Latest / Run Mountain Peaks / Biggest Lessons from 2025 & Christmas Eve Trip to the ER

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Biggest Lessons from 2025 & Christmas Eve Trip to the ER · Run Mountain Peaks

0:01
All right, welcome back to another episode of Run Mountain
0:03
Peaks, the last episode of 2025. Couldn't believe it.
0:09
But the year is over. We're almost on to 2026.
0:13
And we got a lot to talk about today.
0:15
It's been an eventful week. It is.
0:19
It is the Saturday after Christmas.
0:21
Merry Christmas to everybody. Happy holidays, happy almost new
0:24
Year. I had a crazy week.
0:26
And so we got a lot of talk about in this episode, the big
0:30
ones, I'm going to go through some of the biggest training
0:33
lessons that I learned in 2025. A couple of them I think hurt a
0:38
little bit to to learn, but hopefully I can help you guys
0:43
and don't make the same mistakes as me.
0:46
Learn from my lessons, learn from other people's lessons so
0:50
you don't have to learn them. But for me, apparently I had to
0:52
learn them. I don't make the same mistake
0:55
twice. I make it 5 times just to be
0:57
sure. It's a Dan Hooker quote.
1:00
OK, so we'll do about the biggest training lessons.
1:03
What I my biggest takeaways from this year, what I learned.
1:07
It was not the year that I had in mind, but I think I learned a
1:13
ton and I think my base has widened and it's what I needed.
1:19
I didn't know that I needed this year, but it is what I needed
1:22
and feeling good going into 2026.
1:24
So we'll talk through those lessons.
1:26
We're going to talk about the the Christmas debacle.
1:29
That was my Christmas week. Christmas mostly for me was
1:33
cancelled this year. Everybody was sick.
1:37
So it started out my sister-in-law was sick.
1:40
We were going to go to my brother, their house for
1:43
Christmas. COVID didn't end up going.
1:47
And then Christmas Eve, Jocelyn's family was sick and
1:51
she ended up getting sick. So their Christmas was
1:53
cancelled, Christmas party cancelled.
1:56
And then the day of Christmas, yeah, Jocelyn was sick.
1:58
I just went, you know, my uncle's family was sick.
2:02
I just went to my parents. It was just the three of us for
2:04
Christmas, like everything. I don't know.
2:06
Everybody stayed home. Everyone was sick.
2:08
And to throw in the mix, in that whole mix, I took a little
2:14
Christmas Eve track to the ER. So I also, I wasn't sick, but I,
2:21
I doomed my, my own Christmas Eve.
2:25
So we'll talk about the ER story.
2:27
I kind of was like, I don't even really want to talk about it,
2:29
but we'll talk about it. There's a couple just funny
2:33
things in there. I'm totally OK, 100% good, but
2:37
had a little bit of a, of a scare there.
2:39
So we'll go through what happened there today.
2:42
I just want to, I just ran Tecumseh.
2:44
Holy smokes, so nice. The conditions were so, so good.
2:50
The trails were they got a little bit of snow last night,
2:52
so there was a couple inches of kind of fresher stuff, but just
2:56
a beautiful day. It was cold, but not too cold.
2:59
It wasn't super windy. The beautiful views, the trails
3:03
were awesome. I mean RIP around.
3:04
It just felt so good. I wish that I I could have
3:07
stayed longer out out today in the mountains, but with the
3:11
whole week going on, I'm kind of fighting off a little bit of a
3:13
sickness. And and when I have four days
3:18
off, I've kind of done longer runs each of the days.
3:21
So I try not to go over the top and just do like tons of crazy
3:26
long runs. But today would have been a good
3:28
day to get out more. But so I'll do yeah, I'll do a
3:31
little a little trip report, talk about the trails.
3:34
And I just had a blast. And yeah, I love it up here in
3:37
the winter. I mean, the mountains are
3:39
awesome to get out to, but in the winter sometimes it's like
3:41
that extra kick of just fresh air, good views.
3:45
So had a good day to say the least.
3:51
What else we got, We got we're going to talk about some
3:53
Christmas movies. I watched Charlie Brown's
3:56
Christmas kind of for the one of the first times that that was
3:58
kind of funny. A couple takeaways from that.
4:02
I've seen the Charlie Brown stuff before, but haven't
4:05
haven't really dove deep. So that was that was fun to
4:07
watch. And then a couple of the
4:08
Christmas stories I like watching.
4:10
I'm going to do a financial lesson from 2025.
4:13
I'll throw this in at the end. I don't know, it's like who's
4:16
going to listen to financial for me, but I had a financial
4:20
lesson. So like I said, just learning
4:21
from me. In this episode, racing during
4:24
the holidays, talk about that quick Christmas shopping.
4:27
Holy smokes. I mean, the hardest, the hardest
4:29
thing to do when you wait till the last minute.
4:32
And then we'll do a little Thanksgiving story and then
4:34
what's next for the podcast in 2026, We'll talk more about
4:39
that. So that's what we got today.
4:43
That is what is on the agenda. So we got a lot of stuff to
4:45
cover. And I guess we'll just we'll
4:48
just start with the ER story. So what happened?
4:51
Why did you go to the ER on Christmas Eve?
4:52
It's like the classic, like, you know, I can't believe I'm we're
4:56
here right now. But yeah, essentially I was on
4:59
Christmas Eve, was having some good chest pains.
5:02
And it got to the point I was like, I don't know, Like, I
5:06
don't know what's going on. I think I just got to go see
5:08
somebody and obviously everywhere is closed on
5:11
Christmas Eve except for like the ER.
5:14
So I went to the ER And so the chest pains we'll do, I'll do a
5:18
little bit of how I got to where I got to.
5:22
So this year, this year I've kind of, I've kind of developed
5:27
these chest pains on and off kind of intermittently a few
5:31
times over the year. And at the beginning of the
5:34
year, I also kind of was getting allergies worse than normal.
5:38
And so I kind of thought it was probably allergies.
5:41
And so I started taking like an antihistamine.
5:45
The allergies went away, which honestly was awesome.
5:47
I for so long this year, I was just feeling a little bit sick
5:51
all the time and not knowing what was wrong And it was
5:55
allergies started taking an antihistamine and it, it pretty
6:00
much went away and it like all good.
6:02
And I was like, it was just such a relief to just feel normal.
6:06
So that was something I kind of struggled with for a while this
6:08
year. Finally got that figured out,
6:09
all all good. And then this fall though, the
6:13
chest pains kind of came back. They're kind of, I should have
6:17
logged what was happening more like when I was feeling them,
6:21
you know, all what happened that day, what time of the day, But I
6:24
really, really didn't. But I couldn't really pinpoint
6:27
what was causing them. It was kind of I, I feel like at
6:31
the beginning I was more describing it as like a
6:32
tightness of the chest. So maybe it felt like I could
6:36
take full breast, but it kind of felt like a little bit of
6:39
pressure on my chest. And then sometimes it would be
6:41
pain. Like usually it was all around
6:43
the sternum area. But then sometimes it would kind
6:47
of get, you know, go left to right a little bit.
6:49
And I don't know what it was. And so this whole year I've been
6:53
trying to figure out what is going on.
6:55
Is it the allergies? I mean, I started taking the
6:57
pills, everything else went away.
6:58
But I have the chest pains. Like, is it still some lingering
7:00
allergy? Is it stress or anxiety?
7:03
Like I had a pretty, you know, busy year.
7:06
I had a lot of things going on. I definitely had some high
7:09
stress moments, but this has never manifested itself like
7:13
that. I feel like I'm always kind of
7:14
like stressed or just like have a million things going on.
7:17
So it was kind of weird that this year it kind of just
7:20
started manifesting it in the chest.
7:22
So I kind of been exploring that, like trying to figure out,
7:25
all right, what is stressing me out?
7:26
Let's get things out by place. Let's figure out what's going
7:28
on. And that kind of didn't, didn't
7:31
lead anywhere. And so earlier this week, I
7:35
pretty much packed up a bunch of bags and I left my apartment
7:40
because I was like, I think it's something I'm allergic to in my
7:43
apartment. Something's going on.
7:44
I don't know what it is. It's, it's, it's clearly not the
7:48
fall or summer allergens that everyone has like outdoors.
7:52
I think it's indoors like a dust or a mold or something.
7:55
My apartment doesn't get good ventilation.
7:57
I'm on the 3rd floor kind of stinks.
7:59
So I, I need to do a test and like, is it my apartment that's
8:03
making me sick? Because I, I'm in the same
8:05
complex, but I moved buildings earlier this year kind of a
8:09
little bit before this all started happening.
8:10
So I'm like, oh, maybe it's that maybe it is I've just been
8:13
living in this place that's kind of making me sick.
8:16
So I was like, all right, I'll just go stay with my parents for
8:19
a little bit. Which, see, I mean, not ideal.
8:22
They had like actually it was ideal because, you know, they
8:26
had a room like it's, it's nearby.
8:29
So it was very lucky that I was, I had a place close by that I
8:32
could go to, but just a new routine.
8:37
I had half of my stuff there, half of my stuff at the
8:39
apartment. I mean, I'm doing a bunch of
8:41
things everyday so I'm all over the place.
8:43
And so it wasn't ideal just for my life.
8:45
I was like, all right, I'll it'll figure out the allergy
8:47
stuff. And basically the chest pains
8:51
just got worse this week. And on Christmas Eve I was like
8:54
I had, I made an appointment a few weeks ago and I had a follow
8:58
up for like 2 weeks or something.
9:00
I had a follow up coming up soon.
9:01
But I was like, I don't know if I can wait to see somebody.
9:04
Like this is not stress. I don't know if it's really now
9:08
like there's something wrong, like wrong, like something
9:11
inflamed in my chest. And on Christmas Eve, it was I,
9:14
I was very much like thinking about it and analyzing it.
9:18
And it was that day more like my heart.
9:20
And I'm like, oh God, I don't know.
9:24
They, you know, when it's your heart, you kind of start going
9:26
down a rabbit hole. I mean, I've been still running
9:29
and I did a good, I did what my best workout ever on on this
9:32
week earlier this week. So I'm like, my heart is
9:35
working, but something is wrong and I just need to, there's, I
9:39
got too much stuff going on. I need to go figure it out.
9:42
So let's go to the ER on Christmas Eve.
9:45
So that was like the, the whole and it really, I knew I wasn't
9:48
dying. I didn't think I was having a
9:49
heart attack, but I just wanted to like, I want to figure out,
9:52
I'm sure they have tests that they can do on my heart and my
9:55
lungs. Like is it something structural,
9:58
physical, muscular, skeletal? I don't think it's just stress.
10:02
I don't think so. I just needed more answers
10:04
because I was just losing it and Christmas is already cancelled.
10:07
So I'm like, let's, let's really cancel Christmas.
10:11
So luckily enough, Jocelyn came with me.
10:13
So it wasn't just a solo mission, but we go to the ER and
10:19
it was, I was like, I don't know if there's going to be nobody
10:21
here or nobody's staff. So it's going to be super slow.
10:23
We're going to be here forever. We had to wait for a while, you
10:27
know, checked in there. I mean, I feel like when you say
10:29
chest pains and like your heart's hurting, they, they kind
10:31
of give you some priority. But I go in there, they do my
10:34
vitals, they do an EKG and they do blood tests like right
10:37
immediately as they step in the door, which is good.
10:40
And I think the EKG came back clear.
10:43
Actually, I didn't even ask, but I assume because they didn't
10:45
rush me somewhere else, it was fine.
10:47
And interestingly enough, actually one more symptom I'll
10:50
throw on. I got an EKG 3 weeks ago when I,
10:54
when I had an appointment and it was all good.
10:57
But the one thing they did say was you had an irregular
10:59
heartbeat during it, like something pulsed before it
11:02
needed to pulse or whatever. And the one of the other
11:06
symptoms that kind of was getting me more frightened about
11:08
the heart thing was I was having heart palpitations like at night
11:12
sometimes. And I don't know if that's like
11:14
I'm just kind of thinking about my heartbeat and then you like
11:16
are really focused on it or I don't know.
11:19
So like all of these factors. But the EKG was good.
11:22
I think the blood work was fine. It was just a regular blood
11:24
panel. So I think it was fine, but then
11:28
I had to wait for a while and get a run.
11:29
But I will say they did, they ran regular blood panels.
11:33
But every time I get blood drawn, I'm just like, give it
11:36
back. Like I mean, I don't want you to
11:38
take that blood volume, my hemoglobin, my red blood cells.
11:43
Like I work so hard, keep trying to continue heat training, do it
11:47
all. Obviously the running stuff,
11:49
like I optimize everything to have maximum oxygen carrying
11:54
potential in my blood and you're just taking it out of me with no
11:58
grief. So that's kind of how I feel
12:00
when they're taking blood. They took out five vials.
12:03
I was like, you just double dip on one of those maybe.
12:06
But obviously they had to do it. I don't think it really effects
12:10
you too much, but I know it can't take.
12:13
They say the blood volume comes back fairly quickly, but I think
12:17
the red blood cells can take a couple weeks to come back.
12:20
So it actually it probably only, you know, is like 1%, you know,
12:25
reduces your oxygen carrying capacity.
12:27
But hey, 1% is huge. I, I wake up every day and try
12:31
to get a 1% in. So, yeah, didn't like how much
12:34
blood they took, but it all came back fine.
12:37
And then so I there was no emergency really from there.
12:40
And then I saw the doctor or I got a room and they, you know,
12:44
they get to give you a couple nurses ask all the questions
12:46
before I saw the doctor or doctor.
12:49
And the, the first thing about the room was they hooked me up.
12:51
So I had like the EKG going still.
12:53
They hooked me up to see your like heart monitor, the little
12:56
screen, the Doo Doo Doo Doo and immediately the, the, the, this
13:02
heart radar or whatever you call it starts like beeping like
13:07
pretty loud. And at first I didn't really,
13:08
really know like I don't know what it was.
13:10
But then we kind of realized like it was just us that it was
13:13
like an alarm going off on the thing.
13:15
And it was because I have a like my heart rate was going too low
13:18
when I was just sitting there. And that's why I kept going off.
13:22
And yeah, like, I think this after the second time it went
13:25
off and I realized that I was just like, that's awesome.
13:28
I mean, that just made that just makes my day.
13:30
Like I'm a runner. Low heart rate.
13:33
They're like, Oh yeah, it's all right.
13:34
Your heart's just really strong and, and you're it's, it's
13:36
beating really slow. I'm like, what'd you say?
13:40
So yeah, that was beeping. So I thought that was a victory
13:43
for me, maybe at least a good sign for the heart.
13:47
But then, yeah, they monitored me.
13:49
They took an extra heart. They did like an an extra heart
13:53
test that they had to do once and then do it again in an hour
13:56
to test the strain on your heart to make sure, I don't know,
13:59
nothing was going on. So they did that.
14:01
So there's more blood. I'm thinking, OK, I'm not liking
14:04
this. But they did that.
14:06
And then they took a chest X-ray and basically that was all of
14:09
the stuff that they did. And then basically a doctor came
14:12
in and said, you know, structural, everything looks
14:15
good, your lungs are good, There's no fluid, no masses.
14:18
Your heart's good. There's no stress on your heart
14:21
right now. Your blood work's fine.
14:22
Your heart rate's low. You are.
14:27
There's a few things it could be, but you probably just have
14:29
heartburn right now. And I'm like, what they were
14:36
like, yeah, there are a few different causes.
14:38
So the the one that the doctor said is probably the most likely
14:42
is just reflux, like some sort of heartburn reflux that's
14:48
inflaming your whole chest cavity.
14:50
It can cause the pressure and it can irritate things in it in it.
14:55
And I'm like, oh, I don't really eat a a ton of crazy foods.
14:59
Like I eat pretty plain foods. I'm not a super spicy kind of
15:02
person. Like I, I eat the same stuff
15:04
everyday. I've never had GI or stomach
15:07
problems. This is kind of weird, but
15:08
they're like, yeah, I mean, it can, it can happen for many
15:11
different reasons. We don't really know why it's
15:14
happening. And I'm, and I'm at first I was
15:17
very strongly against it. Like I don't, I, I never even
15:19
thought of this. I mean, I, so I could have just
15:21
taken the Tums and I, I came to the ER on Christmas Eve and I
15:25
could have just popped the Tums. What are you talking about?
15:29
But apparently, yeah, all the symptoms that I was talking
15:32
about can because from that reflux and I talked to a couple
15:36
of people that actually said, yeah, I've had the same kind of
15:38
thing. So I was like, OK, And when she
15:42
was explaining it, I didn't want to, I didn't want to say this
15:46
part. But when she was explaining it,
15:48
she was like, yeah, like you're esophagus, it's kind of like an
15:51
esophagus problem. The base of your esophagus has
15:54
like a sphincter that if it's not working right, it can let
15:59
stuff let acomic acid through. Even if you're not eating spicy
16:03
foods, even if you're not like feeling it in your throat, it
16:06
can get a little bit through and just irritate everything and it
16:10
can cause all the symptoms that you have.
16:11
And I was like, wow, I did not know that.
16:14
But she kept kind of describing it because I was asking a lot of
16:17
questions and by like maybe the 7th or 8th time she said
16:21
sphincter, I almost started, I almost lost it for .1 second.
16:26
I almost lost it and I was like, no, reel back in, do not be a
16:29
child right now. And I reeled it back in.
16:31
But yeah, so I don't know. I have a sphincter that's not
16:35
working right. Should I cut that now?
16:38
We might leave it in, I don't know.
16:39
Yeah, don't be a child, Andrew. But I said the joke on here.
16:42
So yeah. So I think that that's probably
16:45
what it was. She said the other things it
16:47
could be was like some sort of inflammation of my lung tissue
16:51
or like the cartilage around my sternum where your ribs kind of
16:56
connect. So that's kind of like a
16:59
muscular skeletal thing. And it's not dangerous.
17:04
So there's no, it's just uncomfortable.
17:06
And a lot of doctors see this and they just don't really know
17:10
what it's caused. For whatever reason, your body
17:13
just starts to produce a reaction for these things and
17:16
and you just haven't work through the inflammation.
17:20
We can give you, I feel what they said, some sort of
17:22
injectable ibuprofen. Like they already had my IV tube
17:26
all hooked up for the blood test and stuff.
17:28
They're like, we can give you an injection.
17:29
I was like, is that going to fix it or is that just going to like
17:32
a leave the pain? They just said it's going to
17:34
fit. It's just going to make you more
17:35
comfortable as a guy. It's, it's not killing me.
17:38
So I'd rather not not take it, but that could help for that
17:43
thing. And then the third thing, it
17:44
could be an allergen, something that I've been chronically
17:48
exposed to and it's been just irritating me for a long time
17:52
and giving me problems. And I, I don't think that one's
17:57
off the table, but you did say that's probably less likely.
18:00
So I don't know. It's, I still think like it, it
18:03
started with my allergy stuff. It started with the new
18:05
apartment. Who knows?
18:07
But so I'm going to do some tests to try to figure out which
18:10
of it is, but more of the story is there was nothing major.
18:14
It was just, yeah, just some sort of minor thing that I
18:17
didn't know could cause really chest pains.
18:20
So yeah, I pretty much, I pretty much wasted Christmas Eve going
18:24
to the ER, getting hooked up, doing all these tests.
18:26
And the doctor came in and said to me, OK, we got you a baby
18:31
aspirin. I cut it in half so it doesn't,
18:33
it doesn't upset your stomach, but this should make your chest
18:35
feel better. I'm going to give you a Tums.
18:38
It's cherry flavored. If you don't like cherry, you
18:40
can have a strawberry that might that might help you out.
18:44
And we gave you and we got a coloring book for your ride
18:46
home. You have just heartburn.
18:49
Go home. So that's kind of how it felt in
18:52
the ER leaving. But I will say mentally it did
18:56
help me figure like cross off some of the things that could be
19:00
causing me chest pains. I don't think it's stress.
19:03
I don't think it's anything serious.
19:04
It's just something minor that I got to keep working through and
19:07
so be it. I can still train, I'm still
19:09
been running. I still have had some decent
19:11
runs this week so feeling feeling good and feeling much
19:17
better because it was something that kind of like really has
19:19
been bought bugging me for all year and I feel like I'm finally
19:23
starting to to get some answers and I hadn't seen anybody.
19:25
I'm finally starting to see doctors so I still have a couple
19:28
follow up appointments. They gave me a medication to try
19:31
to reduce the stomach acid. So I'm going to try it for a a
19:35
month and then I really don't want to take that long term, but
19:38
at least that will tell me if it is acid reflux.
19:43
Yeah. So that, that was the the ER
19:45
story and 01 last thing I did Christmas Eve.
19:49
My sister lives down South. So I gave her a little FaceTime
19:52
because I know what she would be doing.
19:53
And she picks up and I'm in the the bed or the the room or
19:57
whatever. She's like, Andrew, stop, what
19:58
what is going on? Stop.
19:59
I'm like, hello, Merry Christmas Eve.
20:01
She's like, stop what is going on?
20:03
And as soon as like 2 seconds after calling her, the heart
20:06
machine was in the background and started beeping really loud.
20:09
And it was, it's from her perspective, it could have
20:13
looked like. This is it.
20:14
His art just stopped is out of here.
20:16
And she was like, oh, my God, what's going on?
20:18
I was like, I'm fine, I'm fine. I just needed Tums.
20:23
So I thought that was the last funny thing from the ER story.
20:25
But yeah, I mean, if you're having any of these problems,
20:28
maybe this helps you, saves your trip to the ER.
20:30
But that's what it was. And there we go.
20:35
Up up next, we'll go to the next topic.
20:38
Next thing we'll talk about the winter trail report.
20:40
So I'll just do, I talked about a little bit at the beginning,
20:42
but the Mount Tecumseh so nice. And this is going to lead into
20:48
some of the training lessons for the year.
20:52
But yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll lead into it.
20:55
But Mount Tecumseh was so nice today.
20:57
The trail conditions, it has a solid base.
21:00
I mean, Tecumseh is one of the most popular hikes.
21:02
So a ton of people do it. It's it's closest down South.
21:06
A lot of people who are doing the hike of 4K every day.
21:09
That's an easy one to go get on like days that you're busy.
21:12
So it, it gets packed out really, really good.
21:15
And so it had a really good solid base, snowshoe base.
21:19
And then most of the rocks and roots are covered up maybe in
21:22
the first quarter mile there's a few, but after that it's very,
21:24
very smooth. And then there was about maybe 2
21:28
inches of fresh powder from the night before.
21:30
I started at 10 and so that it was all packed down from people
21:35
in front of me, but it was so beautiful.
21:38
I mean, it's not a quite the highway that if it melts a
21:43
little bit, it gets packed down and then the next thing you come
21:45
out it's frozen. It wasn't quite that because it
21:48
did snow recently, but it's getting close to that.
21:51
And these conditions in the winter are just so nice.
21:56
Like you can just have the best days.
21:58
Like I said, I want to be out there all day today.
22:00
It was it was just gorgeous. You can RIP up, you can RIP
22:03
down, you get good views. It's just was just a good time
22:07
out there. And the one thing I had in my
22:10
head, which we'll talk about is when these winter conditions get
22:14
good, bombing downhills is extremely fun.
22:18
And I've talked about the winter downhills, Strava stuff, bombing
22:23
downhills before. So I don't know what what I
22:25
don't know. That was one of the videos.
22:28
I think it's probably in the title, one of the podcast say,
22:30
if you want to go listen to, but it's fun to bomb down downhills
22:34
when it is that smooth and the back of my head going up.
22:37
So I was like, this would be a good day to bomb this downhill.
22:40
I don't think it would be the best conditions, but it was
22:43
cool. It was really, really close.
22:45
So what I think about doing fast downhill efforts in the winter,
22:53
the fastest for certain scenarios is going to be that
22:56
paved Hwy. No, you know, it's all hard, no
23:01
fresh snow, you can just RIP on that.
23:03
I think those in some conditions are the best, but the conditions
23:06
we had today also I think can be close to the best.
23:11
So it's not the fastest if you're going uphill or if you're
23:14
going on flats because you lose a lot of that power in the
23:18
beach, sandy kind of snow on that top inch.
23:20
But when you're doing a steep descent, I actually like a
23:24
little bit of powder. Like I don't like it to be rock
23:28
solid on a really steep descent. I kind of want a little bit of a
23:31
give so I can kind of you're almost skiing down, you're
23:35
running, but you're kind of like sliding and it's super fun.
23:39
It's the closest thing that I get to skiing and it's really,
23:42
really fun to do. And I think that give helps you
23:46
kind of stick takes you take quick steps and because if it's
23:51
really stick, if it's really sticky, you you can't move as
23:56
fast because you're it's so steep.
23:58
You just like suck into the mountain with you can just like
24:00
tumble a trip easier. So you kind of almost want that
24:03
slide down on the steeps. But if I were to pick a mountain
24:08
to do a fast downhill on today, I wouldn't pick a mountain like
24:11
Tecumseh because the first mile, it's not super flat, but there
24:15
are flatter sections. And so those sections you're not
24:18
going to be able to run as fast as a paved Hwy.
24:21
But that steep thousand, 1500 feet, that's probably as fast as
24:25
you can get today. So what I would do is I would
24:28
pick a mountain that has a consistent grade, no descends on
24:33
the climb. So you want something that's
24:35
straight up the whole way because any little bit of
24:38
climbing on your descent is going to slow you down.
24:42
Just make the time a little bit slower because it's just beach
24:45
sand. And for me, I would pick
24:48
something steeper that you can kind of slide the whole way
24:51
down. So maybe like a flu, maybe like
24:54
up to a liberty, right? Like that would be one that kind
24:57
of jumps to mind. Obviously there there are
24:59
someones in the Prezis, but you wouldn't want to do a Garfield
25:03
because that's a lower grade. I think you want that grip if
25:07
you're doing the lower grade or flatter stuff, but you just want
25:10
something super steep, maybe like a Tri pyramid from the Cank
25:14
like up Pine Bend. You can go really fast down that
25:17
steep climb. I don't know if the set where
25:19
this if the segments the full descent, but that would be
25:22
really fast. It would be fun to do Yeah, stay
25:26
on the steeper stuff and avoid any dips as you're going up and
25:31
and you could RIP on a day like today, but I did not RIP down
25:36
Tecumseh. And that leads me into some of
25:39
the biggest training lessons from 2025 S The first lesson is
25:45
don't, don't run with your ego when you're not racing.
25:51
When you when you're out on a training run, do not run with
25:55
your ego. And a lot of the time that just
25:57
means don't bomb crazy descents for no reason.
26:02
Because I definitely got burned this year, unfortunately on on
26:07
one of those. So in June, I did the lodge to
26:10
dodge. I was as fit as I've been.
26:14
I was feeling so good in the mountains, like it just moving
26:17
in the mountains felt really, really smooth and easy.
26:20
I recovered. I put in my biggest training
26:22
block before Laja Dodge. I recovered really well after
26:25
Laja Dodge, all things good. I had big plans this year, a
26:30
couple big plans this year after Laja Dodge.
26:33
That was the a goal for the year.
26:34
So we got that done, which is good, but I had some other big
26:36
plans, but it didn't I didn't quite get there.
26:40
And one of the things that happened this year is 3 weeks
26:43
after launch dodge, I go out and I RIP started ripping a trip
26:50
pyramid loop and I busted my ankle coming down And I think
26:56
it's it's it's tough and maybe we'll talk about this first.
26:58
But when I after I do a big effort, there's kind of, you
27:02
know, obviously, especially if it goes well, you know, you're
27:05
kind of feeling good, you worked really hard, you're banged up.
27:08
So you kind of take it easy for a little bit.
27:10
I take a week off, no running at all, no even training at all.
27:14
I just eat big. I try to recover.
27:16
I get my life together and do just, you know, short walks, get
27:21
outside recovery stuff. Then I kind of start biking for
27:24
a week and usually on a week I, I try to avoid running that
27:27
second week after just because give your body a little break
27:30
from the impact, but maybe a couple runs, but mostly biking.
27:36
And then the that third week I pretty much get back into
27:38
training. And I think that's really has
27:41
helped me come back from a lot of these big efforts and not
27:45
overdo it too quick. And I was on that path.
27:48
I was on that path. But in that second week into
27:52
that third week, I just start mentally spiraling.
27:57
I know, I think it's actually a phenomenon like the post race
28:00
Blues, the post race depression. It it really, I don't know, it
28:05
hits me hard for some reason. And I think there's a few
28:08
factors that go into it. I think one your every effort
28:15
that I do, no matter how well it goes after a few days, I just, I
28:20
just start not like poking holes in it, but I, I, I just
28:26
overanalyze it and I'm like, this wasn't as good as it could
28:29
have been. You know, what were the
28:30
mistakes? This isn't as competitive as I
28:33
thought it was. I didn't do as good as I really
28:36
could have. I think it's super hard to 100%
28:39
maximize your potential in every race.
28:41
But yeah, you just kind of start getting down on yourself about
28:45
the effort. So that's kind of one thing that
28:47
I definitely do, which is it's, you try not to do it, but I I
28:51
end up doing it. And then the other thing is
28:55
you're you, you, you're not really losing fitness.
28:58
You are a little bit, but you think you're losing fitness way
29:02
faster than you actually are. And so you're like, I haven't
29:05
ran in two weeks. I just started biking.
29:08
I suck at biking. I'm going so slow right now.
29:11
I have no energy. My legs feel crappy.
29:13
My heart rate's high. Sometimes it's high, sometimes
29:15
it's low, but you don't this. Oh man, I just did a huge
29:20
training block, so I'm not as fit as I was.
29:23
You know, when you do huge volume, you're not as quite as
29:25
top end speed before a big ultra.
29:28
So it's like I haven't really trained speed in like a month or
29:30
two and now I'm just taking time off.
29:33
I was so fit, the effort went good and I'm never going to get
29:36
back to where I was. And I think, I don't know if
29:38
this is a phenomenon because I started running more recently,
29:42
but, and I, I've really gained fitness every year.
29:46
I've been getting fitter and fitter, which is awesome.
29:48
But it's almost like every time I have a really good run or I'm
29:52
the fittest side band, I have a great workout.
29:53
I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm never going to get here again.
29:56
That's this is it. Like I'm not a genetic freak.
29:58
I haven't been running for 20 years.
30:00
This is that was it. Like I'll never get back to it,
30:03
which is not true, but that's kind of how you feel.
30:05
You're like, uh, I'll never be that fit, especially when you're
30:08
in the hole of recovering. You haven't been training right
30:12
and so you kind of start spiraling that sense and it's.
30:16
And then third off, once you start running, you just feel
30:18
horrible. Every run feels so hard.
30:21
Even though your heart rate's lower because you just have a
30:25
lot of fatigue that you're carrying still, it all kind of
30:29
just comes together and it puts you in a bad headspace.
30:31
At least it does for me. And so sometimes in that bad
30:35
headspace, you go out on a trail and if you're finally feeling a
30:38
little bit good, you're like, I just I need to go hard, like I
30:41
need to see if I still got it. So that's what I did three weeks
30:45
after my big effort and on a on AI was just I had it was 4th of
30:49
July weekend. I think I had a good weekend
30:51
planned and I start doing the tripyramid loop was just going
30:54
to take a chill. And then I start ripping for no
30:56
reason and I ripped up and I was doing better than I thought.
31:01
And The thing is too, this is where it kind of tricks you.
31:05
You don't feel as good as you as you are.
31:07
The training is hard, especially like your your Z1Z2 training
31:11
after a big effort, but your heart rate is usually lower
31:16
because when you do a big effort, you actually get a
31:18
little boost of fitness for a small period of time because you
31:20
just stress your body. It's like we got to figure out
31:22
how to do this better. And then your heart rate can be
31:25
lower if you're carrying fatigue.
31:27
And then if you just eat a bunch of food for two weeks and don't
31:30
run, you kind of are like carving up your glycogen stores
31:33
are all filled, you're getting all prepped.
31:35
So when you do eventually start feeling good after a couple
31:38
runs, you feel more normal. You're almost prepped to to feel
31:43
like good. And so you kind of when you
31:47
finally have that break, you're like, oh, wow, I actually feel
31:49
good. I'm going to, I'm going to try
31:50
to RIP this and show that I still have the fitness.
31:52
So that's kind of what I did and went up the tripyramid pretty
31:56
good and started going down. I go down the South Tri pyramid
32:01
slide hard when I'm like I shouldn't be doing this.
32:04
My body butt go down hard, no issues.
32:07
And then I get to the section. That's what is it this easy
32:11
smooth flat out of the Tri pyramids and like a minute into
32:15
that section, that easy running. There was a big log across the
32:18
trail and I just go to jump over it like at while running like a
32:22
6 minute pace and I go to just, yeah, basically hurdle it trying
32:28
to be fast or whatever. And I, I roll my ankle as I go
32:33
to hurdle. So I'm like running really fast
32:35
and I'm pushing off my ankle and it just cracked my ankle.
32:38
So I had a really bad role And and I am, I was kind of like,
32:44
you know, you're at the lowest point in in a few weeks, but
32:46
here you're ready to start building.
32:48
And I just colossally screwed up.
32:51
Like I knew, Oh man, I should have I, I need to be getting
32:55
back to it now. Now I have this ankle sprain,
32:58
which ankle sprains can be horrible, can take forever to
33:01
heal and it's like, uh, what did I do?
33:03
I stopped for like a few 5 minutes.
33:06
I was text. I was so upset and eventually I
33:10
gathered myself and I ran out hard because I was like, ah,
33:13
it's a pretty good time. Like I, I might as well do it,
33:15
but every step was super painful, which was probably
33:19
stupid to run out hard on that, but it's just, yeah, it was the
33:22
ego. It was I, I had no reason.
33:25
I had no, there was no reason for me to go that hard three
33:29
weeks after an effort and I went too hard and I busted my ankle
33:33
and it's still something I'm trying to work through 5-6
33:37
months later. Now, almost a couple months
33:40
after I had a little bit of a reroll, which kind of sets you
33:42
back like you're more prone to rerolls when I was feeling good
33:45
again. So, yeah, it's really been
33:47
something I've I've struggled with.
33:49
And the thing that I think about hard efforts, you want to save
33:55
them for for races, you want to save them for big efforts or a
33:59
planned fast effort. Usually when you just go out on
34:03
a whim and try to run really fast, unless you're feel like
34:07
you're really prepped, it's not worth it.
34:09
I mean, the risk of bombing down these technical mountains is for
34:13
no reason. Like just to go fast one day is
34:17
not worth it most of the time. Like it's I, I will, you know,
34:22
I'm not saying never RIP down hills, but if you're not
34:25
planning it, if there's really no objective or motive to go
34:27
super hard, don't do it because you crack your ankle good once
34:32
and you or get hurt good once and you missed months of
34:34
training. It's like that is it?
34:37
And you hear a lot of, and I've heard a lot of older runners
34:40
like let's say in their 30s or even 40s and plus say, yeah, I
34:44
was more brave when I was younger, I would do a lot of
34:49
this. But now I don't really RIP those
34:51
downhill stuff. It's not worth it.
34:53
And I'm telling you guys, it is not worth it.
34:58
If you have plans to get fitter, get stronger, increase your
35:01
volume progress as a run over years.
35:04
Don't go out on a random day after planning an easy run and
35:09
RIP a downhill unless you feel amazing, like it's just not
35:13
worth it. Even if the oh, the conditions
35:15
are really good today. Oh, this crown is kind of soft.
35:18
Oh, whatever. You got to be careful when
35:21
you're bombing downhills. And so that that's a big lesson
35:27
that I learned. I am definitely and I feel like
35:29
I'm a really strong downhill runner and I think technical
35:33
downhills just like my, my, the best skill set that I have.
35:36
And so kind of in my head, I'm still going to do that stuff.
35:41
But you just got to pick and choose and be really smart about
35:43
it because the risk is always there.
35:45
And for me, I am not even close to where I want to be.
35:48
And so I got to, I got to make sure I'm training consistently.
35:52
So don't let the ego get the best of you because when you
35:56
bomb, especially a downhill, you need to treat it like you are
36:00
doing a one Rep Max. If you're like a weight lifter,
36:04
you do not not train for a couple weeks or you've been
36:07
slacking and just go out on a whim and throw up A1 Rep Max.
36:11
That's how these these power lifters get hurt.
36:14
You need to be working for a couple few weeks prepping for a
36:19
very hard effort because when you're recovering from a lung
36:23
ultra, especially in my case, your ligaments haven't been
36:26
getting those fast straw like high load to the tendons to the,
36:31
to the bones, to everything. And the, the legs just weren't
36:35
prepped for it. So I don't think it was that I
36:38
was running reckless on the most technical stuff.
36:41
I was totally fine. It was just my body was not
36:44
prepared for those speeds yet because I hadn't run that fast
36:47
in months and my body was just at in absolute shambles
36:51
recovering from a 24 hour ultra. So yeah, in those situations,
36:56
you got to be smart. Pick your downhill bombs.
36:59
I love bombing downhill but make sure you're doing it smart and
37:02
don't get out on a trail and be like hmm today maybe I need to
37:05
do this to prove Don't run with your ego on a training run.
37:09
I feel like lots of people will go out and just bomb trails for
37:11
no reason and then they'll DNF of 50K.
37:14
Like when you're racing, when you have a big effort you've
37:17
been working for, that is when you go as hard as you can.
37:20
Leave it all out there. Don't go as hard as you can and
37:23
leave it all out there on on a on a on a whim on a supposed to
37:27
be easy run on a stupid Strava segment because you're going to
37:31
get hurt and you're going to wind up like me this year.
37:33
I wouldn't say it was ruined, but my initial plans for this
37:36
year were were definitely ruined post June.
37:41
But luckily I think this was the year that I needed.
37:44
So it's like I had plans, but you'll always find your path no
37:48
matter what your plans are. So that was the first biggest
37:52
lesson of the year and the second biggest lesson of the
37:57
year for me, which I actually learned from rolling my ankles.
38:03
So maybe this is something that good I got to learn.
38:05
This is you need to be focused on your weaknesses.
38:11
You should not be avoiding your weaknesses.
38:16
Now I think this goes for anything in life, but especially
38:19
running. I think a lot of people, and me
38:22
included, what I was doing for a long time was just avoiding my
38:25
weaknesses. So for me personally, I
38:28
definitely think my weakest areas are I don't do a ton of
38:33
short road running stuff. My economy is not good and my
38:37
top end fitness, like my anaerobic fitness is not where I
38:41
wish it would be. And so I never do 5 KS.
38:45
I never did track workouts. I never did all of these things
38:49
because I know it was a weak area and I was like, I don't
38:52
want to, you know, I don't want to go on a road race and just
38:54
get dominated by whoever. And then the other weak area for
38:59
me was, was kind of like that anaerobic fitness like I was
39:01
talking about, but just strength and power.
39:05
So, so uphill running for shorter distances.
39:08
I think my my engine's really good and my muscular endurance
39:12
is really good, but I think those shorter 5102030 minute
39:16
efforts uphill was something that I always kind of shield
39:20
away from or didn't do too much of because it wasn't my strong
39:24
suit. But I promise you, if you start
39:28
working on your weaknesses and make those your number one
39:31
priority, I wouldn't do it right before a big race.
39:35
But in general on a regular, if you're just training regularly
39:39
trying to get better, you need to focus on your weaknesses
39:43
first. Because for me, when I'm
39:45
increasing my fitness and I'm getting stronger running uphill,
39:50
everything else that I'm good at gets better.
39:53
My downhill running gets better because my heart rate's lower
39:56
and I just feel super strong in the downhills.
39:57
It feels easier and I can still use my technical skills, skills
40:01
for long distance efforts. It just feels easier to go for
40:05
longer, which just makes, you know, my muscular endurance and
40:08
long distance even better. You know, it makes eating
40:11
better. And so, you know, how did I kind
40:15
of face my weaknesses this year? Well, I couldn't run that much.
40:20
I couldn't run hard downhills and I couldn't run a ton of
40:22
running volume. So I had to just bounce my head
40:26
on that Stairmaster, doing Stairmaster workouts, doing
40:29
uphill workouts, because on the rolled ankle when I was
40:31
recovering, the uphill is just less impact.
40:34
So I could do those. And so I said, all right, I
40:37
wanted to do a couple longer efforts at the end of the trail
40:40
season, but instead I did a few hour or less, half hour to an
40:45
hour uphill, you know, mountain goes.
40:49
And I surprised myself. I don't think I had any like
40:53
insane times, but it was much stronger than I thought I could
40:58
do. It was on lower training.
41:00
It was on not that much running and lower overall volume.
41:03
And I was like, wow, if I, if I really keep focusing on my
41:06
uphill, get back to regular volume like I could, I could go
41:09
so much faster on this stuff. And it just kind of kind of
41:13
opened my eyes to, oh, wow, I'm actually, it's not that I'm not,
41:17
I can't get super fit or I can't be good uphill.
41:21
I just need to work on it really, really hard.
41:23
And I think a lot of people, if you, if you're avoiding, if
41:28
you're just somebody who just goes out and just does a ton of
41:30
slow miles, you do a mate crazy volume, but you kind of don't
41:34
ever do speed workouts or you kind of don't ever push yourself
41:37
on an uphill. I think you're missing out on
41:39
potential gains, both from the physical aspect and the mental
41:45
'cause I think you'll surprise yourself.
41:47
Whatever you've been avoiding, go do it, and I guarantee you'll
41:50
surprise yourself if you start working on it.
41:54
And so that may be fitness, that may be uphill stuff, it may be
41:57
technical, it may be downhill. Maybe you're a Roadrunner with
42:00
really good fitness, but every time you come to the mountains,
42:02
you can't run on rocks as good as other people.
42:05
I would be doing more. I would be focusing more of your
42:07
downhill running and more of your running on technical
42:10
trails. Because once you get better on
42:12
technical trails, then you can use your fitness and you're
42:15
like, wow, I'm, I'm smoking fast and I can run on these rocks.
42:19
So if it's technical, if it's downhill, you should be doing
42:23
more downhills. You should be working all right.
42:25
Maybe is it your downhill muscles aren't as strong?
42:28
Get in the gym and do some quad stuff, do some downhill focus
42:32
workouts. Just whatever your weakness is,
42:35
you got to do it. If it's eating, if it's
42:37
nutrition, If you're having problems with nutrition on your
42:40
races, every single weekend long run is a chance to work on your
42:44
nutrition. Buy a new fueling strategy and
42:48
try it. All of these things, but it's
42:51
like, I don't really like eating, so I just eat the things
42:53
that work for me. You have to look at the thing
42:56
you've been avoiding, look at your weaknesses, go at them and
42:58
make those your strengths because then you're going to be
43:01
just off the charts. And I think that's something
43:03
I've kind of started to lean into this year and appreciate
43:08
for myself. And it's really helped me.
43:10
And I think it's opened my eyes. It's given me more confidence.
43:13
And yeah, I just think it's, I think it's a great, it's a great
43:18
thing to do, even if it's uncomfortable.
43:20
And I wouldn't do it all the time.
43:22
Like I wouldn't be like Andrew, go run Rd. races every every
43:26
weekend and just get smoked. But mix it in a little bit, work
43:29
on it, work on it on your own. So it's not like you have to
43:32
just go race on something you're not comfortable with all the
43:34
time, but work on it on your own.
43:37
And over time it's going to benefit you, I promise.
43:42
And so, yeah, that was, that was definitely a big take away for
43:45
me this this year. And and the other thing too is
43:52
working on your weaknesses. No, I guess this would be a new
43:55
lesson, third lesson, if you're not feeling 100%, don't not go.
44:03
I think a lot of people miss opportunities because they're
44:06
not going after something because oh, my training wasn't
44:10
quite right or oh, I wasn't quite fit or oh, I didn't feel a
44:13
hunt as good. So I just kind of scrapped it.
44:17
I think there's a lot of people nowadays that and and you hear
44:21
it, there's a lot of people in the ultra world that show up.
44:23
Maybe fatigue from a recent effort.
44:26
So maybe under trained or a little bit carrying more fatigue
44:29
like a Courtney do Walter going to UTMB after Hard Rock, after
44:32
Western States. You see people that show up and
44:34
they're a little bit sick, like a Tara Dower.
44:36
I feel like he's done that before.
44:37
Had some batteries, but had some excellent races.
44:40
And I think a lot of the times you get tricked into, I'm not
44:44
really at my peak so I don't want to do that.
44:46
I don't think I should do it. You need to do it because a lot
44:50
of the times that stuff is mental and you're just counting
44:55
out the opportunities to learn something.
44:59
The final product of whatever you're trying to do is going to
45:03
be years in the future. And so even though you're like,
45:06
oh, I wish this effort goes 100% and I'm at this level, it's
45:10
probably not going to. But if you go out, you learn
45:14
something from it. You're going to use that in the
45:17
coming years. And again, this is not like you
45:20
have to race every weekend, but you need to put yourself out
45:26
there and be a little bit uncomfortable more than you
45:29
think because you're going to learn more things and it's all
45:32
just going to come and help you in the future.
45:34
And and maybe that kind of ties into like the the what I was
45:38
just saying, kind of avoiding your weaknesses.
45:40
But just because something doesn't feel great if it if, if
45:44
you're not going to get hurt or you're not going to get sick
45:46
from it. And if this has been a goal, go
45:48
do it no matter how you feel. And sometimes you're going to
45:51
really surprise yourself and have amazing performances that
45:54
maybe you didn't have. Like this is one of the things
45:56
that lost your dodge. I was feeling sick.
45:58
I had allergies and I didn't really know it.
46:00
And I was just feeling sick before.
46:02
And in my head, you kind of have that.
46:03
Should I go? Should I be able?
46:04
Should I wait a little bit? I just went and I had an awesome
46:07
day out there. And so, yeah, don't, don't ever
46:12
not go because you're not feeling quite like you could put
46:14
on the best efforts. Always go.
46:18
You're always going to learn something.
46:21
And then the last lesson from this year is going to be
46:25
consistency is always going to win, whether this is endurance
46:30
training, I mean, especially endurance training, there are no
46:33
shortcuts. You have to put in the work
46:36
every single week for a long, long time.
46:38
And like I said, that's, that's making sure you stay healthy,
46:43
that's making sure you get after training.
46:44
But for me this year, what I learned is strength training and
46:48
heat training, you need to be consistent.
46:52
The best strength program, the best heat training program is
46:55
whatever you can sustain without kind of destroy, you know,
46:59
feeling like it's too much stress for 52 weeks.
47:05
I feel like there are lots of studies that you hear on the
47:08
best ways to heat train, the best ways to strength train
47:11
forerunners. And those studies are great and
47:14
they have great findings. I read them, I try to listen to
47:17
them all. I don't read them all.
47:18
I try to hear thoughts on them all.
47:20
I try to stay up to news and all that stuff.
47:22
But if you cannot do a strength or a heat training program, I
47:27
wouldn't say 52 weeks, but every single month of the year and
47:30
ideally 52 weeks out of the year, then it is probably not
47:34
going to benefit you as much as a consistent program would.
47:37
Yes, there's heat protocols where you just do five straight
47:41
days in the sauna and then you have to sauna 2 to three times a
47:43
week to keep to keep the volume in that study.
47:46
And it's like a lot of people either do it or don't do it.
47:49
But I really think if you can only get to the sauna once a
47:52
week for 52 weeks, that's going to outperform that perfect
47:57
protocol for three or four months out of the year.
48:00
Same thing with strength training.
48:01
There could be a part you could have a perfect strength training
48:04
program, but if you're running volume, your life, your
48:07
stressors avoid you from doing it 52 weeks, you're going to get
48:12
some gains and then you're going to lose some stuff.
48:14
The better program would have been squat 5 sets a week every
48:19
week. And on weeks you feel you can do
48:21
more, do a little bit more. And on weeks you feel you can do
48:23
a little, you have to do a little bit less.
48:25
Just do those five sets of squats and that is going to
48:28
outperform the perfect routine that you do for three or four
48:32
months. And I think runners, it's like
48:36
you don't, you're not trying to get like a a better power
48:38
lifter. You're not trying to be the best
48:41
sauna goer, but so it's sometimes like, I don't need it.
48:44
I just need to make sure that I run.
48:45
That's the biggest thing. But I think these things are
48:48
important and the best way to utilize them is whatever you can
48:51
do consistently. And, and some of the people
48:54
follow these studies on, on heat protocol, altitude protocol and
48:58
they overdo it. Oh my God, how can I be
49:02
forgetting his name? The big Norwegian cyclist.
49:06
I love this guy. How can I forget his name?
49:07
Sometimes on this podcast, I just forget information.
49:11
But anyway, Blumenfeld, Christian Blumenfeld, I'm so
49:16
sorry. Him and his team one year at the
49:18
Olympics that he kind of bombed and really didn't do good.
49:21
He said that they thought they overdid the altitude stuff.
49:24
They did too much work up at altitude and they neglected the
49:28
higher power outputs you can get at sea level.
49:32
And that's because they were looking at the latest study
49:34
saying if you absolute train all the time, your blood volume is
49:36
going to be better and you're going to carry more oxygen.
49:38
Yes that is true, but if it prohibits you from doing other
49:42
things that is not best. So be consistent in whatever you
49:47
do. This goes for anything in life.
49:50
Consistency wins out a million times out of a million.
49:56
So that was the last lesson from the air.
49:58
So some of those lessons, hopefully they're helpful.
50:00
Hopefully you can take some really learn from me, try to
50:04
learn from me and don't make the mistakes that I made.
50:07
But sometimes you just need to go and learn for yourself and,
50:12
and that's OK too. Honestly, that is OK too,
50:14
because I've definitely done that a lot and it's the best way
50:18
you learn. Like I'm, I've learned some
50:19
things that I will never forget from this year.
50:23
So those are the big lessons for 2025.
50:26
What else we got a few more things, a few more kind of more
50:28
fun stuff. So oh, the Charlie Brown
50:30
Christmas movies. So some of the best Christmas
50:32
movies. I'm not going to actually rank
50:34
them or list them, but I just want to touch on a few.
50:37
The Charlie Brown one I thought was awesome.
50:39
I have seen it before. I remember watching it when I
50:41
was a kid, but I wasn't fully upped on the Charlie Brown
50:44
stuff. So I watched the the Charlie
50:46
Brown Christmas movie and really liked it and some of my
50:50
takeaways. Everyone is so mean to Charlie
50:54
Brown in that movie. Everyone's just calling him an
50:57
idiot, saying he can't do anything right.
50:58
He's just like, God, I can't do anything right.
51:01
The whole thing, it's kind of, it's funny in a sense, but it's
51:04
also kind of sad watching that. But I was kind of getting a kick
51:08
out of it. I was getting a kick out of them
51:10
dancing on that dance floor. Whatever the song was.
51:15
You got Pig Pen with which, Yeah.
51:17
Also, tell me his name's Pig Ben.
51:19
With all the dust and stuff. You got all those people
51:21
dancing. There's one guy getting down on
51:22
some moves. First off, Charlie Brown just
51:26
being like cut, cut, cut, dude. When you got people dancing like
51:30
that and jamming out like that, you got to let it go.
51:33
They had some crazy good moves, and he was being a little bit,
51:36
you know, bossy, which some people don't like Charlie Brown,
51:38
but you know, no, I can't do anything, right?
51:42
And then they put the Charlie Brown Christmas tree.
51:45
That was basically me and Joss and picking our Christmas tree.
51:47
I was like, what? Yeah.
51:49
You just get a skimpy little tree, but you can make it
51:52
beautiful. And they made it beautiful.
51:55
And I thought the icing on the cake at the end of that was, you
51:58
know, one of the last lines in the movie is, you know,
52:01
everyone's kind of nice. They decorate the tree.
52:02
Charlie Brown comes out and he's like, oh, wow, guys.
52:04
And they're all kind of like, happy.
52:05
It's a good happy ending. But one of the last lines in
52:08
that movie is, you know, Charlie Brown.
52:11
He's still a blockhead, but he picked a pretty good Christmas
52:15
tree. It's like these guys are just
52:17
still just trashing Charlie Brown, calling him a blockhead.
52:22
That's a good. That's a good insult.
52:24
If you got. Yeah, if you need a chirp like a
52:25
buddy for fun, the blockhead is a funny 1.
52:29
So I thought that was a good movie.
52:31
And then I think Elf is just unbeaten.
52:34
I feel like I've watched Elf maybe too many times, but still
52:36
unbeaten. It will make me laugh every
52:38
time. And what's my favorite part from
52:43
the from the Elf movies when they're drinking in the
52:45
mailroom, there must be another mailroom.
52:48
And then he finally gets drinking and and what Francisco
52:51
was that his name for? Yeah, Francisco.
52:52
Maybe they just start drinking and, and he's laughing and
52:56
everything. They're telling stories and he's
52:58
like, I'm 58 years old. What am I?
53:01
I'm 38 years old, what have I done with my life?
53:02
And he's like, you're young. You're young, man.
53:05
My my Papa elf. My Papa elf didn't make grand
53:08
grandmaster elf until he's 456. And the guy who started dying
53:13
laughing. That's a good joke.
53:16
So yeah, if you're feeling old, you could still make pop Elf,
53:20
Headmaster Elf in 400 years. And then A Christmas Story,
53:25
Daddy's going to kill Ralphie hiding under the cupboard.
53:28
Just so good. Love A Christmas Story.
53:30
It's on, you know, 24 hours on Christmas Day.
53:34
That's always a good one. Honestly didn't watch that one
53:36
this year, but if you haven't watched it, go watch it.
53:39
Everyone's watched it. Maybe not everyone.
53:43
OK, what else? We got the Christmas shopping.
53:47
It's so hard every year. I feel like I I feel like it's
53:52
really hard. You always want to do.
53:53
I'm going to start looking for gifts way earlier and then you
53:55
never do or you can't you can't wait.
53:58
I I don't know. So you always end up doing late
54:00
Christmas shopping and I'm getting to the point where it's
54:03
like I just need to start writing checks to everybody.
54:06
I have more respect for that like that like uncle or gram or
54:11
whoever that just gives you money every year.
54:13
I'm you spending on what you want because it's like most of
54:17
the people in my life just get what they want.
54:20
And if they don't get what they want, it's probably way too
54:21
expensive for me to buy like I, I don't know.
54:24
So it's hard, but one trick that I learned this year.
54:28
Thanks, Jocelyn. Every mall or actually not every
54:31
mall. I went to two malls.
54:32
We went to one mall once and then the other mall another
54:35
time. They both have a local handmade
54:38
goods store where they have little, you know, little, what
54:46
am I trying to say, little stations that all these
54:50
different local hand handmade, either artists or you know,
54:53
farmers. If it's some sort of like honey
54:55
or pottery people or you know, they have all these little
54:58
trinkets that are locally handmade by small businesses.
55:01
And it's just like hundreds of different little stations of
55:04
different things. That's a good place 'cause
55:06
you're going to get all the local stuff, which is plus on
55:10
Christmas presents and there's just a lot of variety.
55:14
So those are good places to go to get gifts.
55:16
I got pretty much all my gifts there this year.
55:20
Racing during the holidays. We talked about all the sickness
55:23
from the holidays and I think racing between like Thanksgiving
55:30
and maybe the, the second or the third week of, of January,
55:35
probably not a good idea. Definitely not an A race or like
55:38
an ABC race just because you got sickness.
55:42
You got all these things you got to do.
55:44
You got family get togethers. It's that time that you're going
55:46
to get sick. So you're either going to get
55:48
sick or you're going to have to avoid people or you're going to
55:50
be so busy that you can't train like you wanted to.
55:54
For me, I signed up for the Winterfell's TARK one year,
55:58
which I think is the week after Thanksgiving.
56:01
And it was a race that I trained for for a long time and, and I
56:04
ended up getting sick the week before I had COVID or something.
56:06
Yeah, I think I had COVID and it was just like, this kind of
56:11
stinks. I wish, you know, I don't know,
56:13
not saying don't do that that race or other races, but just
56:16
know don't put all your eggs in a basket for races between that
56:21
time because you're training probably isn't going to be
56:23
perfect and you may just have to dodge sickness.
56:27
So that was 1 little take away from all this sickness stuff
56:29
going around. And then the last story before
56:34
we talk about 2026 goals, the Thanksgiving prime rib story.
56:38
So we had prime rib on on Christmas, which I love prime
56:43
rib. You cook it right?
56:45
It's just a, it's just so good. All the the spices and stuff,
56:48
the crisp on top, it's just so good.
56:50
And so I love having prime rib. But a funny story from a couple
56:55
years ago, I think it might have been the COVID year.
56:59
I don't know what it was, but it was one of the first years where
57:02
we had a little, we had a small little thing for Thanksgiving,
57:05
but it wasn't a big thing. And I think it was at my
57:08
parents' house. So we just had a kind of a small
57:10
to get to get together with close family, immediate family.
57:14
And, and I remember I was loving the prime prime rib and I had
57:21
probably, I think it was three of those slices, Nate, you know,
57:25
depends on how thick you cut them.
57:26
I probably had close to 2 lbs of, of just pure, maybe even
57:30
more. I don't know, just pure meat.
57:34
And that Thanksgiving I found out what meat sweats were.
57:39
I ate two to three slices of this prime rib and maybe about 5
57:44
minutes after and it was so good.
57:46
It was feeling so good going down, I just had to have more. 5
57:49
minutes after my body temperature went through the
57:52
roof, I started sweating. And literally at my family
57:55
Thanksgiving a thing, I stripped off all of my clothes down to my
58:01
skibbies. I sat on my dad's big recliner
58:04
like everyone dad, every dad has a big recliner.
58:06
I reclined back and I said nobody touched me because I had
58:12
never gotten the meat sweats. If you haven't gotten the meat
58:16
sweats, it's kind of like a funny little thing.
58:18
I like my body was legitimately soaking wet from eating too much
58:24
meat, too much food. And so if you're eating prime
58:28
rib in the holidays, don't eat too much because you may strip
58:32
down to your skibbies in front of your family.
58:36
OK? Those are those are the big
58:38
things from today. And yeah, 2026 is around the
58:42
corner. I think in the next couple
58:45
episodes, there are a few things I'm going to talk about about my
58:48
personal 2026. But I did want to talk about
58:52
what is in store for the podcast in 2026.
58:59
I think this is episode 16. So we're still rolling along.
59:03
We're going to still do the weekly podcasts.
59:06
That is going to stay consistent probably.
59:08
Yeah, hopefully keep getting them out Sunday mornings.
59:11
But I have lots of ideas for the podcast.
59:14
I think as far as content, it's just endless.
59:17
I'm going to be, I'm going to try to cover all the races that
59:19
I can this year in New England, at least the the big ultra races
59:24
and end some of the short stuff Going to stay on top of the FKTS
59:28
as they happen. You know, we just did that FKT
59:31
roundup. We're going to still talk about
59:33
some hypotheticals. Oh, the Mac and cheese results.
59:36
I'll say this. I did the blind taste test.
59:40
I did a blind taste test with Annie's and Craft.
59:42
This is a couple episodes. It kind of got lost in the
59:44
weeds. I didn't have enough pots.
59:46
We're back on it now. I blind taste test chose Craft
59:51
and so did Jocelyn over Annie's regular Mac and cheese.
59:56
So for all the Annies people, maybe you got to give craft a
59:59
try, but no really. So that was the results there.
1:00:03
But what I wanted to say was what I wanted to say was I, you
1:00:10
know, that was kind of like a fun food challenge to do.
1:00:12
And I was like, oh, it would be fun to do the to do the white
1:00:15
cheddar Annies to do more. I can't turn this into a food
1:00:18
eating channel. I cannot turn this into a food
1:00:21
competition food eating podcast. It's just not going to be
1:00:26
healthy for me and it's just not.
1:00:28
We'll let other people do that. So we're also going to, we're
1:00:31
still going to do some of the fun things, but I don't think
1:00:33
it's not going to be like how many chicken Nuggets can you
1:00:35
eat? Who has the best chicken?
1:00:36
We're done on that because we got to lock in in 2026, but for
1:00:41
the podcast, so still got a lot of fun things we're going to
1:00:44
talk about. We're going to try to cover the
1:00:45
Northeast trail scene as best we can, races, FKTS, whatever's
1:00:50
going on. And then I definitely want to
1:00:53
start having people on the podcast.
1:00:56
There's lots of stories and you know, I feel like I've learned a
1:01:00
lot of things. I'm going to try to keep sharing
1:01:02
things, share stuff about training, my experiences, share
1:01:04
the White Mountain stuff. But I also think there's a ton
1:01:07
of people with cool stories that just have not told them on a
1:01:12
podcast or, or in the media or whatever before.
1:01:16
And so I want to start reaching out and having people come on
1:01:19
the podcast. Hopefully people want to come on
1:01:21
at this point. I don't know.
1:01:25
I mean, I feel like weird. I feel like weird ass, you know,
1:01:28
asking people to come on the podcast.
1:01:29
But yeah, going to be get getting some guests on.
1:01:32
And I think it might be hard during the winter because
1:01:35
there's not as much going on, not as many events.
1:01:37
And, you know, people just have to sit in my truck.
1:01:40
But this is where we're going to keep doing it.
1:01:42
So that may be a tough sell in this cold winter.
1:01:45
But also I think most of the people that I would want to
1:01:47
interview, they would be down for just an hour chat in a truck
1:01:50
bed at a trailhead or something. So maybe we still can't get
1:01:54
people on this winter. But no, there's a handful of
1:01:57
people that I think I could definitely we're going to start
1:01:59
having on. So I don't know if it'll be a
1:02:01
weekly thing, but hopefully, yeah, we're going to have more
1:02:05
people on the podcast and just share some more stories.
1:02:09
And I'll probably, you know, still keep my, my kind of solo
1:02:13
episodes of solo thoughts with, with the guests, like do longer
1:02:17
episodes. So, yeah, lots of lots of
1:02:20
exciting things coming in 2026 regarding the podcast.
1:02:24
And again, I've, I've done it a few times.
1:02:27
Maybe I'm a broken record, but I appreciate everyone listening.
1:02:30
It's very cool that people are listening And hopefully, well,
1:02:35
I'm going to say some things that are stupid, but hopefully I
1:02:38
can get some good info out there, get some good stories,
1:02:41
entertain a little bit on maybe some long run treadmill.
1:02:44
You know, if you're doing some dreadmill this winter,
1:02:46
entertains while you're just ripping miles on there, and then
1:02:51
highlight cool people doing cool things in the mountains,
1:02:55
eventually interview cool people doing cool things in the
1:02:58
mountains. So that's the plan for the
1:03:00
podcast and I'm excited. And so, yeah, thank you so much
1:03:05
for the support. I mean, I don't know that I
1:03:07
really thought I would still be, no, I thought I'd still be doing
1:03:10
it, but I couldn't have imagined lots of the messages and stuff
1:03:13
that I'm getting. So I appreciate everybody.
1:03:16
Thanks for the support in 2025 and we will see you in 2026.
1:03:21
Peace.