Welcome And Trail Life Updates

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello and welcome to Running with Problems. My name is John Eisen.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

I'm Miranda Williamson.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Running with Problems is a podcast that explores the problems encountered on a life in running. Today on the podcast, we have Dream Guest John Kelly.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Woo!

SPEAKER_00 0:26

He has run The Barclay, he's run many extraordinary long FKTs. He's run Tour de Jean. Tour de Jean? Tour de Jant. Four times. So many times. Five, maybe? Four or five.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Yeah. He has a long list of accomplishments. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Very awesome to get him on the podcast. We're really excited to share this with you. But before we get to that, Miranda, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 0:56

I'm doing well. I did a beautiful run this weekend, uh, 25-mile loop called the Backside Loop outside of our front door, which never actually summits any peaks, but covers a lot of gorgeous terrain.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

You could optionally summit green on your way out.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Yeah. Yeah, you could. You could, but we did not. We followed the route true to your design, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yeah, you basically like circumnavigate the three main boulder peaks, the two mountains, Green Mountain, South Boulder Mountain, and you connect all the trails out on the backside, back there in Flagstaff Road and Walker Ranch. We make a full loop.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

Yeah. My favorite part is you drop into El Dorado Canyon. You can stop at the visitor center there for a Coke or a bag of chips if you choose, which we always choose.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

So decadent.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

So decadent. And then you head out of the canyon on the old Mesa Trail, which is just this stunning trail. It's not very long, but it makes you feel like you're in the wilderness.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

It's this beautiful valley that just kind of comes out like an ice cream scoop, you know? Like it's just perfectly formed in the mountains. And you you you walk kind of out of somebody's driveway.

SPEAKER_03 2:23

Yeah, they have a lot of no trespassing signs. I think they're tired of people connecting that trail.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:29

Well we were quiet as we walked through there.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

You kind of want to do that. So yeah, be careful. But it's a, you know, most of the trail is on OSMP property. It's not like an official trail, but it does still have traffic.

SPEAKER_03 2:47

Yes. But the traffic's minimal, so it does feel a little wild. Like the um the, you know, when you walk through a trail that's not really well groomed and the weeds are hitting your legs and you it gets pretty overgrown. Right. Right. So the beautiful wildflowers are all out and blooming and it's overgrown and the mountains are to your back, and it's just beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Awesome.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

Yeah. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 3:14

I'm doing well. Still haven't really started running, although we did go for a hike and I didn't experience any pot symptoms on that hike, which felt really good. So yeah, I'm still taking it quite slow. I'm in my third week of rowing training. I've started getting calluses on my fingers, and rowing has become a little bit of a chore at times, which is just how the same way I think about running training. So I think it's fine. And yeah, oh, and I got certified. I passed, I passed the amateur radio licensing exam for the technician level, which is like the first level that you can get. And so I am now a ham. You can call me, I'll have a call. John Ham. We can call me John Ham. That's a different guy.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

That's a good joke, though.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Uh, but I did it so that I could volunteer at Hard Rock as a ham, as one of their radio operators for their communications. Hard Rock does a ton of communications with ham radio operators in those mountains. And I just wanted to volunteer with my friends. We're going to be up at, I think, Maggie Gulch this year. They go back and forth between the 80 mile aid station. So sometimes they're KT uh and sometimes they're Maggie Gulch. Just depends on which direction the race runs. But yeah, we'll be up at Maggie at Maggie, I think, this year. And I'll be operating comp. So if you're running hard rock, come say hi.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

I love you.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Make sure to make it to 80 miles.

SPEAKER_03 4:39

Will you be wearing a

Ham Radio Volunteering At Hardrock

SPEAKER_03 4:40

running with problems hat?

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

Okay.

unknown 4:44

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

I mean, I don't know. I might just wear a cowboy hat.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

Okay. Look for the cowboy hat.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

We got to get a running with problems cowboy hat.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

Oh, for next merch.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

I'll put it on the list. All right. Let's talk about John Kelly. So who is John Kelly? Why is he famous? Why do we want to have him on?

SPEAKER_03 5:02

You're gonna ping to me for all of this John Kelly details. You're the one that um is the expert in all things John Kelly.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah, John Kelly is an interesting runner. He is the second most finisher of Barkley. He finished Barclay three times. And Barclay is obviously this very big, infamous race down in Tennessee, bushwhacking, very, very, very difficult, on the edge of human ability. And John Kelly has finished it three times. So he is definitely like an elite athlete at the particular niche of Barclay-style racing. And he got into the sport. He was doing some triathlons, doing some marathons, and he decided to get into ultrarunning. And unlike the rest of us that started with like 50K or 50 mile or even 100K, John Kelly went right for Barkley. That 60-hour time limit of Barclay, that was kind of John Kelly's learning of ultrarunning. And he tuned a lot of his, you know, his lessons from that. And as he's uh now over 10 years out from first running Barclay, you know, he's grown into a much wider breadth ultra runner, still very, very good. Um and this year he's gonna run Western States, which is very exciting for the first time. He ran hard rock a few years ago, and he was trying to push for a top finish. And he actually like just got totally sick, was throwing up the whole time. He spent like four hours in an AIDS, left that aid station, put down some great times on the back half, and ended up uh still getting top 10. So he's just like an excellent athlete. He's got these ton of stories. Uh, he's a data scientist, he helped found a company that insures other companies from cybercrime fraud, cybercrime, and like data breaches. So he's uh got a very interesting job, very smart guy.

SPEAKER_03 7:01

Um and he's from Tennessee, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Yeah, he's from the area where Barclay was is run. One of the mountains inside Frozen Head State Park is named Kelly Mountain after uh his family who have lived there for many, many years, many generations. Uh so he he's had some really emotional and like touching experiences where he's been up there and he can like on his last loop of Barclay, he can look at, he can see his like home, you know, and as he's finishing this crazy event that is just so connected with his homeland.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

He has this story where he was uh running Barclay and he had to take a trail nap. And he just lays down and is napping, and an old family friend walks upon him and says, Oh, hey, John, and then just walks away. And he he wakes up and goes, Did I hallucinate that? I must have. And then he finds that friend later and is like, Did did I see you on the trail? And he's like, Oh, yeah, I didn't want to bother you. I didn't want to disrupt your Barkley experience, but I saw you taking a nap.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yeah, it's so funny. Like, he didn't believe he had seen his his childhood friend. He thought of his hallucination. Yeah. It's crazy. Let's see, he's done some wild FKTs. Uh the long trail. He's done this thing called the Grand Round, which is where you do the three big rounds in Scotland Wales area. Um, not entirely clear. I know it involves the Bob Graham round and some of the other rounds, but these rounds are essentially giant efforts in and of themselves. So to do the Grand Round, you're doing three of them in a single push. He had a huge support team for that. Um, yeah, he's been out to Tour de Jon trying to iterate and get that good effort that he's proud of out at Tour de Jon and kind of a perfectionist a bit. And Tour de Jon is a basically a double hard rock out in the Aosta Valley of Italy, northwest Italy in the Alps. It's this absolutely beautiful race, but it's basically a double hard rock. It's got over 60,000 feet of gain, and it's roughly 200 miles. It's absurdly

Who John Kelly Is And Why

SPEAKER_00 9:20

difficult. Um, and John Kelly's gone out there multiple times just trying to put together an excellent performance. He's finished it a few times, dropped out a few times, but never had that really everything really click. So, yeah, that's that's my intro on John Kelly.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

I think that's great. The one the reason we're giving a little bit more of an intro is we had a tight hour with John Kelly and we wanted to make the most of it. So we skipped over some of the um bio questions that we normally ask our guests.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

We didn't like let's get to know you, John, because I already know quite a bit about John, obviously. Uh, we mentioned in the interview about a Gary Robbins situation where John got lost on his final descent into camp at the Barclay. And and I mentioned that, oh, it's very similar to Gary Robbins. Yeah, Gary Robbins famously messed up the last descent uh after 60 hours of running or 59 hours of running, messed up the last descent and came into camp the wrong way. Um and that was portrayed in a great documentary called Where Dreams Go to Die by the Ginger Runner. Excellent documentary. You guys should watch it. Anyway, so uh John Kelly also made a similar mistake. Uh hilariously, Laz um masochistically named a new section of the race called Wrongway Ridge that goes up the tr the place where Gary Robbins made the mistake to come down. So yeah. Uh Laz has a way about it.

SPEAKER_03 10:58

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Did I give enough intro on John Kelly?

SPEAKER_03 11:01

I think you did an amazing.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

You want to give me a John Kelly pop quiz?

SPEAKER_03 11:08

Uh we talk a lot about his Appalachian Trail effort, which was a fundraiser he did for his town.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Yeah, he now lives in Boone, North Carolina in the Appalachians. And the Hurricane Halene damage was vast and really destructive to John's community and the community around him. So he put together this once-in-a-lifetime effort to go and try and put a record on the Appalachian Trail. And he wanted to raise money for Hurricane Helene recovery efforts, both in his community, but also along the trail. So there was there were recovery um nonprofits that were in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, a lot of these southern states that really were just devastated by Hurricane Haleen. So it's really cool. Um, I really enjoyed following all of the content he posted during the Appalachian Trail effort and dot following and donating and just trying to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_03 12:16

And we get into that a little bit in this episode. So I think we've gave uh given our audience enough of an overview where they can dive in and really enjoy our conversation with John Kelly.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Yeah. I it was a treat to talk to him, even if it was just a really tight hour over Zoom. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:33

Um I will say to our listeners, I was a little nervous. Um, and that might come across in the episode.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

But um you never come across as nervous.

SPEAKER_03 12:44

I was nervous. Um, rarely do I get nervous for guests, but this was one of them.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

You know, when you talk to your heroes, that's what happens.

SPEAKER_03 12:54

So I hope you all enjoy this episode.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Yeah, without further ado, John Kelly on a ton of different topics. Uh, hope you guys enjoy.

SPEAKER_03 13:02

Enjoy John Kelly, welcome to Running with Problems.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Thanks

Barkley Loops And A Wrong Turn

SPEAKER_01 13:17

so much for having me. Excited to be here.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

So you've been a bit of a dream guest of ours for a while.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Definitely.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

So we're very excited to finally reach the level of uh fame in our small ultra-running community to have you on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Well, thank you. And uh yeah, that's uh just looking forward to the conversation.

SPEAKER_03 13:39

So um I first met you at Barclay in 2023. But you probably don't remember me because you were on your fifth loop, or you're on your fourth loop, finishing your fourth loop, going out on your fifth, and I was helping John Fagavarasi feed you mashed potatoes.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Yeah, all the uh all the Barclays run together a bit for me at this point. I had to stop and think for a second, 2023. Okay, that was the that was the me or EHOR and and Aurelian year.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Yeah, yes. How many years have you run that race?

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Oh no, that was that was me, Aurelian, and Carl.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

EHOR was yeah, that was a rel Aurelian finish first that year. And then EHOR is the next year.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Yeah, the following year was uh EHOR, me, Jared, Greg, and Jasmine.

SPEAKER_03 14:30

Yeah, I was not unfortunately at that one.

unknown 14:33

No.

SPEAKER_03 14:33

That would have been epic. So how many years have you run Barclay now?

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Good question. Um 15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, so that's 29.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

Oh my goodness. I would not have guessed.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

And it's changed, your approach to it has changed over the years, right? Like early on, uh, you know, I've heard a lot you were very obsessed with it, but now it's how much do you especially prepare for Barkley these days?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah, I mean my approach, my mindset, my relationship with the race, um I kind of role when I'm there, you know, going from a uh first-time person who had absolutely no idea what they were doing in ultra running, let alone Barkley, uh, to now kind of being one of the you know, kind of the default tour guide out there and the the veteran I actually This year I only got one official loop. I I made a bad nav error and came in just over time on my second loop, so it officially didn't count. But that one loop um I believe put me past Jared for the Jared and maybe Andrew Thompson um for the the most Barclay loops ever. Jared still has the most finishes, but uh but I passed him on on total loops. Yeah, Jared's at four, you're at three, something like that. Yeah, I was I was tied with him for about 15 minutes uh in 2024 when I I finished and and then he came in a bit after me.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Yeah, that was I that was my experience. I had the one loop official and then over time on the second. It's uh it's like you you do like you do a whole like 12-15 hours of work and you don't get credit for it.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Yeah, that's the way it is, and I was I was really busting at the end of that loop. Um I thought I could still make it just under, which is similar to 2025. I was the only fun run finisher, and I I was really pushing um like honestly, I I I hardly ever have a park way to make it in just under the cutoff for an official fun run, and I did make it with 10 minutes to spare. Um this year I was rushing so much that I messed up the final descent uh and ruined any chances I I had entirely of making it in.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Gary Robbins-ass mistake.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Yeah, actually, I I think I did take uh the same route that he took uh that that fateful year when he made the long turn.

SPEAKER_03 17:31

Have we told that story on the pod yet?

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Or we've told it.

SPEAKER_03 17:34

If not, we'll tell it in the intro.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Yeah, we'll try to cover a lot in the intro so that we can ask you more questions.

SPEAKER_03 17:41

So this race has kind of made you famous. This finishing the Barclay Marathons, and I would just love to hear your relationship to fame and what it's done to your running endeavors.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

I would say famous within a a very small niche within a niche. Uh has a there's a very uh kind of die-hard sparkly community and and devoted following, uh, where of course I'm I'm very well known. Uh famous if if you want to say that, uh outside of that tiny niche. Uh you know, I'm I'm one of many John Kelly's and not even the most well-known John Kelly. So um there there have been a few mainstream things. I I did the first year I finished, I got to go on Sports Center. Wow. That was cool. Um and a year or two ago, I uh uh Daniel Tosh used to have a Tosh.0 show on I listened to that podcast. He now has a podcast, so yeah, I got to go beyond that in person. That was that was a pretty cool experience, and again, more of kind of a a mainstream thing outside of that niche, but for the most part, it's um just well known uh within that community, and it's it's very random. Uh the you know, the just the random people in random places who will know me. I when before when we lived in the UK and and my family, we took a a little train trip through Europe and and someone in the Pantheon in Paris recognized me. And which I guess isn't too random because the French absolutely love Barclay.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Yeah. But yeah, it's it's interesting. It's kind of odd that, or just and weird twist of fate that uh a tiny bushwhacking race near where you grew up is I mean, it's just odd that Barclay is so famous as it is, that it is so it's intriguing to people.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

And kind of the irony of it is Barclay is the kind of race where if you really want to be successful and kind of if you want to get there to begin with, you you kind of have to not care about that. And and most people at Barclay, particularly the people who have found success at Barclay, really don't care about the hype or uh the the fame that it has achieved, and and they would be out there doing what they're doing, uh, even if no one else in the world outside of that tiny bubble knew about it.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

Does knowing that people are watching you and care about what you're doing, does that impact what events you choose or how you feel when you're out there?

Fame Motivation And Supported Efforts

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Uh as far as what events I I choose, no. Um there are times where and and I've always had this kind of view, and it does stem from Barclay, is we get motivation for these things, and we're either intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated. And I've always said that the people who are extrinsically motivated aren't going to be successful at Barclay. You have to want it deep down inside, it has to be personal. Uh that fire and that motivation has to be internal. And of course, there there can be a blend. It's not all one or the other. Uh the one thing I I have found that can be more, even more powerful uh the past few years is I've taken on a lot of these supported efforts, supported FKTs, and and I have people out there that you know are showing up in terrible weather at all hours of the day to you know, bring me food or help haul my stuff around the mountains, and and that's the kind of thing that that is motivating. I can't just have them show up and it be for nothing and just waiting around on me. And then I just quit. And and so kind of knowing that these people are out there uh supporting me in that way is uh incredibly motivating.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

Yeah. I um we we were both following you on your AT attempt. And um I just watched the video recently where you finally had to make the decision to call it. And I could tell like that was a big, I mean, you said it out loud, that was a big factor holding holding you from quitting was that so many people had taken time out of their life to be there.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Yeah, that that was uh tough for sure. Um, you know, to to come that far and and have every all of that go into it, not just for me, um, but from my family and the people supporting me, uh the people donating to Holene Recovery. It was it was tough. Um, but you know, that's that's the way these things go sometimes, and and that's really what makes them worth doing. If if we knew that we were able to do it and that it was going to happen, really for me, it would take away the whole point of doing it to begin with. It wouldn't be a goal, it wouldn't be a challenge, it would just it would be a task, it would be a chore, like doing the dishes or the laundry or mowing the grass.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Don't want running to become a chore, although training does sometimes sometimes. But yeah, you know, that's that's part of the process, and and that's that's part of the step for those bigger goals.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Gotta put in the work. One thing I really enjoyed on your AT attempt was watching all your uh reels where you had gotten through the first week or two of where your body had adjusted and you were just doing reels talking about one random topic you wanted to talk about. I remember, gosh, the so many interesting ones, but uh like your how you think about distance uh ahead of you and try not to think about distance behind or not think about distance ahead of you, just think about how much distance behind, like how you keep your mindset focused on where you're going. And uh I don't know, like it was really interesting to get a peek inside what you're thinking about on these attempts. You had one reel where you talked a lot about family. What do you uh did you enjoy making those just free content while out there?

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Or uh I did. And uh, you know, to be honest, it was it was nice to have a just distraction for a few minutes each day. And that is something that was was pretty difficult for me on the AT and is something that I've evaluated quite a bit since then and in terms of how I would approach something like that differently, how my mindset would be. It was it it was difficult, uh, to say the least. I I got in a pretty big hole early on. Um, I was pushing to make the schedule for a ferry crossing, got in a pretty big sweep debt because of that. It I had storms every day for like the first eight yeah, so wet. Absolutely wrecked my feet. Um coming out of that, it was scorching hot every day, which kind of exacerbated the the foot problem. So I I was in I was in quite a bit of misery every day, to be honest. Um and that's something that that I realize now was was not the best thing. Um need to be able to, even if things are a bit rough, to flip that mindset and and change that a bit. But those videos did allow me to kind of just step outside of that for a few minutes each day and distract myself and even kind of that just and people say this, uh, and it's it's it's difficult to know and until it's true, but kind of like pretending everything is okay kind of makes everything okay, at least for a little bit. Uh so having that shift of mindset and that different perspective on things is is certainly something that uh I I learned from that and and would take into any future adventures. Did you did you know you were miserable while you were in it? Because the way you just phrase that. Um I mean there were definitely a lot of high points, um, a lot of good moments each day. Uh, but on average, uh you know, it was uh my my favorite part of each day was was getting to bed and and getting to rest. Um it was yeah, between the foot issues and and some other uh physical issues that I I faced, it was it was quite the the challenge. And then, you know, on top of that, the weather um being away from my family for that length of time. Um so it it yeah, it was it was a a slog for a good part of it.

SPEAKER_03 27:16

You and you did end up raising quite a bit of money through that through that effort and with your platform.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

And again, that was something that I am I am incredibly appreciative of and and was very um motivating to continue on uh to be able to kind of turn this really foolish, pointless endeavor in the woods into something actually meaningful, uh something a bit more than that. Uh and so you know, when I look back at the AT, despite uh some of the difficulties and the pain that I faced and the final outcome, I I don't regret doing it by any means. I'm I'm glad uh that I went for it and we we accomplished so much, uh so much that we obviously wouldn't have done had we not gone for it to begin with. So uh definitely proud of of all that we were able to do and and uh as as far as we did make it.

SPEAKER_03 28:22

Can you tell us a little bit about that final day on the AT?

Appalachian Trail Attempt And The Call

SPEAKER_03 28:26

I watched the video and it was like I almost cried watching the video.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Yeah, it was it was kind of a final few days um where I was still moving quite well. And it was it was really a very sudden thing. It was uh, you know, I was really less than a week to go. I was already thinking about the finish, had every day planned out, and it was um in my mind just kind of a matter of getting there. And I kept redoing the math in my head of okay, now I need to average this many miles a day, this many miles a day. The average had dropped so low that it, you know, I felt like I effectively could have kind of just all I had to do was was keep moving. Um and so then I I did develop this issue where it wasn't so much the pain. Again, I I had been in a lot of pain since like day four, really. You know, 30 days of pretty constant pain one way or the other, and and it wasn't something that so much my my leg hurt as it just stopped functioning. It it stopped working. I I had my ankle would not bend, my my foot would not go up and down, and I I could sit there and I would look at my foot and I would say, foot, move. Like my brain would tell my foot to move, and just nothing would happen. It was like that scene for little bill.

SPEAKER_03 30:00

Wiggle your toe. Wiggle your brain toe.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

I can't, I yeah, I can't recall that scene. Um but yeah, it's it I'm sure quite similar where it just it was like the communication swing that had just been stuck, and that was uh obviously pretty disconcerting. Um it also made it to where I I pretty much couldn't walk, especially up some of those steep grades and the whites. Like I just could hardly drag myself up and down those. And uh, you know, there were concerns for the the long-term effect if if I were to continue at that point with some of the things that were being kind of thrown around as far as what the problem could be. So made the tough call to um stop, get kind of have a short day and and rest there at Pinkham Notch where there's a visitor center. I could get an actual hotel room and shower and a bed, um, and and rest up and uh uh kind of be tended to and have that lug work done. And the next day I I attempted to go back out. Um honestly trying to remember now. So I yeah, I had a short day arriving at Pinkin Notch, I think was just like 20 something miles. I tried to go out the next day, I made it like three miles, which included the steepest climb on the entire AT, going up Wildcat Mountain. Um came back down to to rest again, and then the next day went back up to where I had stopped and that was it. So it was kind of this multi-day thing of of trying to get that leg worked out, trying to get it functioning again, uh up until the point where it just it wasn't mathematically feasible anymore. I kind of went from being two days ahead of the record pace to being on the record pace to being slightly behind it, and with the way that I was moving, it just it wasn't possible. And and again, there were concerns for uh long-term health added in there. Uh, and and so that the choice was made to go ahead and call it at that point.

SPEAKER_03 32:33

And um in the video when you quit, and this will give our listeners a little bit of insight into who you are, you were shy of the summit. Isn't am I right? You were shy of the summit, and you said, sorry guys, I'm gonna have to call it, but let's go enjoy the view at the top, anyways.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Yeah, we were pretty close to the top. Um, it had started out kind of a rainy, triscly morning, and it had started clearing up. So I thought, you know, let's let's at least go the enjoy the view up there. Uh so made it up, had a moment up there, and uh then I got hungry, so we went back down.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

You were probably hungry for a few days after that. Weeks. How did you recover? Did your legs start working magically?

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Um no. Um I I mean a it regained its basic function, uh, just with mostly normal rest and and recovery. Uh and and then there's a very long stretch where I kind of just was there. And I I never did entirely figure out exactly what the problem was. I mean, I had an x-ray, multiple MRIs, saw the doctor, the chiropractor, the PT, the uh, you know, all sorts of people and all sorts of possible diagnoses uh were thrown around. I mean, the MRIs showed that you know there wasn't a stress fracture, compartment syndrome, which was the big fear uh was uh the probability of that was was pretty low. Um I didn't think it was tendinitis because I've experienced tendonitis before. And like to be honest, if that had been the problem, I would like it would have hurt and it would have sucked, but I would have just kept going. Like I've I've done that before. I I basically hopped down from the highest peak in the UK on one leg. Um yeah, where I I had got some pretty bad tendonitis. Um so nerve entrapment was the with the latest thing that was thrown around. Um, that seems feasible that the inflammation effectively got so bad uh that the nerve was fully compressed and cut off, and the communication couldn't get through. As the inflammation and the swelling went away, um, you know, that communication was restored, but the nerve was still kind of stuck a bit in scar tissue. So that left this feeling of kind of weakness. And there for many months, like I just I didn't feel like I had power in that leg. I couldn't push off with that foot, I couldn't uh go uphill the way that I'm used to. Um it just it didn't get better, it didn't get worse. I finished tour de giant, um, not up to my goals and expectations, but I I finished. Um, you know, I I went for the spine, swept and busted my knee on ice, went for Barclay, made a nav air, and so all of these things, like I was able to do them, um, not necessarily feeling 100%, but um it was just kind of there because it's just this general feeling of weakness and soreness. So I I do I've started some more targeted strength mobility work, something called nerve lossing, um seeing yet another um body work guy that is focusing more on uh restoring muscle imbalances and kind of showed me where uh, you know, whereas I might be able to push with that foot with say 60 pounds on my good leg, um my bad leg was like five pounds, and then uh doing some kind of balancing exercises that you know I can stand on my good leg and it's quite I'm a ballerina, it just can do it no problem all day. And I try it on my other leg and I'm flailing around um pretty pretty comically. So that has at least kind of zeroed in on uh the problem and allowed me to have some more targeted work, and I do feel like I'm actually seeing some better improvement now, and the there the frequency of of it feeling okay and uh as far as like me not noticing that it's there is is much better.

Diagnoses Rehab And Confidence Returning

SPEAKER_01 37:19

And I actually had a a race in the Alps this past weekend that went really well. Um didn't it it wasn't a problem for me, and it was I think the first race that I was really happy with the the ultimate outcome in in like two years. So that was good. All you had to do was run something short-ish. Yeah, it was uh well, I realized the term I should use is uh rather than saying that was my shortest ultra ever. That was my fastest ultra ever. Uh as you know, it it is, it's it's it can be tough to put in that type of speed. And so I I was out in the Alps going in an area where they really specialize in that kind of stuff. Um, and the the guys that beat me were all like 12 plus years younger than me. Um, but I I felt good and I finished strong and I I absolutely bombed the I had the fastest split on the final descent. That was just that was huge, and that that was a good um bit of confidence building uh is what was effectively my my dress rehearsal going into western states in a month's time.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

You you are the elite barkers have some incredible downhill skills. Like being able to fly downhill on at Frozen Head is a unique skill.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

Yeah, and it's it's one of those things where it's it the terrain matters a lot and and it's very unique terrain at Frozen Head. And you know, home court advantage is a thing in every sport. And and in most sports, it's it's mostly psychological. Like the field is the same, the court is the same, like all the lines are in the same place, yet there is still a very real home field advantage. Whereas in trail running, it's it's an entirely different course, it's an entirely different terrain. You not only have that psychological aspect, but there is a very real physical difference to it as well. And so where I might be able to just crush the descents and and the climbs at Barclay on that terrain, I've I've struggled quite a bit before in the Alps, uh, things like Tour Digan, which is is you know, it's it's a different footing and it's uh different style of of running. And so reading the terrain can be different, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:47

Like the way you see where you're gonna put your feet can be very different.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

Yeah, absolutely. Um, and just it's it's all muscle memory. It's it's just a matter of of building that that comfort and also again just being able to go into it with with confidence. And I I had a spate of sprained ankles uh about four years ago, and and from that point on, to be honest, like I've been a bit timid on descents. And so yeah, I've got that as well.

SPEAKER_03 40:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Yeah. So this was the again, the first time in a while that I really gotten that feeling of just, you know, it's it's like your feet are dancing with the mountain and just following the mountain's lead, and you're not even consciously realizing what is happening with your foot placement, right? Your your feet just just do it and you're you're not thinking about it. And it's it's it's such a beautiful feeling.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

Yeah. Oh, you're taking me back. I I love it. Like I I can't run right now, so I'm very missing it quite a bit. But yeah, just like when you're when you're looking like five steps ahead and your feet are like still tracking what you decided on like two steps ago, and everything just flows. Oh, it's a beautiful state. Yeah. So we're we're a little time boxed, so we'll ask a follow-up. So you you did this uh race to train for uh another big race coming up,

Western States Strategy Planning Nutrition

SPEAKER_00 41:11

right? Western states.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

Yeah, I've uh been been trying to get into that one for for about a decade. Uh this is your first western? Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Wow. You got you had to wait like the rest of us? Or did you did you uh did you win a qual golden ticket?

SPEAKER_01 41:29

No, I no, I was it was it was quartery. Uh I tried a couple of golden tickets over the years, but to be honest, like Western states I've always wanted to do it, um, but it's never been my uh it's never been something that I wanted to devote my entire year to in chasing golden tickets. Uh you know, I had Barclay and other goals, and and that's one thing I love about the sport. There are so many things that are can be the different A goal for different people. And so I've always wanted to get to Western states to experience it, to see what I can do there on that course and against that competition. But for the most part, I was pretty happy to just well, I don't know if happy is the right word, content, uh, to to wait my turn in the lottery. And so it finally came up this year. Um, my first qualifier was uh a decade ago.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Oh wow. Uh that's that's incredible. I'm excited for you. I'm wondering how you're approaching the race as um I mean, you're a very good runner. And are you going to approach it like I mean, right now at West Earn, all the elites kind of approach it like you have to stay in the front pack or else you're getting dropped from the top 10. Are you aiming to stay in that front pack? Are you going to try and run your own race? Or how you how are you approaching the race, I guess?

SPEAKER_01 42:53

I mean, I I don't think that's necessarily the case about a front pack. I mean, maybe if you're going for the win, possibly. Um, that generally there's kind of a front pack and a chase pack, but you certainly have people that start a slow down as fight 25th and then work their way up into the top 10 because people in that front pack are gunning for the win or gunning for the top three, and there's a huge amount of attrition. And and they people blow up, they slow down, they DNF entirely. And so I'm I'm not gonna win this race. I mean, come on, let's let's be let's be realistic here. Um, top 10 would would be a great goal for me. Um, I have some time goals in in mind. Uh, and so for me, kind of maximizing the possibility of those goals means running my own race and running smart and not chasing that lead pack and going out with Jim and Kylie and thinking that's gonna end well for me.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

So probably won't end well for most people.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Yeah. I'll be in a chase pack or maybe even a bit farther back and and then focus on starting to pick off uh some of those people that that went out too hard. And in terms of of looking at historical performances, I I mean uh Courtney's my model to to be honest. Like um incredible consistency in the back. I know I can run as fast as Courtney, but she she always runs smarter than me and she always runs her own race. And like you look at what she did uh in Western states the the year she set the co the course record, she in the overall field, she she started way back, just kind of chilling, doing her own thing, and ended up I think like fifth or sixth overall. Yeah, she picked everyone off in the after four pills. Just good, consistent pace. And and so that's that's what I have to do if I want to maximize my odds of being being top 10, of being up there uh at the finish line, not at the start.

SPEAKER_03 45:07

I've noticed that you plan a lot for these events, and I was wondering what role planning and preparation plays in the whole experience for you. And why I'm asking this is because we did a whole episode on pre-race anxiety. And through that conversation, we realized that some people used planning and preparation as a way to quell anxiety. And I wonder what role that planning and preparation plays for you in that whole experience.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Well, it's it's part of it for me, and it's it's part of the challenge. I view all these things, especially the multi-day type events that I do. It's it's a complex optimization problem. I'm an engineer, I'm a data scientist, uh, and so it is a big puzzle to solve with a lot of variables and a lot of constraints. And uh, we're doing the best to come up with our optimal solution for that, given the constraints that we have. And so that's part of it going into it. But then also I want to be out there knowing that I have a plan and I have contingency plans. And wherever I am in the race, whatever's going on, I don't have to think about what I should do. I I know what I should do, or or my crew knows what I should do so they can remind me of it. And I'm not coming into aid stations kind of thinking, well, what what do I do now? What do I need to do? And and wasting 10 minutes sitting there trying to figure it out. Like I know, my crew knows, I'm coming in, I'm getting it done, and um I'm getting back out there. So it's part of the journey. Yeah, and part of the training. Minimizing the things that you have to think about and spend valuable mental energy on when you're out there racing, so that you can completely focus on uh putting one foot in front of the other.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

Do you do more, are you gonna do more um precise planning for a race like Western States, which will take less than a day versus something like Tor, which would take multiple days? Or are you the same precision regardless? Like down to how many calories to take in this segment versus that segment?

SPEAKER_01 47:34

Yeah, I mean, I I think that my nutrition plan will be a bit more specific on Western States, particularly given uh that I think that's more important for a race like Western States, where you're operating in a higher intensity. A lot of the multi-day things that I do, I I know that if my stomach turns, I can kind of get by for a pretty good amount of time just running through my fat reserves. Uh all of us have plenty of, and and my body is quite good at doing that. Um, but in with something like Western states, the intensity that that is at, uh, especially with uh the emergence of high carb fueling and all the benefits and breakthroughs we're seeing from that. Uh, you know, I'm I'm not gonna be able to keep on just to keep up uh just kind of winging it on nutrition.

Tour De Géants And Loving A Race

SPEAKER_03 48:37

Well, we talked about like just touched on Tour de Jaunt quite a bit, and I'd love to come back to why you keep coming back to this event. You've done it now four times, right?

SPEAKER_00 48:51

Five.

SPEAKER_03 48:52

Five. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 48:54

And have you had a run you're proud of there? No, no, I haven't. Um what was this last event? So that's that's I've I've had I've had runs I'm I'm proud of. When you look at it holistically, when you look at kind of the obstacles that I overcame, uh again, my own circumstances and constraints for that given race. Have I had a result, like a standalone result that has met my goals? No. Um so I mean, kind of walking through those years, the the first time I was I was very well positioned for a top five finishing until late in the race. Um, when I didn't know how to handle sleep on something that long. It was actually it was my first time ever kind of going past that 60 hour mark of Barclay, really. Wow. Um, and so I had some major issues with sleep at the end, lost time to that, so much so that like my watch died and I didn't have the GPS and I took a wrong turn and almost wandered into Switzerland. Um at that point. Um another year I somehow ended up with Rabda, which was quite race. It was like 92. Yeah, it was it was crazy, just like the perfect storm of of things going wrong. I've I've done things obviously that are longer, faster, higher altitude, hotter. Uh never had that happen before, but it it did. And so I I DNF'd that one, uh, which is Did you know when you had Rhapdo?

SPEAKER_03 50:45

Did you know like this is Rhapdo? I must quit.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

I I knew it was like I've I've dealt with some bad stuff, but it was very different. Um yeah, so I I knew something was actually wrong. You know, that's that's a big part of getting experienced adulterers, kind of knowing the difference between, wow, this sucks and it really hurts, but I'll be all right. I mean you're right there. Yeah, no, this is like medically dangerous, and I I should be concerned here. So uh I did stop uh fortunately on on that one. Um I do think that like outs yeah, it I've only DNF'd a a few times and like all but yeah, it's it's mostly Tour de Jean, if you don't count Barkman. Um I've had a couple acute injuries at the spine race, uh sprained ankle, busted knee. Um, but yeah, the another year I I DNF'd at Tor, where I I had probably the greatest 14 hours of running of my life. I just I felt so good. I was running with Francois Dean for most of it and just it felt fine. It felt easy. And then suddenly on the first night, I couldn't stay awake. Like I could not keep my eyes open. And it was night one, not night two, night one. And I just I just basically fell over and took a nap there on the trail, um, pretty uncontrollably. And so I come in on a red eye just a couple nights before. There were a number of factors there, but I I don't know. Um, so that one I ended up after struggling through that night, I I DNF'd. Um, this past year made it as far as I've ever made it feeling good. And then I got this wasn't normal GI issues. I had stomach virus of some sort. It was not. We're gonna keep this PG, and I I won't go into the details of what happened at that point, but it was it was not pretty. So yeah, the I call it the race I love that refuses to rub me back. I I seem to be a bit cursed there, but it is also just it is such a beautiful place, and I love it so much. And I love the course and I love all the little towns we go through. I love the trail, I love the people, I love the food and the culture, like everything about this race other than my results. Uh, I love. And that is something that I have I've really come to realize that thanks to Tor, you know, I spent my early years in Ultras kind of exploring what it is that, well, endurance sports in general. I did triathlons too. I was kind of exploring what it is that I like and enjoy most. And uh I have now kind of zeroed in on these few races that I know if I go there and even if I have a bad outcome, I'm gonna be grateful that I had the experience and I'm not gonna regret it. And so that is something that Tor offers to me. Even if I go and I come up short, um I'm still gonna be glad that I had the experience.

Voluntary Adversity And Hurricane Helene

SPEAKER_03 54:16

I love that. And what is your relationship to suffering? We've talked about it quite a bit in this episode.

SPEAKER_01 54:28

So it's it's a bit it's a bit of semantics and kind of up to personal interpretation of that word. But I labeled I prefer to not use the word suffering uh personally. I think a lot of that is early days of Barclay of constantly hearing people refer to it as a masochistic event and as is a sadist and all this. And the implication there is that there's like joy and pleasure in in the suffering. And I've I've never seen it that way at all. Like there's there's not joy in the suffering, there's joy in overcoming the obstacles that cause the suffering. And so when I think of suffering, I think of like very real, inescapable things that like people go through in life forcibly, like uh not being able to put food in the table, or dealing with medical issues, or family problems, or deaths in the family, or living in a war-torn country, that to me is real suffering. Like it's not something that you can just be like, oh never mind, I'm gonna quit and um go home. And so to me, these things that I I refer to them as as voluntary artificial adversity. That you know, these these are things that we're we're choosing to go through, and and they're hard and they can bring pain, but the pain itself isn't the objective. And most of us, fortunately, in modern society, we we live relatively comfortable lives, right? Right, we avoid pain worrying about starvation or war or crime, like yeah, those things can't happen, but relative to most of human history and most of the people who have ever lived, we're pretty safe and comfortable. And but I I think that with that, we kind of lose this aspect of growth and strength and resilience where we learn how to deal with these challenges. We learn how to deal with these difficulties. And so putting ourselves out there to do these things in what is really a safe environment, a kind of laboratory of our own choosing, we're still able to develop those skills. We're able to work those muscles, we're able to learn these things about ourselves, and that allows us to grow as people, that allows us to be better prepared for when true adversity does happen in life. And that is incredibly valuable to me. And I have seen that with you know, things like when Hurricane Haleen hit our region a couple of years ago, and I was kind of going through things like it was an ultra. Like, don't waste time at an aid station, get your butt out there and and do something, and and don't panic about what's going on, focus about what's in front of you, the next step that you can actually take and and go do it. And and I could like as I was going through these things, I was like, oh yeah, I I learned that from doing stupid stuff in the mountains.

SPEAKER_03 57:48

Yeah, you had that mindset strength to pull on. I think about that a lot.

SPEAKER_00 57:54

It's not just strength, it's also like focus.

SPEAKER_03 57:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:57

It's like, you know, a lot of people can get caught up in the difficulty, but ultrarunners always point towards the objective.

SPEAKER_01 58:06

Yeah, and it's it's the being able to focus on what matters as well, of of being able to keep that perspective of not getting overwhelmed by the little things. And I I think it was actually Alex Honnell that that I may have heard say this that you know people like that they freak out if they miss a flight or like if they're late for a flight. And and yeah, again, that sucks, but like you end up stuck in an airport and you're in this incredibly safe environment with food all around you, and like it's it's not the end of the world, it's it's gonna be okay. And and it does allow us to to keep that perspective so that we're not constantly hyper-vigilant about these things that really are not gonna kill us. It'll be fine.

SPEAKER_02 59:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:07

How is your community healing from Hurricane Helene?

SPEAKER_01 59:11

And uh yeah, it's it's coming along. They're actually they're working on our street now. They they started uh a couple months ago, so our road was completely washed out uh from the storm, and I was very impressed with how quickly they made it passable again. Uh, that was like a top priority, but then much lower down on the huge list of priorities was fixing it. So, I mean, they made it passable, but then it was still like a single lane that was slowly sliding the rest of the way down the hillside. So now they're out there working on once again making it two lanes and stable. Uh, so that's exciting. Um two years down the road from the hurricane? Yeah, yeah, we're about 20 months now. Uh so some I expect them to be done sometime this summer, just short of two years. And it's been kind of interesting as well. As terrible as the damage was, there was also that engineer inside of me that would look at some things like our road and and kind of be like, oh, that's that's interesting. I I wonder how they're gonna fix this one. And and so now I've got to see this progress from like above and below as they've been building this hillside out and stabilizing it so that they can put the road back on it. So that's been neat. Um, but with that said, while most of like the major infrastructure is getting to that point where it's been repaired, there were a lot of communities still that were just wiped out. And it just it depends on where you were, because everything, the wind and the water got funneled through these small communities and through these fall, small valleys and hollers. So, I mean, you might be in one spot and everything looks perfect and normal, and people can pretend that life is just back to the way it was, and then you turn a corner and go down this little holler, and uh you know, houses are still washed out, and people are living in RVs and um bridges are missing. And so there are uh quite a few people that are still not fully back on their feet, and and to be honest, it I I I don't know that they they ever will be in terms of being uh fully financially recovering from something like this.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:45

I'm from a small town in Northern California that was um burnt down by the fires three years ago. And it's the same thing, like a few little pockets survived, but because it's such a socioeconomically low income place, the other places aren't like rebuilding or re-emerging. It's just leaving those little pockets of homes.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:14

I mean, a lot of these people didn't hardly have anything to begin with.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:19

And what they did have got got wiped away.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:23

Yeah. Well, I don't want to end on that note. What's next? What big adventure is next for you, John Kelly?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:31

Well, that's that's Western States. So um, you know, I'll probably have another big run or so. I might go for like an FKT or small local race. It's kind of my final big training run dress rehearsal for Western States, but uh full focus is on that at the moment. Uh and we will see where I am from that, see uh where what what I just refer to as AT leg at this point, uh, see how it does.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:06

We have a normal leg and an AT leg.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:09

Um and we'll see if I can kind of get full confidence back in that leg. And uh pending the outcome of that, then I'll I'll go from there. I don't have any firm plans yet beyond Western states this year.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:24

Well, we'll be re-watching you on the live stream.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:27

We usually have a live stream party and we watch everyone. So we'll be following along.

Advice On Limits And Low Points

SPEAKER_03 1:03:33

Um we like to end our podcast by asking our guests to give a piece of advice to our listeners. So, do you have a piece of advice you'd like to give our listeners?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:47

Uh well one that I always kind of feel obligated to pass along is uh one that I I think I think I attribute this to David Horton when I first got into ultra running and uh the saying it doesn't always get worse. Uh all these ultras to remember that you're gonna hit these low points, you're gonna be able to bounce back, you're gonna be able to continue on past them. But then the other thing for me that is so big is is to just uh never assume what you're capable of, never let anyone else assume what you're capable of. Uh you know, I I never would have imagined that I would have done even a tiny fraction of the things that I've done in in the past decade. Uh and none of us really know what we're capable of until we get out there and try. And we keep pushing our limits. We keep at it consistently and and we keep exploring kind of that that area of unknown of what we can do.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:57

I love that. That is good piece of advice. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the pod. Thanks, listeners, for staying on the