10 Things I Love About Trail Running Right Now (Spring 2026)

Foreign.

It's the Borderlands Trail, an ultra running podcast presented by Kipron.

My name is Josh Rosenthal, the host and the founder of Borderlands trail running today.

10 things that I love about trail running.

I think I kind of could have said 10 things I love about running after that last episode when he kind of, I don't know the best way to put it on the separation between trail and road.

And he wasn't really touching on culture.

He was more just talking about from a runner perspective, which I appreciate that, you know, that there is no real difference.

You know, it's just running as he put in the episode.

But you know, at the same time, I love trail running culture.

I love the people, I love everything that it represents and I've just been more connected to it, even though I'm running a lot on the road right now.

But these are 10 things right now that are like, like engaging me, keeping me really excited about what's happening in trail running.

And I would say running in general and I thought I would share them with you.

I got a bunch of stuff down here, like if you're on Spotify, you can watch or if you're on YouTube, a lot of visuals here, but also works just fine if you're just listening while you're on a run.

I'm going to be going through a lot of different things.

Some, some gear related stuff and then like some, you know, the, the gamut of everything that I love about trail running right now.

So I'm just going to jump right in number one.

This sounds crazy because so much of the trail running world you don't, you don't always get this, that it's running.

Like the thing I love about trail running right now is trail running is, is the act of actually doing it, which I know novel because we always talk about gear, which I'm going to, we always take it to different places.

And that's fine.

I'm here for it.

I'm here for every bit of it.

I'm driving some of that culture.

But I am absolutely in love with running right now.

And if.

And the long run and spring is coming in Paris right now.

Like it's, it's emerging like you can feel it coming some, some days in the high 60s and Fahrenheit, stunning.

And so it's making me excited.

But I was running all through the winter getting ready for Paris Eco Trail that is on the same day as Chianti, which is a bummer because I'd want to consume Chianti as a fan But I will run gladly Paris Eco Trail instead.

I'm doing the 125k.

120k?

Yeah.

120k, 75 miles.

And I'm getting my long runs in on Sundays.

And I just.

The log runs are, are just filling my cup.

I don't know the best way to put it.

I'm a great way to put it, but I'm just, I'm loving them.

I live in the 6th arrondissement Paris.

I run straight down to the river.

For those of you who know Paris, go right to the river and then I just stay along the river for about six or seven miles.

And then finally I'm in the forest outside of Paris after that.

Um, not quite Moudon, like next to it.

But if you know the area, the, the, the forest.

Running outside of Paris is, I don't know the best way to put it other than like you talk about California carpet.

That's just smooth, buttery, wide, fast trails.

So if you're a super fast runner, it's a place to do.

If you're not like me, man, it's still just utter peace out there.

And so I don't.

I haven't got to actually run on trail much until I've been doing these Sunday long runs.

So I had a 22 miler, 25 miler, got a 50k training run coming up.

And I know, like in talking to Camille Herron a few weeks ago, breaking out that philosophy of, you know, your longest run being two hours.

So I think if you're training to be an elite and you've got big race day, and you got big race day ambition, you want to optimize all that.

But for those of us who are out there just running and it's not what's paying the bills and there's no chance that it will or we don't have the competitive spirit to go out and think that we're going to get a race like that.

This has given me the excuse to do a 22 mile or 25 mile or 50k, you know, a 13 mile or anything like that.

I mean, I got a half marathon PR through the course of this training, which was a pleasant surprise.

I don't, I've never optimized for that low of a distance.

I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world.

So I, I think if I were to really try and get competitive, I would really adopt that philosophy that Camille talked about.

That has worked for her.

And if it's worked for her, I think it's good, clearly, because the results that she's had.

But getting to do those long runs, I'm so happy.

And then to know that my, my A race for the year is coming.

Even though.

Yes, we're moving back to, to Salt Lake City in July of this year after being in Paris for two years.

There might be some races that happen in the fall.

I'd love to be at Dead Horse.

I would love to be at Palo Duro.

Any.

Any of these desert runs.

Canyon runs would just be a dream.

Maybe UTMB's new race in the fall in.

In Utah.

But Eco Trail, my A race, it's coming up in a few weeks and I'm just.

I'm just beyond thankful that I'm, that I'm out able to run right now and that everything's working.

I had a little bit of plantar fasciitis and that's even now gone.

I'm just, I'm.

I'm stoked.

So here's.

Let me just show you a quick look and I'll talk through it as well that this is what I'm thinking right now for race day.

These sore shorts, they do.

They kind of market them as trail shorts, dual run.

I just absolutely love them.

As I hold them in my hand right now, it's disgusting.

They are sweaty from yesterday's run.

Sorry, this is.

I mean like, literally.

I used to think my friend Jeremy Cox, sometimes he'd roll up for just like a hangout, not a run, wearing some of his run clothes and I'd smell him.

And this is precisely.

This reminds me of my dude, Jeremy Cox.

Miss that guy.

Cla has this really interesting go cap that's lined.

It's.

It's quite warm.

But this is what I plan to wear.

If not, I'll probably wear do their.

What do they call it, their worldwide movement hat that says Paris on it.

But man, this go cap that's like lined planned plan to wear that day because it can be over your ears or it can flip up.

So it keeps.

It kind of takes the place of a beanie or a hat.

But yeah, it'll get, it'll get super hot.

Um, man, this gear I'm super stoked on doesn't translate well to video.

Naked has this belt.

In my hydration plan.

My belt plan is going to be is this is their vest.

That is if you like their belt.

The vest is incredible.

And if you're doing an ultra like a 75 miler, like I'm doing the system where you combine this vest with like the 2 liter or the 1 1/2 liter belt to me cannot be beat.

It is just.

There is no bounce.

It's so man, I love it.

So I'm gonna be wearing that and then I just gotta get a shout out.

Decathlon.

Americans don't know about decathlon and decathlon has tried I think twice to open decathlon brick and mortar stores in America.

I don't think they've.

It just never worked in America.

The price point and, and the quality of the gear coming out of decathlon's incredible.

My headlamp.

I've had the worst luck with headlamps.

I have never had a headlamp that has worked out for me from.

I don't want to throw any brands under the bus but they just never have.

I, I did like the big, the big massive Kogala Light.

I wore that for ultras overnight.

It looked like a bus was coming.

I needed that.

Scared of the dark.

Don't blame, you know, don't judge me.

Don't want to run into a snake in the middle of the night.

But this headlamp from Decathlon it was like €15 20 comes with this rechargeable battery and this and it's, it's pretty lightwe the glories of Decathlon which is the company that the parent company of Kip Run.

Yeah Again huge company.

They have supply chain dialed their stuff.

If you don't want to like make a major investment into like say a name brand light to go get one of their in house brands.

That's, that's the value proposition of Decathlon is that it's like stop number one if you're don't have a huge budget or you do have a big budget but you don't want to spend a lot of money on it.

They have everything.

It's incredible and I wish that it would work in America because it is like a weekly go to for, for us and our kids for all the stuff that they do here around Paris.

So shoes.

I'm choosing between three.

Just to be perfectly honest.

I'm really leaning hard toward the.

The Kip.

What is the.

The Kip Summit Max by Kip Run Beautiful shoe.

You saw Cade Michael in Black Canyon.

50k land on the podium in this shoe.

He crushed it in this shoe.

Talked with him a little bit afterwards because I was just curious on it.

And I'll tell you, no shade on the marketing department of Kip Run but Kade described this shoe better than anything that I had heard.

And I've got Some videos coming out where I'm the voice of steering the marketing on this shoe, like explaining this shoe.

And Cade did a better job anyway, so thinking about that shoe, taking a real hard look at the new Brooks Cascadia Elite.

I've heard a lot of great stuff from all the reviewers that got this early.

The shoe comes out any day now.

Any minute now might already be out.

I think around March 1st.

I don't know what day this episode's going to release, but close to that beautiful shoe.

I once said that Brooks.

The reason that I didn't wear Brooks is not because they weren't great shoes, but because when I look down at my feet, I have to love what I'm looking at.

I did that on an episode with them and that their marketing department reached out and said, hey, we just want to let you know we're working on stuff.

This was like a year and a half ago, two years ago.

When I look down at my feet and these, I. I love them.

I'm a fan of white shoes, especially with a splash of color.

The way that they've done it on this, I just think it's a beautiful shoe.

Love that sole.

Considering that it's going to take a lot to get me out of that Kip Summit Max or the Kip Summit Race shoe, but I need to give a shout out because, man, this.

This is a dream shoe.

I think I'm going to take the Norda 001A instead of Ecotrail.

There's a trail half marathon that I hope to run that's called 2T 2M.

I ran it last year.

I ran in the Norda 001S the.

The 001A.

To me, that foam is amazing.

So I don't know that I'm gonna end up in Eco Trail in this shoe.

But the thing is, I wish I could wear all these shoes every time because they're.

They're all just so damn good.

But this Norda, beautiful.

Wear this around town a lot park runs in this because most of my runs are either along the river on cobblestones or at Luxembourg Garden.

This shoe's great.

And then it's got to get a shout out to last year's shoe.

Taylor Bodine from Believe in the Run.

It rained a lot last year, and I did the 50 miler.

And so I've kept all that mud on there because it's sentimental to me.

This.

It was the Zegama 2 pre ACG.

I'm indifferent toward ACG at this point, but I loved this Shoe loved this colorway.

Got it for 50% off here in Paris.

So how do you not love that?

Yeah.

So leaning toward the Kip summit Max, but I think it's a great race and I'm super excited about.

Number two of the ten things that I love about trolling right now is race season.

It's race season.

And I come in, I, I talk about racing as a fan.

I don't talk about it as some authority.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna get some stuff wrong at times.

Not my intention.

And, and I do not mind.

In fact, I welcome being corrected if I mess up on stats or anything like that.

I'm just a fan.

I love it.

I brought my West Texas fandom, of college football, of high school football, of that intensity.

I brought that with me when, when I got into trail 12, 15 years ago, whatever it was.

And it has served up nicely to me.

You know, I, I, the competition is incredible.

The, the Mountain Outpost is getting better every single time.

And to be honest, for me, like, I'll watch Texas Tech basketball games on my phone, not actual footage of the game, but like the ESPN game tracker where I have to reload it every few minutes.

If the points went up or if the ball, you know, how the ball's moving.

It's.

I just, I love it.

And Mountain Outpost delivers, and I've been so happy with that.

Black Canyon was just a blast to watch.

I got to watch almost all of the, the 100k.

Didn't get to watch a ton of the 50k, but I did definitely tune in.

That 50k went by real fast.

That podium was insanely fast.

Seth ruling, crushed it, brought, brought another record.

That 100k.

So much fun.

An Flower, who had just been on the podcast, loved seeing her get second place.

Like, I just, I love it, I love it, I love it.

I wish that Tarawera and Black Canyon could talk to each other and get on different weekends because I want to pay attention to Tera as much I want to pay attention to Black Canyon.

But if they're on the same weekend, I'm going to, I'm going to lean Black Canyon.

Of course, you know, as the American fan that I am, but I wish they could be on different, different days.

Does Aravaipa.

Can Aravaipa and Tarawera work that out?

Can Western states say something about that?

Because we don't get that many golden ticket races.

What do we get?

Six?

Why do two of them have to be on the same day?

I'd love to see that Worked out.

Chianti is coming up.

However, in the early manifesto of Borderlands, it says that anytime given the option to watch running or to actually run, we will always choose to actually run.

And my race at Eco Trail that I've just, that I just love so much is on the same day as Chianti.

And I am bummed because I will not give a single moment of my thought power to Keonte that day because it's the day that I'm running my race.

However, when I get home, I'm going to consume as much as I can as I'm able to but race season in general.

So I'm excited to be at races this year.

Hopefully going to be at Hard Rock.

Hopefully going to be a western states.

There's just so many question marks there.

Planning to be back at utmb.

Um, it's, it's gonna be a great year and I'm stoked on race season.

Okay, number three, these are gonna start moving a little bit faster now.

Number three is this series I'm doing called the four turns.

And so I did the winter series.

The Winter series.

I, I, it's going with this, with the solstice.

So the, the winter solstice is the day where light starts to overpower darkness.

Every day has more light than the day before.

And so I, so I talked to people that I thought were bringing light to the world through running.

Nils Arendt of tsp, if you are a Speed Project fan, I don't even need to say any more than that.

You know, the light that's coming to the world through the Speed Project and Nils and they've got so much cool stuff coming.

I never know what I, what I can talk about, what I can't because there's some stuff that's underground, some of it that's meant to be known.

Like there's a culture there and I respect the hell out of it.

So all I know is Lalvin seems to be the thing that is, is always happening and on the surface seems like Chamney to Marseille.

But Nils is bringing light to the world.

I had Scott Jurek, Dean Carnassus, Laz, Tommy Lewis.

It was, it was an incredible series.

I did three weeks of Laz because we, we sat and talked for five hours and so I tried to logically break that up into three different discussions.

But now we're going into the equinox and so the, this is the second of the four turns.

And in this second turn I'm looking at people who have, who have overcome something.

I'm Looking at topics where things are being overcome because in this spring equinox, that's the day that light overcomes darkness.

And so if you're tracking with me, we're, we're in this really nice spot where running to the.

Bringing light to the world through running and then overcoming.

Well, the summer and winter, those are going to be pretty dark because that's when darkness starts to overcome the light.

And then in the fall equinox, the autumnal equinox, that's when darkness overcomes light.

And so there's some, there's some stuff coming this year and we'll see how dig how deep I, I dig on it because it's, it's some challenging stuff as we get into that.

But here we're still in this, like, light, fun, encouraging stuff that's going to make you want to go run.

Stuff that's going to make you want to consume whatever these people are that I'm, that I'm going to be highlighting that, what they are bringing to the world.

So there's, all I'm saying for now is that there's a lot of special guests.

Again.

The first one had Nils and Scott Jurek and Dean Carnassus, Laz Lake, Tommy Lewis.

It was a big one, this one.

Big names also.

And that'll start to roll out on the 22nd.

Ish.

That's ish.

We'll say right around there on the equinox.

Okay, next, number four of the things I love about running.

I just released a podcast with cla.

The founder Jeremy Bresn, co founder Mike Giles and Jeremy Bresnan Co founded CLA.

I got to spend 90 minutes on a walk through Paris with Jeremy Bresnan.

And it just made me love running.

It made me think back to when I first saw it.

Like I was, I was a runner no matter what.

Like I was in on the sport.

It was.

And even to this day, I'm still a race T shirt kind of guy.

I really don't.

I love wearing a race T shirt.

The nostalgia, the connection to something I've done.

And there was a CLA cap on the wall and I saw it and I was, I just, I was just drawn to it.

The color blocking, the way that they did it.

There was an early 90s vibe.

Like all the stuff that you heard about in the podcast.

I love the brand cla.

I mean, it's, to me, it's One of the foundational, most important brands.

And in that podcast, he talked about the other brands that emerged with him.

There was just something happening at that time and I'm sure there were a lot of brands that started that didn't make it.

So I'm not saying they all did, but Janji, cla, tracksmith, you know, they were the early ones.

And then right after that, Satisfy comes into the market.

They were all seeing this, this thing that was happening where people were not only running, but they were, their identity was runners to be runners, and they were all tapping into that.

But cla just masterfully and the most class in terms of their design, in terms of the brand that they built.

Like, it just, it's classic.

I, I think it's, it's one for the ages.

And so right now, one of the things I love about trail running is, is, you know, lacing up and, and throwing on my cla hat or something like that.

Like, it's just, man, that interview was the same feelings I got interviewing Mike Herrera from MxPx, who, you know, I was a diehard fan of forever.

I was just like, I loved it.

I was so into it.

So doing that interview, I agonized over the edit.

I was trying to we.

Because we went on a walk through Paris, so you got the Paris sirens going.

You got all this sort of stuff that's making sounds.

And I just agonized over the edit, like trying to, as an engineer, pull the stuff out and chop it up in a way that best told the story and didn't distract too much from the background sounds.

I love it, man, I loved it.

So cool.

Number five.

I'm just going to say shoes in general, I know this is a cliche.

Maybe for me it feels cliche because I'm just in it.

But all of you maybe aren't in it as much as I am.

I've always loved shoes.

Didn't have much money growing up, so it didn't matter.

So I, I, you know, I didn't have shoes.

I mean, I had shoes, but not ever more than one pair.

And that one pair we got, we got a new pair a year.

Unless we outgrew them as kids, which is great, it's fine.

I try and do that with my kids as well.

However, it's like torture to my 6 year old who loves shoes.

Dad only buys him one pair when he outgrows them or once a year.

And it just, I happen to be getting shoes in the mail, you know, daily or weekly, and it hurts him, but he's he's learning to be happy for me.

My 13, my almost 13 year old has the same size foot as me, so he gets to wear all of these shoes.

But in general, what I love about trail running right now is just that there are.

What's happening in shoes as a, as someone who loves design first, function second.

It's just, it's hitting.

So I grabbed a few here that I wanna, that I'm just excited about this.

The Adidas A Graphic Speed Ultra two.

This might have been like not maybe final production one.

Maybe it was.

I got it at UTMB at the Audi house, man.

Love it.

I just love the, the thinking of this.

I don't know that I, I haven't seen that they're selling one that looks like this, but cool shoe.

All the stuff that Adidas is doing, Adidas is doing right now.

Colorways, everything is, is a clinic and I, and I'm, I'm loving it.

Okay.

So many, so many down here.

This not a trail shoe, but it's a, it's a tempo.

It's a Kip Storm tempo.

Again, from a design standpoint, stunning.

And I am trying.

I'm doing a couple tempo runs a week.

I'm not, I don't have a coach.

I'm just running in a way that I just love.

So there's twice a week where I'm just trying to run real fast.

And sometimes those runs are between seven and eight minutes and when they are, I'm just stoked and happy I'm not on Strava.

It goes to Khoros and I look at it and it makes me happy.

When I wear this shoe, I feel fast.

And that's fun to me objectively.

Not fast feel.

I feel fast and that's great.

And because it doesn't go on Strava, I don't have to feel fast and put it up there and feel like I need to apologize to everybody and pretend like it wasn't a tempo run.

It just.

I'm, I'm running fast and I'm having fun in those shoes.

You know, you can't talk about shoes right now without talking about mount to coast.

This H1, it's been real nice.

Super lightweight.

I like the circle cell technology down here.

Colorways.

Great.

Mountain coast is doing a great job, I think.

I honestly think.

And this is my dude, Inky Steve's observation is that if Mount Da coast kind of had a, were heavily inspired aesthetically by Norda and kind of knocked on their door a little bit and.

But then came in at this price point.

I think the people who will give them the run for their money will be Kip Run.

So I think, I think that Steve was right.

I'm gonna have him on the podcast soon and we'll maybe break that down a little bit more.

Kip Run has an incredible portfolio and the price is better, which is wild to me that we had non stop price increases for a while and then all of a sudden we have, now we have some players coming in, especially someone like Kip Run who has that level of acumen around supply chain and cost and to bring in a really great shoe at a really great price.

I mean we're talking, yeah, I don't know what exactly come in €150, €140 on some of their shoes.

Even less if they bring in, I don't know what models, if they're going to bring in like entry level models on the, on the Kip Summit and all that.

But here in Europe, Kip Summit's like 89 bucks.

The max is around what, 149 in their race day shoes.

A little bit, a little bit pricier, but I don't want to take away from Mount to Coast has been doing great stuff and they've been making smart moves on athletes and you know, seeing them out at the 24 hour World World Champs and all that sort of stuff.

Like this is, this has been a fun shoe to run around in.

What else?

I know it's not, I'm not actually going to run in the shoe.

I don't think any.

Does anybody run the shoe?

I think there's one of the Cliftons or something like that.

But this was a collab with Haven out of Canada.

Canada really showing up strong here today.

Talked about Norda now I've talked about Haven.

Talked about something else.

Canadian.

What else?

Oh, cla, of course.

And so there's a heavy on Montreal.

But I, I just, I have loved walking around daily in these shoes.

Not always, not totally my style.

No one would have pegged me as like, you know, avant garde when it comes to fashion.

And maybe they even laugh at me for saying that this is avant garde.

But I have really loved walking around the shoe.

I like the way I feel when I wear it.

And it's a, it's a cool shoe.

It's a little bit stiffer than it looks.

I would have thought it'd been a little bit more cushion, but it's a great urban like walking shoe.

Okay, I've got more shoes, but they're going to Enter in here on something else.

Okay, Number six.

What I love about trail running right now is the scrappy brands.

You know, I come from a background of scrappy entrepreneurship.

Yeah, I raised capital and we took on debt and all that sort of stuff.

But in general we never, we never took on a lot of, a lot of debt or a lot of capital.

What we really tried to do was take on minimal amounts so that we could then go out and do the fun stuff.

And so, you know, in Salt lake, I started 13 restaurants with partners, did a lot of, did a long list, a long list of other things.

10 albums as a musician.

All the stuff that I would bring in money for, I would just try and be lean with it.

And so when I see these other scrappy brands, I just, I want to do everything I can to champion them because I see it, I know the struggle, I love the struggle.

But also when you're in that struggle, you want nothing more than to kind of be out of it and be a little bit more stable.

And then you get out of it and you're stable and you would give anything to be back in those days when it felt was unstable and you were scrappy.

So a couple of those brands, Hyperlite, you know, don't leave home without it.

I.

All these long runs I'm talking about, I'm maxed out on Hyperlite.

I'm at full throttle on the dosage now.

It took me a while, you know, to, to ramp up to it, but when I got into my long runs, you know, using.

This is the H1C.

They've got some cool stuff coming in the pipeline.

I don't know what they're talking about yet, but had some fun conversations with them recently.

But Hyperlite to me feels scrappy.

Like they're.

And it's fun.

They've got a great team of athletes that they put together and you know, it's owner operated.

It's just, it's a fun brand and I really enjoy watching them.

Okay, here's another 42.

This is their Sayonara shoe.

Every, every shoe is a little bit different in terms of how it looks and I think that's super cool.

Love the colors like this.

This is a brand.

They're out of Harlem, which is in the Netherlands, not too far from Amsterdam.

I think their founder, Jurian is scrappy and he's kind.

He has a background with big brands, but the way that he's building this thing to me is as an outsider.

It's fun and it looks like he's having Fun doing it.

Even though probably day in and day out, it's hard.

I can, I can wrap my mind around this supply chain because I, I, I've built businesses that are similar to a hyperlite supply chain.

I'm not saying exactly and I'm not saying I could do as good of a job.

I'm saying I can wrap my mind around how this works.

To be a scrappy shoe brand is special.

And so if you want to check out a brand that you haven't before or you've, you've kind of just been curious about, they're kind of a no hype sort of brand and they're really masters of community building.

So check out 42.

It's the number four, the letter T, the number two.

42.

Love it.

And shout out to Jerrian, who's just crushing it over there.

Fun brand and yeah, fits that scrappy vibe.

Okay, here's another, here's the last scrappy brand that makes me love troll running right now.

It's funny to call them scrappy because I think they're like 30 years old, but when I met them, so it was started by a family, so it's called Mountain King.

They're, they're running poles, 100 manufactured in the UK.

I met them because one of the owners, the son Harry, reached out to me and said, hey, you gonna be at UTMB?

I'd like to meet you.

So it's 30 year old brand.

This dude was just walking around with poles in his backpack and you know, we, we, we walked past like the Lecky booth.

He's like, hey, meet over by the Lecky booth.

Not because he was trying to throw shade on them, just because practically I was coming from the reco booth from a meeting.

And he was like, okay, let's just meet over there.

And so here he is and he pulls out his backpack and he shows me the system for polls.

He's like, we're look, we're thinking about coming into America.

And kind of shared with me all the details.

I've shared with you.

100 manufactured in the UK.

Very nimble, able to grow quickly.

They're, they're a top running pole company in like Korea and Japan, considering America.

And I was like, man, I just, I love it.

He, and he was just super scrappy.

Then I run into him at IRX in Amsterdam.

He has a booth.

He somehow finagles his way to have a booth at the, at the entrance.

You walk into the center and there's Harry and he was there alone.

Nobody was there with him, and he was ta and he had lined up, like, I don't know, it felt like 100 meetings.

Every time I go over there, he was with somebody, and all day long he was just pushing these poles.

And as soon as it was over, I think he went to another convention somewhere in East Asia.

So they're scrappy, they're hungry, and they've been around for 30 years.

So, like, there's this cool piece of, like, stability that comes with them.

And at the same time, because I think it was his parents who started the company, and now he's.

He hasn't quite taken over, but he is actively involved.

More actively, it seems like the network.

And it's fun.

I just love watching that hunger, that scrappiness.

It's.

It's super inspiring to me.

It makes me want to go start, you know, a tactile brand.

That's why I loved being in food and beverage so much, because I loved to have, like, that cup of coffee in someone's hand, to be the one who's, like, bringing that joy to their day and.

And all of that.

I. I watched Harry pedaling his polls across UTMB and.

And Amsterdam, and I just thought, man, I just want.

I just.

I just want to be a part of that.

And so I'm stoked on these polls, and I hope the best for them.

I hope to see them at.

On somebody.

At Hard Rock and.

And whoever that is, see them dominate, unless it's another French person, because we had all three French guys on the podium last year, and this year I'd love to see an American with some mountain kings or something on top of that podium.

My French friend Stan, who hosts our French podcast, La French Trail, he tells me anytime we bring up Hard Rock that he says this is our race now.

Talking about French, like, Hard Rock is a French race.

Like, come on, let's.

I've never been super high on.

On Hard Rock because of how small it is and how limited the field is, but can't let.

Can't let stand be right.

It wouldn't be right.

So the scrappy brands, though, super inspiring to me.

All this used gear is throwing dirt all over my microphone.

Okay, number seven, meme culture.

This is what I love about trail running right now, is meme culture.

I think Max Jolief unsolicited memes is he lives in the uk and I feel like he gets Americana culture really well, better than most of you who are in America listening to this.

I think he understands the nuance.

And who am I To say that maybe I'm dead wrong, but I here's what I like about meme culture and I'm gonna.

It strips away what's, you know, laughing about it.

It's like there's something about meme culture that the reason I like to look at those, not only just to get a chuckle out of it, but I also think that what meme, a good meme, holds up a mirror to a culture and shows you can show you any number of things.

What I see with like Max relief, unsolicited memes specifically is my takeaway.

Sometimes with things like, let's say I get offended by something or I get annoyed by something, it's like, you know, a solid meme Smith, as I would call them, can get under your skin.

And if you just let it get under your skin and it's.

And it's over, then it's.

It hasn't done its job.

If it gets under your skin, the thing to do is to ask why.

And I think a lot of times the stuff that's going to get under your skin maybe points to that you take it too seriously.

And if your response to that is like, well, yes, this is very important.

It needs to do this and it needs to be this and needs to be, well, that's fine.

You can have your convictions about what it needs to be, but the rest of us are laughing at you.

If Max Jolief unsolicited meme hits 1 on target and you are, and you are offended by it and everyone else is laughing about it, well, maybe the, the ideal takeaway would be like, hey, am I taking myself too seriously?

And so I like to see who he hits hard and then do they get in the comments?

I was actually shocked to see David Roast get in the comments after the one that he posted yesterday, but he did and he was able to laugh at himself.

I'm not saying everybody has to laugh themselves.

I'm not saying it doesn't go too far sometimes, but none of that is the point.

What I'm saying is what I love about meme culture is that I think it's actually very important to us as a growing culture that we have people legitimately out now.

I, I think your boy Scott jerk never been a big ya boy Scott jerk guy, but he, you know, is kind of like pop music.

And yeah, he's been going hard after satisfy.

So I don't, I don't feel like there's super consistency on what he goes after and what he makes fun of.

I do, I see Something with Max Relief unsolicited memes where what he's doing is consistent and there's not.

I have not found a moment where he has not gone after something that was out there to be gone after.

He seems to go hard at things, whereas your boy feels like he's, you know, K Pop wants to be on a bigger stage and nails it.

Like, you know, it's kind of like it's bubblegum, you know, it's pop music from the early 80s that was meant to hit a massive target and in trouble running.

Massive target isn't huge, but at the same time.

So I think they're less offensive is my point.

I think Max Relief unsolicited memes can really get under people's skin.

And I think the best thing to do with that is to ask yourself why.

And oftentimes, if we're taking ourselves too seriously, especially in a sport that's meant to be fun, that it's useful to use as a mirror.

You could totally disagree with me, but I don't think that memes are the same thing as comic strips.

Comic strips intended to be fun and maybe have a different place.

I think a good meme is important because we don't have journalists in trail running.

Even though podcasts are popping up with news, there's no hard hitting journalist who's holding anybody accountable.

That doesn't happen because there's a, There's.

I could, I could do a podcast of 10 things that would happen differently in trail running if we had journalists holding it, holding the sport and its key players accountable.

There'd be a lot that's different.

Memes are the closest thing that we have that are holding us accountable.

And it's doing it in a way that ideally pulls down our guard, allows us to laugh at ourselves.

And I'm not, again, I'm not saying it doesn't go too far sometimes, but who am I to say that he goes too far for me, goes too far for you?

Some, some of you doesn't go far enough.

And for him, I don't think that he holds back anytime he sees something worth going after.

And I admire him for that, for he does.

I think he has a conviction and that's.

That's cool.

All right, number eight, Tommy runs.

I, My, my friend Nils at the speed project introduced me.

He's like, hey, I got to.

I gotta put this guy on your radar.

It's like, oh, yeah, I had, I had seen him in the periphery, but I hadn't been connected.

And I'm working my way through the documentaries about him because I'm gonna have him on the podcast soon.

I just, I love what he's about.

I love the way he carries himself.

And as a, as a podcaster, I'll just say this, maybe this is shallow, but some of the content that he's putting out, like just from a technical standpoint, is so high quality.

Like these gang shows that he's doing with multiple people and, you know, high quality stuff, I love it.

I.

So just visually I'm stoked.

But what he talks about, who he is, what he's about.

If you don't know Tommy runs, I will, I, I'll link him below, but also have a podcast coming up with him and I think he's worth paying attention to.

He's got conviction, but he's also light hearted.

He's pointed, he's deep, but he's also fun.

He's a good follow on Instagram and to check out his documentaries.

But again, I'll, I'll load you up with all that coming up soon when I release that podcast after I record it.

Okay, number nine of the ten things I love about trail running.

Right now I just gotta get a shout out to my guy, Taylor Bodine.

And in this same one, Josh.

And I've.

Forgive me, I'm gonna say his name wrong.

Bhutan Bton.

I'm just really sorry.

Josh.

He's at Meta Endurance.

So Taylor Bodine is at the Dirt division, I believe, in the run.

He's been on 12 podcasts with me and Josh.

I, I met him at a NORDA event in Annecy on a trail run and him and this guy Julian.

But that's where I learned about Meta Endurance and I think that just, just these two who are some just really great contributors to trail content around.

Shoes.

Again, I love shoes.

But also on a personal level, I know Taylor better than Josh.

I barely know Josh, but I know him well enough to have some exchanges with him.

I think Taylor, I'm just happy for him.

He seems to be like in a zone of doing what he's great at.

He's out running, but just the volume of content that he's putting out, I'm just happy for him.

When he first started on the podcast with Borderlands recurring episodes we were doing, he was still a teacher getting ready to go full time with Dirt Division.

And then last summer he went full time with their division and dude's just been busy.

But I just, you know, there's not a lot of stuff on Instagram that I turn on and I just like, I, I like it.

I'm just.

Anytime I see Taylor, I'm just happy.

I'm just happy.

And I think it's personal.

I'm happy for him.

He seems to be, you know, the right, the right fish in the right pond there.

And then with Josh, he's, he's a younger gentleman and going to architecture school, but, you know, maybe early 20s.

I, I just think he puts out really solid content.

I think it's more Euro focused.

So if you haven't heard of Meta Meta Endurance, I don't think that they're like focused on the US market.

I think they're Europe only.

Could be wrong, but just.

Yeah, I just love to see people who, who go for it and who do a great job when they go for it.

All right, number 10 is the team I got coming together at Borderlands.

And I say team somewhat loosely because the model here that I have is what, what you see with Stan Van Kimmel at La French Trail is that I'm.

I want him to build in such a way that La French Trail is Stan and Stan is La French Trail.

So you think of me with Borderlands and Borderlands as me wasn't always what I wanted, but that's just the way it is right now.

But, but I want La French Trail to be Stan's thing and if he ever chooses not to be a part of Borderlands, I want him, you know, I want him to thrive on this thing that we have concepted together.

He's done the heavy lifting, but I have distributed through my channels.

Bryce Carlson, we're, we're still working through that.

I think he's a brilliant writer.

He has something called sub whatever that I think is super cool.

And I, you know, I hope to see that come in the ecosystem and have that similar relationship where my distribution, the eyes and ears that I, I have brought will help him grow the thing that's in his heart to grow, that's connected to trail running.

Sam Losey with high tones.

Same thing with him like we were.

We've been trying to figure out what it is.

I love hanging out with him.

I love the way he sees the world.

He's a good hang.

And so what I want to do is take the eyes and ears that I've built and take this high tones thing where we're mostly looking at the fashion brands in the running industry and highlighting them and partying with them and just being together with them and doing some stuff behind the scenes with them.

You know, we want to take that thing And I want Sam to be high tones and high tones to be Sam.

And then we use Borderlands as the, you know, the channel and the distribution for that.

Inky, Steve and I, we're still working it out.

We.

I mean, I love the concept because we're tying, like, iconic movies to shoe brands.

It's kind of.

It's kind of high.

It's actually not high concept, but to really, how do you weave them together where you do justice to the movie and to the shoe?

Well, we got one coming up about Kip Run.

That's Return of the Jedi meets Kip Run.

And Taylor Bodine's going to join us for it.

And I think it's a brilliant connection.

And it was Inky's idea of how we.

Why we bring in Return of the Jedi for it.

But I think it's, you know, with Inky that's still taking shape.

I just know I love to hang out with him.

He came to Paris Fashion Week.

We had a great time.

I've been up to Manchester to hang out with him.

Had a great time.

We.

We interact a lot.

Constantly sending each other shoe stuff.

But, you know, I'm just really.

Yeah, in general, I'm just stoked on the team that's coming together here at Borderlands.

This year is going to be a big year.

We're going to be, you know, back at Tre, hoping to be back at irx.

That's a question mark.

It was a great time in Amsterdam, though.

Going to be Western States, hopefully.

Hard Rock, hopefully.

There's question marks because it's one of the.

Rosenthal is exactly going to be moving back to Salt Lake City, and that's going to drive that.

Like, if we end up coming back the first week of July, it's going to be harder for me to be at Western States.

However, we have a really big concept coming together for Western states, and I'll know that here pretty soon as to whether or not we'll be there, but we're just going to be out in the mix.

And.

And when I get back to America, my.

My goal is to run those desert races, like I mentioned earlier.

It's an.

It's an interesting year because the way that it's growing right now is extremely satisfying and humbling and exciting, and I don't know exactly what the future holds.

And so as we grow, I just want to continue to.

To bring people into the ecosystem like I've talked about here with.

With Bryce and Inky and Sam.

And Stan and take the the eyes and ears that I've built and leverage it into the cool content that they're creating.

And this year to me is about growing all that sort of stuff and bringing more people into the mission of Borderlands, which is to be the heart of trail running.

And so today these are just things that have been building up and building up and building up that I've just wanted to talk about and I didn't know where to do it.

And I thought I loved 10 things I hate about you right in the 90s.

And so here was 10 things that I love about trail running.

I'm glad that you could join me.

I hope that you get to have some of these long runs that I've been having lately and I'll talk to you next time.

This year we're adding a 50 miler on top of the 50k half marathon and 10k.

This year we're adding prize money for our elite friends who want to join.

But it's not just about the elites.

It's about everybody.

We celebrate everybody.

PATH Projects is joining us again.

They'll be at the finish line with with folks like Boris Gearman and Billy Yang hanging out, welcoming every single one of you into the very end.

Link to Ultra Sign up is in the show notes.