00:00:02.25
Alyssa
Hi everyone. Welcome to the uphill athlete podcast. I am your host, Alyssa Clark, and I am here with a guest who I feel like I’ve known for a long time. We’ve been meaning to get him on the podcast and he’s here to talk about, oh man, all things dragons back, but also just so many other adventures you’ve had. We have Gabe Joyce on the podcast. Gabe, thanks so much for being here.

00:00:30.78
Gabe
Thanks so much, Alyssa. Yeah, it’s so good to finally meet you. Be on the podcast, it’s cool. I’m excited to share stories and chat.

00:00:38.98
Alyssa
Awesome. I said joys, right?

00:00:41.60
Gabe
Yeah, joys, like joy with a Z.

00:00:41.84
Alyssa
Is that how you put it? Okay, cool. I love it.

00:00:45.65
Gabe
Always bringing in joy to the party.

00:00:49.94
Alyssa
That’s awesome. Sorry. My cat is right next to me and he also wants to be a part of the podcast, but he’s going to stay out of it for now. Um, so first off, I saw this come up as I was, uh, looking you up a little bit on, uh, Scarpa and a couple of other websites.

00:00:57.59
Gabe
Sounds good, man.

00:01:09.27
Alyssa
And I saw the term buckaroo come up a few times. And I actually, whenever I’m driving, say to my cats, all right, buckle up, buckaroo knows. So I have my definition, but I’d love to hear what a buckaroo is.

00:01:25.71
Gabe
Yeah, I’m not sure why they started like tagging that on to some bios and stuff. I don’t know. I mean, it’s like a buckaroo is a slang term for a cowboy and by no means do I walk around in boots with spurs and wear, you know, a giant hat or anything like that. But I do live kind of in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming and a small town that has a lot of focus around ah ranching and that sort of thing. And I spend a lot of time wandering the hills and mountains of Wyoming on my own. And I just knew it was like, yeah, maybe I feel a bit connected to that term buckaroo.

00:01:55.65
Gabe
So yeah, giddy up, it’s good to be here.

00:01:59.34
Alyssa
Nice. ah Are you originally from the area that you live in now or did you grow up somewhere else?

00:02:06.79
Gabe
I’m not, I grew up in Wisconsin and I moved, let’s see here. I spent my summers in Southwest Montana, starting in, what year was that been? Like 2007, I think, or so, and then I moved to,

00:02:25.00
Gabe
Wyoming in 2008. I haven’t looked back. It’s sort of always one of those people who kind of knew I was born in the wrong state and Wisconsin’s nice and all, but it wasn’t quite the right place for me. And so, yeah, I’ve been really happy to call ah Wyoming home now for quite a few years.

00:02:44.56
Alyssa
Nice. It’s yeah funny, I’m from Vermont and tend to get along really well with Midwest people. There’s like a and there’s synergy with it with that, but um Montana is awesome.

00:02:53.46
Gabe
Yeah.

00:02:57.38
Alyssa
I’ve been dying to get out to the Wind River Range for a while. I’ve just heard it’s magical.

00:03:01.19
Gabe
Oh yes. Yep, come on, go for a run. I’ll show you around.

00:03:05.91
Alyssa
Sweet. So what got you started in your journey of mountain running and um you know, specifically multi-day stage racing as you took on Dragon’s Back a couple weeks ago.

00:03:21.16
Gabe
Yeah, it’s a couple weeks old.

00:03:21.25
Alyssa
Not that long.

00:03:22.80
Gabe
Sure. Well, long before I ever would have considered myself a runner, I would have called myself a backpacker. like When I was in Southwest Montana, I was working at a summer camp that took kids on multi-day backpack trips.

00:03:34.10
Gabe
And that’s what my wife and I did for fun. We’d go on multi-day backpack trips. So again, but like the multi-day thing has always felt maybe a little bit natural in that sense. um And ah we still go backpacking and enjoy it, but it kind of got to be the point where it was too slow a pace for life. like If you want to get to a ah really cool place and in Western Wyoming or depending where you are in Southwest Montana, it’s commitment. It’s a lot of miles to get to these special places. and I’m so We started like ditching gear and going all July and still be like running with 20-pound packs or 15-pound packs. It got to be the point eventually where it was like, look, we need to start moving faster here and we have to carry less stuff. and We kind of discovered that

00:04:20.22
Gabe
some of these things we like to do, these places we like to go, if you just run, you can get there and still be home by dinnertime or you know ah go get a pizza afterwards rather than sleeping out in a tent.

00:04:30.92
Alyssa
Thank you.

00:04:32.13
Gabe
So it’s just kind of a little bit of a different experience and running became a really fun way to do it.

00:04:39.69
Alyssa
Yeah, it is so interesting when ah like that natural transition of just, oh gosh, I could do a 30 mile day over two days, or I could just go a little lighter, get a little faster, and now all of a sudden all of these places and distances are within a really fun day out in the mountains, grasp or reach.

00:05:00.63
Gabe
Yeah. Yep, absolutely, yes.

00:05:06.37
Gabe
This could almost be a negative as well, but it made the world maybe feel like a little bit of a smaller place rather than like special places seem so far away and inaccessible.

00:05:11.62
Alyssa
interesting well

00:05:15.03
Gabe
It’s like if, yeah, when you can get there and and still be home at a decent time, it’s like maybe some of these special occasions don’t quite feel so far away. And then I guess it makes you gravitate towards bigger and bigger adventures, right?

00:05:28.24
Gabe
To make the world feel big.

00:05:29.14
Alyssa
then yeah well then you just go 50 miles and yeah

00:05:34.15
Gabe
Yeah, right, you just, yeah, multi-day runs and things like that.

00:05:39.88
Alyssa
just the length of wheels. I mean, I think it’s Tara Dower who says like everything is within walking distance if you have enough time or something along those lines.

00:05:42.78
Gabe
Right.

00:05:50.68
Gabe
I like that quote very much, yes.

00:05:51.23
Alyssa
like Yeah, I thought that was pretty great. So then how did the this transition into racing ultras

00:06:02.98
Gabe
Yeah, um well I played and played soccer in college and I was on a very competitive team and grew up playing really high level competitive soccer and so I’ve had that element of competition in my life. I was pretty burned out with that after college and so I was really happy to just kind of go on like long backpacking trips and long runs with no goals. I think after being like a couple years removed from that Um, you know, I started like the idea of challenging myself to run a little bit faster. And I didn’t even know trail races were a thing at first. And so I, but I started to have this idea I started to hear like trailer races, you know, like were, were, you know, a sport out there you could do. And I started looking up these races and yeah the first race website I found was hard rock 100. I was like, Oh, let me look at this one. This looks like a cool thing to do. ah I’m going to, I’m going to sign up for this. And I went to like the register, but I’m like, Oh, wait.

00:06:55.60
Gabe
Like, there’s a lottery? And wait, you have to do a qualifier? and like And so you can’t just sign up for Hard Rock on a whim, apparently. They try to keep people like me out of it.

00:07:06.05
Alyssa
Well, I was curious.

00:07:09.30
Alyssa
When did you know that you were looking at hard rock?

00:07:12.50
Gabe
That must have been like… That must have been like… 2011 maybe? 2010? I’m trying to think, because then I…

00:07:21.07
Alyssa
So I mean, there was a lot like you at that point, your baby could have.

00:07:23.92
Gabe
Yeah, it was still you still had to have a qualifier in things.

00:07:26.88
Alyssa
Wow. Okay.

00:07:28.34
Gabe
So then I did the Bear 100 as a qualifier, and I think 2010, 2011, or maybe it’s 2013.

00:07:28.25
Alyssa
Gotcha.

00:07:35.56
Gabe
I don’t know, it all started to tick a long time ago. um So I did BigHorn 50, and got absolutely clobbered. That was my first ultra race. That went so well that I decided I should just do Bear 100 next.

00:07:48.40
Gabe
I did that, and got absolutely clobbered. um And then I put in for the Hard Rock Clobber. It took me a little while to get in. But anyways, that was sort of like how I like where my motivation came from to like to try racing. I was like, I don’t know. It just seems like kind of a fun way to be competitive and where my training could be. And I didn’t know how to train. and I was the coolest. My training was just like wandering around the Windover Mountains and kind of picking interesting places to go. And then I just thought, well, at the end of it, you just can show up at a race and like to run really hard and see how it goes. And that was the beginning for me. And then, of course, lots of ah

00:08:24.04
Gabe
of experiences where I figured out that there’s maybe a little bit more nuance than that. um It had a lot of tough goes and I’ve had to learn and evolve a lot over the years.

00:08:36.53
Alyssa
Yeah, well, yeah, that’s so interesting. I feel like I came from a lacrosse background. And I feel like there’s so many of us that were kind of like that college field sport. And then you’re looking for, you know, that next competitive piece. And it’s just, it’s interesting to me how many of us kind of come from that arena versus less so in many ways the like track in cross country.

00:09:04.70
Alyssa
Like obviously there are those people, but yeah, it’s, I feel like there should be a study on, on that of like, what background do you come from and how does that affect, um, you know, moving forward.

00:09:12.34
Gabe
Yeah.

00:09:18.15
Alyssa
Have you been able to stay relatively injury free over the years or up and down?

00:09:23.34
Gabe
um Yes and no. I mean, I think in particular when I was first… Getting into the sport, I went through a lot of those like newer runner injuries, you know like IT tb band syndrome, and you know yeah the different knee pains, and then all on an Achilles thing. and like I feel like I’ve had every one of those kinds of little injuries that people have, but the longer I’ve been in the sport, um become more durable, and those have become less and less of an issue. Also, I learned how to actually like trains correctly, so that helps too.

00:09:55.76
Alyssa
It definitely helps, yeah. So what, I guess, like what has kind of been some of the, we’re going to get into Dragon’s Back specifically.

00:10:06.36
Alyssa
And I really want to touch on kind of the training and preparation for Dragon’s Back because on this podcast, I think that that’s a really, um,

00:10:11.54
Gabe
Yeah.

00:10:17.48
Alyssa
I think there’s a lot of amazing podcasts that kind of talk about the in-race situation, but for us it’s like how can we educate from the before piece, the after piece, and like apply training principles. But I’m curious what led you to choose Dragon’s Back and Also, like how did you structure seated hard rock? um How did your kind of race progression go to the point where you’re like, hey, this is the year I really want to take on dragons back. And um I feel prepared because of XYZ races or experiences to get to this point.

00:10:56.21
Gabe
Yeah. Um, yeah, it’s kind of a long evolution. You know, for a long time, I was really focused on a hundred mile race. Um, I still love those. Um, and I plan on doing more, but I think I finished like 13 of them or something like that. And kind of got to the point where it’s like, this is cool, but I’m still ready. I’m ready for something different. Um, and.

00:11:19.85
Gabe
like multi-day running seemed like kind of a nice pivot where it’s still a lot of endurance, um but you know it comes at you in a little bit of a different way. I’ve maybe first got really intrigued by the idea of multi-day running actually a little bit by accident. I had a really bad accident in 2022, and I had been signed up for, um um the La Verrito Alta Trail, which is a 75 mile race in the Dolomites of Italy.

00:11:52.13
Gabe
And I had done most of the training for that. Like I was maybe five weeks out of the race, something like that. um um It was mega fit. I had this accident that there’s all sorts of other podcasts about it, but I fell on a trekking pole and was bloodied to death.

00:12:06.56
Gabe
So I won’t go into the details of that. But like I had a torn calf muscle.

00:12:07.65
Alyssa
Oh.

00:12:09.92
Gabe
I had like no iron, like no blood left in me. But Like I was alive and okay. Anyways, I still had all, I had bought my plane tickets and had all the hotel reservations, had everything ready to go, and I was only like four weeks out from it and I was just this like a broken human and a broken runner. And as I slowly started to heal and like to go for half mile walks with one of my daughters, you know, and that felt like a big challenge. And then I started going to these like little jogs and

00:12:40.43
Gabe
I kind of had this um idea of like I still wanted to go to Lava Rado and I knew I ah couldn’t race it but I had this idea of running the course over three days I was like maybe I could go and still have the experience and and like get around that loop and um my coach at the time kind of encouraged me and said like why not if it doesn’t work out you can like you could eat gelato and make a vacation of it I was like I like that like well you know why not why not go for it and so ah I like

00:13:01.61
Alyssa
Yeah.

00:13:10.13
Gabe
Yeah, made it to Italy. I couldn’t walk without limping still at that point. Like I was still pretty beat up. I actually looked more normal running when I was walking. and I mean, I was far from being a hundred percent. And, um, you know, I ran the first 25 miles of the course and it was like, like, the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It was so hard. Um, you know, finished that day being broken and then woke up to do the second day. And I felt oddly a little bit better and I did it. and felt a little bit better by the end. I mean, well, still broken by the end of day two. But then again, like each day I sort of felt like a little bit more confident. And so I ended up doing these like three 25 mile runs in three days, being like just a shadow of myself as a runner. And I was sort of like, wow, I did that. like Look how quickly I could recover. And kind of got inspired to see what else I could do.

00:13:58.01
Gabe
Um, do, do with that. And so then later that year, um, I signed up for the rut trifecta, which is a really fun challenge. And that just happened last weekend. Super cool. You’re on the VK one day, then you do your 28 K and then a 50 K, um, somebody loan loan peak and big sky three times in one weekend.

00:14:16.34
Gabe
Um, I did that and it went super well. Um, and then I also that same year got a spot in the snowman race, which is a five day stage race.

00:14:24.28
Alyssa
Nice.

00:14:25.53
Gabe
The Himalayas have been.

00:14:25.92
Alyssa
Yeah.

00:14:27.61
Gabe
Um, which is an amazing event that’s coming up here soon again. Um, and that went really well. So I do, I guess I just discovered I have this capacity for recovery and to be able to just like, kind of get up and go again. And this belief that, no matter how broken down I am, no matter how tired I am, you can eat a bunch of food and go to sleep and wake up and say, okay, here we go. We’re doing it again. And, um, dragon’s back was another opportunity to test that out and try and see how it goes and experience a new landscape and new culture and um Yeah, made it super appealing. and

00:15:02.52
Alyssa
That’s awesome. I mean, yeah, I’m curious because that’s actually one of my weird superpowers as well as the recovery piece.

00:15:14.07
Gabe
Yeah.

00:15:15.03
Alyssa
You said eat a bunch of food and sleep.

00:15:17.41
Gabe
That’s pretty much it.

00:15:18.16
Alyssa
Is that like, yes, the same. Yeah.

00:15:21.24
Gabe
it pretty much it

00:15:21.16
Alyssa
Everyone’s like, well, okay. Yeah. Cause I was going to say, what do you, do you have anything in particular that you do for recovery.

00:15:32.16
Alyssa
um And I guess applying that to Dragon’s Back as well.

00:15:36.53
Gabe
Yeah, I do.

00:15:36.98
Alyssa
Do you feel like you did anything?

00:15:37.37
Gabe
When I’m at home, I certainly, I regularly work on mobility every day, sometimes twice a day, and that’s nothing crazy. I’m not using all sorts of crazy contraptions or like recovery boots or anything like that.

00:15:54.69
Gabe
like It’s just like gentle mobility work um and making sure that the whole body doesn’t kind of stiffen up and make sure the body’s still functioning. I do that on a daily basis. Actually, interesting left it like almost none of that at dragon’s back I was like basically like the legs and the muscles were just too tired for like any additional movement or strain whatsoever but I kind of decided that it was more more effort than it was worth and i just focused on literally eating as much as i possibly could take in um which was kind of a fun challenge but also exhausting by the end of the week too oddly enough one could only eat so many french fries in six days it’s a true thing so yes so many chips

00:16:35.99
Alyssa
Yes. Yeah. Oh man, the chips, so many chips. Um, yeah. And that’s so interesting to hear you say that because that’s exactly what I say to people. I’m like, there is no magic. I will say one of the only magical pieces when I was doing things like that, when I was younger, was that I was 20 something years old and ate a lot of food and slept.

00:17:02.52
Alyssa
Now I’m 31, so it’s like taking off the 20 year old magic, but ah yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s not complicated.

00:17:13.86
Alyssa
It’s pretty straightforward.

00:17:14.15
Gabe
It’s not.

00:17:15.70
Alyssa
Yeah.

00:17:16.83
Gabe
Yeah. And I think there’s also just a, like a training history piece to that as well. So, you know, being exceptionally well-trained for an event really helps, but it’s, you know, as you know, it’s the years on years that layers of training, how they stack up.

00:17:22.70
Alyssa
Totally. yeah

00:17:31.54
Gabe
And so if, you know, someone started ultra running eight months ago, that same strategy is not going to work quite the same way. But when, you know, when you have a decade plus of consistent training with very little break from injury and training that’s in like thoughtful and intentional and all those sorts of things. Yeah, you just develop a certain level of resilience, but the reality is it just takes time to build. So yeah, I’m grateful that I’ve had the will or the stubbornness to stick with it, I guess, and um and and be able to do that.

00:18:08.98
Alyssa
Yeah, no, that’s an excellent point. I mean, I think that’s the other piece when you get questions like, ah how can you do that? How can you do these back to backs or keep that pace? It’s like the unsexy answer is yeah well over a decade of grinding it out and just putting in yeah the time and the effort.

00:18:25.30
Gabe
Yep.

00:18:28.88
Alyssa
but um To get into a few of the specifics in the lead up to Dragon’s Back, first off, I should say part of the reason why we have Gabe on other than his awesomeness is that Gabe works with a familiar voice on the podcast, Chantel Robitai, as his coach. He’s an uphill athlete ambassador. And when did you start working with Chantel?

00:18:58.37
Gabe
Um, almost about a year ago. It was sometime, but maybe it might have been like October of last year or something like that. But yeah, it’s about ah but like a full, a full cycle. Yeah. Full year. Thereabouts.

00:19:12.23
Alyssa
So when you came to her with the idea of Dragon’s Back, what did your plan kind of look like yeah and was Dragon’s Back your A race or like one of your A races?

00:19:27.01
Gabe
Yeah, I would say it was my Aries. I would say I had two A-races for the year. I wanted to go back and complete the Lava Raider Ultra Trail again, so I did that in June. um That was kind of like an A-goal number one, and then I felt like there was enough time between June and September with my terrain history to try to peak twice. um I think we pulled that off. But yeah, so those were the two big goals for the year anyways.

00:19:52.28
Alyssa
Nice. And so going into, okay, laying the foundation. Let’s see the period from La Verrito to Dragon’s Back and maybe a little bit before that. What were some of the key ah pieces that you were focusing on within that training, ah those training kind of blocks? so

00:20:13.64
Gabe
Yeah, there were a few things we spent a lot of time working on, or things working on. I spent a lot of time doing longer duration uphill intervals. um You know, as someone that comes from that but soccer field sports background, you know, it was really, really good at like short burst sprints, really good at like trying at a really slow pace, but that was kind of like, um you know,

00:20:41.75
Gabe
faster paces, you know your RPE 7, 8 kind of stuff, that threshold work. That isn’t the sort of thing that’s always come real naturally to me, maybe you can relate. And so just continually working on that on different uphill grades throughout the year, that was a goal.

00:20:52.12
Alyssa
we

00:20:56.86
Gabe
And then the other thing we added in, this was great. I have a little bit, as I alluded to, a love-hate relationship with trekking poles. And so I practiced doing a lot of those uphill intervals with poles and just became extremely comfortable with them to the point where I would forget I was even using them. I forget they’re in my hand, that almost like an extension of my limbs. And I think sometimes, probably myself included in the past, people think, well, I magically get some poles on my hand, I’m gonna be faster going uphill. And it’s just, they are a tool, it’s a skill set. And like any skill, you can make progress with it. And so this year,

00:21:35.68
Gabe
like stop being afraid of them and just be like, I’m going to use these things. And I did, I used them a ton. And then they really served me well at both, um, Colorado and dragons back. Whereas last year I still maybe struggled with them. I didn’t always like them. I don’t know. I don’t know how much they always helped me. So that was a huge improvement this year. So I worked on that, like having that uphill power speed and endurance. That was huge. Um, and then the technique to be able to, you know, use the poles as a tool to, to make me faster and not stressed out.

00:22:07.42
Alyssa
Awesome. Yeah, that’s, I think one of the, the really tricky parts of a multi-day stage race is essentially every day is an opportunity for a single race.

00:22:22.01
Gabe
Yeah.

00:22:22.29
Alyssa
And it is honestly kind of astonishing how fast you have to go and how hard you have to push every single day.

00:22:29.98
Gabe
I really do. That was maybe my greatest surprise about Dragon’s Back.

00:22:31.53
Alyssa
Yeah.

00:22:34.74
Gabe
In my mind, I pictured it being more like what I’d call an adventure pace because it’s 240 miles in a week. And you know, when we got going on day one, the pace was so hot, I was sort of like, whoa.

00:22:46.99
Gabe
Like, this can’t be this can’t be how it’s going to be, is it? And like, it was. um You know, people push hard really every day and like to credit my competitors for that.

00:22:51.87
Alyssa
But Yeah.

00:22:58.07
Gabe
They’re all like super high level athletes. um and so like my goal was strategy wise, I guess was to like, try to start this thing a little bit more relaxed, knowing that it’s six days for things to shake out. um And it was difficult to execute that strategy when I’m not sure my competitors have that same mentality. So like try to stay connected with the front of the field while also trying to like, rein it in a little bit. um That was a really difficult balance. And I felt like I was

00:23:33.40
Gabe
having to work really hard to thread the needle.

00:23:37.26
Alyssa
It is. It’s also, gosh, we’re getting right into it. I’ll pull back after this.

00:23:42.41
Gabe
Yeah, let’s do it.

00:23:43.13
Alyssa
but i it dragons back is also a very interesting starting situation you don’t have a set start time well you yeah you kind of do you have if you hit a certain time within the day you have to start after say like seven thirty because they don’t want you to be there before they’re set up or seven you know it so they kind of say like hey you have an hour period to start and so there’s a

00:24:07.15
Gabe
Yeah.

00:24:14.22
Alyssa
a lot of strategy that goes into what time you start and what time you start in relation to your competitors. Do you want them behind you? Do you want them in front of you in like the mind games that are being played just like standing there in or like kind of walking up slowly into the start box.

00:24:33.19
Gabe
Yes.

00:24:33.58
Alyssa
Yeah. So how did you manage that ah that piece with the starting

00:24:41.03
Gabe
Yeah, that was kind of fascinating and kind of new to me and maybe a bit unexpected. I knew a little bit about that going in, but I didn’t quite know how serious people take that. And I’m maybe a little more low key than that, like just inherently, like I have to sometimes work hard to be competitive.

00:24:52.50
Alyssa
Yep.

00:24:58.13
Gabe
And so like, you know, I’d walk up to the starting line, just right at like, we could start at the earliest, I could start with eight o’clock and I would try to be there right at eight and I’d be like, saying to people like, Hey, you want to start, you want to start out running together? And they’d be like, go shuffling away. Be like, Oh, I’m going to wait a minute. You know, like I’d be like, Oh, okay. Nobody wants to run with me. You know, and I’d be like, Oh well. And I would just get started. Um, and I just didn’t, I just didn’t play those games. Cause I was, I, my, like my.

00:25:24.94
Gabe
kind of like my mantra and sort of my ad who was like, this is six days of running, whatever ah any of us do to try to like gain a three minute advantage or whatever, like it’s just gonna shake out in the end. um And to be fair, I think it did work out that way this year.

00:25:41.84
Gabe
maybe in a different year, maybe that wouldn’t have worked as well, depending just on how the competition had stacked out. But it was sort of like I wasn’t going to stress about every minute or two here or there because like over 240 miles, or like if you end up beating someone by like, or if they beat you by like, say, three minutes, like that’s pretty wild.

00:25:59.35
Gabe
You know, if it’s that close.

00:26:00.00
Alyssa
Yeah.

00:26:00.71
Gabe
And so I was sort of banking on just not being that close, like that couldn’t, I’m like, how could that possibly be the deciding factor. So I always try to get people to run with me and When they don’t, I just run.

00:26:11.49
Gabe
i like By the end, things started to mellow out a little bit more on that front. But I think we could kind of see that there was such a big gap between the folks at the front that I was sort of like, look, like unless one of us absolutely implodes, this is probably how it’s going to be.

00:26:25.10
Alyssa
Which does, it does happen, but

00:26:25.78
Gabe
um Yes.

00:26:28.80
Alyssa
But that’s not going to be, you know, the few minutes starting aren’t the reason why someone drops or yeah loses hours.

00:26:35.26
Gabe
Right. Yeah.

00:26:36.54
Alyssa
um Yeah, I also think people just get too tired. They’re like, I’m too tired to play these games anymore.

00:26:41.22
Gabe
Yeah. Yeah. The, maybe the one thing I wish I had maybe done to like play those games, not to try to get any sort of advantage, but, you know, I didn’t have any chance to recce the course and like I was racing with, you know, people that like live in Wales, you know, and, um, that, that, that intimate course knowledge they had were like sometimes where I would.

00:27:04.07
Gabe
You know, I’d be like hot in someone’s heels and the fog and all of a sudden they would disappear because they took some shortcut I didn’t know about and you know, they appear 10 minutes ahead of me somewhere. I’d be like, sometimes that felt like a losing battle where like, how do you beat someone that has that kind of course knowledge? And so I’m like, well, maybe if I had latched onto them a little bit more, I could have taken a few more of those shortcuts. But also, I don’t know, that might not have changed the end result anyway, so.

00:27:33.56
Gabe
I took the scenic route. I’ll just think of the way.

00:27:34.25
Alyssa
Yeah. You got the most for your money.

00:27:39.75
Gabe
Yes, exactly. That’s what it’s all about.

00:27:43.38
Alyssa
Yeah, no, it is tricky. um Yeah, that’s definitely a piece we can get into. But what, just to kind of touch on a few more pieces of the training, how did this look?

00:27:55.83
Gabe
Sure.

00:27:57.35
Alyssa
Because I think it’s one of people’s biggest questions, sorry.

00:28:20.83
Alyssa
We live on a military base and this is the disadvantage when there’s jets taking off.

00:28:26.01
Gabe
Yes.

00:28:27.62
Alyssa
So how, I think, I’ll start this over again. um I think people’s biggest question when you’re looking at a 60 stage race is how the heck do you train for that? And is it something that looks significantly different from say a hundred mile build up? Um, also I think people have that question with 200 milers as well of, you know, how much more volume can you do? How do pieces get shifted? So I’m curious what you’ve done.

00:29:01.20
Alyssa
quite a lot of 100s, how did this feel different than say a traditional build or similar?

00:29:08.08
Gabe
Yeah, I would say in a lot of ways it was quite similar. Like, cause you can, you know, you can only add so much training stimulus for so long before it starts to just break you down. So I, I feel like, you know, a lot of the, like the day to day training was about what I would have expected for like a hundred mile race. Maybe like this, there’d be moments where we’re like, really like.

00:29:31.53
Gabe
have a real concentration in the volume, like it really boosts it up for like a week or two, get a few more consecutive like back to back to back kind of days. But again, of course, with the recovery being enhanced as well after that, but like, really just to help get all that soft tissue ready to go so that tendons and ligaments and all those sorts of things survive such a big effort. But otherwise, as far as interval structure and overall volume, I wouldn’t say it was massively different from what I do. I i think my like my most unusual or significant week of training I did, I did like a four day training camp that started with like a ah very long

00:30:13.83
Gabe
a 50 mile adventure run with a couple friends they’re like at a very adventure pace. Like probably half of it was off trail practicing specific skills that were going to be helpful with Dragon’s Bag. Like finding, like picking, you know, the best lineup or down like an open grassy mountain, you know, um ah all those sorts of things. So I did like a 50 mile day like that. And then the next three days I did kind of a consecutive 20 ish mile runs that were all like four to five hours in length.

00:30:44.23
Gabe
um And then after like, after that fourth day, it was pretty clear as like, okay, ah time for time for recovery day. And so, you know, that would have been an unusual week in trading for 100, like unnecessary.

00:30:57.83
Alyssa
Thank you.

00:30:58.14
Gabe
But I think a week like that was really critical to being prepared for the multi day element of dragons back, even though I didn’t run anywhere close to 240 miles that training week, but it helped kind of create like,

00:31:11.77
Gabe
that mindset of recovery and how to run sustainably. um And yeah, kind of kind of keep your wits together for another huge week.

00:31:22.95
Alyssa
Yeah, no, that’s I think that’s a great example because that isn’t something that you would really ever do for a hundredth of the way overkill. But I think it’s very crucial something along those lines of that kind of back to back to back to back.

00:31:38.20
Gabe
Yeah.

00:31:43.23
Alyssa
Did you practice like you? They use this term in the UK more than I feel like they do here, but like your admin, so, you know, your recovery pieces, your gear, like, how did that factor into your training as well?

00:31:52.52
Gabe
Yeah.

00:31:59.35
Gabe
That was something I didn’t do. I ate a lot of chips, a lot of french fries.

00:32:00.43
Alyssa
Did you eat french fries?

00:32:04.76
Gabe
That was something I did not have to work on very hard. And I know there’s a lot of focus on that in the UK. It’s like, get your admin right. But like, based on my other experiences I had there like the rut trifecta and um with um Um, the snowman race, I also did just for fun last year and to kind of experiment with this, I did like 180 mile run, like three and a half days. I ran from my front door here in Lander to Jackson, Wyoming. and Um, which was a really cool adventure, but get like, so I had this experience of like knowing exactly what I need to do to take care of myself, how to, how to keep my feet together, how to fuel and, um,

00:32:45.26
Gabe
For me, I didn’t have to work on that at all. If you maybe didn’t have that experience, that’d be something to really think fully about how you’re gonna take care of yourself over multiple days. But like we said, it’s like you eat a lot, sleep a lot, make sure you take care of your feet and you’ll probably be fine.

00:33:04.48
Alyssa
yeah Did you find, so Dragon’s Back also has really specific requirements for you get a 60 liter bag

00:33:15.27
Gabe
Yeah.

00:33:17.10
Alyssa
that’s the only bag you have and then you get a drop bag.

00:33:19.18
Gabe
Yep.

00:33:21.04
Alyssa
Did you find packing for that to be particularly challenging or not too bad?

00:33:25.33
Gabe
I did. I did. I um I would have maybe preferred I would have packed like maybe a couple more things or packed slightly differently if I had a little bit more room. I packed a lot of supplemental food just because I know how important it is to keep eating at these events. I also have celiac disease, so I was bringing in some of my extra only kind of personal gluten-free food to kind of make sure I had some additional options as well. And so I used every cubic inch of that bag to bring all that I could.

00:33:57.02
Gabe
and I would do that again. There was very little. Well, there’s very little I didn’t use except for the required kit. you know The required kit you have to run with, in my humble opinion, is rather overkill. um And so that’s what I didn’t use. It was the required kit. It was all those supplemental things that I brought with me. Those were really key to have with.

00:34:21.69
Alyssa
Yeah, it’s a heavy pack. My upper body was wrecked from six days of that. Yeah, it’s heavy.

00:34:28.87
Gabe
Yeah. Shoulders got really sore. Yeah. So I, you know, when I went, the light was minimal.

00:34:31.97
Alyssa
Yeah.

00:34:34.01
Gabe
They possibly could with that. We’ll still follow all the rules. And if I did direct it back again, I would have to even thoughtfully consider how I could. There’s gotta be some way to even save some more weight there or something, but it just, it feels like a bit much. I mean, I feel like I could have done it, and I know they’re trying to keep people safe. I’m not being critical. Um, but it felt like a lot for the kind of running that we were doing, but that’s okay. It’s their race. They can do what they want.

00:35:01.31
Alyssa
Did you feel, or I guess, um how was the weather for you guys?

00:35:06.76
Gabe
um Really different from my sound sounds like you had previously, but it was proper Welsh weather, which I was excited about.

00:35:10.38
Alyssa
Yeah.

00:35:14.58
Gabe
That’s what I wanted, where oftentimes it didn’t like it didn’t rain a ton, but it was like misty clouds, sometimes foggy, and it was ah maybe a lovely balance.

00:35:27.61
Gabe
And that way we’d get like breaks in the clouds and sometimes get these astounding views that would maybe last for a couple of hours. There were a handful of times on climbs where I was like, whoa, this feels warm. But it never lasted that long. And I think there were a handful of times on ridges where I was like, whoa, it’s chilly up here. But really, for the majority of the week, it’s quite a comfortable temperature. It was just ah extremely wet.

00:35:53.51
Gabe
You know, I’m almost non stop running in puddles and things like that. I mean, feet were never dry. Yeah, six straight days of wet feet. and So I think it was like a proper Welsh experience. So that’s what I was hoping for.

00:36:09.12
Alyssa
Nice. Yeah, we definitely had a lot of differences last year. It was very hot, very sunny, which, you know, has its pluses and myuses, but yeah, the heat was definitely a big factor.

00:36:23.86
Alyssa
in the race, like a tiny bit of rain.

00:36:24.55
Gabe
ah

00:36:27.88
Alyssa
I think like one day, yeah, it was very, very different. How did you manage? I mean, and even with that, my feet were wet most of the time.

00:36:38.23
Alyssa
So how did you manage the foot care piece of it?

00:36:38.65
Gabe
Yeah. Oh, this is actually a little bit funny. So typically what I do is that there’s several different balms out there that you can put in your feet to help out with this. When I don’t have any affiliation with this company, I usually use Joshua Tree Balm, which is made for climbers’ hands to help them toughen up the skin and recover. And so I’ll use that on my feet regularly. um Like two days before leaving ah for Dragon’s Back, I went to my local shop. It’s a very climbing-oriented outdoor store. They always have that stuff in for years.

00:37:13.03
Gabe
And I wouldn’t get some more Joshua Tree Balm when they’re like, we’re all out. What? I was like, I need something.

00:37:17.27
Alyssa
Oh no!

00:37:18.60
Gabe
They were all, I couldn’t believe it. I’ve never gone in there and they didn’t have it. And so it’s my fault for not planning ahead more. And so I was like, like okay, I’m gonna have to figure something else out.

00:37:28.97
Gabe
And so I was looking around the shop and I’m trying to remember the name of this product. They have like this dog section of the shop with ruffwear harnesses and stuff like that. And they have this stuff called like musher’s paws.

00:37:42.07
Gabe
And it’s basically like a similar product full of lots of wax and a little bit of oil and it’s made for sled dogs’ paws.

00:37:41.97
Alyssa
Oh!

00:37:49.80
Gabe
And so I was looking at what it’s made out of and the ingredients, like I put a little bit of my fingers and I felt it. I’m like, I think this is kind of the same thing or pretty close to it. Anyways, so I took this risk.

00:38:00.54
Gabe
I’d never used this product before. I bought, I think I’m pretty sure it’s called Musher’s Paws. And I brought that with me. I mean, it keeps the dog’s feet. Okay. And like cold, knowing stuff all day, I was like, it’s kind of work.

00:38:10.33
Alyssa
Yeah.

00:38:12.85
Gabe
All right. So I put my musher’s paws, um, balm on my feet, uh, at least twice each evening. You know, once, as soon as my feet like reasonably dried out enough, I put a thick layer of it on there.

00:38:24.83
Gabe
And then I tried to put another layer of it on before I went to bed at night. And what a massive difference that makes putting something like that on your feet. And it worked great. I had. like basically no blisters. I always get that I have one spot in each of my little toes where I always get a blister no matter what I do.

00:38:37.17
Gabe
And I just got those routine ones, but those are like zero issues. I get those on like a 15 mile run too. So um yeah, my feet look, man besides being like having mud stuck in every little crease and toenail for like, I think it’s still there.

00:38:54.01
Gabe
Other than that, my feet look normal when I finish. So that’s, Not everyone could say that there. So yeah, the musher’s paws. I endorse it. There it is.

00:39:04.64
Alyssa
I love it. That’s awesome. Uh, yeah, I think, gosh, that’s honestly, I think one of people’s biggest struggles in Dragon’s Back is the feet. are just insane.

00:39:16.25
Alyssa
Yeah, they get really, really bad.

00:39:16.74
Gabe
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just.

00:39:18.01
Alyssa
So how could it not?

00:39:19.67
Gabe
Having the right shoe sock kind of shoe combination is so key, like making sure the way the sock hugs your foot you know and then how it connects and attaches to your shoe. like if you can have that dialed in, blisters aren’t something normally I struggle with. And so I made sure I took my um, my absolute most comfortable shoes I have that just fit my foot perfectly and brought all my favorite socks that I know work well with it. and um I was able to go into the race without really worrying about my feet because I had done my homework ahead of time and made sure I had something I knew was going to work.

00:40:00.52
Alyssa
Nice. How many pairs of shoes did you range?

00:40:05.42
Gabe
I brought three pairs of shoes. Two of them were more or less the same thing. And then one pair I bought that is quite good on rock.

00:40:18.96
Gabe
Um, I ended up not, I wore those for like half a day. I switched into them and I was just given the amount of mud and water. I was like, no, this is not, not, not the right tool, uh, for the job. And so I barely wore those. So, I mean, in essence, like I wore like, oh, two, I just switched between two shoes, um, for the, for the majority of the race. And so if I was going to do it again, I’d probably just bring two shoes and say pack extra snacks instead of a third pair of shoes. But it’s hard to pack shoes when you don’t, don’t know quite what you’re getting yourself into.

00:40:49.16
Alyssa
yeah Yeah, and I think it’s tricky as well because A, they’re damp from you know just the day being out, but you start getting into the four, five, and six.

00:41:06.40
Alyssa
Five a little bit less, but four and six, there’s not an insignificant amount of road running or in pretty runnable terrain.

00:41:12.20
Gabe
Yeah.

00:41:14.61
Alyssa
You really don’t want an aggressively technical shoe for those parts. That can really mess your feet up.

00:41:21.94
Gabe
yes, a lot of people switch shoes halfway through, and I you know I took some of the advice, and I tried that one day, and um and I was like, that’s not worth it. I sort of feel like having one shoe that is like kind of an all-arounder, maybe it’s not the best at anything, but it’s capable of everything, that’s what you want for dragons back, something that you’re not gonna get to whatever service and go, oh no, I have these on. like Yeah, so it’s,

00:41:50.16
Alyssa
yeah

00:41:50.99
Gabe
Yeah, low stress, just be like, well, they’re comfortable no matter what it is. And they’re, they’re going to do at least good enough on whatever it is that. Cause yeah, I saw some people running some of those, like, you know, like, uh, we’d call them like a gravel bike path, right?

00:42:02.80
Gabe
But like one of those paths, like, you know, these minimal foul shoes. And I was like, Ooh, that, that looks like it would really hurt.

00:42:10.75
Alyssa
Yeah.

00:42:10.99
Gabe
Um, I’m sure it did.

00:42:12.90
Alyssa
Yeah, yeah, no, that’s, it’s ah it’s just such a, I mean, it’s such an enormous amount of distance and terrain and variation. There’s just so much room for success and error.

00:42:27.26
Gabe
Yeah. and I think that’s one of the things that drew me to this race is I like variety in my running. Um, and I like races where you have to, um, have skills in fitness and a little bit of everything. Um, rather than just being a specialist, one thing in, uh, this race definitely brings that because whatever kind of running you can think of, it was there.

00:42:49.92
Alyssa
Yes, it definitely is. So what was your strategy going into this sixth day? We’ve touched on it a little bit, but I was tracking you quite religiously and checking in with Chantal and she was like, he’s following the plan. ah Was it with the updates I was getting, but how is it on the ground and what did you decide going into it?

00:43:17.16
Gabe
Yeah, yeah, that’s pretty accurate. um my de you know Like I kind of said, it’s like I knew there was six days for this to kind of all work itself out, so my goal was to try to take particularly one and two a little bit more like relaxed, a little bit more easy, ease into things. It’s also, as you know, it’s by far the most technically challenging day. ah It was even more technically difficult than I thought because it rained a ton, days one and two.

00:43:46.76
Alyssa
Yeah.

00:43:47.03
Gabe
And the rocks there, I found especially slippery. Like a lot of the rocks, particularly on day one, it was like they might as well have been covered in ice. And I had fantastic rubber in my shoes that sticks to basically anything I run on typically. But I really struggled.

00:44:03.71
Gabe
um particularly descending some of that rocky terrain, because I thought I was going to fall constantly. um And like there were two different people, two different two of the guys who finished, or who were running in the top five, ended up with like either broken ribs or bruised intercostal muscles.

00:44:17.41
Gabe
like I mean, there were lots of big spills and falls and stuff.

00:44:17.59
Alyssa
Oh, geez.

00:44:22.27
Gabe
um So my fear of falling was not unfounded. um And I was much less aggressive on those descents than any of my competitors.

00:44:32.95
Gabe
ah I also have a little bit of a fear of falling as it is. So um I took, I ran uphill hard. I did the best I could. I kind of went on days one and two, but I did not push any of those really rugged sections because I was just kind of like, you know, I don’t think there’s that much to gain here. I could, you know, push a bit harder and it’s going to be a little bit faster, might fall. So one and two, I was pretty relaxed. um On day three, I sort of felt almost fresher than day one and two. I was still struggling with jet lag a little bit on days one and two. And I woke up on day three being like, yeah, it’s go time. And I kind of took the handbrake off and was able to

00:45:13.47
Gabe
not push it hard, that wouldn’t be accurate, but just to kind of run a little bit more free like it was a normal run. And the terrain was kind of wonderfully diverse and maybe a little bit more, it just the landscape maybe a little bit reminded me of what I’m more familiar with. And I was able to have a really fantastic day three and same with da carry that into day four and run really well as well. and um So I was able to move up the field quite a bit just in those two days where my strategy of kind of holding back a little bit at days one and two, and then taking the handbrake off on days three and four was fantastic. And that was, yeah, like Chantel said, all part of the plan. And as you know, day five is just exceptionally difficult. um i Day five started out really well, I think.

00:46:02.19
Gabe
ah like the metabolic challenges of the event caught up to me a little bit on day five. I thought I was having a little bit of an off day and I was fueling as normally, but I think in hindsight, looking back on it, I was like, I think I was just kind of starting to bonk. I think I was just burning through calories so fast that the second half of day five, I think I was just running a bit depleted. And so that day went okay, but not as well as days three and four.

00:46:26.08
Gabe
And then day six is a mega challenge. I, don’t know what’s up with people. Everyone there was like, Oh, day six is easy. I was like 41 miles. Like most, road running is not easy in my book. Um, and so again, I like, yeah, struggled day six of it with being depleted. I had a little bit of a muscular injury kind of started to flare up to, um, a day six. Like I was just pretty much maxed out and. You know, I was able to, you know, run everything to the finish, but, um, it was.

00:46:57.27
Gabe
basically just holding it together. And with where the places were in the race, they fortunately didn’t have anything to worry about in that front. Like if I sat on a bench for three hours, that would have done it. But all I had to do was keep moving and I knew I’d finish in third. um And so, yeah, that’s kind of how it all played out from a day-to-day perspective. And if I was going to do it again, I would um implement that same strategy.

00:47:18.58
Alyssa
Nice. I mean, that doesn’t happen very often if you get to actually live out what you were planning.

00:47:26.03
Gabe
Yeah.

00:47:27.18
Alyssa
I mean, that shows a lot of maturity and i patience,

00:47:34.01
Gabe
Patience, yeah, and I think I was reflecting the two after the race.

00:47:34.31
Alyssa
especially in a stage race.

00:47:42.36
Gabe
I’ve been guilty of this so many times, but like I think oftentimes it’s viewed as a really courageous thing to kind of go out hard and hold on for dear life. And I think it’s actually the opposite. I think it’s a really courageous thing to like to start slow and like to believe that that’s going to pay off, because you don’t, you don’t know if it’s going to pay off. you know Your competition might become out of reach. And I have been guilty of the former so many times in my life you know going out too hard. And so I had to really work on my mental game and be like, believing like this is going to work out. This is a six-day race. Even at the end of day two, where I wasn’t where I wanted to be, it was like

00:48:20.74
Gabe
There’s still four more days of running. Like it doesn’t matter. You’re going to be okay. And to keep believing in that, that took a lot of courage and was difficult, but credit to Chantal and credit to my support network for helping me believe in and stick to that because it wasn’t easy.

00:48:41.28
Alyssa
Yeah, I think that’s such a great point. I think I saw your post about it and I am terribly guilty of going out and just being like, well, screw it.

00:48:54.09
Alyssa
I’m going to lose contact. I’m not going to keep up. And I did honestly very similar, it wasn’t even like a strategy, but UTMB, I was in 83rd, 83rd woman.

00:49:08.87
Gabe
Yeah.

00:49:10.83
Alyssa
at the first aid station, and second one, and went, I moved up to 11th, which I’ve never been able to have that patience before.

00:49:18.14
Gabe
It’s incredible.

00:49:24.29
Alyssa
I was like, I don’t know where this voodoo magic is coming.

00:49:25.60
Gabe
So hard. yeah

00:49:27.73
Alyssa
Yeah, but it’s also, gosh, does it feel good to move up versus get chased down?

00:49:37.24
Gabe
Is it to finish your race pushing rather than just surviving?

00:49:37.60
Alyssa
I was like, wow, yeah

00:49:41.45
Gabe
You know, if you get there, it’s so much more fun and it’s a better experience. And it’s not, it’s not as fun and exciting and the live feed, you know, when you’re running like AV, if you know, but it’s like, nobody wins a hundred mile race at mile 20, you know, like there’s still a long way to go.

00:49:48.75
Alyssa
Yeah.

00:49:56.45
Gabe
So yeah, Bravo credit to you.

00:50:00.28
Alyssa
Well, I mean, right back at you. It’s, um yeah, it’s fun.

00:50:03.22
Gabe
Thank you.

00:50:05.91
Alyssa
So I’m curious, what was your favorite day and least favorite day?

00:50:12.71
Gabe
I really did enjoy all the days, like on some level. I’d say day three was my favorite. I really enjoyed the terrain. I forgot the name of the mountain on day three.

00:50:24.52
Gabe
They started with this big climb up into this really rugged peak that was in the clouds and my friends, there they told me the name of this mountain probably a dozen times and I still don’t have it.

00:50:32.80
Alyssa
I think it’s McEthel.

00:50:38.26
Gabe
Something like that.

00:50:38.46
Alyssa
Something M. It’s an M mountain.

00:50:41.58
Gabe
Yes, and ah and to the people who are yelling at your speakers right now, name I apologize, you can send me a message and correct me, I won’t be offended.

00:50:42.17
Alyssa
Yes, I’m so sorry.

00:50:51.44
Gabe
ah But anyways, I love that mountain. I love, there was this wonderful climb up it and then it’s kind of like, it was like this bouldery rock hopping and running that like, yeah again, felt like ah very similar to what I’m used to and it just, it felt good up there.

00:51:07.50
Gabe
I enjoyed running off the clouds and then there was this great, ah great descent coming off of that. And then there was some more climb. I don’t know. The way the day came at it, I just, where it, I got lucky into that I was day three is where I took the handbrake off and day three was kind of the day of the race. I felt most comfortable with the course. And so that was, that’d be my favorite. But as far as I like.

00:51:30.37
Gabe
least favored difficult day six was just like really difficult where you know day six I was ready to be done like everybody else and um the terrain was for sure less inspiring but not less interesting you know just the fact is a different country I still found it interesting to run through um but just you know I was at I was at my physical capacity for what I was doing that week and uh I made it for just a very long challenging day and you know when I got to Cardiff Castle like it’s one of those things I can thankfully say like I didn’t have anything left. That was it. And so I guess I timed it out about right.

00:52:09.75
Alyssa
Yeah, day six is just, it feels like you’re almost there the entire day.

00:52:15.96
Gabe
Yeah.

00:52:16.45
Alyssa
Like, oh, I’m almost there. I’m almost there. But you yeah, that was a really, yeah, that was an interesting day as well. I just couldn’t believe that it was going to be done.

00:52:28.66
Alyssa
So with 5K to go, I was still in like, sort of like, not a survival pace, but not in like, hey, kick it in. And then I had a few guys pass me and they’re like, you’re almost done. Go. And I was like, Oh, yeah, maybe I should start trying to really go for the finish because it’s actually done.

00:52:51.95
Gabe
Yeah, maybe to the contrary I started looking at my watch too early and started doing the countdown all to day six and I had to work really hard You know, you’re like, you know, and maybe like a hundred mile race. You can run a station aid station.

00:53:03.95
Gabe
like there aren’t aid stations throughout these long days. And so I had to kind of try to come up with ways to chunk it up so it was in bite-sized pieces. And I wasn’t looking at my watch going, oh my gosh, 36 more miles to go.

00:53:16.37
Gabe
Okay. you know I was like, okay, it’s like two more miles to the next climb. All right, that’s great. That’s how I can get to the next two miles.

00:53:23.29
Alyssa
Yeah.

00:53:23.69
Gabe
You know I had to break it up that way, and which is, you know, less exciting than a crude aid station I look forward to, but it works. It works to chunk it up like that. So I got through it.

00:53:35.40
Alyssa
Yeah, that’s such a great point. I mean, it is really different in that regard where not only can you not have crew or like if they’re really strict about any outside help, which I think is great. I mean, even as a playing field.

00:53:53.21
Alyssa
Uh, but you have one like, quote unquote, aid station, where you pick up your drop bag and that’s it. And sometimes that can be 50 kilometers into the day. I mean, it’s a long gap.

00:54:08.01
Gabe
Yeah, it’s almost like a self-supported race. Not quite, but you got to carry a lot of calories and oftentimes like to carry a lot of water. I imagine you had to carry an absurd amount of water with the warmth you had. ah And so you kind of really have to be able to plan ahead and anticipate what you’re going to need and have that ability to take care of yourself. But yeah, if you’re the sort of person that needs an aid station every five to eight miles, it’d be very challenging.

00:54:34.58
Alyssa
Yes, it’s not that race. it is And you’re not getting Pacers, you know, you’re not, yeah.

00:54:38.45
Gabe
Not that raised. Yep.

00:54:41.46
Alyssa
I will say I do think this is the way that at the staggered start, I loved coming up on people and you’d kind of know how people’s days were going by like, oh, I hit such and such at this point.

00:54:50.32
Gabe
Yep.

00:54:53.50
Alyssa
Like, oh, man, they’re having a great day. Like, it took me a while to catch them. We’re like, ah, man, I hope they’re okay today. They’re like, I caught them a little bit sooner than I was expecting to.

00:55:00.44
Gabe
ye

00:55:03.16
Gabe
I absolutely loved that or like pat passes with my teammates along the way and to see how their day is going. Yeah. And you kind of know roughly what time of the day you might see them. And yeah, some, some of the people who, you know, I could finish a day with, but like, you know, maybe they started an hour ahead of me or something like that, but it was, I loved that. So it wasn’t like one of those races where you felt alone and isolated in the wilderness or something like that. I never had that feeling.

00:55:28.85
Gabe
like I was never very far from a friendly face. I really enjoyed that social aspect of the race.

00:55:35.84
Alyssa
Yeah, no, that makes it really fun. Um, I totally agree. Uh, that’s why I actually really love hurt is that you’re, you’re like a hurt loop.

00:55:46.92
Alyssa
It’s not a loop. Uh, it’s like going out and back. And so you’re seeing people and cheering them on and, uh, from a competitive standpoint, it’s very interesting because you’re constantly being like, Oh, they’re that far back or like, Oh, they’re there.

00:56:00.95
Alyssa
Um, which yeah, but.

00:56:01.23
Gabe
Yep.

00:56:04.47
Alyssa
It’s really fun to have that interaction with people for sure.

00:56:08.23
Gabe
Yeah, I enjoy it, yep.

00:56:11.17
Alyssa
So what was one of the more difficult parts of the race that you weren’t expecting?

00:56:23.30
Gabe
um Some of the steepness and slipperiness of the descending, was like pretty bonkers at times where you know I had great lugs on my shoes and like nothing would have worked. like you know People were shuffling downhill as fast as they could and you end up laying on your butt and sliding down where I was just like, wow. like Pushing down some of those slopes at that intensity was really difficult and sometimes there just literally wasn’t traction to be had. And so yeah, I’d like,

00:56:56.28
Gabe
finishing these days just absolutely covered in mud from sliding down things or falling into bogs. I learned all about bogs. I don’t know if you fell into any of those, but I had three different bog experiences where you’re like, oh, I was like, I think that’s just like a little bit of mud right there. And I’d, you know, step on it. And suddenly I’m like waist deep, like pulling myself out of this, like, hold the ground with my arms and, um,

00:57:18.81
Gabe
I thought I was improving at that throughout the week, like reading the terrain, but no, it still was happening. Even on day five, I fell into a bog once. So I finished every day just absolutely filthy. So just know it’s very dry here in Wyoming. I don’t deal with a lot of mud and certainly not bogs. And yeah, that was a learning curve for me for sure.

00:57:42.43
Alyssa
Yeah, those bugs are wild. And you’re like, is my foot going to come out? I don’t know. It could just get eaten by that.

00:57:48.59
Gabe
or like how I know, like how far down do these things go? Could I fall in and never reappear? Like am I gonna be one of those 2000 year old preserved bodies someday in ah in a bog in Wales?

00:57:58.65
Gabe
I don’t, anyways, I was a little freaked out by them, but you know, what else can you do when it happens?

00:58:03.23
Alyssa
I think.

00:58:04.42
Gabe
Just laugh about it and you know.

00:58:09.21
Gabe
Yeah, enjoy it.

00:58:09.34
Alyssa
Hope there’s a stream at the finish. Yeah, I think sheep actually get stuck in there.

00:58:12.47
Gabe
Yep.

00:58:14.84
Alyssa
Yeah, and they don’t get out.

00:58:15.25
Gabe
Oh, I believe it.

00:58:16.58
Alyssa
Yeah.

00:58:17.26
Gabe
I mean,

00:58:20.00
Gabe
I think one of my Welsh friends might have been pulling my leg. I don’t know, maybe not. He was talking about airplanes crashing and these things that disappeared forever. I was like, okay, come on now. So anyway if that’s true, I would love it if someone please cite their source on that, but otherwise I thought it was a great story.

00:58:37.60
Alyssa
Yeah, send us that news article for confirmation.

00:58:40.37
Gabe
Yes, yes please. Airplanes disappearing in bogs. I believe it, I don’t know.

00:58:47.53
Alyssa
So what was one piece that you felt like I really nailed that aspect and what’s one part that you would love to improve upon for another stage race or an adjustment that you would like or for the future?

00:59:05.01
Gabe
Sure. All that specific training I mentioned that she had told me to do all the long duration uphill intervals, all the like the work with poles, that 100% paid off. Even on, there’s not a lot of climbs on day six, even all the later days when there were climbs, I was able to just keep running up basically all but the steepest ones where it just felt like, how could I not run up them? Like I’ve done this a thousand times. I’m okay.

00:59:33.46
Gabe
And, um, that really paid off well as the race went on and, you know, other people’s legs fatigued a little bit more than minded on those. So it’s really nice when you can see that connection to the training of like, Oh, this is why I did a lot of it and they’re like, Oh, look, I’m doing good at it. Like fantastic. So, um, I forgot your questions, but anyways, that’s something that went really well.

00:59:53.62
Alyssa
Nice. And then something that says your next stage race, Dragon’s Back or not or 200 miler or anything, you’d be like, Hey, I would, I would work on this.

00:59:58.89
Gabe
Yeah. Sure.

01:00:03.38
Alyssa
Yeah.

01:00:04.46
Gabe
I would work on my descending speed. um It was, you know, I was very surprised at how slippery it was there, but there was certainly room for improvement. Like I got to find a way to get down those quickers.

01:00:15.06
Gabe
So that way people aren’t pulling away from me on descent. So then I’m coming off back up to more than a sense, but to try to get more of an even, even effort on those. Yeah. Room for improvement there. It’s coming in 2025 or 20 years.

01:00:26.21
Alyssa
Nice.

01:00:27.67
Gabe
This is 2024, right?

01:00:28.30
Alyssa
There’s still time.

01:00:29.42
Gabe
2025. Okay. Descending.

01:00:33.28
Alyssa
I mean, it’s only September. We still have time for 2024.

01:00:35.04
Gabe
This is true. I’ve been bracing a little bit, what I call cookie season, a little bit of an off season now where I’m going to take three or four weeks and try to bake as much as I run.

01:00:39.01
Alyssa
Good.

01:00:43.22
Gabe
And then, yeah, we’ll see. well We’ll see what, uh, like October and November bring. Maybe that’ll be a goal unless it gets really snowy here, which sometimes it does. Um, anyways, yep.

01:00:52.34
Alyssa
Nice.

01:00:53.70
Gabe
I’ll start building towards something.

01:00:54.44
Alyssa
Yeah, well. Yeah, hopefully, uh, you know, something in a tropical place we’ll have to see at least hopefully on an Island of some kind.

01:01:02.28
Gabe
Yeah.

01:01:04.77
Gabe
That would be lovely. I like island running. We’ll see.

01:01:08.44
Alyssa
Yeah, me too. Yeah, it is. I will say though, that it is truly incredible watching, uh, Welsh and UK runners descend.

01:01:21.09
Alyssa
They are just awesome at it.

01:01:21.67
Gabe
Oh my gosh.

01:01:23.94
Alyssa
It’s like a masterclass.

01:01:24.35
Gabe
There’s a

01:01:25.18
Alyssa
It’s really impressive.

01:01:26.28
Gabe
It really it like the fearlessness is pretty impressive and like and it does vary by terrain to you like it’s that that slippery Technic terrain which is unbelievable like the same thing though if you go into like the Alps or the Dolomites like watching the Italians this enters and it’s like whoa just an absolute another level above where I am and ah I aspire to that but My friend I have a little ways to go still Keep at it

01:01:54.29
Alyssa
But I mean, that’s, yeah, that is a fun part though, is I think working on the descents. You just have to take a ski lift up and then just bomb the downhills. That’s always a fun workout.

01:02:04.13
Gabe
Right? Yeah, there we go. Like, I could do that. Yep, I’ll start. Chantel, I know you’re listening. Let’s scheme.

01:02:13.57
Alyssa
Let’s go.

01:02:14.99
Gabe
Yeah, let’s go.

01:02:17.64
Alyssa
Awesome. Well, is there anything else you’d like to share? about Dragon’s Back or just kind of things that you’ve learned along the way with ah with our audience.

01:02:28.92
Gabe
Yeah, I mean, I just think, If you know, there’s not a lot of stage races out there or opportunities for, for multiple multi-day running. And, I guess I would just encourage people to dip their toes in that water, um, and give it a try. And you can, you don’t have to sign up for a race to do that, but even just planning a multi-day adventure in your backyard or several back to backs, like there’s something about it that I find really gratifying. And I think from a racing perspective, I like how.

01:02:57.38
Gabe
almost has a summer camp feel, like you’re running with the same people every day and you get to make new friends and share those experiences. So 100 mile races are great. I’m still 200 miles curious, haven’t been there yet, we’ll see. um But it’s another great way to explore huge landscapes and connect with different cultures and different people that I have to imagine if more people are able to do that, it’s something they’d be really glad they did.

01:03:26.05
Alyssa
Yeah, I think it also teaches you that there’s so much, there’s so much more there. There’s so much more left in the tank than you think.

01:03:35.17
Gabe
yeah isn’t that the truth things warm up and click into gear yeah it really is actually i was really astounded but you know i’ve i’ve reflected that a lot but i remember

01:03:35.41
Alyssa
People like you, friend you, yeah, like you finish a long run. You’re like, I’m fried. I can’t do that tomorrow. And then somehow you wake up in the morning and the first few miles might be really rough.

01:03:48.16
Alyssa
But all of a sudden it’s like, Oh, there it comes. Like I can do this. And I think that. Yeah, I think that’s really powerful to realize.

01:04:03.80
Gabe
In camp on day five, I was getting ready for bed. It was like, I think nine o’clock or 9.30 and the cutoff was 10 p.m. And I remember seeing two different people cross the finish line at 9.15 or something like that.

01:04:17.66
Gabe
This one girl crossed the finish line at 9.15 and she’s absolutely like broken to tears and you know I’m reading between the lines here, but I think half of it was relief at finishing day five, which is such a huge day.

01:04:29.49
Gabe
But then I can almost see that

01:04:29.95
Alyssa
This is not a hard day.

01:04:32.33
Gabe
She was thinking to herself, how am I going to get up tomorrow morning and do that again? And I saw another guy saying the same thing. He just almost collapsed and had some help, some help walk to his tent. But they were going to do it. You know, there’s only one day left. They were going to do it. And I just thought that was super inspired. It’s like everybody here is having a hard time. Everyone is struggling, but we all chose to be here. We all chose to do this. Like there’s really nothing to complain about. Go eat some more chips, get some sleep and Get ready to go again. I love that. I thought it was super cool and inspiring to see everyone work through it in their own different ways.

01:05:08.22
Alyssa
Yeah. And the volunteer support is just awesome.

01:05:10.85
Gabe
Oh, yeah.

01:05:10.79
Alyssa
Like they’re, they’re such amazing people. They really make it especially good.

01:05:14.28
Gabe
And there’s. There’s just so dialed in, too, like there is there’s never like a wrinkle of the plan or anything like so dialed, so kind.

01:05:19.27
Alyssa
Yeah.

01:05:25.25
Gabe
ah Yeah, wonderful people.

01:05:28.44
Alyssa
Yeah. No, the volunteers, especially there were a couple of them that, uh, Well, they remembered me as the girl who DNF’d in 2019. So that was the whole thing. But they were also, they were like, you were doing really well.

01:05:39.12
Gabe
ah

01:05:42.06
Alyssa
And then you really just bit it. I was like, yeah, I know I’m aware.

01:05:46.67
Gabe
That happens at Dragon’s Back.

01:05:47.19
Alyssa
Like only in the, in the like, lovingly blunt way of the, ah of the way that the news was delivered. I was like, yep, and I’m back.

01:05:57.83
Alyssa
I had to redeem myself. And that I just loved it like I had a couple of volunteers who adopted me. They were like, you’re really far away from home. I’m going to be your mom this week. And just, yeah, we’re, we’re wonderful.

01:06:07.72
Gabe
Oh, that’s lovely. yes

01:06:09.88
Alyssa
Yeah.

01:06:10.35
Gabe
All those runners need a little bit of mothering. That’s a great thing.

01:06:13.95
Alyssa
Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, it’s, it’s a, it’s a really special event. And I think it’s, I don’t think I ever spend time reflecting on the fact of like, yeah, we ran the length of wheels across the hardest sections.

01:06:28.18
Alyssa
Like not the easy way, the hard way.

01:06:30.53
Gabe
It’s kind of absurd, really.

01:06:30.80
Alyssa
And that’s really cool.

01:06:32.25
Gabe
like Yeah, it’s difficult to wrap the brainer out.

01:06:37.82
Alyssa
Yeah, but awesome. Well, Gabe, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me and I’m excited to meet you in person, hopefully one of these days soon.

01:06:49.34
Gabe
Yes.

01:06:51.06
Alyssa
And I’m sure we’ll have you back on too. Yeah, we should, I think, I think there’s a number of topics that we can get into. Cause I, I’m going to guess you have a pretty strong mental game.

01:07:02.92
Alyssa
So we didn’t even really touch on that too much, but it would be fun to pick your brain on. like what you but you’ve been doing in that regard.

01:07:11.42
Gabe
Yeah, that’s something I’ve worked very hard on over the years. So, yep, happy to talk about that. Come back anytime. It’s been great. Thanks for having me.

01:07:18.84
Alyssa
Awesome. Thanks, Gabe. All right. Or Gabe went up on that. Thanks, Gabe, for coming on the uphill athlete podcast. ah You can always do us a favor by rating, reviewing, subscribing us on any of your favorite podcast platforms. I’m crushing this closing statement, but thank you for listening. And it’s not one, but a community. We are uphill athletes.