We Belong

Hello and welcome, Bonjour et bienvenue, this is the Community Trail running podcast.

I'm your host, Adam Lee.

Thank you for joining me once again, so many podcasts out there and I so appreciate

you spending a little bit of your time with me.

This is episode 184.

We continue film fest we hear on the podcast and today we're chatting with Milo Zineckia,

all about his project called We Belong.

I always love having returning guests and it was great to hear Milo chatting about his

latest film festival, Entry.

He wants to share it out, born to Adapt.org as well.

You'll hear why in that interview.

You can't wait to share that after a little bit of housekeeping.

We're having so much fun highlighting the creators behind all the films for this year's

trail running film festival.

It's an honor and a privilege to share a bit more about these stories and if you didn't

catch yesterday's episode about Dixathon, make sure you check it out.

We'll be back tomorrow as well.

Continuing the week with these insightful interviews.

Next week the guys at Crossing Lines are back with their latest episode.

I'm always so proud and excited to be involved in any way I can with their organization.

Crossing Lines wants to get more people of color on start lines and their show features

great guests and I love how they get into the nitty gritty of run culture.

What's going on in the world of running?

They're far more connected into it than when I'll ever be.

Watch for that next Thursday, April 19th.

Thanks for all the sharing, rating, reviewing and subscribing.

You continue to do for the podcast.

Get over to community trail running.com and subscribe today if you haven't.

Means a lot to me to continue growing this thing with all of you and that is it for today's

preamble.

Keep the week rolling, shall we?

Let's hear more about Weebelong from Milo's Inekia.

Today's guest is friend of the show and creator of Weebelong Milo's Inekia.

Yes, Milo was back.

Our was back on the cast last year as part of the film festival and now he's here again.

We get to chat about his latest project Weebelong and the pair of athletes it features.

Milo, thanks for coming on.

Good to have you back.

Thanks for having me on.

It's good to be here and good to see you again.

I mean, usually we get people to catch us up on who they are but I figure since we did

that last year just tell us what you've been up to.

How's life?

Good question.

I feel like kind of, whenever people ask me that, I'm always like, okay, how do I boil

this down?

But to do the shortest version, I am trying to juggle being a parent of two pretty much

like babies, you know, a toddler and a baby and then trying to run my own business.

We're also trying to push myself running, biking, anything snow-aborted, mountain-related

with any free moment I have.

So I feel like I forget to slow down sometimes and just take a deep breath and actually appreciate

what's going on instead of like, okay, I can edit for seven minutes now and then I can

go do this, you know, big adventure for the next two days.

Come back, I'll let it again overnight.

Take care of the kid.

Just trying to just do everything and yeah, sometimes it gets a lot of control but I'm

not being grateful for what's here.

That's nice that you're able to get out and still have a little bit of outdoor time for

your brain.

Yeah.

Important.

I go a little crazy if I don't get that.

Yeah.

And I can only imagine how are the little ones apart from taking up a lot of time and craziness

I'm sure it's a great experience for you.

They're good.

Yeah.

Actually, that's the surface answer, you know, after I noticed that I'm probably lying

when I say that right now, but no, I mean, they're healthy and life's good and yeah, it's

I'm just grateful for that, but it's a lot of, you know, trying to push them to do stuff

that you want to do and I'm like, okay, is she old enough to ski or bike or, you know,

and then she crashes or whatever and then trying to like find that sweet spot between encouraging

them to do the stuff again versus hating it and everyone to do what you love, you know,

trying to be patient.

Yeah.

A fine line.

Mm-hmm.

Sure.

And it's nice that you get to share your hobbies and see how they come along with you

and that kind of thing.

I'm not sure if they're into your filmmaking yet if that's maybe a little bit too far ahead,

but what are the films that you've worked on that we're talking about today is of course

we belong.

You met Zach Friedley and Danny Aravitch for that project.

Why don't you tell us a little bit about what we're seeing this year?

Yeah.

So last summer, I think they had been kind of thrown around some ideas with Doug Mayer.

He's a writer and founder of Run the Alps and they run trail running tours all over

the place in Europe and Doug reached out to me actually and he was like, would you

be up for telling a story about Zach, Danny and this other guy, yeah, here from Ecuador.

They're parathletes.

They have some cool stuff to share and they want to, you know, do something with you

and I didn't even ask Doug any other questions.

I was like, I mean, just tell me where to be and let's find some date and we'll make

it work on whatever budget we can find or, you know, they're certain projects that kind

of just catch your attention and you don't really care what the workload or the money

or whatever it is it's going to be because it's, yeah, there's important stories to tell

and I'm happy and grateful to be a part of it.

What was it then that hooked you about this story?

Honestly, I feel like as a filmmaker, I'm sure there's other filmmakers out there too

that each story has something that kind of pulls you in and this one for sure was the

topic of what Zach is doing.

He's a parathlete and he's kind of paving the way for other, you know, parathletes

are disabled.

Whatever their challenge is, he wants to make sure a trail of one is accessible for everyone

and it takes a lot of people and it takes a lot of effort to sometimes give opportunities

like this one for you.

He was from Ecuador and it's his first time running the UTMB and coming to Europe, you

know, and doesn't speak a word of any, you know, of French or English or Italian so we're

all kind of like coordinate and they're like, okay, Google Translate is easy when it's

remote but what's going to, what's the situation going to be when he gets here?

But yeah, just the whole thing, I was like, let's find a way to kind of give a voice to

this movement and what Zach is doing and if I can play a small part in that, I'm happy

to do so.

Were there other challenges that you had to take in?

Thank goodness for Google Translate, first of all.

I know.

Hey, my Spanish, I was like, guys, I speak some broken Spanish I think within like three

days, yeah, here and I, I was like, man, my Spanish is like fully coming back right now.

Oh, that's exciting.

Italian because that's my other language but, you know, he seemed to understand me.

He was smiling and nodding, I mean, yeah, that's fantastic.

And so when you get, when you get into it, you get everyone together and you're kind

of doing the thing, I'm sure the language barriers almost kind of fall and you're just kind

of into the project.

What were some of the challenges that you got out there that were outside of the language?

I mean, to be honest, to like rewind a tiny bit, going into the project, I think was one

of the biggest challenges because we couldn't get him, we couldn't get you out here at Visa

and he was going to be like our main, Zach didn't want the story to just be about him

and Danny.

He was like, there's too much, there's enough about me on the internet.

You know, let's give someone else a moment.

And so he was so committed to getting here to run UTMB and get him to Europe but his

Visa application just kept getting denied.

I don't know exactly what was going down but Zach was moving mountains to like make this

work, calling embassies, reaching out to anybody he knew.

Oh, wow.

Only like two days before our shoot was scheduled to go down, Zach messages are like, what's

up, Thread and he's like, he's got the visa.

Let's go.

We can do this.

For weeks, we were like pre-producing like potential different storylines, whether he

could even show up or not, you know, and so there was a lot of kind of building, we knew

what the message was and it was like, okay, how do we build in his story but also, so yeah,

I feel like when we all laugh about the project, we all agree that the visa was like the part

that made us all sweat the most, you know, but yeah, it worked.

Where you did the pressure change from, okay, holy crap, we got the visa now, I actually

have to do this or did that take the pressure off and it was like, now we just get to do

the thing.

A little bit of both, it definitely took the pressure off in a way of like, all right, we're

all going to meet up.

We can do this.

We've like got a place to stay in Chaloney and we're going to, you know, we have, we've

been talking so much.

We had like the story kind of a rough shot list, we knew where we wanted to go and shoot

and, you know, rough interview questions and this and that.

But yeah, I think majority was just excitement and yeah, mostly that yeah, here could run

you TMB, you know, even beyond the film, it was like, this guy is going to have an opportunity

because he deserves this and he is unbelievably fast and I think he's going to, he's going

to be one of those athletes that, you know, you kind of hear about and then you start seeing

everywhere and he's doing some really, really incredible, impressive times and yeah, just

the speed that this guy's running at is unbelievable.

Yeah.

I'm sure it's awesome to play a small role in getting him there and on the start line

and now you get to kind of follow and see where it goes.

While you're out there during production, is there a moment or is it more just sort of

the overall project that you're kind of looking forward to sharing with the world now?

Yeah.

I feel like it's, yeah, we're just excited to go to pull it all together in a way, you

know.

It's a lot and there's a lot of moving pieces and there's so many people behind these

projects.

I feel guilty sometimes when I'm like the feature director, you know, whatever a filmmaker,

the editor, but like there's so many people pulling their weight to make this come to life

and yeah, sometimes I don't feel like it's fair to just like put me in the front.

I mean, I'm like, it could be anybody who's involved, they know who they are, they know

what they've done and so yeah, I just feel like I want to in a way like take this chance

to just like thank everybody who's a part of it because yeah, it's not possible without

the full team like this.

Yeah.

It must feel pretty good to put another story into the world with such, not consider it,

but such people that deserve the attention so much.

And now it's part of the film festival, how's it feel to be back in the film festival?

Yeah.

It feels good.

I feel like it's a, it's again, it's just an opportunity to kind of elevate what Zach and

Danny are pushing for, you know, and kind of do.

And even, you know, we interviewed a, a member of staff of UTMD, you know, what they, what

they believe is the future of true races and what they wanted to do and, you know, how

they see it, you know, going forward.

And I just feel like this opportunity to be in the film festival is to get that message

out there.

Obviously, I'm excited to have my film there, but I'm most excited just to see the progress

of what's changing in the sport actually happening and get to like see it live.

You know, Zach talked about how when you first started running UTMD, he was one of the

only pair athletes out there on the start line, and there were a lot of people trying

to stop him because they were like, were they're too worried about him or something or,

and now the numbers are way up and changes happening and, you know, we get to put these

films in a trail running film festival like this.

It just normalizes it.

So when someone sees the pair athlete out there, they're like, oh, cool, you know, I know

they can finish this.

I know they can do this.

They're probably going to beat half of the other runners out there, you know, and it's

like, come on, let's get more anybody that you know who deserves a chance to be out

in the mountains and find a way to support them and get them out there, you know.

I think that's like, you know, what the film festival is all about for sure is the trails

and the mountains are for all of us.

Is there something apart from that message, but just when people check out your film as

part of the film festival, is there something that might surprise them?

Honestly, I feel like what surprises most people, and it's almost like a cliche, but it's

just like the speed that yeah, here specifically can move at, you know, it's, I tried, there's

some sequences in it where I tried chasing him and, you know, I'm like running behind him

with my camera and it's one of my favorite things to do is like come behind trail running

and filming and trying to keep up with the gimbal or something behind the runner.

And I'm like, I couldn't keep up with him.

And I think I'm pretty fast, you know, I was like, no, no, someone surprised.

Like how, how these athletes and I pulled off what we did in a one and a half day shoot,

maybe I don't know, I'm not trying to like drag anything.

I'm trying to put on, you know, put some kudos on these guys for, you know, they'd be climbed

1,500 meters just to get to our shoot location together, you know, and it's like, okay.

Yeah, the work is, is just beginning when you get to the cool spots and

maybe sometimes, at least when friends watch a film, I'm like, oh, it's a cool location.

I'm like, yeah, but I want you to know what we, so yeah.

That's, that's opt in the case, right?

You only get the beautiful gift wrapped presentation.

You don't see all the grain that went into it.

Sure, yeah, you see that beautiful sunset and you don't see the like sweating over

every weather app, you know, I'm trying to like feel like tomorrow the day, do we wait?

Do we waste it? Do we do it now?

So yeah, I hope that I hope people enjoy it and try and take a part in this movement and

it's, I think it's, I'm trying to remember the name of it right now, but yeah, I want to say

right, it's borntoadap.org is Zach and Danny's project and I think it's just kind of like a

central platform organization website that you can go to.

If anybody wants to support or be a part of it or volunteer or they're Zach's an amazing guy

and definitely a good friend now after this project.

So everybody else is out there wanting to support him.

He's one of the most driven people I know and yeah, just grateful to have met him.

Love it, borntoadap.org. We will make sure we link to that as well.

Are you and any of them going to get a chance to see any of the screenings anywhere and enjoy

that with the community? I hope so. I'm definitely keeping an eye on the European

stops, you know, there's less of them, but I will be in North America in April or later,

again this summer. So I'm hoping to try and find a time to just, it's always like wherever I am,

I'm like just checking their tour and I'm like, will there be a spot that aligns you also?

I'm always always checking them out and hoping to drop in.

Most of the also just to see the other films and support the other projects and messages

that the people are putting out there. If you're going to have your film as part of the night,

it would be nice to be to take in the night somewhere. Yeah, for sure.

If people want to follow you along and see what you're working on,

perhaps another future film festival will be in the cards,

but people will want to take your journey along with you. So tell people where they can do that.

My Instagram or website is just Myles and Akiah for Instagram and good luck spilling my last

thing. I'm going to shot on Google, shot somewhere and then yeah, just Myles and Akiah.com.

I try and update as much as I can even though I'm like I said earlier, trying to juggle too much

and I go quiet sometimes. It probably means I'm off on some random adventure, trying to,

yeah, taking my self with friends or film project. Yeah.

Amazing. We'll make sure we link to you, Myles. We'll make sure we link to board and to adapt.

And of course, a huge thank you to you, Myles and Akiah. A huge thank you to all of you listening.

Shout out to Race Volunteers everywhere and until next time, I'm Adam Lee and this is Community Trailer Running.