00:00:01.43
Alyssa
Hi everyone, welcome to the Uphill Athlete Podcast. I’ll be your host today. My name is Alyssa Clark and I am super excited to bring on an absolutely incredible guest. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know him. he is ah just all around incredible climber, alpinist, now trail runner, all of the things in the mountains. And I’m sure if you don’t know his name, you will know his name soon. He’s kind of a quiet crusher, even though you are absolutely incredible. So we’re going to keep shouting your name out so that everyone knows you are.

00:00:39.45
Alyssa
But today I have Vitaliy Musyanko.

00:00:39.47
Vitaliy
ah

00:00:43.26
Alyssa
And Vitaliy, thanks for being on.

00:00:46.77
Vitaliy
Hey Alyssa, thanks a lot for inviting me. I feel like sharing useful information and helping people has been a huge theme in my life. And I feel very happy to be invited on a training podcast because I feel like we can share a lot of useful information with the people that are listening, especially the whole huge mountain community of Uphill athletes.

00:01:16.46
Vitaliy
I also wanted to congratulate you on Katie Schide becoming your teammate.

00:01:22.41
Alyssa
Oh yeah.

00:01:23.43
Vitaliy
We have not talked in a while and it’s sort of big news. And I feel like it connects directly to the topic that we were discussing before we started recording, when it comes to mentorship.

00:01:37.65
Vitaliy
I feel like having mentors that can help you grow is a huge boost for an athlete and having somebody like Katie on your team might hopefully take you to the next level in the competition. At least ah that’s what I’m hoping for because strong mentors are just as important for developing as an athlete.

00:02:03.65
Vitaliy
That’s the first tip in this podcast is surround yourself with people that you can learn from and to don’t be afraid to be a student of the game because you’re going to grow a lot more if you ah don’t perceive yourself as an expert at any point in your career as a climber, runner or whatever you want to do with your life.

00:02:28.77
Alyssa
Yeah, well, I mean, yes, I’m super excited to learn from her and her partner.

00:02:30.98
Vitaliy
Thank you.

00:02:34.44
Alyssa
Germain is also an incredible trail runner. So I’ve actually never met either of them. And I’m really excited to hopefully get to spend some time getting to know them. But I think that’s something that I admire so much about you and is so clear in what you do. Also, the conversations that we’ve had is that you are such a student of all mountain sports.

00:03:00.31
Alyssa
I would probably guess most things in your life. And you ask such deep and thoughtful questions, and just have no ego behind anything that you do.

00:03:13.92
Alyssa
You just keep trying to do your best and learn.

00:03:15.38
Vitaliy
Thank you.

00:03:17.54
Alyssa
And that to me is just like such an admirable quality of you and also why you’ve had, I think so much success is such an interesting word, but we’ll say success in all of the mountain endeavors that you’ve done. But as we’re kind of getting into that, I’d love to hear about just your background, how you came into climbing, just climbing first and then kind of endurance as a piece to aid in your climbing adventures.

00:03:52.43
Vitaliy
Yeah, thank you so much for all these compliments. I feel like an ego, like it’s impossible to not have an ego. Everyone has one, but it’s possible to identify it and control it.

00:04:07.61
Vitaliy
And that’s what I’ve been trying to do. Probably not always successful, but at least I’m trying. And I came to climbing very late in life. I was about 24 years old when I started to scramble up peaks in the Sierra and tried to go on backpacking trips.

00:04:31.39
Vitaliy
I actually was very unhealthy growing up and I couldn’t do any sports till I was in high school. I did not attend the PE class when I was in high school because of all my health issues.

00:04:46.07
Vitaliy
And then when I moved to the United States with my mom, I was… working since I was like 14 years old in Domino’s Pizza and when I was 16 years old I was already weighing 300 pounds.

00:04:59.49
Vitaliy
So I am used to being the least athletic person out of all my friend group and that probably helps me now to keep my ego in check because I know what it’s like to be the least athletic person.

00:05:18.43
Vitaliy
It’s been recent enough in my life that I can still recognize it. And every time I make some sort of a progress in my climbing or running, uh,

00:05:31.36
Vitaliy
or in any athletics, I celebrated and I kind of pinched myself trying to, you know, trying to celebrate that ah progress can be possible, unlike, you know, my earlier version would think.

00:05:48.95
Vitaliy
So after I got into scrambling, I actually read Steve House’s book, Beyond the Mountain and it really resonated with me as the hardest way of climbing mountains and just scrambling up 13,000 foot peaks in the Sierra was the hardest thing that I’ve done in my life. Even though I was ah you know I started playing high school football at 300 pounds, I could not run around a track for a quarter mile, not even you know talking about doing a mile. In the beginning, it was so hard for me to start.

00:06:35.35
Vitaliy
And then I got into boxing and I got really deep into boxing.

00:06:36.98
Alyssa
Thank you.

00:06:40.44
Vitaliy
And, you know, boxing is not an easy sport. But when I got into and just pure scrambling, I was humbled by it even farther because ah it felt like physically awkward.

00:06:57.21
Vitaliy
not impossible, but really difficult. And when I found out about alpinism, which is a way to climb mountains by ah very difficult routes in a fast and light fashion,

00:07:12.38
Vitaliy
I was it just seemed like the hardest thing I could throw myself at in my life. And for some reason, it spoke to me and it attracted me and at first I got ah some, you know, ah because I was 300 pounds, I lost a lot of weight and I actually became a personal coach at one point.

00:07:39.06
Vitaliy
So I created a roadmap for myself when it comes to improving and getting myself to become, ah you know, an Alpinist at some point.

00:07:50.37
Vitaliy
And then at first I focused on my

00:07:55.26
Vitaliy
At first I focused on my, at first I focused on just physical preparation and I would load my backpack with five to six gallons of water.

00:07:56.07
Alyssa
Sorry, go ahead.

00:08:08.57
Vitaliy
And I would hike up a very steep city block in San Francisco because that’s all I had for training. You know, living in San Francisco, you don’t have continuous 2000 foot climbs.

00:08:20.82
Vitaliy
I did not, did you know, have the ability to just drive out and go for a 3000 foot hike as, but I had the ability to climb in the gym and, you know, it does my cardio on the east t steep city blocks. And I actually ah felt like I might have ah built the most ah climbing fitness doing that because, you know,

00:08:51.39
Vitaliy
compared to typical Muscular endurance, that’s advocated on Uphill Athlete, which works very well. I feel like in those workouts, where when you are going for two to three hours up and down a single city block, you’re able to dedicate some of that time to intense ah pushes up that city block. And it to it’s almost like…

00:09:22.28
Vitaliy
It almost creates this like more of a strength stimulus ah versus uphill continuous stimulus that builds more endurance and muscular endurance.

00:09:38.66
Vitaliy
So I feel like and that was the first step. And the second step was to try to find people to go to a climbing trad to learn how to place gear, how to place ice screws on ice climbs.

00:09:56.90
Vitaliy
And you know obviously at first you’re just top roping on ice. And then when you feel comfortable enough, you’re starting to lead. and ah your skills are building over time. And just like that in Zone 2 training, if you really love something, it’s going to be easy for you to build a lot of mileage on the terrain and to improve over time.

00:10:24.48
Vitaliy
So I feel like when people ask, how do you improve in climbing or trail running? If you like it and if you have a goal that you’re training towards that excites you and excites your training, it’s going to be very easy to get out there and cover a lot of mileage, put in a lot of mileage outdoors or indoors, wherever you can train.

00:10:52.31
Vitaliy
And even right now, you know, I work in the ICU as a nurse and my shifts are usually 12 and a half hours. I come home after my shifts and I do two hours on my uphill treadmill or I go to the climbing gym and do a two and a half hours training.

00:11:10.93
Vitaliy
Strength training and climbing there. So when you have a goal that you are excited about, it’s really easy to find that energy to go out and push yourself.

00:11:25.82
Alyssa
Yeah, it definitely is. If you make time for the things that are important to you. And I will say that I always, I believe I’ve said this before, but when you have an athlete that they have one singular goal of, say doing Rainier, that’s a very common one or something along those lines.

00:11:45.99
Vitaliy
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:11:47.95
Alyssa
And they, yes, they put in the training to do Rainier, but then afterwards they do absolutely nothing. Like it does. They just have zero interest in continuing that fitness.

00:11:59.01
Alyssa
They were very much like a one-time push. I just always feel a little bit sad because I feel like we didn’t find the thing that was sustainable and actually they wanted to keep up for the rest of their life because I think of this as.

00:12:12.54
Alyssa
lifetime fitness and motivation versus these kinds of one off things. And of course, everyone has their own goals. But I’m always like, ah, let’s maybe this wasn’t the thing. Maybe we should find something else. Because I mean, I train almost every day. And it’s just my life. It’s not that I don’t think of it as something I have to do. It’s something that I get to do. And I feel like you fall under that same category.

00:12:37.82
Vitaliy
Yeah, and ah, it’s important to also recognize that we as a people who are willing to just dedicate our whole life to training for these very hard things, we are outliers. And most people don’t really have the drive to, you know, keep going and continue.

00:12:59.00
Vitaliy
ah work their ass off ah every week in order to you know find the next thing and the next thing. Ah because as climbers and trail runners, we also take a lot of time away from our family and don’t invest as much into our friendships. So it’s not all glorious and incredible uh you know I feel like with time I was able to recognize uh that I lost a lot of time uh of investing into my friendships and the relationships and I try to invest more now as ah I get older and I feel like as I continue to grow and

00:13:43.70
Vitaliy
learn, who knows, ah maybe I will change certain things. But to ah yeah it’s I feel like it’s really important and the

00:13:57.10
Vitaliy
It’s hard to find a goal for people that you train because they are the ones that need to come up with their own goals. And I, yeah, I never, I feel like giving them the independence of finding their goal is a huge part of making them, making their training a success because they will actually be,

00:14:22.82
Vitaliy
willing to do all the work because they are the ones who came up with their ah big goal, so to say.

00:14:31.19
Alyssa
Yeah, no, I totally agree. I think, there, you know, sometimes it’s like, hey, I want to do this ah training race. Do you have any recommendations? But if we are pushing, if someone says to me, hey, I need a goal or something, I’m like, oh, okay, let’s spend some time.

00:14:41.37
Vitaliy
and

00:14:50.42
Alyssa
We can discuss things, but that does need to come from inside because it’s going to get hard. I mean, I am sure that it is not easy after you’ve spent 12 and a half hours working the ICU floor to,

00:14:57.17
Vitaliy
who

00:15:04.92
Alyssa
Every day I want to go to the climbing gym. And when we say like, we get to do this, it’s not because it’s always easy.

00:15:11.43
Vitaliy
Yep.

00:15:12.10
Alyssa
It’s just that it’s worth it. So yeah, you have to find those things that matter enough to keep showing up and doing the work.

00:15:15.09
Vitaliy
Yep. Yep.

00:15:19.47
Vitaliy
Mm-hmm.

00:15:22.12
Alyssa
Have you ever worked with a coach before?

00:15:28.91
Vitaliy
I have a little ah because I have a background in coaching and I literally ah read every book on training that you can imagine, you know, aside from Uphill Athlete and Jason Koop’s book, all the different books on training for climbing.

00:15:49.24
Vitaliy
Like here anything for marathon running, anything that you can imagine, I probably read it. Uh, but I still, I asked Jack Kunzel to give me, his opinion

00:16:03.77
Vitaliy
on the structure that I built for myself. And he went over what I thought was a good idea and gave me his opinions on things. And it’s really hard for me to work with a coach because I change my plans daily, depending on how I feel.

00:16:26.41
Vitaliy
If I have a particularly difficult shift in the hospital, I can’t really do anything very taxing, or I might just ah decide to take a day off if I did not sleep enough.

00:16:40.38
Vitaliy
or it just depends. And on some days when that is when I expect to feel shitty, I feel good. So ah I understand the balance between easy volume and intense training.

00:16:54.36
Vitaliy
And I try to decide what it’s going to be on the day or maybe even during my workout. If I’m starting my warmup process and in 30 minutes I feel incredible, then I might have an interval training session, for example.

00:17:14.09
Vitaliy
Or if I feel like I don’t have anything to give on this day, I will just do some easy volume, maybe for a couple hours or maybe for an hour and call it good.

00:17:28.61
Vitaliy
And then it also changes based on the climbing plans. And climbing plans change depending on the weather forecast. So it’s really hard to work with a coach. But understanding ah the…

00:17:43.12
Vitaliy
The structure of training is very important.

00:17:44.32
Alyssa
The principles, yeah.

00:17:46.06
Vitaliy
Yeah, the principles. And another tip I wanted to give to your listeners is to see a different physical therapist every year of your training cycle and to have an independent therapist independent assessment from them because prehab is much better than rehab. And, uh, now that i I, did that for three years in a row, , I feel like I, ah I became a much healthier athlete, uh, when I started to see a physical therapist and, uh, do, uh, all these rehab exercises, or maybe I should call them prehab,

00:18:29.30
Vitaliy
And the reason why I started is because when I got into trail running, I tried to ramp up my mileage too fast, too soon. And I started getting some hip pain.

00:18:41.57
Vitaliy
And I basically just had hip pain and Achilles heel pain all the time. And then working with a physical therapist helped a lot to, you know, get me on the right track of getting rid of all this pain. And now I feel so much healthier overall because I can train without any pain on my body.

00:19:07.00
Vitaliy
And, you know, and I’m like four years older than I was when I started. So I just wanted to share that because I told some of my friends to do the same and they had great results as well.

00:19:21.32
Vitaliy
So I just want everyone else to be healthy out there.

00:19:25.05
Alyssa
Yeah, I mean, that’s incredible advice. I totally agree that it’s super important to stay proactive. And I think it’s really beneficial to have a season where it’s kind of like an off season a little bit, and then you can build into more of your on season training and in that off season, getting those assessments, finding those weaknesses, and working on them before if you get into that heavy load where you don’t have time, or you feel like you don’t have time or energy to

00:19:35.25
Vitaliy
Mm-hmm.

00:19:57.92
Alyssa
to fix them and it’s kind of already a little bit too late and it’s just going to spring up as an injury or a weakness.

00:20:05.22
Vitaliy
Yeah. Yeah. yeah

00:20:07.31
Alyssa
So you have an extensive background. I mean, so many first ascents, you’ve done flash moonlight buttress, you’ve soloed widow’s tears, you’ve done the Fitzroy skyline Fitzroy twice, like so many incredible alpinism routes, climbing routes.

00:20:33.10
Alyssa
And also you have the Goliath Traverse, which you were the first sent on, which sounds absolutely freaking terrifying in my mind, but it’s absolutely incredible. Like, I remember hearing about you doing that being like, oh my gosh, this guy is just incredible.

00:20:51.14
Alyssa
But something happened after your ascent of the Goliath Traverse that you kind of seemed to switch more into trail running a little bit in more of the endurance side of things.

00:21:08.13
Alyssa
Can you explain or tell us a bit about that shift and what was the catalyst behind it?

00:21:16.95
Vitaliy
Yeah, that’s a great observation in general and before the Goliath Traverse, I really tried to focus on building up my endurance and my overall base, as they say, to be able to handle back to back to back to back to back to back to back big days.

00:21:41.14
Vitaliy
And ah after completing the Goliath, I realized that if Goliath, as big as it was, and you know it’s probably by far the biggest traverse that’s been done ah in

00:21:57.11
Alyssa
Can we pause?

00:21:58.22
Vitaliy
yeah hu

00:21:58.89
Alyssa
Can you just explain a little bit of what the Goliath Traverse is, just in case our listeners aren’t quite aware of it?

00:22:06.68
Vitaliy
It’s insanely difficult to describe what it is because to relate to it you have to know a lot about ridge traversing on big mountains.

00:22:19.48
Vitaliy
And something that is very understandable for people, for certain people, is the evolution traverse in the Sierra, which is about 9, 13,000 And the…

00:22:33.27
Vitaliy
and it’s as classic as big alpine traverses get in the Sierra and in the United States, or other people might to ah be more familiar with the Grand Traverse, the Traverse of all the, you know, the Grand Teton.

00:22:54.48
Vitaliy
That’s a big one. And usually average people take about, you know, fit average climbers take about three days on the evolution traverse and that some outstanding athletes are able to do it in one day.

00:23:13.98
Vitaliy
so I feel like on the Goliath, if you, uh, put it all together, it felt to me like doing seven evolution traverses stacked back to back together, but making the the climbing a lot more sustained, a lot harder, a lot more loose and just gnarlier overall by by a long shot.

00:23:40.58
Vitaliy
ah so in the High Sierra, we had the two biggest traverses where the Evolution Crest Traverse, which is about two and a half times longer than the Evolution Traverse and the more loose ah in places, and the full Palisade Traverse.

00:24:06.77
Vitaliy
There was another traverse that was attempted by Conrad Anker and Peter Croft, which was supposed to be an extension to the full Palisade Traverse, which would double its size.

00:24:21.66
Vitaliy
And they were unsuccessful in making that ascent. So my goal was to… And because ah both of those run ah right next to each other on the Sierra Crest, my goal was to…

00:24:39.01
Vitaliy
do the extension of the full palisade traverse and take it into the evolution crest traverse and do it alpine style, which means carry all my food, you know, like all my nutrition on my back, all my gear on my back by myself over that time.

00:25:01.24
Vitaliy
and the… The first ascent of the full evolution crest traverse took the team of two guys eight days with pre-cached ah food food and water and the ah fuel.

00:25:18.65
Vitaliy
So basically I was ah and was going to try something that no one, you know, like a lot of people probably thought about doing, but I feel like most people would want to cash things along the way to make it ah ah more doable. And ah ah my desire was to push my mental…

00:25:46.51
Vitaliy
capacity of dealing with you know such such high consequence terrain on many back to back days, as well as pushing my athletic ability because I have to carry all the things that I need to carry by myself, which also included 16 meter rope, all my food, all my camping gear, my fuel, ah my so you know my snacks.

00:26:13.75
Vitaliy
Everything that I will have to use, all the levers and gear and all the climbing gear that I may need in order to rappel down these steep faces.

00:26:26.63
Vitaliy
So it seemed like a huge undertaking and I wanted to dedicate, you know, that whole year to improving as an athlete in order to make it possible for myself.

00:26:42.28
Vitaliy
And what I realized is that at the moment I’m able to absorb only about half of the amount of cardio training that a typical endurance athlete trains at when they are preparing for 100 milers and so and so on. So while preparing for Goliath, I became a student of trail running, ultra endurance athletes, and I started reading a lot of books on the subject.

00:27:15.20
Vitaliy
During Goliath, I basically was listening to Freetrail podcasts. Back then, I remember it was called Pillars. I listened to David Goggin’s book.

00:27:25.25
Alyssa
Oh yeah.

00:27:27.29
Vitaliy
I listened to all kinds of endurance-related content in order to help myself push through on and on those tough days. And the after I got done with the traverse, I realized that if I’m able to do something so big on so little training, what what if I step back from climbing for a couple of years and focus on endurance ah and the get myself to to a level of you know a decent ultra runner, for example,

00:28:07.11
Vitaliy
I believe that it will make me a much, much better alpinist. Because if you think about alpinism, it’s a combination of climbing skills,

00:28:21.14
Vitaliy
when it comes to you know dry tooling on the rock, when it comes to like being a good climber overall. It involves winter camping skills, but maybe some of the most important things that good alpinists possess is their fitness.

00:28:38.92
Vitaliy
If you think of the best alpinists, you probably start thinking about Ueli Steck. You also have people like David Gottler, you know who are able to climb big peaks very fast.

00:28:54.56
Vitaliy
And fitness is a huge reason why they are able to. And when you look at what they do to train, ah you can see that Ulyssetek did a lot of trail running.

00:29:06.26
Vitaliy
David Gottler did a lot of trail running. So I feel like it’s important sometimes to take a step back and be a student of something different than you used to, such as climbing was for me. It’s something that I got.

00:29:22.86
Vitaliy
ah decent at, but to even though I maybe would otherwise feel very good about my athletic performance on the Goliath, I realized that I am far, far below ah what I’m actually capable of if I ah push myself into a realm ah that I’m unfamiliar with and learn about you know managing your effort, for example.

00:29:49.16
Vitaliy
How do you manage it? Do you just focus on your heart rate zones? Do you focus on Jason Koop’s perceived level of exertion?

00:29:59.87
Vitaliy
How do you manage your nutrition? Is it just carbs that you have to wash or are they just fluids or are they electrolytes? Is it a combination of all of them?

00:30:11.22
Vitaliy
And maybe I have to also incorporate the temperature on the day and into managing all these little things. And I feel like it just helped me learn so much more than I would be capable of if I stayed in my you know limited ah zone of climbing.

00:30:35.18
Vitaliy
I feel like what makes some of the better ultra runners is that they are also learning from a Peloton, but you know, cyclists, they’re trying to find out, Oh, how do they use bicarb?

00:30:48.46
Vitaliy
How do they use ketones or, you know, creatine and some of their workouts or their training blocks.

00:31:00.98
Vitaliy
And, uh, when you are able to learn from other sources, you just improve in the thing that you’re working on. Because you know now, even in some of my climbing days, I might consider using something like Bicarb.

00:31:22.07
Alyssa
Interesting. yeah

00:31:25.49
Vitaliy
So that’s my long, very long answer.

00:31:26.46
Alyssa
Yeah.

00:31:29.09
Alyssa
No, no, I love that. I mean First off, just your willingness to look at, hey, what can I learn yeah from these other sports? This is going to help me grow. This is going to help me improve as an athlete. And I think, you know, observing, we talked about this before, that jokingly, trail running is 10 years behind cycling.

00:31:53.43
Alyssa
But maybe if we can get it up to five,

00:31:56.57
Vitaliy
Mm-hmm.

00:31:56.79
Alyssa
will make a lot more improvements. But I also think about studying a triathlon, studying gravel bikes, so I mean, I think that trail runners, actually, I think trail runners have a tremendous amount to learn from mountain athletes for safety and being able to take care of yourself in big mountain situations.

00:32:19.20
Alyssa
Because yes, we don’t go perhaps as high or in as consequential terrain as say an alpinist does, but we are very often high over passes or going into situations at night in, ,

00:32:32.10
Vitaliy
Thank you.

00:32:35.23
Alyssa
challenging weather. I feel like a lot of athletes have come to trail running from, say a more traditional running background. And so they don’t have that mountain experience, that mountain savviness. And I feel like that is something we can learn so much from like, how do you spend a night up at, you know, 10, 11,000 feet or higher, keep warm, like have the resources, have the knowledge and the first aid to know how to live and be safe. And so that’s one aspect that I am always pushing for trail runners is to be a good mountain athlete. Don’t just be someone who can run really fast on trails.

00:33:17.38
Alyssa
So I think that’s a way we can definitely learn from each other.

00:33:21.90
Vitaliy
Yeah, I think it’s a really good symbiotic relationship between the two. And they learn from each other because there’s a lot of you know different kinds of wisdom that you can learn from one another, especially those ah trail runners that are interested in the mountainous FKTs, for example.

00:33:44.01
Alyssa
Definitely.

00:33:45.12
Vitaliy
Like, I remember we did the same FKTF on Mount Whitney running from Lone Pine, right? And I bet most ah ah trail runners that don’t have any experience with mountaineering ah would probably be very afraid of you know on the climb of Mount Whitney through the mountaineers route.

00:33:53.08
Alyssa
Yes.

00:34:08.82
Vitaliy
And probably not as safe as you would have been in, you know, on that terrain because you actually have experience and you know how to take care of yourself in the mountains.

00:34:20.79
Vitaliy
But yeah, I feel like both realms can take a person and reward them with much ah greater, know,

00:34:33.83
Vitaliy
experiences than they would have just running trails or just climbing mountains. As somebody who loves alpinism, I feel like trail running is the purest form of alpinism because it’s actually light and fast.

00:34:51.80
Vitaliy
I could just go out with like two 500 milliliter flasks and like, I don’t know, 1500 calories and a cover

00:34:52.12
Alyssa
yeah

00:35:03.53
Vitaliy
like and an insane amount of mileage and see so many things that ah would otherwise take you like four days to cover if you’re backpacking. So yeah, I feel like the rewards that you can find, you know, exploring trail running are immense.

00:35:24.80
Alyssa
Absolutely. Yeah. I actually think trail running unlocks more opportunities for albinism, mountaineering, climbing, et cetera, and ski touring, all of that.

00:35:36.59
Alyssa
And climbing, like being able to use an ice axe, an ice tool, and being able to use a rope, climb, etc. opens up opportunities in trail riding.

00:35:47.74
Alyssa
It’s just being able to move through the mountains efficiently, safely, and with a set of skills that allows you to tackle a huge variety of terrain.

00:35:48.59
Vitaliy
here

00:36:00.60
Vitaliy
Yeah, I agree 100%.

00:36:04.20
Alyssa
And it’s super fun. It’s like all of these things open up to you when you have those skills. But I’m curious to touch a little bit with the pieces that you learned from the trail running.

00:36:19.58
Alyssa
I think one of them in particular, I’d love to hear about your experience at Kodiak 100 with your pacing strategies and what I think a lot of people can learn from that.

00:36:32.53
Alyssa
and how you applied that then to your climbing.

00:36:36.37
Vitaliy
Yeah, that I feel like going to give it some background, I figured that to complete a 100 miler is ah something that basically became sort of like my blue whale, so to say.

00:36:54.97
Vitaliy
And my goal was not to just complete a 100 miler, but to run closer to my potential and hopefully try. My goal was to do it in under 24 hours.

00:37:05.97
Vitaliy
I am usually like, I like goals that I don’t know if I can actually achieve them. So I have to work hard in order to get there.

00:37:20.21
Vitaliy
And the ah running 100 miles or under 24 hours is something that I generally did not know if I could do in ah training for just a couple years.

00:37:32.25
Vitaliy
So I had two false starts. I had the 200 milers where I didn’t finish. And in one of them, I actually got my stress fracture from the time when I ah did 100K got exacerbated and I decided to drop out, which you know is a smart decision because ah you know, your health is most important. You don’t want to hold yourself back by running on broken legs, even though that’s not what David Goggins will tell you.

00:38:10.54
Vitaliy
ah but

00:38:10.89
Alyssa
Yeah, don’t do that.

00:38:12.27
Vitaliy
Yeah, don’t do that. It’s great to listen to David Goggins and you know have him tell you that you’re capable of a lot more than you think you are. That’s awesome. But running on broken legs is not the thing that you want to do. You will progress much better as an athlete. Sorry. Yeah.

00:38:33.01
Vitaliy
now ah sorry

00:38:34.85
Alyssa
We’re going to pull that out. That’s the poll quote. Please don’t run on broken legs.

00:38:37.60
Vitaliy
yeah Yeah, tip number one. Let’s do some common sense.

00:38:46.08
Alyssa
Yeah.

00:38:48.29
Vitaliy
The second time I tried a 100 miler, I did not have any training running in the heat in Salt Lake City over the winter months.

00:39:01.55
Vitaliy
And I didn’t know much about managing my electrolytes. And I had horrible stomach and leg cramps because ah I basically went from winter running in nice cold weather to like close to 90 degrees in SoCal.

00:39:22.32
Alyssa
It was so hot.

00:39:22.38
Vitaliy
Yeah, and what I decided to do training for Kodiak is I got a sweat test ah to figure out how much sodium I’m losing with every liter of water so I can supplement it adequately.

00:39:45.76
Vitaliy
and I decided that in order to, when you think about 100 and a marathon. In a marathon, you usually run out of your glycogen after about 20 miles because you can carry about 2000 calories, maybe 2,500 calories in your glycogen.

00:40:09.01
Vitaliy
And then you sort of run out and that your energy drops, right? If you think about managing a 100 miler, you shouldn’t be running at the level that you are running your marathon,

00:40:22.75
Vitaliy
But if you are not supplementing yourself with a lot of calories every hour, you will run out. If you are… If you’re expanding about 600, 700 calories an hour and you are able to take in 400 in the, now, that’s pretty good. Like taking in 400 calories an hour for most runners is doing really well, but most people who don’t train don’t get used to being able to earn 400 calories an hour.

00:41:00.78
Vitaliy
So I understood that, you know, if you want to prevent a bunk in a hundred miler, I will have to ah actually be able to manage my pace at the same level that I can absorb all the calories, water and electrolytes.

00:41:19.02
Vitaliy
and be able to do it for the duration of the race and adjust my effort levels to the temperature on the day and to what I’m trying to take into my body.

00:41:31.54
Vitaliy
And that’s you know not even talking about and paying attention to your heart rate zones and to your level of exertion together.

00:41:42.67
Vitaliy
so there was a lot that I had to learn about being able to manage that and to manage my own, you know, excitement on the day of the race.

00:41:56.61
Vitaliy
And what happened, on the day of the race, if you know my plan was to run a consistent race ah and manage my effort over the course of the day. I actually got to the first couple aid stations with over 100 runners being in front of me. And you know when I would run with other people, we would talk and they would offer to pass.

00:42:27.42
Vitaliy
And I was just like, we’re on a 19 hour pace right now. I don’t think I want to pass you. I think I’m perfectly happy running, you know like not any faster than we are already running because I feel like we’re probably already running too fast.

00:42:44.25
Vitaliy
And what happens later is I was just passing giant trains of people who were just like hiking at a hiker’s pace. And I could not imagine how hard they must have been running to start the race if they got so far ahead of me and are now walking at like a two mile an hour pace with like 10 people in the group.

00:43:12.89
Vitaliy
So I feel like…

00:43:16.49
Alyssa
Thank you.

00:43:17.06
Vitaliy
Something to learn here is pacing. And this lesson is important for both trail runners and hikers and mountain climbers, especially. And I will tell you why.

00:43:29.69
Vitaliy
On the day of your race, you will be very excited. You will be very rested. And you will probably go out at a pace that will feel easy, but it actually will take you to… you like it probably will will I bet those people like a lot of those people were in their threshold zone. They were probably doing their high zone three, maybe zone four ah in in the beginning

00:44:01.94
Vitaliy
an hour or so. And I feel like that will get you, like that will definitely ruin your performance for the whole race.

00:44:14.16
Vitaliy
One of the racers that I was talking to when we were running together for a little bit, he actually told me that I start very fast and I put ah miles on the bank and then I slow down in the second half.

00:44:30.79
Vitaliy
And I did not you know I did not try to ah offer any of my thoughts on the subject, but I was just thinking that that’s not how you, you know,

00:44:42.06
Vitaliy
If you’re running 30 miles very well and you’re going at a pace that you can only maintain for 30 miles, you’re you’re probably going to lose a many hours in the next 70 miles rather than you know getting you know, a performance that that is actually a lot better than you would otherwise if you just pace yourself more equally over the course of the day.

00:45:13.33
Vitaliy
An example performance for me is Ruth Croft at UTMB, where she finished the race maybe 15 minutes behind Katie Schide, who got a… I think she got a record ah for it.

00:45:27.54
Alyssa
course record, yeah.

00:45:29.34
Vitaliy
And she looked fresh. She was ready to do another 50 miles after her finish. So I feel like there’s a lesson here. And the lesser for mountain climbers is the same.

00:45:43.64
Vitaliy
I made this mistake personally. When it comes to mountains and expeditions, you usually feel a lot better when on the first days of the expedition or in the first hours of your day hike or day climb, and you end up pushing yourself a lot harder.

00:46:07.26
Vitaliy
And since I started wearing a heart rate monitor, I noticed that with some of my friends, when we would load our backpacks with climbing gear and approach ice climbs, for example, some of them pushed their pace.

00:46:26.01
Vitaliy
into a pace that I would call threshold. My heart rate was like 165 or higher trying to keep up with them. And those guys were, you know, they weren’t killing Jornet.

00:46:41.77
Vitaliy
That pace would not be maintainable for the whole duration of the day. And then I feel like it’s really important to recognize when we push ourselves too hard in the beginning of the day, because the approach to an ice climb is not when you want to perform at your best. You want to perform your best on the ice climb.

00:47:06.04
Vitaliy
You want to perform your best on your summer day, the day that you’re getting to 14,000 foot camp on Denali, or not the day when you’re trying to get to 17,000 foot.

00:47:20.05
Vitaliy
And another thing to remember is on those days that you waste yourself getting to the high camp, you will not recover as much, as well or as well as you would if you were at, you know, lower altitude. So not only are you overexerting yourself, but you’re also not going to recover from it.

00:47:45.06
Vitaliy
And, uh, I feel like too many mountaineers, me included, made that mistake in the past when we went out too hard on acclimation or days that, relatively speaking, don’t play any, you know, like you don’t have to do your…

00:48:07.82
Vitaliy
You don’t have to put out your best performance before your summit day. You have to save your energy for your summit day and then try to manage your day equally so that you can get to the top and then have enough energy to get back to your high camp.

00:48:25.95
Vitaliy
to share just my own personal mistake, uh, so that I don’t lecture your listeners, just sound like an expert.

00:48:36.58
Vitaliy
I had an expedition a couple of years ago when we went to Denali to try this difficult route on the Southwest face called the Denali diamond.

00:48:49.07
Vitaliy
And, uh, me my friend and were super excited. We landed on the glacier. ah First thing that we did, we went up and climbed the Bibbler-Kluin route on Mount Hunter.

00:49:01.14
Vitaliy
We almost got to the top of the North Buttress, but we were in the storm, so we rappelled down. We took a day off on the glacier below.

00:49:16.09
Vitaliy
and then… not sure how many people were at 14,000 feet on Denali, but we went from the airstrip to ah the high camp at 14,000 in just two days with very heavy sleds, which is, you know, ah like way too fast. I’d say four days would be on the quick end of getting to that high camp.

00:49:42.22
Vitaliy
And then I sumitted the mountain on the fourth day from the 14,000 foot camp. And then on the seventh day, I also smited by the West Rip Codaf on ah by myself breaking trail. And basically, I just tired myself out more than I should have ah in retrospect.

00:50:06.94
Vitaliy
And on when we actually got on the Denali diamond climb, even though I did pretty well, like I did great on the climb. I actually got to the second free ascent of the climb ever, ah which was great. But on the upper slopes, I was dying of…

00:50:27.06
Vitaliy
Like I bunked pretty hard on the upper slopes. And not only because I tired myself earlier in the expedition, I also did not bring enough food with myself.

00:50:39.29
Vitaliy
So I feel like pacing and nutrition are two very, very important things. important things that both trail runners and climbers could improve on and, ah you know, just managing your excitement early in the trip.

00:50:59.68
Vitaliy
So sorry, that was a lot of talking.

00:51:02.07
Alyssa
No, no, love that was great. I mean, I think you’re absolutely right about the pacing. Being patient with pacing takes confidence and patience.

00:51:14.25
Alyssa
An ego check because I think that people get very carried away in the race. Like you said, they feel really good. I like to think of it as, can I sustain this pace at mile 70 at mile 80, you know, hour 10 of this climb.

00:51:22.71
Vitaliy
Mm-hmm.

00:51:31.23
Alyssa
And you just have to keep asking yourself that question and the sustainability of it. But I think it’s very easy for people to get caught up in that and burn themselves up super quickly. So it’s, ah it happens all the time. And I think there’s also an element of fear that,

00:51:52.18
Alyssa
They don’t know, especially if it’s your first run, what is going to happen at mile 80.

00:51:54.59
Vitaliy
Yep. Yep.

00:51:56.92
Alyssa
eighty And so I think they’re like, well I’m probably going to be walking anyway, so I might as well just run as hard as I can up to that point.

00:52:01.24
Vitaliy
but

00:52:03.48
Alyssa
It’s like, but it’s possible to feel really good at mile 80.

00:52:03.95
Vitaliy
yeah

00:52:06.78
Alyssa
Like you can feel better than at mile 10 if you have the confidence in the beginning.

00:52:07.32
Vitaliy
yeah

00:52:13.98
Vitaliy
Yeah, 100%. What’s funny is that in my, ah I, after the Goliath traverse, it got some attention in the media and the I, one of my expeditions got canceled because of some unpredictable things going on in Nepal ah due to COVID.

00:52:33.04
Vitaliy
And i actually ah signed up for a marathon and I ran a marathon on like no training. And one of my friends online ah was a race director who was like, hey, if you want, you can join my trail race, a 50K or a 100K.

00:52:53.13
Vitaliy
And I was just like, sure. I’ve never you know I’ve never tried to run anywhere close to that. The marathon was the longest I’ve run ever at that point.

00:53:03.65
Vitaliy
And that was just like basically a week before he invited me. And the trail race was in the month after that marathon. So after he invited me, I made a plan for myself for the race.

00:53:19.85
Vitaliy
And I literally ah like had a plan for the first 40 miles. And after 40 miles in my plan, I just ah ah wrote, probably blew up.

00:53:33.07
Vitaliy
That was part of my plan. And that was it. Yeah.

00:53:40.80
Alyssa
Oh, I love, I love the honesty of that. But yeah, I would say that whether or not people write that, that’s probably in far too many plans.

00:53:52.58
Vitaliy
Yeah.

00:53:53.30
Alyssa
Mm-hmm.

00:53:54.58
Vitaliy
But what was actually incredible about that race is, you know, Jack Kunzel, right? He was the only person that I sort of knew through the internet in California who was ah into endurance and he wasn’t yet as ah you know as famous as he became after putting up the the new record on Rainier, on Denali and probably ah he’s about to put up a record on Mont Blanc and he did a lot of other incredible FKTs and

00:54:26.61
Vitaliy
you know ah athletic ah achievements in the mountains. So ah he has become quite a famous guy now. But back then he was just a guy that was stoked on hearing him about the Goliath and then he offered to pace me.

00:54:44.10
Vitaliy
And ah he actually, what got me totally screwed up in that 100K is ah that I was doing so well that by the, like be a couple miles before I was picking up Jack, I think I was in second place.

00:55:01.10
Vitaliy
And I heard that ultra trail marathons, ultra marathons on trails are eating contests. And my stomach was absorbing food really well. So I literally ah had like three gels and like a whole liter of ah fluid right before I got to the aid station.

00:55:28.39
Vitaliy
And I also drank a pre-workout at the aid station that I…

00:55:32.81
Alyssa
Oh no!

00:55:33.83
Vitaliy
That I had and the like five miles after ah we might have even passed the first person and my stomach completely blew up. I and the last five miles of that race were literally some of the hardest things I experienced in my life.

00:55:54.17
Vitaliy
like harder than my first climb of Mount Shasta. It was total hell where I was, I remember hiking up a very ah mellow, ah so like and incline and feeling like I’m on the Hillary step but on Mount Everest or something like that, where I just can’t do it. My legs are not working.

00:56:16.88
Vitaliy
My quads were completely destroyed, you know, because I never ran so much downhill. And I learned a lot that day. I still finished better than I expected I would.

00:56:31.49
Vitaliy
But I realized that there’s still a lot to learn. Well, that was basically the beginning of the learning process, if you think about it.

00:56:43.60
Alyssa
I love that. Oh man, the pre-workout is a, that’s a move.

00:56:46.98
Vitaliy
Yeah.

00:56:48.07
Alyssa
I’ve only done that before one like five mile run. And I remember feeling so good for about three or four miles. I was like, woo, I’ve crushed it. And then the last mile or two is like, I got nothing.

00:56:57.02
Vitaliy
Yeah. Yeah.

00:56:59.37
Alyssa
It’s gone. So I can’t imagine that’s a, yeah, that would be rough during a race, but,

00:57:00.28
Vitaliy
yeah

00:57:05.93
Alyssa
So I think we have time for one last question. And I’m curious what you’ve learned about failure in climbing and trail running and also what you see as maybe differences in these two types of failures, because climbing is a lot more consequential in that sense of failure than trail running is. So id yeah I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.

00:57:37.91
Vitaliy
I feel like to me, failure is an essential part of progressing as a person and as an athlete, because ah you get to learn and then you get to create a different goal ah with all that learning in your pocket, hopefully. And ah of yeah, of course, there’s different types of failure.

00:58:03.92
Vitaliy
And what we define as failure is, ah can be just defined as an opportunity to learn, like I said already. But in climbing, you you you should fail on you know,

00:58:20.59
Vitaliy
on safer things. You can’t push yourself to succeed on things that are getting too dangerous. And sometimes when the climbing might not be too easy, but the conditions are too dangerous, it’s important to fail and tell your partners about the conditions but just not being safe for that day. Because if you keep going, you could die. ah there there is a ah whole different ah

00:58:53.54
Vitaliy
There’s a whole different risk that is associated with climbing big mountains and the trail running in a hundred mile race where, you know, if I feel like,

00:59:07.82
Vitaliy
ah like going totally totally all out and starting the race ah at the highest ah pace that i I think is sustainable for me.

00:59:19.75
Vitaliy
I can do that in the trail race without any risk to my life. Ah, where I could DNF the race. I will not finish the race maybe, but that’s not a big deal because ah then you will learn that that pace with the temperature on the day was just not sustainable or maybe your stomach wasn’t trained enough ah to to handle all that nutrition, but in climbing, ah you definitely don’t get a second chance if you if you don’t to take your safety seriously. And it’s something that I actually did with my own experience

01:00:09.25
Vitaliy
The desire to climb in the big mountains is a high accumulated ah and insane amount of mileage in the smaller mountains. Like if you, if you think about all the things that I’ve done in the Sierra and the, I’ve probably done over 170 first ascents by now ah climbing in, you know, like somewhat large ah and somewhat smaller mountains. And the,

01:00:37.57
Vitaliy
I haven’t gone to ah peaks that are above 7,000 meters so far. I’ve been over 7,000 meters, ah but I haven’t climbed anything very technical above that.

01:00:51.50
Vitaliy
And I’m still trying to work up to those heights and so that when I get there, I am much more prepared ah to succeed rather than ah to be somewhere unsafe for my ah for my level.

01:01:11.90
Vitaliy
One of the great books that I’ve read in the past ah was The Infinite Game. I’m not sure if you’ve read that book, ah but I would highly suggest it to all the people who are into athletic endeavors and also just ah in into personal growth.

01:01:32.96
Vitaliy
overall, because the infinite game talks about the necessity of not thinking about, you know, winning right now.

01:01:44.72
Vitaliy
Like, maybe a climber, if I wanted to, you know, make it into magazines and get a lot of financial support from brands, I should just throw myself at the hardest thing I could right now.

01:02:00.86
Vitaliy
The infinite game would tell you that it’s a lot more attainable if you focus on your long-term growth and don’t ever think about the start and the finish of the process because we’re not playing football here. We don’t have 60 minutes of game time and we have to score a goal in order to win the game. are people who are trying grow over and improve

01:02:36.67
Vitaliy
grow over time and improve and Or, you know, as as I said, in order to grow as an alpinist, it was important for me to take a step back in climbing and stuck for a couple years in climbing and then learn all the things i can from the best ah endurance athletes in the world in order to get myself to be able to handle, you know, 25 hours of cardiovascular work every week and be able to recover from it.

01:03:07.97
Vitaliy
And that will help me become stronger in the future. And that now with that knowledge, I can take my climbing knowledge and hopefully, you know, like in three years, I can peak both of those things together. And my knowledge that was gained over this lifetime will hopefully keep me and my partner safe on our objective.

01:03:32.50
Vitaliy
And that’s kind of… what I have to say about failing and the importance of not allowing yourself to fail, but also allowing yourself to learn. Learning is the most important part of failing.

01:03:50.61
Alyssa
Beautifully said. Yeah, it’s, it’s no, there’s such a big difference.

01:03:56.21
Alyssa
I would beg to say that, especially with climbing the amount of, don’t really like the term failure, but we’ll see.

01:04:05.33
Vitaliy
Yeah, exactly.

01:04:05.56
Alyssa
The amount of times you fail, the amount of times you fail climbing a mountain should be pretty high.

01:04:06.80
Vitaliy
Learning. Mm-hmm.

01:04:10.94
Alyssa
Like 50% success rate in the mountains would be insane, which that’s a big difference in trail running where it’s like, yeah, hopefully you’ve built up the fitness that you can finish the race, you know, because there’s so much room within that of what that success or failure means.

01:04:12.12
Vitaliy
Mm-hmm.

01:04:29.18
Alyssa
Whereas climbing, it’s like, oh, it’s a lot more black and white, I feel like, hey, it’s not safe to go up this mountain right now versus like, yeah, I could walk out this 50K.

01:04:40.03
Vitaliy
Yeah, exactly.

01:04:40.42
Alyssa
So, ah yeah, I really appreciate that perspective. Wow, this has been awesome. I feel like we need a part two. I’ve been wanting to get you on the podcast for a while. And yeah, we’ll definitely have another conversation because I…

01:04:58.30
Alyssa
Many more questions to ask, but what do you have coming up next? And if people want to follow along with your ah journey of climbing, trail running, et cetera, where can they find you?

01:05:13.29
Vitaliy
I have a trip to India coming up next if I can get my visa, yeah in time.

01:05:19.10
Alyssa
Fingers crossed.

01:05:21.83
Vitaliy
But if I don’t get it in time, I will probably postpone it by a couple weeks. And people can probably follow my very serious Instagram page at MTN Gangster.

01:05:36.33
Vitaliy
And ah yeah, I’m not very serious when it comes to you know the internet. I try to share some useful information and photography, but I’m not a very serious person in general. I like to joke around. And that’s why my handle is so funny.

01:05:56.97
Vitaliy
so funny

01:05:58.50
Alyssa
You have, it’s a great handle. it’s one of my favorites. It’s like you and Tanner with the, I like big buttresses.

01:06:05.50
Vitaliy
Yeah, this is hilarious too. I like it. I like the buttress too.

01:06:08.90
Alyssa
Oh, yeah, it’s good. Yeah, no, it’s, it’s fun.

01:06:12.40
Vitaliy
Sometimes I appear on that buttress.

01:06:15.17
Alyssa
Yes. No, I think that’s, I mean, I think that’s why you two are such a force in this field because you both take your crafts very seriously, but you don’t take yourselves seriously. and I think there’s a lot to be learned from that.

01:06:32.60
Vitaliy
Yeah, he is great. I love ah climbing and doing things with Tanner because he also likes to go outside his box. And, ah you know, sometimes we do things that are more endurance based. Sometimes we just do big climbing days. It’s great.

01:06:49.46
Vitaliy
And it’s like, like I said, in the beginning of this interview, it’s so crazy to think of myself, ah you know, coming from being a 300 pound person to being able to, you know, like go on climbs and ah runs with somebody who was a Navy SEAL.

01:07:11.93
Vitaliy
It’s just so hilarious. I don’t know.

01:07:15.64
Alyssa
Ah, well, I know he thinks…

01:07:15.99
Vitaliy
But it’s just an example to everyone out there in the audience that if you’re even unhealthy or, you know, have goals that are, they’re not impossible.

01:07:31.37
Vitaliy
And even if you’re not there right now, you can start and make small gains and get to where you want to be. Because all of us have that within us.

01:07:42.49
Vitaliy
And I’m just an example of that, that you can, you know. that you can find.

01:07:49.25
Alyssa
Well, you are yes, an incredible example of that. So thank you for sharing your background. And yeah, we’ll definitely have you on again.

01:08:00.99
Alyssa
And fingers crossed on the visa for India.

01:08:02.89
Vitaliy
too.

01:08:04.14
Alyssa
I really hope that comes through. Yeah.

01:08:05.93
Vitaliy
Yeah, I can talk about climbing and training for hours and hours and hours.

01:08:07.35
Alyssa
yeah

01:08:12.98
Alyssa
Oh, no, I love it. Me too. But well, thank you so much for being on. And thank you everyone for listening to the Uphill Athlete podcast. If you can rate, review, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, that helps us spread the message of being safe and being fit in the mountains.

01:08:31.15
Alyssa
It’s not just one, but a community.

01:08:31.80
Vitaliy
Yeah, thank you.

01:08:33.32
Alyssa
We are Uphill Athletes.