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Gerda Steyn's "Comfortable" Comrades Win, New Tahoe 200 Course Record + Tudor's Luxury Trail Play (Singletrack News)
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We discuss Gerda Steyn's "comfortable" Comrades record (and George Kusche's not-so-comfortable victory finish), Aaron Kubala's Tahoe 200 course record, Rod Farvard and Martina Valmassoi's dominant UTMB Andorra wins, Western States withdrawals from Keely Henninger and Seth Ruling, our Broken Arrow storylines to watch, Terignota's wild financials, athletes on the move (Canyon Woodward to Patagonia), Tudor's luxury trail play, and our favorite content of the week.
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All right, this is the Monday, June 15th edition of Single Track News, joined by Alyssa Clark. Alyssa, how are you doing today?
SPEAKER_00I'm doing well. Just uh loading up the van to head up to Olympic Valley for the next couple weeks. So gosh, it feels like we trail running is here. The season has begun. I mean, it's already begun. It's never stopped.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. We were just talking about this offline, and I didn't tell you then, but it's coming to me now. I want to see well, if people have the capacity. I like this idea of just like slowly making your way to the start line. Like the race, your races start Friday. You're starting the trip out on Monday. Nice leisurely drive up towards the race. Just like taking it doesn't have to be like the night before. It's like just I like that. I like extending out that that trip.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I'm also incredibly fortunate. Not everyone gets to do that. If A, I own a van that I lived in for a few years. B, I get to drive the Sierra to get up there. I think that's $395, that gorgeous highway. So I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna take my time. It's I think it's one of the most beautiful drives in the country. Um, and C, I mean, other than running, I can work on the road. So yeah, I'm just gonna enjoy it. I'm not gonna try to rush. Finn, how are you?
SPEAKER_01I'm doing you know what? I'm doing I'm doing good. I'll say this. As I get older, certain things in our sport become more appealing to me. One of those things is volunteering at races, and I was able to captain an aid station at a race called the Snow Peaks 50 this past weekend outside of Provo, Utah. Classic 50-mile race here on the Wasatch. I think it's been, I think they might have just celebrated their 25th edition, maybe even longer. So it's been on the scene. It's not as old as Wasatch, but I think it's around the same age as Bear. And yeah, it's it's a core race. Like if you look at the the record books, it's like Bethany Lewis and Carl Meltzer. I think Jared Campbell's done it a bunch. So it's classic. And reporting back, this was my first time ever captaining an aid station. It is so much fun. Like I totally caught the bug. And to anyone else that's just wondered about, you know, doing this type of volunteering, owning an aid station, it is fantastic. I can totally see why at Western States uh people like take the Robinson Flat Aid station and then do it for 30 years. It's just so much fun. Like we were all talking after the fact that we're gonna run this back next year. It was like Leah Yingling, myself, Mike McMonagall, Anthony Costales, Katie Blue, like our Caleb Olson, our local Salt Lake crew. And like we brought out the sponges and the ice buckets, and it was just it was just great. Like we had a whole thing. And I was kind of taking a weird pride in like no one D nothing at our raid station, like just giving them like the pump-up speech or whatever they needed to move on. So yeah, it was a lot of fun. Do it again next year.
SPEAKER_00I love it. Also, 50 miles is just perfect. It's a great distance.
SPEAKER_01We set up at 7:30 a.m. and we were out by 2.30 p.m., which I think is just like the perfect volunteer shift. Like we didn't have to go crazy into the night or anything like that. Yeah. And that would be fun too. But um, this was a nice, like just Saturday morning into afternoon thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I love it.
SPEAKER_01Well, let's dive into the news here. First up, the Conrads Marathon, an 86 kilometer, 53 mile point-to-point course running between Durban and Peter Meritzburg down in South Africa. The race alternates directions each year, either traveling down or up. This was an up-year up-run course starts at sea level, climbs of just under 6,000 feet, and features five major climbs. George Cushy and Gerta Stein, both of South Africa, set two new course records in the up direction. George won in 515-56, Gerda in 544-53. Uh, in terms of American representation, Charlie Lawrence took sixth in the men's race, Courtney Olsen took seventh in the women's race. Your thoughts on Comrades this year?
SPEAKER_00I mean, Gerta Stein, man, just the absolute dominance there is so incredible. I will say that Comrades is one that often flies under my radar, I think a little bit, just because uh I'm more in the trail side than the roadside, but every time I see this, it's just so inspiring and it is just a massive race. And now having been to South Africa, just the love of the culture of running. So very cool to see. Incredible. These times are just getting so fast. So hats off to Gerda, though. What an incredible run she's had.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that she is probably the most underappreciated ultra marathon runner of either gender, of any gender in the world. Agreed. Um, this performance was only, I ran the numbers, only 9.1% slower than George's time. Usual difference is like in the 10 to 12% window. So this one was pretty special. Um, and then I don't know if you saw the live stream, but watching her cross the finish line, it was just so nonchalant. She called the performance quote unquote comfortable. Um by contrast, um, and this is a little bit graphic, but George collapses immediately post race. He pooped himself. Like they literally had to like water him down at the finish and cover him in a towel. Like, just totally, I mean, like erupted, you know, um, totally spent at the finish. So yeah, she breaks the woman's record and jogs around like she just finished a 5k. It was it was amazing. Um a couple notes on George. I mean, this guy has to have some of the best range in the sport. I pulled up some of his high school and collegiate statistics. In high school, he ran 147 in the 800, 357 mile, 1328 5k, 213 marathon. Now he's won this 53 mile race, one of the biggest in the world. And he the payday for both Gerda and him is $142,000, translated to USD. So that's a pretty big payday for both of them.
SPEAKER_00I mean, that's road marathon territory. I mean, we have nothing like that in trail running.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Oh, one last thing. An 84-year-old finished the race this year. Well under the cutoff, 11 hours and 12 minutes. Um, Johannes Mosela, 84 years old. Incredible. So that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00Love it.
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SPEAKER_00I mean, so impressive. We have Brody Chisholm came in third overall, second male. It looks like I've just pulled up the trackers to see what was happening. It's fun to be commenting on a race. So going on, Ashley Paulson looks like she's just about to finish. Do you know, Finn, what the difference was between the course they've been using previously and the kind of OG course they're on? Do you know much of the differences? I'm trying to.
SPEAKER_01So I, from what I recall, and again, I'll need to be fact-checked here by our 200-mile enthusiast crowd, but in the most recent years, when the course was fire impacted and being restored, etc., it was those out and backs, I think on the east side of the lake.
SPEAKER_00Yes, it was. So I want to say so it's 2.4 miles, 32,000 feet of gain and loss. I'm just wondering what it was in previous years when the single loop was intact.
SPEAKER_01Maybe was it two up to 208?
SPEAKER_00That's what I thought.
SPEAKER_01Sorry, I'm just yeah, I would I would love to go back and look at like Kyle Kurt, like because I'm comparing this to Kyle Curtin and Courtney DeWalter's times from 2018. Because they're sort of that I know that the race destination trail, they they are considering this a new course record to that single loop course, but I'm gonna see if I can go back and find Kyle's stuff here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's just what I'm looking at as well. Anyway, um, I'm just curious about the difference because it seemed like blistering times this year. Uh, I just I had not really heard previously about um Aaron and smashed it and doing the triple crown. So very excited to follow along with uh his journey this year. Also, Ashley Paulson will be taking on the triple crown. Yeah, I feel like there's some good competition there. Loved seeing Mika back at it. I mean, just she's I feel like had a lot of hard, challenging pieces in her racing. And I am such a fan of her, so I was really excited to see her string this one together and just absolutely knock it out of the park. So hats off to her.
SPEAKER_01She's been dominant here. Uh third win here, also one in 22 and 24. This, I believe, again, we have to go and fact check just to see how much the course has changed across the single loop variations, but uh second fastest time here ever. Really impressive. And then Aaron, yeah, I mean, a really interesting ultra signup page. This was not his first 200. He had a podium at Moab, I think, a year or two ago. What's interesting for him is he is uh he's going for the triple crown this year. So he's got Bigfoot in Moab later this year. Obviously, this course record here at Tahoe puts him very much in the running to challenge Mike McKnight and Killian Court's times uh from previous years. And yeah, I mean, again, if if this is uh comparable to those pre-COVID single loop courses, he took uh almost 80 minutes off of Kyle Curtin's time, which was amazing. And again, this was the year that if you go back and watch Courtney DeWalter's film The Source, which features her Tahoe Tuna there, her and Kyle had this like legendary battle in that race where I think Kyle didn't overtake her until the final 50 miles, and they were separated in the end by it was like half an hour. It was for a 200-mile race, incredibly close. So this is a great performance. Fantastic performance, Aaron.
SPEAKER_00Really strong, yeah. For both of them. I'll ask this and then we can move on. But how do you feel it is comparing the triple crown when there's been pretty drastic changes to the courses over the years? I feel like it takes away nothing from those performances each year, but I feel like it is challenging a little bit to compare when there are these significant changes. I mean, Moab alone, huge change.
SPEAKER_01I think it's a great question. It's something that I've talked with Killian Korth about actually in previous interviews. And I think my point to him was like, I almost think you just have to focus on individual races. And I like I just in in a calendar year, just appreciating what it takes to win three of these in a row. Um but yeah, I think it would it would even be difficult to compare McKnight's triple crown to Killian's because of, again, like you said, how much changed at Moab, other variations. I mean, even this year at Tahoe, I think one of the storylines was how many blowdowns there were on course. And in fact, Michael McKnight was in this race. He had to DNF because I I believe he tripped on a blowdown. And he has Instagram stories, again, they're pretty gruesome, but of him cutting open his head, he had to get a bunch of staples. So yeah, there's just so much variation year over year. Even at Cocodona, things change so much. This this course this year was so much different than the previous year.
SPEAKER_00Can we oh my gosh, there's been so many head injuries this year.
SPEAKER_01I know. Turns out this is a contact sport too.
SPEAKER_00Apparently, this is a contact sport. Everyone, please be careful out there. I do not love the head injuries. Let's not keep doing that. It's not a trend I like.
SPEAKER_01Next up here, UTMB by Andor, Rod Farvart, and Martina Velmasoy absolutely dominate on the men's and women's sides. Rod won by nearly 35 minutes. Martina was sixth overall and won by nearly 70 minutes. I've got some thoughts here specifically on on Rod's performance, but uh curious to get your thoughts here. Beautiful race looks like.
SPEAKER_00It does, it's always been on my list. Well, I have some uh kind of comments on Martina's race, is that she is was coming off quite a big injury, so wasn't able to run for quite a while, goes and does um Zagama, races it, and then bikes. She biked to Zagama and I believe back to get her fitness up because she was like, Well, I'm just gonna try anything. And this was her ticket into UTMB this year. So this was kind of her one shot because you can get a spot if you're coming off of an injury uh for this year's race, knocks it out of the park. And one of the comments I saw that she posted, also, I love her. Like, we're friends, I think she's hilarious. I think we have similar senses of humor of making fun of ourselves. But she was like, My friends believed in me more than I believed in myself. And I think that that's just sometimes a really beautiful sentiment where when we doubt ourselves, sometimes we just have to look at look at ourselves the way others do and be like, well, if they believe in me that much, maybe I can too. And I'm just so excited to see her take this spot. She is just, I think, a light in the sport. I think she's so fun. I love the energy, and she's so strong. So I'm really glad she got the spot. I'm so excited to see what she does at UTMB and just really happy for her.
SPEAKER_01I'll say a bit here about Rod too. So uh in his post-Madeira blog post, he talks about how he ran into significant issues at that race with nutrition, and basically the revolution that worked for him in 24 at Canyons in Western States seemed to be faltering. Specifically, he questioned whether there are differences in strategy for these more mountain races. And he was having a lot of success with his previous strategy in more of these like rolling terrain style races, where basically you can fuel at a pretty consistent race the whole uh rate the whole race because you can expect to be burning a pretty consistent amount of energy the whole time. But in these mountain races, as you know, Alyssa, longer climbs, longer descents, technical terrain, different temperatures, humidities at different altitudes. And I'm really curious to get Rod's post-race analysis here. I know he's going to be in sham a lot of the summer project in the UTMB course, too, so we'll see. But I want to know like, did he figure out those things between Madeira and Andor here? Because this looked like a pretty perfectly executed effort. Um he dominated start to finish it. It kind of looked, it kind of looked like the result that we thought he could get at Madeira earlier this year. So great to see him back on the horse.
SPEAKER_00Love it. Also, shout out to Stephanie Case, who looks like blew up her ankle. I mean, I think absolutely destroyed it and came in sixth, female still, which that's a lot of guts. I mean, she's posting pictures. I was like, oh my gosh, that is black and blue and purple and all the colors. Oof.
SPEAKER_01Before we get to some Western State stuff, I'll quickly just mention South Downs Way. The World Trail Majors came to South Downs Way this past weekend, a classic event put on by the team at Centurion running in the 100-mile race, which is sort of their marquee event here. Point-to-point course between Winchester and Eastbourne in the south of England. We've got David Green winning the men's race in 13-27, Sarah Webster in 14-27 on the women's side. Sarah was hyped a bit in the previews, and she won the 50K race here last year. I think David was a bit more of a surprise. From what I could tell, Hugh Tibbs was sort of the favorite coming in. He had taken second here in 24 and 25. So maybe a bit of a dark course victor here, but uh this is a staple event on the UK scene. I think, especially in the last two decades, as Ultra Trail Running has taken off more so there, especially the 100-mile distance. This has become one of the centerpiece races. And uh course records are strong. The team of Centurion is uh is professional. So by all accounts, it seemed like it was a great, great experience out there.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I also want to flag, I saw this that Sarah set the fastest time for a British female athlete in the hundred-mile distance on trail.
SPEAKER_01This effort, the 1427.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. This is the fastest a female athlete from Britain has ever run a trail hundred miler, which is so cool.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and broke the previous course record that was set last year by two hours this year.
SPEAKER_01Amazing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Western States news. I'll roll for these two. Uh Keely Henninger is out. Keely has decided to remove herself from this year's Western States start list, citing competing priority specifically, med school research, family planning, and sort of her heart is more in those uh aspects of life than Western states right now. So she's taken herself out preemptively. She's one of the most accomplished runners of our generation, especially in golden ticket races. I think she's won like three or four over a seven to eight year stretch. So there's that to consider when she decides to return. And then Seth Ruling also out. He's out due to a torn laborman in his hip. He would have been a force this year, too. Uh strong race, hundred-mile debut here last year, taking sixth and 1459. Earlier this year, he won the Black Candy with 50k in 316 in the stacked field. I thought that he was just gonna, you know, take the momentum from these past two performances and um be in contention for the win here. So bummer to see him out. But um, yeah, your thoughts on Keeley or Seth here?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, was super sad to see Seth out. I mean, that's never the reason why anyone wants to take a step back, but hopefully he recovers quickly. And I just appreciate how much Western States means to Keeley that she knows what it takes and what it means to stand on that start line. And she wants someone else who is a hundred percent in. And also, I just applaud. I think it's very easy to get into this mindset that the trail world is the only thing that matters, and she has so many wonderful things going on in her life. I mean, contributing uh as a becoming a doctor, having a family, and how it's okay to have different priorities, and that is beautiful, and so I just I really appreciated her sharing that story. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01There is so much that we could say about Broken Era this weekend. We could even get into your uh your races there this weekend, but um if we boiled it down to each of our like top storylines or athletes to follow, what are your top two to three?
SPEAKER_00I would say we were talking about this before. I was so excited to see Jesse Diggins on all three, we're sharing all three start lines. So she is also doing the broken arrow triple crown. Huge Jesse Diggins fan, the way she carries herself, her vulnerability, just her spirit, her love. And I can't wait to get to race against her and also was styked to see that. Leah will be on the start line for all three as well. So you had said, Oh, I really hope people get more and more excited about the triple crown. Finn, I think the world heard you. So personally, I'm very excited to get to race just some people I really look up to. So I'm stoked on that.
SPEAKER_01It will do you think Jesse will be competitive? I'm so curious to see her uh just investing more in the scene. This is great.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I it's it's really hard to bet against her. I'll say that, but I also hope that she just has fun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Okay. I've got a couple here. Uh the first one, I just have a question written down. How good is McKenna Morley? So in our end-of-year recapture last year with Brett and Leah, we all made our quote unquote bold predictions. This one didn't feel bold to me, but I did. Mine was that she was going to be by this year's end widely considered our sports breakout star.
SPEAKER_00Do you know who her coach is?
SPEAKER_01Fitz.
SPEAKER_00Yep. John Fitzgerald coming in strong again. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and she trains with that Missoula crew, Jen Lichter, Maya Rail, Jeff, Adam, Aaron. Yeah. Amazing culture that she's in. But yeah, you know, beat Lauren at the Canyons 50K by over four minutes back in April. Amazing performance there. Uh locally just won the Don't Fence Me in 25K, I think. This women's 23k race, Anna Gibson, Elisa Morin, Lauren Gregory again, McKenna, like those four in particular. This is the race that I'm the most looking forward to watching all weekend individually. Jade Beltsberg and Jade Beltsberg. My only concern is Anna is also racing the ascent, and so is Jade, I think. So I wish they were, I wish they were all fresh on this start line. But at least we'll get a fresh McKenna, relatively fresh Elisa coming off Sunnepe and Lauren. I mean, it's gonna be amazing. Other thing I've written down here, Rory Linkletter racing the ascent. Uh amazing, amazing just running talent. This isn't his first trail race, but it's his first big one. How does he fare against Patrick and Philemon and Cam Smith and Christian Allen? Uh okay, last one I have here actually. David Sinclair is using the Ascent as his final workout for States. Jim Walmsley did this in 24 and it worked great for him. So we'll see if the uh the transitive property works here for David.
SPEAKER_00You know, I was just thinking about him uh because he's joined Hyperlate. Uh, so he's he's my teammate now, but I was thinking about how he's been so dominant in the 46k. I was like, oh man, it's gonna be a bummer not having David on the start line at Broken Arrow. So I'm excited to hear he will be on a start line.
SPEAKER_01Precision fuel and hydration, as you well know by now, they are the official nutrition partner of the show. They'll also be a key partner on our Western States coverage later this month. And in case you weren't aware, they have a pretty stacked athlete lineup on that start line. Uh, let's see, on the women's side, you've got Martina Milnarchik, Lottie Brinks, Lauren Piritz, Sarah Humboldt, Engild Kasperson, who's a new signing. On the men's side, you've got Dan Jones, Hayden Hawks, Jeff McGavarrow, Jeshren Small, Anthony Costales, and Jordan Bramblett. Chances are high that we'll see at least a few athletes on the podiums, maybe even uh one or two winning the thing. Certainly worked for Caleb Olson at this race last year. Go check out their stuff, precisionhydration.com, and feel free to use code single track at checkout for 15% off your next order. This episode is also brought to you by John G and their new Ultra Hauler Supertote. What a name. If you crew, travel to races, or you sometimes live out of a gear bag like I do, uh like I did, I should say, when I traveled to Missoula, Montana earlier this month on a work trip. You know the problem. You're going for a run, maybe it's raining outside. Post-run, the muddy shoes end up next to clean kit. You find yourself changing in a parking lot doing the one-foot balancing act thing. And uh maybe you can never find anything that you need in the bottom of the bag. Well, guess what? The ultra hauler fixes a lot of that stuff. 40 liters that expands, a high contrast lining so that you can actually see what you need, a mesh outer pocket to keep the wet and dirty stuff separate. That's awesome. I think this is the coolest part: a built-in change map that you can take out of the bag and it's got a waterproof base. Um, yeah, three carry options as well, a sleeve that slides right over your roller for uh airport travel. Check it all out. John G.com. That's J-A-N-J-I. Next up here, version two of RacePurse is live. The first version, if you remember, was a crowd-funded prize purse system for Aero Viper races. You'll recall that it debuted at Black Canyon earlier this year with fanfare, some success. The payouts were pretty solid, nearly $17,000 in the $100K, $7,000 in the $50K. I believe they might have run into some processing issues with Stripe on the back end of the system, which caused them to go into hiatus. But the website is back with a similar but also different focus. It's being billed now as the prize money database for trail and all shrinkalys. Have you checked this out?
SPEAKER_00You know, I hadn't. I honestly, yeah, I haven't really gotten into that side of things. So I was looking at it and truly I think it's pretty interesting. Yeah, I didn't quite understand the comrades. Is it giving so it's giving the total purse of what the race itself is giving out as well?
SPEAKER_01It's basically a clearinghouse for all races in our sport with prize money. And it's a work in progress. So, like, for example, I looked at the list that they had so far. I noticed a couple races absent that offer prize money. For example, the URA 150-mile races, and they actually encourage people as they're building this out to submit inquiries. So, like, I think I submitted it earlier today, and it was already up on the site, which is awesome. Uh yeah, you can browse past and upcoming races with prize money. They have a really cool stats section where you can see like top regions of the country that have certain races that have like it's just a cool way to identify what's on the horizon where you can race for money. Um there's just cool like analytics around all of this, like you know, which trail runners have accumulated, you know, the most cumulative prize money at races across the US world, et cetera. So um, yeah, for anyone that's just interested in monitoring that side of progress in our sport, I think it's pretty cool. Um, and yeah, like I said earlier, for anyone that goes and checks this site out and you notice something missing, um they encourage you to reach out to and they're pretty responsive to adding it in, uh, which is cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this is incredible. I mean, this says that in 2026 so far, $768,000 has been awarded. So we're I'm sure we'll get over a million by the end of the year.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and like a lot of it is can be chalked up to comrades. Yeah, yeah. Well, comrades is such a big prize purse, and then obviously uh nationally here, Broken Arrow is such a massive prize purse, but it like you can look into these races that you know are still significant but have smaller purses like um like Cirque Series Killington, uh Quebec Mega Trail, uh U Ray, like I mentioned, the Ragged 75 in Danbury, New Hampshire, Solomon Pitts Alpine Glacier Trail. Uh this okay, there's a last okay, this is cool. There's a last man standing race up in Clancy, Montana on August 1st. It's called the ROO Last Man Standing, $10,000 for the win. Like this, like again, this is just an amazing edge. The Rutt VK has a $3,500 prize purse. Super cool. You know?
SPEAKER_00This is awesome. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I've learned a ton and yeah, I I do believe they are relying significantly on the general public to you know, crowdsource this and build out the data around it. And uh it's it's pretty cool. So you can also see like there's a if you go to the stats page, they have this section for top sponsors, and you can see a list of the brands backing the most prize money across races. The classics here, Hoka Solomon, ACG, etc. So there's just a lot to dive into here, and I'm sure on a follow-up episode we can check in to see what's been built out. But yeah, I don't know exactly when the pivot happened here. I think it was pretty recently. Yeah, interesting.
SPEAKER_00Oh, this is amazing. Yeah, I'm I'm definitely gonna nerd out on this.
SPEAKER_01Next up here, Terragnota releases latest financials, Terragnota, the Leavenworth, Washington-based apparel brand, started, I think, in late 24 by Alex King, has published their 18-month financial report on their Instagram page. Alyssa, have you have you seen this?
SPEAKER_00You know, I knew that they were very transparent. I listened to the second nature episode about Terry Gnota, which was amazing. Um, and I just, yeah, I really appreciate. I was talking to another small business owner, and they were like, man, I don't know exactly like how they do this, or you know, their transparency is just incredible. So I love this strategy.
SPEAKER_01I made a couple notes here, and I have a like prior to getting into single track, I did a little bit of work in the D2C space. So it was really cool to see some of these numbers. They have generated, and this is more for the audience, they've generated $917,000 in lifetime revenue on $4,489 in total marketing spend, zero doll on paid ads in the last 12 months. That's less than a half of percent of revenue going to marketing. That is amazing. Like to people that don't know, this is like a typical D2C apparel brand will spend, like if they're spending 15% on marketing, that's a huge win. It's typically in that like 15 to 30% range on customer acquisition. So basically, this shows that terignota's growth is essentially all organic, all word of mouth, um, which I think is like one of the hardest things to create in this space. And it's pretty, I I think it's pretty durable once you have it.
SPEAKER_00So I mean, I will say that Rachel Endrikken wearing terragnota shorts for Coca-Dota was that was a big win for sure. I saw so many comments across the internet being like, what shorts were those? Can someone link them? I I am guessing that helped.
SPEAKER_01Um, what else did I write down here? Yeah, so they they also passed, okay, this is kind of cool, 10,000 orders. And I think that puts their average order value around 90 bucks, which I think is a pretty strong AOV when you're at their price point. They probably have a bunch of items in their carts when they when people are purchasing. My open question for Alex is what's your repeat rate? Like, do you have evidence of you of these you know buying cohorts coming back for repeat purchase? I'd be so curious to get those numbers in the next report. But I love what Alex is doing uh purely on just like the open sourcing all of this information. Like he's building his business in real time. I think, especially as you get more successful, it's probably harder to work with the garage door open, so to speak. So I'm not saying he won't, but I'm really curious to know for how long, especially as this brand continues to grow, the numbers all look really good. The unit economics look super strong. Like the debt side of this thing, like he's retired all of the expensive money first, like the Shopify loan, the credit cards. I think he's got like a 4% family loan left. That's all he has, which is amazing. I I could geek out on this all day, by the way. I love I love D2C.
SPEAKER_00So I love also that a very used, very cute electric forklift was bought. That might be my favorite slide.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Yes. Um okay, next up here. Oh, actually, um we have news on Rendezvous.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So Rendezvous has an advisory board, and very exciting that we were told this is we're the first to to talk about this, that Kelly Newland has joined the advisory board for Rendezvous. And she joins Joe Flannery, who is the former CMO of the North Face, and Katie Burznat Bernassick.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00Sorry, Katie Bernassek, who has built uh brand strategy at Airbnb, Google, and Apple. So she's joining some very strong advisory board members. And I think just a signal that Rendezvous is looking towards the future, looking to grow and bringing on people who really understand the business uh to help them do so. So exciting to have them bring on such an expert as Kelly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and for folks that haven't been following our program the past few months, uh rendezvous along with I think the other competing platform is Faves. They have been at the front of this sort of like athlete commerce platform play uh that has really taken off. And we're kind of seeing athletes left and right signing with these platforms. And it it seems like a sensible way for influencers, pro athletes, et cetera, to uh track attribution and maybe get more credit for the influence that they have on product sales, et cetera. Um, one of my open questions, because I know nothing about this advisory board space, when you form these committees, especially at a stage as relatively early as rendezvous is in, I am really curious to know like what those conversations look like, what the input is, um, how closely any individual member, like for example, Flannery from the North Face, is working with Hunter. Um, what advice they're giving, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00I'll be perfectly honest. I knew the term advisory board, and the other day I just I was like, I actually have no idea what that entails or means. And so I Googled it and had to do a little bit more research. I was like, what does why? What does it happen? So I am excited just being close with Kelly and working with her to learn more about advisory boards. So that's definitely something I uh I don't know a ton about. I don't know, Finn, if you do, but nothing.
SPEAKER_01I uh yeah, nothing, nothing. But it sounds cool. I'm excited for them. It sounds cool. Uh I mean, obviously it sounds like that. The people that you listed off obviously are deeply embedded in the sport. They know a lot, tons of connections. I wonder if that's another thing. Is it just when you have those people on your team, is it that much easier to recruit? Which I think at this stage, like the arms race that I imagine is happening between faves and and rendezvous, like those connections I think are probably critical for luring athletes in certain directions. So that's just me guessing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think there's also Popfly, too. I think I have to say I knew of uh like to know LTK. I know that was a really famous one with influencers on Instagram of linking things, and that's the only platform I knew about. And then I feel like this year, all of a sudden there's and I'm not saying this happened all of a sudden, it was just my awareness. I was like, oh, holy cow, this is what we're doing now. Okay, and there's multiple companies that are uh existing, and I think it's great. I think it's a really interesting way for not only athletes to track uh affiliation and and brands, but also companies can run influencer athlete campaigns off of the platform as well. Like that's some of the infrastructure. But it it I felt like it went from zero to a bunch. So I'm curious how each company is going to differentiate themselves.
SPEAKER_01Next up here, Canyon Woodward signs with Patagonia, one of the up-and-comers in our sport right now. I believe he's also being coached in the CTS system. So a bunch of changes in his athletic life. In addition to the Patagonia sponsorship, I think he also signed with Mount to Coast and is still running with the Green Racing Project. One of those partnerships that looks like a perfect fit for how Canyon approaches life, both on the trail and off of it, in his other professional capacities. An equally big story, Alyssa, to me, it seems like Patagonia is making a renewed push in the trail. Like they've been there for multiple decades now. But um you take this, there's the free trail partnership, which is huge. Perhaps there's more on the horizon. For me, definitely something to monitor on the business side is really cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I know that Canyon has had a long-standing relationship with Patagonia through the Green Racing Project. I believe they're linked. And I know that Patagonia is very it just is a very good alignment. So yeah, I would be curious to see if this is signaling to step more into trail after I feel like they pulled back a little bit after that kind of you know, first team of Jeff Browning and Chrissy Mould. Like what a cool team that was.
SPEAKER_01They made a shoe too. And I think Jeff and maybe maybe Chrissy were instrumental in some of the shoes.
SPEAKER_00And now they're at Keen together.
SPEAKER_01And now they're at Keen together. I know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um how fun.
SPEAKER_01So yeah. Uh for me it's like a watch this space type thing. And I don't know if Patagonia's gonna stay apparel if they have footwear plans too. I don't know anything, but um, pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Next up here, Aurelian Sanchez starts PCT FKT attempt. This is in your backyard, Alyssa. Aurelian is famous in part for his finish at the Barkley Marathons a few years back. He's one week into a supported FKT attempt. You can dot watch him on his website at aurillion sanchez.com. The tracker's pretty cool. It shows his dot versus the record, and he's currently up on it. Um so that is really all I have to report. Looks like he's just outside of you know LA, that section right now. But um yeah, he's he's someone who I think uh really takes all the principles of projecting something to heart. Uh he was famously really dialed for Barkley. And um this is uh this is gonna be an interesting one. Certainly a legit attempt, a credible attempt, I would say.
SPEAKER_00Oh, for sure, but the poor dude. It has been hot here. I mean, we got hit by we kind of have it was it gets it can get really hot in like February, March, and then it cools off April, May is super gray and like 60 degrees, and this week it was like summer is back. So I am sure I mean I we're getting 8590 plus, so I bet in the desert it was frickin' hot. I hope that he was either running at night or um yeah, was just able to move through that because man, we just got hit by summer this week.
SPEAKER_01Maybe his saving grace, and again, I know nothing, but maybe he has the radical airflow.
SPEAKER_00Maybe he does.
SPEAKER_01So there's that. Uh a few more things before we close up. Trailhouse announces first teammate, and it is Dylan Flewelling, a main native, really solid runners, just took third at the Chuckinut 50K back in March, and then ninth last weekend at a stacked Sun MP scramble. Yeah. Um, I don't exactly know how things are dripped. I had no idea that they were even gonna drip Dylan's name, but then I looked at the calendar, and I believe this whole thing starts on July 1st, and it's June 14th. So yeah, we're getting that two-week advance. And I don't know if you have more data or info on when the rest of the team goes out, but this is pretty this is a good one. It it's for me, it signals seriousness. He's a he's a legit runner. This is great.
SPEAKER_00It is. I was also surprised. I was like, oh, we're announcing. Okay, cool. So yeah, I'm I'm in the same boat, uh, but super exciting to see a name announced. I'm sure they'll keep rolling out. And um, yeah, I'm just I'm so pumped about this experiment. I think it's a great idea.
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SPEAKER_00So this is I have to David Callahan put out who's the CEO of Ultra Sign Up put out a great commentary on this which I really appreciated is Tutor Watch is shares the same parent company as Rolex and Rolex, you know, we see Wimbledon etc and so very interesting to see that Tutor has entered this space. And I really liked that uh David made this point where he says the point is identity the watch is for after for the finish line because Courtney is sponsored by Sinto as well. So I am very curious about how those two intermingle but it seems like hey this is almost kind of a completely different space for uh this watch and maybe Courtney is no longer with Cinto I don't think so but they're saying like it's not about a GPX or GPS watch. It's not about you know the performance piece this is more of like the lifestyle piece. And also it's seeming that Tudor you know is taking a bigger step into um the trail running world by signing four athletes I'm sure that was not just like hey here's a watch and that's it. I think I mean the rollout video was really beautiful all of the film etc so A I think the athlete choices were really interesting. I I loved that they were like oh yeah huge names but not the ones you necessarily expected right off the bat. Also a really good range of athletes like you have Baptiste and Courtney on the hundred miles side you have Miao and Remy on the shorter side. So I just I kind of loved it. I was really I'm I'm very curious to see where they take it great great perspective there.
SPEAKER_01I have a couple points but also maybe even some questions for you. I mean the first thing I'll say is when I after hearing you talk and then just thinking about sort of connecting the dots the demographics of trail running are incredible for luxury brands. Like the fact of the matter is it's it's an upper class, upper middle class sport. There's a lot of purchasing power in this community and so I think it makes total it's a no-brainer for these luxury brands to start marketing more heavily more personally in this oh go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Well have did you see the BBC article that came out just about a week ago or so saying why are so many people taking kind of luxury trips that are sweat equity essentially yeah it makes so much sense. Yep.
SPEAKER_01Yeah so there's that and then you mentioned well yeah like Courtney has Sunto and Tudor and we can we can now see how it would work fine it would make sense for them to work in tandem. She also has tailwind and knack on the nutrition side I know we're seeing a lot of like quote unquote bundling happening where the shoe brands are just starting to progressively own the athlete head to toe but um here are a couple cool examples where like the athletes are balancing like same category partners seems like it works. And at the very least if you are totally locked down head to toe on athletic gear, it's interesting that maybe this luxury space is going to become even more built out. I I can't imagine that it's going to end with tutor. So for any athletes out there one of my like if I was a professional athlete and I see this news about tutor, I would start doing some research around just like the more broad luxury brand space and see like can I be a first mover into some other brands in like I don't know furniture or mattresses or whatever. I mean the sky's the limit right like what is the what else is in the luxury brand space?
SPEAKER_00I mean this is quite this was a far-fetched dream I once pitched once pitched to Tiffany uh the jewelry brand because I wear I am that person I wear a Tiffany necklace my husband gave me and a bracelet for every race and I was like this travels with me it's been it's seen blood sweat tears all of it and so they uh because I used to live in in the Carmel like Monterey area after the big Sir Marathon you could go into Tiffany and get your medal engraved they would do engravings like they were involved in the big Sir Marathon scene. And so I was like hey take it one step further you know jewelry that is that brings you know your heart it it's like durable enough you know it goes with you it sees all of that adventure and so yeah that so Tiffany if you want to sponsor an athlete like I'm waiting I I pitched you once I'll do it again.
SPEAKER_01That's amazing. That's in I mean that's and that's such a personal like it just makes sense right like what a that's an amazing story to communicate to the brand and I mean just looking at the prices on these tutor watches $3600 for one I bet Courtney DeWalter easily sells conservatively let's say 200 conservatively conservatively and so like these like seemingly throwaway ancillary outside the sport non-endemic partnership deals I bet could end up being some of athletes' biggest deals because like the again going back to average order value customer acquisition these like it's so high that like signing for a hundred grand would be like no big deal to these brands that's the other thing is that when you have non-endemic the numbers are just so much they're so insignificant to a brand like that yeah it just it doesn't it's not even a blip on their radar.
SPEAKER_00And whereas we're like oh my gosh fighting for you know a thousand dollars here and there and they're like oh yeah well our marketing budget is millions of dollars so a $5000 budget is dropping the hat. So yeah it's interesting. Yeah for for uh for all the athletes out there that are working tirelessly to to sell a $4 gel to their audience let me present to you this $3600 watch don't apply a two out of 10 effort sorry don't apply a 10 out of 10 effort to a two out of 10 opportunity I just want your boy Scott Jurik really they should have sponsored your boy Scott Jurik to say that all of the mid-pack 50kers if you buy a tutor watch you too can move up to front of the mid-pack selling it for everyone should we uh should we close here with content of the week yeah I I mean I feel like the I I really appreciated David's perspective on LinkedIn about the Tutor watches um honestly I mean I've said this before but I've really been enjoying uh Steve Magnus he's been putting out commentary on the um the win by the Knicks and just kind of breaking down like the coach had been fired four times he had kind of been like you know maybe I'll just go travel and take some time off and also how they built the players had played at Villanova together that were then a part of um the winning team and they that kind of meticulously brought them together. And so I just have loved the way that he breaks things down. So if you want some kind of inspiring commentating on I think just sports that are happening Steve Magnus is a great follow Steve is ubiquitous.
SPEAKER_01It's amazing how many projects he's working in there's like four different podcasts I listen to where he's like the co-host and it's just it's amazing how productive he is and uh gets all this writing done all these like he's a he's amazing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah so cool.
SPEAKER_01Um great great rec uh mine requires a little bit of context so four years ago I met my brother in law and one of the cool things that he does is he has an ongoing project to read at least one biography of each of the presidents of the United States. And there's actually a website out there and it's called BestPresidentialbios dot com and you can go to like Thomas Jefferson Martin Van Buren Millard Fillmore and like there will be a list of all of the documented biographies on each of the presidents and the guy who owns this site or the person that owns this site has reviewed a lot of them and he gives them you know on a scale of you know one to five stars. And I have gone through and basically ordered like a bunch of the four and five star ones for each of the the presidents and I think I'm like I've got like nine done and it's been a really fun pro it has taken me like four years but I've got nine done and the one that I'm currently reading is American Lion and it is a biography of Andrew Jackson who was the seventh U.S. president he served from 1829 to 1837 pretty controversial president in a lot of ways um very controversial and uh yeah it's by John Meachum and I also read another one that John Meachum did for George H.W. Bush yeah I like his writing so it's been a really fun project and I've learned I love history and I like political history so um yeah outside it's been my escape from if I really need just like an escape from the running world I go to this world and it's been fun.
SPEAKER_00I love that I'm also always impressed by just the the depth and the the heft of books about presidents.
SPEAKER_01They're always just like a volume yeah um and a lot of them have similar traits it's cool to see like where they're all similar like you like it's almost like you there's like certain traits that are uh absolutely required to be president but then there's just like also just subtleties and differences across all of them and to everyone always has something and they're also always missing something critical and it's really cool to see how they leverage what they're natural for and then how they compensate for what they critically lack for the office.
SPEAKER_00Um that's why you need a team because you have to identify people that fulfill your weaknesses.
SPEAKER_01Totally yeah so there we go somehow we talked politics at the end. Uh this has been the Single Track News Alyssa great to have you here wishing you the most fun best of luck etc for Broken Arrow this coming weekend and we will see you all next Sunday next Monday.
SPEAKER_00Sounds great. Thanks Ben
