The Steep Stuff Podcast
The Sub Stuff Ep1 | This Week in Sub-Ultra - Zegama, Mexico Sky Challenge, Skyrace Gorges Du Tarn
Welcome to Episode 1 of the Sub Stuff, a weekly news report of all the exciting news events happening in the sub-ultra space over the last week. We get into race reports, race previews, FKT's, sponsor changes - you name it! It is literally all things, this week in Sub-Ultra.
In this week's episode we dive into :
- Recap of the Skyrace Gorges Du Tarn
- Preview of the Mexico Sky Challenge with podium picks
- Preview of Zegama with podium picks
- Eli Hemming's Bear Peak FKT
- And more shoutouts
Welcome to Episode 1 of the Sub Stuff, a weekly news report of all the exciting news events happening in the sub-ultra space over the last week. We get into race reports, race previews, FKT's, sponsor changes - you name it! It is literally all things, this week in Sub-Ultra.
In this week's episode we dive into :
- Recap of the Skyrace Gorges Du Tarn
- Preview of the Mexico Sky Challenge with podium picks
- Preview of Zegama with podium picks
- Eli Hemming's Bear Peak FKT
- And more shoutouts
Hey guys, welcome back to the Steep Stuff Podcast. I'm your host, james Lariello, and today we've got something unique and new. I'm going to call this the sub stuff. It's basically this week in sub ultra. Basically, what this is is just like a weekly breakdown. I'm going to do this on a weekly basis and we're going to do a breakdown of some of the news and kind of recaps of some of the races that we're not tangibly covering right now and just some of the big news, whether it be FKTs, whether it be sponsorship changes. Basically, we're just covering the sport and, like I said, this is going to happen on a weekly basis. Unfortunately, today you have just me the talking head. That's kind of fun, but in future iterations of this you're going to get a myself and a guest and we're going to talk about all the fun things that happened in this past week in our beautiful sport of trail running. So think of it as just something that's like the headlines nothing more than 30 minutes. We're going to keep it chill, so let's dive in. This past week is actually something that happened in the past. This past week, in May 18th, is something I do want to get into was the fourth iteration of the Skyrunner World Series. This was in Sky Race Gorge du Tarn which, if you're unfamiliar with the location, actually takes place in southern France. Beautiful area, beautiful race, super technical. This one actually had a much smaller American contingent for our American listeners. The race itself was about 25 K? Uh, about 1900 meters of climbing, which in conversion to feet is about 6,300 feet of vertical um for climbing. Just pretty solid Um as well.
Speaker 1:Um, we're gonna get into just the quick recap of the male and female podium. On the men's side, the winner was Roberto De Lorenzi. You guys might be familiar with that uh name. Last year he was pretty popular. On the men's side, the winner was roberto di lorenzi. You guys might be familiar with that uh name. Last year he was pretty popular on the golden trail world series, um, as well as the sky running world series you may have named, known his name from like mammoth trail fest and races like that.
Speaker 1:Uh, in second place was art antonio martinez, um, which is a he's kind of a mainstay, kind of one of the faces of the Skyrunner World Series as well as. In third place was Ayu Nett. On the female side, we had Oana Cortazar, julia Font and in third place was Cardilla Cabestre. Sorry, I kind of butchered that last name. Pronunciation's not my forte, so sorry about that. I will do my best to get these names right.
Speaker 1:So yeah, just a quick little recap. Nothing too crazy. Don't want to do too much of a dive deep into that. I really want to get into the next race, which is actually coming up this Sunday. So we're going to do just a short little preview on the Mexico Sky Challenge.
Speaker 1:So this weekend is called Mexico Sky Challenge weekend. It's going to be the fifth stop in the World Sky Running Series, which is pretty awesome. This race builds itself. I don't know how true this is, because I haven't really dove too deep into the race itself yet as the most technical race circuit in the world. I'm not sure if they were familiar or if they were kind of referring to the actual series. That's kind of what it seems like, as they were referring to the tangible Sky Racing World Series itself is the most technical race circuit in the world, but I am curious to hear from some of the racers as to what their thoughts are on if this is incredibly technical course, because it looks pretty technical. So let's get into the nitty gritty.
Speaker 1:The Mexico sky running challenge or a sky challenge? Um, it takes place in Orizaba, mexico. This is the fifth stop in the sky racing world series. This race itself is about 35 K? Um and 3000 meters of climbing, so it's about 9,000 feet Um, and, like I said, it takes place in Orizaba, mexico. Um, just to kind of give you an idea of the elevation profile, or is Abba Mexico, in the start area of the race is going to take place at around 4,000 feet above sea level, uh, 4,081 to be exact, uh, and the high point of the race is actually 10,200 feet, which is wild. That is a pretty, pretty serious, um, pretty serious variance in elevation. So it's going to be a pretty cool race. Um, if you're someone that lives at altitude, I think that's definitely going to help you a lot, um, but if you are a flatlander, be prepared to suffer. Man, this looks, uh, looks pretty intense Uh, so let's get into it.
Speaker 1:We've got a lot of names, a lot of uh, deep American contingent coming out to this. We've got females on the American side, like Kelly Wolf and Alison Baca, and on the male side, we're going to have athletes like Jackson Cole. He's actually from New Zealand but resides in America. Morgan Elliott's going to be out there, johnny Luna Lima, who's a Brazilian he's a Boulder right, though, but he does represent the beautiful country of Brazil as well as an incredible amount of Peruvian and really strong Mexican runners as well, so the depth is indeed deep. We're going to have a really strong turnout on both sides of the race. This is pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:I think this might be actually besides Sky Race Day, math C I think this might be my favorite race so far. In addition, I think it also might be one of my favorites as well because it's the second edition of a North American race on the sky running world series circuit, which is great. We don't have one in America yet, um, but, like I said, we do have meet the Minotaur, which is in um, canada, um, and as well as the second edition of um, which will be the Mexico sky race challenge, which will be our second race in uh in North America, which is, which is dope. I'm really excited for this, um, okay, so let's go into. I'm not going to get too crazy into my picks, but I do want to talk about the podium and some of my selections that I think are um men and women that will compete for the podium and kind of where I think their placement's going to be, just as a preference. I did talk to some of these athletes. I did get some quotes from them, which is exciting. The other kind of way I'm making these selections are based off of athlete Strava. I'm going to be entirely honest with you. Not everybody puts everything on there. I know I personally don't, so it's kind of hard to make that gauge. One of the last things I'll kind of throw in as well is maybe some previous results that these athletes have that kind of would on similar courses, that would kind of in similar elevations. That maybe would give a little bit of an indicator on where you think they're going to be as far as the podium goes.
Speaker 1:I'm going to start off on the women's side. I'm going to start off with my third place pick, um. It's gonna be last year's um second place athlete at the meet, the minotaur sky race in 2023. Um, her name is emma cook clark. She's a canadian athlete, super strong, her strava. It's hard for me to read on this one, and the reason I say that is because she hasn't really posted much, just a lot of biking and some of her very little of her running. I would imagine she's doing significantly more volume, yeah, so I'm going to keep her at third. I don't have too much to say there other than, like I said, really strong athlete, really strong female athlete. Last year second place to meet the Minotaur, and I would expect good things from her In second place.
Speaker 1:I can speak a little bit more to my last Sportiva teammate, kelly Wolfe. Kelly is an absolute killer and obviously so is Emika Clark. Kelly is just coming off a really successful Schemo season. I don't remember too many of her dubs, but I know she's done really well. I recall her doing really well at Schemo Nationals. That was at Wolf Creek in Colorado. If I misspoke there, don't hate me because I'm not a Schemo athlete, but yeah, kelly's an incredible athlete. Last year she took second place at the rut 28 K in 2023.
Speaker 1:Her Strava is an open book. She's got a lot of stuff put on there, so it was easy for me to kind of decipher some of her volume and see kind of some of the stuff she's been putting up. One route in particular that I've actually run myself that's incredibly technical and would actually be a really good race simulation. Um, she just did a really cool 18 mile route in Uray. You guys can look it up on her Strava. Uh, I don't know how she feels about that, but uh, the route itself was 18 miles from Uray all the way around, some of like an enhanced version of like the perimeter trail with like more climbs. Um, and then she had a really solid climb at the end, all the way up to around 11,000 feet on the bridge of heaven trail, which, if you're familiar with that, it's a very strong, very solid climb, very high altitude. Um, this is a great simulation.
Speaker 1:I think Kelly's super fit. Her Strava seems to uh, kind of say the same. She's had some great results last year and she's coming off a super successful schema season. Um, the only thing I would put as a hesitation would be, like you know, her running looks really good. How's, how are the legs going to feel in the later stages of this race, especially for how technical it is? Um, and with that I'm going to go ahead and put her as my second place female pick, and then in first place I'm going to go ahead with Alison Baca. Um, I believe Alison does live in Colorado as well.
Speaker 1:A lot of her training lately, however, has been in Jackson, wyoming. Really really solid athlete. Allison is just like killing it on Strava. Just so you give a little background on her. She just placed third at the breakneck 24K, which is a the breakneck trail races which take place in upstate New York, new York. I guess the way they're kind of billed now is it's the American Golden Trail World Series or the member of the National Golden Trail World Series. They have a 21K and a 42K as well, so a half marathon and a marathon distance, and I believe it was the 21K where she just went ahead and took third place at Brick Neck. I think that's a really good training stimulus Very technical course, very hard, not at altitude though, so plenty of oxygen.
Speaker 1:She has been training at altitude though. If you guys go ahead and check out her Strava, like I said, she resides in Colorado and on top of that she's been training. She put up some wild routes for especially Jackson Wyoming, which is where she's put up some routes at Um. But if you know that area you know there's just a lot of snow up high and stuff like that. So you know with what you have and what you have to work with especially we've had the same situation here in Colorado Um, you can still get some really good climbing in that eight to 9,000 foot range, um, as far as uh elevation wise. So I think she's super prepared from a vertical perspective. I think she's super prepared from a running perspective. Like I said, she just took third at breakneck.
Speaker 1:And then don't sleep on this girl as well, because six last year at Worlds at Innsbruck in the 87K. So she's somebody to not be slept on. I think she's very, very strong. Her volume looks great. I'm going to have to put her as my first place pick. Could be wrong, but we'll see. Um, yeah, so I think two, two American females on on um, two American females are going to be on this podium. So well, let's pin over to the men's side. So we've got a lot of studs coming out. I think this is going to be a great race. Um, I think it's a little clearer maybe on the on the female side, and I think the men's side is just going to be really tough to pick.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go ahead with a little bias myself. I'm going to go ahead and talk about Jackson Cole. I don't know if you guys have checked out episode four of the Steep Stuff podcast, but if you could go ahead and pan on over to that and kind of get an idea of who Jackson is a person. You get his personal story. Last year this guy took first place at the Meet the Minotaur Sky Race and he raced quite a few really hard races, um, including the final of the sky racing world series, um. In addition, I think he went top 10. I believe he was top 10 at um sky sky tracks or old tracks, excuse me, old tracks extreme, which is one of the Matterhorn sky races. Uh, incredibly hard race, super technical Um, and he was able to pull out a top 10 there.
Speaker 1:Um, jackson's going to be my number one pick, not just because I'm biased, cause he's a lot of sportive, a teammate, but also because he's an incredible athlete. Love a story. I know his training has been solid. You guys can check out a Strava. The volume looks great and his commitment to just specificity is just bar none. I don't know too many athletes that train uh with such intent in mind and it's just like such a professional. If there's anybody that I want to aspire to be like when it comes to these races, it's definitely Jackson. I do have a quote from him, some of the information that he kind of gave me as a kind of a pre-race quote was this course looks extremely challenging and will be a total adventure for all the racers. The last eight miles looks like it's going to test the human spirit and only as strong will survive. Um, he also goes to say I'm looking forward to lining up with some of the strongest runners in the world, from Peru to Mexico and the United States. Um, yeah, I am so excited for this guy. Um, this is going to be his first race out this year, aside from some of the smaller stuff he did, uh, in Missoula, so let's go ahead and cheer him on. He is my first place pick for this race. I think he's he's going to get it done in second place.
Speaker 1:I do have Morgan Elliott, which he who is another American. Well, I should say Jackson is from New Zealand but resides in America. Morgan is an American, incredibly, incredibly talented runner and incredibly talented runner on technical terrain. So I don't know if you guys are familiar with this. Last week or two weeks ago, I'm sorry, he raced David Hedges. Him and David Hedges had this really cool kind of FKT race that they did in Mount Mitchell, north Carolina, where they raced each other for the FKT on Mount Mitchell. Morgan was actually able to pull away and get himself just under the current FKT for Mount Mitchell the ascent record, which is absolutely incredible. The guys fit um, his, um, his, his, his Strava looks great, his volume looks incredible, um, some of the other things to kind of dissect. I don't know if you guys know this, but he was a member of the 2023 team USA. In Innsbruck, um took part in the up-down race and he got himself a top 10 placement as well at SUNAPE, where he got himself the qualifier for this race.
Speaker 1:Like I said, morgan's an incredible athlete. I have never run with him personally, but I do have a lot of friends that have and, from what people have told me, he is one of the best technical runners that they've ever seen. So he's incredibly talented. So very excited to see what Morgan can do. I do have him as my second place pick. Yeah, I definitely, definitely am excited to see what Morgan can do here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and last but not least, I'm going to go ahead with Johnny Luna Lima as my third place pick. I don't know if you guys are aware, but Johnny was the 2023. Uh, so he'd be basically the 2023 reigning champion for the rut 28 K, which is another absolutely incredibly technical, technical race. Johnny resides in Boulder, um, but, like I said, he represents the beautiful country of Brazil. Um, yeah, if you guys check out his drive as well, very strong, um, he does a lot of really. You know, I I'd say very similar um training, uh, to a lot of these guys, morgan as well. Um, lots of high vertical, very solid, very strong volume. Um, he's a member of the North face team as well I don't know if I said that, um, as well as Morgan runs for Merrill Um, so, yeah, just want to give a shout out to these guys. That's my first, second and third place pick. Um, yeah, I don't think there's too much else to talk about.
Speaker 1:Very excited for this race. Going to be doing a recap on this race actually pretty soon, um, hopefully to come out this upcoming monday so you guys can see how close the picks were kind of, see the fallout there, see how people and what people thought of it, how they enjoyed it and, yeah, super exciting, right. So, not last but not least, we're going to get into our third stop on the golden trail world series, uh, this upcoming May 26th. So this upcoming Sunday is going to be Zagama. Um. I don't know if you're how familiar you guys are with this race, but God damn, it's one of my favorite races. I would love to race it personally one day.
Speaker 1:Um Zagama takes place in the Basque region of Spain. It's about a 42 kilometer, so that's about a marathon distance of 2,700 meters, so it's about 8,000, 8,000, so about 9,000 feet of climbing, 8,858 feet Really crazy course. If you guys have watched some of the Golden Trail series docu-series that they've done in the past, I know last year was a kind of a wild, uh rainy year Um. A lot of times this race is very muddy, it's very technical Um. It's always raining, it's always cold, it's just it's a really tough environment to perform very well at Um. Last year I know you guys probably followed, like you know, jonathan Albin uh. Menu Morales, who actually wound up winning John, I think a third um, as well as Al Hussein Um. Menu Morales, who actually wound up winning John, I think, a third um, as well as Al Hussein Um. So just some incredible athletes on the both the male and female side um that have come out as well as like Daniela or Ramis you actually will be back this year Um. Yeah, overall, I'm super excited. I'm also really stoked. Uh, I know we have a lot of mostly American listeners, so the American contingents looking very strong, especially on the female side. Um, athletes like Danny Marino are going to be there in.
Speaker 1:Billy Kowalczyk is, um, you know, I think she's you can kind of I don't know if you guys follow her on Instagram definitely worth a follow. Um, she just posted something about how she's been trying to get out to this race since 2020. So really exciting that she's finally able to line up at the start line. I know she's had a great season so far, so excited, which, for what she can do. Um, danny is also extremely fit. She just took a first place at the canyons 50 K, which is a UTMB major race, um, you know, just a few weeks back, so hopefully she's recovered. Really exciting to see what she can do in this race.
Speaker 1:Um, on the men's side, we've got the returning goat, um, well, one of the goats, I would say, in Killian. Killian is a, you know, needs no introduction introduction. Pretty exciting that it's going to be the first time we're going to get to see him race in a in a kind of a while. It's been kind of a long layoff since last year and even before. He didn't race too much last year, so exciting to have him back reigning champion for Zagama as well. Manu Morales will be back. I don't know how much you guys know about Manu. He's arguably one of the best, if not the best, downhiller in the world. Um, as well as Al Husein will be back.
Speaker 1:Um, you're going to get some new faces like. Robbie Simpson will be there as well. He's a member of the Ditas Tareks team. Um, he's probably most noted for races like OCC, as well as series and all. He's a really fast marathoner. Um, guys, an absolute killer. So pretty exciting. Um, yeah, some some. So some things to talk about for this race.
Speaker 1:We've got a lot of storylines here. First one is this race is usually cold, it's usually wet, it's usually muddy and super technical. One feature will still be there, and that's the technicality. But the interesting thing, if you guys check the weather, the weather in the Basque region is going to be warm. It's going to be high as 65, with some sunshine and some clouds this year, but only a 25% chance of rain. So, and it hasn't been raining too much, so it might not be so muddy, it might not be too disgusting out there this year. So yeah, that's going to be kind of an interesting storyline here.
Speaker 1:Who's going to provide, who's going to play out best in these better conditions? I think it's going to have to go to some of the better athletes, some of the faster athletes. Maybe if you're a little less gritty you can do some you know very well in this race, whereas in previous iterations you've had to like gut it out and be very gritty to actually win this race. Like menu Morales is a perfect example. The guy's an incredible downhiller, maybe a little bit slower on the uphill. Um, you know, he kind of makes his bread and butter by picking people off late in the race. He's he's aggressive at the end, very aggressive, and he can kind of grit it out. He trains on. He lives in Spain, in a similar region of the Basque country, so he knows how to deal with these tough conditions and races and very similar types of fire or trains in very similar type environments El Huzin El Huzin's a killer, so he's done incredibly well in the first few iterations of the Golden Trail World Series. I think he's ranked up there in the top three or four. Another athlete to keep an eye out for is going to be Davide Magnini. It's going to be his first race of the year, coming just off of the schema season. We'll see where his legs are at.
Speaker 1:I know usually for some of these athletes it takes a few races to kind of get back into form, get their training where it needs to be. Um, yeah, I don't know. And on the female side we've got Sarah Alonzo as well. Uh, I know she's a big fan favorite, very big fan favorite on the golden trail world series. Um, and this year she's kind of been dipping her toes as well into, uh, the sky racing series as well. Uh, she just came off the first place, uh win at the trail cap de cruces Uh, I believe that's a race in Spain as well. Checked her Strava and she's been putting up some wild volume as well. Had a couple 110-mile weeks in there. So she's fit, yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's get into some picks. Let's start with the women. I'm going to start with my third-place selection for the women. I'm going to have to go ahead and select Dani Marino.
Speaker 1:I think Dani's incredibly fit, coming off that canyons win, which was an incredible win for her, very, very competitive. It was a 50 K trail world major that she just got herself a win at. I think she's ready to roll. Her training looks amazing. Her Strava looks great. Definitely check that out. High volume, really quality volume as well. Yeah, yeah I'm excited for for Danny, I think she can definitely. She can definitely mix it up. If not win this race, I do have her personally as a third place, and the only reason I do is because I'm not curious to see how fast those legs and fatigue kind of bounce back from from canyons. Um, we'll see.
Speaker 1:Uh, another thing that I'm kind of interested in is you got to remember when these Americans go over to race in Europe. Sometimes it's a little hard getting used to a few things. Your diet changes a little bit, your sleep's going to change. There's always going to be kind of your sleep's going to get thrown off for a few days. Trying to adjust to that is really hard. And then another thing is is you know the sleep and kind of the weird times these races start? Sometimes these races start super early in the morning, sometimes they're midday, sometimes they're late in the afternoon.
Speaker 1:Um, I have a new episode actually coming out in a few weeks, uh, where we have Christina, um, uh, christina Mascarensis. Um, I probably just butchered her last name. Mascarenas is probably the best way to pronounce it. Sorry, christina, if you're listening to this. Um, so, probably the best way to pronounce it. Sorry, christina, if you're listening to this. So yeah, christina is the reigning Pikes Peak marathon champion. She's won it a couple of years in a row now.
Speaker 1:Incredible athlete, she races on the Golden Trail World Series. One of the things we got to talk about was the Kobe Trail Race, where it starts at such a weird time. We've had plenty of these Golden Trail Races that start at funky times. So I know, for me as an athlete, um, you know, not just from a nutritional perspective, but from hydration, from a sleep perspective all these things kind of get thrown off, um, when you're making these little little changes. So that could matter, you know, when it comes to your difference between a first place and the third place. So definitely something to think about. Um, yeah, so I've got Danny in third.
Speaker 1:I'm going to have to go ahead and put in second place Daniela Omas. I believe she's a Nike athlete. She is the reigning 2023 champion for Zagama. I believe she's a German athlete. She's phenomenal. Like I said, took the dub last year, performs really well in technical terrain. She had a great 2023 season so far, or 2023 season so far, pretty good 2024 season. I'm curious to see what she can do. I definitely have her in second place, just course, knowledge. And then, once you become the champion of a lot of these races, I think, yes, there is additional pressure put on you to perform at a high level and win, but I think once you reach that level, getting back to that level might not be that hard. I think you kind of achieve another level. Think about it like that. So I would. I would expect to see her on the podium. I think she's a phenomenal athlete, so we will see.
Speaker 1:Um, uh, also in the mix. I'm not going to count her out. She's like kind of the first person I have out of the podium, but could very well be on. There is going to be Sarah Alonzo as well. I talked about her a little bit a few seconds ago. She's phenomenal athlete. You know, constantly on podiums the golden trail world series as well as the sky racing world series. She's phenomenal athlete. Like to see what she can do. Don't be surprised if she's on the podium. Um, I'm going to have to go with my first place pick now. So local Boulder right Um, you know, local Colorado girl very excited for her. Like I said, she's been trying to get back here since 2020 to race this race. Um, she just go ahead. It got ahead and got herself a podium.
Speaker 1:Third place at the sky race day, math C, which is on the Skyrunner World Series just a couple of weeks back, is Bailey Kowalczyk. I think Bailey has the ability to win this race. I think she will win this race. I think just the excitement of being back and racing in Europe. I think she's in a really good headspace, she's healthy. I think there's just so many things at play here. I think Bailey is going to be very hard to beat. I really do believe that. Just an incredible athlete. Her training looks great. Her volume is solid. Third at Sky Race, dame Athasia is absolutely no joke and the fact that she was able to accomplish that and just getting started.
Speaker 1:It's usually kind of hard for Americans to come over and perform at a high level at a lot of these races, especially Golden Trail and Sky Racing World Series. So belly also has been here. Um, she's been in there for a couple of weeks now. She's. She just did a small little training block or last week out in Chamonix. Now she's going to have you heading over to Spain. I think she's probably sleep adapted, um, probably diet adapted. I think there's all these little little things you guys got to think about. I think she's she's going to be hard to beat on on Saturday or Sunday. So, yeah, I'm definitely got Bailey as my first place pick. On the men's side, we've got a lot of athletes coming out.
Speaker 1:Like I said, one of the greatest, if not the greatest of all time Killian returns, um, killian. I don't think Killian is much of an introduction. Uh, I don't know if you guys know this, but Zagama's got a history dating back to 2002. So, based on that math, this race has been ran 22 times. Killian's won it 10 times and is the current course record holder. This is his race.
Speaker 1:The Basque country is not too far away from the Pyrenees, where Killian grew up and learned how to do all this crazy shit. So I think that Killian is going to be very hard to beat, if not unbeatable. Um, yeah, I mean, we'll see. His Strava looks absolutely amazing. I know he doesn't post too much, but from some of the crazy stuff that he does put up, uh, it does look incredible. I don't know if you guys follow Strava too closely, but he, not too long ago, put up a really solid route. It was like a double threshold workout with Petter. That just looked absolutely insane. Yeah, killian is going to be very difficult to beat, I think. Yeah, you're going to have to give him first place, but we'll see. We'll see. We've got the reigning champion in Manu Morales returning. I hope Manu. We'll see. We'll see if he returns to form.
Speaker 1:Like I said, he won it in 2023. These are his home trails. This is his home place. He lives in Spain, resides in Spain, trains in the Basque country. I talked about him a little bit before.
Speaker 1:Dude, this guy's an animal in a lot of ways. He's probably the best downhiller in the world. I would argue. Yeah, he lives up to the hype for sure. The way he likes to race, he likes to come from behind, pick guys off. He's a gritty runner. This year he's been kind of hot and cold as far as some of his results. I think these are home trails. This guy knows the course. He's been trying to get over the hump for a long time. Last year. Last year, he became the champ, so we'll see if he's able to kind of stay at that level, I'm going to pick him for second place. I don't know if you guys feel the same way. I think it's hard to count somebody out like that. I just think it's hard to be killing it's, it's, it's damn near impossible to be killing it. So, yeah, I'm going to have to go with Manu for second and then in third place I'm going to put El Hussein.
Speaker 1:Um, I think El Hussein has been on a heater. He's been, he's had a lot of great results in the last since, you know, kind of the end of 2023. Um, he got himself a dub last year, um, at the Dolemite Sky Race and has just been, you know, very consistent. The guy is always on the podium. He's a solid runner, he's an incredible athlete. I'm going to have to put him in third place unless I see something otherwise. It's kind of hard to get an idea of what his training looks like. But God damn, does this guy show up the race?
Speaker 1:Yeah, some other notable shout outs. Like I said, don't count out Davide. Davide Magnini, um, credible athlete. You've got Robbie Simpson coming out as well and then quite probably at least another 20 other absolute studs that are going to be, uh, going to be out there ready to race. Um, yeah, and, like I said, the women's side looks incredible as well. Um, I'd say the men's side might be a little clearer, just because we kind of have an idea of, we would think, who the winner would be. The women's side is just going to be just an amazing race as well to follow along, if not more entertaining, in my opinion. Like I said, I really am excited to see Bailey Kowalczyk race this, as well as Danny and just our American contingent. I'm just so excited for them. So let's definitely hopefully you guys are out there cheering these ladies on and men on when it comes to Sunday. So very excited, okay, so that's the gamma, not too much else to get into.
Speaker 1:I do want to give some notable shout outs. This was kind of funny. My coach, eli Hemming, just went ahead and, in Boulder County, just wouldn't sell, got himself an FKT on the ascent of Bear Peak. My guy got himself, took the FKT off. Sage Sage might've heard this from Salida. That's how wild this is 32 minutes, 48 seconds ascent on Bear Peak. If you guys have ever been on Bear Peak, you know how hard that is. Eli is indeed fit. I am quite excited to see him and kind of preview his races coming up um at broken era. So excited to see what he can do.
Speaker 1:Uh, next, shout out um episode. I think it was episode three. Um, get on over to the podcast. Check out episode three of the steep stuff pod. Brian. Mr Brian Whitfield um went ahead and got himself a uh a first place at the ramp party, 33 K. Um, yeah, just want to give a big shout out to him. Great guy, great dude doing great things. Um, yeah, I thought it was. Uh, it was a very solid win. I'm excited for him. So, yeah, guys, uh, now that I just ran it for 30 minutes, I hope you guys enjoy this. Um, I think this was pretty solid headlines for uh, this past week of uh may 20, what is this? 24th? I'm recording this now. All these races are taking place through the 26th, through the 28th and we'll do a recap on this later on. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Yeah, so the sub stuff, a little play on words from the steep stuff, just lots of me rambling and some stuff. So here we go. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Thanks so much. Thank you.