Latest / Run Mountain Peaks / 6 Months of Podcasting as a New Creator

Transcript

6 Months of Podcasting as a New Creator · Run Mountain Peaks

• 0:00
  OK guys, I was over 2 years off social media completely just
• 0:06
  watching YouTube videos. I didn't have ATV or a laptop
• 0:10
  for a year, no Wi-Fi for 6 plus months.
• 0:14
  And now I've had a podcast for six months covering the
• 0:18
  Northeast trail scene trying to I'm on the socials.
• 0:22
  What gives? Andrew, how do you feel about
• 0:25
  this? What have you learned?
• 0:28
  I've learned a bunch in the last six months and it's been a
• 0:31
  little bit of a roller coaster, but I want to talk about
• 0:34
  everything I've learned starting the podcast.
• 0:37
  I want to talk about why I think the Northeast trail scene hasn't
• 0:41
  got covered as much as some of the the big races out West, some
• 0:46
  of the stuff in Europe. We got some crazy cool races,
• 0:52
  runners and mountains out here and it doesn't get as much
• 0:56
  national spotlight. So I want to talk about that and
• 0:59
  then I want to talk about the pendulum between athletes like
• 1:05
  pro athletes and content creator.
• 1:10
  I've learned a lot about this pendulum and I think it even
• 1:14
  strict content content creators and only professional athletes
• 1:18
  have a little bit in common, some similarities.
• 1:22
  So I'm going to give you all my takes on all this stuff.
• 1:25
  I think it'll be, it'll be a good little reflection.
• 1:30
  It's been an awesome six months doing this.
• 1:31
  It's been super fun, super cool. Can't believe people are
• 1:35
  listening, which is awesome and. Give you the full.
• 1:40
  Story of how I got here. Are you embarrassed to being
• 1:42
  content creator? Are you?
• 1:43
  I'm I'm a content creator technically, I'm a content
• 1:46
  creator now for sure. How do I feel about it?
• 1:49
  So we're going to talk all about it at the end of the episode.
• 1:52
  We're going to do the 62nd training tip at the end of the
• 1:54
  episode. If you're interested in that,
• 1:56
  stick around and bring it back. And then we're going to do some
• 1:59
  race previews and race results, some big races here.
• 2:02
  First weekend of May is coming up.
• 2:05
  We got White Lakes ultras, we got Riverlands 100 peak
• 2:09
  Bloodroot ultras, lot of stuff going down trail season is here
• 2:13
  and we're going to preview some of it.
• 2:16
  But without further ado, we'll get into the talk today.
• 2:20
  So I think I want to start this off just, I mean, I got to
• 2:23
  address the no TV, no Wi-Fi. What?
• 2:25
  What are you crazy? What are you crazy, dude?
• 2:29
  I, you know, everyone's goes through their peaks and valleys
• 2:33
  and social media. If they like it, they don't like
• 2:35
  it. Connecting with people, not
• 2:36
  seeing stuff, they don't want to see all that stuff.
• 2:39
  So I was off it. I really was just, you know, I
• 2:42
  was working, focusing on running, doing all that stuff.
• 2:46
  I was busy. I got a lot of stuff going on
• 2:47
  outside of running and work that I was doing.
• 2:50
  So I didn't have a ton of time. I had lots of things I wanted to
• 2:53
  do and I was like, you know what?
• 2:55
  I want to make sure that I'm not wasting any time that I could be
• 2:59
  doing these things. I'm going to get off it.
• 3:02
  So I got off at the social media.
• 3:03
  I think that's pretty typical these days.
• 3:05
  People are getting on. People are getting off for a
• 3:07
  little while doing a detox, whatever you want to call it.
• 3:10
  So I was a socialist. The TV was taking it to an
• 3:13
  extreme. I, I was, I was living alone in
• 3:16
  an apartment and I kind of to myself was thinking, you know,
• 3:21
  some people think I'm crazy not to have ATV, but part of me was
• 3:24
  thinking if I'm just spending like, you know, if I spent a
• 3:27
  Friday night just in my apartment alone watching TV, you
• 3:31
  know, whatever, binging something on Netflix, Game of
• 3:34
  Thrones, I went through a big Game of Thrones period.
• 3:38
  I almost felt bad about myself that I was doing that kind of
• 3:42
  alone in an apartment, like go on and do something.
• 3:45
  So I was like, yeah, I don't need this TV.
• 3:46
  I'm going to, I, I, one of my friends was moving into a house,
• 3:50
  so I, I gave it to them. So I didn't have ATV, no social
• 3:53
  media, no TV outside doing lots of walks, lots of runs, lots of
• 3:57
  training, calling people on the phone.
• 3:59
  That's how I stayed connected. That's how I got news.
• 4:02
  And then the Wi-Fi was like the most extreme.
• 4:05
  I'll go the laptop. I didn't have a laptop because I
• 4:08
  had a really old laptop that, that didn't work well.
• 4:11
  I didn't use a laptop for anything.
• 4:13
  Like I just had a smartphone and then I had a work laptop that I
• 4:17
  if I needed to do something or print something like I still had
• 4:20
  access to that. So that was a laptop thing.
• 4:22
  That one was not a big deal. I feel like a phone is pretty
• 4:25
  much a laptop these days. You can do, you can do more
• 4:27
  stuff on the phone. And then the Wi-Fi, I was on a
• 4:32
  deal A2 year deal and the deal was running up and my Wi-Fi was
• 4:37
  going to jump like 3X. And I went in there and I, you
• 4:40
  know, trying to save money, trying to be a not a trail bum,
• 4:44
  but trying, you know, trying to save some money.
• 4:46
  These shoes are expensive and, and I pretty much was.
• 4:53
  They were like if you go off it for it was either a month or
• 4:56
  two, I think it was two months. If you go off it, we'll give you
• 4:59
  a new customer contract. We'll give you your old thing
• 5:01
  you do for two months. He told me what he does.
• 5:04
  I don't want to call anyone out, but he worked at Best Buy.
• 5:07
  He was like, here's the strategy.
• 5:09
  Go and get some sort of Wi-Fi minutes card.
• 5:13
  You know, back in the day at a Tracfone, I had a Tracfone.
• 5:17
  You had to buy minutes for it and then you would use it and
• 5:20
  then when it ran out, you just have to buy more minutes.
• 5:22
  I remember when I first got that phone, a lot of my friends had
• 5:25
  like unlimited texting, Verizon, the Envy 2, and that's a
• 5:31
  throwback. And when they found out that I
• 5:33
  only had 30 texts a month, they would just spam me and I would
• 5:36
  run out if I open them all. So I'd be like, guys, it was a
• 5:39
  joke, right? It's like middle school joking
• 5:41
  around. But I was like, guys, if you
• 5:43
  blow up my phone, I can't text for the rest of the month.
• 5:46
  You have, I have 30 minutes, you know, a month I need to use
• 5:49
  these. So you can get a Wi-Fi prepaid
• 5:52
  card. And he says you get a modem or
• 5:56
  whatever. I'm not a tech guy.
• 5:58
  You can set it up for a couple months and then come back and
• 6:00
  you get the regular stuff. So I think I kind of looked into
• 6:03
  it, but it was kind of like, I don't know, it just seemed a
• 6:05
  little sketchy buying Wi-Fi at a gas station, you know, gift
• 6:08
  card. And there were some, you know,
• 6:11
  not jail breaking, but something you had to do to get it.
• 6:13
  So I was like, you know what? I got 5G on my phone.
• 6:18
  I'm going to go, I'm just going to see if I can go.
• 6:20
  No, no Wi-Fi. And after two months I was like,
• 6:25
  I don't think I need it. I don't think I need it.
• 6:29
  I had 5G and the thing that I learned is humans are extremely
• 6:34
  adaptable, right? We can adapt to different
• 6:36
  environments. This is how we've got all over
• 6:38
  the globe. I found out real quick where I
• 6:41
  could get Wi-Fi and where I could get ATV.
• 6:44
  You know, my apartment complex had this clubhouse where I, they
• 6:47
  had this like lounge area that no one ever used that had crappy
• 6:51
  Wi-Fi, but it was Wi-Fi and ATV to watch.
• 6:53
  Like, you know, I like watching NFL games, like a big game or
• 6:55
  something that comes on. So I would go for that.
• 6:58
  And then I go to Planet Fitness all the time.
• 7:01
  They got a million TV's up there, big game or something.
• 7:03
  Planet Fitness, get an hour on the treadmill, Wi-Fi.
• 7:07
  I got it at work. There's hot spots in in little
• 7:10
  locations if you go to, you know, if you go get a coffee
• 7:12
  somewhere. So I made do.
• 7:15
  But then and then, you know, I had, I realized this was not
• 7:18
  going to work for my life. You know, I think fighting the
• 7:23
  technology and all this thing, all this stuff it I had a lot of
• 7:28
  time to myself actually. And I was thinking like if I
• 7:32
  just did this the rest of my life and just or not even the
• 7:35
  rest of my life. Yeah, I guess the rest of my
• 7:36
  life, it would a long life or a short life.
• 7:39
  Something happened. I kicked the can.
• 7:42
  What do I have to show for it? Not not like show for it, but I
• 7:46
  see all these cool mountains. You know, if I'm running alone,
• 7:49
  it's kind of like my experiences.
• 7:51
  I can tell people, but you know, they don't fully understand that
• 7:54
  they don't get out there. I have a lot of non running
• 7:56
  friends. I'm doing all these things and
• 7:58
  if I don't, if I'm not connected, if I'm missing out on
• 8:01
  big events, somebody got married, somebody had a baby
• 8:03
  that like fringe I don't stay in touch with, but I should know
• 8:06
  they have a baby. That kind of stuff was like, you
• 8:09
  know, don't fight it. It's OK, you can afford it.
• 8:14
  It's OK. So then I kind of get back on
• 8:18
  and then this this. So that's the off grid stuff.
• 8:20
  Now we'll talk about starting the podcast.
• 8:23
  Why did I start the podcast? How did I start the podcast?
• 8:28
  I think it the podcast kind of came to be.
• 8:30
  So here's the story. When I, you know, at 1.1 of my
• 8:36
  friends, basically, you know, a non runner was like, wow, you
• 8:40
  really do all this cool stuff, see cool things like you should
• 8:44
  get like a little camera and record some of it or do this
• 8:47
  thing. He's like, I bet people on
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  YouTube would love it or people would just love to see what
• 8:51
  you're, it's telling me over the phone.
• 8:54
  So I was like, huh, maybe you're right.
• 8:57
  So there was a little bit of an allure of documenting it, a
• 8:59
  little bit of the allure of I'm seeing epic things.
• 9:04
  And then like sometimes I would go, you know, for a lunch or
• 9:08
  dinner with friends in the morning.
• 9:10
  I go up to the whites. I'd I'd run a 15 mile or a
• 9:13
  12/10, whatever it is, beautiful route, scenic, amazing tree
• 9:18
  line, Bluebird, whatever you want to call it.
• 9:21
  I come down, I'm like, I feel good.
• 9:23
  The endorphins are flowing. That was awesome.
• 9:25
  Love it up here. Drive home and then I go see
• 9:27
  them and trying to relate and they're like, did you go hiking?
• 9:31
  Oh, nice, love hiking. Or you know, they're just oh,
• 9:34
  it's hard to relay the experience.
• 9:37
  You know, you guys all know it. So I was like, maybe I will.
• 9:42
  And I had not been on the Internet and and so I saw this
• 9:46
  little 4K action camera. I was like, you know, I had just
• 9:49
  heard a little bit about four Ki was like, that's the, you know,
• 9:52
  the cutting edge picture. Now the phones can do way better
• 9:55
  than I didn't even know. I was like, wow, they got this
• 9:59
  little thing that I can just put on my hat or bring, you know, it
• 10:02
  weighs nothing because I don't want to bring a big camera.
• 10:04
  I want to still run and get my training in.
• 10:06
  I'm going to get it, you know, so I got it and I started
• 10:10
  recording a little bit and I started posting some of those
• 10:13
  videos to YouTube and now this is a throwback.
• 10:16
  If you were here for the White Mountain peaks days, shout out
• 10:21
  the few the proud. My original YouTube channel was
• 10:25
  called the White Mountain peaks, White Mountain peaks, six O 3
• 10:28
  neuro, just White Mountain peaks.
• 10:32
  And I just posted like basically like vloggy stuff and the idea
• 10:37
  this is actually hilarious. I love trail running so much
• 10:42
  that I got the camera and was like, I'm just going to turn the
• 10:45
  camera on while I'm descending down a mountain and I think
• 10:48
  people will love it. Love it.
• 10:51
  I mean, so is winter. I go one day on the lonesome
• 10:55
  lake or I do the kinsman's and I'm coming down from lonesome
• 10:58
  Lake. So it's like a mile and these
• 11:00
  things can't record for too long, especially when it's cold.
• 11:02
  So you can only get like 15 or 20 minutes of recording without
• 11:06
  recharging it. So I run down the whole thing.
• 11:08
  I record the whole thing. It's got kind of the crunchy
• 11:11
  snow sound. It's snowy, it's scenic.
• 11:14
  You know, I'm running, it's a, it looks a little slower when
• 11:16
  you're, when you're on video, but run down this thing and I
• 11:21
  posted it. I'm like, people are going to
• 11:22
  eat this up. And everybody like it didn't get
• 11:26
  a lot of views, 50 views or something like that.
• 11:28
  And nobody watched it for more than like 5 seconds.
• 11:32
  And I'm, I'm sitting there thinking like these people
• 11:35
  don't, how can you not love this?
• 11:36
  I sat down. The picture quality was so
• 11:39
  clear. It was a gorgeous trail packed
• 11:42
  snow like highway, like something you want to run on.
• 11:45
  And I was like, I don't know why people don't love this.
• 11:48
  And it's so funny. It's like I spent all my morning
• 11:51
  doing that. And then I would just I just got
• 11:53
  home and I would just watch the video a couple times.
• 11:55
  Like this is awesome. So I did that stuff and then I
• 12:00
  realized, yeah, nobody likes this.
• 12:02
  You know, there's I'm sure you guys know, there's so many good
• 12:05
  content creators that do scenic mountain stuff, you know, Clippy
• 12:10
  story, whatever. That's just so good.
• 12:13
  And and so yeah, that was, I was kind of like, oh man.
• 12:18
  So I posted a few of those and I was like, you know, people don't
• 12:20
  like this. People do not like this.
• 12:23
  And even though it was just me recording, like putting on my
• 12:26
  hat recording, it was kind of, you know, a little bit of a
• 12:29
  struggle to record. It's an extra thing.
• 12:31
  You got to bring all that jazz. So eventually I was like, ah,
• 12:36
  maybe I have to go on camera. I haven't been on camera.
• 12:38
  I have a posted, maybe I got to go on camera.
• 12:41
  So I did it a hike. I didn't do much commentary, but
• 12:44
  I put myself in camera a little bit and then I'm kind of
• 12:48
  learning like, oh, you got to kind of tell a story, you know,
• 12:50
  the climb, what are you doing? So I do, hey, today I'm going to
• 12:54
  do this, do a little bit of that.
• 12:57
  And some people were watching, like some of my family, friends
• 13:00
  kind of people. And all their feedback was like,
• 13:03
  you got to tell us more about the hike.
• 13:04
  You just kind of say one thing. You don't tell us where you are,
• 13:06
  what you're doing. You just clip it.
• 13:08
  It wasn't good editing. It wasn't good shots.
• 13:11
  I'm not super, you know, good at getting artistic or good, you
• 13:16
  know, I have no photography skills.
• 13:19
  I would just thought you need a camera.
• 13:20
  That is the most ignorant thing ever.
• 13:23
  It's so much skill and different shots, editing all the stuff.
• 13:27
  So I, I kind of got into it, you know, I posted a couple videos
• 13:31
  and some people watch some and then, and then I was doing more
• 13:37
  like narrating on the, the, the hikes and stuff.
• 13:41
  And it was really, I, I didn't, I, I'm not a cinematic person.
• 13:48
  That's not my passion. So it was leaning towards if I
• 13:52
  want to get good at this, I need to get good at recording and
• 13:55
  doing this hikes and telling this hiking story.
• 13:58
  And I'm working during the week on the weekends.
• 14:00
  I just want to kind of run, you know, and get out there.
• 14:04
  That's what I want to do. I don't want to be recording
• 14:06
  something or narrating and then on the way up to a hike, I'm
• 14:09
  doing like multiple takes. My heart rate's up higher than
• 14:12
  it should be just because I'm yapping into a camera looking
• 14:14
  like an idiot. So, so I, I quickly kind of
• 14:19
  realized this is not going to be good for my running or just I
• 14:23
  didn't, I didn't really love it. So I was like, you know what, I
• 14:26
  gave it a shot. You know, every you give it a
• 14:28
  shot and not for me and it it gave me a lot of respect for
• 14:33
  people that can make a good video and do good edits and get
• 14:37
  good films in the in the in the mountains.
• 14:39
  It's hard. It is very hard.
• 14:41
  So I have respect for those people Now for sure.
• 14:42
  I see a good YouTube video. I'm like, look at this, this is
• 14:45
  this is good work. So then I shut down.
• 14:50
  I did lodge dodge last year. That went well.
• 14:53
  And I think I needed to not be thinking about the videos.
• 14:55
  And also I'm narrating the videos haven't been posting on
• 14:59
  social media. So I'm self-conscious about, Oh
• 15:02
  my God, he's trying to be, you know, welcome to my channel, you
• 15:05
  know, all that stuff. Feeling embarrassed that I
• 15:08
  wasn't comfortable. So that was, you know, just a
• 15:11
  little bit of energy that I'm, you know, thinking about on the
• 15:14
  day, thinking about people hating my videos.
• 15:16
  No one is watching my videos. And then also the bringing the
• 15:22
  camera charge, doing it on trails taken away from my
• 15:25
  training, take it away from my running.
• 15:26
  Didn't like it. So so that was it.
• 15:29
  Shut it down, delete the channel, ran the lodge to dodge.
• 15:32
  I'm glad that I put it down for the month or two leading into
• 15:35
  that. So I had a good training block
• 15:37
  and that went really well. And then after I've talked about
• 15:40
  had a little bit of an ankle injury, big ankle injury that
• 15:43
  took a while to come back from. So I wasn't training as much
• 15:46
  volume as I as I wanted to. So I think maybe I had a little
• 15:49
  more time on my hands and maybe I had I was growing this thing
• 15:54
  in me that the Northeast trail scene was not getting good
• 16:01
  coverage or like big spotlights on on people's efforts in the
• 16:06
  whites. There's a couple podcasts in the
• 16:09
  in the White Mountains from the Backcountry, Will Peterson, tons
• 16:13
  of great episodes and great guests run the whites.
• 16:16
  Drummond will do interviews on on big, you know, kind of less
• 16:22
  routinely, less consistently, but big people will come on.
• 16:25
  So like those are the two big ones.
• 16:28
  You kind of have sounds like a search and rescue podcast, which
• 16:30
  isn't much running, racing, more hiking, search and rescue stuff.
• 16:34
  But that's a great podcast. But there wasn't, you know,
• 16:37
  single track free trail these these big, you know, some more
• 16:42
  call play these big trail running podcast wouldn't look or
• 16:47
  touch the northeast stuff at all.
• 16:49
  It seemed like once in a while if Jack Kenzel rose around, of
• 16:53
  course, if a couple big name, you know, something happens, of
• 16:58
  course, but really nothing, nothing major.
• 17:03
  I mean, we've had so many major routes go down, big races, all
• 17:07
  this stuff. And I think Arrow Viper running
• 17:09
  has done a great job of bringing that to the forefront with the
• 17:12
  White Mountain Dursert races. But outside of that, it's just
• 17:15
  it's just lacking a little bit. And I thought there's a ton of
• 17:18
  huge stuff going on. So this kind of feeling was
• 17:21
  brewing in me and I was like, you know what the first idea was
• 17:27
  I'm going to make a website and I'm going to host a hub for
• 17:30
  White Mountains, NE FKTS races. Even.
• 17:36
  I was thinking if I can get Shrava segments, like big
• 17:38
  segments like all that, you know, kind of a hub for all this
• 17:41
  stuff created. I want to do that.
• 17:44
  And so I kind of, you know, obviously I have passion about
• 17:46
  this stuff. So that's what I wanted to do.
• 17:49
  I start using ChatGPT to code a website by by I was coding a
• 17:55
  website by myself by asking, you know, ChatGPT, which I wasn't
• 18:01
  even using like a good coding AII was just I didn't know what
• 18:04
  I was doing and I was kind of building this website a little
• 18:06
  bit. And so I started like kind of
• 18:08
  like A blog, I guess you would call it, or a website and that
• 18:10
  this was the goal of it. And when I go for
• 18:14
  whitemountainpeaks.com, it's taken.
• 18:17
  So I'm thinking, oh man, rebrand.
• 18:20
  We got a rebrand. So I'm talking to Bori.
• 18:23
  I'm saying Bori, what do we name this thing and ended up on Run
• 18:28
  Mountain Peaks, which I like better.
• 18:31
  It's more leans into the trail running, trail racing kind of
• 18:34
  scene. And you know, the goal is all
• 18:37
  northeast, not just White Mountain stuff.
• 18:40
  We want to cover all the ultras in the northeast.
• 18:42
  You know, we just did a big episode with Joe Polici talking
• 18:44
  about the Adirondacks, the New England Ultra 8, the Northeast
• 18:49
  Ultra 8. So it was more than just the
• 18:53
  white. So I was like, I think this is
• 18:54
  more fitting. So that's how Run Mountain Peaks
• 18:56
  was born. And did the blog learn that I'm,
• 19:00
  I'm, I'm not technically savvy. Coding is a horrible nightmare.
• 19:04
  And coding with an AI is, is even harder for me.
• 19:08
  The way that I was doing it. I would, I would, you know, ask
• 19:12
  you to do something. I'd get something up and then
• 19:14
  something would be off. I'd ask you to fix that and then
• 19:16
  it would mess everything else up.
• 19:18
  But fix the thing. And I'm like, no, don't change
• 19:22
  anything else. Just make this red and it
• 19:27
  uploads it and it changes everything you're like.
• 19:30
  And then you got to say if you go too much during, during an AI
• 19:33
  prompt, you have to just start over.
• 19:36
  And I just didn't have the skills to code that website.
• 19:40
  So I still have the camera. And one day I picked up the
• 19:44
  camera again and I filmed a couple videos.
• 19:47
  I filmed the Hill Strive video, which is still, yeah, one of the
• 19:52
  the most viewed videos on my YouTube.
• 19:55
  I don't even think it's a good video, but I think it's a good
• 19:58
  video with good information. But I just I'm not good at it.
• 20:02
  You know, I'm learning more about the camera audio quality
• 20:04
  stuff, which I'll talk about. And that got some some interest.
• 20:08
  I'm like, you know what, There are people that are that are
• 20:10
  that like this stuff. So I do a couple more runs and
• 20:14
  I'm trying to like, oh, maybe I have to get a better thumbnail
• 20:17
  or a better intro or whatever. And it just is a headache again.
• 20:21
  It's ruining my runs. And so I'm like, I don't know
• 20:24
  the best way to do this. So eventually I don't even know
• 20:26
  how this came to my brain. I was like, why don't I just
• 20:30
  take my camera in my truck bed and talk about everything in the
• 20:34
  everything that I want to talk about and just talk, you know,
• 20:38
  into the into the camera as a podcast.
• 20:40
  And so I did it and I think the first episode it was, I mean, no
• 20:45
  enthusiasm, no pizzazz, everything was bad.
• 20:49
  I, I had didn't, wasn't even talking to a mic.
• 20:51
  I had a mic basically tucked into my shirt And, and you know,
• 20:58
  that was the first, that was the first one.
• 20:59
  I think I said I was like, well, I think this is a podcast.
• 21:03
  It's funny, when I first started the podcast, everyone was like,
• 21:06
  wow, that's so cool. You have a podcast and I and I
• 21:09
  was like, hold on, it stinks right now.
• 21:13
  Not a lot of people are listening.
• 21:14
  Shout out if you were, and, and you can just submit a podcast or
• 21:20
  just film a video and post it somewhere and call it a podcast.
• 21:24
  And that's, that's all you need to do to get a podcast verified.
• 21:27
  I submitted to Spotify in like 5 minutes.
• 21:29
  They approved it. So the the barrier to entry on a
• 21:33
  podcast is very low. I appreciate the the support,
• 21:38
  congratulations and all that stuff that it would it would it
• 21:40
  is cool. Like if people think it's cool,
• 21:42
  you know, and are supportive, but it's not lower barrier to
• 21:46
  entry. You just need something to
• 21:48
  record. Everyone has a phone.
• 21:51
  So that's how the podcast got started with the idea of I want
• 21:56
  to talk about all things Northeast trail.
• 21:58
  I want to talk about running, I want to talk about, you know,
• 22:01
  training mountains, big efforts, all that stuff, races.
• 22:07
  That's how it started. And that's kind of what I, I
• 22:09
  started doing. And so I guess we'll, we'll get
• 22:13
  more into how, how do I feel about it?
• 22:17
  Because when I put the podcast out, I think I did a few
• 22:19
  episodes and I just was posting on YouTube and Spotify.
• 22:22
  I don't know how those handful of people that were listening
• 22:24
  found it, but shout out. And then I think 5 episodes in,
• 22:30
  I posted it. I reactivated my Instagram from
• 22:33
  a couple years ago, posted it from all my kind of like there
• 22:36
  were some running people but more non running friends and was
• 22:40
  like, hey, I started a podcast for anyone that was interested
• 22:42
  and then just re deleted it and was like, Oh my gosh, everybody
• 22:45
  knows. Because I had told my family
• 22:48
  they kind of knew about it earlier.
• 22:50
  I didn't really fully tell them, but I said, oh, look at this
• 22:53
  White Mountain peaks YouTube channel.
• 22:55
  And I didn't really say much about it after that because I
• 22:57
  was kind of embarrassed. But, but then the cat was out of
• 23:01
  the bag and then I knew, I got a couple comments from people that
• 23:05
  I knew that I watched something or said something about it.
• 23:09
  And so the cat was out of the bag.
• 23:11
  And I think that was my peak. I was not comfortable yet.
• 23:15
  I was really embarrassed. I knew it wasn't great, but I, I
• 23:20
  don't know how I felt. But you know, this is all, I
• 23:23
  don't know if I'm mentally negative or, or, you know, have
• 23:28
  negative thoughts initially or whatever, but you know, I
• 23:31
  thought, oh wow, people would be like, oh, this guy's trying to,
• 23:34
  but he thinks he's a vlogger. Who does he think he is?
• 23:37
  You know, he this is like, I don't know what I didn't think.
• 23:41
  And I'm sure there were a lot of people that thought that or
• 23:44
  think that still do for sure people that do.
• 23:46
  So I was thinking about that a lot, but I got an overwhelming
• 23:51
  amount of support and encouragement and this is
• 23:56
  awesome. Good for you.
• 23:57
  So cool, keep doing it. People just liking it and and
• 24:02
  commenting to kind of just support, even if they weren't
• 24:04
  into running and stuff. And that was those all of those
• 24:08
  comments at the beginning helped me a ton, a ton for sure.
• 24:14
  So that was, that was definitely big.
• 24:19
  So I appreciate everyone that kind of like kept me on it
• 24:22
  because that, that, you know, who knows if I just got too
• 24:24
  embarrassed and shut it down again, I'm prone to do that.
• 24:27
  So that was like, all right, I, I think, you know, and I started
• 24:30
  getting a little bit better at, you know, recording and figuring
• 24:33
  out how to get better quality audio, better quality video.
• 24:38
  And so that stuff really helped me.
• 24:42
  And so, you know, started make improvements and a, and a, you
• 24:46
  know, more people knew about it. So the word was getting around
• 24:48
  to just a little bit more. So more people were watching and
• 24:51
  it was a, it was like, all right there, there is something there
• 24:53
  because the whole premise I, I know that there are a bunch of
• 24:57
  Northeast crushers, hikers, runners, the whole 9 that love
• 25:02
  this stuff, care about this stuff and want more content
• 25:07
  about it. I guess I would say so I kept
• 25:10
  going with it and slowly improved.
• 25:12
  I think it's so hilarious. I'm learning a lot about audio
• 25:16
  in the podcasting space. You definitely, you definitely
• 25:19
  need good audio. That's something that I learned
• 25:23
  and I wanted like from the beginning I was like, I want
• 25:26
  this to be as professional looking or like I want the audio
• 25:29
  quality to be good because I want people who are listening to
• 25:32
  have a good experience. And then visually, obviously
• 25:35
  video is, is getting better, like quality cameras and stuff.
• 25:39
  So I wanted that good too. So I kind of just slowly worked
• 25:43
  on that, worked on that. I, I listened back to a couple
• 25:46
  episodes early on and those were huge.
• 25:50
  Any time I listen back to an episode, I, I learn about
• 25:54
  mistakes that I've made or something I need to approve on.
• 25:56
  And I kind of will ask people and they they maybe are more
• 25:59
  supportive and don't want to say, oh, they don't like it.
• 26:02
  And maybe I'm a harsher critic, but I really tried to get better
• 26:06
  at not using filler words as much being confident, being in
• 26:12
  like talking about, you know, just making it a good experience
• 26:19
  because it is a skill to one talk to yourself and to
• 26:23
  interview somebody. And so this is something I want
• 26:25
  to talk about. You know, I think if some, if
• 26:28
  you have a passion, you spend a lot of time talking to other
• 26:31
  friends and people about something, you get knowledgeable
• 26:34
  about it and you have your opinions and passion.
• 26:38
  And you know, I consume a lot of content.
• 26:40
  So there's a lot of times where I'm like, you know, listening to
• 26:43
  podcast trail stuff, whatever. There's a lot of times I'm like,
• 26:46
  oh, they should have interviewed this person or they should have
• 26:48
  said this, or why didn't they laugh at that?
• 26:50
  Or, you know, this should be, you know, everyone's a critic,
• 26:53
  right? Everyone is a critic, the man in
• 26:55
  the arena, everyone's a critic. And I've been a critic.
• 26:57
  I, I will still be in the future trying to work on it.
• 27:02
  And then so you're like, oh man, I could, I could, I think I
• 27:05
  could do this. Or, you know, I could talk, I'll
• 27:07
  talk to this person, whatever I'm learning.
• 27:10
  I, I have the the greatest podcasts in my head alone in the
• 27:15
  in the truck. Sometimes when you turn the
• 27:18
  camera on and when you put a mic in your face and you're
• 27:22
  interviewing somebody you don't know, it is way harder to convey
• 27:28
  your message clearly, concisely. Remember things like it is, it
• 27:35
  is very hard. Interviewing is a skill.
• 27:38
  I think it's probably definitely unique that I can just talk for
• 27:42
  an hour straight. And I've learned it takes a lot
• 27:45
  of prep. I need to know what I'm talking
• 27:47
  about and I need to have all that stuff ready so I'm not just
• 27:50
  rambling. I've done some rambling
• 27:52
  episodes. Shout out if you finish them.
• 27:55
  But it's a lot of prep. But it's less pressure than
• 28:00
  doing an interview is what I've learned, Because if it's bad, if
• 28:05
  people don't like it, if I say something stupid and I don't, I
• 28:07
  can't cut it out. Whatever, it's me, people can
• 28:11
  judge me or, or you know, it, it's, it's fine.
• 28:14
  But when I'm having these interviews that I'm doing now, I
• 28:17
  feel like I owe it to the guests to ask good questions, make them
• 28:22
  look and sound as good as possible.
• 28:25
  And just be prepared and, and make sure that they, they are,
• 28:30
  are getting, you know, I don't want to say show and respect,
• 28:34
  but I'm doing everything I can to make them look good and
• 28:37
  highlight their effort or background or whatever it is
• 28:42
  we're talking about. And so I definitely have to
• 28:45
  prepare way more. It's really hard to book guests.
• 28:49
  It's hard to get the time to record, get all the equipment
• 28:55
  go. I, I don't record this in my
• 28:56
  house. So I got to go somewhere, record
• 28:59
  it and then edit it, edit the audio, make sure the audio is
• 29:02
  good, clip it, export it, which takes an hour or two.
• 29:06
  Upload it to platforms, it takes an hour or two.
• 29:09
  All of these things you got to do descriptions.
• 29:11
  Now I'm doing, you know, I post a different platform, some clips
• 29:14
  because I, I learned that the best way to show someone what
• 29:18
  the podcast is, a lot of people won't just if they don't know
• 29:21
  it, just go listen. They like to see little clips
• 29:23
  and that's what my short clips I feel like have been doing.
• 29:26
  Hopefully it's not too spammy, but I really think it's a great
• 29:29
  way for new people to get a little snippet of what what we
• 29:33
  talked about. It all takes time and then
• 29:37
  booking guests in your schedule. So I'm working and I'm training
• 29:42
  really hard, trying to still run train, figuring out other
• 29:46
  people's schedule. I have way more respect and it
• 29:52
  is it is hard. This is why there are not a lot
• 29:55
  of people doing it because it is hard.
• 29:58
  Anyone who does a podcast knows this you you put a lot in you.
• 30:03
  I don't you know you don't. We'll talk about some of that
• 30:07
  stuff later, like getting monitor, you know, monetary
• 30:10
  benefits back out. We'll talk about that after, but
• 30:13
  it's a lot of work and effort and it's it's hard to do and
• 30:16
  stay consistent with so And when I'm doing an interview, I'm
• 30:22
  getting better at them, more comfortable, more confident,
• 30:24
  more confident my equipment. But some of the interviews if if
• 30:30
  you're like, oh, and you didn't ask a good question or you
• 30:32
  should have asked this or this that I agree with you.
• 30:34
  I wish, you know, I'm trying to get better, be more prepped, but
• 30:38
  sometimes I'm sitting there thinking, I hope is my camera
• 30:41
  on. I hope that I'm recording this
• 30:45
  audio because this would be a huge pain in the butt for this.
• 30:48
  This person is going to hate me for if I do not if we get to the
• 30:53
  end of this and I'm like, I don't know how to say this, but
• 30:55
  I got nothing. So it's stressful.
• 31:00
  There's lots of things like I'm thinking I'm I try to be in the
• 31:04
  conversation. This is something I need to work
• 31:05
  on. Try to just have a, a better,
• 31:08
  you know, be in the conversation.
• 31:12
  You know, sometimes maybe I try to, I don't know, everyone's got
• 31:15
  their different styles. So I'm learning my style.
• 31:17
  But, you know, it's always like, OK, where can we transition into
• 31:22
  something else we want to talk about?
• 31:23
  You know, am I steering this person off a Cliff?
• 31:25
  Because that totally could happen.
• 31:27
  So my brain is working like trying to, you know, be in the
• 31:30
  conversation fully, but then also grow into all the topics we
• 31:34
  want to cover. Do it smoothly, hope
• 31:37
  everything's recording like all that stuff.
• 31:39
  And I find I've learned some ways to get backup audio saved
• 31:43
  and get, you know, so I'm, I'm getting better at all this
• 31:46
  stuff, but it's stressful, it's hard.
• 31:48
  And This is why there's not a lot of people doing it.
• 31:51
  And so the Northeast specifically, why does the
• 31:56
  Northeast trail scene not get more buzz and out West, these
• 32:03
  big races, they get a lot of buzz on these big on these big
• 32:06
  platforms. I'll be honest with you guys, I
• 32:11
  and this is all about, you know, YouTube and finding your niche
• 32:13
  and algorithms, all the stuff. But if I were to say Courtney
• 32:18
  Dewalter smashes black canyons 100K, that gets a lot more
• 32:23
  clicks and a lot more volume of people who are interested in it
• 32:28
  then the Northeast. Then then somebody from the
• 32:31
  Northeast. Like people that I put on the
• 32:33
  same pedestal or even higher because I love these NE crushers
• 32:39
  and what they do out here. It doesn't get the same pole.
• 32:43
  And so big podcast platforms, I think they learn this over time
• 32:52
  and they migrate. They're a news company, which I
• 32:55
  have a podcast. I don't really want to go down
• 32:57
  the full podcast, the news company thing, but I think that
• 33:00
  they know to make to bring in money for so they can keep the
• 33:06
  lights on and pay their bills and get the sponsors what they
• 33:09
  want. They need to cover the biggest,
• 33:11
  the biggest scenes. And that just means there's a,
• 33:14
  you know, there's a larger audience if you talk about UTMB
• 33:18
  in Western states, then if you talk about Jigger Johnson race,
• 33:22
  the Cog Chikora, I'm just saying right behind the Durant's races.
• 33:26
  But Northeast stuff, Pemi loop, I mean Pemi Prezi Hut traverse
• 33:30
  those do some, but nothing to the scale of some of the bigger
• 33:34
  stuff. So what I've learned is I don't
• 33:39
  care about, I think at the beginning of the podcast I did
• 33:42
  try to mix in some of that stuff because I was learning, you
• 33:45
  know, different titles, descriptions, but I, I don't
• 33:48
  really care about that stuff as much.
• 33:50
  I follow it. But I remember, I think my third
• 33:53
  episode, I did AUS Trail Champs Rundown and I didn't watch it
• 33:57
  really. I saw some of the names that I
• 33:59
  knew I did a horrible preview and that was me just trying to
• 34:03
  feed to a larger audience. And I'm just not going to do
• 34:07
  that because I don't care about that stuff.
• 34:10
  So I'm just going to talk about what I want to talk about, who I
• 34:12
  want to talk to. I have a laundry list of guests
• 34:16
  that from the northeast that I think are interesting, have
• 34:20
  amazing stories and are crushers.
• 34:22
  And I am just going to talk to those people because I want to.
• 34:26
  And I think I think that's awesome and what I'm learning.
• 34:29
  Last week we had a couple clips on Instagram go a little bit
• 34:33
  viral. There is a lot of people that
• 34:37
  care about this stuff that want to hear more stuff about it in
• 34:42
  the Northeast. And so that's, that's where I'm
• 34:44
  staying. That's what I'm doing.
• 34:47
  And I don't, I'm I'm not going to sell out.
• 34:52
  We do we want to get in the money talk.
• 34:53
  Do I have any other things later?
• 34:57
  I'm I'm staying in the northeast one because I just love it here.
• 35:01
  I want to live here probably the rest of my life.
• 35:05
  I would like to go other places and run in those cool areas, but
• 35:08
  I'm staying in the Northeast. I'm tied down here for sure.
• 35:13
  So I'm here to stay. I'm not leaving.
• 35:16
  I'm not fucking leaving. I tried to swear, but I yeah,
• 35:21
  I'm not leaving. So that's one thing.
• 35:24
  So I'm just, I'm just going to cover it the best that I can.
• 35:27
  And like we talked about, it's going to be hard to cover
• 35:29
  everything. And I'm, I'm figuring out better
• 35:32
  ways to do it. I'm getting some systems down.
• 35:37
  Maybe I'm, I'm going to start doing some segments like I have
• 35:40
  been doing race preview, race preview, race results at the
• 35:43
  end. I'm going to get a better, a
• 35:47
  better system down so some things don't slip through the
• 35:49
  cracks because already some, some already are.
• 35:52
  I know that there's been some FKTSI think going down.
• 35:55
  There's been some big things that it, it's hard to me to give
• 35:57
  the spotlight to. But I, I see this as I want to
• 36:01
  talk to guests, I want to cover the scene in a, in a good way,
• 36:07
  things they'll care about and I want to stay on top of it.
• 36:13
  And I think there's a way to do it.
• 36:14
  I think there's a way to do it and I'm working on it.
• 36:17
  This year is going to be, you know, it's going to I'm going to
• 36:20
  get better as we go. But the idea is to touch on
• 36:23
  every, every, you know, big thing going on.
• 36:26
  And like I said, I don't want to turn fully into a news slash
• 36:30
  media company. You know, I don't because, you
• 36:35
  know, if you get a a negative headline, like, you know,
• 36:38
  negativity clip sell. I don't want to be just saying
• 36:41
  stuff for views and followers, all that stuff.
• 36:45
  That is not the goal of it. So I don't want to be all over
• 36:48
  in some some some things I just I'm not going to want to talk
• 36:51
  about, to be honest, Like if something, you know, we have,
• 36:54
  you know, if something bad happens or if there's some
• 36:58
  controversy where somebody's I don't like something, I'm going
• 37:01
  to try to keep it positive, Talk about what I want to talk about
• 37:05
  and just kind of make it a cool trail, runny hiking outdoorsy,
• 37:11
  sit in a truck bed after a run kind of vibe for the podcast.
• 37:15
  And that's just what I'm going to do and I'm going to keep
• 37:17
  going on socials. If you hate it, I'm sorry, but
• 37:22
  it's a way to to get the word out.
• 37:25
  So that's kind of, that's kind of how I think about things.
• 37:30
  Yeah. That's that's pretty much how I
• 37:31
  think about things. What is Next up here?
• 37:37
  Do, do, do. Yeah.
• 37:39
  OK. So then I want to talk about
• 37:42
  yes, yes, yes, my, yeah. Here we go.
• 37:44
  We're back on track. We ain't going to cut it.
• 37:45
  We ain't going to cut it. My main goal, I'm telling all of
• 37:51
  you guys honestly, the one the biggest thing that I care about
• 37:55
  in terms of running, run mountain peaks, hiking, all that
• 37:57
  stuff. I just want to get faster on
• 38:00
  trails and, and, and, and keep being able to get out, getting
• 38:06
  fitter and feeling awesome in the mountains.
• 38:08
  That's my goal, number one goal that I care about.
• 38:11
  So I'm not going to let this get in the way of my training.
• 38:16
  I'm not going to turn to a a full creator.
• 38:19
  I got to jump on the story or get the biggest people or, or
• 38:22
  what all this stuff. My training and running is going
• 38:25
  to come first in terms of the all this stuff.
• 38:28
  And then I'm going to do my best for all the other stuff.
• 38:32
  And I and I'm and I'm working on it.
• 38:33
  So we'll we'll see. So I'm sure there are going to
• 38:36
  be some people that think you are, I'm going to miss some
• 38:39
  things. I probably am.
• 38:40
  There's only 52 weeks in a year. I would love to start doing 2
• 38:43
  hour bangers every week, an interview, the results of other
• 38:49
  things, but we're working on it. But my, my running is, is one of
• 38:54
  the biggest priorities. It is something that I, I've
• 38:57
  said this a lot. I can't get out of my head.
• 39:00
  I just want to get faster. I love training.
• 39:04
  I love people pushing themselves, pushing the
• 39:07
  envelope, and I want to do it for myself.
• 39:10
  And although the podcast, doing the coaching, those things don't
• 39:15
  directly translate to just me as an athlete.
• 39:18
  I think the more time I spend talking to people, talking about
• 39:23
  things, being around it, it's all going to help my athletic
• 39:28
  journey, my running. It's, it's, it's all in the same
• 39:31
  realm. And this is the realm that I
• 39:33
  want to spend most of my time in.
• 39:35
  So I think it, I think it all works together well.
• 39:39
  But athlete, like I said, there is a spectrum from athlete to
• 39:44
  content creator. OK, there's a, there is a
• 39:47
  spectrum. We'll get into the spectrum.
• 39:50
  After one thing popped in my mind, I'm finally maybe mostly
• 39:57
  over the being embarrassed about this.
• 40:00
  I think I'm more starting to be proud of.
• 40:04
  I put out a quality audio video thing every week that takes a
• 40:08
  lot of work that some that a lot of people like honestly, yeah,
• 40:12
  no, in my eyes it is a ton of people are listening to this,
• 40:14
  which is awesome. Thank you shout out.
• 40:18
  It's I think it's like I said, people care about this.
• 40:22
  So I'm feeling more proud, which is really it took a long time.
• 40:27
  It's been 6-6 months. It probably took six months of,
• 40:30
  oh man, am I, you know, do people think this about me or
• 40:33
  whatever. I really am feeling proud about
• 40:36
  this, about what I've put together.
• 40:39
  And if you have something that you are passionate about, want
• 40:46
  to talk about, I think and, and you're nervous about what people
• 40:51
  will think about you, I think you got to go for it.
• 40:53
  You have to go for it. Everyone in the world, like I
• 40:57
  said, my friends, my family, I know people at my work know now
• 41:00
  or it's, you know, everyone knows that I can't hide from it.
• 41:04
  The the yeah, everyone knows. And I think they say that a lot
• 41:12
  of things that, you know, you can accomplish are just on the
• 41:15
  other side of discomfort. Everyone who's done big things
• 41:18
  says this. And I think that discomfort is
• 41:22
  part of, it's like growing pains, Discomfort is part of
• 41:25
  that process. And I think I really felt it for
• 41:28
  a long time. I'm sure I'm still going to feel
• 41:32
  it. There's going to be things that
• 41:33
  I kind of mess up or do wrong in, in in the future.
• 41:36
  And you just got to learn from it and know that that's just
• 41:39
  part of it. But getting over that hurdle was
• 41:42
  big for me. And like, I seriously, all the
• 41:44
  comments, all that stuff really helped me do it.
• 41:46
  And if you got something it, it might feel uncomfortable for a
• 41:50
  little bit a day, a week, a couple weeks, a couple months, a
• 41:53
  year. But if you are passionate about
• 41:57
  it, you like doing it, just stick it through.
• 42:00
  Just stick it through and, and, and you're going to make it to
• 42:03
  the other side. Let's, let's hope that this
• 42:07
  podcast doesn't shut down after that spiel.
• 42:09
  Imagine two more weeks. I'm like, I can't do this
• 42:12
  anymore. I'm too self-conscious and shut
• 42:13
  it down. Now I'm in and now I'm in locked
• 42:16
  and loaded in right now. And I was I, you know, it's easy
• 42:21
  to say that. It's very easy to say that.
• 42:23
  And then I'm always like the first hate comment that I get
• 42:26
  out. Sure it's going to spiral.
• 42:27
  It's going to be horrible. And this is something I wanted
• 42:30
  to address. I got my first hate comment, her
• 42:33
  first hate message. I don't have it right off the
• 42:38
  top of my head, but it was something along the lines of
• 42:41
  keep the Adirondacks out of your mouth.
• 42:44
  If you if you want to talk about if you want to sell out your
• 42:47
  mountains, you do it, but keep it out of your influencer page.
• 42:51
  You're just exploiting natural resources for personal ego.
• 42:57
  I woke up to this the other day and I was like, Oh my God, that
• 43:03
  was so let's dissect it. I almost responded, but you
• 43:07
  know, you don't want to. There's no sense of like getting
• 43:09
  to an argument. I think I think there is
• 43:12
  validity to the point, but I think it's also probably
• 43:17
  misdirected at me. I think in this era of social
• 43:27
  media people being connected, 2026, any beautiful awesome
• 43:32
  place is known, right? Everyone knows Lincoln, North
• 43:39
  Conway in the summer, tons of tourists, Mount Washington, tons
• 43:44
  of tourists, all these places, tons of tourists because people
• 43:48
  take awesome videos, talk about them and it can get around at
• 43:53
  the you know, in a split second. I fell on my hand this week, so
• 43:56
  I went to snap there. I really don't have any any
• 43:58
  give. I know it's if you could see it,
• 44:00
  you'd be like, wow, this guy's really tough in this podcast out
• 44:03
  OK, I can snap. But yeah, it's it's just out
• 44:08
  there. It's 2026.
• 44:09
  It can get across the globe and anywhere.
• 44:11
  So gatekeeping cool natural resources.
• 44:15
  I am not the first person to exploit this, right?
• 44:20
  There's parks there. Literally there's
• 44:23
  adirondacks.46adirondacks.org that are blasting this all over
• 44:28
  social media. State parks.
• 44:30
  The state needs tourists because there is community of businesses
• 44:34
  that need tourism, right? Anywhere like and anything in
• 44:38
  the world natural resources oriented, there's already draw
• 44:42
  and I'm not doing anything differently than the people have
• 44:45
  done for 100 years. People have been vacationing at
• 44:48
  Lake Winnipesaukee going to Mount Washington for hundreds of
• 44:51
  years, right? So I'm not the first person to
• 44:55
  don't hate me like this is this is 2026.
• 44:58
  I'm not even taking cool video. I'm not even really showing.
• 45:01
  I'm just vaguely talking about the Adirondacks, right?
• 45:06
  So I think that's just misdirected or, or it's, it's
• 45:10
  being kind of mad at everything as a whole, which I empathize.
• 45:15
  Is it empathize or sympathize? One of them means that you've
• 45:18
  gone through it and one of them means that you haven't gone
• 45:20
  through it. But you can you can try to see
• 45:23
  where they're coming from. Maybe I have done both.
• 45:27
  I understand if you have a really cool spot and there's
• 45:30
  tons of people there on the weekend, the one day that you
• 45:32
  have off or something, it kind of stinks that that, but that's
• 45:36
  just is what it is. Me, my little tiny podcast.
• 45:40
  I I don't want to say little antenna.
• 45:42
  You guys are massive and strong. I so many people are listening,
• 45:50
  but I'm not pushing the needle at all, right, I really am not.
• 45:54
  And so I but I thought about it. Is it is it a net good or a net
• 45:58
  bad to be talking about these things?
• 46:00
  I think you just have to play know that the most popular
• 46:05
  Franconia Ridge loop, how many millions, maybe billions of
• 46:09
  impressions on social media has the Franconia Ridge loop gotten
• 46:12
  a ton right. So that's why everyone goes
• 46:16
  there and on the weekends, people are tourists are going to
• 46:19
  go there. And that's just is what it is.
• 46:21
  That is you can't stop it these days.
• 46:23
  You just can't stop it. So I'm not adding significantly
• 46:28
  to it, but well, no, I'm not adding significantly, but I am
• 46:32
  adding I'm for, I'm for sure adding that clip gets 100,000
• 46:36
  views or whatever on Instagram. Those 8 routes, I am sure that
• 46:41
  more people are going to go after that this year.
• 46:44
  But let's just let's just do a little hypothetical.
• 46:47
  The clip got gets 100,000 views, let's say 2%, which I think it
• 46:52
  could be generous follows through on the actions of going
• 46:56
  out and doing these routes are doing this things right, 2000
• 47:00
  people. I would guess that 90% of those
• 47:04
  people were going to be hiking or trail running somewhere that
• 47:08
  weekend anyway. OK, so now we're down to 200
• 47:12
  people that are going to get out on a new route.
• 47:14
  They haven't been before. They wouldn't have gone even
• 47:17
  close to that State Park or whatever.
• 47:20
  Yes, I'm adding 200 people to that thing spread out across 8
• 47:25
  routes. You know, maybe two or three
• 47:27
  trailheads per route. What is that?
• 47:28
  I'm just trying to be wicked good at math.
• 47:30
  Right now 24 will say 20 different trailheads.
• 47:32
  So I'm adding ten people. One video adds 10 people.
• 47:35
  Poor trailhead on a single day. I don't think that's anything
• 47:39
  to, to blink an eye out like on Saturdays.
• 47:41
  You just know on these big routes that people are going to
• 47:44
  be on them. The 4000 footers, How how big is
• 47:47
  that gotten? Right?
• 47:49
  OK, Andrew, that is enough saying why you're not the
• 47:51
  problem. It's a whole problem.
• 47:52
  We get it. You've done this for three
• 47:53
  minutes. Yes, I, I, I, I see that.
• 47:56
  But let's say those 200 people that weren't going to go, let's
• 48:01
  say half of them park at a trailhead, you have to pay $5 by
• 48:05
  100. Is that $500 to the State Park,
• 48:07
  the Adirondacks to maintain your trails and do trail work and
• 48:13
  take care of whatever they need to take care of.
• 48:15
  Maybe you could spin it that way.
• 48:17
  So more harm than good, who knows.
• 48:21
  But I can see where he's coming from.
• 48:23
  If you have a cool spots and it something blows up, it happens.
• 48:29
  I just watched the Noah Khan documentary with Jocelyn.
• 48:32
  Noah Khan was like, I went back to Stratford, Vermont, in the
• 48:35
  middle of nowhere and there were four girls from Michigan taking
• 48:37
  a selfie in front of a downtown area.
• 48:39
  And so this really small town. So I think that like blowing,
• 48:45
  you know, billions of people listen to Noah Khan.
• 48:48
  Millions maybe. And a tiny little unknown place
• 48:52
  where there's one coffee shop maybe I can see, I can see where
• 48:59
  you shouldn't be promoting. Not that, not that.
• 49:01
  No, I think no, I saw a clip of him talking about it.
• 49:04
  He knows that he's like, he feels bad about, but he's like,
• 49:07
  what can I do? I don't know.
• 49:08
  I didn't know this was going to happen to my music.
• 49:09
  Right. So maybe in the future, if I get
• 49:13
  1,000,000 views on a video and it's the New Hampshire Spring
• 49:16
  Trail running playbook, I shouldn't give specific trails
• 49:22
  on not known mountains. That's like maybe private
• 49:26
  landowner owns a little piece of the trail like it's on a State
• 49:29
  Park where it's, you know, maybe I don't do that.
• 49:31
  I don't know. It's something to think about,
• 49:34
  something to take in exploiting natural resources for personal
• 49:38
  ego. I think this one, there is 100%
• 49:46
  a piece of my ego in this podcast and in my running where
• 49:53
  I feel like I can do a good or I can talk about a topic a certain
• 49:57
  way because I know about it. And I think that, you know, I
• 50:00
  could post about it, right? I know enough to post about it
• 50:03
  and I'm running. I think I'm fast enough to sit
• 50:06
  do these races of these efforts of these goals, and I'm going to
• 50:08
  talk about it and I want to talk about the my runs and the things
• 50:12
  that I, you know, I'm going to I'm going to race and I'm going
• 50:15
  to run and I'm going to talk about it.
• 50:16
  And if I run a 450 gap up a thing, Ryan stole my crown, I'm
• 50:20
  going to put it in my thumbnail, right?
• 50:22
  Like that kind of thing. There is for sure ego in that.
• 50:26
  And I think it's something that I really have to think about and
• 50:30
  make sure that I'm always coming from a place where my goal is to
• 50:34
  spend more time in the mountains, do more of this
• 50:36
  stuff, get fitter and kind of go in this path of reaching my
• 50:46
  potential, you know, being a better person, doing good for
• 50:50
  the community, the Northeast trail community.
• 50:53
  I always need to be aligning my, the podcast and, and my stuff
• 50:58
  with those values. And if I do that, if I only
• 51:01
  spread, you know, positively, I'm not super negative or, you
• 51:04
  know, doing anything not good. If I'm nice to everybody, I'm
• 51:09
  not mean or any anything, you know, behind the scenes,
• 51:12
  whatever, all of these things, then then I'm, I'm going to be
• 51:18
  good in any negative comment. It just, it doesn't matter
• 51:22
  because I know I'm coming from a place of doing good for good
• 51:26
  people kind of thing. So, you know, and that's that's
• 51:31
  that's definitely something I think about because yeah, that's
• 51:36
  what I think about. So those are my thoughts there.
• 51:39
  Now we're going to finally get to the creator versus athlete
• 51:44
  spectrum that I was talking about and how I feel about that.
• 51:51
  What are we, what are we going here?
• 51:53
  I don't have like infinite. OK, perfect.
• 51:57
  OK, so like I said, athlete on one spectrum, creator on the
• 52:04
  other spectrum. What is a professional athlete?
• 52:07
  What is Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Red Sox, Celtics people,
• 52:13
  I was just about to do Red Sox. What are these?
• 52:17
  Yo, OK, this is not Red Sox, LeBron.
• 52:20
  What are these people? These are the best athletes in
• 52:24
  the world at their sport. They get paid a billion dollars,
• 52:27
  a ton of money. They're not content creators.
• 52:31
  I don't know actually. Does Jalen Brown have a stream?
• 52:33
  I think he has a stream. That's all he is.
• 52:35
  But but per SE, maybe more old school.
• 52:38
  A lot of these athletes didn't didn't have a social media
• 52:41
  accounts. They are the best in the world
• 52:44
  and they get paid to do that and they just don't make the media
• 52:49
  about them. Everyone else makes the media
• 52:52
  about them because they're so great.
• 52:53
  You, you, the games are on TVNBC hosts it.
• 52:57
  They get a bunch of people to see this content that was like
• 52:59
  the old content, you know, a basketball game media press
• 53:03
  reporters, right? They're doing all the quotes.
• 53:05
  You have to do the Internet. They have to do interviews
• 53:08
  before and after the game. This was that's kind of like
• 53:11
  content creation before vlogging or people always having cameras
• 53:15
  and recording stuff. So if you're an athlete, your
• 53:19
  value as an athlete is probably pretty close lead.
• 53:24
  Actually, I think it is tied to the ability to create content.
• 53:29
  Now you may say, Nope, they only care about your sport.
• 53:32
  Winners, yes, if you get Tom Brady to come to the box and he
• 53:37
  wins you a Super Bowl, you know how much media, merch, shirts,
• 53:41
  all that stuff that that Brady brings by win you a Super Bowl?
• 53:44
  So you're paying for the, the, the sport playing the sport, but
• 53:50
  the ability to pay them is through media and content.
• 53:54
  So you can call media content. So that's one end of the
• 53:57
  spectrum. You're so good at something.
• 53:59
  People take pictures of me. Oh, what's that?
• 54:01
  What's that quote? Oh, Lil Wayne, Lil Wayne.
• 54:06
  I'm a star. When I'm a star, people come see
• 54:09
  me. There's like, you know, that
• 54:12
  what's that press conference that Lil Wayne did back in the
• 54:15
  day that he's just like saying these crazy things and reporters
• 54:17
  just like I, I don't know. Anyway, they're superstars.
• 54:24
  They don't need to make their own content.
• 54:26
  Whereas the other end of the spectrum, right, if you are an
• 54:31
  aspiring runner or an aspiring like, I guess you would put me
• 54:35
  in this ballpark. I'm at the other end.
• 54:38
  I get $0.00 from companies to run, but I think that I will
• 54:44
  have some sort of career in running where I will get some
• 54:49
  sort of compensation. It's at least going to be a
• 54:52
  white, white run the whites gift card.
• 54:54
  Hopefully this year in one or more of the throw downs.
• 54:58
  I would, I would, you know, I technically would say that
• 55:01
  that's running money from running.
• 55:02
  But you create content because if you can create good content,
• 55:07
  even if you're athletic achievements don't get views,
• 55:11
  You can give people information on running tips, hiking tips,
• 55:15
  all all these different things. And there is value because
• 55:18
  you're, you're creating the value, you're creating the
• 55:23
  valuable media, right? And if you get paid $50,000 a
• 55:30
  year to run like some sponsored runners do, some people could
• 55:34
  live on that. But travel, I don't know how it
• 55:35
  all works, right? Let's say you make half of what
• 55:38
  you need to make through just direct money to run.
• 55:42
  Then you're in the middle of the spectrum where you can't run for
• 55:45
  a living. But these people probably have
• 55:48
  podcasts. They probably have their own
• 55:50
  adventures that they're promoting or some sort of
• 55:53
  content that they're creating where they're getting monetized
• 55:56
  for that directly. Like if you have a YouTube, Ali
• 55:59
  Ostrander will shout her out again because I just think she
• 56:02
  does good YouTube videos. She's making money directly from
• 56:06
  her YouTube videos, her ad revenue, right?
• 56:08
  So she's I mean it. And I'm sure that she could just
• 56:11
  be a pro runner like she's that good, right?
• 56:14
  So this is just maybe it's a bad, but you hear what I'm
• 56:16
  saying. So then there you're a middle
• 56:19
  bit of a spectrum and I think if you want to have a a, you know,
• 56:25
  income in this lane, you have to figure out where you are on the
• 56:29
  spectrum and where you want to be, right?
• 56:31
  If you just want to be more on this side, you better be getting
• 56:34
  working on getting faster trained, doing everything you
• 56:36
  can. If you want, you know, think
• 56:39
  that you're capped here on the spectrum, you know, at 25%, you
• 56:43
  know, I can never run. You don't.
• 56:44
  Maybe my potential is a whatever I want to just also create
• 56:49
  really good content, right? And then I can make it work
• 56:51
  here. And so it's it's not one or the
• 56:54
  other. Are you of law?
• 56:55
  Oh, he's just a content creator. Are you?
• 56:57
  There's a spectrum for all the stuff in and everyone's on it.
• 57:03
  And I think it Killian Korth, I don't know if you wrote a sub
• 57:06
  stack on this, but he was talking about talking to Zack
• 57:10
  Bitter. Zack Bitter a really, you know,
• 57:13
  a strong ultra runner. If you don't know Killian Korth,
• 57:16
  he I think he swept the two hundreds rat last year, Coca
• 57:19
  Dona Tahoe, 201 of the other ones.
• 57:23
  And Zach Bitter's just I think he had a world record in 100
• 57:25
  mile. He's just a crusher.
• 57:27
  Will do 100 miles in 13 hours on the track.
• 57:31
  Long distance ultra guy they were talking about when I was
• 57:34
  getting into it. I didn't like that to be more
• 57:38
  attractive to ads and brands and sponsors, you needed to do this
• 57:42
  social media stuff. But over time, I've learned to
• 57:45
  lean into it and it's just part of the game.
• 57:50
  And it's it's, it is the game whether you do it or you don't
• 57:55
  do it right. So somebody's going to use you
• 57:58
  for content eventually if you get to that sponsored, sponsored
• 58:04
  level. So if you were doing it and
• 58:07
  you're doing what you're making the content that you want to
• 58:09
  make and do the things that you want to do, then, you know,
• 58:13
  they, they kind of lean into it and they're like, you know, it's
• 58:15
  not a bad thing. I think it, you know, it helps
• 58:17
  grow the sport, it helps grow awareness.
• 58:19
  You can help people out, right? And so I, I feel like I want to
• 58:25
  be somewhere on the spectrum from here going forward.
• 58:28
  And we'll, we'll, we'll see, we'll see where that spectrum
• 58:30
  lands. You know, I, who knows?
• 58:33
  I have no, I have no idea, but that's what I kind of think
• 58:38
  about it. So I don't know what I call
• 58:41
  myself a content creator. I wouldn't put that on my bio.
• 58:43
  I have mountain athlete and endurance coach in my bio.
• 58:47
  Maybe you could say also content creator is like, you know,
• 58:51
  wherever you want to list them, right?
• 58:53
  But that's just the reality of it.
• 58:55
  And I think I've I've leaned into it, I've accepted it and
• 58:58
  it's been it's been fun. I'm just, I'm going to be
• 59:01
  talking with a lot of crushers this year, trying to hype them
• 59:04
  up the best that I can, hearing stories, swapping gear, swapping
• 59:09
  tips, all this stuff. And it's been really fun.
• 59:13
  It's been really fun. So that really has been my
• 59:17
  journey. It's been a journey.
• 59:19
  It's been up and down. We'll see where it goes from
• 59:22
  here. But I would have never expected
• 59:26
  this a year ago today, if you would have told me that all this
• 59:29
  stuff was, you know, I'd have a, a podcast, I'd be doing all
• 59:32
  these things. I would not have expected it.
• 59:34
  But it feels, it finally feels like, you know, it feels like
• 59:39
  I'm in the right spot and I'm excited moving forward.
• 59:42
  And I hope you guys are too. I hope you guys are too.
• 59:45
  I hope you're enjoying it. And we're I'm going to keep
• 59:47
  getting better and bring you more guests, more segments, more
• 59:50
  tips, all the stuff. And Speaking of tips, the 62nd
• 59:55
  training tip today. We're going to do this at the
• 59:58
  end of the episode from now on, just because for now, we'll see.
• 1:00:04
  We'll see how I like it at the end.
• 1:00:06
  This is a hilarious 62nd tip. We've done, I think, one joking
• 1:00:10
  62nd tip so far, actually, not a joke.
• 1:00:13
  Don't roll your ankle during a race.
• 1:00:16
  That was the tip. This week's tip is, and this is
• 1:00:20
  not a joke. Actually, you're going to think
• 1:00:22
  it's a joke. That's not a joke.
• 1:00:24
  This week's tip is on if speed workouts are getting a little
• 1:00:30
  bit stale or a little bit you feeling off or you're oh man, it
• 1:00:35
  was really, really hard last week.
• 1:00:37
  I don't think I can do better this week.
• 1:00:40
  Try putting on two different colored socks.
• 1:00:45
  Try wearing a tank top that you've never worn for a speed
• 1:00:51
  workout. Maybe it's like an ACDC tank
• 1:00:55
  top. Try going shirtless.
• 1:01:00
  Try. We'll leave it at that.
• 1:01:04
  And you're thinking, what are you talking about?
• 1:01:08
  I think the mental aspect of digging really deep when you're
• 1:01:13
  running hard is so valuable. I think some people are are
• 1:01:18
  limited by their physical ability, but I think most people
• 1:01:20
  are limited. They just don't.
• 1:01:22
  They just don't want to push when it gets really hard.
• 1:01:24
  They think that they're going as hard as they can, but they're
• 1:01:27
  not. It's, it's a mental game.
• 1:01:29
  It feels really hard and what I've learned is sometimes if I'm
• 1:01:35
  intimidated before workout or something, I will throw on two
• 1:01:39
  different color socks or or something that like, you know,
• 1:01:42
  kind of that that throws my mental into a little bit of a
• 1:01:47
  jam. A Jamboree gymnastics where it's
• 1:01:51
  like when I wear two different colored socks, my foot feet kind
• 1:01:54
  of feel a little bit different. So maybe my my legs feel a
• 1:01:57
  little bit different during a workout.
• 1:01:59
  I look down, I see the socks or I'm wearing something that's a
• 1:02:01
  little bit different. It is going to put you in a
• 1:02:05
  different mindset that maybe it does nothing but maybe there is
• 1:02:10
  some sugar pill effect that lets you push harder that day.
• 1:02:17
  So the the real quote is mix up. If you're feeling stale, if
• 1:02:21
  something's getting really hard, mix something up.
• 1:02:24
  Do something crazy. You know, run a workout with a
• 1:02:27
  friend, do something that gets out of your normal routine when
• 1:02:32
  you're about to do a hard speed workout and you might be able to
• 1:02:35
  push just a tiny bit further because the human brain works in
• 1:02:38
  crazy ways. Imagine this.
• 1:02:43
  You sign up for my one-on-one coaching my first week.
• 1:02:48
  I ship you a 17 LB. I ship you a a weighted vest, a
• 1:02:56
  chorus arm, or I shouldn't say chorus now I'll say chorus I I
• 1:03:00
  ship you an A wrist or a arm or a chest heart rate strap and
• 1:03:05
  send you 2 miss colored socks and say you're getting on the
• 1:03:10
  stairmaster. And then I ship you a bag of ice
• 1:03:14
  and say you're getting on the Stairmaster this week.
• 1:03:17
  Wear two different colored socks.
• 1:03:20
  I think people are going to be shocked and upset, but but I'm
• 1:03:29
  telling you, you got it. You got to mix it up and you got
• 1:03:32
  to find ways to push yourself to your limit.
• 1:03:35
  I'm half joking, but I am half serious about this.
• 1:03:38
  Mix it up and make sure that you are going hard.
• 1:03:42
  If you went as hard as you could today at a workout, I promise
• 1:03:46
  you, you had a couple more seconds in you on, on your reps
• 1:03:49
  promise, guarantee, promise. We cannot hit 100%.
• 1:03:54
  We can't do it. If you are not vomiting, I don't
• 1:04:00
  want to say dead vomiting, ER oxygen levels like it's 60%
• 1:04:06
  cause your body's in, then, then you could have pushed a little
• 1:04:09
  bit harder. And I'm not saying do that every
• 1:04:12
  week. I'm not saying do that every
• 1:04:13
  race, but I'm saying you have more in you in any way to
• 1:04:18
  squeeze it out. You can figure out a way.
• 1:04:20
  Oh, this is my lucky sock. Oh, this is my lucky mismatched
• 1:04:23
  sock. You could do it.
• 1:04:24
  That was a 62nd training tip. I'm glad we didn't start the
• 1:04:27
  episode off with that one. I don't know how it's going to
• 1:04:30
  go over. I don't know how I feel about
• 1:04:32
  it. Sometimes I say something stupid
• 1:04:34
  on the podcast and I think to myself, don't think about it,
• 1:04:36
  don't think about it, don't think about it.
• 1:04:37
  Go to bed and never think about it again.
• 1:04:38
  Don't listen to it, don't think about it, but that was my tip
• 1:04:42
  today. And now we're going to get into
• 1:04:46
  the race preview and race results from this week.
• 1:04:49
  I'm not going to do it right now.
• 1:04:51
  So you're going to see, I think it might be same day Andrew or
• 1:04:54
  next day Andrew. It may be inside, it may be
• 1:04:57
  outdoors, who knows? But here's the race review and
• 1:05:04
  and preview segment. Bingo.
• 1:05:06
  Boom. OK, race preview and race
• 1:05:10
  results time. We're going to start with the
• 1:05:12
  previews because there are a couple big races coming up this
• 1:05:16
  upcoming weekend. We're going to start out with
• 1:05:19
  White Lake Ultras, White Lakes May 2nd, Tamworth, New Hampshire
• 1:05:25
  to White Mountain Endurance race.
• 1:05:26
  The first one to kick off the year will give you the preview
• 1:05:30
  and then we'll go look in the ultra sign up list 'cause I
• 1:05:33
  think this will be an interesting one to dive into.
• 1:05:36
  This event takes place at White Lake State Park.
• 1:05:39
  If you heard me references last week, I said the White Lake
• 1:05:43
  Soldiers is coming up soon. Oh crap, where's that hosted
• 1:05:46
  again? I'm going to go there after a
• 1:05:48
  run a white pond, is it White Lake?
• 1:05:53
  I'm actually going to volunteer. I usually try to volunteer, at
• 1:05:55
  least swing by, but going to be volunteering there.
• 1:05:58
  So we're going to see some of this action up close and
• 1:06:00
  personal. This event takes place at White
• 1:06:04
  Lake State Park. Flat, slightly technical, two
• 1:06:07
  mile, single track. Is it 2 miles?
• 1:06:09
  I feel like it's longer than two miles.
• 1:06:11
  I think it's like 3 or 4. So I mean, Boo, bad preview from
• 1:06:16
  the start. Andrew, you, you're not even
• 1:06:18
  doing a preview right now. You've just gone way off course
• 1:06:21
  that features unique beach vibes and scenic late front views.
• 1:06:25
  I can't confirm that this is it's a sweet set up.
• 1:06:28
  It's a lap course. It says 50 vertical gain each
• 1:06:31
  per loop. And you don't need to read the
• 1:06:33
  description here. Just talk about it.
• 1:06:35
  There's a six hour, the 12 hour, the 24 hour.
• 1:06:39
  It is really, it's a unique, it's not a backyard event, but
• 1:06:42
  it has a backyard style feel to it and you have people in
• 1:06:46
  different races coming in at different times.
• 1:06:49
  So it's very action-packed. They got music.
• 1:06:52
  There's a nice kind of a covered patio area for the crew.
• 1:06:57
  The aid station, usually the aid station, the hype is there for
• 1:07:01
  most of the event. It's a cool event and we'll do.
• 1:07:05
  We'll go look at the entrance list here.
• 1:07:08
  So I guess let's start with the 24 hour, 24 hour.
• 1:07:12
  I mean, we'll just name read some of the names right off the
• 1:07:15
  top. Peter Benito, top guy on there,
• 1:07:17
  he's coming out. Conor O'Brien, He has one
• 1:07:20
  result, but he's ranked pretty high.
• 1:07:22
  Kevin Ellis, Erica Notini is in this race.
• 1:07:27
  Erica Notini, she's got to be a let's go to her results.
• 1:07:31
  She's got to be one of the favourites.
• 1:07:33
  She came in second at the Bubba's last year.
• 1:07:36
  She came in first at the Jigger Johnson 100 mile last year, won
• 1:07:40
  that event. Yeah, she went 150 at Bubba's
• 1:07:44
  last year. I mean she's going to do some
• 1:07:46
  damage. She ran a 200 Miller on March
• 1:07:48
  18th, Southern States 200. She came in second.
• 1:07:51
  Yeah, she is. Oh my gosh, she is on one.
• 1:07:57
  She's got to be 1 of favourites. But OK, we'll go.
• 1:07:59
  We'll go back to the full list. Taylor Miller, she's been a
• 1:08:02
  White Lakes a bunch, but she just crushes every race she goes
• 1:08:06
  in. Last year second in the Jigger
• 1:08:09
  Johnson 50 and then 12th at the Loon Mountain race, so showing
• 1:08:14
  some range. She won the Kilkenny the same
• 1:08:16
  year that I won it. She's won the state ragged stage
• 1:08:20
  race. Yeah, she's fast.
• 1:08:23
  So she's in the 24 mile. That'll be interesting.
• 1:08:26
  Jason Kaplan, I've been seeing his name in a lot of the TARK
• 1:08:29
  races. He's showing up.
• 1:08:35
  Clark Plummer. Clark Plummer.
• 1:08:37
  I mean, yeah, we're we may hear from Clark.
• 1:08:41
  No, no, no. Clark Plummer's in it.
• 1:08:42
  He's a slugger. No voodoo here, Clark.
• 1:08:46
  He is a slugger. Hopefully he has a great day out
• 1:08:48
  there. Who else we got here?
• 1:08:52
  We'll go to the 12 hour. That was a 24 hour preview. 12
• 1:08:56
  hour, we'll just RIP some of the top names.
• 1:09:00
  Selena, Addie, Cole, Hauser, Cloris Reinhardt, Ashley Ulin, a
• 1:09:07
  White Mountain Slugger, grid finisher.
• 1:09:09
  She's definitely been at White Lakes before.
• 1:09:11
  So last year she came in second in the 12 mile, 3rd at the
• 1:09:15
  Jigger Johnson 50 mile. Last year podium.
• 1:09:18
  I mean she put she's 3rd place finished at the Jigger Johnson
• 1:09:21
  50 twice, 2nd place finish at the White Lakes Ultra twice.
• 1:09:24
  She's getting on podiums every time she goes out.
• 1:09:28
  She's going to do some damage in the 12 hour for sure.
• 1:09:32
  Be good to see her out there. Jack Buffington.
• 1:09:35
  Jack Buffington, he ran, was that his first 100 mile or last
• 1:09:40
  fall? Wasatch 100, he's definitely
• 1:09:44
  been a name, a young guy, 21, that's been throwing down some
• 1:09:48
  big stuff in the white. So he's coming out for the 12
• 1:09:50
  hour. Who else we got here?
• 1:09:52
  Christine Western. Is this Jonathan Western's
• 1:09:58
  partner or or some sort of relation here?
• 1:10:00
  Jonathan Western does a lot of races.
• 1:10:02
  He's super fast. So we're going to give Christine
• 1:10:04
  Western a shout out. I think they're from the same
• 1:10:07
  town, so I'm just guessing here. Who else we got here?
• 1:10:14
  That's a 12 hour Jake Gennaro. Oh my God, I I'm so bad at
• 1:10:19
  Pembroke, NH neighbor. I definitely seen his name pop
• 1:10:24
  up. I think he may be a listener.
• 1:10:26
  So shout out. That's a 12 hour preview and
• 1:10:32
  then we'll go to the six hour. Let's see what we got at the six
• 1:10:35
  hour here. Ally Laville tops up.
• 1:10:38
  Wait, she's a Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:39
  Trophy Ally Livia at the top of the charts.
• 1:10:42
  She's been at White Lake. I think the six OK 12 hour last
• 1:10:47
  year she did the 12 hour yeah, 2025.
• 1:10:50
  This year she's doing the six hour.
• 1:10:53
  She won the mid state mass of 50 last fall won the pigs Pisgah
• 1:10:58
  trail race 50K last fall. Drummer Hill 25K last summer
• 1:11:03
  bunch of FKTS. We're going to be hearing from
• 1:11:05
  her potentially after this race. Should I be, should I be saying
• 1:11:08
  that? I mean, sorry Clark and Allie,
• 1:11:10
  but we may be hearing from them after the race pre no matter
• 1:11:15
  what what direction this goes 'cause they got a staples in the
• 1:11:19
  the the northeast scene. Serena Wilcox, Joanna McKenna,
• 1:11:27
  Corey Hempel, Caitlin Kowalski, Oh my God, there's some woman
• 1:11:32
  sluggers in this race. I think this could be an
• 1:11:34
  interesting 6 hour race. Can we look at the course
• 1:11:37
  records? Is that easily doable?
• 1:11:40
  Anyone else in this? I guess we didn't do, We could
• 1:11:42
  do a few of the top men. Richard Masta, Daniel Wilson.
• 1:11:49
  OK, OK, OK. And as always.
• 1:11:52
  Oh, there's actually one people that I want to shout out.
• 1:11:56
  Are they in this race? Hold on, hold on guys, bear with
• 1:11:59
  me. This is going to be a good shout
• 1:12:01
  out. We're going to call back if if
• 1:12:03
  anyone. Oh yeah, here we go in the 12
• 1:12:04
  hour. I'm looking at this list in the
• 1:12:07
  12 hour and I see at the at the bottom of this list, I see
• 1:12:10
  Jennifer who? Houlihan.
• 1:12:14
  Jennifer Houlihan. Oh, oh, OK, Where'd it go?
• 1:12:19
  So they're kind of split up here.
• 1:12:20
  Lucy Houlihan, Augie Houlihan, Nick Houlihan.
• 1:12:24
  And I'm thinking I know these names now from doing these
• 1:12:27
  previews. They were part of the Houlihan
• 1:12:30
  Houligans that did one of the Tark races that I remember.
• 1:12:34
  But oh, Sophie, I miss Sophie. Sophie Houlihan.
• 1:12:37
  Sophie. Lucy Auggie.
• 1:12:40
  I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right.
• 1:12:42
  All under 20, all from Newburyport.
• 1:12:46
  This is just a family of mile. Goers.
• 1:12:50
  I think there's always a a family that comes out that has
• 1:12:53
  some young kids running it. I don't know how young these
• 1:12:55
  guys are, some young kids running it.
• 1:12:58
  This race. Oh, we can just go to results.
• 1:13:00
  Go to results. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:03
  These guys have been at at White Lakes a couple times at 11.
• 1:13:07
  OK. OK.
• 1:13:07
  So Sophie Houlihan is 11. OK, OK, hold on.
• 1:13:10
  We're going to do a deep dive in the Houlihan Houligans.
• 1:13:13
  So, so Sophie Houlihan Houlihan, yeah, I'm pronouncing that is
• 1:13:18
  11. She has 13 race finishes, so
• 1:13:23
  probably more than you potentially she start.
• 1:13:25
  She she was at White Lakes at 9. She does this 17 miles at 9:00
• 1:13:31
  and then the next year at 10, she does almost 20 miles and
• 1:13:36
  then and that was last year and then this year she signed up
• 1:13:39
  again. So I guess let's let's go
• 1:13:40
  through and shout out all the young Houlihan.
• 1:13:43
  So Lucy Houlihan, 9, she's 9. Her first time she so she did
• 1:13:49
  tark hail the back 6 hour when she was 76 hours.
• 1:13:52
  She did 7 miles when she was 7. She's been to White Lake.
• 1:13:56
  Last year was her first time at 8 years old.
• 1:13:58
  She runs 18 miles. K she's showing up and then
• 1:14:04
  Augie is 6 is this I'm I'm I'm just going to shut them up.
• 1:14:08
  They're out there 6 and he's showing up for his first time.
• 1:14:11
  He's done a few of the tark races.
• 1:14:13
  So this is just a crew of of of mile crushers and super
• 1:14:19
  impressive. This is this is like when I see
• 1:14:22
  I've talked about this for other other young, young Oh, Sean
• 1:14:25
  Skinner's in this too. Shut up, Goffstown listener.
• 1:14:29
  I, I, I've said this before, but when, when in 10-15 years, when
• 1:14:34
  these Houlihan crew is in their prime running age and they have
• 1:14:40
  more bass than all of us combined, they're going to be a
• 1:14:43
  problem. So I'm hoping to be out of the
• 1:14:47
  ultra scene, competitive ultra scene by the time that these
• 1:14:51
  young UNS are, are in their prime.
• 1:14:54
  OK, so that's what I'm saying here.
• 1:14:55
  So anyway, I thought that was those names stuck out.
• 1:14:59
  We'll shout them out. OK, back to the preview.
• 1:15:03
  That was a White Lake preview. Pretty good.
• 1:15:05
  OK, moving on. Riverlands 100 Turner Maine
• 1:15:10
  laptops dine Turner Maine May 2nd, a big 100 Miller in New
• 1:15:17
  England. I think it's one of maybe one of
• 1:15:19
  the oldest. Let's just read what it says
• 1:15:21
  here. Consists of 425 mile out and
• 1:15:26
  backs in a mix of rugged ATV trails and sweet main single
• 1:15:30
  track. The 100 mile course features
• 1:15:32
  8000 feet of climbing, notorious for being tougher than the
• 1:15:35
  profile suggests due to its constant up and downs and
• 1:15:38
  potential for mud. You can do solo or or a relay
• 1:15:42
  team. So it's a big 100 mile.
• 1:15:44
  This is one of the 1st 100 miles that I wanted to do, but I
• 1:15:47
  couldn't get into it for some reason that first year.
• 1:15:49
  And then I just never, never signed up for it.
• 1:15:52
  But it's a good one. It's a big one.
• 1:15:53
  It's a tough one. I actually got invited to be on
• 1:15:56
  a five person relay team, but I I, I couldn't make it work.
• 1:16:01
  So going to miss out on that, but we'll do a preview.
• 1:16:04
  I mean, right off the top, Mike Conley, he's going to be a
• 1:16:08
  problem. And then and then Ben Nibla, who
• 1:16:14
  I haven't met, I know he's been sniffing around the Unkanunix.
• 1:16:17
  I think he's in, he's in the little chat we got going the run
• 1:16:21
  club. This guy has been putting down
• 1:16:23
  some miles and races. So already in 2026 he won the
• 1:16:29
  dark horse, 48 hour hour solo, puts up 183 miles.
• 1:16:34
  Then he goes to the 12 hour spring on the Trails Endurance
• 1:16:36
  Run in New New York, wins it 62 miles and then goes to Trap
• 1:16:41
  Rock, which we're going to do the results from after this
• 1:16:44
  April 18th. Oh my God.
• 1:16:46
  So he's racing 2 weeks, 2 weeks out owner.
• 1:16:50
  Yeah, yeah. And he comes in second in that
• 1:16:53
  race in a pretty competitive race, so 522.
• 1:16:58
  So hopefully he's recovered from all the stuff.
• 1:17:00
  I mean, he's putting up big miles, so he's recovered from
• 1:17:03
  it. So he's doing 100 mile at the
• 1:17:04
  Riverlands. He's going to be a problem for
• 1:17:06
  sure. Him and Mike, I think are going
• 1:17:08
  to be duking it out and then he's doing in July, Nashville 72
• 1:17:12
  hour ultra and then the Jigger Johnson 100 miles.
• 1:17:14
  So Ben's been getting after it for sure.
• 1:17:20
  All right, let's go back to the page.
• 1:17:21
  See what else we got here. See what else we got cooking.
• 1:17:24
  Wes Traub. I've seen his name for sure.
• 1:17:27
  He won the Drummer Hill 25K. He's podium at some of the Tark
• 1:17:31
  races. Ran UTMB 100.
• 1:17:33
  Miller. OK, OK.
• 1:17:35
  He's definitely in the mix. What do you got for females?
• 1:17:39
  Eliza. Eliza Broughton from Virginia
• 1:17:43
  coming up from Virginia with 100% age rank one race case you
• 1:17:47
  won the James River Trails 50 Miller in Virginia last year.
• 1:17:52
  So confirm fast. You never know with one, one
• 1:17:56
  result. But we'll see what they do.
• 1:18:00
  And that's the that is the preview there.
• 1:18:02
  I don't think we can preview yeah, we can't preview the the
• 1:18:05
  relay team. I think the the relays kind of
• 1:18:09
  invite only maybe. I don't know how that works.
• 1:18:11
  I don't think you can submit a team.
• 1:18:14
  Maybe as I was reading on the website, who knows?
• 1:18:17
  But all right, those are the 2 ones I was excited about.
• 1:18:20
  We'll go through and make sure we touch on on three more races
• 1:18:23
  and then we'll get to results from last weekend.
• 1:18:25
  The blue to blue challenge New Haven, CT May 3rd, 2026.
• 1:18:30
  This graduate level 50 Ki love these AI description of words.
• 1:18:34
  Graduate level is known back journey that connects 2 of
• 1:18:37
  Connecticut's iconic blue blaze trails, the rich Rigesys sides
• 1:18:43
  in Quinnipiac. The course is exceptionally
• 1:18:46
  technical, packing 6500 feet of vertical climbing, 33 miles and
• 1:18:52
  highlights passing by the backside of Roaring Brook Park,
• 1:18:55
  home to the tallest waterfall in Connecticut.
• 1:18:57
  Boom, that's a blue to blue challenge Mount AG Agamentis Big
• 1:19:02
  A 50K The Big A 50K York, ME May 4th 2026 consists of 310.3 mile
• 1:19:10
  loops around starting from the summit of Mount A Mount A
• 1:19:15
  repeatedly climbing over first, second and third hill.
• 1:19:17
  The full 50K distance amasses almost 6000 feet of technical
• 1:19:22
  elevation gain. Technical trails, this is one
• 1:19:25
  that Mike Kings told me about. It's kind of it.
• 1:19:27
  If you need vert in in the southern Maine area, you just
• 1:19:31
  need to lap mount A. That's like the only mountain in
• 1:19:35
  southern Maine that you can get a little bit of a gain on.
• 1:19:38
  But I'm pretty sure it's a it's a pretty big race, so should be
• 1:19:43
  exciting. And then the peak blood Root
• 1:19:45
  Ultra in Pittsfield, Vt, Vermont, May 6th, 2026.
• 1:19:51
  So I don't know is this like starts the the weekend after,
• 1:19:54
  but hosted by the Spartan Race founder Joe De Cena.
• 1:19:59
  Massive range of distances from a 10 miles to 500 miles.
• 1:20:02
  So I think this is one of those that, you know, you can just go
• 1:20:06
  for 500 miles. So you have to start, you know,
• 1:20:08
  way early. So this may be a week and a half
• 1:20:10
  early, but explores the Green Mountain National Forest very
• 1:20:13
  Vermont style. Steep, relentless climbs over
• 1:20:16
  3000 feet of gain per 10 mile loop.
• 1:20:19
  It's famous for people inspiring people ethos and the rustic,
• 1:20:23
  beautiful trails of Pittsfield. Yeah, I think the I've, I'm
• 1:20:29
  pretty sure this was, yeah, this was the race Chris Mann's
• 1:20:32
  wearing. He ran this last year and he did
• 1:20:35
  like the 200 Bao, I think. And he was like, bro, I was just
• 1:20:38
  out there by myself for for four days.
• 1:20:42
  You would come in like there would be, you know, aid
• 1:20:44
  stations, somebody at the aid station once in a while.
• 1:20:47
  But last year you said it was so muddy, cold.
• 1:20:51
  I would love to get him on the podcast 'cause he's an
• 1:20:53
  interesting cat. I was.
• 1:20:54
  He's definitely going to be at White Lake in some capacity.
• 1:20:56
  So I'll, I'll chat with him this weekend.
• 1:20:58
  But he's doing food challenges. He does so many ultra races.
• 1:21:02
  Maybe we can get his take on that at the, at some point in
• 1:21:06
  the future on the podcast. So those are the previews for
• 1:21:10
  this upcoming weekend. Trail season is kicking off and
• 1:21:14
  then we'll go back and and do some of these race results.
• 1:21:18
  So the Trap Rock 50K in Connecticut, I talked about this
• 1:21:21
  is it. Ben came in second.
• 1:21:23
  We'll do the the overall results.
• 1:21:25
  So top three men. Matt Pacheco, he wins it.
• 1:21:29
  We know he's a fast guy, 4 hours 45 minutes.
• 1:21:32
  Ben Nibbler comes in five hours, 22 minutes.
• 1:21:36
  And then Brian Rusik comes in five hours and 27 minutes.
• 1:21:40
  So those are top three top three women.
• 1:21:43
  Kerr Davis, 541 she wins it. Maddie Kaplan, any relation to
• 1:21:49
  Jason Kaplan? Don't know.
• 1:21:50
  Six hour 40 minutes. She comes in second and then
• 1:21:53
  Grayson Newman six hours and 51 minutes.
• 1:21:56
  Those are the results. I couldn't find results from
• 1:21:59
  Tark don't run Boston. I think this is yeah, it says
• 1:22:02
  the fat ass style. Official results usually take a
• 1:22:05
  few days. I don't know if we'll get we
• 1:22:07
  don't have the those results. So we we missed it, I think.
• 1:22:11
  And then last up, this is going to be outside of New England.
• 1:22:14
  I kind of meant Lyle gave me this tip.
• 1:22:17
  I kind of meant to put the preview, but I kind of goofed up
• 1:22:19
  on that. But we'll do the results from
• 1:22:22
  it. The hyphener 50K in
• 1:22:24
  Pennsylvania, It's grueling, 6500 feet of climbing.
• 1:22:29
  It was a historic year for the women's field.
• 1:22:31
  Deanna Doan became the first ever woman to break 5 hours.
• 1:22:36
  She wins it, goes sub five. She runs a 454. 2nd place woman,
• 1:22:41
  Jill Dennis, she runs a 517. And then Nikki Cochran, she runs
• 1:22:45
  a 527. That was the top three women.
• 1:22:48
  And then in this race was competitive.
• 1:22:49
  Lots of sluggers in this lineup. I should have went and I should
• 1:22:52
  have. I should have went and done it.
• 1:22:53
  But and then the men, Ben Quatronimo, he runs it 4 hours,
• 1:22:59
  24 minutes. If you don't know Ben, he's a
• 1:23:01
  slugger. He he takes down everything he
• 1:23:03
  goes for. Yeah, he is super fast, got a
• 1:23:06
  lot of range, long, short, all over the place.
• 1:23:10
  Someone I look up to from afar. I've talked about him a couple
• 1:23:13
  of times on the podcast. And then Jesse Irwin, 4 minutes
• 1:23:16
  behind Ben, 4/28/25 and then Anthony Jacobs 4/28/58.
• 1:23:23
  So a little bit of a photo finish there on the podium.
• 1:23:25
  I mean, three people and a 50K within 4 minutes is pretty good,
• 1:23:30
  Pretty good for for an ultra. So those were the race results,
• 1:23:37
  yeah. Give me some.
• 1:23:38
  Feedback. I'm going to, I'm going to ask,
• 1:23:41
  I need to like do a couple polls or ask about how people you know
• 1:23:45
  are like in the previews, if there's something I should do
• 1:23:47
  better. I like, you know, at least
• 1:23:49
  touching on everything at the end of the episode.
• 1:23:52
  We'll definitely do some of the big races at the at the
• 1:23:54
  beginning of some episodes, some weeks.
• 1:23:57
  But yeah, if you have any feedback on the format, I'm
• 1:24:01
  trying to make it interesting, not just reading names and
• 1:24:03
  races. I gave, I gave a little bit of
• 1:24:05
  punchy stuff in there. But yeah, trying to get this
• 1:24:08
  into a into a decent format that's fun, that can kind of
• 1:24:11
  track everything without being too mundane going through every
• 1:24:14
  race. But we're doing it, guys.
• 1:24:15
  I don't care if it kills me. This year, we're going to
• 1:24:17
  highlight, we're going to talk about every ultra race in New
• 1:24:20
  England that's at least on my sheet that is somewhat
• 1:24:23
  comprehensive for the year and see how it goes.
• 1:24:27
  That was the episode this week. Hopefully you guys enjoyed.
• 1:24:30
  I appreciate it, really appreciate it.
• 1:24:34
  I kind of meant to slip this in and then talk about the the
• 1:24:37
  creator stuff, but I'll put it at the end.
• 1:24:39
  Maybe it is warranted at the end.
• 1:24:42
  I was talking about just it's really hard pulling this
• 1:24:44
  together. There's not a ton of the best
• 1:24:47
  way that you can support me right now from the Backcountry
• 1:24:53
  run, the Whites. Any of these podcasts are
• 1:24:55
  smaller places that you listen to or get some sort of trail
• 1:24:59
  talk is simply it's not the like, it's not the like and
• 1:25:04
  comment because I just think if you're listening, that's
• 1:25:07
  awesome. That's the only thing I care
• 1:25:08
  about. If people are listening, if you
• 1:25:10
  like it, listen. That's the only thing that I
• 1:25:12
  care about. But the one way, if you want to
• 1:25:16
  support, if you're like over the moon, I want to support this guy
• 1:25:18
  somehow just subscribing on YouTube.
• 1:25:22
  It takes a millisecond to click that button.
• 1:25:25
  It's so free. I, I would tell my friend like
• 1:25:27
  it is, you would not believe how hard it is for someone to hit
• 1:25:31
  that subscribe button on YouTube.
• 1:25:33
  That's the best way for me right now to support any, anybody
• 1:25:37
  creating this stuff, go subscribe.
• 1:25:40
  And then if you're, if you're kind of the ballpark of like,
• 1:25:42
  no, I even want to do more like it, you know, is there any way I
• 1:25:45
  could do more than just subscribe to your YouTube?
• 1:25:47
  I'm already subscribed. What can I do?
• 1:25:49
  If you really want to go above and beyond, tell three of your
• 1:25:53
  friends, hey, do you have a YouTube account?
• 1:25:56
  I, I run mountain peaks, subscribe or from the
• 1:25:59
  Backcountry run the whites, whoever you're listening to
• 1:26:02
  search. Sounds like a search and rescue.
• 1:26:04
  Go to their YouTube, subscribe and then mute.
• 1:26:07
  I don't even care if you you know what I mean.
• 1:26:09
  I think everyone is on a journey to 1000 subscribers on YouTube.
• 1:26:13
  That's when you get monetized on YouTube.
• 1:26:16
  So if you're over the moon, I want to help this guy in any
• 1:26:19
  way. Tell three of your friends sub
• 1:26:21
  and then mute on YouTube. That would be huge.
• 1:26:24
  But but just listening is is is really the big the biggest
• 1:26:28
  thing. So appreciate all you guys.
• 1:26:29
  That was episode this week. We'll see you next week.
• 1:26:32
  Peace.