Canyons 100K Recap + Western States Implications (Singletrack News)

Brett Hornig returns to the Singletrack Podcast to recap race results from Canyons, Mt Fuji, Madeira Island Ultra Trail, among other trail-related news.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right, this is the Monday, April 27th edition of the Single Track News, joined by special, but also basically regular co-host Brett Hornig. Uh Alyssa Clark was in Auburn, California this past weekend racing the 100-miler and did quite well. Landed on the podium overall, second place finish, fantastic. Uh we've got a lot to cover in today's episode, but first, Brett, it's a classic you and me episode. How's it going today?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Alyssa Clark couldn't be here tonight. I'm Veronica Corningstone, and this is single track news.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

We were just talking offline. This is not trauma related, but what can we carry over from that conversation earlier about what happened in the road marathoning scene today? That this audience can appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

This has been a week for marathoning. I mean, I thought Boston was going to be the talk of the town, but then London was like, hold my beer. It was pretty wild waking up this morning to a whole bunch of posts on Instagram that were just like the sub the two-hour barrier just got squashed at London. And at first I was like, all right, here we go, another unbelievable marathon result. But then I've had all day to think about it, and the more I've like talked to people about it, the more I believe it. Um, which kind of goes back to a lot of things that I've always been preaching on the pod, which I get a lot of I don't know if I get a lot of hate for, but racing, people racing people. You know, we have three really good people. I forget what Sawe's PRs are on the track if he had much of a track career. But when you have like Jacob Kiplemo and Yomov Kajelka being like former world champions on the track or world record holders, not even someone like Eliud Kipchogi has that kind of speed to take into the marathon. And then they took it into the marathon, still like in the primes of their career, on top of the new age of training, uh, shoes, food, etc. You get, you know, they went through the half marathon in 60, I think 6020 or 6030, which is really fast, but at the same time, it's like upwards of two to three minutes slower than their actual personal desks for the half marathon. There was a lot of Americans that came through the halfway mark in Boston, much closer to their half marathon PRs. So it was actually kind of an appropriate time. And then you had usually when you go out that fast in a you know paced flat marathon, it whittles down to one person pretty quickly who then has to just race the ghosts of the world record. We had at least three people pretty close to each other all the way through the finish line. And that is what that's what you need to crush a world record. So it's like if it was a perfect storm of things. You know, the a trail result that came to mind for that was when Jim Walmsley broke the course record at Western States. Like he had Jared Hazen breathing down his neck the entire time. Right. Um I was also telling like the pre-fontaine classic mile a couple years ago when Jared Nagus and Jakob Ingerbrensen both decided that they were going to have those days, they gaps the field, but then they were racing each other all the way to the finish, and that nearly broke the mile world record. So it doesn't happen very often, but it it does happen. And when you kind of look at it from that point of view, and you look at all the different factors, you're like, oh yeah, you know, it actually does almost make more sense that when the two-hour marathon gets broken, two people would do it in the same race instead of one.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

I was just gonna say, how outrageous would it have sounded if I had told you with my crystal ball that 159.41 was not gonna win this race.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

It's it's insane. Also, that was that's his first marathon. So like he's like, oh yeah, I skipped the twos for the marathon.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Okay, we have a lot to talk about. First Canyon's break. I'm gonna read through just a list of results from the 25K up. In the 25k, Alice Bakke wins, David Sinclair wins on the men's side. Special shout out to Ris Redding, who's been on a heater, uh, second place, just a few seconds behind David in the 50k. One of the best uh guys at this distance of his generation, Matt Daniels. He's in a great spot in life, wins in 321 by quite a margin. McKenna Morley, rising female star. Uh, she's targeting OCC later this uh summer, wins, I mean, beats two greats, Molly Seidel and Lauren Gregory in the process by quite a bit. In the 100 mile, Aroceo wins in 1924, Noah Oh's on the men's side in 1750. Probably what we should talk about the most is the 100k. But any thoughts on any of those performances in the um other distances?

SPEAKER_00 5:07

That women's 50k was sick. That was that was really cool to see uh just you know three heavy hitters like that line up and throw down. I mean, I guess I would say Molly was perhaps a little bit farther back from uh Lauren and McKenna than I would have anticipated, but we also know she's running Western States. I don't know the context of this race. She looked fine when she came in and finished. So maybe it's all part of a giant Western States training camp. Who knows? Um, but it was cool to see.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

In the 100K, Adam Peterman takes the win in 81847, Riley Brady 94109, Adam punches a ticket as well as Zach Miller and Hayden on the men's side, then Riley Brady, Sarah Humble, and a Lady Matarisi on the women's side. We should probably do our uh prediction accountability, which we've been inserting into recent episodes.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Hey Finn, uh we effed up. I think I sent you that hangover, Jeff, like pretty much as soon as Zach finished.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

We have to just address the elephant in the room, which is that collectively we totally missed Zach Miller in this one who had a we didn't miss him.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

We purposely didn't pick him because of course we wanted him to prove us wrong, but if you look at the results calendar prior to this, he hasn't had a performance this good, arguably, since UTMB 2024. Three. Three, three, you're right, three. That's a long time ago. Like was Hans Troyer even born in 2023? Like I don't so and then you look at his training, you're like, oh, his training indicates he's really fit. But his training kind of always indicates that he's really fit. So it was tricky, and I'm really glad that I was wrong. Like Zach makes the sport better. And it was awesome to see him in classic Zach fashion uh run but God, he he ran really steady, like really smooth all day, moved up places in the second half. Responded to moves like when he bought just amazing, classic Zach Miller. Yeah, and is still this is interesting. He's undefeated against Hayden Hawks. He is there are not that many people undefeated against Hayden Hawks.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Yeah. I should say for the audience, again, just to add to your point, like if you it's been interesting. There's Zach is undeniably one of the all-time greats. He belongs among the highest echelon names, and he has the resume to prove it. His career in the I would say the second half of his career dating back to 2019, I think has been fascinating. There have been just these like fairly long periods where he has gone quiet in the sport and has had to rehab injuries or he's had tough results. I would say like that time between 19 and 22 was one of those periods where I was wondering, like, is this it for him? Is he going to come back? Like, what's happening? And then 22 and 23, like he's right back there. That U Timby results, one of the best of his career when he took Jim to the wire. And then, yeah, like if you look at the last three years, for Zach Miller, uh, not the results you expect. Transgrand Canaria, uh, the Innsbruck World Championships, Hard Rock, like those were just not the results that you would expect from Zach. And then he's been trying to get to the Canyon's 100k for the last three years. He tried to get there in 24, tried to get there in 25. Injuries wouldn't get him to the start line. So, I mean, like you just said earlier, like obviously you want the best for him. Like, we're huge fans of Zach. Not picking Zach doesn't mean that we don't respect or think he's one of the best. But like, if we were just trying to be rational about it, like we had questions.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Yeah, absolutely. And I think now we got to see one of like I feel like this is up there for one of the best golden ticket races that's ever happened. Oh yeah, I I I I know uh like Chianti last year on the men's side was another really good one with Jim Killing and Vincent. Some of the CCCs have perhaps been as good or bad races, but I wouldn't call them golden ticket races because the intent of this race for Adam, Hayden, and Zach was to get a golden ticket. Whereas sometimes at CCC it's just like to win CCC or do good at CCC. And if I happen to get a golden ticket, sick. So to see ultimately like the best it was like the best case scenario for most fans of the sport in terms of like who walked away with golden tickets.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

It yeah, for the for the narrative at Western this year, uh, we couldn't have asked for better.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Yeah. There's just like one name that we're missing from that star list. I feel like I feel like you know the name that's missing from the star list.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

The first one I thought of was Caleb Olson, but obviously Jim Walmsley. Yeah, but yeah. I don't know. Still what's cool? You know what's cool about these three too is all three earlier in this year had season disrupting injuries. So Adam had to pull out of Chianti, Zach's and Knee, he he wasn't ready at Taroira. Hayden's ad doctor, he pulls out of uh Transburant Canary, isn't sure he even has the capacity to like run downhill. So it's amazing how these guys have been able to turn things around in the first half of the year.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

That speaks to residual fitness. And how some of these guys who have been doing it for a while, you can get back into race shape pretty quickly. Yeah. Which honestly then kind of bodes well for the quick turnaround to Western states.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

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SPEAKER_00 13:42

Yeah, totally. Yeah, maybe we'll have to do like a power rankings episode to see where people land and fall. Oh, we're doing it. No, no, this is we're doing the power rankings episode. Yeah. Let's do that. Let's do that soon. Okay. So that way we can uh revisit and do it again in in Tahoe, right before the race. Hurtie here first. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Okay. Our prediction accountability, really quickly. Leah, who couldn't be here for this episode, had Adam Peterman winning, so she was locked there, and she came the closest to predicting the men's time. She was within four minutes. Adam ran 814, she predicted 818, and she got two of the three golden ticket picks on the women's side. Brett, you were the most one of the you got two out of three on the men's and two out of three on the women's side for golden tickets, and you picked Hayden Hawks' finish exactly. So great, great there. Boom. I got two out of three on the men's side for tickets, and I got three out of three on the women's side. You got all three on the women's side? I got I got all three on the women's side. Dude, nice work. But of course we missed Zach. We missed Zach. So I'm just Zach. Yeah, we all lose double points for that. Um, okay. Any for you with Canyons, any other general takeaways, insights as you're watching or following, you know, the coverage that existed? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

I feel like uh, well, the women's race was super dynamic. And it was one of those ones that was kind of dynamic even after the race finished with who actually got golden tickets. One of the things that I feel like kind of grinded my gears a little bit was like UTMB making the podium of the women's race all like hold up golden tickets when that wasn't actually who took the golden tickets. Because like there was a picture I saw like on Canyons, and like Elainey was not in that top three holding up a golden ticket, and it looked like uh I forget what the results of yeah, I think it was like Riley Careth and Sarah Alban were just like podium but holding golden heads. Like, why are we doing that? Um so that is so then like the dynamics of the race continued on beyond the race. But uh Riley. Riley, like I don't know, kind of stamping it on the uh on the Canyons course, I feel like is pretty big.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

How many career golden tickets do they have off the top of your head? Do you know? I thought this was like number five or something.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Okay. Yeah, that I think that checks. That's getting up there for uh golden ticket collections. There's not too many people with more than that. But uh you'd think it has to feel good to nail it on the states course before states. Especially after last year when it it I don't know, it seemed like everything went wrong for Riley from the start at Western States. So and then they came back and won run rabbit. So it's like you know, you know, where the the ceiling is in terms of ability level. And if Riley has the right day at Western States, they're you know, probably in that top five conversation.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Other points here from me. I mean, I was really stoked about Sarah Humble, who uh took the second golden ticket. Sarah is a Salt Lake City local, in my opinion, huge star power. I think, you know, I hate to use the cliche phrase just getting started, but I mean, literally that is what is happening here. She's had some great local results, won the Bear 100, for example. But um, this is definitely the I would say the biggest result of her career to date. Super young. Yeah, amazing to to uh do it, especially following up in black. I was kind of confident in her pre-black key and I think there were some nutritional issues there. She worked on that with her coach Jimmy Elam and yeah. And then just generally on the women's side, like some signs of of the youth, the the next gen for me. I know we talked on the previous episode about perhaps a little bit of a lack of depth in the women's 100k field, but to see her, Elaine Matarisi, Sarah Albin all show up. I mean, th those are three athletes who I think we're probably gonna be talking about for the next 10 to 15 years in the sport. Elaine Matarisi is only 23. Yeah. So um And this is like her first full year of committing to trail.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Totally. So that's pretty cool. It's it's it's fun to see that like the door isn't closed for unsponsored athletes at golden ticket races. You know, we always talk, we talk a lot about the professionalization of the sport and how like the pros are getting more pro, and it's harder to bridge that gap. And every time we think, is the door closed at these races? It it we get reminded by someone that it's no, it's not closed yet. And that is exciting because you know, we could potentially keep this could open the door for you know, if Sarah or Elaine top tens at Western states, then you get a full calendar year knowing you're running states again. Like it the this could create huge opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

One other thing I noticed, so uh on the woman's side, the tickets did pass down a little bit, a little bit of movement, and Sarah Alban uh stated that she is focusing exclusively on CCC at the end of this summer. Kereth Arnold focusing exclusively on hard rock. And yeah, I think I mean jury is still out. We're still seeing certain people approach certain philosophies, but interesting to see, you know, from top performance here today, people in some cases just showing up here to to either race for the sake of it. I know with Kereth the goal was breaking uh 10 hours on the course and getting a good run-in against good competition. And uh I'm assuming for Sarah, you know, qualifying for CCC, um, stuff like that. So yeah, just like in the lots of racing versus strategic racing debate. Interesting to see sort of that trend there.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Yeah, like Kereth is in hard rock. Hard rock is harder to get into than western states. Kareth just got a golden ticket, she could do it again next year.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Do we do we say anything about the live stream? I know we've kind of talked that into the ground, but another another amazing golden ticket race that you know we did not get to witness.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

Yeah, I mean, it's just a bummer. And then like we couldn't even follow it. I've followed races closer via Twitter in 2012 than I was able to with UTMB's tracking at Canyons. Like some of the trackers weren't even in the right time zone. Like, did you notice that? There would be times where there was like a whole bunch, like at one point, maybe it was either Michigan, Bluff, or Forest Hill. Like the top 10 men all came through in a pack. And they populated correctly on the um on the tracker on the list, because they finally must have had decent enough service. But some of them, and I don't remember which hour of the date actually was, but some of them said it was like 910 a.m. And then right behind them would be like Zach Miller, 8.10 a.m. I'm like, oh, so he's in third place an hour ahead of Adam Peterman. I was like, how did some of their chips get locked on mountain time and some get locked on West Coast time? And just be all over the place. And then I think Alyssa's tracker didn't update her finish for like almost an hour after she finished. I was like, that's in town. They have internet in Auburn. I know Auburn's like an old school gold rush town, but they still have internet there. I've been there before. Shall we move on to international results? Yeah, I'm not good at talking a little bit about news, Finn.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Madeira Island Ultra Trail. Uh a decent amount of North American representation here this weekend, but top line, Katarina Hartmouth from Germany wins the women's race. Vincent Esmial wins the men's race. Special shout out to Tyler Green. Who uh a good friend of ours here in Salt Lake City got a podium spot third place in the uh long distance there. I thought this was really honestly kind of a funny moment. I was on Instagram yesterday, and the Madeira Instagram account for Katarina's finish writes A new legend is born. Katarina Hartmouth, winner of the Madeira Island Ultra Trail, Legend 2026. And Katie Scheid, the tie is the top comment. Go, Katie. I mean, this is an amazing guy. Nothing new. No, she's always been a legend.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Yeah, like I would have to agree with Katie's comment there. Um they make it sound like this was Katarina's breakout race. Like Katarina's been bawling out for like quite a few years now, but maybe they meant maybe something got lost in training. Like a legend is born on the Madeira course. And I'm also now just assuming this was like her Madeira debut. If it's not, and she's also balled out on the course before, then it just makes no sense at all. But um, and it and it was a baller run, like by all means, it was wire to wire.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Yep. Yep. And other results there, because there's multi-multi-race event. Lindsay Allison and Daniel Jong win the 80k, Rachel Drake, she's back, and Antoine Charvalin win the 56k, and just generally good North American representation. Helomino Faulkner took uh second, uh Jasmine Lother took third, Jane Moss took second to Rachel Drake across these races. So uh just I think fantastic showing. Um I want to get there one day. Either just a crew and spectator do one of them. These island races are pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

They look amazing. And I'm so glad that Rachel is racing. Again, Rachel's one of the most fun racers on the planet. Like Rachel, she's just so good at running.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

One of the most talented too. Just broadly speaking, across all distances, disciplines.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

What do they say? Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. But then you get someone like Rachel who has talent and is perhaps the hardest worker and you put it together.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Yeah. Yeah. And just having a little bit of you know, being friends here in Salt Lake and just getting some insight into her life, she has two kids, and she works one of the most demanding medical jobs. She's an anesthesiology resident here in the in the Salt Lake Valley, and just in a lot of cases is working like ungodly hours and just gets the work in. So just just amazing. Um, she's an example of like no, like I have no excuses in my own life for why I don't get things done. She's amazing. Yep. Okay. Next up, Mount Fuji results. We got Chris Myers winning the 100 miler on the men's side, Ying Li on the women's side in the 70K. Amazing American representation. Claire Rhodes and Trayson Knopp, Power Couple win the 70K. Terra Fraga uh took second, uh, just less than a minute back from Claire.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Chris Myers is back on the board. Yeah, that's good to stamp one. I mean, I he's had some ups and downs since Western states last year. Um, I don't know, just the high of western states is so high that it's hard to get back, get back on the horse, or if there was little training things that pop up here and there. But he was locked in. Uh him in second place. I don't know, I don't know if it was eventual second. Um but he was with someone for the first like 70 miles of the race. And there were a lot of like we're like, were you gonna see a handhold finish? What's going on? Or are they just duking it out? But then Chrissy marries the victor, and he looked quite like emotional at the finish. I think this is his this is his first hundred mile win. So that's that's a big deal. You just you don't get that many of them. Like you don't get that many opportunities to win hundred milers in the sport and to win a pretty big one like Fuji. That's sick. I'd be I'd be pretty happy too.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Okay, I'm gonna spin through these quick. We have three other events to discuss. Grand Raid Von 2 by UTMB, the Penang Sky Race in Malaysia, and the World Mountain Running Circuit was in uh the Great Wall region of China this weekend. So um Grand Raid, a bunch of races here, 100K, 20K, 50K, some familiar names. In the 100K, Ida, Sophie Hegman, and Baptiste Shisang were the winners. In the 50k, Tove Alexanderson and Naishon Kiplemo. And in the 20K, Elise Pancha and Frederick Transant, who uh were victorious. And Frederick, we've talked about him a bunch in recent episodes. He's been all over the place, including on the sky running circuit, multidiscipline, in the Penang Sky Race. Um, this is a name that this is a I'm not gonna be able to pronounce this correctly. Nurma Katamova Svetlana from Russia, one on the women's side, and Nicholas Augustine on the men's side. The series goes to Matha Zene in France next weekend. In the overall rankings, just looking for some Americans here. Morgan Elliott's in fourth, Jane Moss in 15th. And then this might be a circuit that doesn't get talked about a ton, but this World Mountain Running Circuit is obviously active. And they had the up-down race and the vertical uphill in um in the Beijing area this past weekend. Joyce Najaber won on the women's side and on the men's side, Michael Salelo Sowli won. That was for the up down, and then in the uphill, Isaac Costa and Maude Mathis.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Some familiar names there. And there's a lot of circuits out there that you could hop onto for uh for racing. I mean, we had three different like big organizations that all host their own championships, all having key events on the same weekend. UTMB having like multiple on the same weekend. I guess World Trail Majors having multiple on the same weekend as well. So this is the weekend. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Yeah, I gotta do the math here, but public math for a second. Our sport was split across six events and about twenty five races this weekend.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

That's a lot, that's a lot. I mean, and and I understand part of it because huge difference in distances. You know, we had like an uphill only race all the way through 100 miles, so I get that, but you know, there was even a handful of like repeat distances uh going on. So I don't know. That's probably a conversation for another episode, huh?

SPEAKER_01 29:00

I'd love to get your take here. So with this next topic, uh the headline I was trying to think of what's right here, but basically it's Julian Leone wins court battle against Sears and all. So uh folks might recognize Julian Leon, the head coach of the Millimani runners over the past few years. And back in uh August of 2025, uh Joyleen uh Chipnego from Kenya won Sears and All, tested positive at the finish line, got stripped of her title, admitted to using a banned substance for a knee injury, received two-year suspension. And about a month after that, the Sears and All organizers issued a press release that banned Leon and his Milamani runners from any future involvement at the race, citing this latest example plus the 2022 doping case that affected the team. About two weeks after that, Lyon's lawyer counterattacked, and the judge in the case ordered Sierra Zanal to immediately remove the section of the press release targeting Leone. And this was finally resolved uh about 10 days ago when the court ruled that the press release plausibly amounted to an unlawful infringement of Leon's personality rights. And now Lyon is seeking compensation for moral and financial damages, citing lasting harm to his reputation and his team's business. I mean, Brad, I have so many questions for you, but uh like overall overarching, what are your thoughts on all this?

SPEAKER_00 30:32

I mean, it sounds like the coach had money to fight this, and the athlete didn't have money to fight this. Like, this is a privilege thing. And they were both they were both wrong or both right in one guy. They're both cheaters. I thought this was news. I thought I was supposed to say neutral on this fan. I'm feeling like baited into stuff right now. But like, well, I mean, I have so many questions. So, so what so he's getting cleared because he was like, oh, I had no idea that my athlete that I was coaching did any of this, so I should be cleared of it. Like, that's basically what it's like, oh, she acted independently. If you as a coach don't know that your athlete has a knee injury and that your athlete's gonna go to a doctor to get an injection for the knee injury, and you don't have a strong enough relationship with your athlete that they don't even feel comfortable coming to you being like, hey, should I do this? What do you think? You're a terrible coach. And you're probably never and and if you have that bad a communication with your athlete, chances are you're not gonna be able to coach an athlete to that high of a level, anyways. So I kind of smells like BS.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Just to put this out there, when all of this uh came down back in August, and this is probably an obvious statement coming from his camp, but Julian says, Let me be absolutely clear, I had no knowledge whatsoever of the use of this substance. I have never in any way encouraged or tolerated such an act. I have always fought against doping, and I will continue to do so. None of these three bullet points address what you just said. And you would argue that in terms of the role of the manager of the coach in this case, there has to be a deeper understanding and a deeper involvement beyond just like writing the training.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

Well, especially because so what, this coach just has bad luck because this is his second athlete that's tested positive for doping.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Third, actually, because Kangogo and Chisang back in 2022, they were the men's and women's champions and they were both suspended and stripped of their titles for doping.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yeah, like it we call seriously, people? Like, are we joking? Sir, are you serious? Like, if it looks like a dump and stinks like a dump to dump. I think that analogy is actually supposed to be around ducks. I might have botched that, but like you get it. Like Yeah, and this is just this is just someone who has the funds to lawyer up. Because like anti-doping agencies and trail running, like they don't have that much power. You're a private coach and you've got money from elsewhere, you can fight it. You can you can get away with most things if you have enough money. So interesting.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Yeah. Um even if you're like absolved of this in court, and you know how does he have any uh career left in the sport?

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Like how can How would any athlete want to work with this person? I mean, I it must be very believable because I mean we've seen it in uh lots of other running. I mean, we I f I forget the name. There's a sprint coach on the American side who's got like a ton of pops, but he's never been banned. There's some agents on the road running side who like most of the high-level doping cases on the road side. It's like, oh, he's represented by this person. It's like, how is that person not banned? How I I it's it's insane that coaches and managers and agents don't get held to the standard that the athletes do.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

I will be very curious uh one of the many things I'm curious about is how much he will go after Sears and all for in terms of like the dollar amount for more these quote unquote moral and financial damages. And then if that will go to court and I mean, what's the number gonna be? And is Sierra Zen all gonna have to pony up that money?

SPEAKER_00 34:44

It's probably going to be a lot of money. And yeah, I mean, I I don't know if Sierra Zenall has that money or where that comes from, or property taxes in Sierra Zenall area are about to go up 10% to pay off this guy's emotional damages.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

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SPEAKER_00 37:39

So the the the the tourism income that gets brought in from a UTMB event or an Iron Man World Championships isn't worthwhile to this mayor. So it's like like it doesn't make it doesn't make enough money. Um I I had jokingly said they would raise property taxes in Zenal because of the doping case, but that was one of the things that was in one of these articles. He said like residential property taxes would drop four and a half percent as a result of these um like cancellations and you know the money that's saved there that they would normally have to pony up. So maybe maybe there is an amount of money that the locals of the race have to pay every year. Or not the locals of the race, the locals of the of Nice have to pay every year to uh you know, support this or prop this up. But it's yeah, I would like to see some more numbers behind like about this decision. Or is it just simply like we get plenty of tourists, we don't need this sort of tourist saying like we don't need middle-aged men walking around with sticks, with cut-up shirts full of holes, ruining beautiful niece beachside.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

I'll I'll just say this. And this is to me, this news is very similar to what we reported on a few months ago now, around JFK, where JFK was threatening to leave one of those counties in Maryland for another county and creating a whole new course because their current county wasn't going to continue to subsidize certain costs in their budget. And that whole incident kind of blew me away because, again, me in my ignorance, I had no idea that this was even a thing. Outside of like maybe the Super Bowl and other events in the sporting world where it's like undeniable that you know cities are going to compete against each other and try to recruit events to like host there. I had no idea that there were trail running events that were in such a power position that like cities would want to pay them to do their thing. Like I mean, I'll as with Twisted Fork, for example, I'm paying Park City, Utah for the privilege to put my event there.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

You know, the same thing with like maybe you know this. Isn't at UTMB like a lot of the towns that UTMB goes through, the towns pay UTMB to be able to like host the aid station? I don't know. That's or is it UTMB pays them? I I forget. But there's money, there's a transaction one way or the other.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

Yeah. But yeah, I had no idea that in our small world, relatively small world of trail running, there were events like UTMB Nice that had such leverage that, you know, for at least the recent past, they were getting paid or they were getting heavily subsidized by these local municipalities to put their events on. And that if that subsidy goes away, the event is like either not as profitable or if that loss of subsidy is so damaging that they might consider not putting the event on in 2027 and beyond. So amazing to me.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

So maybe something like UTMB Nice is not as profitable to the town of Nice as UTMB thought it was going to be, which I could see that happening if say 80% of the participants are local-ish and they don't have to stay in Nice for an extended amount of time. They don't have to eat at the restaurants, they don't have to take transit and they don't have to stay at a hotel, etc. Then yeah, I guess you're just using that area and you're not giving them a bunch of money. Whereas, like you had said, the Super Bowl, how many local people to the area go to the Super Bowl versus who flies in, all that type of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Like when well, it was in San Francisco this past year. Um there's a like local, like a little private airport by my parents' house that's normally just got like little hobby, you know, propeller planes and stuff. Week of the Super Bowl, every single hangar and like parking lot space is filled with a private jet.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Because you get like that. That's who is going to the Super Bowl.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

So, anyways, just it this this whole world is wild. I'm learning so much. And I did not realize that yeah, like you said, that these events perhaps it's perhaps it's questionable that they don't have the impact that maybe we thought they did, and also that they depend on that money so much. And uh, I don't know. For everyone out there that's listening, if you happen to be a race director, maybe we all should just preemptively run these local economic impact reports that we can just like have at the ready. Like, here are my papers. Look at how many people spent money at this convenience store and stayed at this, like you have to have that stuff on the ready, I guess. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Yeah. Like Wharton's up in Forest Hill. That grocery store.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

I think they said Day of Western States and the 4th of July are their two most profitable days.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

Because of course I asked them that question when I'm up there. I'm like, is this a big day for you guys? And they're like, oh yeah. This is a large day for us. We go on vacation the rest of the month.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

We just close down. We just we go to Hawaii or something.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

I mean, yeah, they're like, we've been making ice for the last six weeks.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

Smaller bit of news here to close on. And this is just uh an update to the UTMB index. The UTMB has announced that version two of their scoring system will go live Monday, April 27th. We're recording this on Sunday. It'll go live tomorrow today if you're listening on Monday. Uh, it's going to affect all historic races dating back to 2019, which will be recalculated under this formula. Scores in the news system will also be published faster. Apparently, this has been an issue for a lot of runners where they've wanted their results and their scores to be updated, sort of ASAP, and there's just been typically like longer wait times. So that changes. They do say, sort of in the fine print, that the majority of race scores will remain very similar with small changes of plus or minus five to 15 points across the board. Most races will increase, they say, but some will decrease, and a very small number of races may increase by more.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

That's interesting. I mean, the uh g the the increasing the speed at which the races update and populate on the website. That seems like a big pro. I haven't heard a lot of um good or bad things about the UTMB index scores, other than why is this year's score this versus last year's? And that's been shrouded under a lot of mystery, it seems like. So it's kind of interesting that they're like, we've got two version 2.0. I know you don't know how version 1.0 works, but here's version 2.0 and it's better. Okay. As long as it doesn't make anything worse.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Before we go, I forgot to prompt in this, so I'll just give you mine. But my content of the week, and I'm watching this for the second time, it's called The The Dark Wizard, and it's this multi-part uh docuseries on Dean Potter. And if you don't know who Dean Potter was, and I've I actually I talked about this sort of as a news piece because it hadn't been released yet on a previous single track news, but it's it's live. Dean Potter was basically Alex Honnold before Alex Honnold. In terms of like the generations of climbers before Alex Honnell came on the scene, Dean was the guy who I would say was at the vanguard of doing a lot of like the most impressive free soloing. He was into wingsuit jumping, he was into slack lining like across canyons with no rope attached. He was doing free soloing on some crazy stuff where like he had a parachute too, and if he did fall, he'd pull the parachute. And anyways, really amazing documentary that just goes into his psychology, why he did what he did, how he was trying to like counterbalance like the art of climbing versus like feeling competitive and how those like helped and hurt different goals, relationships. It's really, really good. And they've only put out two episodes, but in the second episode, they do bro I love when they bring in like rivals and contemporaries, and they do bring in Alex Honnold towards the end of the second episode, and it's clear that him and Alex had a very like antagonistic relationship, which is rare because I feel like, and I could be wrong, but if I feel like in ultra running and trail running, for the most part, the relationships between top competitors has been pretty good. Like if you watched the free trail interview yesterday of Zach Miller and Hayden Hawks and Peterman, like they just have nothing but the most respect for each other and they're chummy and they're working together, all the type of stuff. And I mean, like when you listen to Alex's comments on Dean, I mean, just wholesale. He is just basically like discrediting or just saying, like, that wasn't a big deal, all of the precedence that he set, you know? So I'm just I'm I'm loving just the contrast and cultures and the star power of Dean, all that. And just I encourage people after promoting it a few episodes ago, it's quite good. Uh Jules is also watching. She doesn't really like Dean. I don't think Dean comes across as like a nice, cool guy to her, but he's a complicated character. So that's really cool too. What platform do I have to subscribe to to watch this? HBO Max. Okay. Which kind of is very similar to all of the AI systems right now. I find myself switching between Netflix and like Paramount and HBO based on what shows are on. It's like I'm switching between Claude and ChatGPT based on like which model happens to be the best at the time. Like I'm I'm can't I'm pausing and starting subscriptions all the time. And right now it's HBO.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

Are there any subscriptions that you're always subscribed to? Like you got a baseline. Like, I guess for for me it's YouTube Premium, which I would consider. Because like with that, I get YouTube music and I get no ads on YouTube Premium. I can download, I can listen to the live streams with my phone closed.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

Yeah, the two for me are YouTube Premium and New York Times. I've just had the New York Times forever. Right on. So yeah. Anyways, fantastic. You don't have to like climbing to like it. I will say it is quite scary. Like the cinematography around it, like it's a lot of free soloing and stuff like that. So every episode, my hands and my feet are just drenched in sweat because I'm so vicariously nervous for what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 48:03

Oh my god. I can't be watching that. I'm trying to like lower the heart rate while watching TV.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

So, anyways, you I guess you brought you brought the marathon to the table. So that was good other content for the week.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

I didn't brief you that I probably happened, so there's nothing to watch. But if you want something to watch that's running content, go on YouTube, go to Flowtrack's YouTube channel, go watch the pen the pen relays happen just this past weekend. Um, always you get some of the best like distance relay race. We get actually you get great relay racing at pen relay is no surprise there. But there's some really long, like decade-long rivalries uh in some of these distance relays. So you gotta watch it in order. You gotta watch the distance medley relay, the college championship of America, I think that's what they call it. You gotta watch that one first, and then you gotta go watch the college four by mile second because they go together. Because again, rivalries. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 49:02

Brett, thanks as always. Appreciate you. And uh, we will see you all next week on the single track news.