CTS Athlete Spotlight - Kevin Mays and Coach AJW | Koopcast Episode 54

trail and ultra runners what is going on what's happening welcome to another episode of the KoopCast as always i'm your host coach Jason Koop and on this episode of the podcast we have another cts athlete spotlight and this time it is with kevin mays and his coach andy jones wilkins more affectionately known as ajw like many athletes during the covid19 pandemic kevin has had his season turned upside down with canceled races and uncertain plans and i wanted to bring kevin on the show today as an excellent example of how to design a personal project that is both physically and psychologically challenging as well as personally meaningful kevin took his train wreck season and made a pivot to attempt a fastest known time style event on a 51 mile triple out and back run of the mammoth cave trail in kentucky and what i found interesting during the course of this conversation was that kevin and his coach set up a race day orientation around this event complete with aid stations how he mentally approached the attempt and kept coming back to the why surrounding the endeavor i hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as i did and let's get right into it here's my conversation with cts athlete kevin mays and his coach ajw

to to to to start out with everybody's got to know you guys's voices and since andy probably has the most distinctive voice you get to go last so kevin why don't you introduce yourself really quick for the listeners sure uh my name is kevin mays and i'm from bowling green kentucky have been uh running for about eight years so kind of started late in life i'm 56 um just uh got hooked on trail running about three years ago and then that is like a gateway drug to ultra running and that's where i'm at today and you have a beautiful southern draw i love those kentucky draws andy andy why don't you tell the listeners are going to know you just because of being in the ultra scene but quick intro and more importantly where are you because we're going to hear crickets in the background chirping every so often hi i'm andy jones wilkins and i've been running ultras since the early 90s and i'm kevin's coach with uh with carmichael training systems and i'm currently sitting uh outside the back of the employee cafeteria at the grand teton national park colter bay and where i'm here uh last few days of vacation with my family and nobody is going to feel sorry for you because of that location but you're there really specifically to get ready for a race that is

happening this weekend so the time by the time this podcast comes out that race will be said and done but you're going to do a race it's your first race in the covet era before we get into the mammoth cave railroad bike and hike fkt that kevin ran we're going to spend the majority of the time talking about that like what are you going to be expecting for the race well i'm heading up to the beaverhead 100k which is uh somewhat in my old stomping grounds i used to live in idaho and this race takes place along the idaho montana border on the continental divide and uh the race the race organization about five six weeks ago uh got got permission and and made the decision to continue with the race and it'll be my my first race race since february which was before the uh the covet 19 uh crisis if you will and i'm expecting um you know expecting the unexpected i suppose um it'll be interesting to have grab and go aid station supplies and uh and wear a mask going into aid stations a socially distant um opening uh pre-race briefing out in the park uh they've done a great job uh preparing for that and and i think uh i think most of all it'll be very interesting to see how how how the race ends up unfolding just as an event um i know that i've been uh of the belief and i think you have too coop that uh ultra running ultra

trail running in particular does have a does have social distancing kind of in its dna and i i'd be curious to see how this race um uses that and um and to experience it myself uh they're doing a quite a few health protocols uh taking temperatures uh things like things like that you've heard of you know other other happening happening in other places but um i'm looking forward to it and if nothing else i'm i'm looking forward to another nice long day in the mountains with some like-minded people because it's been a long time yeah i'm of this i'm of the same mind i just want to kind of get back to it in a responsible way right obviously but i think we're all kind of chomping at the bit all right well good luck this weekend have fun it is a strange time indeed um and that's like you got the right buff for it there aj oh yeah this is a a buff that kevin gave me a few months back i i think it was it before or after the the bottle of whiskey it was right after right after yeah i sense an inside story that um might take a few hours to explain um but but you know a lot of the weirdness and and that's related to covid is kind of it's permeated both the race space and these this personal project space and this is something that i want to talk to both of you both of you two about as coach and athlete kevin you did a really cool personal project recently and i want to start out with to just to set the scene of the what the trail is itself how it kind of popped up on your radar and

then we can kind of get into how you executed it as a as an athlete and then andy how andy helped you out as coach okay well uh i live about 20 minutes from mammoth cave national park which is the largest cave system in the u.s uh so it's a great place to go up and get to we don't have a lot of good technical trails around my area but mammoth caves has some uh so i've been spending a considerable amount of time going up there and when it came to the time frame of my training when i needed to incorporate a 50 miler and of course we know all the organized races have been canceled i was kind of faced with a dilemma what do i do do i just keep running regular endurance runs or do i proceed and i decided it kind of helped me determine what my why was why i was in ultra running to begin with so i thought i'm just going to go ahead and do my own 50 miler can i do that can i set one up can i logistically plan it out can i physically and mentally handle doing that when there's nobody else around no cheering people no aid stations uh and the it came to me that that trail that i'd been running in mammoth cave would be the perfect one it's uh it's a gravel kind of uh trail but with some nice little hills in it uh and it's a it's about eight and a half miles out and back so 17 mile loop uh so i just set up doing three of those to get my 50 miler and the way that this started out

it kind of i i get the impression that it kind of came about because of like a like just a series of events you had some things on the calendar and they all got obliterated just like everybody else's things got obliterated what did you have on the calendar previous to this that you were looking at doing i had a 50 mile race set up and i i'm really i'm drawing a blank where that was um you remember aj i don't remember where that was anyway i had a 50 miler set up for for may i had 100k set up for uh this month in the kettle moran 100k uh all leading up to my a race which is a hundred mile yet the yeti 100 mile race in september uh so all like you said all those just got wiped off because of the virus uh so you just kind of you we kind of had to get um get our imagination into gear and figure out how to compensate for that and so this was very literally serving as like a cornerstone piece of your training yes for a hundred miler down the line and correct that hundred miler down the line is still as of wow i always get dated when i record these podcasts and i release them like two weeks two weeks later as of july 9th that is still on the calendar still something that you're actively working towards it is okay so you have this out and back course that you've set up the mammoth cave railroad bike and hike trail is there a locally easier way to say that is there like a like a local

like oh it's just a railroad trail or something like that uh right here we just call it the trail the mammoth cave trail the trail the trail yeah okay so we'll call it the trail so you have you have this route picked out and it's out and back and out and back and out and back to equal 50 miles correct okay you took a little bit of time earlier but i want to go into a little bit more depth why this trail because you can do 50 miler anywhere yeah you can do it around your house a lot of people are doing these quarantine backyard ultras for my loops around their house and things like that what what was it specifically about this that resonated with you that you wanted to do a 50 miler for well a couple reasons one is my favorite trail one of my favorite trails and very convenient to get to but more importantly it really approximates the type of trail that i'm going to be running my 100 miler on it's the same type of material basically the same type of elevation and altitude changes so i wanted to make sure that what i'm training on is going to be what i'm facing and andy i'm going to bring you in here for a second as as kevin's coach when you're going through all of this back and forth of okay here's how we lay out the season because you have this apex race this hundred miler at the end of the year and we're going to do a b and c leading up to it a b and c kind of get wiped off take us through the process of putting in this 50 miler like how you're viewing it as a coach well kevin does love this trail and i knew it's it's like it's his home trail and so uh he he had

done you know many many out and backs on it and uh and i i felt like it would fit i i think deeper background he had had some disappointing results in uh in the fall uh early winter so another piece of the puzzle once the and i'm not saying these were bad results but they were definitely disappointing to kevin himself and he you know with that that caused a lot of conversation between the two of us about nutrition about injuries about uh hills things like that so when we when even before covet hit and we were mapping out the season i i realized that that kevin was going to definitely benefit from quote unquote training races and we know not all athletes benefit from training races some of them overdo it in training races and then their a races is ruined i got the sense that that wasn't the case with kevin so the confidence that would go into a do-it-yourself 50 miler once everything was shot down was actually a pretty short conversation and and it was pre it was precluded kevin correct me if i'm wrong was it was it four weeks before that you did a double out and back it was yes yeah so four weeks before the 50 he did a 34 i think the record should show too it's technically a 51 miler he did because it's 3 17 milers but but nonetheless uh that was huge for the confidence

and uh and and and as we get to the rest of the story we'll hear a little bit about how the how the third out and back came to be on race day but but i felt as much as the physical benefit the the psychological and emotional benefit i didn't doubt the fact that he could do kind of the mind-numbing same thing over and over again i i didn't he he's mature enough and and you know goal-oriented enough that that was not going to be an issue but uh but you know the distance the nutrition staying on top of things i mean we had had some nutrition challenges so dialing in nutrition on the 34 miler was really important and it you know it set the stage nicely for the 51 miler so you you guys were using this in a multitude of different ways first off is obviously like a physical piece of the training process right just putting 50 51 miles i got to keep correcting myself now because we're not giving you enough credit by calling it a 50 mile and round rounding down it was a physical part of the training process you're using it to like almost kind of like rebound from some disappointments according to andy is that a correct like a accurate way to put it good way to put it okay and in addition to that you're using it to uh like test case your race day nutrition program but it seems like that i don't want to paint the picture that this is like hastily put together but you didn't like put it out five months down the road like you just kind of looked at it and said yep i'm capable of doing

this i don't have i don't have to over-engineer the situation i'm gonna go out and do it yeah that's pretty much correct it was kind of like the light bulb came on said there's my route there it is well and i think the the last piece that's worth mentioning is that it meant something to you it's a trail that you run quite commonly you easily identified with and it's not just some random you know piece of trail or loop that you happen to cobble together because you had to do it it's kind of my uh version of andy's western states route you know he knows that route intimately i know this one intimately okay so since you know it so intimately go ahead andy i i i think it's worth saying too because of that knowledge there one of the disappointing races uh early late last year was where we had we had made some assumptions about uh what what the aid stations would be like and and and and where you know and and some some fueling and and it turned out to not be true so the beauty of this of this 51 miler was the predictability of it uh you know kevin knows the course like the back of his hand it could be out and back three times he could get some he could get some friends at least you know for the first couple loops to show up and and provide some aid so i think the predictability and the knowledge really helped uh so that he could just get out there and run i love the fact that both of you keep using this vocabulary race and even the things associated with

with like with a race so you're using the word course as opposed to trail right because that's what we call we call a race course not the trail you have aid stations did it very much feel like a race to you kevin it did uh as andy said i had set up where some friends would meet me at the far out point of the loop to bring me some some food and some water and things so it's kind of it felt like coming into an aid station when i'd see them and then get that little extra boost of somebody you know cheering you on did you have like a race bib and you know a medical band that they would clip if you didn't make the cutoffs like how far how far did all these elements of a race actually go well uh ironically yes i did have a race bib it was i'm also i signed up for the for laz's great you know uh virtual race across tennessee so i printed that bib out and had that that's what started that was my first race for that that course um but interestingly enough i did set up you know my pace splits and trying to maintain a semblance of what it would be like to be in a race with cutoffs uh you know all through this i'm my my whole training goal is to hopefully one day be able to run western states and try to you know make sure at least meet the 30 hour cutoff if not the 24 and so when i plan this out i'm planning it like i'm trying to to you know use the same pace for a hundred miler so all throughout the run i'm you know i'm checking my pace am i meeting

the goal i i would add too that that we talked through race day orientation if i'm not mistaken we established an actual start time yep right so that kevin was going to start at a specific time and and we designed that thinking of you know trying to minimize as much as we might get into darkness on the back side as as as necessary so i mean we really were i'm glad you picked up on that coop we really were thinking of this as a race i mean even the fact that kevin was texting me at the end of each loop to tell me how it was going you know and would you would you normally do that in a race text your coach in the middle of it no okay we'll do it at the end probably not that but uh but he but he also knew he also knew that i was you know waiting to hear from him yeah that's brilliant okay so you've got you've got this you've got this uh this race i'm going to use that that terminology as well you've got this race set up for yourself describe the course because you've done it a lot but i want to get i want to paint like a scene of the mind with the actual trail and the course itself like take take me and the listeners like on that journey with you like what does the trail look like what are the features of it how does it all look and feel so where i started uh and where i was able to park my car and begin that's first uh first four miles is probably some of the hilliest of it i mean you start out going vertical now granted you know the elevation here is not like it is out west but

it's some pretty good inclines uh i don't know the grade percentages and all that but so i'm i'm starting out literally doing my vertical climbs uh it's a crushed stone trail uh and as the name of it implies it used to be an old railroad uh line with some modifications to it so i'm starting out uh the first four miles or so hitting a lot of inclines then it finally starts to level out at about mile five uh for a good uh another four miles it's and then you start hitting some more inclines before you come out to the to the finish so it's got a it's got a fair number of of climbing that you have to do out and back and so you did that out and back and out and back and out and back a triple out and back for 51 miles not 50 and after it was all said and done do you officially have the triple out and back fkt for the mammoth cave railroad bike and hike trail uh yes uh you know in an email exchange with you earlier i said you know giving me an fkt is a generous uh accomplishment because probably about 30 minutes after this podcast airs someone's going to beat it i'm sure well that's the nature of fkt is you can kind of like make them however you want to but as of today you go on the fastest known time.com website and you were there humble kevin mays with your triple out and back

of this particular trail in kentucky my 15 minutes of fame there why it's lasting more than 15 minutes because you did this like two three weeks ago now no but in all seriousness like i know you and andy were trying to put together something that was meaningful to you so check the box there it's a trail that you ran all the time you wanted to put something together that had a significant amount of distance on it so 51 miles and you went out there with a like a race infrastructure aid stations proper start time and things like that were you pushing yourself like it was a race as well i was uh for the first uh two loops i was pushing myself just like it would be a race i was trying i was checking my splits making sure i didn't spend more than a few minutes at each stop for an aid station and so forth now i'm sure we're going to get in a little bit more the what happened between the the second and third loop that's where the the wheels started to unravel a little bit um but it was a point it was a point where i finally realized i didn't need to push myself as hard as though this was a race this was more of a personal accomplishment of being able to run the entire distance so once i took that pressure off of me it became much more enjoyable okay so you put i should jump in i gotta jump in there because it was really it was really at the end of the second out and back that it could have switched from being a race to just a training run kevin could have just gotten his

car gone home called me up said you know i called it good at 34 miles um and he didn't you know and and it was he gave himself permission to slow down a little bit he gave himself permission to take a little bit longer at that that third you know essentially to begin the third out and back you know it was it turned out to be a really warm humid day that was really weighing him down by that point uh after 34 miles so it gave him a chance to hit a reset button just like you would you would do in a race um but it was very very interesting for me as a coach especially in the sort of post-mortem to realize that that even though we had gone through this effort to uh you know to make sure he thought of it as a race up until that point it still could have been like hey i'm not getting any medal for this i'm the only guy out here you know i get dinner's waiting for me at home you know i can i can get get out of this and call it good and he didn't do that and uh and i think oh there are probably many reasons for that but that's where it really felt a lot more like a race and i think ultimately you know those first couple of miles for kevin i think starting loop three were tough but you know but by the end by the return by miles 46 to 51 were pretty much at the same pace he had been running that section that final five mile section in the first two loops so it was a good experience i think all around and making it have that race feel helped get them up the trail for that third loop

okay let's talk about the third loop because both of you have alluded to this so kevin before we get there loop number one 17 miles 17.6 miles how'd you feel perfect perfect textbook everything's going okay loop number two come back to your little aid station how's it feel getting rough getting right okay yeah the uh in my typical luck all the weeks leading all the days and weeks leading up to that day we had had beautiful weather in kentucky i mean mid 70s no humidity just perfect like probably what it feels like in in wyoming and colorado but as my luck would happen that morning a heat wave came in and we went from having a high of in the mid 70s to the mid 90s i mean it got to 95 we had a 20 degree jump in our in our in our heat and the humidity so um i up towards the end of the second loop i was becoming very dehydrated uh in fact i was starting to experience some signs of of hypothermia and i you know i was not sweating anymore i couldn't drink anything couldn't pee uh very dizzy um not so sure that i didn't even black out one time because i i lost some miles in there i just didn't know where i was um and that's when i i i thought okay this this 50

miler has just turned into a 50k that i was going to head back to the car and call it quits so i pulled out my phone i had about two miles left and i texted andy and i said if there was ever a time you had an andyism this would be it give it to me and uh so he he was responsive sent back a few encouragements uh but the the one that always the one that that got me was the the suck it up buttercup yeah he just he said you got to keep going because you're going to regret not doing this so i headed back to the car took about 30 to 40 minutes to regroup cool down turn the air conditioner on me taking some water some food uh just hit that reset button before heading out in that third loop all right andy take us through your point of view during that that point of the entire race you know kevin's out there you know it's a hot day you know he's going to be suffering you get you know some messages after the end of the first loop everything's going to plan and then you get the i need some help what do you think i was i was worried that we were back in the in the fall and winter some of the disappointing races so i i i tried i kind of tried to pull out all the stop i mean this was via text but i i tried to pull out all the stops and then you know just suck it up buttercup just kind of came out there and i think if we ever get memorial shirts made for the fkt that'll be the motto you know

because it really did it was the one that stuck with kevin and and of course since then anytime something goes wrong with my running he uh he tells me to suck it up buttercup also so uh it's it's kind of a become a good little thing between us but you know i i did say i said look it's not a race but you're going to be bummed out if you don't if you don't finish this thing i kind of i sort of did did that i said look it's okay you're not going to break whatever time goal you wanted to do it's it's okay that you might have to finish in the dark you know get yourself cooled down you'll get into air conditioning you know and and hit reset and get out there one more time and so um and at that point he just he just kind of got it done and as i said i think uh i think the the 30 minute break helped but but so too did getting the momentum again and and getting rolling and and and frankly since then you know in the in the week subsequent to this uh you know kevin's training has been fantastic i i i gotta say a little a little more background information uh kevin kevin teaches uh spin regularly spin classes uh upwards to three times a week pretty intensely uh and so a pre-covid he was balancing his running training with spin classes and when covid came on a lot of the spin classes were were canceled and and i was like well dude let's throw in some more running and yet you know we weren't sure how much more the the the more running was going to impact but i think it certainly helped um you know you know obviously

i hope he gets to go back to the spin classes they're really good it's a great way for him to get you know a high intensity workout without the impact um but i have to believe that a little bit of the of the fortunate aspect of that third loop going well was a little bit more running on kevin's legs over the previous six weeks that then once the reset button was hit hit he was ready to go kevin in your spin classes now when it gets really hard you just tell them to suck it up buttercup well i i have officially retired from spin classes so i won't get a chance to tell them that but you gotta go back just to use that line come on now yeah i do tell that to my running group there you go there you go you can use it there it's always a good line so this whole thing this whole this this whole event that you've planned out this 51 miler is playing out just like a race you have the highs you have the lows you come into an aid station and andy virtually when a lot of times he'd be there physically get your butt out of the chair and i think that that's a really cool element of it so take us through the third lap you get up you decide that you're kind of like resolved to finish at this point there is not going to be a dnf if there is is there a finisher's medal at the end of this waiting for you no okay well you still get that if there were a finisher's medal or a belt buckle or whatever but take everybody through the last lap after after this after this incredible pep talk by andy well i i had mentioned earlier that i had i had put the pressure on me to try to make a a pace

goal and try to maintain that so when i came in after that second loop and realized that if i were running an actual 24-hour goal race i wouldn't make it i mean it just i would miss the cutoff and so that was kind of a little bit demoralizing but after i regrouped i began to realize i've just taken that pressure off of me and it did free me up to go back out because now i'm like well hell i got what else am i going to do you know i i know i'll wake up the next day feeling fine so as andy said i would regret not having finished that race that that run so after taking that pressure off um heading back out and uh and and by the way some of the food i used was that that uh suggestion you is it what is the uh shoot it's the irish potatoes and the the chips oh just potato chips now put potain or something oh oh oh polenta polenta yes so it was a polenta i had some polenta and chips to to regroup with but so i headed back out wait a minute hold on you had the wherewithal in advance of all of this to have polenta of all things at your aid station yeah oh i had everything okay let's go through everything because i think this is pretty fun too so let's paint this picture you're doing this self-supported race what what's in your aid station bin so i had packaged up all these things the night

before and taking them to the people who are going to deliver them but for like the the first stop i think i had i had avocado wraps um with bacon and um just some water and chips everything was chips uh and then the second aid station i had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich there was all the the candies you know i had oreos i had m&ms i had the gummy bears uh and back in my car i had the more heavy stuff like the polenta uh some boiled potatoes um and of course you know around here you have to have fireball so i had some of that there too oh that sounds horrible i think it's important to keep in mind too we were you know we're looking at long-term goal here 100 mile race yeah um you know nutrition has been uh you know a a winding road for kevin so literally when we talked before this and before the 50k i was like hey throw in the literally throw in the kitchen sink you have everything have every see what see what looks good or seems good at the time and if if polenta is going to be the thing then go for some polenta yeah just trying to train the gut as you would say i'm so glad that the polenta and chip story has made its way not only over to the states but over to the states in a way that an athlete can actually use it so i love it all right so kevin let's let's wrap it up a little bit what did you learn i learned my why to be quite honestly it when when i got back

from that second loop and was debating was debating whether or not i was going to have to draw or or what to do and i took that pressure off of me of trying to maintain that pace i began to realize it's not about the race it's about what can i physically and mentally accomplish and that's what became more important to me was there's a i want to see that's why i got started in ultra running to begin with i wanted to see what i could do and and that has become ever more important as this pandemic has gone on and and more and more races have just dropped off the radar it's no longer chasing after some swag or a medal or a buckle although you know i still want that western states buckle but it's it's more of can i do this and and i that's my whole goal is i want to get out there and i want to accomplish that i'm 56 years old started running late i want to be able to prove to myself my family my friends that you know that age has nothing to do with this if you want to achieve 50 miles or 100 miles then put the work in and do it and when covid struck and people were faced with oh well geez why do i run anymore it's like you got to stay disciplined if you want to accomplish what you want to achieve and kevin i think if we learn anything from covid if people take take away from this their meaningful soulful connection with running and the way that you described it is your

why that's going to be a wholeheartedly positive outcome out of this whole pandemic so i'm 100% with you there yeah if you'd asked me a few years ago to run a solo 50k or 100k that's coming up here next i would have said why in the hell would i want to do that but now it's now it's hey why not let's do it i love it andy any last words of wisdom before we let you two go i i i mean i'm a broken record when it comes to mental training and and kevin did this on his own but uh but you know the the grit he showed you know getting out of the car and doing that third loop that that's gonna that's gonna pay dividends far beyond any any race result and i think for me what i learned as a coach and even what i've you know imparted on some of my other athletes over the last couple of months uh as people have become increasingly frustrated with the lack of races that are out there is you know there's still a lot of things to learn a lot of ways in which we can learn about ourselves in this sport uh independent of a race even if we create our own race like uh like kevin and i did so um that's that's really what i learned the most and and you know it was a really good example of a of a coach athlete relationship i mean yes the texting you know during the event and the suck it up buttercup you know that's kind of the that's kind of the surface stuff but i think the i think the way in which it it played out the the the the the aspect of the training between a coach and an athlete that is about the the training program and putting in the miles and so forth but

but it's also about you know having the having a strong enough relationship that you can make something like this happen i love it what a great way to end andy thanks for coming on the podcast today kevin thank you for coming on the podcast today i bet some people are going to be inspired by this and i do hope that uh this uh fkt that you set stands some course of time you know at least another day after we finish recording hopefully by the time we uh uh air this air this podcast but good luck to you for the rest of the season as well thank you i appreciate it you know it's uh the stuff you're putting out there coop it's just pure gold and i've i'm eating it up every week no thanks a lot coop this was this was a lot of fun and there we have it folks i always appreciate bringing athletes like kevin on the podcast and i know that athletes like kevin they're not going to get onto the cover of trail runner magazine or ultra running magazine or anything like that but he can still serve as an inspiration to everybody and what he was able to do on the mammoth cave trail certainly inspired me and that's why i wanted to bring his story out on the podcast with his coach ajw for everybody to listen to and to share i hope everybody enjoyed this episode as much as i did if you have any feedback for me feel free to hit me up on social media and if you think that one of our coaches like ajw or any one of our other fantastic coaches is the right coach to get your butt in gear for whatever goals you have planned

for 2021 go ahead and hit me up on social media or you can check out all of our coaching packages at trainright.com that's it for today folks appreciate the heck out of everybody listening and as always we will see you out on the trails you