The Real Reason You Want to Stop Running!

0:00WHY IS THEY AND FORGET IT? surf what stood up? definetly hyper Welcome back everybody to Running Strong Mind Body Connection Podcast. I'm your host Karen Bonayne-Natraj, your peak performance and mental fitness coach. I get to interview a lot of remarkable people on this show and today I get to do something even better. I get to have a real honest conversation with a good friend that I met many years ago as

1:03he was acting like a kid playing his drone at Western States at Robinson Flat. Troy Wix is a sales leader, endurance athlete, a speaker and a wellness advocate. I love that. He's the director of sales for North America at LaDecret, Crete, where he's spent decades building culture, leading teams and helping people push past what they thought was possible. He created the endurance lab, a workplace wellness movement bringing discipline, mindset and health into everyday professional life. He speaks openly about leadership, resilience, fear, failure, faith and personal growth. And he didn't start running until he was 50. From that first step, Troy went into complete 100 mile races. But then he didn't even go beyond that to complete the epic Cogodona 250, one of the most demanding, ultra-distance events in this country. Troy, my friend, welcome to Running Starog and I'm so glad that you're finally doing this

2:08with me and super excited to have you. I was so happy when you asked because I love talking about it. Awesome. So yeah, and what's nice is I haven't talked to you about it yet. So I don't have to say, did I already tell you this? Because I talked to a lot of people at work often, different people ask questions and I can't remember if I've already told somebody something. So what's great is no matter what I say, it's the first time I'm telling you. I love that. And that comes with that endurance mindset is we forget stuff. Our brain cells take a toll on when we do hundreds. I can't imagine the 250. But first I really, really want to ask you, what went through your mind and what was your transformation and what was your decision to start running at 50? You know, so I owned a company that did concrete work and I did a lot of the concrete work.

3:11And as it grew, I did less of the physical work and more of the management. And I just didn't eat like I wasn't doing less of the physical work. And all the enough, the intent that this was, I just wanted to get in better shape. I'd seen a picture of me as a high school student and I looked at myself and went, wow, it just slowly got heavier and heavier and I was probably 30 pounds heavier than I am right now. And I thought, well, I can run. We live in the country. I can run because you live in the country. It's hard to bike because roads aren't wide, you know, fields and stuff. So I thought, well, I can run. And I just, I just wanted to get into better shape. And I thought running seemed to be the least expensive way of working on that. And I also thought if I started running, I could continue to eat the way I was eating and get away with it, which I have to come to learn that doesn't work out that way. And really, the principles, I just wanted to be in better shape.

4:14And I just knew, I know way more now what keeps me going versus what I started. But I started, I just wanted to be in better shape. I wanted the summer body. I wanted the beach body, right? And I never wanted the, I didn't, I didn't want to have abs or all that type of stuff. I just didn't want to look, I just didn't want to look fat. There you go. I just, I just was, I was really unhappy with the way I looked. And I was unhappy with the way it made me feel. Oh, sure. I just felt frumpy, nothing fit well. I was always self-conscious about everything. I just didn't like that feeling. Yeah. Yeah. I can, I can get that. And I think, and especially 50 if anybody, you know, they kind of wake up to like, oh my gosh, my life and the fact that you went back to a high school picture and kind of wake up that stuff. But good for you. So what was the, so tell me that little, as short as you can, the journey to getting into, because then you started into 100 miles.

5:14What was that? How fast was that? And what was that like for you? So I did my first, I did, I did the couple, I did like a 5K 10K like everybody would. And I was never wise about training. And I got away with doing short races because they weren't long enough to show that you weren't trained. I was worried about being fast, but I went from, from a 5K 10K to, to a marathon. I wanted to do a marathon. And so I signed up for the boring marathon and I pitifully did crappy training. I kind of followed the plan. I kept thinking that with the right mindset, you can push through. Which is almost true, except for when your body is prepared for it, it doesn't matter what your mindset is, you're not prepared. And Kyle and Kim came out to it. And basically it was an out and back on an asphalt path in Boring, Oregon. And you went out 13 miles and came back.

6:16And what was kind of fun about it is there was a road on one side. So every time, every so many miles, I could see Kyle and Kim. And it got to the point where Kim said, I was worried that you weren't even going to make it the halfway. And because I hadn't trained for it, and I went out quick thinking I can do this. And I did finish it. It was ugly. I distinctively remember seeing them about a mile and a half from the finish line. And I had, I had one of those little belts on that had like the tiny little joke water bottles like the pint water bottles. And I took it off and I handed it to Kim. And I said, just take this. I don't want the weight. It didn't weigh nothing. And so I gave her the bottle. I gave her everything. I just thought, okay, just get the stuff away from me. I'm going to finish this race. And it wasn't a half a mile later. I'm thinking, God, I want that water. I just gave away. I was just, I just told him this conception of what it was going to take to actually finish

7:21what I would consider a long race versus three or five mile, whatever. And I won't, I literally went from that to the 50K, the 50 mile. I worked my way up. And then I silently signed up for the Lakes 100. And I was sitting there. I think at January 1st is when they opened it. We were sitting there January 1st at our house. I didn't say anything to Kim. And I signed up for it on ultra sign up. And then probably a week or two afterwards, I revealed that I got in. Because she was furious with me. Because up until then, I had not followed any training plan very well. Like I, I mean, I travel three days a week almost. And you know, it's hard to train on treadmills. And it's just hard. And so I would do the best I could not realizing that you're going to pay the price.

8:26There you can't, there's no getting around it. So trained for it went to do the first 100 and learned a lot of lessons. We were, I was doing the loop that was going to lead us back. So there's so, so at the Lakes 100, there is a, basically, you get to a point where you do a loop around Timothy Lake. And then from Timothy Lake, it's a 26 mile, you're in, not 26, you're in for 13 and a half miles before you can see crew because it goes to an Indian reservation. And you're in. Once you leave that point, you're in until you get to the other end because there's no crew out there and there's no cell phone service. So when you say, hey, I'll see you at the next one. Your crew is leading and going 13 miles. I got there. I sat down in the chair and I looked at Kyle and I go, how much time do I have? And I never asked that question and I rationalized I couldn't do it. So I bailed at mile 70. I woke up the next morning at home and I looked at the clock and I thought I slept a good

9:33share of the night and I still have six hours that I could be out there running. I was so mad at myself for doing that. But the next time I tried 100, it was a loop race and I really didn't think I was going to do it because you're back at your car. And I failed at that one because of training. So did you ever have a coach? Did you just do this training online? Did you do, did you get books and follow like half as follow a plan? Well, here's a funny story. So Jamil, when Jamil Curry bought the building that they're in right now, you're about to bought when they bought that building. Now I'm going to back up even farther. Jeff Browning bought a house in Utah and he posted that he was doing all this dry wall work and stuff at his house. And we do these really cool floors. And so I just message him online and said, hey, we'd love to come and donate a really

10:38cool floor if you let us video it. And he's like, sure, man. So I mean, that was my introduction was just a Instagram message to Jeff Browning and Jeff Browning going, sure, I'll think of free floor. So that I met Jeff Browning doing that floor and he became my coach after that. All right. Now is this before the 100 mile or is this after? This was after my first 100, my second 100 mile failure. Good. Okay. So I was a coach and learned a lot about core work because I was having IT band problems. I was having lower back problems. I was having all the problems you have when you just run, when you just run and think that's all you need to do, right? I'm just going to run. Why would I need to do anything else? Strat or anything? And Jeff, Jeff gave me a plan. We checked in every week. We talked a lot. And so when I went to do that same race again, I was able to complete it. What was funny is it rained for, it took me 29 hours and it rained solid 27 of the 29

11:44hours. Nice. The entire time. And I credit my finishing. The rain sucked so much that I didn't even consider that I was running. I was fighting the weather. Took my mind completely off of running because everything else sucked. So having Jeff as a coach, that really helped me realize that running long distance, I mean, Jeff will tell you right now, if you have a choice of going and running or doing your core work, he'll tell you to do core work every day. You already know how to run. And so that really stuck with me because traveling as much as I did, I could always do the core work in the hotel room. I mean, that's where I'm at right now. So that got rid of my IT band problem. That got rid of my hip problems. That got rid of my back problems. And I'd run that 100 mileer. And I mean, mistakes are always made. If you haven't made a mistake during a long run, you probably didn't try hard enough.

12:47And I mean that honestly. I haven't run anything I haven't learned anything about 50k. I'll learn something. I'm going to learn something next Saturday. I'm running 100k with a friend at Strawberry Field Loop Race. There is a mistake coming and I don't know what it is yet. It'll be there. But I don't care with that. But that's the blessing is that you have the curiosity of what is this event going to hand me. Yeah. And you're open to that curiosity and you know you can handle it. You've built the confidence and you built the stamina and you built the knowledge that I'm going to get through anything, especially if you ran your first 100. You finished your first 127 hours of rain. Yeah. And I've always just wanted to finish. Yeah. I'm realistic. Yeah. Literally, the 100 mileers, most of the time when they say go, I turn around and walk over and go to the bathroom. And then I go. I've been the last person across the start line at both 100 mileers that I finished.

13:49Because I don't need the pressure of running with somebody. I've made that mistake of running alongside somebody and talking to him. Right. You're either pulling back. The 100 mileer I didn't finish. I ran with a person for a long section. The 13 miles going out that I had to come back and I ran their pace and running that pace really messed with me physically. And I don't like running with people anymore. I love, if I come upon you or you come upon me, I don't mind having some words and chatting and stuff. But we're not going to spend a lot of miles together. But when we talk about coconut, I will talk about somebody I spent a lot of miles with to end it up pacing me at coconut, which is a blessing. But I don't want to spend a lot of time with somebody because I want to do my race. And so I start in the back. I look at who's entered and I try and gauge where I'm going to be at, kind of looking at

14:49people and what their times are and stuff like that. If people have no times and I for sure want to, if there's six people have no times, I want to be ahead of those six people just in case. But I learned, I learned in an early race, I did the rock and roll marathon in Arizona. And after that, I felt like, okay, I got to tie it together at that marathon. And I thought I did well. So I signed up for a 25K and I thought, I could do a 25K. That's nothing. But what I realized is it was a mud run in January and Oregon around the lake. And I thought trail running, this is the first time I've been on a trail. Trail running, what do they know? I'm a marathon runner. We took off and I ended up in a Congo line. Basically, you stood, walked a couple of stood, walked a couple of stood, walked a couple. And then they took you up a logging road and then back down the logging road and around

15:52the lake. So as soon as I hit that gravel logging road, I moved over and I'm thinking, why are you guys not running? You idiots, you have to get past all these slow people. So I'm pounding up the hill because I know, hey, I'm going to get up here, turn around and then I can just fly down this hill because I'm stupid and I don't have any idea what I'm doing. I get to the bottom of the hill where Kim is at with the dog. I'm sweating. I'm pulling off stuff and I'm throwing it at her as I run by. And then she meets me about a mile later and I've slipped, I've fallen, I'm covered in mud. She's pouring down rain and I looked at her and I said, I haven't made the biggest mistake of my life. I don't know. This is terrible. And I gutted out that 25K. I did the race twice after that and just approved that I got smarter. And then the race is going on.

16:53So that's how I got my progression into the hundred milers. I finished, I finished lakes twice. The second time I finished it, I wanted to finish better. I wasn't looking for a better time but the rain, the rain was a real suffer fast and I kind of wanted to take the day and enjoy it. So I finished that one the second time and then at the same time I'm going to kind of lead to how I ended up at Koko Donut. At the same time, I, Jamil, Jamil Kury had bought the business that he's at right now. And he'd published it on Instagram or whatever had bought this new office building. We're doing all this refurven stuff. And have you been in, you've been in their office, right? I think I have. It's been a while. Well, when you walk in, we did the entryway as a whole. Okay. And then he had this, the four year painted. And so I reached out to Jeff Brown and I said, Hey, Jeff, can you tell Jamil I'm not some type of a freak saying, Hey, we want to come and do this, this entryway for you?

17:57And so he kind of broke her Jamil and I meeting. Well, at the same time, Jamil goes, could you do a track on the helipad? And I go, yeah, we, so, so we did his floor and he did a whole Instagram post about putting a, a certified track on the top of Aravipa. So he has a certified length track on the top of Aravipa's building that he was going to do some events. It was kind of during COVID. He had other ideas for it that didn't never really came to fruition. But we ended up talking about drones. And he goes, I've always wanted to try and figure out how to get our events on YouTube. And I said, well, I'd fly drones just messing them around and stuff like that. And he goes, man, I'd love to see if we can figure something out. And some mechanics, some, some technology came around where we were able to actually feed the drone, what the drone was seeing into a computer that he could take back and publish

19:02onto YouTube live. And so he said, I don't know if you know Paul from Oregon. He said, he said, hey, I know another guy from Oregon that flies drones. Do you guys want to come to Black Canions? We don't know how this is going to work. We have no idea, but we're going to, we want to, we want to try and look at what we would live a bit Black Canions. How long ago was that? Was this current one or the one or? So if we've done, I have flown coconut down to five years. So this would be, this would be seven years ago. Oh, wow. Yeah. And that was the very first live live YouTube for Arabife ever. And we just pioneered it. We had no idea how to do it. We didn't know how we were going to find the runners. We didn't know. And we were working off of cell phones. Right. Cell phones. I mean, it was the glitchiest, grainiest need ever, but it sparked the excitement, right?

20:05Right. And so I did that for two years. And then, and then I ended up at Western States, Billy, Billy called. Jamil and said, hey, I want to get a drone pot for Western States. You know, who would you suggest? They go to a live called Troy. And so that's when I flew for Billy that year. Is that the year we met? And she was there with the star link. And I accused you of being a kid, a grown up kid. And do you really have a real job? Are you just play out there? Totally play. Yep. Yep. Yep. Love every minute of that. Love every minute of that. That was the first time Kim had ever actually been with me out flying. Yeah. So it was, it was a lot of fun to share that time with her. Yeah. What are we connected? And then we've been going since then. Let's get into. So you got, yeah. Can I guess soon you haven't done a whole lot of hundreds, but you've done some? I've only done, I've only completed 200s. I'm DNF. Oh my god.

21:06I'm DNF 200. I'm DNF 200s and I've completed 200s. So congratulations. You get to run to Coca-Dena 250. Oh my god. I want to dive into that story because, yeah, let's do it because obviously I didn't finish, but you know, to me, that was just, I've done a lot of hundreds, but you know, I just thought, I don't know how to, I don't know how to do a 250. So I did have a coach. I did Sundog running with Emily Torrance and there's so much difference than running a hundred and doing a 250. Oh man. So. So I had flown, have a Lena and Black canyons and I called Jamil one day and I said, hey, I want to do Coca-Dena. That would you trade me the have a Lena flights and Black canyons for an entry into Coca-Dena and it goes, absolutely.

22:07Because that would, that would have been year five of Coca-Dena. I couldn't talk him into it. She said, absolutely not. I know you cannot do it. Absolutely not. So my wife said no. So I called Jamil and I go, hey, I can't do it. I'll fly for you. I'll fly the live feed, but I can't run it. He goes, all right, cool. So year six, this year, it was full and I called Jamil and I said, man, I really wanted to do Coca-Dena this year. I feel like this is the year I can put the effort into it and he goes, okay, you're in. And so I reached out to Jeff Browning and I said, Jeff, you know, you have these different plans on, on not all the fire. Why am I missing it? Strava, you can download the plans on Strava, right? Or not Strava. What do I think? Strava, you have something else. Oh, excuse me. I don't know what I'm saying.

23:09Training peaks. Sorry. Sorry. There you go. Yeah, there you go. All right, he does. But the only person that had a 250 on there was, um, we're two different runners and I can't, I can't remember their names right now. And they, they were okay plans, but I needed a plan, a little more gauge to an old guy, not a young guy. And so I reached out to Jeff and I said, hey, is there any chance you could ride a plan and put it on training peaks? So I can just buy it. I can't afford to grab you as a coach for a 200. He goes, yeah, I'll work on that. He goes, how many weeks out and I said, I said, well, I'm already training off of somebody else's plan right now. But whatever you can do. So he, I think he did it. If you go on there, I think it's a 26 or 28 week plan that he did. Okay. He texted me and said, hey, it's uploaded. And so I downloaded it and swapped out the other plan for Jeff's plan. And it's a great plan.

24:09If you're thinking about getting into it, Jeff has a really, really solid plan. There's a lot of information that he puts in his plan that as you're going through training, he talks you through different sections of the race, things to be thinking about. So if you're going to train for Cocodona, Jeff's plan is fantastic. It is very, very good. I think the, the reason I felt a little more confident going into this is after flying to live feed for five years, there's not a section that I hadn't been on. Like there's not a section I had either hiked in on, driven in on, flown in. I mean, I had seen every piece of Cocodona. So I felt confident from the standpoint of I knew the hell I was getting into. Okay. And so I was less afraid. And as Tony Hill would say, you can either be ignorant or terrified.

25:11And I'm going to go with I was ignorant from the standpoint of is I didn't really realize how hard this was going to be. I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn't really realize how hard that was going to be. And so I had the, I had a little bit of a faux confidence of I know what this looks like. I know it won't. It can you looks like I know what this, I knew what everything looked like because I've been there myself. And so, so I had, I had a good confidence of that. And so and Kim was, and I finally told Kim, I, my wife is is very good at, hey, I've seen you in hundreds. I can't, I don't want to see you do it 200. If what you look like at mile 70 of a hundred, I physically cannot participate and watch you go farther because it's, it's ugly. It's bad. I mean, because I hadn't been training. I hadn't been there myself. And I was, well, we'll talk about some of my thoughts as, as, as we approach this. So Kim was just adamant.

26:11I, she said, I just don't think I can stomach it. I don't think I can watch and participate in watching you fall apart. Wow. That's pretty honest. That's very honest. And I told her I understand that. Yeah. But I also, I'm also going to point in my life where I want to challenge myself. Yeah. I still can. And, and there's certain things I want to try and do that everybody says is stupid. And you shouldn't do that. And it's not wise. It's not healthy. You know, my doctor, I had, I had a, my annual physical like three weeks before the coca-dona. My doctor's like, this is really unhealthy. I, I, you should not do this. I jokingly said, hey, if we were both in street clothes and somebody walked in that door and they needed health advice, I think I'm going to ask you or me. And he said, well, obviously you. And I said, let's not talk about what I do then. Yeah.

27:12So I'm just going to say he could do some work on his body. I think I want to comment to that too, though, because I'm going to guess I'm older than you. But I don't have the spouse that says, but I did have the spouse on coca-dona this year that was telling me to quit. But it's still, I believe that people should follow their heart. And when we have something that's singing in our heart, when we get to that day that we can't take your next breath, are you going to be at that point saying, I wish I had? And I never want to be at that point of saying, I wish I had now. There's a wave handling it. And I'm really grateful that you two figured it out. And I was so fun watching Kim and everything. So go on. But it's, it's, speak, be with yourself, though, and be in your heart and do what your heart calls for. Yeah. In honor of everybody else, but we don't have to listen to everybody else's inner critic that's telling that out of their own fears. Yeah. And I told her I said, Kim, it's legitimate.

28:13I totally understand what it's like. And I had read an article that Candace Burke had posted probably two or three years, maybe two years ago. And it was basically two hundreds or easier than hundreds. Yeah. Yes. No. And. And all for completely true, depending on how you look at it and how you, how you prepare for it. And so I told her I said, I just need the freedom of when I say need, and this I'm telling Kim, I need the freedom when I say, I need to go run for you to not go. I need you to go, yes, go do it. I need that support. This is four months before the race. I mean, I started long before 26 weeks working on running the hills and getting the shape and running with poles. And Kim was staggeringly supportive all through that. I mean, I joined our local gym, not to go to the gym, but I wanted their sauna so I could heat train and I would go, we train.

29:14And I mean, the sacrifice that she gave for me to do this was as much as, how much as I was putting into it. And she didn't complain like she didn't complain. I knew in her heart. She's like, I'd like to go to dinner or I'd like to whatever, but I needed to get along the run in. She didn't want me getting up at three o'clock in the morning and going into the hills and running to get the run in. She's like, go it, don't get the run in. I'll see you this afternoon. You know, I've been gone all week and now I'm going to take six hours out of Saturday and go do that and I'm flying out Monday morning. That's such an impact on the family. That is at least I have a running husband, but man, they're really shining the light here on that. Yeah. And you know, I have grandkids at our house, at our house generally every Saturday and Sunday and hanging out. And so it was a group trauma that we went through that grandpa's gone.

30:16Oh, when's grandpa going to be home? And you know, I'm rolling in at one or two o'clock in the afternoon after 25 or 30 miles out on the trails and three or four thousand feet of climbing. And I need to play with the grandkids now. So play with them and then as soon as they're gone, man, seven o'clock, I'm out. So try, am I do not have a marital relationship anymore? It's a trainer, a person training and somebody feeding them. That's it. And I mean, I like to say I cannot say how much sacrifice my family went through. Sure. We do this. Yeah. And as much as I was in, the difference is is like when you're on vacation, it's great for you and you're you're you're away. I feel like me out on a long run is like vacation, but everybody else is still left at home. And you're gone. And so I'm exactly where I want to be and they're waiting on me to get home. And so there Kim gave me no guilt.

31:19Like there was no guilt at all. And I think that that's what really gave me the ability to successfully train for this. Did I miss stuff? Absolutely. Did I not get core work done all the time? For sure. But I did the best I could with every minute that I was able to do it because Kim was blessing that time. Go do it. Don't you need to go run? You got a long run. And so so it put me in a position where I could do it. I could get all the work done. And as we got closer to it and logistics started happening and I started building the binder. All that stuff started coming around. Kim got a little more interested, a little more understanding. I mean, every time she'd come home, there'd be some YouTube of somebody at Cokodona talking about something playing in the background all the time. Because I just wanted to know. I wanted somebody else's perspective and I wanted somebody else's perspective.

32:21And I talked to Wes Plate and I said, Wes, what am I missing? Because I went and did the training run with you. And I came home. And for the first time, for the first time, I finished that I came into Crown King and I thought, okay, if that's as bad as it is, whatever. And but I'd never trained so well. I'd never trained so well. So it was it was weird to me to be jogging downhill into Crown King because it in my normal running career. That should have been a tragedy. I should have been hobbling my way into Crown King, trying to figure out how I would move on. So after the training run, I came home and I called Wes and I go, what am I missing? You've done this for five years. What am I missing? And he goes, you can't keep a climb.

33:22Everybody focuses on the first 37 miles that went to Lane Mountain. He goes, no, no, no, no, no, no. Can't keep a climb. He says, keep that on your radar. That's trouble. And I thought, okay, okay. So I came home after that and what we had four weeks after that, right? Four weeks before I ready to go. And what was great is I'm talking about it. People at work are like, hey, make sure and send us the tracker. This momentum is building and building. And Kim came out at one point in time and she had her camera. And I just asked her to take some video and stuff like that. And she came out and she goes, okay, it's one week. One week from today, you will be running. How do you feel? I started to cry because I thought, I don't know. I don't know. Because I looked at my watch and they go, okay, I'll be two and a half hours in.

34:26I'll probably have the heaviest pack I've ever worn on. Because I, you know, you'll have more than you did on the training day because you don't know. And he to the day, I don't know what the temperature is going to be like. I mean, we were super fortunate on the training day and we were blessed like crazy the day in the race. And I mean, every single all the way through. And all the finish I was so blessed. And so I just told her, I said, I don't know. And she asked if I was excited about it. And I said, I'm not as excited as I am interested in how this is all going to unfold. Yeah. I don't know what to expect. So, you know, we get everything together. We fly in a day early and I work for a company and you kind of read it in our bio. I work for a company that supports my crazy stuff and lets me talk other people into doing

35:26crazy stuff for them. Next Saturday, we're doing Strawberry Fields and six people are flying in from around the country to do 50K for the first time in their entire lives. Nice. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. Yeah. And some of them are found out late and are just coming to try. Nice. And the cool thing about Strawberry Fields is Anna has a race that you have 30 hours to complete. And there's a 10K, 50K, 100K, 100 miles. Those are the four distances. You have 30 hours to complete that. In the first lap. And she will let you drop down if you want to. We'll let you go up. But you can drop down. So I've told everybody, you're doing 50K and you have 30 hours. We set up a camp thing. We set up. We got a tent. We got all of our own food. We make it a party. We've played board games, card games. We played chess, checkers, all kinds of stuff.

36:29Because every 6.2 miles, you're back at your aid station. And the race runs through the middle of everybody's aid stations like it doesn't have a Lena. And it's just this fun event. So to that, Lady Creed had supported me at this race. We had got one of those Sprinter Band, Type Camper Band things. And so Kim and I came into town, got that. We had all the Pacers figured out for who was going to fly in, who was going to do what section. And when I was doing the Pacer chart, I used AI to do a lot of the stuff because I just couldn't think after a while. It was going to end up that somebody was going to get stuck with about 60 miles because of that stupid deer pass because you couldn't drop anybody at deer pass. Right. Yeah, you had to get it from dead horse all the way to Sedona. And I couldn't nobody, and Kyle has 100 miles this year, so I couldn't ask him to do it. And so I had done the 39, the Flagstaff 39 last year.

37:32No. Okay. I ran into this girl named Emily. And Emily and I ran probably 10 or 15 miles together, super, super nice girl. And we got through Flagstaff where you go underneath the trussle and you start up that long gravel road. And she was nice enough to hang on for a little while. And finally, I just said, please just go. Don't hang out with me. Just just go and she took off. But she lived in Flagstaff. And so I reached out to her and Straven said, is there any chance you would pace me from Watson Lake to Mingus? And she's like, oh, man, I'd love to because she's going to run the Mingus traverse. She's like, okay, yeah. So I ended up with a pace or front that literally other than the 10 miles or so that I spent with her in Flagstaff, didn't know her from anybody. And it was the funnest time talking about stuff that you didn't know. I don't want to keep jumping ahead.

38:34So I'm going to back up to us coming to town. We got the van. Kim and I stayed the night and got everything ready on Sunday. One of the very first paces came in. We went and checked in. I was really bummed. I don't know about you, but I was really bummed at the lack of Cokodona 250 apparel. That's, yeah, I think I have one shirt and that was it. I think it was probably sold out because there was a lot of, I think I got a sweatshirt. But I think that was probably unundated with so many people buying stuff. Yeah. Well, two years ago, I mean, over the other years, there was tons of stuff online. I thought, I'll just get it online. Oh, yeah. I'll grab the jimmy about that later. And went in and got my packet and all this other stuff. And what was funny is, so the guy that does all of the bibs for the races, text to me one day before the race, he goes, you're doing the Cokodona.

39:35He goes, you're doing the 250? And I go, yeah, his name's Andy Klick, which is funny because he does the electronic stuff. His name's Andy Klick. And so he goes, he goes, what number do you want? And I go, can I have any number? He goes, any four digits you want? And I said, well, give me seven, seven, seven. And he goes, okay. So I got there and they, everybody who's supposed to have two bibs. Well, only had one. And I go, well, I'm have one bib in there. And basically because he had to print it separately, there were two people that got their own bibs, me and Vistig. And I laughed because Vistig was 666 and I was 777. So we kind of balanced each other out to zero. So I would be good if we had these people. But that, having that, that nuance number paid off really, really big and dead horse. And I'll explain how that happened, why that was super important. As we get into it. So picked up the bib, ran into Tony Hill.

40:37I don't know if you know Tony Hill, but Tony Hill does all the chronicles for the race. All those chronicles you see Tony Hill is doing. He's doing a video work. He's doing all the editing and it puts it out. Well, Tony and I, every night we would meet at the media house and he would pull drone footage off by drone forward to mock for the next day's chronicles. And so I saw him at the, at the, at the start line and he said, well, I'll see you out there. And I thought, okay, you know, whatever. I'll see you out there. Kim and I go to the hotel that night. Am I okay to just keep going? I don't want to jump. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I really want to hear the cocoa donut. I want to hear your challenges, your frustrations, your highs, your lows. So, so the, the, the problem that I was having is I had figured everything out on my own. I had a mind. I knew I had packed everything. We're at the start line and Kim and my pace or guy are trying to help me.

41:39The startling is not working. I can't find stuff. I'm getting frustrated. It's hot. It's dusty. I'm feeling the angst of I got to get up at one 30 in the morning. It's already seven o'clock at night. I'm, I'm not who I want to be. And I'm, I'm not taking it out on them. But I kind of am, right? Yeah. Like just, let me do it. Just let me figure it out. Just let me, you know, and I missed the, the, the check in thing. I missed all that stuff. And finally I just call, I just said, we got to be done. Whatever's not done is not done. I got my pack ready and we went to the hotel. And I, and I had to apologize to Kim. I said, I'm really sorry about how things went. I'm sorry for getting upset. And she's like, no, I understand her. I couldn't sleep that night. I mean, just rolled over, rolled over, rolled over. Literally watched one 30 come. Like, like, looked at my phone, looked at my phone.

42:39And I had realized that through everything, I had nothing to take with me that told me where I needed to be when for the entire race. I had, I had, I had not written anything down. I didn't have a little cheat chart. I didn't have a picture. Everything was in the binder, but I had nothing. I didn't know to be on pace where I needed to be at any age station at any point in time for the entire week. And I sat up and bed and thought, what an idiot. I got all this stuff together. I don't even know if I'm on, I don't know. I don't know what pace looks like. So I ended up taking a picture that morning of what I had for the crew. And I'd planned on doing 121 hours. That was my goal, was to be in that 121 hour hour spot. And I had a 124 hour, a 161 hour, and then a 14 hour.

43:43If everything worked great, a 114 hour, that's kind of where I was at. And so I just took a picture of the 121 hour. And I thought, well, I can at least reference it. And I get the lane mountain or when I get to a raster creek or something. Because I didn't know. I was so busy with the logistics of everything else, but I'd forgotten what I would actually need to even just feel comfortable. Like, you know, I mean, if you don't know where you're at, you tend to run too fast or you're making mistakes. And I knew my goal was to add at least two hours to my training run time. To lane mountain. I wanted to add at least two hours. I wanted to slow down. I didn't need to be there in 12 hours and 12 and a half hours. I wanted to slow down. 15 hours is just fine. I didn't want to make the mistake that I watched so many people do in former Coca-Cola donas that come into Coke, they come into crown king wrecked. Right. So how long did it take you to get to crown king? How did you feel?

44:44I felt great when I came into lane. West Plate was at the lane aid station. I came into lane and we talked really quick. I turned around and said, check my bottles because I had the, I had the dollar for Spire that had the two one liter bottles on the back. And I, I turned around and I said, how much water do I have? And he goes, oh man, you got tons. I said, I'm out. I didn't eat anything. I didn't take anything at lane. Right. I talked to West for like two minutes. Had him check how much water and I, I'm out of here. Because my goal was I didn't want to spend one second anywhere that I didn't have my crew. It was useless to me. OK. And so I just, I'm out of here. I got plenty of water. I'm gone. And I had plenty of food. I didn't need anything. So when I started coming down the hill, Kyle met me like a quarter mile out. And as I was coming down the hill, I was lightly jogging. And Kyle was like, you look great. And I said, I feel fantastic. And I think I came in at, I want to say 14 hours and something.

45:49I think I think is where I came in at. I'm not 100% sure. I did. I was faster than my 15 hour and a 15 to half hour, which was fine. Came into Crown King and felt good. A hamburger changed my socks. I changed my shoes out. I was in the topo vistas. I swapped out those and put on the 247s from Ultra. Those are a great shoe. They're not a great shoe and a lot of rocky stuff. But I knew the next section was going to be pretty nice. And so Kim doctored my feet up, got ready to go, and Kyle go. And I put on the Salman vest that I got them. And I don't know which Salman one it was. I think it's their 20 liter, whatever it was. I had never actually worn that vest with clothing in it. Oh. It was, it was literally pulling my shoulders back. And I'm like, oh my gosh.

46:50And I felt bad. I wanted to put the other bed. I wanted to swap everything into the Ultra Spire. But they had already had everything packed. It was all ready to go. And I just, I'll just take it. Stupid, stupid. So finally they released the sides and we got it fitting OK. And I'm like, I just need to get out of here. It's going to be dark pretty quick. I want to get out of here. So as I was leaving Crown King, just this is like crested over. It got dark. And Kyle, Kyle's fantastic at remember, remember, remember. And he kept telling me, if you're tired, eat more. If you get tired, start eating. You're hungry. Feed yourself. And I had all the gels I needed, but they had given me, not capping crunch, but the cinnamon toast crunch, Oreos, my favorite or peanut butter M&Ms. And so I had all this, my problem is is when I feel good, I start not doing the things you're supposed to do because I feel

47:53good. And we'll talk about getting off course in a second. So I was feeling really good as I left out of there. And I didn't stay on top of my food. I was staying on top of hydration because we're really worried about getting dehydrated. And I got into a rasta creek and I was wrecked. When I got into a rasta creek, I needed real food. There was nothing at a rasta creek that even remotely sounded good. If I remember, I don't remember what was there, but it was just basically trash. It was like, who's going to eat this? But I think I had a, they've made me brought me a grilled cheese sandwich and a really good soup. It was a ramen soup that was so good. And I didn't want to sit by. Probably was a little bit behind you. I probably sat there. I didn't want to sit in front of those burners because I would get too warm. And then I'd come out and be even colder. Yeah. Yeah. I ate that. And I thought that was because I was fresh potatoes, fresh vegetables,

48:54fresh everything. I think I was just, I was in a bad mental state. Like I was in a bad spot. I think you passed me while I was, I was laying next to the fire. Oh, OK. So they had this blanket's laying over there. And I was sitting in a chair and I thought, OK, I need like 15 minutes of sleep. I just got to pull it together. I just got to pull it together here. And so a girl got up and I asked the guy, I said, hey, is that fine? And he goes, yeah, good lay down. So I laid down there for probably 20 or 30 minutes and woke up and thought, you're going to get out of here. Enough of this, just enough of this. So I pulled out the Oreos and the Cinnamon Toast Crunch. And I just started eating that on the road out. And I knew that I knew the Kipa climb was coming. And so I was pounding calories. I was eating as much as I possibly could and drinking as much as I could. And I told myself there were three things I was,

49:55I promised there were three things I was going to adhere to during this race. And one was I was never going to stop. I've made the mistake of stopping and eating and drinking and pulling it together. And it adds up because once I do it, then I do it again. And then I do it again. And then I do it again. And pretty soon, you're spending 30 or 40 minutes in a leg, not with your crew, but hanging out talking to yourself. And so I wanted to talk. I was never going to complain. I wasn't going to tell anybody anything about anything. If it wasn't obvious to them, I wasn't going to tell them. Because in my past, I have complained about things, my IT band or my ankle or my knee or my bad, a bad, a bad, a bad. And then it gets in my head. Yeah. And then my crew goes, how's your knee? How's your ankle? Right. And it's your family, your friends, they're empathetic, they care about you. I don't want you to care about me. I've worked too hard for this. Don't care. I want you to tell them you're finishing.

50:56So I wasn't ever going to give them any insight that anything was wrong or that anything was bothering me. If they noticed, I had a small blister on my left heel and a blister forming around the nail on my pinky toe on my right. I couldn't hide that because Kim was doing the goo on my feet every time. She could see it. I said nothing about it. I didn't say that my ankle was bad. I didn't say anything about anything. And the third thing was I was going to finish unless I needed surgery. Unless I was dying, I was going to finish because I knew that I would never be able to spend the money, the time that it took to get there ever again. This was the only shop to do the coconut to fish. This was it. I just knew that and I knew that quitting was never in the cards. And I told everybody that I said, I don't care. Drive away, leave me. I don't care. So when I hit that freaking climb to camp,

51:59I literally almost texted to me at some point and said, you gotta be kidding me. And then I remember passing you guys, you guys were, you guys had stopped and I remember passing you and saying, hey, and I was in such a headspace, I was so sick of that climb. It just would not end, it would not end. And this is where my knowledge of the course treated me poorly. So when we fly, we come off of the highway, we do that first climb. And then we cross the road and did that second climb. It was, for me, it was that second climb. I'm getting to that. Okay. So when I flow that, when I fly that section, I park at that road that you cross and went up. I park there and I fly the section down. So in my mind, I keep thinking, I'm waiting for the section that levels off,

53:00goes to the left and then rounds around to the road. I know exactly what it looks like from the air. I know exactly what it looks like. And I swear, I saw that same section four different times before I went to the road. And at one point, at one point, I'm power hiking along and I just yelled, I just yelled out loud. I quit the stupid frickin race. I was so tired. Wow. I was so tired. And then when I got to the road, I turned right, like you should, you turned right to Camp Kippa. But no, there was a sign there that said wrong way. No, that's not the wrong way to Camp Kippa. I'm telling you, for five years, that has been the way to Camp Kippa. But not this year. You got blessed to go all the way to the top and that crappy, kipp up trash. I mean, then I went from angry to, this is so bad it cracks me up.

54:01Could this be any dumber? This is just dumb. And when I finally got on that downhill to Kippa, I thought, okay, this is gonna be great because in my mind, I'm thinking, from Camp Kippa, it's all downhill from here. It's great. Well, it is until you get to Kippa and realize, you have to climb back out of Kippa before you get to go down again. Right. And I told Tyler, said it was like, when I got to Kippa, I'm sure that somebody on the planet thinks that putting chocolate chips in pancakes is a great idea. I'm sure that somewhere, somebody thinks that's a great idea. But after that climb, I don't want chocolate chips in my pancakes. I just want a pancake. I said, can I have just a pancake? And they go, well, no, they'll all have chocolate chips in it. Okay, whatever. Add some bacon. And I laid down for like 15 minutes. And I literally, I talked about, I told Kyle,

55:01I said, I think I'm gonna take like an hour nap there because they said they'd have beds. I think I'll take an hour nap, get it together, and then I'm out of there. Lay there for like 15 minutes, got up, took off. And as I was climbing out of watching the people coming down, it was like walking dead. I mean, the people who would come off of the Kippa climb, I'm looking, I'm going, yeah, I feel just like you look, right now I feel like that, I can get it. It's just, you're like, you're shell shocked. And I don't know if other people felt that way, but I was hungry, I was cold, I was irritant, I was everything. But as soon as I got on that downhill, I literally was able to just jog all the way to, is it Womptech? It was Womata Chick. Womata Chick got there where they actually had pancakes without chocolate chips. Thank you. I had a big, I had stack of those pancakes and poured the sauce on it.

56:01I mean, when I left there, I felt great. And then I knew the trail after that. When you went through town, when you finally got into town off of that where people had the tables with bananas and water and all that. That was so cool. Prescott was amazing, because we were, we were going through these neighbors, I thought we were going to be on the street the whole time, but they took us through this really beautiful trail. And then you get down into the streets and everybody, and they were coming from the Arterie streets. This guy had lived two or three houses down, and he purposely came out to Chira-san and give it dead water. They had bananas they had. It was great. And it was fantastic. And just my whole spirit was like, I'm like, this is so cool. I mean, literally just, the sun was coming up. I mean, there's lots of things that are working in my favor, because the sun had come up long ago, but it was getting warm, right? Because I think the sun rose as I was just, the sun was rising as I was just finishing

57:02the last part of the climb out of the Kippa climb. And so it was getting warmer. It was nicer. And the people were out. There was no wind because of all the trees. And then I recognized all the streets, because I've flown that section at nauseam. And so I knew I got around the corner. I power-hike up this app, and then the rest of the way was down. And when I got into Prescott, I was moving right along, just jogging with my poles and cross the street at whiskey-roam cars, like, hey, calm down. Because I was like, amp, because it was feeling good. And he's like, just calm down a second. So we kind of walked in there. And I wanted to get the pizza so bad. I thought, I just, pizza sounded really good, but it was so oily. It was just so oily. And I'd been, so the hand in me two of them. And there was just oil sitting on the aluminum foil.

58:02I don't want to see that in a few hours, because I know what that might do. And I'm not going down that road. Everything's pretty good right now. I'm not going to upset my stomach. And we had been so fortunate with that van. We landed like the prime spot every single place that we could have crew. Nice. Like, it was, we were five steps away from the, from the, the, the, the aid station, sat down in a chair, ate noodles, I ate some, some pasta salad. I ate a bunch of stuff. And Kyle was going to go with me on this leg. And I was excited to, I was excited to spend it with my son. Because I mean, you just, you don't get a lot of opportunities. Right. And with your kids doing crazy stuff, right? And, and, and to be the one being crazy, right? I'm not supporting his crazy, which he has. And, and so it was really cool for me to, to, to spend that time. I was so looking forward to that. And I was looking forward to putting on a Solomon 12 leader pack,

59:03with just two water bottles. Oh my gosh, the, the, the weight getting rid of all that heavy pack. Knowing I just had to carry this light pack to watch them. Lake was phenomenal. So I headed out of there and, it was fun to talk with Kyle. And I told him I said, Kyle, I can't figure this out. We're jogging along. I'm 59 years old. I've bailed out a racist before this point, because I'm too tired and worn out. I feel like I could go forever right now. I don't know what it is. And, it was like this, just this weird strength. And, and I don't know if it was just drawn strength from everybody. I don't know exactly how to explain it other than, there was no part of me that ever even thought I can't do this. Too tired to do that never happened at that point. Have you slept yet? Have you actually slept up to this point yet?

1:00:06I've laid down, I've been I've slept maybe 15 minutes. Like, like, full seven six. Okay. So as we're cruising, we hit Watson Lake and Kyle goes, I know you don't want to hear this, because I planned on, I was four and a half hours ahead of my schedule at this point. Kyle goes, I know you don't want to hear this. You need to go to Fein Ranch before you sleep. And I knew it already. I didn't want to talk about that, but I knew it. And I go, I know you're right. Tell me, did you want to sleep? What were you battling there? Well, no, my I was battling my plan. I had a plan. Oh, of course. Plan it. And what? I'm going to get two hours of sleep at Watson. And then I'll go through Fein and then I'll get the Mingus and I'll sleep an hour at Mingus. I had these little sleep stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But being so far ahead of schedule, it was it was day. And it wasn't working with my circadian clock.

1:01:07And I knew I wasn't tired. Like I didn't want to sleep, but I planned on sleeping. I planned on taking a break, right? And so Kyle said that and I go, I know you're right. I'm fine with that. And so I got and he goes, what do you want to eat? I said, I want pasta with butter and scrambled eggs in it. I want to pound down just a pan of that. And so I ate, that's when I ate it Watson Lake. And I picked up Emily and we headed out of Watson Lake. And that's a long ways. That's a long, that is a long section of nothing. That is a long section of. Yes, it is. I have nothing. That was a good word. Absolutely nothing. Did you guys get lost? No, never got lost. We got lost a little bit. It's what we were doing it. You know, we had there was enough ants in line. Yeah. Be the next, the next person, the next person. Oh, perfect. Yeah. And once again, I've flown this section for so many years.

1:02:09I told Emily, it looks like we're going this way, but we actually need to end up over there. We're going over there. Even though they changed where the location was for frame ranch. Well, yeah, but I knew I, but they didn't change too much of the direction. OK, got you. You basically did kind of a weird out and back to get to the church. And so that was kind of one of my unfair advantages that came into play multiple times where I knew where I was going. And I didn't, I wasn't fooled by looking like you're going into, we're going over there. And we came into feign ranch, the sunless setting just before we went under the road. So there's a picture of Emily and I with the sun setting behind us. Yeah, that's cool. And when we came into feign ranch, it was the sun that just set. My body was like, OK, let's take a nap. So I ate a bunch of real food. And I think I took about an hour nap there and woke up. They never woke me up. I literally woke myself up because they'd be like, OK, take two hours. I just couldn't sleep that long.

1:03:10I think it was the adrenaline that I wanted to get going. I felt great. I felt it was so weird. I can't even explain Karen how out of body it was to feel fine. It made no mental sense at all. Now, of course, you know, I'm doing 19-minute average miles, right? I mean, I'm just fast walking. I mean, I'm not running. I mean, I ran sections and then you lose it on the hill climbs or whatever. But it made no sense that I was able to do what I was doing. And so we headed out with Emily to finish from Fane because I felt bad having her pace in this section and then hang out while I slept. So she hung out, slept. And we started, we headed towards Mingus. I was mentally prepared for a halacious climb up to Mingus. Mingus was fine. I felt great.

1:04:11Mingus was a great climb. I didn't, I passed people on Mingus. I couldn't wait to get up on the road because I knew from flying in enough. I knew that once I got onto that road, it's just a dirt road, gravel road up to this road. And you are at Mingus Mountain. And all I wanted was I wanted that lasagna. All I wanted was lasagna. But we got in at like one or two in the morning. I met me. As we were coming across the field, Kim met me in. And I said, man, I hope they have lasagna. And Emily goes, that's all you've talked about for the last six miles. I hope they have it too. Right. And Kyle was in the mode of if dad's trashed, let's let him sleep. Because there was just, I think he didn't know what was going to happen on the Mingus climb because everybody talks about it being whatever. I just wasn't a good hit. I was in a great headspace.

1:05:11And so he was ready to go to Jerome, but he was also ready to have me sleep. So he texted Kim and Kim goes, he feels great. He's eating lasagna right now. And Kyle goes, get him out of there. Let's leave right now. We need to get down. We need to get off this mountain right now. And so Kim goes, hey, grab the lasagna. Let's just go. Get your pack changed out. And so we headed out, swapped a bunch of stuff. And Kyle and I just took off. And I was bummed because I wanted Kyle to see the view from that jump off station, where they tell. Because I've flown there and the view is so cool, but it's pitch dark. So we headed down the Jerome, that Jerome wooded, overgrown trail. And I just felt great. I knew the sun was going to come up pretty soon. And I knew when the sun came up, that that next energy,

1:06:12that next energy would come. So we cruised down through there. Once again, knowing the trail from flying that I got turned around in my head and I kept thinking we should be closer. We should be closer. We should be closer. And then we hit that road that drain rock, river rock road, that forever contour line road. And that took a lot of, I'm happy out of me. And I told Kyle at one point, I said, I'm going to put my headphones in. I just need to go somewhere else because this sucks really, really bad. And it just was, it put me in a bad head space because it was like the first time you came around the corner and you could see somebody miles away on the same road still. Right? I was just like, I can't look forward anymore. I'm going to pull my baseball cap down.

1:07:13And I'm going to put my headphones in. And I'm just looking at your feet because I don't want to know. I just don't want to know. And that went on, well, you know, that went on for miles. And finally, Kyle turned back and he said, hey, look at that. There's a road. And you could see that gravel road in the distance still long ways off. But when we hit that gravel road, we jogged all the way through Jerome all the way down to the aid station. And I picked up another pacer there. It felt great. I had planned on sleeping at Dead Horse. But once again, I'm still four or five hours ahead of my schedule. So the guy I was going to pick up at Dead Horse was kind of my heaviest pacer, least performer. I thought, OK. I thought, well, that's a good spot for you. Not all climbing. It'll be fine. But I also figured I'd be there in the evening and going into the night. I didn't plan on getting there at 11 and going into the day.

1:08:17And so I got there and changed that course so much from what it had been. I mean, you meandered forever. And I knew that I needed to be right over there. But instead, we're over here. We're over here. We go over there. And then you get to where you're at at Dead Horse. I mean, a mile or more of just wandering around there trying to make up miles. Knowing that I told David at one point I go, if we just walk a quarter of a mile that way, we're there. He's right there. But we're over there. And we had gotten to the water cross in this kind of funny. I had ordered these rubber, or not rubber with these plastic boot cover type things. Yeah. I said, Dave, try these. Let's see if we can keep our shoes dry. And so he put it on. And what was funny is it would have worked. Had the water not been higher than them. No, both of our feet are stoked. I finally get there. And I get a couple hours of sleep. No, probably an hour of sleep.

1:09:18It was in the middle of the day. So I didn't really want to. I think I just lived there. So every time you're sleeping, you're sleeping in your motorhome thing. Yeah. OK, that's very cool. And so I probably found an hour's worth of sleep there. Not very much because I wanted to get the adrenaline was still going because it didn't really. I didn't feel tired. I didn't feel like settling in. But anyway, I got ready to go. And my friend was ready to go with me. And I thought, OK, here we go. Took off out of there. And I hear him behind me. He's got the GoPro. And he's doing some video. And we're not even. We haven't even climbed out. Like we're working our way out, the kiln trail to get towards kind of flat. And he's out of breath. I knew that he was banking that I'd be at 138 miles. And that I would be slow. I don't think he was banking that I'd be power hiking at 17s. And he was working hard to the point where I called Kyle.

1:10:23And I said, hey, there's a church on the highway. When you get to the church, get on the gravel road, I will meet you out here in about a mile and a half. You need to pick guy up because he's not going to make it. And Kyle's like, you got to be kidding me. And I said, he's not going to do it. I can't slow down for him. And once it leveled out, he got his breath back a little bit. And he's like, I can make it. I'll be fine. I'll be fine. So OK, all right, fine. So I texted Kyle and said, never mind. Go back to sleep. So they went ahead and went to Sedona and went to sleep. We're about six miles out of deer pass. And he says to me, I think I'm going to throw up. And I'm like, OK, do it. What? Do it. The problem being that he decided he wanted to drop it, dead horse. I said, you know, dead horse or deer pass? Oh, deer pass. He wanted, yeah, he wanted to drop it, deer pass.

1:11:24And I said, you can't drop it, deer pass, because you're me and I am you. And I can drop and pick you up at a crude aid station. That is not a crude aid station. And he's like, well, I don't know if I can make it. And I go, well, I'm just telling you this, you're going to make it to deer pass. And then I'm going to leave. And you're going to follow me. And I don't care what it takes for you to get to the Sedona Posse grounds. That's what's happening. And he's coming apart. He's literally coming apart. And so I'm thinking, what can I do? What can I do? What can I do? And this is where the 777 special or special bib comes into handy. I said, when we get there, go straight to the bathroom. And he goes, I don't have to go to the bathroom. I go straight to the bathroom. He goes to the bathroom. I went to the station cap and said, hey, can I get my bag? I'm going to go with you. Remember when I go 777? Oh, that's unique. How did you get that? Oh, I fly for Aribypa.

1:12:24I tell him this whole story. And now we're kin, right? He's helping Aribypa. I've been a drone pilot. I think, oh, man, I got a real problem. And he goes, what is it? And I go, my pacer is in the bathroom. And he's afraid that if he drops here, that they're going to DNF me. And he said, he's just freaking out. And he goes, can you get somebody to pick him up? I think my wife is eight minutes from here at the hotel. She can be here and pick him up. He goes, just having walk over the road, have her come get him. We're good. All right, see ya. So I ate three freaking hot dogs there, the best hot dogs on the planet. And I took off out of there. And about four plus miles was this soft, just rolling, double track, triple track, weird road that I was doing 1130s on, which I never would have been able to do with him, because he couldn't do that. I felt so good and had music playing, not paying attention.

1:13:30Started the climb. You climb up to Sedona and then you drop down by the high school to the water station. And I also think I'm thinking, man, this seems dangerous. This is a dangerous place to have people. This is weird route finding dangerous. I'm a mile and a half off course. Oh my goodness, sakes. I had come up to an intersection that went this way. I'm color blind. There wasn't a good flag there. I pulled out Cal Topo. And I went, well, the white dashes go to the right. And to the left, I know I'm going to come around to the water station. I went right. I couldn't see the red line. The sun shows it, because I don't see red and greens. It's very well. Right. So Bryce texts me from Arabi, but he goes, man, you're doing great. And I thought, I'm doing great. How come this was later? I realized, if I'm doing great, why did you not tell me I'm off course when you said, hey, you're doing great?

1:14:30Obviously, you know where I'm at. So anyway, that was a funnier story when I about that. So Kyle texts me and he goes, hey, are you doing OK? I go, yeah, I'm off course. And he goes, your way ahead of schedule. Basically, I was panic running at that point. And he could tell I was moving really quick. And he said, slow down. You got a downhill. Just slow down. You're fine. You've got lots of time. You've got lots of time. And I'm panic, because I just lost all that time. And I'm mad. I'm out. I'm out. I'm furious. I'm going to beat ourselves up. And I mean, if Verste can say he took mushrooms, I'm going to go ahead and admit that I probably picked up another pacer at the water station that went in with me to the Posse grounds, which were the worst marked part of the entire race. Oh, wow. More time. And he spent more time on Cal Topo trying to figure out where to go during it until we got to the streets of Sedona.

1:15:34And that's a wax section. It was terrible. I complained to Jamil when he met me in Flagstaff. The man that was terrible. We got into the Sedona Posse grounds, and I was lit. I was done. But the first time Kim goes, how are you doing? And I said, I'm tired. And so I slept for two hours at the Posse grounds. And Kyle woke me up. And it was, it probably was four o'clock in the morning, maybe a little before four. And we were walking through the aid station, checking out. And Kyle was going to take me to Schnebli Hill. And we ended up just killing Sedona, like just killed Sedona. It was, we hit the red rocks just as the sun was coming up. And it was, it was heavenly slash and jellic. There were two times Kyle and I stopped and took pictures of us there. Because it was off the hook.

1:16:38Kyle has a problem with steep slopes and heights. I looked back at one point in time. He was crab walking along the hangover trail. That's my guy. He was petrified of what we were on. I was just dumb enough to just keep crews in the long because I don't care anymore, whatever. And so we did that second pretty well. We got to the climb, basically the climb up to Schnebli Hill. And it was just as rocky and horrible as that road out of Jerome. And I just told Kyle I said, I'm going to put in my headphones and the following you. Just just pick something and let's just grind our way up. And we got up to the water station. And just had the big water tank up there. And we filled up with that and then got to Schnebli Hill. And I said, didn't sleep at Schnebli. Got there ate a sandwich. Sandwiches were so good with pickles.

1:17:40Kim was making this killer sandwich with just me and a ton of mayonnaise. And I mean pickles galore. Man that just that pickled juice that just revives everything. So did she make all of this? You get all of your food from your crew? Or did you do any of the AIDS station food? I ate the AIDS station food when I could find something that was substantial. OK. Yeah. At the Black Canyon's 50K, I grabbed a bean burrito that they had put all spice on. I was really cautious about what I grabbed off the tables because I didn't want to be wasteful. I grabbed bananas. I grabbed known things. If it was something somebody concocted, I didn't do it. I grabbed rice. I drank broth, that type of stuff. But I ate heavy as much as I possibly could when I was with my team. When I was with my crew. That was my lacking. I was eating.

1:18:42And so we got to Schnebli. And once again, my crew had everything ready just dialed. I literally only thought about what I had to do. My pack was ready. My food was ready. Everything was ready. I never thought about anything other than maybe I'm going to do this shoe or that shoe. I mean, I thought about nothing. Kim would have my toes all lubed by the time it was time to go, pulling on my toe socks, putting toe socks on somebody else. That's an art. And she had it, she had it dialed. Yeah. We watched her. You guys had it. Everything I learned so much is from watching you. It was awesome. It was amazing. Yeah. So we pulled out. So Schnebli was that section, that fortitude loan section. I was in a good headspace when I left there. I made the mistake. I'd switched from elastic shoes, like the elastic slices that you just basically throw on your shoes to tie them

1:19:43because I'd realized the reason that I needed to replace my toenails after every race is because my foot's moving around too much. I had overtied my right foot. And halfway through that run, I thought, man, I should loosen this up. I don't want to stop. I just, I just, I just, I just get it done. So I was eating Oreos and just, just chewing up the time. By the time I got down to Muns Park, the bottom part of my shin where, you know, it rolls to your ankle was swelling over the top of my shoe. Oh, and, and I, and I'd already, you know, I kind of, I'd developed a limb and, and, and I was killing my left side because I was trying to protect my right side. And, and so I was just trying to keep my hips straight and trying just, if the right side's hurting, just let it hurt. Don't, don't let everything else get caddy want this because that's when your IT man's going to mess up. And so I was really focusing on staying square,

1:20:44staying tight. Don't, don't start getting weird. And so when I got into Muns Park, I saw you guys there and got into Muns Park and I, I did, I thought I took a nap there. I know I did. I must take a nap there because we left you and you were going to go sleep. Yeah. I took a nap there and then while I was sleeping, Kyle, Kyle's a PA. So he got on to all these medical things was figuring out what to do. What are we going to do about Dad's ankle? Now I'm not complaining. I didn't say Kyle goes, man, that is really swallowing. I go, yeah, it's fine. And he goes, well, we got to do something about it. I go, whatever. I don't, we're not going down this road of, oh my gosh, where it's whatever, whatever. So when I woke up, Kim already had ice on it. And Kyle had figured out how to tape it to protect it. We're just taping job I'd ever seen. I was worried because I've taped in a circle before and basically strangled my legs and made these huge mistakes.

1:21:46But Kyle had a way of taping it to protect it. He had already re-done the laces in my shoes to get all the pressure off of it. So my foot would hold, but there was no pressure against it. And it was amazing. When I put that shoe on, how the pain that I'd been dealing with, even though nothing had really changed, because I wanted to stay in the Altra 7247s, because those are the greatest cruising shoes that I've ever had. Oh, soft. I mean, I have them on. Here, please, choose your hair. I have the 237. I have the Altra's 237. I thought it was. Well, maybe it is. It does. Have an ankle thing on it. Oh, it says it's the 275. It's a little long. Oh, OK. And it's got the boot around it, so you don't have to wear the laging thing. OK, I have the same one. And so put those on, and I took off a Dave, and we headed into the night.

1:22:48We wouldn't see everybody tell Fort Tut Hill. And we got into, what's the station before Fort Tut Hill? Oh, the canyon. Not walnut. Anyway, not walnut canyon. It's something else. Oh, I'm not thinking of it. Well, we got into that one, and I told Dave, I said, I need to, I need just a quick nap. And so I went, went to lay down on a cot. I had clothes in my pack to stay warm, but I didn't want to put them on, because I knew I'd have to take them back off. Layed on the cot, basically got cold and irritated, got up, and Dave's sitting by the fire. And he's got his glasses on, and they're like this. And he's texting with Kyle. And I come up behind him, and he's texting with Kyle, and he says he's going to take a quick nap, and then we're going to get going. I think Kyle texted back, because I was reading it over his shoulder, don't let him sleep long, you guys need to get moving.

1:23:49And I said, hey, let's just grab a cup of coffee and get out of here. Let's just get out of here. So we left there, and basically, you're kind of on road from that point on. You go from gravel to asphalt. And when we came into Fort Tut Hill, because we were moving super fast, I mean, he misinterpreted my pace by Troy feels good with I'm sick and tired of this. I want to get the Tut Hill and sleep. I'm done. Like I'm done. And so when we got to Tut Hill, Kyle had his pack on. He was ready to go to Walnut County. He's ready to get out of here. Do your cognitive test, and let's get out of here. Let's do the med check, and we're gone. And I looked at him, I said, I'm done. I leaned on my poles, and I just said, I cannot go any further. And so, went in, went in, parked the van. They had parked the van over on the outbound side. Yeah. And so, went in, did the cognitive test, checked out, as though I was leaving, but went to the van,

1:24:49slept for, I think I got two hours of sleep there. And Kyle has a way about him. You know when he's serious. And what I mean by serious, I mean, he's, I don't, I hope you don't hear the dings, but I'm traveling with somebody and they're texting me at the same time. We're talking. I don't hear any dings. Oh good, okay. So, he has a way about him, of imparting concern, without imparting fear, but imparting the fact that you need to get moving. And what I didn't really think about is, that section from Tut Hill to the end, that taxes you. That is a taxing, taxing section. Because we're, it's dawn again, I'm moving into the day. We're gonna end up in the heat of the day, in that open area, outside of Walnut Canyon, into Walnut Canyon, and outside of Walnut Canyon, until we get the wildcat. He knows that. He's like, we need to get moving.

1:25:51You need to go. We gotta get out of here. We gotta get out of here. We gotta get out of here. Where the sun gets up. So, we took off. And I mean, I look at the videos now. It is so funny, how healthy, and how well I felt. And I look at the videos, and I'm like, that man's a wreck. And I didn't feel that way at all. Like, I mean, I had the list going. I mean, you saw me come into wildcat. I mean, I'm leaner than, and it just, it just cracks me up how, how I felt, and how I appeared in my, and I see myself on video. I'm going, wow. I'm going to have to even let me leave. And so Kyle has a way about him of gently pushing you consistently hard. Like, not broken hard, but not relaxed. And for me, I want my son to be proud.

1:26:52And so, I'm working hard. I'm working hard to hold it together, even though every part of me is going, I'm so tired, and this hurts. But I'm not so tired, I want to stop. And it doesn't hurt so much, I don't expect it. It's what's expected. Kyle knows that, and he's an iron man. I mean, just like you, he knows, he knows that this is what is, this is normal. This isn't something to back off of or be afraid of. You lean into this. This is what grace it, yes, exactly. And so Kyle's not giving any little bit of slowing down. He's feeding me pop parts and this and that, and just moving and moving and moving and moving and moving. And just, he got so much more out of me than anybody else would have in those sections. And I mean, he knew it. He picked the right sections to pace me,

1:27:53and he's the right person for it. And so, we came into one that Canyon and literally swap a Dopp a Dopp a some stuff and we just left because he's like, you've got to keep moving, got to keep going. Don't stop, we got to get to Wildcat, get to Wildcat. And in my mind, I wanted to get to Wildcat. My goal was to get to Wildcat, get a couple hours of sleep and then finish. I felt really bad because I was watching the videos and when I came into Muns Park, I stopped and chatted with you guys and we talked and stuff. I watched me come into Wildcat and you guys were standing on the corner and I literally just walked right past you and I thought, did I even greet them? Did I even say hi? I mean, I felt like how rude was that? What a jerk. So I'm sorry if when I walked by you and I went by that fence post, I didn't even acknowledge you. I apologize for the bottom of my heart because I watched that video and went, what was that?

1:28:57Who on their right mind at 200 and how many miles were you 30 or something? That would think of, I mean, come on. I don't know and I don't remember. And if you did that, there was no hurt feelings, whatsoever, but good job. So tell me about Elden, let's get into Elden. So got into Wildcat for the first time, fear struck me. Oh wow. I got ready to go and I was sitting in the door of the van and I literally was afraid to leave and I don't know, I knew what was on the other side because I've flown it. I know what the downhill looks like. It's hell. It's hell. And I was just afraid and Kyle made the comment. He said, you need to get going. This could take you 10 to 12 hours. Right. And it shook me because I thought I'm almost done.

1:30:00What do you mean 10 to 12 hours? What are you talking about? And so I just got up and headed out. And as we're heading out, Kim's walking with me and she goes and she knew, she knew I was struggling. And she said, let me pray for her. Yeah. No. And it was what I needed, right? I needed something, something to draw me out of where I was at. I needed something to draw me out because I was spiraling down this hole up. Oh my gosh. 10 to 12 hours. Can I do that? Do I have that left? My, can I actually do that? I don't know if I can do that. And so leave out of there. Tony Hill runs into me that when he videos that, the Chronicles, that one that he put on, because I, and he catches up to me.

1:31:01And he videos me for out of 10 minutes. We talk a little bit. I forgot of all the fear because I had a friend that was talking to me. And, and I don't know what changed, but when he left to go do the other videos and the other people, man, I felt great. The problem was as it got dark and I was looking up at Eldon and all I could see were headlights doing this. And I thought, oh my gosh, I have, I have so far to go. I mean, look at all the headlights up there. They're forever. And for the first time, other than when I got lost, I pulled out Cal Topo just to see how much longer I had to get to the top. I was, I was so done. I just wanted to be done. And I looked, I thought, okay, got to the top. And I didn't realize quite honestly because I usually drive up. And then I fly over by the, the, the towers.

1:32:05It is a really, really long ways from where you finally cap out to where you drop down. And it was windy and cold, cold, cold, man. And I thought I would never get over there. And that climb up that road to the, to those towers, that's no joke either. I mean, it was terrible. Finally got over there and started going down. I've come up that trail before from the bottom. I'd never gone down. And I was afraid. I was afraid for my life. I thought my boss, I'm tired. Thank God I had poles. I had tons of lights on me. I was, I was moving fine. And I caught up to these two guys. And I kid you not. The one guy looks at me and he goes, he goes, this is really something, right? Bill Bugide. And the other guy goes, you gotta be really careful. They were, they were crawling down.

1:33:06Like they would get to a rock and they turned. They were crawling down. And I was, I was moving down with my poles. Basically three points of contact the whole way. And I, I was just done, tired. A couple of times I had some close calls where it would have really hurt. Didn't fall. I didn't fall during the entire race. Nothing, nothing. Congratulations. It's a total tire race. Got down to, what's the, the, the church one, the last, the last eight stations. Trinity Heights. Trinity Heights. And I'm so sick and tired of boulders on the trail. Right. It's great. And there's nothing but boulders on the trail all the way over to Buffalo Park. Right. And then I come in the back of Buffalo Park. I'm expecting to see my crew, right? I'm expecting, I'm gonna hit Buffalo Park, that everything, you know, the horns are gonna go off, people are gonna be cheering. It's gonna be exciting. This is so fun. The back of Buffalo Park, that is a huge climb.

1:34:10It might not be a huge climb, but it might to whatever. It is a huge climb. And I'm like, cause it's ever gonna end. I, I cop out and I'm on that gravel road heading to the exit. I see no headlights. I see no car lights. All I see is town. I'm thinking, where is everybody? I mean, where are you guys? We're supposed to walk the sin together. This is gonna be great. And I'm really irritated. It's so weird because I'm thinking, why are you guys not here? Now, I haven't, I had flown that in section, but I hadn't really flown where you kind of hit town by the hospital. Right. So when I finally get there, you know, they're at that booth, they're building type thing. We walk it and then as we're walking it in, I'm not even really enjoying it. I hate to say that because I'm so, I'm so done. I was so sick and tired of scrambling down the mountain and then stumbling over boulders. All the way to Trinity Heights, we're walking through town

1:35:13cause I, I didn't want a jog anymore. I was tired. My ankle was just killing me. We get to the corner of where you turn left and then left on birth and then you go in the gate, right? And there's a guy standing there with a camera and it's a gemel. And gemel is standing there waiting for me. And we talked as we're going in and I just said, man, thank you so much for this. Wow. And it hit me at that point. How much it meant. Yeah. I was so ready to be done going through town and then all of a sudden I started thinking about how much this whole thing had meant. Wow. All of the experience that I had had and I turned the corner and I'm one of those people that if you have it to run, you should run. If you're running just because it's the finish and you want people to see you running.

1:36:14So I walked across the lines and here I am. I'm done. I mean, that's it. And I just was happy to be done. I was glad to grab the buckle. I really wanted to get our crew there. I wanted to get a picture of everybody doing it because I did not do it alone. None of it was alone. And I just now was so thankful. So let's cook a donut. That was, I mean, we woke up the next day. I was shocked to find out. I did it in 116 hours. Nice. We woke up the next day. We were at the hotel that you could see the finish line from. And we woke up the next morning. We had five people in this in one room. And I woke up at like five something in the morning. And I'm looking around at everybody's asleep except for me. I took a picture of everybody all sacked out all over the place. And just to have the race still going on and I was done, I thought that there was a good chance I wouldn't make it.

1:37:14I thought there was a good chance that I would be the DFL or close to it. I had zero thought that there would be any chance that at 59 years old, that I would actually cross the finish line earlier than I thought I would. Nice. It was amazing. It was amazing. So it was so, it was so inspiring to see you out there. And I learned a lot just watching you and Kim and how they managed you. And I really wanted to hear all that. And so I really appreciate your sharing of that wonderful, oh my god, a wonderful adventure. And my hope is I get in the lottery next year. I'm in the, I'm in the, I'm in the weight. I'm on the weight list. How far down? 25 women. I'm 10. Oh, there's a good chance. I'm thinking December. I might know. So there's a good chance. And I'm in, I'm 40 in the Sedona. I don't want to do the Sedona 125. But I want to, I want to take it on. I don't know why I got a lean. I still haven't done my podcast on my 250 for myself.

1:38:16You know, talking about it. But I wasn't, I was never going to change packs because everything was in that pack. And I didn't want to go through the hassle of changing packs. I had lighter pack. That would have been nice. I love running with it. But I didn't want to have be without something. I felt that I had to have, and my pack was fine because I trained with a 20 pound weight vest. OK, yeah. I climbed Elden with a 20 pound weight vest. Oh, man. Yeah. I never, it was, I think having, well, I only changed packs that one time. So I wore the Salmon pack in in Prescott. The blue Salmon, like the active skin, you know, the really lightweight one. Yeah. The double bottle front one. I wore the Salmon one that I probably will sacrifice to the burning gods at some point through the first night out of out of crown king. I wore the ultra spire, the entire rest of the race.

1:39:18Yeah. I had the, the Zegos, elder spire, and I really liked it. I was looking at the traverse and just seemed so much for it, but it has that one leader. So I might try to find an extra small one for next year. But Troy, oh my God, I am so proud of you. So such an honor to see you out there and witness how your whole crew managed you and you could tell your whole, your whole crew was dialed in on you. Yeah, there was. Dialed in on you and the story coming out of Wildcat. That's just amazing because I ran that. I did that in training. So I knew what that was all about. But when I was sort of feeling was the separation that Kyle wasn't with you anymore. No one's going to be pacing you anymore. No one's, you're all alone. You're out there all by yourself. Yeah, I was scared. Yeah, that's, that's, that's being vulnerable and that's being raw. Totally raw. Well, I, I think that people, I don't want people to get the wrong idea. It's hard. I, it, it's hard.

1:40:20It is hard. Yeah. And, and, and you need to be okay with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. There you go. I'm going to keep the flight here in about an hour and 15 minutes. So going home. Okay, tell everybody high for us. We'll see. I guess we'll see you guys in July. Yeah. Yep. Yep. All right. All right. Thank you. So good. Thanks, Karen. Let me.