, I have to learn how to use this to make this work for me."

Yeah. There, there was something I saw kinda pop up amongst all the media storm after Cocodona that I found interesting, and normally I would have thought that this sort of thing was just basically level one beginner mode commentary, and I would have been just like, "Okay, this is just bait. Ignore it.

It's just not worth engaging with." But the results actually interested me quite a bit, 'cause I felt like it showed that people in the broader running community, and maybe in general to some degree, are starting to understand a little bit better just what ultra is and then also what multi-day ultra is.

So- Let's Run did this poll on their, their, their message board, which would have been, like, you go back 10 years ago, if you, if you end up on the Let's Run message board as an ultra runner, you can just guarantee probably 9 out of 10 of the things that are said about you are probably gonna be negative.

Yeah. Or dismissive, at least. Kinda, kinda similar to maybe what you [00:52:00] experienced with the 200-mile stuff. And they did this-- They, they, they positioned this thing where if Sebastian Sawe had skipped the London Marathon and run Cocodona 250 instead, would he have won? And I saw that, I'm like, "It's gonna be, like, 90% of these people are gonna be like, 'Oh, he would have crushed.'"

It was two-thirds thought that-- said Rachel would beat him easily, and one-third was like, "He would win." Nice. And, yeah, so I was like-- I actually saw that, I was like, "That's kind of impressive." And then they actually did a little follow-up YouTube video about it where, uh, Jonathan Goult-- Well, I actually really like Jonathan Goult's journalist stuff.

He does a really nice job- If you follow track and field anyway I like his commentary and stuff within Diamond League races, track and field stuff, and things like that. And then one of the owners, I think it was Robert Johnson or something, they did a-- They, they just talked through it.

And I w- I, I, I clicked on that one as well 'cause I'm like, "Are these guys..." The-- I could totally see these guys just diminishing Rachel's accomplishment in some shape or form. And they went on there, and they basically were just-- went the exact [00:53:00] opposite. They were like, "There is no way Sawe is successful at a race like that."

They-- And they were, like, kind of-- It was, it was really interesting 'cause they, they were, they were admittedly unaware of all the intricacies and all the input, so they were kind of just thinking out loud. But they were thinking out loud in a very reasonable way considering the variables of just durability and sleep deprivation and, and the fact that one of the reasons Sawe is a sub-two-hour marathon is because he makes all sorts of compromises at other things to get there.

It's such a finely tuned machine to be able to run a sub-two-hour marathon that you're just gonna be bad at a lot of other things in order to be that good at one specific thing. Yeah. And some of those things would feed into Cocodona. So I, I, I made a post. I just said "Respectfully, Sawe would not have finished, or if he did, it would have been hobbling very slowly for much of the course.

People need to take their speed goggles off with events like this. They require specific preparation. It doesn't matter what your threshold or VO2 max is if your ankles are shattered with 100 miles to go." [00:54:00] And first, I mean, I, I think I know what your thoughts are on that, but I'll let you maybe share some things.

Yeah. Just take lateral movement as a variable. Okay- Mm-hmm ... race ruined for a road runner. You, you just-- There's-- I think you put-- I... And I, I, I, I don't want this to come across as taking anything away from a fast road marathon, because I have genuinely no desire to do that, and I find it just astonishing.

But, uh, I think you put s- a fast road marathoner like Sawe on even a moderately technical trail marathon, and they are either DNFing, they're injured, or they're really slow because it's just- Mm-hmm ... just the lateral movement. Like, all, all r- all road running is, is moving forwards. You are moving at one specific cadence.

You're, you're in one zone the whole time. There is... You're kind of like a 2D athlete. You need to be fragile in so many nonspecific ways to be good- Yeah ... at a marathon like that. So- Mm-hmm ... I just think there's so [00:55:00] many variables, but y- y- you just bring in lateral movement, and that's, that changes everything for a road marathoner.

But I, I think that poll is interesting to me because I do think that it shows just a shift in public perception that is kind of... That's cool. I like the fact that that has happened. But I do think that my immediate thought goes to the shift that I think is starting to happen in the ultra commentary class.

Whereas- Mm-hmm ... last year, you look at the chatter after, around me after I won the Triple Crown, and there's plenty of people saying that, "Oh, Jim, if Jim Walmsley runs Cocodona, he finishes in 48 hours." Jeff Cole literally said that. And I'm like, "That's-" "... fertile" I, I don't wanna be, like, unkind.

It's not a personal attack. But that is moronic. That's just not going... Maybe, maybe it will happen. But there's so many things that we've just never seen Jeff or [00:56:00] person A, fast 100-miler. Have you ever seen them carry a heavy pack? Have you seen them on a second night? Have you seen them blah, blah, blah.

Like, all of these things that are going into it, uh, that just don't equate to, "Oh, this is obviously the case." And I think uh, I had a conversation with Finn Mullens in a single track a week after Cocodona, and he, I think, basically was in, in his predictions and that sort of thing, was overrating, you know, aerobic threshold.

Uh, they, they predicted Max Jolliff to the podium, which I don't think is absurd, but I think the reasoning was silly, and they're like, "Well, he ran a 2:34 marathon in training." Right. What does this have to do with running a 200? Other than the fact that that person is also a runner, there's nothing.

So I just- Yeah ... I, I, I think that what is happening and what I, I hope people are starting to realize is that as you get to the, the multi-day space, you're, you're getting past the physical measurable [00:57:00] variables into the realm of the unmeasurable, and that, I don't even know what to call those variables.

I mean, you've got the toughness aspect. You've got the ability to maintain composure when things go wrong, the self-belief to pull yourself out of the low. You've got whatever Rachel has where she has the ability to seem happy-go-lucky 100% of the time. Mm-hmm. That is a superpower, and I-- it's that-- those things aren't particularly quantifiable, and I think that that challenges some of the more data-driven analysts as you-- that, that have a handle on what makes a fast Western States runner, or what makes a fast road marathoner, and then kind of those-- s- uh, the more quantifiable it is, I think the easier it is for a lot of people to wrap their heads around, whereas the le- the least quantifiable and the more you're getting towards these kind of anomalous variables, the [00:58:00] harder it is to really...

Once it, once it becomes unmeasurable, it's okay, now we're all sort of speculating, even myself. Well, the other interesting variable that is, again, unquantifiable, but I think worth considering, is what is your reason for being out there? Because, like, when you're in that second night and you're stripped raw, and your body hurts, you're going through mud, if you don't actually wanna-- if you don't have a good why you don't wanna be out there, that-- you're just not gonna keep going.

And I've- Yeah ... I haven't done a multi-day, but I know that-- I I, I've done long enough stuff where I can see that trend line. And you put someone like Sawei in Cocodona. What is his reason for being there? You know, he probably doesn't have one. So, what do we do- if we motivate him with enough money, maybe that's gonna give him a reason that could get him through an event.

But eventually he's gonna get into the-- maybe get into the second night, and he's gonna be just as in pain as everybody else, and he's gonna have to ask-- he-- freezing in a tent, you know, that sort of thing, [00:59:00] and he's gonna have to ask himself "Really, what is-- w- what, what's the purpose here? What am I doing here?"

"I'm a sub-two-hour marathoner." "Why am I at Coco- why am I putting myself through this?" And then the answer's gonna be, "You don't have a reason to be here." Yeah. And once your mind realizes you don't have a reason to be there, it's done. It's over. I don't care who you are, I don't care how fast you are, if your brain turns to, "I sh-- I don't have to be here.

I don't need to be here. Why am I here?" It's over. And- Yeah ... people don't think about that one nearly as much. They just think, "Oh yeah, well, if he ran a whole stretch of, You know, he could just run eight-minute marathon pace for a while, take a two-hour nap, and run an eight-mi- minute marathon, and take a two-hour--" It's just no, that's not gonna work.

Yeah. This actually connects to a subject I've been sort of wanting to talk about, because I just think it's funny. But, uh, you know, Francesco Poopi had the-- had his infamous now post about Rachel after Cocodona. Yeah. But he also said something about a year ago that-- he was like, "I think the mental aspect of ultra-running is overrated."

You know, "This is a physical process, and we have-- once you have the, the, [01:00:00] the physical puzzle pie- pieces in place you are-- that person is going to win." Sounds like a guy who hasn't run 100 miles yet. I know. That, that was, that was exactly what I was gonna say, and I was like, I thought about that immediately when I saw his post about Cocodona, and I was like, "Yeah, bro, you don't know what you're talking about."

This is, this is coming from someone ignorant of a race that goes past 10 hours, you know? Mm-hmm. It's not that that's a short race. It's not that you don't need toughness for that race, but sure, I'm, I'm happy to admit that a 10-hour race is mostly a physical activity, right? Mm-hmm. But then you get...

It's like you were just saying, like, when you actually have to ask yourself the why question it becomes mental. Or if you're in a 10-hour race, like, how, how deep of a low can you get in that you have time to pull yourself out of? If you're in a low that you're gonna try to pull yourself out of on the second night, that is almost exclusively a mental process, as long as you're still taking the physical steps [01:01:00] to take care of yourself, like fueling and whatnot.

And so yeah, I, when I saw his post about Cocodona, I was like, first of all, what a douche, and then- Second, second of all, I was like, man, this could only come from somebody who thinks that his experience is like, "This is the one," you know? "My experience of ultrarunning is the only true experience," which is also, he's "I'm not even sure Cocodona is trail running."

I'm like, "Dude," "Our second, second hundred was a 23-hour hundred. That's still running." Yeah. So you can eat it. It did, it did just make me laugh. I, I think there is a portion of runners kind of somewhere in a, a distance below 100 miles probably who are radically underrating how much your mind is doing for you in, at any given moment.

Well- Mm-hmm ... the, probably the tough moments, you know? Yeah. Well, I, I think what you said about the duration makes a ton of sense to me, and to, to just wrap up this running efficiency versus durability and all these other variable side of things, I [01:02:00] do think if you get a guy like Saue, or a better way to look at this is to get a few dozen 2:03 or faster marathoners, and you put them in flat runnable 50K, 50 mile, 100K, 100 mile maybe even up to 24 hours they're gonna shatter the records.

I think s- I mean, s- running efficiency is so important for say, a flat 100-miler, which, you know, at that r- at their level is gonna be, like, a 10-hour event. Yeah. You know? That, that, that is feasible, and if his experience is events that are, like, around that timeframe or shorter, then I could see him thinking through that lens and just being totally ignorant to what comes beyond that if you keep going.

So, like, when I talk about the whole pro marathoner transitioning to ultrarunning, I think it is worth saying if we make this a little bit closer to what they're doing, or close enough to what they're doing, we could see some real monsters. Uh, and you know, I say that from the experience of being kind of a flat 100 mile and shorter type runner so far in my career.

So, like- I feel like I've done enough there to kind of sense out that sort of playbook and what some of these guys could probably do with maybe not [01:03:00] their first shot, but a lot of them, or some of them, some percentage of them on their first shot probably, and then if, if so- if they s- decide to start taking it seriously and spend legitimate training cycles specifically towards maximizing their aerobic threshold versus lactate threshold or whatever they happen to be maximizing for, then we see some pretty impressive stuff.

But the other thing I was gonna say, just with respect to Cocodona, the more interesting question to me would be, go grab some dude who's capable of running a 2:03 to 2:05 marathon, who hasn't been discovered yet, has barely any money or no money, throw him in Cocodona, then he may actually have a why.

Yeah, yeah. At least he may have a reason. Um, you still have the whole... a- actually, I thought about this even more so. I'm like, the more interesting group of people would probably be, like, the Sherpas from Nepal, because they may actually have the physical makeup specific to the mechanics and the terrain to be able to- Totally.

Yeah, so I think if you're gonna s- gonna grab someone and drop them in cold turkey, that would probably be the group to do it if you wanted to try to see if [01:04:00] someone could just win the thing without a whole lot of experience. Yeah. And I mean, they'd have the mental stuff on lock. I mean, they're- Mm-hmm

they're fighting for their lives all the time out there. And so, yeah, totally agree. It's there's, that's, that's a better segment of the population that would translate more specifically into Cocodona than, than road marathoners. It's interesting to hear you talk about them, like a fast road marathoner going up to a flat 100 or flat 50-miler and stuff too, 'cause I...

Yeah, I, I wonder if at some point you would run into that same problem. But I do... I mean, I even think you take someone as athletically gifted as Sawe or, or somebody like that, and you give them, like you say, okay, you just imagine that they'll have a why, they're gonna take it seriously, you give them three years to train for Cocodona, like maybe they come into that as a monster, you know?

Mm-hmm. So I think it's like an athletic capability that just is giving you a much higher ceiling than someone who doesn't have that. So- Yeah ... that, that I do think [01:05:00] is true regardless of distance. Yeah. It, I mean, it is interesting, 'cause I wouldn't say it's like a perfect linear translation. If you're good at X marathon time, this is what you should expect to do at a flat 100-miler.

'Cause I mean, we've seen guys who have run quite fast marathon times and, I mean, it's hard to use me 'cause I never really tried to even come close to optimizing the marathon. So, who really knows where I would have taken that? But I've seen guys running fast enough marathons in non-super shoes where I'm just like, yeah, I wouldn't have gotten there, just based on my college experience, and they hadn't run faster 100 milers than me.

So I think there is, there are other variables that are necessary to be equally as good at the 100 mile as your relative marathon time. Yeah. So then we just play a numbers game, I guess, where it's like if you, if you took five dozen of these guys who are, like- 208 to 205, let's just say for example, 'cause I'm imagining the 205 and below guys probably aren't gonna mess around, at least at this point in time.

Y- you just gotta think some of them have those variables, just, [01:06:00] in just, th- they're just, that is just where their, their, their physiology or where their, their specific strengths and weaknesses lean towards, that would run, one run really fast. But, but yeah, there's always, there's always guesswork with extrapolation, and there's always gonna be people that fall off along the way because further isn't necessarily gonna work for them.

Yeah. And I, I also think that, and this is, this is related, and y- I, I think you'll see the, see the relation. But I think Cocodona has made me ask the question of myself, and I think Rachel already has it answered, but, um, i- like, in reverse now. And so the fact that we were going so fast for so long ha- has me wondering "Okay, so what could I do?

What could she do?" We'll find out what she can do at UTMB later this year, so- Mm-hmm ... I'm really excited about that. We saw her at Chianti. But for myself, I'm like, okay, so the first 100 of Cocodona has about 17,000 feet of climbing. I ran 18:45. [01:07:00] The Kodiak 100 is typically won somewhere in the 16-hour range, and it has about 17,000 feet of climbing.

Mm-hmm. And that's a UTMB World Series event. Yeah. I feel like that's doable. Mm-hmm. So it has made the growth in, you know, my specific growth at multi-days, but the, the speed at which these two records are unfolding now is making me ask the question in the reverse direction, which is interesting to me personally.

Yeah. Yeah. It, you know, you know, the interesting thing about it is, like, when you just look at development for a runner, you have this inner-- When we're talking about shorter, more Olympic distance races, you have this kind of dis- discussion around lower intensity training, and then stuff higher on the intensity, ro- ro- aerobic intensity s- spectrum, like VO2 max intervals, lactate threshold intervals, and things like that.

And, you know, the internet a lot of times tries to pinpoint one as stronger than the other. But really, it's kind of a silly conversation, 'cause they work together to get to optimal. So, if you remove or neglect one, you're gonna take [01:08:00] optimization off the table, and it's when you find the right balance is when you actually get optimization.

And if you have this just massive, massive low-intensity aerobic foundation you do a little bit of speed work to pull that up. Now, all of a sudden, we're looking at, you know, 100-mile race in the mountains as being something where for you to work from back- f- work backwards may actually be a, a good strategy, and it's just a strategy most people don't take because-

They're often working on shorter distance races, and they want to do an event. So it's "I'm gonna do some intervals because I've got this 5K coming up," or, "I'm gonna do some intervals 'cause I got this half-marathon coming up." And then they sort of go through this process in cycles where they add a little more volume but they still maintain quality.

The next cycle, they add a little more volume, and then they maintain, but they maintain quality. And then as they do that, they're able to do more volume at quality, and then they have this h- ballooning effect of everything. Whereas you don't have to do that sort of process of, "All right. I'm gonna increase my volume year after year after year."

You're already there with volume, [01:09:00] so now it's just kind of putting the pieces in place that are a little more quick in terms of development. So yeah, I would love to see you go after a race like that. I think it'd be fun. Yeah, I have an entry for, for this year that I'm, I'm gonna defer to next year, so it's, I think it's, it's gonna be in the plans, and I'm c- I'm very curious about it.

I was, I was actually just g- was gonna run this by you post-podcast, but I'll just, I'll just ask you on air. When I'm training for that, would-- do you wanna coach me? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. I'd be-- I, I, I, I, I feel like I could come up with a good plan, but I'd be very curious to, for, for someone like you to have input, and I, I've never- Yeah

had a coach before, so it would be, uh, be exciting. Yeah, I mean, for somebody like you, where, like you, you've worked through a lot of stuff that you kinda know is gonna work or not gonna work. So when I've coached people like you in the past, it's usually been, like, we just download all of that, and we figure out kind of where those things are, your strengths and weaknesses, and just [01:10:00] historic training and things like that.

And then from there, it's okay, let's look at the demands of the event and figure out how to kind of build the specific peaking for that. And I think you could probably come up with a pretty good approach on your own with that, but having two sets of eyes, uh, I'm sure we can find some, some stuff, or at least eliminate a lot of trial and error maybe and then have a little bit of a cleaner ramp-up with that.

So it'd be fun. I'm down. Yeah. So at the beginning of 2027, I will- All right, cool ... I will, I'll be hitting you up to start that, 'cause I, I, I do, I wanna drop back down in the distance and just see what's possible, you know? And then I feel like with Kodiak, that top 10 gets you qualified for UTMB, and I feel like even if I have an okay race, I could still probably get top 10 and, and go test myself at UTMB, so it'd be, uh, i- interesting goals there.

But yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's cool what, you know, to circle back to the Cocodona ecosystem, it's like I'm, I'm really grateful [01:11:00] to w- w- to the r- to the race, to Aravaipa, for having this thing that I love so much in the multi-day space that makes the rest of it possible. It opens up so many opportunities for me.

I imagine, and I, I can basically guarantee I'm right about this, it has opened up just an insane amount of, probably an overwhelming amount of opportunities for Rachel at this point. So it's just cool that it exists. I'm very pleased that I don't know, you talked about. You know, I'm taking a path that most people don't take in terms of just having started at 200s and then kinda dropping back down.

Sure. Most people don't take that because it probably seems kind of insane. I mean, it seems a little insane to me. But it's nice that it's available. Like- Mm-hmm ... I'm just happy that we're, as a, as a community, as ultrarunning itself, it's like we are creating more options for professionalization and for people to have careers that aren't the races that have been around since the '80s, that are really impossible [01:12:00] to get into.

It just makes me really satisfied for the growth of the sport and hopefully for athletes coming in, that they just have more options to shoot for as a path to, you know, hopefully achieving their dreams. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I did have a, a couple other questions I wanted to ask you, but I don't think they- Please

they'd be super time-consuming because I don't necessarily think we need to rehash things that we talked about in the last episode. If people are listening to this one, haven't listened to that one, if they want to n- know a little bit more about your training protocol and your nutrition protocol and things like that, historically I think we covered a lot of that in that p- first episode.

Yeah. But I am very curious, being that we kinda talked at the start of what was the build to this Cocodona race for you, was there anything you did in training that you found to be effective that you maybe tried for the first time? And then was your nutrition strategy different at all this time around?

Did you have anything that you were like, "Okay, I really wanna see if this works better," and then it ended up, uh, proving itself at Cocodona? [01:13:00] Yeah. So for training, I focused on running, running a lot. I ran things I didn't wanna run. Uh, at the end of hard weeks I would make myself run up climbs that I didn't wanna run up.

And that was all with the mindset that I needed to run 100% of the douche grade, and honestly, Cocodona is all douche grade. That's, that's, that's the theme of the race. Yeah. It is so, so brutal. For someone like me, who really loves the mountains and wants to hike, it's like there is nothing that's worth hiking until the Hangover Trail, and then you get to Elden at the very end, and everything in between is just douche grade, douche grade, douche grade.

So- With that in mind, I was like, "I'm going to make sure in training that I, I practice that." So, I'd be at the end of a 120-mile week, at the end of my six-hour long run, and I'd get to the last couple miles of climbing, and even if it's steeper than I would actually run up in the race, I would make myself run it just to, to train that reflex and to train that mind muscle, basically, to be like, "You [01:14:00] will run this, even if it sucks," because you have to be on the edge there forever.

Mm-hmm. And that, I d- I do think that works well. It's identifying your weakness in the race that you're approaching and trying to work on that as much as possible, which is what I was doing with- With running that. And then for nutrition, this was the first race ever that I successfully did with only gels.

Oh, really? I had some drink mix, but I chewed no food for 60 hours. It was glorious. It was purely Precision gels the entire time, and that was awesome. So I proved to myself that that can work, uh, which was nice. I had no stomach problems, and so I think that will be my MO moving forwards until I'm, like, forced to change that for whatever reason.

But, yeah, eating is my least favorite part of these events in a lot of ways, especially when I'm forcing myself to eat real food and chew at aid stations and swallow it with water and blah. So gels were the solution to [01:15:00] that, and last year in the Triple Crown, it was probably 90% gels, but this, this year for Cocodona, 100%.

Interesting. Actually, a follow-up question with that. Speaking of Andy Glaze, one thing he always talks about, his post-race stuff is always funny, 'cause it's always "How badly did I destroy myself? What am I gonna do to fix it?" And one thing he always talks about at these long races is his mouth is just wrecked, like sores and just I don't know weird stuff going on.

I'm curious with the f- 'cause I'm thinking he's eating probably a lot of whole food, maybe things that are a little more abrasive to the roof of his mouth, and then maybe it's, like, when you get that in a dehydrated, dry state, that could be problematic. But if you're just taking gels down, did you have any mouth issues the day after?

No. High-carb fueling does worry me from a tooth health- Yeah ... perspective, but I've got a pretty good technique with especially the Precision 90 grams that are capable. It's like I can get a little gel in my mouth, and I feel like I totally skip touching my teeth at all if I just swig- Mm ... with water, you know?

So there's a technique to eating the gels that I [01:16:00] think you can skip a lot of that pain. But I also carry emergency gum with me, which is what I call it, all the time, and it has xylitol. And so, once my mou- Oh, interesting ... i- if my mouth gets to a point where it tastes absolutely disgusting, I'll throw in a piece of gum, even though I'm eating every 30 minutes, and I'll make sure to rub the gum around my, the inside and the outside of my teeth, because xylitol is good for your teeth, and then I do brush my teeth roughly every 12 hours.

Okay. Wow, you've got a whole dental hygiene routine built into these things. Yeah, I don't want to have my teeth fall out too early, because it does freak me out a little bit. I'm like, imagine telling your dentist, "Yeah, I'm gonna basically eat syrup for 60 hours." "That's, that's my plan." They'll be like, "Well, I can chalk him up as a future customer."

Yeah yeah, well, the syrup has the perfect ratio of glucose to fructose, Yeah. That, that, that makes no difference. It is amazing how smooth the gels go down now. I- Yeah ... I t- today I did a, a 24-miler on the [01:17:00] track, and I was using the Science in Sport Beta Fuel gels, and I, it's, it's a 40-gram gel, and I just sucked the thing down, and it's like- Basically benign in my digestive tract Yeah and I think back to trying to just do two of the old-school gels that I wouldn't have even considered doing two in a row.

It would have just been something I knew not to do. But now it just seems like they've got these things figured out to a degree where they just glide in there, do their thing, and don't really make too much disturbance, as long as you practice a little bit with them. Yeah. It's, it's kind of amazing. I mean, I love it so much.

And I, I feel like I've got my personal fueling so dialed. Thankfully, it's pretty easy from a fluid perspective. I'm an insanely low-sodium sweater. It's 390 milligrams a liter. Oh, wow. Uh, so super low, so that makes my life pretty easy there. And then with the gels uh, for the first roughly 30, for the, to Crown King, um, 37 miles, I was doing 120 grams an hour, 'cause I knew that that section was gonna be a, a little bit [01:18:00] intense given the amount of climbing and who I was running with.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and so I'm like, "Okay, fueling more." Uh, bumped it down to 90 for the next few sections of just kinda casual running, and then got to Whiskey Row, chilling out more, it was, like, down to 60. And then for the rest of the race, I could kinda just napkin math it in my head to "Okay, I've got some climbing coming up.

I'm gonna bump up my carbs a little bit. Okay, I've got a section of douche grade that I'm gonna wanna run a little bit faster than I really want to run it, so I'm gonna bump up my carbs. Ooh, we have a downhill. Bumping them down." It's so you can really just on the fly in these races, sort of kn- once you've trained enough and had enough practice you know exactly what your body needs for this section.

And, uh, it's, it's really satisfying to kind of be in that groove where you feel like you're putting in enough that none of it's getting wasted, but you're not putting in too much to where you're gonna have issues. It's, it's, it's cool. Yeah. Yeah, you made me think of something too. You had put up an Instagram reel recently where you were [01:19:00] talking about how much weight you lost during Cocodona, and how that, the way you did it was really fascinating to me, where you were talking about there's a rebuilding process after this where Cocodona strips so much of you away from you.

You have to spend some time building back up to the person you were when you toed the line before you can probably start thinking about training to the same degree that you did heading in. You mind sharing some of that, just, like, how much- Yeah ... weight you lost, what the process looks like to gain it back?

Yeah, I think- So I didn't weigh myself immediately after the race, but I weighed myself the day that I got back, and that was after, you know, four or five days of just mainlining calories, and I was eight pounds lower than where I had been prior to Cocodona. So my guess is something like 10 to 12 pounds is what I lost, and I think some of it's muscle.

I think most of it is fat. Mm-hmm. I think you just lose a ton of interstitial muscle fat. I also think, and this is just sort of a side note, but I think the pads of my feet get thinner. I think- Really? ... I just maybe it's because my feet are already a little more tender, but I feel like I look at my feet and I'm like, [01:20:00] "Dude, those tendons are really standing out- They're lean

once the swelling's gone." Yeah, like that- that's weird. But literally like I had to, when I went into the gym to work out, I had to tighten my armband heart rate monitor 'cause it was falling off my arm- ... from, from prior to the race. So you do just it sucks a little bit of your, you know, vitality away in some sense.

But yeah, the process for rebuilding takes a little bit of time. Um, last year with the Triple Crown, it was all a, a goal basically within three weeks of the race to kind of be lifting what I had been lifting prior, prior to the race, which I sort of picked some arbitrary numbers, which was, like, 205 for a set of 10 back squats, two, 215 for a set of 10 deadlifts.

I, I don't really know why those are the numbers I picked. There's no real science behind that other than a feeling of this is enough, and beyond this, I feel like I'm getting diminishing returns. And so, it- it's a similar process after Cocodona, just like I'd like to get back to roughly that level of strength kinda [01:21:00] within three weeks.

I pretty much allow myself... I mean, I, my diet is not nearly as strict as it used to be in terms of what I restrict. It's no gluten, but other than that, I'm kinda open. I mean, I pay a lot of attention to protein in the weeks after a race because that's what's ultimately rebuilding your muscles.

Allowing myself to let let hunger dictate what I'm eating for at least two weeks following the race, where it's just I don't know, we had Indian food last night and I ordered two entrees and- I'm like, it's not like I did anything during the day, but it feels- Right ... like I still deserve those two entrees.

And so yeah, I, it's like, there's, I, I'm, I'm lucky in a sense in that I think letting hunger dictate my actions in this scenario isn't gonna result in me gaining a bunch of bad weight. And so, I'm, I'm, I'm, I trust my intuition's inclinations enough to just kind of, mindlessly follow them, and for the most part, I think they lead me in the right direction.

But a lot of people I know, after these types [01:22:00] of races, like athletes that I've worked with and stuff- Sort of struggle with the idea that you need to eat tons and tons and tons of food, because there's plenty of people who come from a past where they've lost a lot of weight, and there's some anxiety about putting that on, and it's no, no, your metabolism is just cranking for multiple days, and then you also need to rebuild.

So it's like the first four days after a race like that, I don't even think it is part of the rebuilding process. It's part of the actual race. Like- Mm-hmm ... you're, you're still just, you're, you're still basically just so ramped up that you're kind of only replacing what's getting lost, and then you start the rebuild process.

So yeah, it's, uh... Three weeks is kind of roughly the time that I would say typically I'm, I'm back in the gym, and I'm like, "Okay, I am no longer a weakling. I am back to being as robust as I would like to be." My inclination is probably that Cocodona's gonna take a little longer because of whatever's lingering in my right leg for the time being.

But yeah, I think you can, you just have to sort of trust in that [01:23:00] process, it's gonna take a while, and then just be kind to yourself with what you're eating, but really focus on protein. Perfect. Well, Killian, this has been awesome. It's always fun to talk to you, but I feel like every time we do, it's like things come up that I hadn't thought of, that makes it even more exciting and fun.

So I appreciate you taking some time out on a Saturday to chat with me. Hopefully, yeah, hopefully that leg is not too much of a trouble for you, and it just kinda clears itself up with a normal recovery timeline. Yeah. I mean, it's only been a week and a half since, well, even less, like a week and a couple days since I finished, so I'm not gonna really worry about it until I have to.

I kinda wish that I could be out enjoying nice weather, but it's okay. It's like I've got plenty of other life things to attend to that all got ignored during Cocodona, so- Yeah ... yeah, that'll be, uh, that'll be the, the duty of the day. But yeah, thanks for having me, Zach. I mean, uh, I know you know this, but I look up to you a bunch and just I find your podcast to be, like, an immensely helpful resource that I use for myself and I send to athletes.

So, uh, you know, you [01:24:00] just keep doing what you're doing, and it's always awesome to be on here. Awesome. Well, I really appreciate that. I'll, I'll keep, uh, churning them out. Please do. Do you wanna let the listeners know where they can find you as well? Yeah, yeah. Uh, I'm KillianKorth on Instagram, one L in my first name, and then runtoughmindset on Substack.

I just published my race report, so if you're interested in my immediate reflections of Cocodona, you can find more of them there. Yeah, those are, those are my two channels basically. And then my roster is currently full, but, uh, everyday ultras taking on clients. Um, ooh, one other kinda shout-out, quick thing- Yeah

I'd, I'd like to just, uh, throw it in is, uh, I will have some special edition Triple Crown Creeper socks coming out that are pink and blue. They'll have a crown on the heel. All of my proceeds from the socks are gonna go to the, uh, Malaria Consortium, which is, uh, one of the most effective charities in terms of dollars spent and saving lives.

So if you wanna support a good cause, get some cool socks that are Super high quality. Those will be on sale hopefully in the first week of June, but I have [01:25:00] the wait list on my Instagram. Perfect. Awesome. I'll link all that stuff to the show notes so listeners can head down there and check that out if they wanna check any of that out.

But again, Killian, thanks a bunch. It was great to chat. Thank you, Zach