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What can Trail Runners and Climbers learn from one another with Vitaliy Musiyenko
2.7k Plays14 hours ago
In this episode of the Uphill Athlete Podcast, host Alyssa Clark chats with alpinist, climber, and trail runner, Vitaliy Musiyenko about the powerful lessons endurance athletes can learn from each other. Vitaliy shares his inspiring journey from an unhealthy teen to a top alpinist, emphasizing the value of mentorship, ego-checking, and relentless curiosity. He dives into the physical and mental demands of the Goliath Traverse and how it sparked his deep dive into endurance training. They also discuss the crossover between climbing and trail running, from pacing strategies to mountain safety, and how these skills are essential to success and longevity in the mountains. The episode wraps with a reflection on failure, growth, and the importance of keeping longevity and safety at the forefront of all mountain pursuits.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Tease
00:00:00
Speaker
It's great to listen to David Goggins and you know i have him tell you that you're capable of a lot more than you think you are, but running on broken legs is not the thing that you want to do.
00:00:19
Speaker
uphill athlete podcast. I'll be your host today. My name is Alyssa Clark, and i am super excited to bring an absolutely incredible guest. I've got had the pleasure of getting to know him. he is ah just all around incredible climber, alpinist,
00:00:39
Speaker
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 ah we're going to keep shouting your name out so that everyone knows who you
Meet Vitaly Musyenko
00:00:55
Speaker
are.
00:00:55
Speaker
But today I have on Vitaly Musyenko. And Vitaly, thanks for being on. Hey Alyssa, thanks a lot for inviting me. I feel like sharing useful information and helping people has been a a huge theme in my life. And ah I feel very happy to be invited on a training podcast because ah I feel like we can share a lot of useful information with the the people that are listening, especially the whole huge ah mountain community of athletes on
The Role of Mentorship in Athletics
00:01:31
Speaker
uphill athlete. three
00:01:32
Speaker
um I also wanted to congratulate you on the Katie Scheid becoming your teammate. yeah if We did not talk in a while and it's sort of a big news. ah And i feel like it connects ah directly to the topic that we were discussing before we started recording when it comes to mentorship.
00:01:53
Speaker
I feel like ah having mentors that can help you grow is ah a huge boost for an athlete and having somebody like Katie on your team might um hopefully will take you to the next level in the competition. At least ah that's what I'm hoping because as strong mentors um are are just ah so important for developing as an athlete.
Continuous Learning in Sports
00:02:19
Speaker
And that's ah actually that's the first tip in this podcast is ah 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 you're going to grow um 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.
00:02:45
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, yes, I'm super excited to learn from her and her partner. Jermaine 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.
00:02:59
Speaker
um 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.
00:03:16
Speaker
I would probably guess student of most things in your life.
Vitaly's Athletic Background and Transformation
00:03:20
Speaker
And you ask such deep and thoughtful questions and just have no There's no ego behind anything that you do. You just keep trying to do your best and learn. And that to me is just the like such an admirable quality of you and also why you've had, i think, so much um success is such an interesting word, but we'll say success um in all of the mountain endeavors that you've done. ah But as we're kind of getting into that, i'd love to hear about just your
00:03:55
Speaker
background, how you came into climbing, just climbing first and then kind of endurance as a piece to aid in your climbing adventures.
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah, thank you so much for all these compliments. I feel like a ego, it's impossible to not have ego. Everyone has one, but it's ah possible to ah identify it and control it.
00:04:22
Speaker
And that's what I've been trying to do. Probably not always successful, ah but at least I'm trying. And the um 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 trying to go on backpacking trips.
00:04:46
Speaker
um actually was ah ah 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.
00:05:01
Speaker
And then when I moved to the United States with my mom, um 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.
00:05:14
Speaker
So i i am I am used to being the the least athletic person out of all my friend group. um and the That's probably helps me ah now to keep my ego in check is because ah I know what it's like to be the least athletic person.
00:05:33
Speaker
It's been the recent enough in my life that I can still recognize it. And the um Every time I make some sort of a ah progress in my climbing or running of or in any athletics, I celebrate it and I kind of pinch myself trying to, you know, um trying to celebrate that ah progress can be possible unlike, ah you know, my earlier version would think.
00:06:04
Speaker
So after I got into scrambling, I actually read Steve House's book, Beyond the Mountain, and the it really resonated with me as the hardest um way of climbing mountains.
00:06:21
Speaker
And the just scrambling up 13,000 foot peaks in the Sierra was the hardest thing that I've done
Training Routines and Motivation
00:06:30
Speaker
in my life. ah Even though I was, ah you know, I started playing high school football at 300 pounds, I could not run around a track um ah for a quarter mile, um not even, you know, talking about doing a mile. um yeah In the beginning, it was so hard for me to start.
00:06:50
Speaker
And then I got into boxing and I got really deep into boxing and, you know, ah You know, boxing is not an easy sport, but when I got into and just pure scrambling, I was ah humbled by it even farther because it felt um like physically um not impossible, but but really difficult.
00:07:15
Speaker
And when I found out about alpinism, which is ah a way to climb mountains by ah very difficult routes in a fast and light fashion, i was i it it just seemed like the hardest thing I could throw myself at in in this ah you know in my life.
00:07:37
Speaker
And for some reason, it's it spoke to me and it hit 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 at one point.
00:07:54
Speaker
ah So I created a roadmap for myself when it comes to improving and getting myself ah to become ah you know, an Alpinist at some point.
00:08:05
Speaker
At first I focused on my um just physical preparation and I would load my backpack with ah five to six gallons of water and I would hike up a very steep city block in San Francisco because that's all I had for training.
00:08:23
Speaker
You know, living in San Francisco, you don't have continuous 2,000 foot climbs. ah I did not ah you know, have the ability to just drive out and ah go for a 3000 foot hike as, but but I had the ability to climb in the gym and, the you know, ah do my cardio on the east t steep city blocks. And I actually ah felt like I might have ah built the most climbing fitness doing that because, you know,
00:08:58
Speaker
compared to typical ah muscular endurance uh that's uh advocated on uphill athlete which works very well um 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 to some of that time to intense uh pushes up uh up that city block um and it uh it's almost like um um ah
00:09:29
Speaker
it's It almost ah creates this ah um like more of a strength stimulus ah versus um uphill continuous stimulus that builds more endurance and muscular endurance.
00:09:46
Speaker
So um I feel like ah and that was the first step. And the second step was to ah try to um find people to go ah climbing trad to learn how to place gear, how to place ice screws on ice climbs.
00:10:04
Speaker
And ni know obviously at first you're just top roping on ice. And then when you feel comfortable enough, you're starting to lead. and the ah your skills are building over time.
00:10:16
Speaker
And just like that um 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.
00:10:31
Speaker
So I feel like ah 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 the cover a lot of mileage, put in a lot of mileage outdoors or indoors, wherever you can train.
00:10:59
Speaker
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 ah and do ah two and a half hours exercise.
00:11:18
Speaker
um strength training and the climbing there. So ah when you have a goal that you are excited about, it's it's really easy to find that energy to go out and push yourself.
Balancing Training and Personal Life
00:11:33
Speaker
Yeah, it definitely is. i You make time for the things that are important to you. And I will say that i always...
00:11:44
Speaker
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 or something along those lines. 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.
00:12:06
Speaker
They, that was 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 lifetime fitness and motivation versus these kind 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. Cause I mean, I train almost every day and it's just my life. It's not,
00:12:36
Speaker
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 you fall under that same category. Yeah, and it's important to also recognize that us as 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 ah ah work their ass off ah every week in order to you know find the next thing and the next thing.
00:13:13
Speaker
ah Because ah as climbers and trail runners, we also take a lot of time away from our family and don't invest ah as much into our friendships. So it's not all glorious and incredible. you know I feel like ah with time I was able to recognize ah that i I lost a lot of time of investing into my friendships and the relationships and the i you know i I try to invest more now as ah I get older and I feel like as I continue to grow and um learn, who knows, maybe I will change certain things.
00:13:57
Speaker
ah But ah yeah it's i feel like it's really important. And the...
00:14:04
Speaker
it's hard to find ah goal for people that you train because they are the ones that need to come up with their own goals. And I, yeah, I, I, never I feel like giving them the independence of finding their goal is a huge part of making them, um making their training a success because they will actually be,
00:14:29
Speaker
b willing to do all the work because they are the ones who came up with their ah big goal, so to say.
Customized Training and Injury Prevention
00:14:38
Speaker
Yeah, no, I totally agree. i think, um,
00:14:43
Speaker
there you know Sometimes it's like, hey, I want to do this ah training race. Do you have any recommendations? But if if we are pushing, if someone says to me, hey, I need a goal or s something, I'm like, oh, okay, let's spend some time. We can discuss things.
00:14:59
Speaker
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...
00:15:12
Speaker
every day 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. It's just that it's, it's worth it. yeah um So yeah, you have to find those things that matter enough to keep showing up and doing the work. um Have you ever worked with a coach before?
00:15:36
Speaker
I have a little ah because I have ah background in coaching and I literally ah read every book on training that you can imagine, ah you know, aside from the uphill athlete and the Jason Koop's book, um all all the different books on ah training for climbing, ah like here anything for marathon running, anything that you can imagine, I probably read it.
00:16:02
Speaker
ah But I still, ah um I asked Jack Kunzel to give me um his opinion on the on the the structure that I built for myself.
00:16:14
Speaker
And he went over um what I thought was a good idea and gave me his opinions on things. And ah it's really hard for me to work with a coach because I change my plans daily, ah depending on how I feel.
00:16:33
Speaker
um you know 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.
00:16:47
Speaker
or It just depends. And on some days when that ah when I expect to feel shitty, I feel good. So ah i I understand the balance between easy volume and intense training.
00:17:01
Speaker
And i try to um 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 I may have an interval training session, for example.
00:17:21
Speaker
Or if I feel like like I don't have anything to give on this day, I will just ah ah do some easy volume, ah maybe for a couple hours or maybe for an hour and call it good. ah so And then it also changes based on the the climbing plans. And climbing plans change on the weather forecast.
00:17:44
Speaker
So ah it's really hard to work with a coach, but understanding ah the... The structure of training is very important. Yeah, the principles.
00:17:55
Speaker
And another another tip I wanted to give to your ah listeners is ah ah to see a different physical therapist every year of your training cycle and to have an independent therapist.
00:18:11
Speaker
independent assessment from them because prehab is much better than rehab. And ah now that i i did that for three years in a row, um I feel like i ah I became a much healthier athlete rate um when I started to see a physical therapist and the do all these rehab rehab exercises, or maybe I should call them prehab exercises.
Climbing Accomplishments and Shift to Endurance Sports
00:18:37
Speaker
And the 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.
00:18:48
Speaker
um And i I basically just had hip pain and Achilles heel pain all the time. and the And then working with a physical therapist helped a lot to um you know, get me on the right track of getting rid of all this pain. And the now I feel so much healthier overall because i can train without any pain on my body.
00:19:14
Speaker
And, you know, and I'm like four years older than I was when I started. So um I just wanted to share that because i I told some of my friends to do the same and they had great results as well.
00:19:28
Speaker
So I just want everyone else to be healthy out there. 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 to fix them. And it's kind of already a little bit too late.
00:20:08
Speaker
And it's just going to spring up as as an injury or a weakness. Yeah. Yeah. so You have an extensive ah background. I mean, so many first ascents.
00:20:23
Speaker
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.
00:20:40
Speaker
And also you have the Goliath Traverse, um which you were were the first sent on that, which sounds absolutely f 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.
00:20:58
Speaker
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.
00:21:15
Speaker
Can you explain or tell us a bit about that shift and what was the catalyst behind it? Yeah, that's a great observation in general. And the before the Goliath Traverse, I really tried to focus on building up my um endurance and, you know, my overall base, as they say, um to be able to handle back to back to back to back to back to back to back big days.
00:21:48
Speaker
ah And 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. i in can we yeah Can we pause? Can you just explain a little bit of what the Goliath Traverse is, just in case our listeners aren't quite aware of it?
00:22:14
Speaker
It's an insanely difficult to describe what it is because ah to relate to it you have to ah know a lot about ridge traversing on big
The Goliath Traverse and Endurance Motivation
00:22:26
Speaker
mountains.
00:22:26
Speaker
And the something that is ah very understandable for people, for certain people, is the evolution traverse in the Sierra, which is about 9-13,000 peaks.
00:22:40
Speaker
and the um it It's ah as classic as big Alpine traverses get ah in 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, that's a ah big one.
00:23:04
Speaker
And usually average people take about, you know, fit average climbers take about three days on the, on the evolution traverse and the some outstanding um athletes are able to do it in one day.
00:23:21
Speaker
um So I feel like on the Goliath, if you um put it all together, it felt to me like doing seven,
00:23:32
Speaker
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.
00:23:47
Speaker
ah so in the 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 then the Evolution Traverse and the more loose and in places, and the and the the full Palisade Traverse.
00:24:14
Speaker
ah There was another traverse that's been attempted by Conrad Anker and Peter Croft, which was supposed to be an extension to the full Palisade Traverse, which would double its size.
00:24:29
Speaker
And the... ah 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 um do the extension of the full palisade traverse and take it into um 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.
00:25:08
Speaker
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.
00:25:26
Speaker
So um basically I was ah ah was going to try something that um but no one, you know, Like a lot of people probably thought about doing it, but to I feel like most people would want to cache things along the way to make it ah ah more doable. And ah my desire was to push my mental...
00:25:53
Speaker
um capacity of dealing with you know such such high consequence terrain on many back-to-back days, as well as pushing my athletic um ability because I have to carry all the things that I need to carry by myself, which ah also included a 60-meter rope, all my food, all my camping gear, my fuel, um my so you know my snacks,
00:26:21
Speaker
um everything that I will have to use, all the lever um and gear and all the climbing gear that I may need in order to repel down these steep faces.
00:26:34
Speaker
ah So it it seemed like a a huge undertaking and I wanted to dedicate, you know, that the whole year to improving as an athlete in order to make it possible for myself.
00:26:49
Speaker
And what I realized is that at the moment I'm able to absorb only about half of the amount of cardio training that ah your typical um endurance athlete trains at when they are preparing for 100 milers and so on. So ah preparing for Goliath, I became a student of trail running endurance, ultra endurance athletes. And I started reading a lot of books on the subject.
00:27:22
Speaker
ah During the Goliath, I um i had ah basically, I was listening to free trail podcasts. Back then i remember it was called Pillars. I listened to David Goggin's book.
00:27:34
Speaker
um I listened to all kinds of endurance related content in order to help myself push through on on on those tough days.
Cross-Training Benefits Across Sports
00:27:45
Speaker
um And 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 um to a level of you know a decent ultra runner, for example,
00:28:14
Speaker
and ah um I believe that it will make make me ah much, much better alpinist. Because if you think about alpinism, it's a combination of climbing skills when it comes to you know dry tooling on rock, when it comes to like being a good climber overall.
00:28:35
Speaker
It involves winter camping skills, but maybe some of the most important ah thing that ah good alpinists possess is their fitness.
00:28:46
Speaker
If you think of ah the best alpinists, you probably start thinking about Juri Steck. ah You also have people like David Gottler, who are able to ah climb big peaks very fast.
00:29:02
Speaker
And the fitness is a huge reason why they are able to. And when you look at what they do to train, you can see that Uri Steg did a lot of trail running, David Gottler did a lot of trail running.
00:29:16
Speaker
So I feel like it's important sometimes to take a step back and be a student um of something different than you used to, like such as climbing was for me. It's something that I got ah decent at.
00:29:31
Speaker
ah 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 of what I'm actually capable of if I ah push myself into a realm ah that I'm unfamiliar with and learn about um you know managing your effort, for example.
00:29:56
Speaker
how do you um How do you manage it? Do you just focus on your heart rate zones? Do you um focus on and Jason Koop's perceived level of exertion?
00:30:07
Speaker
um do you do how do you manage your nutrition? ah is it just carbs that you have to wash or is it just fluids or is it electrolytes? Is it a combination of all of them?
00:30:18
Speaker
And maybe I have to also incorporate the temperature on the day and into... um 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.
00:30:42
Speaker
I feel like what makes some of the better ultra runners is that they are also learning from ah peloton but ah you know cyclists. They're trying to find out, oh, how do they use bicarb?
00:30:55
Speaker
How do they use ketones or you know creatine in some of their workouts or ah workouts or um or their training blocks.
00:31:08
Speaker
And the when you are able to learn from other sources, you you just improve in the in the thing that you're working on. Because you know now, even in my some of my climbing days, ah i might I might consider using something like bicarb. Interesting.
00:31:31
Speaker
Yeah. So that there's my yeah very long answer. 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, um but maybe if we can get it up to five, we'll-
00:32:04
Speaker
will make a lot more improvements. But I also think studying triathlons, studying gravel bike. 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. 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, um,
00:32:42
Speaker
challenging weather. And 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.
00:32:55
Speaker
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 to bivy and be safe. And so that's one aspect that I am always pushing for trail runners is to be be a good mountain athlete. Don't just be someone who can run really fast on trails.
00:33:24
Speaker
um So I think that's a way we can definitely learn from each other. Yeah, um it's I think it's a really good to be in symbiotic relationship with between the two and to learn from each other because there's a lot of you know different kinds of wisdoms ah that you can learn from one another, especially those ah trail runners that are interested in the mountainous FKTs, for example. Definitely.
00:33:52
Speaker
Like, um i i remember we did the same FKTF on Mount Whitney running from Lone Pine, right? And i bet yes most most ah ah trail runners that don't have any experience with mountaineering ah would probably be very afraid um on you know on the climb of Mount Whitney through the mountaineers route.
00:34:16
Speaker
And probably not as safe as you would have been in, um you know, on that terrain because you actually have experience and the you know how to take care of yourself in the mountains.
00:34:28
Speaker
ah But yeah, I feel like both um both realms can take a person and reward them with much ah greater power.
00:34:41
Speaker
experiences than they would have ah just running trails or just climbing mountains. is As ah somebody who loves alpinism, I feel like ah trail running is the purest form of alpinism because it's actually light and fast.
00:34:59
Speaker
I can just go out with like two 500 milliliter flasks and like, I don't know, 1500 calories and ah cover like and an insane amount of mileage and see so many things that ah would otherwise ah take you like four days to cover if you're backpacking.
00:35:21
Speaker
ah So yeah, I feel like ah the rewards that you can find, um you know, exploring trail running are immense.
Racing Strategies and Pacing
00:35:32
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, I actually i think trail running unlocks more opportunities for alpinism, mountaineering, climbing, etc. and ski touring, all of that and climbing.
00:35:47
Speaker
Like being able to use an ice axe, an ice tool, ah be able to use a rope, climb, etc. opens up opportunities in trail riding. It's just being able to move through the mountains efficiently, safely, and with a set of skills that allows you to tackle a a huge variety of terrain.
00:36:08
Speaker
Yeah, I agree 100%.
00:36:11
Speaker
it's it's And it's super fun. It's like all of these things open up to you when you have those skills. um But I'm curious to to touch a little bit with the pieces that you learned from the trail running.
00:36:27
Speaker
um 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.
00:36:39
Speaker
and how you applied that then to your climbing. Yeah, um that I feel like ah to to to give it some background, of i figured that to complete a 100 miler is ah something that that basically became ah sort of like my blue whale, so to say.
00:37:02
Speaker
And my goal is not to just complete the 100 miler, but to run closer to my potential and hopefully try, my goal was to do it under 24 hours.
00:37:13
Speaker
um i I am usually um like I like goals that I don't know if I can actually achieve them. So I have to work hard ah in order to get there.
00:37:27
Speaker
And a running... 100 miler under 24 hours is something that I generally did not know if I could do in a ah training for just a couple years.
00:37:39
Speaker
So I had two false starts. I had 200 milers where I didn't finish um and ah in one of them I actually got um um my My stress fracture from the time when I ah did 100K got exacerbated and I decided to drop out, ah which you know is is a smart decision because ah you know your health is most important. You don't want to hold yourself back ah by running on broken legs, even though that's not what David Goggins will tell you. ah ah but Yeah, don't do that. do that.
00:38:21
Speaker
It's great to listen to David Goggins and you know i 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 You will progress much better as an athlete. We're going to pull that out. That's the pull quote. Please don't on broken legs.
00:38:46
Speaker
Yeah. Tip number one. but Let's do some common sense. ah So so the second time I tried 100 miler, I did not have any training running in the heat ah in Salt Lake City over um over the winter months.
00:39:08
Speaker
And I didn't know much about managing my electrolytes. ah And I had horrible ah stomach and leg cramps um because ah I basically went from winter running in nice cold weather to like close to 90 degrees in SoCal.
00:39:29
Speaker
It was so hot. Yeah, and the and ah what I decided to do training for Kodiak is I got a sweat test ah to figure out how much um like sodium I'm losing with every liter of water so I can um so i can supplement it adequately.
00:39:53
Speaker
and I decided that in order to um When you think about a 100 miler and a marathon, in a marathon you usually run out of your glycogen after about 20 miles because you can carry about 2,000 calories, maybe your glycogen.
00:40:13
Speaker
two and a half thousand calories in your glycogen and then you sort of run out and your energy drops, right? If you think about managing 100 miler, you shouldn't be running at the level that you are running your marathon, but if you are not supplementing yourself with a lot of calories every hour, you will run out.
00:40:37
Speaker
um If you are If you're um expanding about 600, 700 calories an hour and you are able to take in 400, that's pretty good. like Taking in 400 calories an hour for most runners is doing really well.
00:40:58
Speaker
But most people don't train don't get used to being able to in 400 calories hour. So I understood that, you know, if you want to prevent a bunk in a hundred miler, I will have to actually be able to manage my pace at the same level that I can absorb all the calories, water and electrolytes.
00:41:26
Speaker
um 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.
00:41:38
Speaker
and that that's ah And that's you know not even talking about ah um and paying attention to your heart rate zones and to your level of exertion together.
00:41:50
Speaker
So there there was a lot that I had to learn about ah being able to manage that and to manage my own ah you know excitement on the on the day of the race.
00:42:04
Speaker
And what happened was ah On the day of the race, i you know my plan was to run a consistent race ah and manage my effort over the course of the day. and I actually got to ah the first couple aid stations with over 100 runners being in front of me. and the And you know when I would run with other people, we would talk and they would offer to pass.
00:42:34
Speaker
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 are already running too fast.
00:42:51
Speaker
um and And what happens later is I was just passing giant trains of people who were just like hiking at a hiker's pace. ah And i could not um like I could not even imagine how hard they must have been running to start the race ah if they got so much far ahead of me and are now walking at like a two mile an hour pace with like 10 people in the group.
00:43:20
Speaker
ah so i feel like the Something to learn here is on pacing. And the this lesson is important for both trail runners and hikers and mountain climbers, especially.
00:43:35
Speaker
And I will tell you why. you... if you On the day of your race, you will be very excited, you will be very rested, and you will probably go out at a a pace that will feel easy, but it actually will take you to your, like it probably will, will I bet those people like a lot of those people were in their threshold ah zone. like They were probably doing their high zone 3, maybe zone 4 in the beginning hour or so. And the
00:44:11
Speaker
I feel like that will get you, um like that will definitely ruin your performance on for the whole race. ah 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 ah um i I put ah miles on the bank and then I slow down in the second half.
00:44:38
Speaker
And i did not you know I did not try to offer any of my thoughts on the subject, but I was just thinking that that's not how you, you know, like if if you're running 30 miles very well and you're you're going at a ah pace that you can only maintain for 30 miles, you're you're probably going to lose ah many hours in the next 70 miles rather than the you know getting um 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.
00:45:20
Speaker
um what's ah An example performance for me is ah Ruth Croft at last UTMB, where she finished the race like maybe 15 minutes behind Katie Scheid, who got a record.
00:45:32
Speaker
i think she got a record for yeah yeah um And she looked fresh. she She was ready to do another 50 miles after her finish. So I feel like there' iss ah there's a lesson here.
Lessons from Expeditions and Races
00:45:47
Speaker
And the lesson for mountain climbers is the same.
00:45:51
Speaker
is that i And i I made this mistake personally. ah When it comes to mountains and expeditions, you usually feel a lot better when on the first days of the expedition or um in the first hours of your day hike or day climb, and you end up pushing yourself a lot harder.
00:46:14
Speaker
And the since I started wearing um 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, um some of them pushed their pace.
00:46:33
Speaker
into ah a pace that I would call threshold. um My heart rate was like 165 or higher trying to keep up with them. and the i And those guys were, you know, they weren't killing Jornet.
00:46:49
Speaker
ah they that pace would not be maintainable for the whole duration of the day. And I feel like it's really important to recognize when we ah push ourselves too hard in the beginning of the day, because the approach ah to an ice climb is not when you want to perform at your best. You want to perform your best on the ice climb.
00:47:13
Speaker
You want to perform your best on your summer day, ah not ah the day that you're you know you're you're getting to 14,000 foot camp on Denali, or not the day when you're trying to get to 17,000 foot on um And another thing to remember is on those days that you waste yourself um getting to the high camp, you will not recover as much, as as better um or as well as you would if you were at, you lower altitude. So not only you're overexerting yourself, but you're also not going to recover from it.
00:47:52
Speaker
And, uh, I feel like too many mountaineers, me included, did that mistake in the past when we went out too hard on acclimation or um days that, relatively speaking, don't play any...
00:48:10
Speaker
um you know like you you don't have to do your You don't have to put out your best performance before your summit day. You have to ah save your energy for your summit day and then ah 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.
00:48:33
Speaker
And to share just my own personal mistake ah so that I don't lecture your um you know listeners and just sound like an expert, I had an expedition a couple years ago when we went to Mount Denali to try this difficult route on the southwest face called the Denali Diamond.
00:48:56
Speaker
and ah and Me and my friend 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.
00:49:08
Speaker
We like got almost to the top of the the North Buttrace, but um we we were in the storm, so we rappelled down. We took a day off on the glacier below.
00:49:23
Speaker
and then... um not sure how many people were at 14,000 foot on Tenale, but we went from the airstrip to ah the high camp at 14,000 in just two days with very heavy sleds, um which is, you know, like way too fast. i'd say four days would be on the quick end of getting to that high camp.
00:49:49
Speaker
And then I summited the mountain on the fourth day from 14,000 foot camp. And then on the seventh day, I also summited by the West Rip Cut-Off on, ah by myself breaking trail and, uh, uh,
00:50:04
Speaker
um And basically i just ah um I just tired myself out more than I i should have ah in retrospect. um And on when we actually got on the 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...
00:50:34
Speaker
Like I bunked pretty hard on the upper slopes ah and not only because I tired myself um in earlier in the expedition, i also did not bring enough food with myself.
00:50:46
Speaker
So I feel like pacing and nutrition are two very, very important things. um important things ah that both trail runners and climbers ah could improve on.
00:51:01
Speaker
And ah you know just managing your excitement early in the trip. mean, you're absolutely right about the pacing. Being patient with pacing takes confidence and an ego check because i think that people get very carried away in the race.
00:51:22
Speaker
Like you said, they feel really good. um i like to think of it as, can I sustain this pace at mile 70, at mile 80, hour 10 of this climb?
00:51:32
Speaker
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, yeah, 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...
00:51:53
Speaker
um they don't know, especially if it's your first run, what is going to happen at mile 80. 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. It's like, but it's possible to feel really good at mile 80. Like you can feel better than at mile 10 if you have the confidence in the beginning.
00:52:15
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. ah 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 ah some unpredictable things going on in Nepal ah due to COVID.
00:52:34
Speaker
And i actually ah signed up for a marathon and I ran a marathon on like no training. And the ah one of ah my friends online ah was ah a race director who was like, hey, if you want, to you can join my trail race, say a 50K or a 100K.
00:52:54
Speaker
And I was just like, sure. I've never you know never tried to run anywhere close to that. The the marathon was the the longest I've ran ever at that point.
00:53:05
Speaker
And that was just like basically a week before he invited me. And the the trail race was in the month after that marathon. So um after he invited me, I made a plan for myself for the race.
00:53:21
Speaker
And I literally ah like had a plan for first 40 miles. And after 40 miles in my plan, I just ah um ah wrote, probably blow up.
00:53:34
Speaker
that That was part of my plan. And that that was it.
00:53:42
Speaker
Oh, I love, i love the honesty on that. But yeah, I would say that whether or not people write that, that's probably in far too many yeahs But what what was actually incredible about that race is, you know, Jack Kunzel, right?
00:54:02
Speaker
He was the only person that I sort of knew through the internet in California who was 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, you know, ah athletic ah achievements in the mountains. So ah he he became quite a famous guy now.
00:54:35
Speaker
But back then he he was just a ah guy that was stoked on ah hearing about the Goliath and the he offered to pace me. And ah he actually, um what what got me totally screwed up in that 100k is ah that I was doing so well that by the, like a couple miles before I was picking picking up Jack, I think I was in second place.
00:55:02
Speaker
And, and, and the I heard that ultra-marathons ultra marathons on trails are eating contests, and my stomach was absorbing food really well. So I i literally ah had like...
00:55:21
Speaker
um three gels and like a whole liter of fluid right before I got to the aid station. And I also drank a pre-workout at the aid station that I well they had.
00:55:36
Speaker
And the um like five miles after, ah we might have even passed the first person and my stomach completely blow up blew up. I And the last five miles of that race was literally some of the like the hardest thing I had experienced in my life.
00:55:55
Speaker
Like harder than my first climb of Mount Shasta. it It was a total, it was total hell where I was, I remember hiking up a very ah mellow, ah so like, um,
00:56:09
Speaker
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 my legs are not working. My quads were completely destroyed.
00:56:21
Speaker
um you know, because I never ran so much downhill. And i learned a lot that day. um i still finished better than I expected I would.
00:56:32
Speaker
um but ah 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.
Failure as a Learning Tool
00:56:45
Speaker
I love that. Oh man. The pre-workout is a, yeah that's a move. 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, I've crushed it.
00:56:58
Speaker
And then the last mile or two is like, I got nothing. It's gone. So I can't imagine that's a, yeah, that would be rough during a race, but, So I think we have time for one last question.
00:57:14
Speaker
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.
00:57:39
Speaker
I feel like to me, failure is an essential part of progressing as a person and as ah an athlete, because ah you get to learn and the um you get to...
00:57:54
Speaker
create a different goal ah with all that learning in your pocket, hopefully. um And of yeah, of course, ah ah there's different types of failure.
00:58:05
Speaker
And what we define as failure is ah can be just defined as ah opportunity to learn, like I said already. But in climbing, you you you should fail um on you know,
00:58:22
Speaker
safer things. i but You can't to push yourself to succeed on things that that that are getting too dangerous. And sometimes when even the climbing might not be too easy, but the conditions are too dangerous, it's important to fail and tell your speak up to your partners about the conditions but just not being safe for that day. Because ah if you if you keep going, you could die. there there is a ah whole different
00:58:55
Speaker
um There's a whole different risk that is associated with climbing big mountains and the trail running ah in a 100-mile race, where you know if I feel like...
00:59:09
Speaker
ah like going totally totally all out and starting the race at the highest pace that I i think is sustainable for me.
00:59:21
Speaker
i can do that in the trail race without ah any um any risk to my life. ah where i could 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 to to handle all that nutrition, but in climbing, ah you definitely don't get a second chance if you um if you don't to take your safety seriously. And it's something that I actually ah did with my own
01:00:09
Speaker
um desire to climb in the big mountains is ah i accumulated but and insane amount of um 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, um you know, like somewhat large ah and somewhat smaller mountains and the I haven't gone to ah peaks of 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.
01:00:52
Speaker
ah And I'm still trying to work up to those heights um and the so so that when I get there, I am much more prepared to succeed rather than to be somewhere um unsafe for my ah for my level.
01:01:13
Speaker
ah one of the 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.
01:01:34
Speaker
overall, because the incident game talks about necessity of not thinking about, um you know, winning right now.
01:01:46
Speaker
Like, um 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.
01:02:02
Speaker
ah but it The infinite game would tell you that it's a lot more um attainable if you focus on your ah long-term growth and don't ever think about the the start and the finish of the process because we're not playing football game here. We don't have, you know, like 60 or like whatever, 90 minutes of game time and we have to score a goal ah in order to win the game. We we are um people who are trying to grow over time and improve.
01:02:42
Speaker
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 suck for a couple of 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.
01:03:09
Speaker
And that will help me become a stronger alpinism 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. um And my knowledge that was gained over this lifetime will hopefully keep me and my partner ah safe on our objective.
01:03:33
Speaker
And the that's kind of... what I have to say about failing and the importance to, um to allow yourself to fail, but also allow yourself
The Infinite Game and Conclusion
01:03:45
Speaker
to learn. ah learning is the most important part of failing.
01:03:52
Speaker
Beautifully said. Yeah, it's, it's, no, there's such a big difference. Um, I, I would like to say that, especially with climbing, the amount of I don't really like the term failure, but we'll see. Yeah, exactly. The amount of times you should fail climbing a mountain should be pretty high. 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 um of what that success or failure means.
01:04:30
Speaker
Whereas climbing, it's like, oh, it's a lot more black and white, I feel like, of, hey, it's not safe to go up this mountain right now versus like, yeah, I could walk out this 50K. Yeah, so exactly.
01:04:43
Speaker
Yeah, I really appreciate that perspective. um 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...
01:04:59
Speaker
Many more questions to ask, but what do you have coming up next? And if people want to follow along with your a journey of climbing, trail running, et cetera, where can they find you?
01:05:14
Speaker
um I have a trip to India coming up next if I can get my visa in time. But if I don't get it in time, I will probably postpone it by a couple of weeks.
01:05:27
Speaker
And people can probably follow ah my very serious Instagram page at MTN Gangsta. And yeah, I'm not very serious when it comes to you know the internet.
01:05:44
Speaker
I try share some useful information and 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, you know, so funny.
01:06:00
Speaker
you have It's a great handle. it's It's one of my favorites. It's like you and Tanner with the, I like Big Buttress. Yeah, his is hilarious too. i like it. I like Big Buttress too.
01:06:12
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's sometimes I appear on that buttress. Yes. No, I think that's I mean, I think that's why you two are such a force in this this field, because you both take your crafts very seriously, but you don't take yourself seriously. And I think there's a lot to be learned from that.
01:06:34
Speaker
Yeah, he is great. I love ah climbing and doing things with Tanner because he also likes to go outside his box. And, you know, sometimes we we do things that are more endurance based. Sometimes we do just big climbing days. It's great.
01:06:50
Speaker
And it it's like like I said in the in the beginning of this interview, it's so crazy to um think of myself coming from being a 300 pound person to being able to ah you know like go on climbs and ah runs with somebody who was a Navy SEAL.
01:07:13
Speaker
it's It's just so hilarious. i don't know.
01:07:18
Speaker
It's just an example to everyone out there in the audience that if you if you're even unhealthy or um you know have goals that are, um they're not impossible.
01:07:32
Speaker
And even if you're not there right now, you can start and make small gains and get to where you want to be. ah Because all of us have that within us.
01:07:43
Speaker
And I'm just ah an example of that, that you can... you know, that you can find. Well, you are yes, an incredible example of that. So thank you for, for sharing your background and, um, yeah, we'll definitely have you on again and fingers crossed on the visa for India. I really hope that comes through. Me too. Yeah. I can talk about climbing and training hours hours and hours. Yeah.
01:08:14
Speaker
Oh, no, I love it. Me too. But well, thank you so much for being on. And thank you everyone for listening to the Upple 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.
01:08:32
Speaker
It's not just one, but a community. We are Upple Athlete.