The Dailey Edge Podcast
Join hosts Trent, TJ, and Todd Dailey as they explore the intersections of technology, culture, fitness, and personal growth. Through engaging discussions and personal anecdotes, the trio dives into topics ranging from childhood gaming nostalgia and cutting-edge fitness tech to the pursuit of happiness and lifestyle choices. Whether reminiscing about epic gaming marathons, sharing tips for staying on the forefront of fitness trends, or unraveling the complexities of modern life, The Dailey Edge delivers thoughtful insights, lively debates, and relatable stories for listeners of all walks of life.
The Dailey Edge Podcast
Episode 23: Inside the Backyard Ultra, all you need to know for race day
We're back from our summer break and ready to jump into a discussion about Prairie on Fire, an upcoming Backyard Ultra race that brings people from all walks of life together to test their physical and mental limits.
• The Backyard Ultra concept requires participants to complete 4.167 miles every hour, starting at the top of each hour
• Designed to be accessible with its 14:33/mile pace requirement, allowing both beginners and elite ultrarunners to participate
• Creates a unique community experience where runners, crews, and families develop deep connections throughout the multi-day event
• Mental fortitude often matters more than physical fitness, with runners frequently achieving double their expected distance
• Food and fueling strategy becomes crucial when burning approximately 500 calories per hour for potentially days on end
• The race has grown from 21 participants in its first year to selling out months in advance with a dedicated community
• Prairie on Fire includes numerous amenities including meals, campgrounds, physical therapists, and custom merchandise
• Team competition adds another dimension with multiple running clubs competing for the highest combined yard count
• Race production challenges include managing sleep deprivation for both participants and organizers over multiple days
• The unique format allows runners to experience breaking through walls that would typically end their race in other formats
Welcome to the Daily Edge, where we bring you the latest insights, opinions and thought-provoking conversations to give you that competitive edge in life, business and beyond. Let's go, welcome back to the Daily Edge. We have had several weeks off. We took the summer off. Thank you for allowing us that time. We spent a lot of time with friends and family. But we are back at it, glad to be here my brothers, tj and Todd and so today we're going to jump off. Right around the corner we have another one of TJ's races coming up Prairie on Fire. So this is a big race, a lot of people are coming, there's a lot of logistics, and so we thought we would jump back in talking about one of the things we talked about a lot, which is racing, and talk about Prairie on Fire.
Speaker 2:Sweet.
Speaker 2:So the cool thing about this is that I'm joined with somebody who ran it last year and somebody who's never run it. But what we'll do is we'll kind of start talking about this Backyard Ultra concept, talk a little bit about why we have taken this type of race and established it where we have from a race production perspective, and how that kind of aligns with our company values. So the Backyard Ultra what makes it unique is it's and I guess what aligns it with what we do is that it's very accessible for people. So normally when you sign up for a race, you have a specific distance that you need to go right. If it's a 5K, it's 3.11 miles. It's a half marathon, it's 13.1, so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:The backyard ultra concept I became aware of it in probably 2015, 2014. It was developed by a guy by the name of Gary Cantrell, who goes by Lazarus Lake, of the Barkley Marathon's fame. If anybody's familiar with that, that's one of the most popular ultra running films. That's the hardest essentially foot race in the world from a difficulty to distance perspective. But anyways, this concept was developed by him. The way it works is fairly simple you start at the top of an hour, pick an hour let's call it 8 am and you have one hour from the top of the hour to complete 4.167 miles. It seems like a really unique number and the reason he chose that number was because if you do that distance 24 times it equals exactly 100 miles If you're able to finish that 4.167 miles, which I believe is roughly 1433 per mile. So any of you familiar with movement know that you can speed walk a 1433 mile. I mean, people can speed walk six minute miles but a normal human can speed walk a mile roughly that fast if you're able to do it within that timeframe. So if you get to that end by 859.59, you can go again at the top of the next hour and it's a last person standing race.
Speaker 2:The official rules say that the race is over when only one person goes out on the final yard. If, let's say, you go 20 hours and one person is left standing and they don't make it back within that hour, then no one wins the race Again. Technically, if you don't finish, it's a do not finish. So if you don't win, it's a do not finish. We kind of massage that a little bit because that's kind of a rough way after you've put so much out there. But again, what makes that concept cool is if you are in a scenario where you're between distances, where you don't where you've, you want to run a half marathon but you're not quite there yet, you can show up and run two yards.
Speaker 2:Similarly, you know our other race, the FOMO. We call it kind of an introduction to ultra. It's the next distance in line when it comes to distance progression, after 26.2, it's paved, it's slightly downhill, so it's something that's digestible for somebody who's done a marathon and maybe not an ultra, and this kind of aligns with that If you want to do any of these distances. Typically, where we see the most drop-off is after that 50K, because a lot of people use this as their first ultra, but it's been a pretty spectacular thing to watch grow. We've gotten very lucky. We are able to host this now and this will be our third year at this location at the White River Campground in Cicero, indiana, which is really awesome because, as you might assume, it is something that requires a centralized location where you can set up for a considerable period of time and to have a campground there with a beautiful prairie and trail system to the east and a paved trail to the west. It couldn't be better. I'll start there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, talk a little bit about that. So that's one of the unique things about the race there is a home base. I mean, you do have some races that start and finish right at the same time, but this is a little bit unique in that you're running these loops continuously and you're, you know, in your typical arch ultra marathons. Let's talk about the full mo. It's's a point to point, or you're going out and you're not coming back until you're finishing right, if you're talking about a very long, but you're coming back to the same point, you know, every 4.167 miles. Talk about some of the challenges with that, as well as some of the things that people have really enjoyed about that setup.
Speaker 2:I guess starting with the challenges logistically is you have to fit a considerable amount of people in a small space. I would encourage anybody listening to our podcast. If you want to show your, if you want to expose your children or friends and family to people doing really hard things, this is a great place to do it. What that does, though, is we at a typical race, you'll have people spread out across 26 miles or three miles cheering for their people. It's not necessarily great. I mean. Last night's a great example.
Speaker 2:I went to watch my daughter run a 3K, and I had to run a 530 half mile to watch. You know the two parts of her races, and anybody who's watched a marathon or a half marathon knows you are scrambling to get to see your person twice, so a benefit of it is you get to see your person every hour. Another benefit of it is you get to know the people that are supporting the people that you're running with, and then you know this just community develops and grows. But back to my original point. You know, from a logistics challenge perspective is we're talking about fitting three to 400 people in a very tight area, because people tend to linger, because you get to see people more often and you know the unique thing about the race is you can address problems as they arise. If something happens at mile 15 in the marathon, if it's a chafing issue, if you're behind on fuel 15 in the marathon, if it's a chafing issue, if you're behind on fuel, if you're, you know, miss a water cup, uh-oh, here you have the ability to problem solve every hour and you can. You know, a lot of times you're moving slow enough that you can help. You can fix your hydration issues, or you can fix your issues from a sustenance standpoint, right, getting food in. So I think you know, from a negative perspective, for us it's just tough logistically to fit that many people in there, parking and things like that.
Speaker 2:But beneficially again, the community that develops, of course the runners are getting to, they're meeting each other out there. You're moving slow enough that you're having a new conversation every yard and then everybody's getting to know each other and as the race unfolds you start to see other crews help other runners. Hey, my runner forgot this, oh, I've got this. Hey, my runner forgot this, oh, I've got this. Or you know, sharing other types of insights. If somebody has done this before and gone longer. Hey, here's one of the things we saw that was cool last year was, you know, even from a and we'll talk a little bit about the documentary, but from a filming perspective, our film producers drone died and we had somebody there that was like, oh yeah, I just got one in the car, two people. So it's really a lot of fun. It's really a great opportunity to expose anybody or to motivate yourself to go out and do hard things, because it's got such an interesting entry point.
Speaker 1:Well, you said, motivate anybody, and I think that's an important point about this. This is a very different race you mentioned to. In order to hit the timeline and be back at the start line in time, you have to run a 14 minute and 33 second mile. So that is. That's doable, right For a broad range of people, and talk about that a little bit, just how much that brings in, you know, a much at least in my experience a much broader audience in terms of, and then maybe talk a little bit about the different strategies that people employ in this race, because they're all over the map.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they are, and it is really cool. You know it's it has as we've grown over the years. This race started um in a really unique position. We decided we wanted to do something like this.
Speaker 2:I think this was the one race that I really myself pushed pretty hard for, and the first year we did it we were not able to do it at the location that we're currently doing at doing it it at, because we really need to prove concept to Hamilton County Parks, who's our partner in this endeavor, and so they have one park that's open 24 hours. It's the Morse Bees Reservoir Park. So the first year we did it there. It was a situation I tell this story a lot where we had seven people sign up and I called the MTC guys and I'm like hey guys, I need you to come up and run a yard, so this feels like a legitimate race. I think we had 21 in total. 14 of those were MTC people that I called last minute let him for free. And then we had seven people sign up just to clarify really quickly on terminology.
Speaker 1:I don't know that you covered this. So the 4.167 miles is also called a yard. So when you hear, if you hear us say yards, that's equivalent to basically one loop or 4.167.
Speaker 2:Good point, and sometimes we'll say laps too, but, yes, great point. So from that point we've kind of grown into a larger race. The next year we had I think 50 and I think 70 ended up racing. The year after that we limited it to 100. I think we had 120 show up. This year. We sold out seven months in advance. So what's happened from a runner perspective is that it's getting a little bit more elite on the top end. But you'll still see people that do show up for a yard or two yards or three yards and like are really pushing for those goals.
Speaker 2:You know we have some other concepts we're looking at introducing as this race does become more top-heavy and we feel like we have the opportunity to go further. Last year was the first time we had ever broken the 100-mile barrier. The first three years, the farthest anybody had gone was in the 80s, which I think was Cameron in 2023. Last year we had 11 people break 100 miles. So from a racer's perspective, you're going to see this year's, which I think was Cameron in 2023. Last year, we had 11 people break 100 miles, but when it so from a racer's perspective, you're going to see this year's a great example. We have collegiate, like division one collegiate runners coming to this race. It doesn't necessarily lend itself, as you kind of mentioned, to their skillset, and we'll talk about that in a second in terms of different approaches, and we also have people that you know like a 12 minute mile is hammering for them, which is really cool because they can still get it done. When it comes to different approaches to the race itself, we've seen a lot over the years and we've seen people have success in both approaches. You know, there seems to be a standard approach for like what you would call your professional backyard ultra runners and these people running for considerable amounts of time.
Speaker 2:But an example in 2023, when Cameron run and Gracie's back this year, we're super stoked to have her. Congrats to her. They had a baby and this she had to take last year off. This year she's back in action. But Gracie, two years ago I would say, ran almost every yard under nine-minute pace and it worked for her. Angela Kumar last year, same thing, especially towards the end was hammering it on the way in as she was getting close to the end of her experience, whereas other people you did this last year part of it will do a run walk. You did this last year. At part of it We'll do a run walk. I ran with one of the we'll be doing a documentary again this year and one of the ladies that will be featured in that as well. The other two I just mentioned Tammy, has spent a lot of time out at Prairie and they she has very specific landmarks throughout that course where we walk from here to here. Okay, we walk from here to here.
Speaker 2:One of the cool things that happened last year, as it relates to people getting to know each other, one of the guys from the tribal training Do Hard Things group started walking backwards and was telling everybody you know, you want to switch up the muscles that you're engaging, so let's try this, and I've had at least a dozen people tell me that story that weren't part of that group. Hey, yeah, we started walking the hill to the blue bridge backwards and that helped. So, from an approach perspective, you're seeing rock walk runs. You're seeing people running it faster. The one thing that I think people might try to do and shift from is cutting it close. I think you want and you can speak to this, I think you want time to have a little bit of time to kind of establish and process through a routine. I think the mental stress that comes with showing up 58 minutes when it's 60 can be a little bit difficult. I know people have this idea that stringing it closer together so it feels like a long run might be beneficial. But I think there's some stress there so maybe I can kind of kick that back to you.
Speaker 2:Having run it last year, what did you find worked well for you? And you know you had quite a while to explore a bunch of different approaches Like where did you kind of land explore?
Speaker 1:a bunch of different approaches Like where did you kind of land? Yeah, this was interesting, it was, um, it was challenging because this race is largely mental. It's not as much you mentioned it not being for the D one athletes necessarily, because you don't get any sort of real benefit other than you get some more rest time in between If you go out and hammer in a seven minute mile, um so for. So for me, when it gets into the mental aspect of how long you can last, part of that was staying in community. That like keeps you mentally engaged and keeps you going, and so for me, a lot of the first part of it was running with other people, so I was actually not determining the pace right out of the gate. I was with some people who finished in the 52, 53 minute range quite a bit, and I did find that, as that compounded, that was not enough time for me. And so you know my strategy last year was actually I had quite a bit of variability.
Speaker 1:I did that for several loops. I had one around a hundred K where I went out and ran super fast. Well, at that, at that point it felt super fast. It was about an eight, 30 mile and then I came back and I had time to shower and change clothes and that was good. So I think what's interesting is it's not so much that on any given yard you have to come back with a certain amount of time, but you at least have to plan every few yards. You need to have some room in there. So if you come back at 58 minutes on one yard, you know that's not necessarily into the world. But if you're doing that two, three, four times in a row, um, or even 55, 56 minutes, I think that's where the stress starts to compound. So for me it worked out. I did that.
Speaker 1:52, 53. Sometimes I had a couple where I just kind of came in a little earlier. Uh, 46 to 48. I mentioned the one. I had some I cut a little bit closer, just based on who I was with and what they were doing. Uh, because again, a lot of this is just trying to figure out how to mentally last, and that is different than the fitness and the yeah, I guess the fitness side of it. Okay, how is the? So let's say you're in the middle, I haven't run the race, so I'm going to ask a bunch of new questions. The first one is like you get back let's say you got to go change your shorts and they miss the hour by 30 seconds. Like how I mean, that's it. They're toast. Like how difficult and how much do you toe a line like that it's really.
Speaker 2:It really is hard. Laz is very black and white with the rules. I think the very first year we did it we missed a couple of rules and it's tough too because Kutiwi Laz does his at his house in Tennessee. I've walked that course and I cannot believe people do backyard ultras on that course, walked that course and I cannot believe people do backyard ultras on that course. I guess let me, let me answer a quick, let me get give a quick point of clarity for the rest of this and then I'll go back into answering that question as I think about the course.
Speaker 2:So the traditional course format for the backyard ultra is a day course and a night course. A lot of people now, as these have grown across the country, just have one course that you stay on the whole time. Laz's course is a little bit too technical to do at night and people were tripping and hurting themselves. So he has a night course where they're out on a road by his house and out and back. We have done the same thing Again, as I alluded to earlier. Originally we were not allowed to be in that park at night. In the year after the first one they actually paved a trail along a road that is right outside the front of the campground that we talked about. So we do have a day and a night course. I want to mention that because that may come up later.
Speaker 2:But when it comes to rules, there are a couple really hard and fast rules. First and foremost is there is no aid on the course unless it's official. So our particular course runs through two parking lots. So, technically speaking, if that wasn't laid out clearly, people could have crew right or cars, like if you parked in a particular lot you could engage. So there's no. On the course itself, there's no aid unless we have an official aid station, which we don't. I had a guy one year ask if he could stash water. I was a little confused because it's four miles. But again, that I think speaks to the type of runners where you know somebody who is looking to stash water along a four mile loop may be a beginner, which is cool, we love that but you're not allowed to do that. So no on-course crew, no on-course aid. That's important to understand.
Speaker 2:Secondly, the only reason you can leave the course is for the restroom period. Luckily for us, we have three restrooms on the loop itself, so you run right by one as you start and finish. Um, I think there are three stalls in each side. So there's there's restrooms there. There's one that's a little after two miles and then there's one that's a little after three miles. So you have those opportunities and again we're in a prairie. So you know people will take advantage of the natural surroundings as well.
Speaker 2:Only reason you can leave Blas tells a story, so he does two of these. Now, big's Backyard Ultra is the original. It is now the either Global Team Championships or Global Singles Championships, so it's impossible to get into. He has another one called Littles, and last year at Littles what happened was they do bibs. We do not. We know who everybody is. We get names, we do bracelets and then when you are done, we take the bracelet. Um, however, they do bibs and he had a runner last year who was in the corral and it was 30 seconds to go and the guy forgot his bib and he's like I'll be right back and I was like, don't leave, and the guy missed it by four seconds. He was DNF.
Speaker 2:Um, so you know, it's like anything. You have to draw a line somewhere. Um, there were a couple of times a year or two years ago where again we were a little bit relaxed, where, like I remember somebody leaving the corral and needing a bandaid, and so we let a crew run and hand them a bandaid, like because they were blistering on the back of their heel or something. Um, you know, I remember we had a scenario where somebody was helping somebody put on their vest for the night yard. So the first night yard, um, by the rules it's really not allowed.
Speaker 2:And I think that those in specific lend to a unique element of this, which is that you have to be mentally acute. You know, if you forget something, you're stuck without it for an hour, and I believe that's pretty, that's fair, because that can make a major difference. If you're somebody and you're just not aware, or you're pushing it and you forget body glide and you're chafing for an extra hour, that can mean the difference between winning and losing this race or going far in this race. And so, while we do want people to push, we want to make sure it's an even playing field wow, what would you say?
Speaker 1:so you ran it last year. You did 100 miles. What were some of the biggest challenges that you ran into? Um, throughout the race? Um, I, I would say fueling is probably one of the toughest for a race like this. While you do come back to the same spot and you have food there, there's a point where you're burning roughly 500 calories an hour. And to try and refuel 500 calories an hour, that's a decent chunk of calories, that's a lot of gummy bears. Yeah, you don't want to be doing all gels and so you're eating. I mean, I feel like a Jimmy John's sub, like a slim one is roughly 500 and some calories.
Speaker 2:So think about that.
Speaker 1:Every single lap, every single hour, like the equivalent of that, and so I naturally have a few foods, food sensitivities, so I've got a little more limitation there, but trying to eat super, super clean and your body be at a place where it can continue to digest, cause you know, three, four, five, six hours, but after like 15 hours or even 12 hours your stomach is done, it's, it's done and uh, so I would say fueling staying fueled.
Speaker 1:You know I went heavy on fruit towards the end and that helped a lot. So you find things that work. And if, when, if I ever do it again, or when I do it again at some, at some point I'll have a little more information. But it takes time to experiment and learn this. It's not something that you come out generally, unless you've done this sort of thing before. You don't come out and just nail it in year one. I mean you can practice as much as you can.
Speaker 1:I would say from a challenge perspective, that's at the top of the list. I mean it's obvious. Just the exhaustion from a muscular perspective, from a skeletal perspective, the joints and the bones at certain points, really it hurts. It hurts pretty bad. So food you can't just rely on snacks.
Speaker 1:If you're going for a long period of time, you're going to have to figure out a way to actually eat regular meals and then trying to digest that while you're running and working out. What about, like? That's where the walk run can come into play. A lot of guys do this. They'll eat, you know. If they get in at 45, 50 minutes you can eat and then you can walk the first mile. It just gets. It gets very specific the attention to details TJ mentioned having a very acute mind. It's not just the 15 minutes that you're there, but being very intentional and specific about how you move around the track and letting food digest and all that Different times of day that you preferred over others. Night versus the day running yeah, I preferred the day loop. I personally some may know this I would prefer kind of the heat.
Speaker 1:The night that we did it it was like 40 to 45 degrees and at that point your body doesn't really have a whole lot of capability to keep itself warm. I mean, after 15 hours of running, you're, you're not. After 15 hours of running your regulation is not what it is. So a lot of chills and those sorts of things late at night and getting the apparel and making sure you're dressed appropriately but not overdressing. There was just more complexity to that for me. Going back to food real quick do you guys offer any food there? Does everyone have to bring their own food? Kind of talk me through that.
Speaker 2:Yes, food for us is a staple, so you're one at the campground and we'll talk kind of through our entire food offering. So one of MTC's biggest I mean one of our founding members and a, you know, founding members and like a huge part of this race is is John Faust. We've talked about John a lot on this podcast. So year one John actually brought a smoker out and started smoking pork butts and that was like a huge thing. You know, as the runners are coming in, they're smelling this. It was still a fairly small race and it kind of became a staple Like, hey, if you make it here, you're going to get to eat this. So those, that's always available. Um, as the evening comes, you know we start this race at 8.00 AM, so we're up early. He starts the smokers. This year He'll be bringing in his 700 pound, you know, quarter inch steel monster, uh, and so we'll be doing a lot of that.
Speaker 2:Last year we partnered with chaos crewing. So, brit and that crew, um, chaos crewing is an organization that really comes and cruise ultra runners across the country. They do some really, really awesome things. So if there's an ultra runner who's participating in a big race, um, you know, or if somebody's doing you know, uh, attempting a big FKT, which is a fastest known time on a long trail that takes a month or two, a lot of times they'll show up. They have a lot of experience crewing. They have a lot of experience working aid stations. So you know somebody again, if they're very competitive or they don't have a crew member and they need somebody to get a hold of Chaos Crewing, and then they show up and help those people succeed in their race. So we partnered with them last year.
Speaker 2:So the morning of Saturday morning and Sunday morning they were doing pancakes and other breakfast foods. We also have coffee. This year she has signed up for her own 100 that weekend. So they won't be there but we will be doing breakfast. So we will have pancakes, sausage, bacon, some other breakfast foods. John has done an entire menu this year. So we have not only breakfast, we have dinner. We will have food throughout the day.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that we noticed last year, at least from a crew and family perspective, is people have to leave. You can't stay somewhere for 20 hours with kids and not have food, so they would be going to local. This year we'll have food available for purchase hamburgers. Hot dogs are maybe a little bit um, you know, friendly for people with food restrictions, so we may have one or two options there so that'll be available for purchase throughout the day for a reasonable price.
Speaker 2:And then the night before. Uh, we've partnered with so john is a partner at kingdo and they're a local phenomenal pizza uh restaurant. They will be providing pizzas the night before. So we're expecting to have over 100 people the night before during setup. So you prep for this race the night before. People will come set up their canopies in their camps so that they're ready first thing in the morning, because you do have to park offsite. Logistically it can be a scramble to get in there in the morning and set up, but we'll have pizza for well over 100 people the night before.
Speaker 2:So in terms of food, we've got a lot we will have. We have a couple sponsors day of that. It's more race fuel specific. So pickle juice is a new one. It's an electrolyte shot, so we'll have those available on site. We typically have tailwind.
Speaker 2:We'll probably work with untapped, who is another fuel company. They're kind of centered around maple syrup, um, so we'll have, probably we'll have. We always have a handful of goo gels and things like that. So we'll have element there this year. Um, there'll be there another electrolyte supplement that um, we'll have. So quite a few different options for fueling, although and I put it in every email like Todd said, we do recommend you figure out what works for you, because stomach fatigue is real. It's just like any other muscle in your body. There will come a point where it's a wrap and you better figure out what works for you because if you're mentally tough and you have a little bit of fitness, your stomach will take you, that's. You know. I just had a buddy who ran the Leadville 100 this past weekend. He was in 16th place and one of the most competitive hundreds in the country about 50 miles in and his stomach turned and he had to walk it in from 100K and it was all stomach. So that's how important it is to understand and establish your fueling strategy.
Speaker 1:But we do have tons of food. Sounds incredible. I think I'll be the first guy to actually gain weight. Just eat a foul pulled pork sandwich every single hour. So most of that food's for purchase.
Speaker 2:The food for lunch is purchased. The pork is for the runners typically, or or, you know, the meats are for the runners at night and then the food in the morning is free for runners. That's a prepaid right. So it was an add-on, so runners and families have prepaid for that the night before.
Speaker 1:Do most people set up campsites? Does everyone have a tent and they all you know? Is that how it works? Or do there's some people that just show up the morning of no tent and just a couple backpacks and a buddy, or about 70 percent of people do tents or canopies okay um, some people need them, some people don't, but it's nice to have everything in one place.
Speaker 2:the way that the race is configured is that we have a team element to this too, and we could talk about that in a little bit. I think this year we have six or seven teams. So this location there is a pavilion that sits in the middle and then is surrounded by green space, and then on the right hand there's a road on the east side, and then on the east side of that there are campgrounds, and the campgrounds are where the teams are focused and condensed. For us to fit the number of people on this plot of property that we have, on this plot of property that we have, we have to have the people that are on teams on these camping pads.
Speaker 1:It's like a team campsite, so you can put more people in.
Speaker 2:Correct. So the tribal training guys they are a major part of this and they're normally 30 to 40 deep. So they have the southernmost campground because it extends close to the start of the race and so they can put 30 or 40 people there. They can put 15 canopies there and and and fit everybody in. The only exception to the rule, um, from a team's perspective, is if you were one of the top three finishers male, female year prior and then this year we're doing anybody who is coming back and had run over a hundred miles, you get your pick of where you are. So they, those people that are kind of showing up to work, they want their own campsites. Understandable, and we'll. We could talk a little bit about the corral itself, but the corral is this road that I've described to the east of this space, and they'll typically pick campsites along that corral so they can get in and out quickly.
Speaker 1:What has been your visibility to? I mean, obviously you're trying to keep yourself as fresh as possible. You see people out there getting massages. You see people out there with their massage guns. Like what have you seen people have the most success with just trying to maintain the muscular endurance.
Speaker 2:Well, this year it's going to be interesting because this year we have not only two physical therapists that are going to be on site, we have two physical therapists running, so Louie and John are running and then we have Tyler and the other names escaping me, but they're, they're showing up. So we'll have four physical therapists on site to help people. But I do think that rolling, we just see a lot of rolling. We see a lot of massage guns, we see a little bit of stretching here. Those are the major things that I think people are doing In terms of the yards themselves, trying to vary pace.
Speaker 2:Like you said, doing the walk run seems to help a lot. I know that, kaylin, last year my daughter ran. Walk run seems to help a lot. I know that. You know, kaylin, last year my daughter ran the first four yards of her experience and then when she shifted with you and started doing some walking and running, doing that back, but just doing the backwards walking. You know, finding those different spots. So you're working different muscles. You know. You see people do things like use icycy Hot and those things. So not as much as you do see the other things. But I think and you could maybe speak to this. You probably hit a point I would say at the 50 mile range where it doesn't get much worse. It's not muscularly and skeletally, it doesn't get much worse. It becomes uh, for some people it's a hard exhaustion and a stomach exhaustion thing, I think. Right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say, uh it it gets worse in certain capacities. I think there's no, there's no way to alleviate the mental freight train battle that's coming your way. There's a certain point where, no matter how much massaging or theragunning or thoughtful you are about your fuel, you are just going to hit some really brutal walls and mentally have to figure out how to push through them. I think that's it's probably a tough realization. I think, even if you've got the best plan, as mike tyson's quote, everybody's got a plan until you get punched in the mouth. I think that that's it and you have to go in with that kind of humility, knowing I'm going to do everything I can to take care of myself but something is going to fail miserably and you have to find a way to push through it, either through community or through some miracle. Spiritually, however, you dig deep, you've got to.
Speaker 1:I remember I want to say it was around 80 miles I could barely walk and I came to you and I'm like I don't know if I can go out. I can barely walk. I literally I was doing a walk run but my right knee was in absolute shambles and at that point you've done 80 miles. You're really worried about doing potential permanent damage. That's the kind of thing where it's like my knee was screaming and TJ said, why don't you go out and try and run one fast? Because at that point I had done several yards at 11, 12-minute pace, a little bit of a walk run in there, and it was just the same pattern and the compounding, and you know cause you're running. We're not talking 10,000 steps, there's talking a hundred, you know thousand plus steps.
Speaker 1:And so I went out and and hammered I mean I talked about the one I ran at a hundred K. This one felt like I was running sixes and I think my average pace was like 845 to nine um, maybe even in the low nines, but it worked out that issue um in in basically about a yard and a half. Uh, I was on the other side of whatever had built up over that you know 80 miles, um, but it was, it was uh, it was uh. You know, if I don't run into TJ and he doesn't make that recommendation, I mean it was a perfect opportunity to walk off and you just never know. That's where the mental battles come in, when you're going to turn a corner or where the hill is right that you're going to crest over and fall down. So, um yeah, long-winded answer, uh there.
Speaker 2:That's important, though I think it highlights that you have to believe there's always another side, and I think people who run other races you don't a lot of times get a chance to experience that right. If you hit the wall in the marathon, there's typically not another side because it comes so late in the race. You know you're not you you have. In a marathon you have to embrace the wall Like all right, it's here, it's harder, it hurts, let's go In the in these instances, and I'd be interested I think I'd love to explore this a little bit further in terms of if you could talk about very specific.
Speaker 2:That was a great specific example and the funny thing about that is that comes from my experience. That came from Ball State when I decided to start running, and that fixed the problem. So that was where that came from. For me it was an experience in a different race, and that speaks to your point earlier about having to figure this out. A lot of times it will take people multiple tries to get it. We've seen some certain people come out there and get four yards farther every time they go out or whatnot.
Speaker 1:It's also a risk too. I don't want to sit here and condone if you're in excruciating pain to just plow through it. There is a risk For me. When I started to get, when I hit a hundred, going into my last yard, I had a lot of chest tightness, which now you're dealing with organs, and I think in a prior podcast I talked about the organ exhaustion Like I had experienced before the muscular and even the skeletal damage over a course of a marathon or 50 mile that we had ran but I had never experienced the organ exhaustion and that's where I kind of drew the line. Certainly a hundred, you know, that's kind of the milestone I was trying to get to. But when I started experiencing the chest tightness and you're dealing with your heart and other things that are clearly well beyond what they were designed to sustain, that's where you have to draw your own line and potentially I could have got on the other side of that and been fine, but it was a line that I drew and everyone's got to find that line based on the risks they're willing to take.
Speaker 1:It seems like mixing stuff up was helpful because if you're doing something 100,000 steps or whatever did you switch shoes? What were some of the other tricks. I did bring two pairs of shoes and that was going to be a staple for me, but I got in the Mount to Coast P1s. I had started with the Hoka Skyflows and I was going to go back and forth every couple of yards but I got in the Mount to Coast P1s and, for whatever reason, those just worked like a dream for me and I ran 80 miles. The remaining 80 miles, I think maybe there was one loop that I put the Skyflows back on when I was having the knee issues. But yeah, the P ones were just incredible. What was cool about those? And I would I would recommend for anyone that's considering a race like this, even if you're typically not someone who runs in a shoe that has some stability, it's not a bad idea to entertain it. Don't go out doing this right before the race. I know we're a week before the race. Don't go buy new shoes, but ankle stability starts to become a problem depending on how long you're going. When you get into 50, 60 miles, ankle stability becomes an issue. So the P1s have some stability in there and that was. That was huge for me, but variability and pace to go back to your question was huge. Just to get a different impact uh, shoes for sure, variability in fuel I mean, all of those things were staples and even variability in who you're running with in community, because there's some people that you know you can, you can do a couple yards with, and some people you could do 10 yards with.
Speaker 1:I know, uh, myself and cameron balzer and phil dodick you know the three of us kind of locked in late and pulled each other through. You know, the majority of the last 30, 35, 40 miles, and that was huge having an anchor group like that Did. Did you ever come across the point in time where you just felt like kind of just locked in? And you know, sometimes you get in the flow and several hours went by and I mean, was that or is it just you're in so much pain that every step, every after a certain point in time, where it's just like you're mentally like I got to keep going, I got to keep going, or did you? Did you ever find the flow? I did find the flow at a couple points, but it didn't last long. So I definitely found the flow.
Speaker 1:Like I remember when I had a chance to take a shower after 100K and change clothes. I felt like a million bucks. I was like I'm going to get to 100, no problem, and within three yards when I hit like 72, I was back on the pain train. And once I hit kind of the mid 70s I really never got out of it. It was just a grind all the way in from there. But there were points in there for sure, at a little bit of a slow start and then when I ran with Kay a couple few yards that kind of pulled me around for a handful of yards. You can get in and out maybe a handful of yards at a time. But in my experience once I got into the 70s and just I mean personally I had never run more than 50 miles, so part of that may be lack of experience, but once I got there it was, it was, it was brutal.
Speaker 2:I think it's important. One of the things that's been really unique in last talks about this and we did the chasing 100 documentary last year. If you haven't seen it on YouTube, go watch it. Um voted one of the top five ultra documentaries from the last year, so that was kind of that's kind of cool, at least chat GPT thinks so.
Speaker 2:So you know, a really cool documentary that kind of showcases our attempt to cross that hundred mile threshold. But I think one of the things the last talks about and this I guess we could talk a little bit about this element of the race as well is that community and how it pulls you forward and that people will do more for others than they will for themselves. You know, seeing Cameron last year, you know we didn't realize and this is interesting Cam in the running community is kind of this larger than life person. You know you run 11,000 miles in nine months around the perimeter of the country by yourself. People think you can scale the Empire State Building, right, like. You know. What we didn't realize is how much something like that impacts you. And when we went down to talk to Laz, we spent like eight hours with him as we were producing this film. One of the things Laz has talked about and he has done a number of trans cons which is running across America, walking across America, and he's like, know, none of us have that context and he's like when I finished those things, I was destroyed. He's like I didn't want to look at a road, I didn't want to run, I didn't want to do anything for months. It just beat me to death.
Speaker 2:Cameron is very focused, and has been for years, on his nutrition. Well, when you're again around the outside of the perimeter you don't have a whole lot of options and he was eating McDonald's and gas station food and anything he could find because he needed to stay fueled for 40 miles a day. So him coming back a month after and doing that was so much more difficult than anybody could ever imagine. We looked at him. We're like 40 miles a day, he'll run 300. He was a disaster and I think not having anybody to disaster and I think not having anybody to uh commiserate with him or understand where he was was probably really difficult to deal with. And so for him he had talked about walking off in 23, that we want to hit 100. He was going to bury himself. Not for cam what's 100 miles to that guy? But for you, for Phil, for anybody else who wanted to get there. His body started to shut down and now he will be coming back again this year fresh and has figured out his nutrition. So it'll be fun to see what he can do.
Speaker 2:Sleep is not Cam's thing, but I think the community aspect of it. Finding those people, helping those people, is going to get you through a lot of it. And then that also speaks to the fact that we are one of the few that has a team aspect to this race. I think that may drive you this year. Maybe we'll see. But it's cross country style, so the top five runners contribute to an overall yard score. So it's not a relay, but everybody goes out and runs as many yards as they can and the top five we had together Fisher's Run Club took it home last year. They had a huge squad. We have a number of really competitive, really strong teams this year, especially with Jeff Walker signing up with Athletic Annex. Jeff was our winner last year and did 130 miles.
Speaker 2:So Trent Vic Ray and the boys over at Annex got him to sign up. But Athletic Annex and Carmel Runner Club are running together, fisher's Running Club, body and Training MTC, the I think obviously the Do Hard Things and Tribal Training guys. So a lot of strong teams this year. But I don't think community can be understated, not only out there on the course but also when it comes to the crews and the people that you see and the kids that are going to be around. Maybe that's something cool. Was there something that wasn't one of the things that would seem obvious from getting over a hurdle or getting through a wall perspective that you used? It was like oh, this is really cool that this is here. I like that this is here. This is helping me at this point, outside of the things we've discussed, like something somebody wouldn't normally attribute to helping through one of those scenarios.
Speaker 1:Not anything that I can think of. But I'd like to talk a little bit too about the. We talked about all walks of life participating in this, and you mentioned Jeff Walker who won it last year. All walks of life can win this. Oh sure we're. So you know, when we kind of shared that at the beginning, it's like, hey, all walks of life, you know, you don't have to be able to run a seven-minute mile to come out and run. You can come out and run one or two or three yards or whatever.
Speaker 1:But there are I'm not sure. I mean, jeff obviously is in incredible shape. He ran his last yard after 130 miles in like a 730 pace or something incredible, which I can't even begin to tell you how impressive that is, because I know how hard it was for me to run the nine, whatever there late. But just talk about that and maybe get into a little bit of this, the broader races and what some of the times are that win some of these things, because that's pretty insane too. But I want to talk about because this is so mental, because you only have to run a 12, 13 minute mile. If you are mentally strong, you can go really deep in this race without being in elite fitness shape.
Speaker 2:Don't quit in the chair. I think that is extremely important. I remember year one. We had a guy I can't remember his name. He was kind of what I want to call your. He was kind of what I want to call your, kind of I don't even know, I'll have to think of a way to classify this type of person, but they're like the ultra runner who is very rough with their approach. You have your ultra runners that are very okay. I'm training on trails and I'm doing these very specific things. This guy is like oh yeah, just run like 30 miles, you know, every other week and Saturday mornings and it just kind of around my neighborhood and I really liked the challenge of it and the tough, you know, and he got so no real like laid in stone training plan. He's not running a hundred mile weeks. He's not some freak of nature physically, but I remember he made it to. I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 100K and he made it. And then he was like, I think I'm done. I think, oh, you know, and he was actually having the conversation out loud with himself oh yeah, I can walk this. The guy ended up going three more yards getting out there walking. So you know, a testament to not quitting in the chair and giving yourself the chance to continue to go farther.
Speaker 2:I think that's what stops people is. You know it's covered in the movie and it's this self-limiting. And you know I was reading a book I mentioned to you last night. It's called inner excellence wonderful book.
Speaker 2:But they talk a lot about that that your body, um, and your subconscious will align with what you believe about yourself. So that's why people play down to their competition. You know, if you think you're a seven minute miler and you go out and you start running six thirties, your body's going to, probably your subconscious is going to push you back towards that seven, because that's what those you believe you are. And I think that with this situation, uh, that happens a lot.
Speaker 2:People are like oh yeah, I'm just, I'm a 50 mile guy, um, and that's what I believe about myself. Will you make it 54, 58, if you believe? But you might. But if you have, if you come in with that belief that that's who you are, you're going to be somewhere near that. You're not. You're more than likely not going to go a hundred. So giving yourself the opportunity to go a hundred is big and you're absolutely right, anybody can take it. I mean, we saw, um, you know Phil's a great example, right? Phil doesn't train like an ultra marathoner and Phil's never run farther than 50 miles, and when Phil ran that 50 miles, it was basically couched to 50 miles. He wasn't even working out.
Speaker 1:That was one of the most impressive mental things I've ever seen.
Speaker 2:He's very mentally strong, uh, but he does a lot of orange theory, a lot of hit training type of stuff. Um, yeah, he runs 20 miles a week, a week maybe, uh, which you know is nothing to laugh at, but he he I mean he buried himself last year, I think ran 86. So we see that and people can do that. I've seen people come out that think they're going to do a yard and get four. Now there's the other side of this, and the other side of this is the extreme side, and these there are professional. They may not make a living doing it, but I'll classify them as professional because there is a whole nother level to this and I don't want to say that. I want to give these athletes their due because they have pro athlete physiology. Jeff is a good example. Jeff ran. His personal best is 49 yards, so he's done 205 miles. He did that a couple of months ago, wow. Now, as we talked about in the beginning with the race style, you have to have somebody that can go that far with you, right? So you can't, once the second person drops, second to last person drops, you just can't keep going until you're done. So you have to have somebody go with you. Luckily for him, it was in Ohio in the Ohio Backyard Ultra and he was running with Harvey Lewis, which Harvey's held the world record multiple times. He does it now. But to give you an idea, like I've learned about Jeff's superpower by watching him on Strava, so right now in Indiana you're going to get anywhere between a real feel of 90 and a real feel of 105. In a typical peak of the day it's 80 some degrees to 90 some degrees, with anywhere from 60 to 95% relative humidity. And a couple of weeks ago I was watching and Jeff went out mid morning so not crazy early uh, ran for 20 some miles at a nine 30 pace, a real fill of a hundred, and his heart rate peaked at one 20 something. And that's superhuman. Um, I run 60 miles a week. Uh, I'll just give you an idea. I run 60 miles a week. I'll just give you an idea. I run 60 miles a week. I'm probably in 250 to three hour marathon shape and in that weather my heart rate can get into the 150s at a 930 pace. So there is an elite level of physiology there.
Speaker 2:There's also practicing sleeping. 99.9% of us cannot finish running four miles and go to bed for 10 minutes and wake up and have any meaningful impact. These guys have figured it out. The world record for the backyard ultra is over five days or right at five days right now. So if you think about that, think about how you feel after a day of no sleep, where you start to get nauseous, and think about two days of no sleep. If anybody's experienced that I don't think I have I came close to it last year. I'd love to experience it this year if we can push it into Monday.
Speaker 2:But these guys are going three and four days with no sleep while running the entire time. So you're talking 500 miles over a five-day period with no more than they typically what it seems like will run a handful of yards at a pace kind of what you were talking about in that 50 to 53-minute range, and then they will run a faster one where they can get a little bit more done, maybe get a little bit more of a nap. So if you're able to instantly fall asleep and lock in these 10-minute naps, that adds up right. That's 240, 230 minutes per day of sleep. So it's not insignificant three to four hours.
Speaker 2:There are people out there genetically that are predisposed to being able to operate on four to six hours of sleep versus eight to 10, like the rest of us. So if you have all of those things lining up for yourself, you can go that far. Uh, so there you know. But I do think anybody that has put a little bit into it and has a little bit of a base, you can't come out there having never run before and think you're going to speed, walk um, whatever. But if you've put in a little bit of effort I will say this much you can probably go three to four yards further than you think you can and in some instances maybe double what you think you can.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about sleep. Did you sleep at all for your 24 hours? No, so you weren't able to shut her down and get 10 or 15 there. No, absolutely not.
Speaker 2:And then from I don't think we've talked about this at all, but putting on a race like this that can go for two or three days. Your sleep like? What does this look like? What kind of crew do you have? How do you guys navigate? You know, potentially a couple of days of a race going on.
Speaker 2:From what we've heard and in talking to lads who've seen hundreds of these, the athletes that are going for like these extremes, they start out from the jump, like so most of us. We're going to show up, we're going to talk to people, we're going to meet people we're going to be having. You know we're going to come back and meet crews and do the things. These guys tent rest. I'll talk to people when I'm out there on the yard, but from yard one I am off my feet getting my rest, whatever. Whatever, as it relates to us, we have an amazing team. It shifts every year because some of us run, you know. So Todd is running. Todd ran last year. You know we had on-site myself, john Ricardo Dakota. The kids will help in a lot of instances because there's a lot that's going on here.
Speaker 1:Corey.
Speaker 2:Corey. I mean, I could talk about Corey for days. Corey is probably. This doesn't happen without Corey.
Speaker 1:Is he running this year?
Speaker 2:No, he's not, Did he run?
Speaker 1:Who is running on him? Two years ago Two years ago he ran. Two years ago, Christie ran two years ago.
Speaker 2:Christie's running this year, dakota's running this year. I think that's it from the core operations side of things. Angie's running, yeah, but Angie's run I think, every year yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, except for one where she was gone. Yeah, she's ran it so so you will run. So, out of the core group of eight to 10 of us, three people will be running this year. Christy was gone last year and she ran the year before. But Corey is a major part of this race. Logistically those of you who are participating in the race. Corey's responsible for basically the entire runner experience in terms of picking up the packets and whatever. Unicorn Dan Corny's helping us logistically on site kind of map things out in terms of where can the packets and whatever. Unicorn Dan Cornyn is helping us logistically on site kind of map things out in terms of where canopies go. But from a team perspective, john this year will be. He was kind of a catch-all. He will be handling all the food this year, so he's going to be focused there and he'll have help in regards to you know, because now this year with food for purchase, we're going to have somebody helping him It'll probably be one of your kids actually in terms of making sure people are taken care of. They get checked out.
Speaker 2:From a transportation perspective, ricardo is normally run that with Wendy in the morning. So we do park off-site. We have people that will be driving minivans or small shuttles that will be taking runners from where they park and bringing them over to the campgrounds. You know that's a big point of contention not point of contention, but it's something that's discussed a lot because it does get difficult. After you run 100 miles the last thing you want to do is have somebody drive you back to your car and then, especially if you have to break down a campsite, then you got to bring your truck or whatever back, break your kids a lot. But the reason we do that is because a lot of people show up with young kids and potentially even infants, where having a car right there is extremely important If somebody has an accident or if they need to go get something. So we want the friends, family, crew to be able to park on site. So Ricardo and Wendy typically handle that.
Speaker 2:Ricardo will be kind of a catch-all this year as well, helping with other things, so we have that going on. Tara will be on site. So this year something really cool, really excited about, is we're going to have merchandise for purchase. When you go to a lot of these youth sporting things, you can buy a sweatshirt and you can get it customized. The cool thing about our races is a variable race right. So you can't pre-buy a prairie shirt that has how many yards you finished you know you can't do that or other accomplishments you've made. So we're going to have those available for purchase on site. Like you spoke earlier, it gets cold there. Last year we raided the gift shop at White River Campground and bought all of their sweatshirts. With the number of people here, we're going to be able to buy all their sweatshirts and even more because people are going to get cold. So Tara will. We'll be on site pressing merchandise shirts, long sleeves and hoodies for the crew, for the runners.
Speaker 1:So there's that element of it we have Is all the purchase, just so everyone knows. Is it credit card only, Like you're doing some type of square? Yeah.
Speaker 2:It'll be credit card. I mean, we'll be able to accept cash, but we prefer credit card in that instance.
Speaker 1:And you can use your phone and all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. So. So that will be there. So we have those pieces of the puzzle for me. Um, my job is to engage and motivate and entertain and ring the bell, so I plan.
Speaker 2:I got kind of called to the carpet by Laz when we went down there. He's like were you awake for every yard last year? And I'm like no, I took a nap. I think between 104 and 112 or something like I missed one, maybe two. I'm going to try not to do that this year. The difficulty is we normally don't sleep Friday night either, because we have to set up everything and we might be done by midnight and then we want to be up by five because some people will arrive pretty early in the morning to start setting up camp. So we want to be there and alert and ready. So you know we will have that. In terms of things like awards, again, when you finish this race, we customize your awards. So the kids have run that in the past the Hubbard girls and Kennedy, my daughter, where they are wood burning in the yards. You finished on that. Well, the Hubbards are running this year and we have 50 more people, so potentially- I'm bringing all four kids Tapping more of your kids to help do the wood burning.
Speaker 2:So Kennedy's running that element of it. So, as you can see, I mean it's a ton. Corey is on site also helping people secure their campgrounds and making sure that they're in the right spaces, because this year will be the first year that we have to be very thoughtful about it, like an extra foot is going to matter. So we're going to have to really map out this is where your canopy goes and be conscious of how we do that so that the right people right now it doesn't look like anybody's going to have more than a 30 second walk to the corral, which is cool, but you know he'll be doing that. So there's going to be a ton um, there's going to be, I'm sure, more pop up as the day goes on.
Speaker 2:One of the big things that todd is going to be doing and what a major piece of this puzzle is the data. So we do have a giant TV that sits in the pavilion, which you guys built a Power BI dashboard for it last year. We'll probably talk about it going forward. We may need a bigger screen than we had last year, but it was really cool as it showed the team totals and what yard we were on and different things there. So this year the idea would be we talked about some cool things last year having photos for all the runners and just having this like hub where you can see how many people are left, how many people dropped on the last yard, how many yards were at, what the team scores look like, who just dropped. So it's going to be a ton.
Speaker 1:Are there photographers out there in those races, the marathon photo or whatever, where people can buy images Like? What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so last year we didn't. This year we have the king himself, timmy Howard, coming out to take photos. Timmy did the Fulmo photos and they were phenomenal I know you both saw them. He's got some other things that he's committed to, but the great he's got some other things that he's committed to, but the great thing is we'll be there for two days. So, yeah, he can show up at noon and miss a couple of yards and still get a lot of great photos. And then, of course, john will be out capturing another film.
Speaker 2:This year we are going to do two. This will be probably the last film we do. It's IMG sponsored film, so thank you guys for that. We're super stoked, uh, to have that done. Um, that's always a big concern for us is getting this out there.
Speaker 2:But this year we have five really strong females that we think can eclipse last year's 100 mile goal and potentially go farther, and some that could get close to winning. So we're going to focus on their journeys. A lot of them have really gone above and beyond this year with, I mean, three of the ladies made their own shirts, which I'm super stoked about, for this race. As they progress. We have a couple of them. One of them in particular I mentioned Tammy earlier is at the Prairie every single day.
Speaker 2:She had told me she's a roadrunner, she hated trails. Last year she was one of the people that looked forward to that night yard and so she's gotten out there every day and run the trail and actually kind of fallen in love with that. So we'll we'll focus on her and Sarah and Angela and Christie and Gracie, and I think those, those five ladies, will make for a really interesting story. And then, of course, we'll cover the younger girls and and, uh, see how they progressed. Last year the two youngest ran 30 miles and they want to. They want to see if they can go 10 yards this year. So that'd be fun to watch.
Speaker 1:Talk about your vision for this race. So it's come a long way. In four years it's pretty much at capacity from a registrant perspective. You guys have done an incredible job with the experience and the food and all the things that you're even talking about adding this year. What sort of a vision are you there? Do you feel like and it's just a matter of kind of fine-tuning Do you have a bigger vision for this longer term, outside of just trying to continue to further the overall number of yards?
Speaker 2:I want this to be. I think we collectively want this to be a premier race in the United States. One thing that has always stuck with me that stuck with me recently, and we've mentioned it in prior podcasts is the lack of runner experience. Today, there are experiences that are for the masses, like themes, color runs, mud runs, things like that, but when it comes to harder races, it's just not from my perspective. Harder races and that can mean even a half marathon and further I think certain people, especially when these get really corporatized, have lost the passion for the race and have turned it into a money-making thing. This year, fingers crossed, will be our last year in the red, we hope. But what we want to do is we want to create the most amazing experience pre-race, on-site, post-race. So we want you to. You know I'll give a little bit of it away. I'm sorry, corey, you're going to kill me, but like an example is for Pack a Picket, this year we will have a red carpet which I think is indicative of what you will get. Like you're going to get your packet this year and it's going to be oh, my goodness, this is so much more than the plastic drawstring bag that I get with 18 postcards, my bib and a t-shirt in it. That is a big piece of the vision when you get on site again, all of this food, trying to think of everything. I think this year we're working on it. Athletic Annex they're there running as a team. You know Gareth Jake, you know all of the people we know over there I could list them for days have been phenomenal partners Lynn gosh well, knowing everybody that works at Annex this would probably take 10 minutes so I'm not going to list everybody off but we're thinking about them having a shop on site. So if you do forget body glide, it's there for purchase. If you do need fuel like if you they sell untapped or morton or whatever and it's something that you use, they could potentially have there for purchase. So we'll have that there. That's a big piece of it.
Speaker 2:Hamilton County Parks has been very accommodating. One of the things we'd like to do we'll be talking with them about this over the coming weeks after the race is securing a permit and or pass more often than just in a year. Right now it's a yearly thing, so every year we have to resubmit for this, so we'd like to go out and maybe help do trail work and keep the trail in shape, in turn for maybe a two-year permit or something like that. We've been exploring the opportunity to expand this a little bit. In terms of people, as you said, it's very, very tight this year. We always end up having more people run than we originally anticipated. We go out on a regular basis to ensure that we can facilitate that.
Speaker 2:But we did notice that there is an area that they've given us every year that we haven't used and it's just south of this playground on site, and most of you won't know what I'm talking about because you're not super familiar with the footprint. But if we're able to adjust the corral a little bit, I think we can max this race out of 300. There's a place that is. This space is equally as large as the pavilion green space. So I think getting it to 300, which I think is about as big as we could possibly get it because of the logistics, with parking and then onsite parking and things like that, and that would result in five to 600 people being there day of and then just making sure that the runner experience not only from a food and sustenance and packet pickup and day of, but we also want to add some ambience to it.
Speaker 2:So, you know, when the lights go down at Prairie, all the fire comes up and doing more of that. We've got some more ideas in terms of lighting the out and back loop. Um, you know, last year we did it with led lights. Unfortunately, we didn't leave him out in the sun enough prior, so this year we're going to do a little bit more there, but we have some ideas for fixtures out on that part of it. Uh, cory, if, if cory was allowed to run wild with this, this race would cost us a hundred thousand dollars. So there will be some really new cool, cool things that will be there this year and then again next year. So a good thing we got a trailer for the club this year so that we can haul all this stuff around, because it's getting to be quite a bit.
Speaker 1:So just some last things. Logistically, most people come in the night before, but some come in the day of. When does the race actually start?
Speaker 2:8 am Saturday morning 8 am Saturday morning. We do our last pickup from the parking lot at 7.30. So we want to make sure that everybody can get back and have 15, 20 minutes to kind of get their head in, get in the corral Again. Like I said earlier, if you're not in the corral by the time the bell rings, you're done, and I would hate for that to happen to somebody before they've run their first yard.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, well, is there any uh, any other parting thoughts? Or that's a lot of great information about the race. Anything else you guys want to add?
Speaker 2:I'd like to ask you, right before we go, how you're feeling, what your thoughts are, what you're looking forward to, what you're not looking forward to, because you know you haven't done an ultra in a while and um out. Well, since Fulmo, right, so it's been a couple of months um, but you haven't gone further than 50 miles since 2020. So, kind of, where's your head?
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, I really trained for the full mo. Yes, you did. I got, I think, in the early podcast we talked about. I worked my way up where I was doing 55, 60 miles a week, really committed to that. The summers are really tough for me just logistically, with family and commitment, so I do not feel as prepared as I was going into the full Mo where, um, I beat my probably my top goal by almost 30 minutes. So, um, it's really going to be interesting. I I'm not setting a number because I think that once you hit that, you mentally shut down. Uh, I am going to be interested like I can run four miles and the running and walking. It's going to be interesting to see how far I can mentally push it. So, um, I'm not showing up to uh to get beat by your daughter, so I'll put that out there. Um, you'll have to wheel Jeremy off the course but knowing she could easily go for, for for 10, just given her uh abilities, um, it's going to require me to kind of dive in. So I'd love to make it to the night. You know, it's just gonna.
Speaker 1:I, I'm not as confident in the work I put in hearing you guys talk about food. I haven't really done any food. I kind of know what I, what I think can work. So this first year could be I could surprise myself it could be a complete bust if my food's off. So I do have mentally kind of some places that I want to push through and it's going to be interesting to see mentally how tough I can go. So I am looking forward to the experience. I was pleasantly surprised the FOMO what a cool experience that was. And I'm this small kind of intimate group of people and like the relational stuff, like I love that stuff. So I'm excited to get out there, talk it up with new friends, old friends, um, have really good, deep conversations and I'm hoping I find a couple of people that are, uh, I just lock in with and and and we go for for a long time.
Speaker 2:So I'm, I'm, excited, I'm, I'm really, you know, ready to get it going again. I think we have a couple of people that are coming out, and Keely will be there this year and she's run every single one of these, so I'm stoked to have her. I think she might be the only person Angie may have done them all, um, but stoked to have those, those people that have been out there every year and that have seen this experience grow, and then, you know, hope that the people that are coming out this year grow it with us in the future. So stoked it's going to be great.
Speaker 1:Well, um, if that doesn't get you excited about a Prairie on fire, I don't know what. What will? Um, it is one of the best races. From what these guys are saying and just what I heard today, I'm really excited and looking forward to it next week. So gonna be a great, uh, great experience. There'll be some post um dialogue, I'm sure, regarding um the event, but it also seems like it sells out quickly. So if this is something on your list for 2026, uh, do. When do you open up registration for the following year?
Speaker 2:So typically what we'll do is we'll premiere the film in January at one of the athletic annex locations. Last year we had like a hundred people show up for the premiere. That is when registration begins. So if you show up to the premiere, last year we sold out in six weeks. Um, I, I, you know, even if we raise the capacity, we sold out in six weeks and within two months of that had a wait list of 50. So that was 200 people interested in it inside of a two month period. So that's when we will start registration and then we'll open up to the public either the day after or the day after that. So we'll take names and numbers and stuff there.
Speaker 1:Can they go on your website and register for, like a newsletter to get notified? Like how does that work so?
Speaker 2:yeah, go to meshcccom and you can find all the information about the site there or about both of our races there. We will be establishing a newsletter next year so they can sign up for that and get information and maybe some early access. And then all the races are hosted on Ultra Sign Up so you can go to ultrasignupcom and search up for Prairie on Fire and or Fulmo. But mesh tccom is kind of your hub for everything us.
Speaker 1:Awesome, all right, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time.