Ultrarunner of the Year and Performance of the Year with Meghan Hicks and Topher Gaylord⎮KoopCast Episode 7

what's going on trail runners welcome to the end of 2019 or maybe it's the very beginning of 2020 depending upon when you are listening to this hope your weeks are going well hope your training is going good hope you're starting to lay out what 2020 is going to look for you from a training and a racing perspective the end of the year always offers up this just really interesting project that we see ultra running magazine put on in their ultra runner of the year and performance of the year rankings what they do is they get a team of people together and this year it seems to be about 30 strong and tropical john menninger puts together this elaborate spreadsheet uh which he actually shared with me this year uh because i told him i was putting this podcast together uh that he puts together this elaborate spreadsheet of all of the top performances across the entire and the entirety of the year for all of the north american both the men and the female runners and this group of athletes and race directors and journalists and knowledgeable people in the sport get to kick it around and determine who they feel are the top ultra runners of the year and who

has the top performances of the year and a lot of those uh a lot of the people who cast those ballots end up putting their ballots out publicly some of them keep them to their cells but they're all collected by ultra running ultra running magazine and in their february issue they start to publish the results they're going to start to leak out the results for ultra runner of the year usually on january 1st so you guys can look forward to that and keep track of that through instagram and twitter but in order to peel the process back a little bit i got two of the more prolific voters in this entire process and we wanted to discuss who they thought were the ultra runners of the year on both the men's and women's sides and what they thought the performances of the year were on both the men's and the women's side uh first up we had megan hicks who needs no introduction but i'm going to do it anyway megan hicks of i run far uh she gave us her opinions on these two particular aspects uh from her snowy home in moab utah and i also brought on board one of the original gangsters in the ultra running world sometimes known as the godfather of ultra running tofer gaylord uh he was the first american to run in the UTMB the ultra trailer mon blanc and has been around the sport just for forever and i know from personal experience having many many conversations with tofer over the years how much work he puts in to this process every single year it's like another two or three full-time jobs uh for him as well as a lot

of the other uh a lot of the other ultra runner of the year voters i got both of these two together to kick around their thoughts on the performances of the year the ultra runners of the year and really see to and really to pick their brains and uh see what their opinions are on kind of what went down we had a really fun conversation uh we also opened it up to some theoretical bantering at the end and you guys will just have to wait and see what that is all about but the conversation was really fun uh i had a great time with these two and i really appreciate their time uh before we get into it directly if you have not had a chance to participate in i runs far end of the year pledge drive do yourself a favor go do it brian and megan they are hands down the hardest working people in the sport they bring so much to the table in terms of race coverages and the articles that they curate and all the interviews that they do of people at the finish line it's just an incredible resource that we should all treasure in the ultra running community so if you haven't done so already go to i run far participate in their end of year pledge drive and you know help help keep this thing going because it is not easy what they do uh second thing i want to mention is that we're having a little bit of trouble with tofer's microphone i tried to clean it up as much as possible but as a lot of these remote interviews happen uh sometimes they're just uncontrollables out there so sorry for that uh hopefully the audio

turns out great because the conversation is fantastic and it was really fun so without any further ado you guys here we go topher gaylord megan hicks on the ultra runners of the year and the performances of the year for 2019 both of your ballots are in right uh yep my ballots in they're in and i made a mistake on one and i tried to correct it and it was too late to correct it so i feel so sad what did you make the mistake on i forgot about stephen moore's um course record or age group course record at western states the age group records and performances can kind of be tricky just because there's a ton of them right well and just how do you how do you value it you know there's so many fast people in their 50s on the age groups but then i'm super inspired by these people in their 70s and 80s that are you know that that sort of rose to to my uh top of my list which are which are different i mean it's a hard one to be to evaluate because some people go for these fast age group records for the people are just entering because it's over 50 and over and then there's i'd sort of always i always throw on at least two or three

that are in those you know the oldest for a distance is always inspiring to me that's exactly what i do tofer really yeah yeah so like half and half or like yeah half and half yeah yeah yeah and so i always end up finding that i get the oldest folks i unless there's a really super standout performance in the 50s i usually sort of go to um the oldest finisher of the distance as my age group winner so it just depends on the force ranking yeah you know the process that you guys are involved in uh john menninger is always described as this as this thing where you're trying to compare apples oranges bananas and throw whatever other fruit that you want to into that whole thing and so i don't envy any anybody in this whole process trying to try to determine what's greater than what or what performances stand out to what other performances and and even on the ultra runner of the year side of things how to combine all of those into essentially one composite who did the best out of the entire year so why don't we start out with how like the ballot process works and how each of your individual research uh processes work starting out with megan why don't you take us through how that worked for you this year yeah sure we get an email from ultra running magazine via tropical john menninger and he sort of gives us a bullet point

list of things to consider and it's basically you know we're voting on north american runners running ultras anywhere in the world um he specifies that the performance of the year is one great performance whereas ultra runner of the year you should be considering the full body of work but there's no recommendations on like um what full body of work is which i think leaves things open to subjective interpretation from each of the voters on the panel you know what is that three ultras is that five ultras is that tin ultras um and then he tells us that the first emphasis should be on performances in competitive events where a large number of top runners are competing and then of course uh head-to-head competition if you've got you know people on your list who've competed against each other a couple times in the year and somebody beat somebody or it was a draw um that's a consideration in terms of creating your ranking and um one other recommendation from ultra running magazine which i find fascinating is that they recommend that we vote with the idea that versatility is a plus so a runner who has a great performance on um shorter distances and then longer distances technical trails more runnable terrain roads trails um that is considered um something we should be thinking about when we're when we're voting but aside from that it's pretty um open in terms of how each of us are to make our make our choices and i think there's around 30 people who are given the ballot um

though i do know that there are some uh folks who don't quite make the deadline so i don't know how many they end up incorporating um year to year and in terms of how i sort of interpret the process or what we've been told to do or what i add on to recommendations from running is i always try to think about what i think my personal biases might be um i know like for sure my biases races that i go to in person either to crew or pace a friend to you know if i happen to be there running myself or if i'm there covering the race for i run far i think i am apt to have a bias toward the those races because i get really into the story like following it from start to finish so i get really excited about how runners do um i do i also think that there are certain times of the year where i just don't pay attention to races quite as much as i do other races like we all need some down time and we take vacations and stuff so i kind of miss i know i miss top performances here and there so i you know that's a bias i need to kind of watch for when i start this um for me choosing performance of the year is a lot easier um i yeah i um am able to sort of write those down real quick and then be pretty happy with them i don't i don't switch them around um ultra runner of the year is a lot is a lot harder for me

um and how i go about choosing is for me it's all about uh first the performance like if there's a world record performance almost always that goes to the the top of my ranking and then after that uh races where a person performs like first second third and there's a lot of competitive depth um with like international competitive competitive depth like as a step above national competitive depth and then regional um and then i kind of put like the idea of american records or potentially there have been a couple instances of american age group records um as something to consider though some american records are like they're pretty long-standing it's a really like badass record and some are a little bit more like there's room for it to grow yeah we're going to talk about that in a little bit and i i guess that's about it but yeah um and then kind of oh i want the other thing i wanted to say was that for me what i think of as um like a full year's body of work is three to four four ultras and if somebody has been super prolific and super um successful like i think you kind of have to think about that but i really um appreciate runners who don't run a ton of ultras and do really well you know the three or four that they stand up to and so for me i think a person can be ultra runner

of the year really high up on the list with three or four really successful ultra runs and i think we're starting to see that a little bit more and more pan out where runners are being and i think this is a healthy thing where runners are being a little bit more choosy about the races that they really peak for and the races that they go to in order to essentially extend their careers it's it's a little bit more rare that we see the serial racers that are always at the top of the podium where they're racing 8 9 10 11 12 times a year and coming in the top three in each in each one of those and i think that that's long term good for the sport to see a little bit more of that uh a little bit more of that pick and choose style uh of racing versus tagging on a bunch of races that you know that just seem to go on forever yeah i mean i i couldn't agree more um we have so many now heartbreaking stories of you know runners as ajw andy jones wilkins likes to say that have like supernova explosive careers and then they just can't stay where they are because they're just doing a bit too much and that's heartbreaking all right tof do you have anything to add to your personal ultra run of the year and performance of the year process that you go through yeah so i mean i've been so i've been on the voting panel since 2012 and i would say the biggest change that i've seen i mean every year there continues to be just

mind-blowing inspiring performances i mean the the speed in competition has been massively transformational in the last you know five to seven years and and honestly it's it's it continues to get better uh every year for the past 10 years and so it's made the it's made it more difficult the voting process i think for me um because also there's been a proliferation of of running races and and megan spoke to it you know just about like really focusing in on on on looking comprehensively at at all of the results and um and looking at which events have been the most competitive so i actually you know if we look at it there's like you said there's about 30 voters and it's a combination of athletes coaches um you've got press and and um brands i think that are in there as well um and then you've got ultra running cognoscenti that are that are you know just students of the sport that are on the voting panel and it's not so different than college football rankings i mean there's subjectivity in it and you you absolutely you know bring your personal biases i try to take a really um methodical approach and you know this year the ballots were due uh christmas eve which uh made for some uh cramming a

bit for finals i always really like to take my time and like megan i have a much more challenging time um force ranking the top 10 of ultra run of the year both for men and for women and so what i normally do is i get a collection of about 13 to 14 athletes i don't put them in order um and then i actually take there's a spreadsheet that um tropical john mettinger sends over i reformat so i can sort that by um a variety of different um uh filters uh looking at um top events that i believe are the most competitive in the year based on who is at the events um wins course records and um and so i cut the data a lot of different ways to begin to build out my force ranking of the top 10 and that always just like megan was describing that's that's the most time consuming work and the hard thing is you know i think the top three to four i i would guess are very similar across most of the voters from sort of four to ten i think that's where the subjectivity comes in um to play in terms of body of work and and um and i also would say i probably prioritize for me for top three to five on my ultra run of the

year ranking i definitely i'm probably a little old school this way but i definitely consider a hundred mile performance as critical to that um ultra run of the year performance certainly in the in the top five um i'll take some really fast um perhaps runners in the bottom half of the top 10 um that maybe had a cluster of of really impressive runs but maybe not um a hundred mile knock out of the park run um and they'll show up in my top 10 so um i also look when it when i think about versatility i really look now if i saw an athlete that had a cluster performances in one geographic region only say the southwest of the u.s or the uh southeast of the the u.s um and they really didn't race anywhere else i would probably rank them much lower um than someone who actually went and performed in other parts of the world you know there's so many races in in europe and asia um here in north america and anyone that's that's raced in foreign countries knows how difficult it is to manage your your training your tapering and your and you're basically showing up just able to to run well and and mentally uh drive through that so most of the people in my top 10 um all include really um meaningful and high quality international

performances as well and and then the only other thing i'd add is you know in performance of the year um similar to megan i really look at um standout performances so always look at course records um and or world records american records um and then i'll just look at um exceptional head-to-heads uh as well um and then finally on age group performances i really look at um i look at a combination of breakthrough performances probably with the folks in in age group they go 50 and older so i'll look at really standout performances in that 50 year old range and then i'll look at really the oldest runners that are going um fast or just long at a distance i mean i you know i had i think don winkley who ran you know 326 miles across the year six day race and he's 80 years old that to me is just totally inspiring total badass yeah total badass amazing um okay we're we're gonna come back to the some of the things that you guys were talking about on the ultra run of the year side a little bit later and because i think a lot of what you guys were mentioning in terms of versatility not only versatility across distances and across different types of terrain but tofer as you mentioned versatility

almost across geography is what you're just talking about it makes it a really interesting discussion but to start out with let's talk about what you guys feel are the individual performances of the year on the women's and the men's side and tofer you're going to lead off here we're going to first talk about who you have as the top three women's performances of the year why don't you run down all three of them and give us a little bit of commentary on why you feel those kind of rose to the to the top of the heap for you right on okay so um top performances of the year i had camille heron's um world championship 24-hour world record which she uh she beat her own world record uh one year later and that that ranked for me top performance of the year um and and then i had um courtney de walter's UTMB uh win and champion race uh at UTMB is number two and i had i had that as number two um behind camille's uh world record performance primarily i mean courtney had a tremendous race but i bet if you ask courtney if that was her performance the year i'm not sure she would say that was her performance the year uh matter of fact in in her interview at the end she was sort of surprised she was able to hang on

less um so if you were there live and we we were and we were calling it and it was it was an impressive run she ran out hard um and winning UTMB for me is a performance of the year um effort but that's why it ranked behind camille's uh 24-hour world world record um and then i had sabrina stanley's um reunion race diagonal defu um as number three and um i haven't been to reunion i've spoken with a lot of folks that have it's a it's a brutal course there's many americans that have gone down in that course and um and so i've got a lot of respect for that i think sabrina being that she raised primarily internationally this year um i don't think she was on a lot of folks radar and and i don't know that she was in the mix for me and in overall um ultra of the year but in terms of single performances those were the three megan um well tofer and i chose exactly the same for um number one and number two um and yeah for me camille's 24-hour world record she just bettered the record by so much she sent you know women's 24-hour running into a whole different category and she was only what was it like 8k or 8.5k behind the men's winner at the end i mean something

it just categorically insane and um for me like the reports coming out at the location i wasn't there but i understand it was not ideal conditions for running really fast like the the layout of accessing your uh aid stations and uh sort of the order of where people were instructed to run and which side they were to pass each other and some strange turns and stuff to get in and out of the track facility where the aid stations were just were not um ideal and camille just had a in my like my mind is blown like when i look at those numbers so for me she was performance of the year like not even close um and uh courtney de walter's win at UTMB um for me there is no other performance stage for the sport of trail ultra running right now than the competitive depth of UTMB it's just you don't get that anywhere else right now and yeah i totally agree with tofer that she had to suffer pretty hard to get her win and she probably would agree with us in saying that her potential there is a lot higher than what she did that day but she was far and away the better the best woman there and to to stand on the the finish line of the most competitive trail ultra marathon in the world as the champion with all of those logistics that tofer mentioned about how difficult it is to be a north

american runner to you know go to western europe and dominate is it's pretty amazing after that i had a really hard time choosing my three four and five women's performance of the year my the three choices that i just couldn't let go of and couldn't um had a hard time ciphering out were katrin jones's ninth place at the comrades marathon pam smith's fourth place at the iau 24-hour world championships behind camille and claire gallagher's win of western states um ultimately i chose i looked at um in terms of the competitive depth of how close the the lead women were to each other at comrades and 24-hour world championships and um i think katrin's getting into the top 10 in that women's race this year was a pretty pretty amazing feat tofer any banter on the other side of the court yeah well you know i i agree it gets it gets tough um uh interestingly i had claire was also in the mix for me in the top five and um and i you know i mean i believe it was the second fastest time in western states history behind ellie greenwood's um record um you're correct it was an impressive uh it was an impressive performance um and uh and i and i think i think the one two my guess is that's likely where it will come

out i'll be really interested in where number three um ultimately comes out with with the rest of the the voting panel but um i do i do what i think is really interesting with um both megan's picks and my picks were that they were primarily um international races and i think that's what's really for me in the voting has really changed um how i'm viewing the voting now where you know i think camille's um performance just another example i mean it was it was it was an international race and she absolutely crushed her own world record by i mean i think you're you're right on megan she's so thoroughly dominated that performance and that's why for me it was also sort of a uh a really easy pick for for number one all right you guys let's let's move on to the men's performance of the year megan we're going to have you start out with this one who do you have for your top three men's performances of the year top three again i i had a pretty easy time with one and two and then i was riding the struggle bus pretty hard for number three um i picked the two uh world records set in ultra running this year as my top two performances of the year um it was a hard choice to pick between the two um but zach bitter's 100 mile world record at six days in the dome he ran 11 hours and 19 minutes and

bettered the world record uh which had been set 17 years before by russian which was 11 28 um and honestly i haven't watched a lot of track races i don't know a ton about it but i've read there's a really in-depth description of the previous world record holders race oleg karidinovs i'm not sure if i got that pronunciation right and from all descriptions he ran out of his mind that day and so for me like you know hearing you know expert track people from a couple decades ago saying running that was a mind-blowing performance than you know what zach bitter did at six days in the dome earlier this year he bettered it by so so much i mean seconds per mile is pretty amazing um my second performance of the year was jim walmsley's 50 mile world record at the project carbon x out along the the river in california um he bettered a previous world record by 43 seconds the world record was a lot older set in 1984 by bruce fortis south african um and i guess for me it came down to a couple reasons why i chose that for performance number two versus one um one he bettered the record by a lot less of a margin and zach bitter bettered his record and

um two like project carbon x was a race like they hoka one one uh crossed all the t's dotted the i's to set it up as a true race where uh records could be set but it was a project that was planned with jim walmsley either working on the 50 mile world record and or the 100k world record everything was set up for him um in my mind that's a lot different than you know uh signing up for a race that has all of these other independent variables that you have to fold yourself into um it was this project folded into jim walmsley um so for that reason i picked zach bitter's record as performance of the year over jim walmsley's and then uh my third i picked jim walmsley's course record at western states he reset his own course record by 21 minutes um yeah what he's doing on that course the last couple years is just like cannot comprehend cannot make brainwaves function to comprehend we should ask jim for the last two or three miles he had enough brainwaves to comprehend but that's seriously all right so who you got top three men's performances of the year yeah really interesting um megan i both very similar slightly different order but exact same three performances so i had you know and i've it's interesting because i've had some conversations with some folks

after i submitted my ballot um around zach bitter's uh you know uh 100 mile split six days in the dome 1119 versus walmsley's course record i voted um jim walmsley's western states course record as performance of the year i think you know he and jared hazen pushing each other all day the heat and the conditions you know one argument is hey you have perfectly simulated um uh environment on a track so actually a track performance is actually a more difficult performance to your point you know the russian that was a record that was set in 2002 it was a it was it was a mind mind-boggling both are mind-boggling um performances so i i don't even diminish for a second one over the other it was a it was really hard to decide but i guess i prioritized the western states performance because of uh the variables in the course that you have to overcome um versus a really um a controlled environment so there's much more uncontrolled environment in something like western states and um and it was not an easy year so you know jim was able to lower his record and i also

think that the level of competition in the race forced jim to rise to the occasion and he ran out of his mind and i mean i was down at no hands bridge when he came across literally sprinting across no hands bridge never looking back and five and a half inch vertical travel exactly uh it's so it was it was incredible and so i had um yeah i had walmsley is um number one i had zach bitter's performance uh six days in the dome for his hundred mile split uh is number two and then i had walmsley's 50 mile world record at project carbon x is number three you guys know who gets screwed out of all this it's jared hazen seriously it's jared we love you brother but dang it man like if just a couple of things were different this whole conversation revolves around jared this is true he this is true and and you know it's amazing because walmsley you know at the finish at western states is essentially acknowledge that i mean you know he and he and jared are roommates and and it truly is an example of steel sharpening steel i mean jared um he literally helped bring the very best out of of jim walmsley that day and i think i think jim would acknowledge that and and probably jim he brought the very best out of jared that day as well um and and you know those guys had the same throwdown at santa barbara

nine trails i mean if you really look at the the talent that showed up for that event which isn't historically a super competitive event but because all of some of the top talent from from north america came it made that an incredibly competitive day as well and um and i think i think that group down there in flagstaff really helps get the very best of each other and and they're helping each other raise the level of of ultra running around the world yeah i totally agree uh i want to put a little i want to put a little bit more of like a little bit more of a magnifying glass on an aspect that that both of you have mentioned in this performance of the year uh discussion and this this gets brought up every year when we're talking about performances of the year and this ultra runner of the year and i'm gonna it normally gets brought up in the context of trail versus track performances but i'm gonna put a slightly different slightly different spin on it that i think is a little more it's just a little bit more correct and poignant and this is the concept of performance context so with races like western states and UTMB as both of you guys have mentioned dozens of runners each and every single year come out to those races and they spill their guts out trying to win the race and what a consequence of that is that year after year after year we have this entire context of many many many performances

over roughly the same course and over roughly the same types of conditions so you can look at jim walmsley's western states 100 record and you can compare it to not only just the winners of the last 20 some odd years but all the people who got second like jared right and got third and fourth and things like that and you have this entire body of performance context to stack it up against you don't have that quite as in as quite of a robust fashion on the track and the timed elements and it always creates this really interesting proposition for the people that are voting for the performances of the year in the ultra run of the year to kind of put that in the right place now that's not to say that the timed and track performances are worth any less than the trail ones it's just harder to have a grasp on them because there's not dozens of athletes competing in the same discipline on the same course at the same time of year every single year year in and year out if you just look at the 100 mile you know world record i mean how many you know that's that's a record that stood for 17 years and just the sheer fact that the western states course record to use that as an as the analog has progressed so much year after year after year after year and this one other record whether it's you know i'm using you know i'm using zach's record as as as an example but there are many

other track records that are very similar but that record hasn't quite progressed that quickly i think illustrates this performance context so i was wondering if you guys could kind of shed some light on how you two individually weed through that because it's super difficult and in i don't envy your position at all and trying to and trying to come up with answers to that tofer you want to start us out on it well yeah i mean i think it's a really good point and i think you're digging at the the exact um the the the exact challenge of the voting process in apples oranges and bananas i mean really the the the performances in an event like western states that's got one of the longest hundred what it's got the longest hundred mile running history in the world um versus a track performance are literally apples and oranges and oranges and so i think um i think there's no right answer um and no wrong answer but i do i you know you you know from my voting i basically reconciled that through um believing that head-to-head um competition of the the best um runners of either the era or the time or the day were lining up against each other in those in those um uncontrollable environments um for me um just

give uh a higher ranking on performance of the year it's not so dissimilar to like trying to compare um you know climbing everest versus a super hard bouldering problem in a in a climbing gym like like that's how that's how many variables there are on climbing a big mountain versus how many variables there are on a track i mean i and i i do not want to diminish the the absolute just purity of putting one foot in front of the other as hard as you can go for 100 miles because that's exceptional um but i do view them very differently and i view them both as exceptional performances that's why they ultimately end up both at my one and two i just put a little bit more i just end up prioritizing um performances that have more variables to contend with that's interesting megan um well i guess the first thing that i would say is that i think um there would be some experts like in road ultra running and track ultra running history who might disagree with you like track track racing and road ultra running has a pretty robust history and some some of those distances have been raced longer than western states has existed but i think it it objectively would be fair to say that um the competitive depth of road and track ultra running uh just hasn't progressed as fast as trail ultra running is at least in the last

decade um so yeah there i mean i think you know historically 20 30 40 50 years ago road ultra running track ultra running was a bit more popular than it is now and there was kind of a you know a first heyday of it and then there was this uh subsidence and um you know people in that in in that part of ultra running you're talking about you know a rise in interest a rise in participant numbers at these events a increase in the actual number of events um so perhaps a second heyday of road and track ultra running is coming so um i think like the what i think tofer's interest in trying to um interpret and negotiate through all those complexifying environmental variables is amazing and i think that's something that i've thought about a lot less um than he has but it's actually giving me like great things to great things to think about and ponder for the future and i i think it's a great example of like in so many cases there's no singular right answer um in voting for performance of the year ultra runner of the year which is like the beauty of our sport right now and how we try to cipher out performances is there's multiple multiple multiple right answers multiple top performances yeah just think about if you had some theoretical like UTMB win that was let's just say the fourth or the fifth fastest time out on the

UTMB course but but it just happened to be held in horrendous winter conditions the runners are getting pelted with ice and snow and rain and there's a monsoon in the middle of the course somehow apocalyptically or whatever like you would then like in to in tofer's rationale you would then have to take the environment that that that that was throwing all this adversity uh at the athlete into consideration in this performance of the year ranking cofer am i understanding that correctly that that's something that you would take into consideration like that look it could be i mean i looked at look at boston marathon last year um and you know des linden's performance there was not by any stretch one of the fastest times but i consider it one of the greatest performances at boston because of the adversity she overcame i don't know but yes i i think i think that the conditions absolutely and the competition um in my mind uh weigh heavily and i mean you know a great example really factually this year was pow capel's win at UTMB like i consider it wasn't the fastest time in UTMB history but i consider that probably one of the greatest ultra running performances at the 100 mile distance uh anywhere in the world in 2019 um because of the level of commitment he he he took that race out um he was the first person ever to lead the race start to finish

and um bell to bell and pull away at the end and so i mean that's so so yes i i would uh absolutely agree that like um i i take into the into account those variables of of weather and and competition probably more so than um the controlled environments of the track and in the road and i think i think megan brings up a really good point which is one there's probably been a longer history of people going for those track and road ultras but i think in the last 10 years i do think that more of that edge has been pushed in the world of trail um than on the track and the road and that by no means is saying those those um course records are light or easy i think they're they're they're brutally fierce um but they're just different they're for me they're apples and oranges and for the moment i i do prioritize the the just the environmental factors again maybe that's sort of the purity in more of the the mountain in trail background that i bring to the voting process versus a road and track background yeah megan i kind of i kind of have the similar thought as you do where i want more people to take on the timed and the track events like i would i would i would just absolutely be tickled to see an extremely high quality 100 mile track or or any sort of timed event that has 10 or 15 super high

quality people just duking it out from start to finish like i think that that would be a really compelling race to kind of to watch unfold and also would raise the level of the athletes and raise the level of competition just because of the head-to-head competitive nature to it i also think that that's good because like the the track and the timed events they're relatable to the running world in a lot uh in a lot greater fashion than some of the trail events i mean when zach runs you know uh 647 pace for 100 miles marathon runners and other runners look at that and they can go holy crap that's really fast to run 100 miles when jim runs just a little bit over 14 hours at western states a lot of people who don't run the trails like have no context to that and they just they just kind of look at it and go meh and they don't understand like what an amazing performance it is because they don't understand as tophur was mentioning earlier some of the complexities of running on a trail with all the adverse conditions the heat the terrain the elevation gain elevation loss crossing a river all that kind of stuff that goes into it i was listening to some folks have a conversation about um track ultras and what if track ultras had um pacers oh like you know somebody because that because there's such a mental aspect to like um you know the the timed the timed events it's like how long can you go out and like you said hold 648 647 pace what if you never had to look at your watch never

had to think about was that lap too fast was that lap too slow if you had somebody you just tucked in behind and you know you were able to zero out that that that mindfulness part like what would happen then oh man that's like that's another topic for another podcast next level pain cave exactly well they kind of had it at project carbon x yeah that's true yeah that's true well sort of in this in this area in this era of you know the sub two hour marathon and all the contrived iterations that we're going to subsequently see after after that i think that megan what you're mentioning is is more and more of a real possibility in the in the ultra space i mean hoka's paving the way for that and i think it's just a matter of time that we see more attempts of that nature where they're throwing in other competitors and pacers and contrived elements of the uh of the performance which just gives you guys more different types of fruits and vegetables to compare against each other at the end of the day yeah you know it was it was really interesting on the men's side i just found you know far more and you guys touched on a little bit at the beginning far more fragmentation with you know really looking at the body of work in the in the past you'd have you know you'd have a runner that would run you know three or four 50ks a couple of 50 milers you know even two or three hundred milers and you know we had we had several um several of my top 10 you know maybe only had three or four performances but they were really

thoughtful um thoughtfully selected races and they were highly competitive and so they ranked high for me even if they didn't have their body of work wasn't as um wide it was deep uh well narrower and deeper and i do think that that will continue to happen with um racing being um you know one more races but also athletes being more thoughtful about you know preserving the longevity of their um of their running career and their overall health good transition point tofer let's move on to the ultra runner of the year we're gonna go men's first women's second this is too hard do we have to uh you already made your votes it's not like we're gonna you can't change your vote now it's not like you could reach back into the ballot box and like pull the pull it back out although that's going to be an interesting question is that the end of this did you change your mind about anything i'm going to ask that once we kind of wrap this up um all right so if we're going to start with you who do you have for your top three men's ultra runner of the year oh boy okay well for me number one was was um quite quite easy uh i had jim walmsley um and it really was easy for me i think um you know his course record at western states and one of the most competitive fields of the year was exceptional um i think his project um or the the project x the carbon x um and the course and world record there

uh 50 miles in in 450 um and then uh the race he won in sweden um ultra vasen who a lot of people may not be aware of it's there's 1200 runners it's a super fast race um he nearly um got the course record there as well and then um you know again i mentioned it earlier but the santa barbara nine trails just with the level of of depth and talent in that race um was exceptional jared hazen was i think second to him in that race and then he went over i don't know if this was for um it wasn't it wasn't a deep field but um went over to hong kong and and ran it and won another 50 mile or he won basically everything he entered this year and um had another exceptional year so i don't even i i my guess is um virtually um everyone will have him uh number one but um i did see a few other voters that uh disclosed publicly and there are a few that did not have him number one so um i had zach bitter is number two and we've been talking a lot about zach um and uh the six days in the dome and there's no question that um that 100 mile split um it's six days in the dome and it 11 19 is both the performance of the

year and it was really the foundation for me of his body of work um his jfk that's one of the most competitive or historically has been one of the most competitive um 50 milers uh largest 50 mile field um he was second there uh and and then um you know he had a he he had a a win at the whiskey basin uh race as well um you know he went over and and ran spartathlon and um he wasn't able to finish spartathlon um and i don't know i don't know all the details around um his race there i i actually sort of thought he was set up for an incredible um day there but he also he had an exceptional i think year and um and then he won the san diego um 100 as well so for me that was a that was a massive year we talk about runners perhaps running too much and maybe that's was a driver of spartathlon he had a lot of racing miles on the chassis for the year and um and so uh he really had an exceptional year and so he was number two for me and then number three i had um jared hazen and um you know although jared didn't

get my performance the year he gets my top three and jared um you know the second place performance at western states was also out of this mind incredible performance um and he literally um he ran out of his mind that day and and um and that was again for me the foundation of his body of work um his win at lake sonoma also exceptional and super competitive and then his number two at santa barbara nine trail so um he was he ranked high for me but that also is an example of someone who their primary body of work was clustered in california um and so to rise to the to the very top i think um something a bit more um international over time but um he ranked high for me in terms of top three because of how competitive each one of those three performances were that he had um at uh lake sonoma western states and in santa barbara all exceptional and highly talented fields and he crushed it um he did have a couple of dnfs um one at leadville and i think his you know his quote at leadville was like man my my legs by the way he was he was on course record uh pace at leadville i think when he dropped

somewhere over hope pass um but i think he acknowledged that um you know he still had a lot of western states in his legs at leadville um and i think again we're going to see more of this type of scenario where you know runners are trying to find each year what are the limits of their potential and how much can they race and really race at the highest level and i think that was a good example for jared um you know leadville was sort of like okay um that's it for me after western states i think for um zach it was maybe spartafon last year um i think courtney it was um desert souls just 24 hours so i think everyone is you know all these top runners are are finding the edges of their potential and maybe they're racing one race either too close or one too many and um and so i don't count that against them um in my voting i really look at in this case jared i looked at head to head and um and uh the quality of the competition those three races uh had him raise above the rest for me in in that third place spot i think i'm gonna have like a tally board in my office somewhere of people who have failed trying to break matt carpenter's leadville record and i might have that board for like you know maybe 10 or 15 years or something like that what do you guys think i love i love it and i love that you brought that up i mean i mean matt carpenter you know we weren't

doing all this deep uh analysis every year but he still ranks in my mind is one of the greatest um ultra runners of all time and in that performance at leadville still ranks as one of the greatest of all time and a harder course too harder exactly exactly it's awesome i would love to understand the physiology of it a little bit but i've heard a number of runners say that it's so easy to run 50 miles in leadville at matt carpenter pace but it's impossible almost impossible to even run 60 miles or 65 miles that you know a person who runs matt carpenter pace for 50 miles all the way to windfield then turns around comes back over hope pass by the time they get back to twin lakes a little over 60 miles and in the race they're tanked yeah those people that say that they can run 50 miles at matt carpenter pace at leadville are fooling themselves that's that's my commentary on that that's a really good athlete but why is it why why have so many people said it it feels far too easy to run you know 50 miles at that pace and then all of a sudden blammo yeah because the leadville course like from an elevation gain perspective really isn't that hard like it's a really it's a very runnable course in terms of the percentage that you run versus the percentage that you have to that you can actually hike and so yeah i mean there are i wouldn't say there are many but there are a few or several that can go out and run 50 miles at that course record pace but it's a

freaking 100 mile race not a 50 mile race you know just just make that equivalent across any endurance distance 800 meters to the 1500 meters right uh 3k to even 5k you know 5k to 10k i mean god you could say the exact same thing so anyway um megan give us your men's ultra run of the year top five top sorry top three top three top three top and i just are speaking the same language today man right on megan uh jim walmsley and zach better were my number one and two and i kind of felt like it was there was no uh the the two of them were just on a level elevated so much uh they were on their own platform above the rest of the men's uh ultra runner of the year field this year for me um i also everything that basically everything tofer said about jim and zach's performances i would agree with i i do want to toss in that um zach won the san diego 100 mile this year which i thought was fascinating because when i think of zach i think of him as somebody who excels when it's like a road ultra or a track ultra or like those you know those events where it's like mind your mind becomes such a feature but san diego is a real it's a real trail 100 miler and he uh won it and it wasn't like easy he had competition almost all the way to the finish like i think it was a really really close finish past him at like mile 98 or not or sorry mile 93 or 94

yeah exactly so it was a it was a a wire to wire like hard work and a mountain you know a true trail 100 miler and for me that it showed me that um yeah zach bitter's versatility in his just potential on lots of different surfaces and styles of racing is just um really really really fascinating um my number three was hard to choose um there are two guys that were pretty close for me in the end i chose tim tollefson um he won lavarado um which it takes place on the same weekend as western states and so i think it's uh one of those races that at least for um fans of north american ultra running we often like kind of put under the carpet and forget about it and uh barely catch up on it but lavarado had won a if not the most competitive field one of the top two most competitive fields in its history um and tim tollefson is known for like going abroad to these mountain ultras and finishing on the podium but that day he like just nailed it and it was no it was no contest he won that race and in in my mind he showed his true international like mountain ultra potential he also took third at the madera island ultra trail um and i was there in person watching uh that run and the men's field at madera island this year was a pretty deep field led out by um francois de hain and francois and tim shared the podium with

diego pazos a swiss guy who had a uh his own very incredible year of ultra running um finishes of his own that had previously that had exceeded his own previous performances so those three guys were they were really pushing each other that day um and then here on home terrain uh tim won the formidable 50k which was this year's usatf trail 50k championships um which brought a bit of competitive depth i mean nothing compared to those other races that he was in um but for me like him coming home and running a short race that was a national championship was sort of showing me that that sort of versatility aspect that we're asked to consider he had a couple other races he went to china for a a really badass 50k he ran um the ruckachuck 50k and then of course he had his uh dnf at UTMB um which i think a lot of people think about when they think about tim tolfson this year because of like the temporal bias of what's what's the most recent race that we can think of with these athletes and um UTMB is a lot fresher than things like lavoretum or madera um but i'm i'm sort of on the on the same side of the dnf fences tofer that i don't i don't ding athletes top athletes for choosing to dnf in a race it's not any of our business to decide who we think should finish a race and shouldn't finish a race when these people are making you know they're making careers out of

there um using their bodies and their minds to compete and it's their job to to figure out how to do that best for them so no no dings for me for tim dolfson for his UTMB dnf but some of the panelists actually do create a penalty of sorts whenever they do see a dnf am i correct in understanding that correct or am i correct in that understanding well i think it's an it i don't know i mean i don't i don't actually um spend a lot of time um comparing notes with other uh voters to know that but i i it's intuitively um likely that other people are looking at a body of work and if their body of work includes dnfs in some a races they're going to use that is um a ding against an athlete i think megan's point on tim and tim is on my top 10 as well he just didn't rank the top three for me um i think she her logic around a number three is like absolutely solid logic and she was there she had i mean you were there megan right for madera and for lavarado like you had a front row seat there not lavarado we were at western states that weekend but i did cover we did cover yeah yeah but you know but those are good examples and i think i think that's now why the voting panel that really is tuned into the international competition helps i think qualify some of these international performances

um even better because you you know you've got to understand hey when tim's racing for example against francois madera um that's that's a different that's a totally different level than in in that basically is i think what uh john mettinger is speaking about when he's saying hey make sure you're comparing either head-to-head and truly competitive races and so i think as the the races continue to get more um diluted and diversified knowing what races are the most competitive in the um in the overall global circuit is going to make i think a more balanced um voting process and i think i i would just say you know i think megan's point of tim at number three is all like super solid yeah totally agree tim's one of my favorite athletes i tell you what after he won lavarado if somebody would have let me i would have bet every freaking last cent i owned that he was going to win UTMB this year and i would have lost it all but i i mean that was such a great performance and i felt that it set him up so well for UTMB and i i told i i told his coach this uh after that win i was like dude tim's went i'm probably jinxed him i'm sorry tim but i told his coach afterwards i was like dude tim's gonna win UTMB like hands down he's the best runner there we were minting tim coin um and uh all our money was

not tim coin so we were we were all in and and uh he's a absolute uh great friend and and um and part of it is just the passion he brings to that exact event and and to the all the mountain community there and and he pours his heart and soul into that race and and um it was it was i think tough for him this year but um i think as always with every dnf it was a growing and learning experience for him and he'll come back stronger yeah impossible not to love that guy i want to be candid about that whole thing i think i mean tim would be the first one to say like he felt a ton of pressure going into UTMB this year because of that win at labaredo yeah um you know he had you know he's been just just right there for UTMB in the past and he's been a you know bridesmaid and a ton of different long mountain ultras abroad in the last what four five or three four years something like that but winning labaredo in the competition that was there i think really set him up especially with like european fans and and his sponsors over there to have so much pressure and i mean everybody in chamonix this year was talking about tim tolleson i mean he was carrying like the weight of the world of the trail ultra running community i feel i feel so bad for him i tell you what though megan athletes are gonna have to get used to this you know because that's just the way the world is is is running now i

mean they're gonna get on a little bit of a hot streak and everybody the spotlight's gonna get you know put on them that spotlight's gonna get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger i just think it's something that that people are gonna have to contend with but i think you can um and this is like no diss on tim at all i think um like for instance xavier heavenard you know he's a he's a world superpower when it comes to the the UTMB races but he does a very good job of staying under the radar and saying no to you know he does some press things and some pr things in the days in the week before the race but he doesn't do everything he doesn't say yes to everything and his sponsors don't expect him to say yes to everything you know he needs he knows what he needs to set himself up for success at that race and i i personally would like to see more brand sponsors media outlets etc like giving athletes at least a little bit of space before these major events like let them sleep full nights please thank you for saying that i then honestly as a coach as a coach and having to manage that it it drives me nuts it makes me pull my hair out that every year western states and UTMB are the worst examples of this but the athletes they get pulled in 10 different directions it doesn't help them that they have to have you know five or eight different sponsors to kind of appease all at the same time but i had an athlete this year before UTMB that had nine different sponsor obligations in like

the three or four days leading up to the race it's just too much it's just too much so i'm i'm with you megan totally with you on that well and i i can back it up you know i think you know it the the weight is born on a combination of the athlete and the brands and the and the sponsors all finding that balance and even the race organization itself right because there's press events that are connected to the race organization many of these athletes have multiple sponsors and then multiple sponsors are just lining up work for the athletes um they're doing shakeout runs you know the most egregious are when you know a brand either wants to launch a product at the event or do their photo shoot um uh the day before the race or two days before the race and i think that that's the balance that brands and athletes and events are going to have to find and today it's it's out of sync and i think it it affected a lot of um the american athletes um this year in particular um at UTMB just and it's a hard balance right because you know the athletes getting all this amazing energy from these pre-events but it's just energy that's being expended on what you need to focus on which is the race too much i actually committed when i started this podcast i committed to not doing any pre-race interviews with athletes i made one small

exception with like one of the uh pilot episodes that's going to be released in a few weeks but outside of that and both of you guys know this i'm at a ton of races i'm not getting in front of athletes in front of in in front of the races because i don't want to i don't want to add to that that's just a slight shameless plug for the podcast that i wanted to weave that in there somehow no but i also i i also think that you're not necessarily going to get the best interviewer the the greatest content out of somebody when they're you know they've got three events today like back to back to back with a half hour to walk in between them there yeah you know how do you how do you come up with something different to say i mean unless you're you know you're a trained politician or a trained speaker it's um well the your best interviews are going to come in on days like days like this totally agree the other thing that's confounding with that and once again i've had to live through this as a coach is that is a lot of those engagements materialize at the last minute because i've gone through this with athletes and said okay what are your commitments before this race what are your commitments before western states and i'll have the athlete go okay i have you know a b and c great you can do that you got those three commitments awesome let's just plan those and you'll go through that two days later not only do they have a b and c but they have d e f g h i like it just keeps going on and it all seems to come about in in the like the preceding like five or seven days right before the race it

honestly it makes me pull my hair out so i just tell them to say no and it's hard because you know they want to appease their sponsors and you know give the interviews and things like that i just think we're in um well we're in you know like it's a different kind of growing pains every couple years that come about as we learn about what what our athletes need to actually survive and thrive and what what the brands need from the athletes to to do their thing too it's yeah we're all we're all learning as we go yeah well this is another conversation for another time but i think we're we're i think we're all we've all got similar opinions here um let's move on last but not least to the women's ultra runner of the year megan we're going to have you start us out here who are your top three women's ultra runners of the year it was so hard so so hard i don't know i can't remember what year i started doing this it's been five or six years approximately that i started since i've started casting votes for ultra running magazines ultra runner of the year and this was by far the hardest pick of all the years that i've been doing i think i probably lost sleep over it um for me the the number one ultra runner of the year there was no question to it it was just i feel like two through eight or two through ten could almost have been interchangeable um courtney de walter is my ultra runner of the year um she won UTMB she won madera island ultra trail

she won tara weira she took 12th place at the iau world championships which made her the third scoring member of the uh team usa which was the gold medal winning team there which was really hard for her to pull out if you yeah she i mean she was right i think her body was ready to be done with her season at mile 20 of that race totally yeah she i mean multiple years in a row she's just existing on a different plane of performance i mean it's just like floating around in the stratosphere while we're all down here you know hovering with in the fog right um second place i chose yio wang wow megan um and i uh i i think my choice of her in second place was um i kind of went against a little a little bit of my own um you know the the way i usually go about things but then i went with um how i usually choose she won north face uh she was second at lake sonoma but i mean she was second off of first place she had an incredible run at lake sonoma um and then she was second again at black canyon um i don't know there's just something about yio wang's year this year she didn't race with a huge amount of distance or

geographic diversity um but for me like geographic diversity and uh yeah geographic diversity is a lessening variable for me over the years and i think that's because um we're starting not starting that's not the right word at all there are people who are like committed career athletes they you know they may have accessory small jobs but they're essentially career athletes and then we have people who have like entire other jobs outside of their running and then there are people who are trying to make choices to um like exist and do their sport in a more environmentally sound way and so i i think in the last couple years i've sort of personally dinged runners less for um not leaving their home geographies as much because i admire people who maintain like you know jobs or have families or do things besides ultra running and then still compete at the upper echelon and then i also admire people who are trying to do our sport with a small environmental footprint after all we're like athletes out in the environment every day um yeah she i think she didn't run a ton of races um she dropped out of western states um with sickness but i don't i didn't ding her for that um yeah she just for me she turned into a different kind of

runner by the end of this year i like megan throwing in the environmental aspect there like you're encompassing you're encompassing both the performance element and also you know what these people are just good people so i'm going to give them some more points about it he's a great person i totally agree with you there okay so you guys wanted to who do you have for three um ultimately i chose claire gallagher for number three but man like katie scheid was really really really really close for me um claire gallagher was the western states 100 winner she also uh won way too cool uh the 50k early season in california which she's every year that race is getting more and more competitive there are 15 really fast women at way too cool this year and she won it and then top 10 eighth place at the north face 50 um again not a ton of races but um what she did she did and she did it well all right tof your turn women so of the year megan i have good wavelengths going here today on our ballots i'm gonna bring in somebody else next year just so well probably if we were doing uh six through ten you'd have a lot more banter um but um uh i agree i think the women's side was awesome this year um so many great performances and um the competition keeps getting better and better i had courtney um also uh ranked number one uh for ultra of the year

and and really i think megan um her comments are just um i would echo her comments around uh terawara madera UTMB um all just exceptional performances and and courtney is just setting the standard on every surface in many regards um in every type of trail condition in every region of the world and um it's been great to see um so i had her at number one i think um you know it's interesting uh your your comments on on um eo i i had um in when i think about you know you know she's absolutely on my my top 10 i i've known eo since the the day she began uh really embarking on ultra running and she's one of the most cerebral focused and intense runners and there's no question that um tnf and lake sonoma for for me were two of the most competitive 50 mile races on trail in the world this year especially on the women's side they were they had absolutely stacked and talented women's fields um and uh black canyon as well was was also uh really strong but for me um those those longer distances i had camille heron ranked uh second um and i i absolutely prioritized um her uh 24

um world record performance and also her win at terrawera she ran in the slightly less competitive 100 mile distance but she still won it and um and i think she won it with a uh a massive course record as well um and then um she had a fast overall uh 50k at hennepin um so those three for me um were a strong cluster i i do think she's still finding her um her legs on the most competitive trail ultras in the world um with lake snowman in western states being um tough dnfs for her but um but those three other performances for me um ranked her um above the rest and a lot a lot of that really was anchored on that um world record performance um and then third um i had claire gallagher um for all the all the reasons um megan described again you know second fastest western states of all time uh ellie greenwood and i were chatting at robinson flat this year and she's like oh man i don't know is it gonna is it gonna go this year and um she had she she had a really um great year the year she set the record and um i think um you know it's getting closer um but it's gonna have to wait another year or maybe

more um but uh claire's performance was exceptional she never let the fact that um courtney was well out in front of her distract her from the the business and and she really ran you know in hindsight it absolutely clinical race at western states really beautiful race um and i agree with way too cool incredibly um fast and competitive 50k and um solid performance at uh tnf endurance challenge so um she ranked number three um and um and like you had um uh ranked there megan i you know britney peterson was was right there i mean you know she and claire it was really much the same way with jared hazen and and um well mostly at western states this year claire and britney um and had really an exceptional uh head-to-head competition at western states i mean it's interesting that you guys had some points of commonality but you also had a lot of points of difference and i think that that that really illustrates this whole apples oranges and bananas concept that we were discussing earlier when you start to combine all of those into an entire body of work it starts to get complicated and then you get the dnfs that you have to throw in or even the underperformances which is something we really didn't talk about that a whole lot but some of the underperformances that actually get thrown

in it really paints this kind of complicated picture yeah it's it's complicated that's why i you know probably the best example is you know college football rankings where you know you've got different different teams playing all over uh the country right now and um and there's constant debate in in um in college football for the same reasons it's it's really really difficult um when you start comparing track to road to trail and then you start comparing distances i'll give you an example you know now you've got new distances right you've got the the ultra backyard um event that happens i know some people sort of had that event play into their voting process we now have anchoring in you know firmly this new 200 to 240 mile distance michael mcknight won and i think he set the course record on two of the three 200 mile bases and so how do you view that you know i i actually just to provoke the conversation um i had michael mcknight ranked on my top 10 and my guess is he probably didn't on most folks because most voters because you know they're sort of looking at 50k to 100 miles i think it will be interesting now that you you know you got towards your aunt you've got these 200 mile races in the u.s are those going to be come um more prevalent in people's voting i don't know

but i do think it's a it's an interesting question because that's apples oranges bananas and pears you know it just it's just one other variable that's even further out there maybe maybe it's watermelon or or pumpkins um pomegranates okay it's definitely um i think it's it's challenge it's making the voting more challenging and i actually think conversations like this are helpful because i think um you know the this has always been an organic and really homegrown sport and that's what makes the community so awesome and i think the community voting um uh for ultra runner of the year and the way we do it makes it really cool and organic we don't have a governing body with very precise um algorithms that spit out who the ultra runner of the year was i mean this is like subjectivity and i like that about it and um but i think these sorts of conversations can help inform the voters open the conversation and also um uh make our voting in future years um uh make perhaps a little bit more balanced and um uh and in line with where the community believes the most inspiring performance coming from yeah and i i mean i've heard people talk about well why don't we develop a road ultra runner of the year award and

why don't we develop a shorter distance trail ultra and a longer distance trail ultra and you know you could parse out types of performances or types of terrain to the nth degree in our sport like we've got incredible niches to our niche but i also i i also think that doing that is like um kind of like giving everybody a war an award and um sort of conglomerating it together and trying um you know doing our collective best like including lots of different voices and perspectives and takes on the sport in like coming to a um you know a small group consensus on all of the ultra runners together helps to elevate you know those those runners collective performances and those those runners themselves i mean to me it's pretty cool that you know you can um sort of sit down on a with a piece of paper your computer and you know compare competitive depth and you know how long this course record has existed on this race and um how close the top 10 finishers were at this race and try to come up with a you know combination objective subjective reasoning on it it's it's fascinating and there's i mean there might be a few wrong answers but there are a lot of right answers for sure well megan not not to disappoint you too much but i i'm we're in the spirit of giving everybody an award i've got something for both of you guys to think about everybody gets everybody gets an award no i i intentionally did not uh prepare you for this

because i wanted you to be able to think on your feet but one of one of the unique features of 2019 of the ultra running racing scene in 2019 i feel is that the racing itself was extremely interesting the heads up mono a mono racing between people was fascinating on several different races and so what i want you guys to think about for like next maybe we can talk about this for the next like five or ten minutes is if there was a category for race of the year oh what would you give it to and i i to to to start it off i've kind of narrowed it down to four and you can you can add one in if you if you really want to but the four that i have were jim walmsley and jared hazen at western states britney peterson and claire gallagher at western states were claire i was at the pointed rocks aid station and saw claire take the whole shot onto the single track like a freaking cross-country mountain biker is awesome we need more of that of course e wang and anime flynn at uh lake sonoma lake sonoma and then finally pao capel and xavier at UTMB which one of those represents or another one of your choosing represents the race of 2019 megan you get to go first oh my gosh can you remind me how far apart

pao and xavier were were they like seven minutes look a piece yeah uh more more more more yeah yeah it wasn't it was it only unfolded though in the last was it like 20 miles tofer where they're actually pretty close through yeah it was the last 20 miles it was they were like 12 minutes apart up until literally like the last 20 miles going up the bovine is really sort of where he started break the the elastic a little bit on xavier really those are four awesome races i'm really interested in megan's response man my mind is writing down notes right now i'm sorry my mind is blown like remembering that all of that happened in one year i know that's just one year you guys i know so badass like the sport on to i'll get i'll buy you a little bit of time megan with some commentary here the sport of ultra running would be well served to have more of that because that it's things like that it's competition like that head on head where the athletes are not separated by a whole lot all the way down to the very end that creates like really intriguing storylines and megan you probably have the experience for this for interviewing a lot of these people at the finish line like a lot of times those interviews and those stories are the ones that draw people into the sport that normally wouldn't you know they normally wouldn't be a fan because it's unfathomable to think that after you know 19 hours of racing that two people are literally still side by side

duking it out for every last inch yeah 100 miles 100 100 mile races going down to the line or on the track at western states or you know in the final 1k and through the streets of chamonix where like people are trying to high-five you and you're trying to stay in front of the person behind you there was a there was a track race right at western states on the women's side this year so maybe that could be maybe that could be you know maybe that could be item number five i'm kind of picking the winners obviously for the quote-unquote race of the year i mean you could who knows how far down the list you can go but anyway megan let's hear your commentary on what you think could be the race of 2019 i guess i'm gonna have to go with jim wolmsley jared hazen both being under course record uh jim's course record from the previous year at western states this year the the fact that they uh you know were training partners friends but also like competitors all the way to the end um and doing that in not like not perfect conditions like you know it was a it was a pretty hot day at western states this year like conditions were not right for running course record pace at least as history tells us um but they they both did that was that those were incredible runs i i i don't think and i i hope that we don't forget those runs for a long long time it's hard to go against any of those but i might be with you megan i mean once again

jared dude if you're listening to this you are getting screwed because you're 14 26 at western states should go down as one of the girls i mean it's the second best it's it's the second fastest time on the course uh as you mentioned right it went under and it broke the course record yeah he broke he broke his his his buddy's uh course record right i know it's great two minutes i think yeah minutes yeah so it's it's a once again it's a it's a it's a great i'm i'm kind of with you on that piece megan because both like both of those athletes ran so incredibly well on one of the most competitive stages for ultra running on the planet to have it come down to such a small margin is just absolutely incredible the fact they were they were only separated by eight or nine minutes at the river i think tover you were there do you remember that time split yeah i want to say it was even closer but that that sounds about right yeah eight minutes yeah crazy crazy crazy race awesome right all right tover who you got for race of the year so so first of all i think they're those are four of the greatest um races of the year so i would i i like your your your picks if i look at pow and and um xavier um i you know i i mentioned earlier i i actually think pow's performance if we're ranking global performances of the year i think pow's performance was one of the one of the greatest performances in UTMB history um even though it wasn't a course record the way he ran it but for me

um he he he won it um handily is a hard way to describe it but he pulled away from xavi and so you know with really with about 20 miles to go the he it was clear he was just gonna keep pulling away so if that didn't rank is is absolute race of the year um it claire and in britney's race at western states was incredible i mean i think those guys i think they were appointed rocks together yeah i was there to that to pointed rocks together and i think jared and and um and walmsley were separated only by a few minutes at pointed rocks as well so it was both those were incredible incredible performances and and and i think those two would would would be the two races that that raised closest to each other to the top um a lot of that has to do with they were both aware of how close they were i think io and anime's race was also i mean that was that was a that was a brutal attrition based race as well i don't know if they were both at well i actually they were because with that final aid station they would cross each other and know how far they're separated um so four great

races but for me i'm aligned with you guys it's clearly it's it's jared and and um and walmsley as the race of the year and and i think um they got the very best out of each other for me like the the the best race of the year is when the the two athletes that are head to head are getting the absolute best out of each other and it's clear those two got the best out of each other they both beat the course record at western states and um jared wouldn't have had that run without walmsley and walmsley wouldn't have had the run without jared so um i'm i'm still i'm still uh jared still somehow wins in this thing we're just trying to give jared more credit because he's getting screwed well jared's a better runner because of who he trains with and who he runs with and who he races with but he just you know being the bridesmaid is just really tough sometimes you guys would have had another like 20 hours of work on your hands if that was actually a category all right but let's let's end off with like one last little piece of banter i'd be remiss to to talk about this since we have two people that are on the line that not only are incredibly knowledgeable within the sport of north american ultra running but also worldwide i mean tofer you're the first you know american to compete at UTMB and megan you you spend way too much time in planes and in foreign countries and obscure places covering the sport of ultra running what is it going to take for us to do this type of exercise

internationally what is it going to take for for a group of people to sit down and say this is the ultra run of the year period with no qualifications on region or whatever how how can we make that happen tofer you can go first well so i think there's there's some um analytical tools that can help us do that actually um that exists today and they're going to get more robust i think there's two things one um so itra um itra itra those international trail running association has a as a i think right now running probably the best algorithms or formula for um classifying and ranking athletes i think having um some tool that will provide the objectivity tool to the subjectivity of the events is is key and i think that tool is in the process of building out each year there's literally hundreds and thousands of races that automate and load into that tool so i think that's really going to help um for call it a global ultra run of the year and then two i think you know you have the utwt that has um continues to take shape and form and i think as it continues to take shape and form um i think it will help identify identify the most competitive races by default there's sort of are a group of competitive races that are that are that are emerging we talked a lot about many of them today but i think those two things the

objective tool and the emergence of clearly the most competitive races where you can have more head-to-head competition if you talk to any of the best athletes in ultra running the number one thing they'll say that they love the most is competing in the most competitive fields they love it because they know they can get the best out of themselves and and i think i think the more that um brands and events and athletes can help bring that together the more robust we can move towards a global um uh ability to do this on a global scale megan i think it could be done i don't i don't think it's that um that different or that much um more difficult than uh what we're doing with ultra running magazines north american ultra runner of the year i think it's a ton of work for whatever body it is to take it on um in terms of oh go ahead in terms of yeah like um the the the list of people who make the make the votes for ultra running magazines ultra runner of the year they do a really good job of um cultivating a group of people that's like you know road specialists track specialists a few athletes but athletes from different disciplines um you know people who are involved you know a long long time with the sport and then you know people who have newer perspectives so uh gathering a a voting

panel type scenario on that global scale that um getting people with knowledge bases that represent various parts of the scene because there's just not i mean there there's some communication about you know what what's happening in different countries in different regions but for example like chinese trail ultra running is exploding right now insane and we we can't get a grip on it they're so competitive there but we can't get the information it's just not getting out of the country um so yeah like uh there are a couple you know those geographic political barriers to cross i do i think like the combination of the subjective objective tools that tofer is talking about would be uh critical to the success of a global ultra runner of the year type thing so at least people had like a starting base um which for us for ultra running magazines ultra runner of the year tropical john menninger's gigantic spreadsheet serves as sort of our um our our yeah our analytical starting tool and then we we we we jump off from that but yeah a tool to start us off plus yeah figuring out how to jump all those geographic political barriers and and get a group of really knowledgeable people to talk to talk about it man i thought can be done not that hard but a ton of time i mean i thought you guys were going to run away from that a thousand miles an hour but uh it seems like we have the first two panelists right here for the international ultra run of the year i'm going to sign you guys up 2020 you guys can

collaboratively like put your heads together and you can come up with the first award how's that sound just don't make the due date uh christmas eve jofer was definitely up wrapping his presence after he turned it in that is true well you guys this is awesome it was a whole heck of a lot of fun uh i really appreciate it i also think uh let me just extend some appreciation from the community at large to what you guys do during this process it really is fun to watch and i know that there are a lot of other people out there that appreciate the efforts of not only youtube but also the entire panel uh that votes on this because it does take a lot of time a lot of effort and i think that one thing that both of you guys illustrated very well is that you take that job seriously you put a lot of time and effort into it and it is not easy so we thank you guys as a community and i hope we get to keep doing this we'll run it again next year and have just as much banter and fun with it right on right on jason and megan great uh spending time and looking forward to the inspiring uh performances of 2020 yeah the next decade of ultra running here we go oh my gosh here we go all right thanks you guys we'll talk soon thank you all right trail runners what'd you think that was a fun episode always have a lot of fun with those guys

they really know the sport very well i don't think a lot of people appreciate how hard it is to have that type of depth of knowledge of what is actually going on it's not like they just woke up one day and said okay here are my top 10 votes for you know each of these categories and boom i'm done it takes a lot of time consistently throughout the year to be able to curate these these types of lists and i think one of the things that uh uh that that megan mentioned is she actually loses sleep over it which is pretty hilarious but it also shows you how seriously uh each of these panelists uh take this this whole voting process uh thank you guys for listening uh i do have one effort of full disclosure kind of at the end of this and i've written a couple articles on this i have no vote in this whole process um i i was very flattered that a couple years ago uh john menninger actually asked me to to to be one of the panelists and i just felt it was too big of a conflict of interest so i said no but that doesn't uh stop me obviously from offering a little bit of banter and curating some commentary on the whole process and what we think about these performances and these fine athletes that uh we can all look up to and admire thanks a lot to tofer for your time and your effort thanks a lot to megan and the whole i run far team for not only your thoughts and effort uh during this podcast but really throughout the year and really helping bring ultra running to life and making it such a fun sport uh to watch thank you guys thank you to the listeners this show is

nothing without the trail runners that listen to it if you have not done so go ahead and subscribe to this podcast on itunes give it a quick rating that helps us out a lot in spreading the message really appreciate the love and support that this podcast has gotten so far i promise i'm going to bring my best each and every week and keep producing these things and i'm having a lot of fun with it i hope you guys have fun with it as well uh thank you guys again and we will see everybody out on the trails you you