Episode 489: Walmsley Deserves WSER Entry & Policing Non-Professionals | Brian Peterson
Brian Peterson (Wolfie’s World) joined me to discuss Jim Walmsley’s entry into WSER through sponsor spot, and what to make of all the discussion around policing non-professional runners in sport.
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Timestamps/Topics: :
0:00:40 Podcast Intro Sponsors
0:07:59 Asterisks And Fairness
0:12:58 Privilege Versus Deserve
0:16:58 Modernizing Western States
0:17:48 Lottery Versus Elite Spots
0:20:51 Brand Influence In Sport
0:22:55 Golden Ticket Timing Debate
0:27:47 200 Milers And Attention
0:30:48 Storytelling Versus Performance
0:33:02 Influencers And Fan Education
0:34:41 Amateurs vs Pros Doping
0:36:11 Influencers and Bonuses
0:39:10 Transparency Over Punishment
0:42:24 Tribalism and Toxicity
0:47:58 Medical Autonomy for Amateurs
0:52:05 Honor Code Race Solutions
0:54:35 Organizer Responsibility
0:55:41 Influencer Harm Arguments
01:00:12 Opting Out of Outrage
Episode Transcript:
Brian, thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, you bet, man. I appreciate the opportunity to come on and, you know, expose some of my hot takes, I think, to a new audience and to your platform, and so I think we've got some topics lined up today that yeah, they're gonna be fun to unpack with you.
And I think it's interesting 'cause, you know, we come from the sport in two different segments, which is gonna be unique, an amateur ver- and a, and a professional, so yeah, I'm excited. Yeah. Yeah, it's gonna be fun, and I think, you know, I, I, I started kind of a current events episode to go alongside with my full-length episodes recently, and I didn't plan it to come to be around all sorts of controversy, but it just seems like we've gotten a lot of hot topics kinda coming through.
Maybe that's just our reality nowadays. But yeah, I think we've got a couple fun topics to chat about that I'll have to decide how I package as episodes, but either way, I think we're gonna have some fun things to chat about. But before maybe we get into that, just for the listeners, maybe just have you share a little bit about you.
What's your, you're kinda why with the running side of things on your end? I know you have a podcast as well, so what do you have going on? Yeah, man. Um, well, yeah, to any listeners that aren't familiar my name's Brian Peterson, host a podcast called Wolfie's World of Running, and a big champion of the 9 to 5, kind of a moniker that I created just for the everyday runner, you know, the guys, the, the women that are out there with full-time jobs, you know, the 9 to 5 that make up the 9 to 5.
And so, you know, a lot of times I think podcasts go in a certain direction, which is funneled towards the elites, and you know, we celebrate them. You know, as a fan of professional sports, I love hearing about the elites and kinda what makes them tick, but, you know, I think again, as a participation sport, the 9 to 5 represents kind of a bigger pot of the sport.
And so, yeah, a lot of topics that I unpack are about, you know, just juggling the things around a full life, family, you know, spouses, and when running's not your number one priority or your profession, you know, you don't get quite as much tolerance or, um, leeway, I think with your significant others as you would if it was your career.
And so, yeah, just a lot of fun topics over there. We keep it light-hearted. You know, we kinda get, yeah, just a lot more philosophical with things to make sure that we're applying the virtues of running, not just to the training block, but outside of the training block as well. So appreciate you having me on and give a little snippet of what to expect over at Wolfie's World.
Yeah, excellent, and that's actually an interesting point you made, too, with respect to the 9 to 5 because I do think, especially maybe not so much in the, the general running world since that's been professionalized for quite some time where you've sort of had that, that maybe perceived divide when we're talking to someone where oh, you know, someone running a world-class marathon may have an entirely different experience than, say, somebody who is training for a marathon with a full-time job, and like the world of ultra has sort of just fairly recently started shifting towards a divide similar to that where now we do have a big enough group of professional athletes where if you just interview them, you're talking to people who are building their life around training versus finding a balance there.
In a lot of cases. So I do think as we kind of continue to grow, the media side is probably gonna have a, a bi- a bigger appetite for conversations like what you're sharing is well, we can't necessarily rely on just talking to elites to inform the average participant, 'cause the average participant may not be, you know, juggling the same variables anymore as a professional athlete in the, in the ultra scene.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think running's booming right now because of the unique stories that are being told around and through running, and I think a lot of times, sometimes a lot of times on these podcasts, the elites they're focused on performative-based stories, and I think those just kinda get a little bit bland over time.
And so I'm always just, again, a big fan of the sport as a whole and, and all of the professional athletes, and so I'm always a voice of trying to encourage them to get outside of maybe the performative box that they sometimes get put in and just remind us just how human they are and, you know. I was a big fan of yours.
You know, I came into the sport when you were cracking records left and right and, you know, a focal point at Javelina, and, and you were doing that. You were telling stories through the training itself and, you know, Anton's a great example of that, of, you know, his, his, his blog was not necessarily analytical.
You know, it was more, you know, romantic and talking about things in the mountains that he was experiencing while training. And so, yeah, that's kinda just where, where I'm at with the sport and, and kinda how I try to contribute with my platform. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. So maybe let's hop in. I think maybe we introduce- Yeah
the two topics we chatted about, and then we can dive into one of them. And one of them that you mentioned you wanted to chat about was the, the Western States elite entry process, I guess is maybe the, the umbrella, and then the specific reason it became a little bit more in the news this year versus others is because Jim Walmsley was offered a, a sponsor spot at this year's Western States versus the way he has gotten in historically, which would either be through a golden ticket race or finishing in the top 10.
So let's talk about that one. Or maybe I'll, I'll say the other one, too. The other one is just a, a topic that's been kind of a little bit bigger more recently just around just performance-enhancing drugs or banned substances and how that is all applied, because that's another one that I think we look at through the lens of elite professionalism, but not so much always through middle-of-the-pack age group and things like that.
And how do we kind of move forward with the sport with all those moving parts? Those are kind of our two big topics. Is, so is- Right ... is there one you'd prefer to start with or- Yeah ... dive in first? I mean, let's start... Yeah, let's start with the Jim one. I think it's gotten a lot less coverage in terms of how I think this conversation you and I are gonna have is gonna go.
And so there, there's-- Right off the bat, though, there's one common thread between the two of them, and that's once you remove the names associated to both of these topics, I think we can have a lot less, you know, toxic conversation about it, 'cause online right now, you know, obviously with the individuals involved in the doping thing, it's taking a very personal and pointed direction.
Same with Jim. You know, Jim's beloved by the sport, and so anytime you try and poke the goat, you're gonna have people immediately, you know, upset about it. And so obviously we're gonna have to use Jim's name because it's, you know, the individual that this is circulating around right now. But I think the conversation rises to a level that applies just to the sport as a whole, and I think what we're missing here-- 'cause it's, it's being celebrated right now because selfishly, we're all stoked that Jim's in this field.
You know, we all, as fans of the sport, benefit from the fact that we've got him as a great champion and ambassador for the sport lining up against, you know, kind of a generational field, where you have young guys like Hans, you've got Kilian, and so it's kinda this you know, are, is the, are the, the, are the old dogs gonna pass the baton to the young dogs type thing.
And so it's fascinating. I love it. But the devil's in the details, and as a fan of sport, like I'm a f- fan of sport, sport, and, you know, we hate asterisks. And immediately once I got the euphoria of Jim being in the field through the, through the blood then I thought you know, man, like- If he goes out there and rips, you know, a course record, goes s- crazy and goes sub 14 and wins, then I'm gonna always wonder wasn't he fit enough to get into the race under normal qualifying standards?
And, and that puts us in a position where looking back then, we're gonna always put an asterisk on it like we do in other sports when, when kinda unique circumstances arise that create a champion that's not necessarily as crystal clear, you know? And so I guess I'll leave it there with you. Has that thought crossed your mind yet of if Jim is fit enough to win this race, then he probably was fit enough somewhere along the qualifying standard to try and achieve a golden ticket?
Yeah, it's a great point of interest. I would say the way I kind of look at it is it's almost a question of how much do we want to do as a sport to try to preserve somebody who's entering maybe the later stages of their peak performance opport- potential to still give it their best possible shot.
Because I think of it through this, where if Jim was healthy, I think he would have preferred to race in and would have done so. And since he wasn't 100% healthy, he's in a situation where he either has to say, "Okay, well, I'm gonna skip out on Western States again," or, "I'm gonna take this sponsorship spot so I can get healthy and then do the necessary things to get ready for the race itself."
So we kind of have this question of whether, is Jim's preferred route for peak performance to do a tune-up race that gets him in and then race, versus avoid the tune-up race altogether and just get straight to the starting line? I think we kind of have a bit of a conversation or debate amongst which is the better path.
'Cause I could make an argument that him being able to do a race like Black Canyon or Canyons or something like that, and feel like he's got that rep in the tank, and still a good enough timeline to recover and peak for Western States is a better position to be than to be coming in dry, essentially, with maybe a little bit of rust.
If we go with a, if we go with it from this lens of, okay, he's getting in without the race, does that-- I actually think it's one of those things where if we back up even further, we kind of have this situation, we have kind of kingmakers in the sport with respect to sponsors. And I wonder about just how much of a-- W- what kind of benefit do you-- Like, are, do we have athletes who are going to say, "All right, I'm a top-tier runner.
I've got this contract offer from Hoka and this contract offer from, say, Salomon or On or some of these other brands that are kind of in that top space. Do I take the Hoka sponsor because I know if I need to get into Western States or UTMB on some sort of a sponsorship exemption, I've got that sort of perk built into my contract?"
Um, I think that's another kind of angle along here, too. I would say I, I, personally, I don't think it's clear enough to me that Jim is going in with an advantage, given the circumstances, at least. I'd feel differently if Jim was, like, healthy as can be and his training's on Strava and he's just banging out these 15, 20-hour training weeks, and he's "All right, I'm just gonna mitigate damage as much as possible by removing this race and leverage the fact that guys like Hans have to race in," and then show up.
But since he's kind of-- Since it was pretty clear, at least to me, that I think he was probably dealing with something that was keeping him from actually getting himself in the best position to race By skipping the event, just based on the way he's gone about things in the past, I don't think it's necessarily an advantage for him.
So I don't think if he goes there and, and breaks 14, I'll look at the, the, his performance as being an asterisk in this, in this particular situation because of that. Yeah. No, you, you said a lot there, and in fact, you went down a path that I was probably gonna close on with HOKA having a lot of responsibility here as well.
You know, because if HOKA's not title sponsor and, you know, has access to these exemptions, then this kind of tension, you know, isn't even an option for, for Jim. And yeah, I don't think he has an advantage, a competitive advantage, obviously, because then he would have raced his way in. Um, but he does have a privilege, and I think that's what he-- I think that maybe that's what's debatable here is a lot of people, I think, because of his championship pedigree at the race and everything that he's done for the sport as a global ambassador, which is undebatable, they throw around words like, "He deserved this," or, you know, "He's earned it."
And, and you can't, you can't earn a gift. This was given to him, you know, by... But does he deserve it? Yes, but a lot of guys deserve this, you know? I mean, you know, you could name plenty of champions, you know, across the last 10 or 15 years that probably would have loved to have had this opportunity. So there's been others who have been equally as deserving as Jim, and, and again, you can't earn something that's just given to you.
So I think the bigger conversation is, you're right, I think professionals should have equal opportunity to these types of entries to b- the biggest races like Western States and UTMB. That's where I think the conversation has to evolve to, and I would have loved to see Jim, in his post, be a, a advocate and a, a sounding board for saying, "Hey, I acknowledge that this is unprecedented for somebody in the sport to get into Western States like this, but I wanna be the one that breaks the floodgate to where there's a bunch of other men and women behind me that can get in like this as well."
And I don't know if I've seen it yet, where he's tried to champion this as something that gets standardized and not just given as kind of a privilege as a one-off. Do you think it would be something where we open it up where there is some sort of incentive- or there's some sort of entry process for-- And, and maybe they have- And I, I know Western States have entries they can give away for a variety of different reasons.
So maybe it would just be dipping into one of those, 'cause they've had an international exemption in the-- I, I actually honestly don't know if they still have this, but I assume they do, where it was like they, they could-- They had a certain number of spots they could give away, and I think, historically, they-- If they were gonna do it, they'd give it to a top-tier athlete who was from a, a spot in the world where their access to a golden ticket race was, like, pretty poor- Right
and it was unreasonable to expect them to go through the logistical hurdles. Maybe, maybe this is a non-issue now with sponsorship funding and things like that, but, you know, back in the day it was- And a global- Right, yeah. Yeah, and a global golden ticket series now is more international, so- Mm-hmm
yeah, they probably forfeited that, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and who knows what kind of things shifted when they signed their contract with Hoka. I'm sure there were terms in that contract that kind of positioned things differently than maybe they had been in the past. But yeah, it is one of those things where I think broadly speaking, its Western States sell some form of their prior power to the presenting sponsor to be able to do with it what they want, and that goes all the way to the golden ticket rates themselves, too.
I'm pretty sure Hoka even straight-up picks those, if I'm not mistaken. So-- Or if they don't, they have an influence on it. So it's something where you do kinda have this shifting of authority, so to speak, to a, to a, a corporation that is capitalizing on the sport, but also funding the sport, and then how does that go?
So I do wonder about just the precedent of saying, "Okay, we're gonna give a spot or two out every year to a high-performing..." I don't know how you would maybe-- I'm sure there's-- we could come up with a way to identify whether someone clears the bar or not. But to give to an athlete who has a s- a situation similar to Jim's, but not necessarily only because they're a Hoka athlete do they have access to that path.
Yeah. I would love to see that. You know, again, I th- because I do. I think you look at you look at Canyons, right? We celebrated, you know, how just emotional it was to see Zach, Adam, and Hayden all get golden tickets, who all three have had their own history and long relationship with injuries, you know?
Mm-hmm. And so, you know, who knows what it would've been like if they would've been ha- had a pathway to get some sort of medical exemption or, you know, apply for some type of exemption that would've allowed them to not have to race, you know, their way in in that manner. And so, yeah, I think the sport's long overdue to progress in that, in that manner.
But I think races like Western States I've long been a critic of they're very rigid, you know? And that's one of the gripes with the sport that I have is you take something like the NFL or the NBA they're well-established sports and they have-- They're fearless with making rule changes, you know?
Kickoff returns or, you know- Yeah ... just the way that the game's officiated. They're constantly tweaking with it, and you would think that more established sports would be slow-moving to change. But they're always playing around with different things to either help make the experience for the fan or the professional better, right?
And it's I don't know, it just seems like we're, we're very slow in moving towards an actual professional environment, which also kind of wreaks havoc in the topic we're, you know, gonna eventually cover on next as well. So, I mean, you've been in the sport a long time. You've competed as a professional.
You know, aren't you kind of amazed that maybe it's different, but kind of still the same as it was before? Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, for this particular topic, too, I had the pleasure of racing my way into Western States the first time I did it, and then I also got in on a sponsorship exemption the second time I did it.
So, I've kind of been in both of those, those experiences. And I've, I've sat in the lottery, too. You know, I haven't gotten pulled out of the lottery, but I can appreciate a perspective of somebody, especially nowadays, when they look at the lottery, and they're like, "You know what? This could be a near 10-year journey for me that requires a constant participation in the sport, where, hey, if I get inj-" I, I think Western States have some protocols in place to preserve tickets for injuries and things for the, the general lottery.
But regardless of that, it is something where, at this point in time, if you're not someone who is going to perform at the highest caliber in the sport, you're looking at maybe getting to Western States once on average- Right ... and then if you're really lucky, twice. So, I can see the argument of if we're gonna be giving out spots, how do we preserve this we are one community, versus giving all those resources towards the top tier?
So, I don't know, maybe that's something where if we're gonna do this, whether it be the HOKA sponsor or Western States as an entity, if they're gonna give a spot to Jim- Do they do something where they have-- also use one of their sponsor spots for someone who's in the lottery, and they just find a way to randomly select that, so that there's kinda two stories at the same time?
We're announcing Jim's getting in, but we're also announcing, you know, someone from that, you know, s- someone who's gonna-- who'd maybe have to normally spend 10 years in the lottery system to get in is gonna, is gonna get their chance, too, on, on an exemption like that, so that we, we show that we're still thinking about the, the spirit of the event as well as the performance side of it.
Right. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I guess there's probably-- There's really no perfect answer. There's gonna be compromise and, and casualties in either direction that the change goes from the status quo of the legacy of Western States. But there's just more and more tension building around the race and, you know, again these types of events, like where Jim gets an exemption, and it seems like there was quite a bit of coordination, quite a bit of communication between the three parties involved, Jim, Hoka, and Western States- you know, as early as Black Canyon.
You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. And so that's where it gets a little bit, you know, insidious for me as a fan, is that there was some collective coordination. You know, and I-- As a competitor, I can understand Jim's mindset of, like, why race any of those other three golden ticket races if you're anything less than 100% healthy when you know you're 100% into Western States?
And to me, that's where in the same lane as doping that's an unfair competitive advantage where you get to make decisions in, like, how you, how you train and how you insulate yourself while also preparing for the biggest race, you know, in the United States at the 100-mile distance. And so I don't know.
I do think that there's, you know, there's, there's something that needs to be done, you know, rather than just kinda like- Blatantly celebrating it, um, to where we maybe learn from this so that the sport's better in the future. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Not to go on too much of a tangent here, but I think it's kinda similar to do we wanna have brands that are maybe ye- wielding a little bit too much power?
'Cause I would say- Yeah. Mm-hmm ... like in the general running world, Nike wields too much power for the sport to really, you know, authentically go the path it would otherwise. Or I think they steer that ship enough where you can make an argument that they have too much influence, and I think we saw that with kind of the sh- the evolution of super shoes and things like that.
And, you know, k- kind of a similar argument to what you were making, too, where advantage versus disadvantage. You know, there were a few years there where if you weren't a Nike athlete, you may as well just assume you're taking a performance hit compared to the competition that was a Nike athlete. Or if we wanna keep it central to, to, to ultramarathon, Comrades Ultra, or Comrades Marathon in South Africa, which isn't nearly as popular in the US as it is in other areas, but it's, you know, it's a 20,000, 30,000 person event.
Some of the really, really high-caliber road runners in the world are doing that one, and they have a bonus structure that gives you an additional incentive if you're wearing Nikes because Nike's one of their sponsors. And you sorta have this you know, these, these sort of things that kinda happen that we've seen happen in the other, in, in other areas of running that maybe we try to at least keep an eye on so that we don't find ourselves in a situation where there's too much authority being placed in the hands of one brand that, that has athletes and has interest in their athletes doing well.
Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's just a unique model because a lot of the I mean, a lot of your livelihood isn't really made by prize money of what you actually do, you know, on the, on the course. It's, it's more so made, you know, from the brand. The race is what I'm saying. The race isn't paying you guys a lion's share of your guys', you know, earnings- Right
as a professional ultrarunner. It's the brands, and maybe the, the bonuses and, and things like that. And so, yeah, it's, it's, it's just really murky. So I don't- Mm-hmm ... I don't know. Luckily, I don't have to compete in sports like that. You know- ... as I said earlier, I've got a nine-to-five that's completely outside of running, so it gets to keep me kinda still competing in it you know, just for, for the fun of it.
Do you think with the whole Golden Ticket approach, they would be better off if they moved those qualifiers further away from the race so that you don't have as much of a pinch point? 'Cause you could almost make that same argument you made just in general, where if that group who gets in through Black Canyon, they likely had to go to the well months before the race, versus someone who gets in on Javelina, who can basically almost treat it like a different season.
Yeah. I think so. I mean, I, I would defer to you guys as professional athletes, but it certainly seems like, you know, the ideal way to get in is by being a returning top 10, so you don't even have to worry about the entire- Yeah ... qualifying series. So, I mean, if, if you can do a qualifying series that's even further back in the calendar, that seems logical.
I talked to Matt Daniels about this. I was a bigger fan of the Golden Ticket Series when it was all domestic. You know, I thought, you know, Western States post-COVID, for some reason, you know, probably because of the brand partnership with Hoka and UTMB, went international, and it, I think, diluted the fan experience.
I thought the Golden Ticket Series was, was a lot... It was just a more exciting time, you know, around that series. So yeah, I mean, I think a lot of things could be still done to improve the qualifying series as a fan experience, and both for the professionals being able to prepare themselves for, for Western States.
Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense, and I think it, it, it is one of those other kind of debatable topics of with ultrarunning, do we need a Super Bowl event or a Grand Slam type of thing, like with golf or tennis, where there are these events that really stand out as these are where we're gonna identify the best in the sport from.
And I do think it is something where it's like I, I don't mind creating advantages around certain events if there's enough of them. So, if we did-- If we looked at Western States as one of those, and it was like, okay, well, this is gonna be one that's just gonna favor the North American athletes a little bit, so we do the whole Golden Ticket Series in the United States or North America or something like that, and then that's just that particular one.
That's what makes it unique. And then, you know, UTMB is gonna be another one of the Grand Slam events, and then that one, maybe their qualifying races are gonna be a little bit more central to around where that race is. I don't see a strong argument against having that, if we could actually identify... I think Western States and UTMB are kind of self-identifying as that, and they're showing the receipts for it with the results in a lot of cases.
But maybe we need two more that are kind of geographically separated from those two areas, so that we have a little bit more kinda global parity with it. But I kinda think that structure of having kind of more of a Grand Slam than a Super Bowl is probably where the sport's gonna end up going, just given the variety of course and terrain and things like that within it.
Yeah. Well, I mean, ultrarunning is- overdue for a clear delineation of what is a professional. I don't even know if you guys know what a professional is like. Is it just because you have a shoe deal? Is it because you have a shoe deal like you've, you've won a race? It-- nobody knows what is truly a professional ultra runner.
You know, like professional, elite, we use those words interchangeably, but like they mean two different things. And so I think, yeah, it needs to be something like a PGA Tour or, you know, tennis or any of these other ones where you actually have a card, you know, some sort of status that like guarantees you entry to compete in these championship races or on, on, on this series or circuit, um You know, and, and then that-- from there, you can then start to parse out all the other fine details.
But we're, we're trying to put the fine details into focus without even a clear delineation of what is a professional, and so it never works. It's a house of cards, and we don't have a strong foundation, and so we start trying to build the top tier of what does the championship look like?
But it's like it all comes crumbling down always. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, we also-- We're, we're in that growing phase, too, where we're still calling ultramarathon basically everything under the sun- Right ... that is beyond a marathon. And it has this, like... I, I think we-- I mean, a few years ago, I would've been a lot more convinced that the hundred mile distance was gonna be that kind of standout.
Or, or maybe not the hundred mile distance, but roughly around that, where you get these Western states UTMB-style courses as being kind of these, these big ones that we kinda design roughly similar to when we're looking at where a lot of the top performers are gonna aspire to get to. But, you know, with the advent of these multi-day, 200-plus milers like Cocodona, now I think it's something where you could make an argument that from a professional side of things, you know, where do you spend your energies?
Where do you spend your focus and build your career around? And maybe, maybe we just-- we'll grow enough where now all of a sudden we can categorize to a degree where, you know, ultrarunning isn't necessarily one big umbrella, and it does have its own characteristics similar to kinda track and field, where, yeah, we call it track and field, but is anyone really following the shot putters the same way they are the 5K runners or the 100-meter dash runners?
And I, I think you're, you're-- you basically are looking at different fans at that point. Right. Yeah, we have this horrible, like-- We're in this conundrum of what captures the imagination and the attention, which is ultimately what sporting is. That's where the business and eco-economics of it is, around attention, is the 200-miler.
You just look at what Rachel did at Cocodono with the size growth of her social media following and, again, being on huge mainstream, you know, outlets, news, sports entertainment, things like that. But yet within the sport once you immerse yourself in the sport as either a participant or a professional athlete, the 200 doesn't really have that same luster as it does from not even casual fans, but just regular, you know, human beings.
So it's hard because what gets celebrated the most outside the sport isn't what we respect or celebrate the hardest within the sport. So I don't know if that's ever gonna change, 'cause it seems like it's been like that for quite a long time. You know, if you go back- Mm-hmm ... to the Dean Scott era Dean was the one out, you know, branding and marketing and, and, and really bringing the sport to a mainstream audience.
And yet, you know, everybody else within the sport kinda had, I think, that same thing where, you know, he was a second-tier type of athlete within the sport. Yeah. Dean-- You could make a strong argument Dean was, like, kind of the original influencer that- Right ... kind of launched that side of things, and, and it, it kinda went alongside, 'cause you could You, you kind of had a couple things going on there.
I mean, you mentioned Anton earlier. Anton is very much a, an athlete, a competitor in the sport, but then his whole presence is just one of interest and intrigue, where people just wanna know what he's doing and are excited to hear what he's up to, regardless of whether his performance is gonna be in the top of the podium or not.
So you do have that blending aspect. But I, I, I wonder, too, with respect, is it felt like a lot of the 100-mile popularity got built up by performance and maybe a little bit less storytelling. Mm-hmm. And then the multi-day stuff was something where the popularity was built up a little bit more on the influencer side or the big name coming in side, or maybe a non-traditional trail runner Kinda scenario, coming in and making those popular, and then because of that, now all of a sudden you have a path forward for a Rachel Entrickin or a Killian Korth who ended up using their performances at these big spotlight events that maybe wouldn't even had a spotlight there had it not been for the influencer crowd coming in first and making everyone aware of it.
Right. Well, I think just you know, when I talk to people I work with who have no idea about ultra-running until they, you know, sit next to me for nine hours a day and, you know, 40 hours a week and that's all I talk about, and then they start understanding it, right? They're impressed by the distance, not by the performance.
You know, like- Mm-hmm ... they don't know the difference between me going out and running 100K at 12 hours or Hans running 100K at seven hours. To them, running 60-- And they don't even know what 100K is, right? So you have to tell them it's 60, you know- Right. ... 62 miles and change, right? So for just a regular person, running 62 miles, that's it.
They're impressed. Like-- And visually, you can't really see the difference, you know, to a non-fan of ultra-running. Hans running something and me running something. To them, it's just the same. And- Mm-hmm ... it's different from other sports. If you watch the NBA, it's a way more exciting game of basketball than watching just, you know, five guys play at a, at a, at a gymnasium you know, at their LA Fitness.
That-- It's different. But for our sport, we can't visually show people who aren't fans a difference, and they're just impressed by the fact that somebody's running 60 miles, 200 miles, 100 miles. It doesn't matter to them. They don't need to know anything different about the performance.
It's impressive enough that you just did what you told them, and you have to put the story behind it, I think, in our sport. Yeah. Yeah, that is actually interesting. I, I, I have a reference point to what you're describing, too. I-- My wife, Nicole, she did Mount Fuji a couple years ago and had a little bit of a rough race, so she dropped out at 100K.
She was in the 100 mile, dropped out at 100K, and when she goes back to work the following week, she's telling her coworkers, "Yeah, we were..." You know, they all knew she was out there, and they-- she told them that she made it to 100K, and they, they thought, like-- They were like, "Oh, that's an awesome result." In her mind, she's "I dropped out.
I didn't finish the race." Right. But a-as far as they were concerned, she ran 100 kilometers through mountainous terrain, and they thought that was incredibly impressive in and of itself. So I think that really highlights what you're saying, where we're, we're starting to show up on the radar of people who are unaware of the sport enough to the degree where you get this element of impressiveness that, that, that kinda makes it a little bit more unique versus what you would desc- what you described k- like the pickup basketball game versus an NBA basketball game.
Most people just know the difference just from baseline exposure to any sort of sport. Yeah, and you have to be careful because, you know, there's people who are inspired by somebody's story that maybe is just, you know, a mid-packer performance of what we would call it in the sport, right? And sometimes they get offended when you have-- when you tell them.
So let's just, let's use somebody's name that everybody knows, Goggins, right? Like- Yeah. Somebody, somebody sees Goggins, they're wildly impressed, they're inspired, right? Maybe they don't a- appreciate everything that he says and how he conducts himself, but, like, when you tell them "No, actually, in the ultra-running community he's not really a competitor.
He's, you know- Mm-hmm ... just a regular person," they, it-- You kind of turn them off to the sport when you try to over-educate somebody who's already a fan of the sport. And I think we do that too much in the scene right now. I feel like we have this mastery level fan experience going on where everybody, you know, is well-educated and an expert on everything, and sometimes we're offending people by educating them and telling them that they're wrong for being a fan or thinking that this person is wildly impressive.
Or in good effort or in good intentions, trying to tell them "Wow, if you think he's impressive wait till you see Caleb Olsen. He's even more impressive." Right. And they're like, "No, I don't need to see that. This is incredible." You know what I mean? And so maybe that's the cautionary tale with all of this influencer elite thing is don't over-educate somebody out of being a fan of our sport who already enjoys, you know, how they're engaging with it.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it might just be one of those things where it's easy to let the ego get in the way, right? It's easy to think "All right, I need to keep up for so and so 'cause they put in that impressive performance," but if we grow the community big enough, they're gonna get that recognition just by continuing to do what they're doing eventually anyway.
So yeah, don't, don't, don't try to fix a pro- Don't make a problem worse by trying to-- If the solution makes the problem worse, then maybe it's- Yeah ... not a solution. No, not at all. And I think that actually brings us into, 'cause this is one thing I've been thinking about with our next topic, too, is the way we communicate and the way we educate.
Do we-- Are, are we tr- are we ending up putting ourselves in a position where we're creating a bigger problem than was there further in an effort to try to fix a problem that I think we can all agree is a, is potentially a problem, which is the, the performance-enhancing debate? And- Our, our goal here isn't to debate professional sport performance enhancement.
I think we're all on the same page there with respect to you should be following the rules and, you know, honoring the, the banned substance list and things like that. And the only debate there really, I guess, is, like, how do we improve testing to the degree where we can assume someone when they finish on a top of a podium, win a race, sign a big contract based on their, their efforts, is clean and doing it without cheating, so to speak.
But then when we sort of move away from the professionalization of sports and the, the, the money-making side of it on race winnings and get into the middle of the pack or the age group side of things, how does that translate to the sport itself when we don't have that kind of clear-- as clear of a process in place in terms of how we kind of police the sport from a performance-enhancing standpoint?
Yeah, exactly. I was thinking about this because that's exactly the direction I wanted to go, like, the big conversation is, you know, somebody with a big major social media following, um, you know, big influence clearly is, you know, financially, you know, benefiting from their profile. You know, how do we decouple holding them accountable to professional doping policies, but also, like, how do you balance that because there is some intrinsic value to, you know, what they're doing, right?
And so I think the best place I landed on it was, like, if somebody isn't contractually making a specific bonus, either directly from the race or from brands that are sponsoring them, then everything else that they're doing is from their own persona or personality, like being a true influencer or, you know, just a storyteller or ambassador, whatever you wanna do.
But you know, if you go out and you run 2:50 marathon, you know, or whatever the case was, and you don't get a bonus for winning that or for, for that time or whatever, and the race isn't paying you anything, but you have a big social media following, I don't think that's something that we need to police.
They're, they're two different things entirely. Now, if you go out and you get some sort of performance bonus and you're a professional athlete, then yeah, I think, you know, obviously those are two different stories. And so it was just interesting the way that the conversation, you know, started to unfold with the individuals around the doping case.
And so yeah, just what do you think about that? I mean, do you think that's an easy way to delineate if you're just not blatantly getting a direct bonus or compensation for the time itself, then everything else is just secondary that you're doing through your own personality? Yeah. Yeah, I, I mean, I think there is a misunderstanding of what it takes to build a following.
So I mean, we're talking about Sage Canaday and Cam Haynes here for this specific case, but it is gonna be broadly applied because there's enough- Right ... influencers, enough professional athletes, and enough people in the sport now where you can-- Y- this isn't something that's gonna-- I think the reason this got so popular is 'cause we assume this isn't the only scenario of this situation.
I think this is something that is probably happening more often than what we know and is going to continue to happen if we don't kinda get an understanding and an education piece in place so that people can understand why things are the way they are and why they maybe aren't. I, I, I think you're right with respect to the performance aspect of All right. I finished at the top of a podium, I got prize money, I signed a contract based on that performance, and the person who, like Cam Hanes.
Cam Hanes is popular for a variety of different things. He's not popular because he ran a 239 marathon. No. He's popular because he's one of the best bow hunters to ever live. He's great at storytelling. He's great at content creation. Um, he's built a brand around health and fitness and just, you know, speaking to people who want to be inspired and motivated to get out and do hard things, essentially.
So I don't think it's something where you can say "Okay, well, he's doing it this way, and that's the wrong way, so we should penalize him for that." I think it just cashes out to transparency, and because I do think there's an argument to be made about, you get someone like Cam, or you get someone like a big influencer, like a Goggins style, and they're doing all sorts of stuff behind the scenes that they're not transparent about, and then they're getting this result because of it, and then they're turning around and selling you their supplement line or something like that.
And I think that's one of Sage's arguments, is that you have this scenario where you get these influential people who are not being transparent, and therefore we're creating a problem that needs a solution. The interesting thing about this case to me is Cam was very transparent about it. Right. He was-- He didn't, he didn't deny anything.
He didn't try to hide anything. There wasn't a scenario where he was called out, he lied and had to backtrack. He was just like, "This is what I'm doing. I've always been upfront about what I'm doing." And the way it went, the way it got polarizing, the problem I see there is we created a divide. There was a pretty clear divide of people who are pro-Cam and people who are pro-Sage.
And what got missed in that was the transparency side of things versus the non-transparency side of things, where now I think the people who are pro-Cam, and they're gonna be pro-Cam f- no matter what, essentially, they look at this through the lens of, "Well, that's what you get for being honest. That's what you get for being honest.
You get drugs through the media and are called all sorts of names. You get treated derogatory," versus saying, "All right, you made a mistake, but let's look at this through the lens of how this mistake happened versus trying to create a punishment for something entirely different." And that's where I think I see this could be making the problem worse versus better because now I, I mean, I see this online all the time now with, with this particular topic is people just saying you know, basically "Well, you know, I'm, I'm gonna do whatever I want because you know, these people that are coming at Cam are gonna be coming at me, and if I speak up about it or if I show any sort of transparency about what I'm doing, it just is a net negative versus any sort of positive."
And I think that de-emphasizes people to be transparent about what they're doing, and I don't wanna see that because at the end of the day, like if someone decides to do something, if they're transparent about it, that's really where the crux of the problem is for me, is people being misinformed about how they got there.
So I don't wanna see a scenario where transparency is penalized, and I feel like this topic got to a point where transparency was penalized. And then we can get into the nuance of everything, or just should he be able to take an age group award and things like that. I think those questions are a lot easier to answer.
But in order for those to continue to be easy to answer, we need transparency because we're looking at a world of no actual policing outside of just just, just honesty essentially. So if we create an environment where people avoid transparency versus feeling comfortable and non-ostracized by being transparent, then we create more of the problematic person, which is the person who's gonna use a banned substance and not talk about it or not share why they're doing that because they're f- afraid of what's gonna happen if they do that.
Yeah. It escalated fast. Mm-hmm. You know, it went from 0 to 60, and I think that was the t- the, the toxicity of just tribalism. You know, you had, you had camps that weren't just identifying with this on the basis of clean sport versus taking substances that are banned. These were camps that were identified as, you know, other lifestyle choices that are at odds opposed to each other.
You know? Mm-hmm. This, this struck deeper than just, you know, fair advantage in competition, and it got very personal and toxic and that's, I think, where the conversation immediately just became, you know, poisonous to the sport of running. And I think-- I, I would imagine both parties, you know, probably regret, you know, being as public with some of the exchanges and, and, and personal attacks that were made because there was no benefiting anybody from that.
You know, and to the point of guys selling substances or taking substances and then selling sup- legal supplements and things like that I don't nec-- I think the people who aren't fans or in that camp are the ones that have the problem. I don't know if you're a Cam Haynes or a Nick Bear fan, but you probably already know that they're taking things that you're well aware of in that community.
That community probably knows substances that are ethically okay for them in the pursuit of living the most healthy lifestyle that they can, you know? And so I don't necessarily know that we're, we're ca- we're calling out a problem that people have who are supporting them and buying their supplements, you know?
So yeah and then, yeah, I mean, just what was fascinating was that this was at the Eugene Marathon. Mm-hmm. Why did this become a louder conversation in trail running? Yeah. I don't think anybody in-- I know Des and I know Boulder Boys talked about it. The Coffee Club talked about it. Everybody kinda talked about it that's in and around running, but this was a road running event.
I don't understand why it had to get drugs through. Maybe the timing 'cause Cam was at Cocodona, but I don't know. It just felt like it was not even a relevant topic for us. I've never been to an ultramarathon and never thought about people that I'm competing against, you know, if they're clean or not.
You know, I certainly never think about what lifestyle choices they have. I'm sure if I came across Sage in a race, he'd be encouraging to me, and he would encourage somebody else, even if they looked like they were a bow hunter, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. That's what the beauty of our sport is, is this toxicity only lives in the comment section.
If you actually get out of a race there's p- a lot of people who are different outside of the race. But when we're out there competing or we're out there training we're only one family and one community. And it, it just was, like, disgusting that this, you know, fractured the sport the way it did or the community.
Yeah, and I think that's maybe just a sign of-- There was just-- The, the recipe was perfect, where- Yeah ... you had, you had big names, where both Sage and Cam have broad reach online. And they both kind of reach into different groups, too. So it's sort of like two groups that somewhat avoid each other coming together and arguing is always gonna be a little more of an explosion.
And then I think there was also just some, some random things that made it pop up the way it did too, where it's like it's-- it'd be, like y- y- the Eugene Marathon specifically I think became a point of reference because it, it is an event that has in their rules that you should be following the World Athletics doping policy, and then you have Camp going to that one.
So then you have to ask, well, why did he go to that one? Did he go there to try to place and did it with a, a path that wasn't as clean as maybe someone who's never touched a banned substance in their life? Or was it because it's a local race to him? You know? Right. That's a local race to him. That's not-- he didn't come from, you know, New York to Eugene to do that race specifically because it had that championship label on it.
So I think there, that got m- kind of muddied in the water where it was like it was easy to point to the fact that he went to a race that actually has rules in place for regulation, but no one really got around to asking why he picked that one versus another one, and I think there's a reasonable reason why he picked that one versus another one.
I don't-- I, I think if it was just some tiny little mom-and-pop race local to him that he was doing that is unregulated, I mean, he, he would've just as easily picked that one. I don't think he was going to Eugene for that specific purpose. So then you-- Yeah, and then it, it, like you said, it, it blows up so fast.
I think you just get people defending kind of almost straw man arguments because they feel like they're trying to defend themselves, and then we get further away from the actual crux of the problem here or what the solution could potentially be. And, and I think that's the unfortunate side of it, is we need more conversations around what are we actually gonna do about this versus who are we gonna crucify or not crucify, or who are we gonna put up on a pedestal?
And- Right ... I think we ended up in a place where we're deciding who to put on a pedestal and who to crucify versus what is the actual solution here. Yeah, I mean, if we get back to just the-- I guess the whole topic is should amateurs be Pursuing competition. Um, again, competition probably isn't even the right word, 'cause most amateurs in trail racing or trail running aren't even competing, they're participating.
Like 95- Mm-hmm ... a, a g- l- a big percentage of people who show up at an ultramarathon, they're not really competing with anybody other than themselves and their own goals for that day. And so, yeah, I mean, do amateurs need to be aware? You know, is there some sort of like-- You know, is there anything that's controversial about somebody making a medical decision for themselves and still going out and running 100?
No, I don't think so. An amateur who wants to go out and just participate in 100-miler, I don't care how ambitious of their goals are, if they're not a professional, not pursuing any professionalization and they wanna take a peptide because their physician that they've consulted with has told them this is an alternative that's available to them as opposed to some other path I don't think that ruins the sport of trail running.
You know what I mean? And maybe that's the conversation we need to have is are, are, are emerging scientific interventions, you know, bad for amateur runners? I don't think they are. You know? I've, I've seen too many aging ultramarathon runners who probably were clean, and they hobble around.
You know? Like- Yeah ... the sport that we run is, is not great for longevity and quality of life, and if there's things that maybe are emerging in the science world and in, in, in medicines, and they help, you know, and you consult it, you you should have the autonomy to make decisions for yourself. Um, 'cause it goes both ways.
You know, narcotics, marijuana, you know, psychedelics. I think there's a camp that supports the fact that those should be allowed, because they feel like those align with their ethics, and those aren't going to threaten trail running. And so I don't know, I think you gotta kind of allow it all if you're gonna allow any of it.
Mm-hmm. I mean, you made a great point where I think we have a situation where we're only gonna see products that are either gray area or straight up banned substances, according to World Athletics, get cheaper, easier to access, and safer. So, the average person who maybe wouldn't even have had an opportunity to engage with something like a quality of life drug is now going to have a clearer path forward, 'cause there's gonna be better options that have less ramifications if they do it, w- less trade-offs.
It's gonna be easier for them to get. It's gonna be just something in the public eye as-- becomes less and less of a, a stigma type of thing, because so many people are gonna be trying to improve their quality of life with very little to no trade-off, that it would be silly to make an argument of just "Oh yeah, you should reduce your quality of life," in order to honor some spirit of sport that is really, you know, being applied towards the competition side of things.
And- I think we do need to be like-- I think it's just kinda having the conversation about well, how do we categorize things and how do we go about that? Because, I mean, there's the therapeutic use exemption where I think people misunderstand a lot of times. Th- there's drugs and then there's what they do and at what dose do they become a problem from a performance standpoint.
And people tend to lump all that stuff into one big category, like black and white. You took a drug or you didn't take a drug. You cheated or you didn't cheat. In reality, it's like step one is, is this substance a performance-enhancing drug? Step two is at what dose does it become a performance-enhancing drug?
Step three is in this situation, we have a medical type of situation, does this drug stop becoming performance-enhancing and just returning to normalization 'cause you had some misfortune or something that, um, you had to deal with medically that the average person hasn't had to, and therefore you're going to engage with this, whereas the other person wouldn't.
And you have all that stuff kind of like moving around that is just a really hard education piece for the average person to wrap their head around. It's like how do you simplify that and package it in a way where we can still create events that have categories and awards in the age group without situations like what we had happen here?
And the, the best scenario I've found now is just w- step one is what kind of process can we put in place that creates the least amount of actual work? Because more work is more funding and more-- less likely for it to actually happen. And my thought was just like if-- First of all, we need to create an education around whether there are events that are regulated and there are events that are not.
If it's a non-regulated event, the event's gonna choose whether they wanna be that or not. So if an event-- If someone decides to create an event and they're just like, "Hey, we're not gonna regulate this. Do what you want," then when you go and engage with that, you should just assume that there's gonna be people that are gonna be doing what they see is in their best interest and proceed accordingly.
And then you're gonna have events that they're like, "We're going to be a little more strict with what substances we allow for podium positions, age group positions, and things like that, and we wanna separate the field into those categories." So how do we do that in a way that is easy for the user to identify themself and self-categorize?
Because I think a scenario like with Cam, if, if when he filled out that form, if it was like, "Have you taken a peptide in the next last..." or, "Had you taken this? Had you..." It, if there was a resource there where they could identify whether they needed to either, one, fill out a therapeutic use exemption to compete for a position or, two, just enter themselves as a participant versus a competitor I think most people are, and, and we almost can't-- We almost-- That's, that's really our best option here because none of these people are actually gonna get tested, so we're on the honor code.
And if we're gonna be on the honor code, we need to make it the least amount of friction for the people who are gonna actually abide by the honor code to do so without feeling like they're gonna get some sort of backlash by being transparent. And that's where I wish the conversation would've gone, and I wish it would just have gained momentum, because then I think you actually get meaningful changes 'cause you see race organizers- race organizers and participants asking for these things.
That could be a very easy fix. I mean, I said on one of my ear- earlier podcasts is it could be something as simple as you have a checkbox, and on that checkbox, you have to select whether you're competing for a position or you're entering as a participant, and if you're entering competing as a position, you should inform yourself with this list, and you have a link that takes you to a website that lets you plug in all your medications and things like that, and then you can decide, is it worth filling out a therapeutic ex- use exemption or just entering as a participant?
Or maybe I'm just not actually doing anything wrong, and I can just proceed without having any worry about it. I think that's probably the easiest solution 'cause people are already filling out their entrance forms. They're already checking what shirt size, what gender, and all that stuff. Why not have another box in there that makes it front and center versus ambiguity around which events are actually looking for this and then, you know, where the resources are at for, for the ones that have it, and they want people to engage with it that way.
Yeah, that's a good point. I think, and then that comes back to, like you said, like funding and that what-- who's, who's painfully silent in all of this are the actual people who have the responsibility, which are the organizers. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ultimately, like you're putting on a competition, like it's your responsibility to make sure the competition and all competitors are competing fairly.
It's not-- unfortunately, it's not the competitor's responsibility. The com- the compet- they're, they're-- if they're ins- motivated to cheat, then they're gonna go show up, and they're gonna try and circumvent your rules. And so, you know, ultimately, it's the organizer's responsibility to ensure that it's a clean competition.
You know? Mm-hmm. That's how it is in every league that has, you know, some sort of protocol or testing or rigor around it. Like it's the league's responsibility to uphold the rules that all participants are supposed to pr- to, to uphold to compete with. And no different here, you know? So if the organizers are silent, if they're not showing any interest in trying to pursue this, I don't think anything's gonna change.
It'll, you know, get swept under the rug and, you know, it'll carry on. People will keep doing what they're doing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You did mention one other thing that I thought of after I recorded my news topic on this- Oh, yeah ... earlier that I thought of afterwards and had been thinking about, which was just that topic of if somebody is using something that has a potential risk to it, and is that setting up a bad situation where now people who are following them are gonna go in and naively and abuse something that could be harmful to them?
And I, I find that to be kind of a weak argument because- Mm-hmm ... I think that's kind of where you were standing, too, because it's like one of those things where if w- if we took, if we look at this specific i- this s- scenario here, where it was the BP157 peptide Cam says he uses BP-157 to fix his injury.
The argument is, okay, his listeners are gonna see that and they're gonna naively just run into Walgreens and get BP-157 and start injecting themselves randomly, and then they're gonna get some unknown cancer or something like that that we don't know the causes yet because it's not had gone through human trials or, or whatnot.
I think there's ... I think there's a misunderstanding of just the friction that there's present to engage with a product like that. Someone who listens to Cam, and it's okay, well, he used BP-157 for this particular purpose. By the time they get to a point where they have that product in hand and they're willing to use it, they had to ignore a ton of warning signs that I wouldn't consider Cam's responsibility to inform them of to start abusing that product.
So it's kind of like that, like, where do you shift the personal responsibility to some degree? 'Cause I think we can agree that there should be some amount of personal responsibility when someone finds themselves in a position of taking a substance that is, you know, wherever and wh- whatever risk profile it has.
And I just don't see a scenario in which that stuff is so easy to acquire that you could just go in so blindly that you went in "I thought this was gonna be perfectly benign and only good." Um, I think you have to ignore a lot of stuff that kind of shifts that blame towards you at that point. Yeah.
I mean, society's filled with influencers or celebrities that are living lifestyles that we wouldn't want ourselves or our kids to emulate, and so, we don't- I guess we don't really have the same critique or criticism across the board as it is with somebody that's performative, right? People are doing destructive things to themselves all the time, and this is actually something that is being done in a performative way to improve life, to build, to build up.
If- my understanding of the substance is that, yeah, it's, it's, it's only to repair and not build stronger than before in the sense that, like, all of these things, even going back to the steroid era of baseball, you know, like, all of these things made Hall of Famers better Hall of Famers. It wasn't something where you injected this thing, you didn't have to work, and you became a Hall of Famer.
So- Mm-hmm ... all of these things, like-- And that's also what's getting omitted here is just how incredible of an athlete, you know, Cam is to, to run that time at 58. He's not just a hobby exerciser. He's clearly got some sort of you know, dedicated programming, you know, that he's, you know, disciplined in, in doing, and he's got, you know, great talent.
So, you know, nothing that he's doing should anybody feel like they can just emulate and go out and run 238. Like there, you know, there is a tremendous amount of hard work behind that accomplishment, more so than what you can fill in a vial and inject into yourself. But yeah, I mean, I've looked up BP-157 because it's everywhere.
It's, you know, this isn't something that's in the shadows of the internet. You look up any podcaster like, you know, that's in the medical field, not even in athletics, just any medical field, and you can find a ton of information being talked about. It's an emerging, you know, type of conversation. And so, yeah, I don't-- I think anybody that's willing to, to, to, to go forward with it is doing a lot of due diligence as an adult.
Nobody's just buying it like they would, you know, a high carb mix like- Right ... and then drink it. Can't go on the feed and get BP-157. Not yet, but I, I bet-- Well, that's, that's the irony of this. If tomorrow-- WADA, FDA, all of these are just groups of people who are making decisions for others. And if tomorrow the FDA were to, you know, make this substance legal, then yeah, you would see it start entering into the economy in areas that, you know, wouldn't be critiqued.
And if WADA changed their stance on it and in some form it was legal, then you would see people accepting it and using it. And so that's just kind of like the, you know, I don't know, that's the part that I think people miss is like WADA and the FDA, they're just people, you know, and sometimes they get things right, sometimes they get things wrong, and everything's malleable, you know, if we've learned anything in the last 10 years.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'd be curious what your thoughts are too with just influencers in general, 'cause I've seen the argument of just they built this brand on performance to some degree, whether it be elite performance, it's usually not elite performance with the influencer group, but it's it's, it's performance still, right?
It's still them going from, "I wanna do this triathlon, I wanna do this marathon, and this is where I'm at, this is where I wanna get." They put the goal out there, and they share the story, the journey, and all that stuff of getting there. And then some percentage of that group is using substances that they're not being transparent about.
They're not-- They're storytelling, but they're maybe not sharing the full story, so to speak. Is there an argument to be made about how we view that group with respect to misunderstanding? Because my thought is just you're-- I, I think with the way I've looked at this is like you-- we, we have data on like professional athletes' percentages of cheating because you get anonymous surveys and things like that, and we kinda get an idea of just okay, there's like a certain percentage of these people that are getting away with cheating the rules, even though they're being tested frequently.
The influencers are kind of the same, except maybe minus the testing, which probably means there's a higher percentage of them. But really my thought is like, it's again an education piece where let's just say, for example, we could come up with a fairly accurate estimation of you know, one out of three of these like big profile influencers are using some performance-enhancing drug, and they're probably not sharing it with you.
I think as the user, it's your responsibility then just to engage with that group as okay, when I see these performances, I look at it through the lens like there's a one in three chance that this person's also doing this, so I shouldn't necessarily assume that my progress is gonna mimic theirs What are your thoughts on that?
Or is, or is that maybe just not even an issue that you think is concerning just big people having these false impressions of what's possible because an influencer does something and they cheated versus doing it the same way the average person would probably have access to? Yeah. I think it's always an outsider's critique, you know?
And I don't know what the root cause is of that. You know, I don't think it's always jealousy or envy. I think sometimes it could just be as simple as "I, I don't like those values, and I don't wanna see them- Mm ... you know, successful." You know, because you have the influence lane, like, where it's, you know, it's, yeah, it's this hybrid athlete, you know?
It's this e- evolving, you know, masculinity of you know, these guys are jacked, you know, in terms of what a traditional runner physique looks like, you know? You see them in person against bodybuilders, they're not like that. But when you- Mm-hmm ... see them in a video with other marathon runners who are, you know, 5 '10", 135 yeah, they look like they're Hulk, you know?
Mm-hmm. And so there's that stream of influ- And yeah, if you, if you are suspicious that they're on something like TRT or, you know, some hor- growth hormone or, you know, anything, peptide, whatever the case is, right? Then don't engage with it. You know, it's, it's, it's visually obvious for you and, and that may not work for you, so you just don't engage with it.
Just like if somebody's an influencer and, you know, they wanna smoke marijuana, right? There's people who maybe don't agree with that, you know? And so they may not wanna engage with that. I don't think you need to cancel anybody or make a fuss in either direction. If it's just not something that inspires you, then you tune it out.
I think that's the easiest thing to do. Everything here is optional. You either opt in to being offended or you opt out of it and move in a different direction. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I've seen some interesting topics on this where it's do we need to test people for a certain reach?
No. No. They're not... Again, these people, these people are trying to advocate for what their model of a healthy lifestyle is. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. I think sometimes in the running world I have the same th- like, insecurity of I don't like going to the gym, but I know I'm not as well-rounded of a strong, fit man as I could be if I went into the gym and developed some strength, you know?
Mm-hmm. Some, some true leg strength, some lifting strength. There's science that backs it up that actually gives you a better quality of longevity of lifestyle, right? So, I think there are some things that if we were honest with ourselves, you know, we don't necessarily like because it kind of is convicting towards us as runners.
And I s- I speak for myself. Maybe I'm completely off base, but yeah we don't need to test anybody, you know? I think they are pursuing what they think is healthy. Typically, these people have a lot of, you know, finances to be able to surround themselves with, with medical professionals who are guiding them.
They're not that-- They're not stupid. I think that's the misnomer, is that they think, oh dumb jock putting syringe in butt cheeks to get jacked. No. They're getting blood testing done more so than an average sedentary person, and even more than an average runner. So I think if we-- I don't know.
It's just hard for people to have an open mind to understand that maybe there's more behind them than just, you know, what they see. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, and maybe it could just be something where enough as- assumptions are just gonna be made over time where it sort of takes care of itself and, you know- Yeah
people engage with it as such, where they just assume yeah, well, if I wanna, if I truly wanna look like that, then I probably gotta do things that are, you know, maybe not necessarily transparent all the time. So yeah, it's tough, but- It's... The world of opinions is tough. Yeah, everybody's got one, right?
So sometimes that's why it's just fun to, yeah log off and, and go for a run, you know? That's the benefit of being an ultra runner is, you know, we've, we've got 20-mile long runs, four-hour long runs on the weekend, so there's plenty of time to decompress. Mm-hmm, absolutely. Yeah. Well, I think we covered as much of what I thought I had on my mind.
Was there anything else you wanted to chat about, Brian? No, I think we went down both paths, you know, as deep as, as I wanted to, which I appreciate about your platform. You know, I think that's much needed right now, you know, just to bring it full circle. Yeah, I think there is maybe a toxic influence or stranglehold by, you know, some of the, the, the brands that are, you know, kind of monopolizing the sport.
And then, you know, unfortunately, I think that compromises maybe some of the media coverage around some of these topics that get a little bit more, I guess, controversial or, or have a little bit more depth to 'em. And so yeah, I appreciate the conversations with you, Zach. Absolutely, and before I let you go, if you don't mind just sharing for the listeners where they can find you, if you're online on socials or if you podcast and all that sort of stuff.
Yeah, man. It's Wolfie's World on anywhere you find podcasts, mainly, I guess Spotify and, and Apple, and then Instagram is wolf_runner. So that's where you can find me. Right on. Well, appreciate it, Brian. It was fun to chat. Yeah, appreciate it.