Redemption on Ice: Michael Koppy's Arrowhead 135 Journey

0:00Welcome to the Distance to Empty Podcast. The podcast where we talk about 200 plus mile ultramarathons and multi-night events. I am your host, Kevin Goldberg, and as always, I'm joined by everyone's favorite co-host, finisher of the world's toughest foot race, Peter Noise. Peter has a go. Good. I'm still training. I've been exploring these trails north of me. The other night I went out and had it not so great experience on a trail, but it's all part of the fun. I thought you only knew East. You know North? Yeah. I've been experimenting with North. Oh, damn. Really? Really working the compass. I'm proud of you. Thanks. I did my runs up in Leadville this weekend. I had a down week, so I only had like hour runs every day, and it's hard to run at 10,000 feet.

1:00Yeah. Well, on top of everything else, you're doing up there. Yeah. Yeah. We're doing some renovation projects up in Leadville. As an endurance runner who rarely uses my upper body, it's hard to do things. It's hard to like be on the floor ripping out trim and like just denting over constantly and picking things up. I feel broken. It's kind of weird, isn't it, that you can be so fit in some ways, but still get super sore from easy and all those other muscles. Yeah. I've built a very specific machine over here, and it's only good for one thing and one thing only. Are you feeling, Peter? I mean, what do we like? We're like six weeks away from salt and sea. Maybe, yeah, about six weeks. Are you feeling like you're training again, like back into it? You feeling good about it? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I can do three, four hour runs now. I feel decent. And my pace is dropping with the same effort. And my resting heart rate is lower. So all

2:04those are good things. Yeah. I'm proud of you. It's crazy that it's going to be here so quick. It should be fun. I rented our van. Did I tell you that? Yeah. I think you did. Yeah. I got us a Kia Carnival. Perfect. It's the, I think it's the same exact model that I got for bad water. So hopefully it works well. And then it's not the same like rent. I didn't rent it for the same person, but it's the same model. It'll be a good trial run. We've only used Pacificas before. I know I tried to get the Pacifica, but all the rentals for car keys now. So there's a change in tides for the minivan market. Speaking of salt and sea training, I have a one of my least favorite type of workouts tomorrow. I have to do like a 60 minute like steady state on the treadmill. So like for me, that's probably going to be like seven 30, seven 40 pace, just like for a full hour on the treadmill without any variation. It's going to be terrible. Is there anything you have the Wahoo Trail treadmill, right? Yeah. So I've got the Wahoo Kicker run, which

3:11you know, we've been, we partnered with them to, I already had the treadmill. So I didn't get it. I'm sorry, Peter, you're not getting a treadmill from this promotion, but we partnered with Wahoo Kicker run and it was an easy partnership because I used their treadmill all the time. And I like it for workouts for their run free mode is like it basically like senses where you are on the treadmill and like speeds up in real time. So it feels very much like running outside. It's a pretty cool feature. I like it a lot for like really hard intervals, but then like for tomorrow's workout where I'm trying to like dial in its specific pace for a very long time, I'll just set it and forget it. And it's got like really easy paddle controls for the elevation and the, and the speed. So it's nice for that. It's got lateral and up and down movement. So it simulates outdoors pretty nicely. And yeah, it's like the most solid treadmill ever run on. So it'll be a good workout, but it feels daunting to have to run for 60 minutes at that pace on the treadmill. Yeah, will you change the camber

4:12at all or anything? Well, that, that like happens automatically. So if you put the terrain mode, which my, my friend Michael calls it the terrain a sores mode. It like it adjusts automatically. It'll just like change every so often. That's nice. And it's not just front and back. It's like side to side too. Super cool. And survivor 50 premiered last week. So that's probably what I'll watch while I'm on the treadmill tomorrow. 50, well, 25 years of survivor. Yeah, that's crazy. I remember when it came out. I watched, I think everyone watched the first couple, but I not kept up. I mean, I got back into it like in 2020. For on the treadmill, I watched all four at that time, like 40 seasons. Crazy. So that's exciting. But yeah, I mean, I think I said in that previous episode, like I switched over from a Nordic track incline trainer when I realized, like I wasn't really using any of those like 30, 40% grades. I was always keeping it like 15 and below because that's what is out there in the world. Like even on the steepest courses are

5:13not really more than 15% for sustained stretches. So the kicker run goes up to 15%. And it's just such a solid machine. Like it's, it's definitely the best treadmill I ever run on, including like gym treadmills and like more, what's the word I'm looking for? Commercial like treadmills and stuff with that. So yeah, if you're in the market for a treadmill, I would recommend them even if they weren't working with us. Yeah, I'm jealous. It sounds like an awesome trick. Yeah, you can run out next time you're here. Yeah, I want to try that. Tyrande, what do you call it? Terrainusaurus mode. Terrainusaurus, there you go. Yeah, it is, it's cool because like you do notice, you're like, oh, yeah, it's shifting under me, which is like that's what happens when you run outside. You know, it's like, you're unless you're on like a track, it's like everything's always a little different. So it's pretty cool. It makes you feel, I mean, not that anyone should ever feel guilty about hopping on the treadmill, but like sometimes the treadmills just nicer than going outside. And like tomorrow, it's 70. You hear it today in Colorado, but I think tomorrow

6:13is supposed to be like snowy rainy and four days. So it'll be a nice day to have a treadmill. We're going. Yep. All right. All right. Before we get into today's guests, we'll give a shout out to our our other sponsors, John G and Mount DeCost, who are always supporting us. And we wouldn't hope the hope that you guys will support us by supporting them. Stay tuned for the post show here where we'll get into how you can get some free distance to empty swag and some goodies by placing an order from either John G or Mount DeCost. And yeah, both brands help us go a lot further. Keep us kidded out. And we appreciate their support. You can't say enough good things about the two of them. John G has a bunch of new spring gear out right now. And Mount DeCost has a new colorway in the R1. The C1s are coming out in about a month. And yeah, just fun stuff over there too. Peter, who do we got today on the old podcast? This one's another fun one. What did we say? It's our second repeat guest. Yeah, he's done

7:19some amazing things. Another story of redemption. This person set out to be the oldest finisher of the arrowhead 135 and came quite close last time, but this time nailed it. So yeah, can't wait to get into it with Michael copy. Man, I love the story about how I didn't know how he DNFed in 2024. So it's a pretty cool story. Yeah, and this one's worth a listen. All right, let's get through it. Michael, welcome back to Distance to Empty. You are officially our second repeat guest outside of our special like series with Cocodona and stuff like that. So you're either very, very interesting or running out of people to talk to. We'll let the audience decide on that, but no, we're excited to have you back on. The last time we spoke was almost a full two years ago,

8:20which is crazy, actually, just to think about that. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, you had just finished Cocodona at that time and you were gearing up to do arrowhead 135. It was quite a journey for you at arrowhead in 2024 and then back for redemption this year. So congratulations, first and foremost, on finishing the 135 this year. Yeah, thank you very much. So last time we we chatted, you were again, it was like, I guess it was not too long after Cocodona and you were planning on doing arrowhead in that winter upcoming in 2024. And you said you were planning to do it on the cheap. So you built your own sled, you know, you found a 30 degree bag on on marketplace. So is that how you ultimately ended up going into that race? Did you stick with those kind of plans and actually use that sled that you built and how did that all play out? Yeah, it actually played out quite well like and I used it again this year as well. So it's had

9:24two years out there and this year, well, I cross-country ski. So I know how to wax, you know, plastic to make it go fast. And my sled I built with two runners on them. A lot of the sleds are just basically a sheet of plastic that's molded and they pull that on the on the surface of the snow. But mine actually, I built with two runners and so I waxed those and everybody that I was around this year, I was outsliding them way, way faster than they were. So it was great and it's held up fine. I mean, I keep modifying it, you know, even through training, I think of new things to make it just so a little better, more useful here there. And so yeah, I bet next year we see people with sleds more like yours. There's this funny in these areas how people pick up on on what works well and what not. But maybe backing up for a little bit, you know, on this podcast, we haven't really

10:30scratched the surface on sort of cold weather races. So for people not familiar, can you just kind of explain what Arrowhead is and how it might be different than a typical ultramarathon outside of Arctic conditions? Yes. Well, the first thing is it starts an international falls, which is considered the ice box of the lower 48. And so, you know, they're typically have the coldest temperatures of the whole 48 in the winter and they schedule this race is the last week of January and statistically that is supposed to be the coldest week of the year. So they do everything they can to make it a cold race. And this year, especially now, it turned out to meet those requirements. So it's a very cold race. It's 135 miles on a snowmobile trail, not marked well.

11:31So it's quite easy to make a wrong turn. And, you know, you're, you, this one is quite different than, you know, the altars were used to where you have age stations, maybe every 20 miles or so. And you have people that can sort of kind of help you with those age stations. This one has three age stations through the whole event and you cannot receive any kind of help from outside people. You have to be able to do everything yourself. So they're real strict on that. The only kind of help is people can cheer you on if they do want to, you know, find a place to meet you. But there aren't many places where you can even see people because most of this trail is pretty much in the wilderness there up in northern Minnesota. So near the Canadian border. I'll just mention that you can do this three different ways. You can run it, which is what I did

12:31or you can ski it or you can bike it on fat tire bikes is typically what they're using. So, so all three of those modes are out there during the race. Do you happen to know, my guess would be that if you go from fastest as low as it would be ski bike run, is that true? Bikes are the fastest and then ski and then run. Yeah. Okay, so I had those backwards. It's cool. So I remember, you know, we obviously spoke in 2023, spring, summer, and then we knew you were going after our head. And I remember loosely following the race. It's not a race with like a ton of fan fanfare. So unless you're actually like going and checking the tracker, you tend to not see as much about arrowhead. But I do remember hearing that you ended up DNFing six miles from the finish in 2024, the first time you tried it. And I remember thinking like, wow, just I mean,

13:31it's crazy to be so close and yet so far. And I didn't remember the context or the or the circumstances that led you to that DNF, you know, back then. But in your race recap from this year, you kind of provided that context. You know, you dropped six miles from the finish, 129 miles into 135 mile race. And the reason I thought was pretty hilarious, because I I've been known to sort of let's say macro dose caffeine at the end of races. So you accidentally took 600 milligrams of caffeine. I did. I thought you were taking 300. Those pills are, it's tricky because they a lot of them are 200 milligrams. They do make 100 milligram caffeine pills. So it is tricky. But like, I mean, yeah, for context before we dive into the successful race from this year, just like take us back to that 2024 DNF and what that what that looked like DNFing six miles from the finish. I don't know anything about DNFing so close to the finish of a long race. Peter is an expert at it.

14:36Okay. So well, I got to the last checkpoint, which is 25 miles before the finish. And prior to that, I had taken three 15 minute snow nap. So and this was the third day. And so I knew I was going to be really tired going into that last 25 miles to the finish. So I thought, well, I've got these caffeine tabs, which I normally never take them. And I don't drink coffee either. So I'm not used to caffeine. And I thought, okay, I'll take these three caffeine tablets at the age station. And I did. And I thought they were 100 milligrams, like you said, but they turned out to be 200. And I left that age station just bust. And I have never felt that before. I literally was sprinting for the next 15 miles. And, you know, to give you an example at one point. And I was passing

15:36everybody. I was just, you know, I was basically running at a slow pace where most people at this point were just walking, pulling their sleds. But I was running. And I passed these two guys, and they wanted to fist bump me because I was going to be the first person over 70 to finish the race. And so they wanted to talk with me a little bit in fist bump. And I had a run in place while I was talking with them. I could not stand still. And it was the weirdest feeling. And I kept telling myself, I have plenty of time. I don't need to go this fast, but I just could not slow down. And, you know, if I really concentrated, I could control my legs a little bit. But as soon as my thoughts lapsed from that concentration of controlling it, the next thing I knew I was sprinting again down the trail. And caffeine I found out has a half life of about seven hours. And it was almost

16:38exactly seven hours. I, and this was at mile 129, I just collapsed. And I couldn't get up. I just laid on the sled. And so I called the Todd and Robbie, the two medics. And they came on their snowmobiles. They tried to get me up because I, I still had seven hours to go. So that was less than a mile an hour. And I would have finished. But they picked me up. And we tried to walk one on each side. And as soon as they'd let go of me, I'd fall right down. I just had nothing left. And so we ended up having to pull me into the finish, you know, with the DNF. So it was kind of an unusual DNF. So I mean, since since that happened, have you learned anything more about caffeine? Like I've never heard of having that effect where it basically just runs you until you're, you're done. Like is any takeaways from that? Well, the biggest takeaways, you know, I have these,

17:42this bottle of caffeine for probably, I don't know, five versus, you know, I don't even remember how many years. And I just never used it. And, you know, I, I think I bought it way back, you know, for thinking I might need a pill or two in a race. And, and just never used it. And I kind of forgot what the milligrams were. And, and, you know, I just put them in a little container and had them with me on the race and decided to pop them. And so I, and I really never have experienced this, or anything even close to it before. So most of my learning about it was kind of first hand. And then after reading more about it and finding out that caffeine has this half-life. And once you hit that, that's, you know, you have a, it's like going off a cliff. There's a big drop. I don't know now if you would take more caffeine if you could keep going or not, but I didn't have any more.

18:45So one, I have a friend that's a doctor and, and he said, I would love to know what your heart rate was. I bet it was you were maxed out, you know, but I have no idea. I was, I was the, couldn't even pay attention to that. So I wonder what would happen if you just take, just take another 600 milligrams to get you to that final seven miles or six miles or whatever. But yeah, that's, that is one of the crazier DNF stories I've ever heard. That's, that's pretty wild. So did you know pretty much immediately, like, okay, I was so close, I'm going to go back for redemption was, was Arrowhead 2025, the plan pretty quickly after this experience? Yeah, the next morning. Yeah, the next morning, after I got home, like, yeah, it was like, I told my wife, yeah, I got to go back and she didn't want me to go back. So she's kind of, she does, she's, she's afraid of me doing this race that I'm going to

19:47get hurt. And so, you know, but she was okay, I guess, after I decided, she understood that I had to go back. Yeah. So going into, get diving into the race for this year. So you went up to, to international falls this year with your friend Amber Hardwig, who it was her first, first go with the race. And at this point, you're essentially a veteran, six miles short of a veteran, but you know, you've been through the course, you've been through the prep of the motions. What was that like going back, not only searching for redemption yourself, but sort of sharing it with someone else who is doing it for the first time is new to all this gear and prep for this specific race. I mean, it's such a, the logistics of a race like this seems so intimidating to me versus like something like the 200s we do or more traditional ultra is. And I, I think it's more just like, you know, you, you get good at what you experience and what you do, but for someone trying this for the first time, like did the energy change heading into this year?

20:51Was it a different experience? Well, it's, it's interesting because, you know, like you said, she was brand new to this. Now, she had done a 40 mile one the year before that's down in St. Croix. And I did that this year as well. And, but she, the main thing she was afraid of was the hills. She knew that there were really some big hills on this third leg of this course. And of course, as on a sled, we typically slide down those hills. And, and you have to learn how to control that. And that's, that was the biggest fear she had. She was, she actually won the St. Croix 40, the whole thing, beat everybody, all the guys. And so I knew physically, you know, she was quite capable of doing this. In fact, I, I knew once this race started, I would never see her again, because she was going to be much faster than me. But, you know, it's a total another kind of a race

21:55when you do 40 miles versus 130. And then it turned out this year, the cold was so much more brutal than normal. So I don't, I have never experienced that. And of course, she hadn't either. So that's, and that took out a lot of the people. The majority of the field dropped out the first night because we were hitting 20 and 30 below temperatures there all through the night. So yeah, let's maybe dig into that. I mean, it sounds like from the, from the start, it was already minus 17 with a headwind. So it's like, what was everyone's energy going into it? Did everyone know it was going to be a record cold? And yeah, how, how did you adapt to, to those conditions? Yeah, even at, you know, the race briefing, they told us, they gave us, you know, told us what the signs were for frostbite. And that if they saw anybody coming in with frostbite, you know, a more severe case, they were going to pull us from the course, you know, and warned us about,

23:02you know, what, what to do and what not to do and how to take care of ourselves out there. And I think we kind of already knew most of us what to do and what not to do. But we were all knew that it was going to be a cold, you know, three days or whatever it would take us. So, you know, it was that first day didn't feel quite so bad because, you know, it's always easier in the daytime, even when it is cold. And the hardest thing I noticed was, you know, we took off and about three miles into the race, the wind seemed to really pick up. And like you said, it was 17 below. And that, and it was a headwind directly. But I knew that the trail was going to take a sharp left into the woods. And this first 10 miles is completely in the open. And it's an old

24:08railroad track. And there's no trees on either side pretty much some brush, but not money trees. So you're, you know, really facing and I noticed everybody was pulling up their buffs and and whatever they had to try to make it through that headwind. But I just knew, you know, we were going to be turning at 10 miles and then we'd be fine. So just kind of had to kind of just keep going. But it was fun to sort of watch people hunkering down and putting more clothes on and trying to get through that first headwind there. So Michael and doing research for this race, it was kind of an interesting juxtaposition for me. So just taking a step out of this year's race a little bit and a little bit of like, well, I've been up too lately is I got into bad water 135 this year. Peter ran bad water 135 last year. Right. I see the hat. And I've been out. Yeah, out in Death Valley last two years, pacing and crewing. Does does that race interest you at all?

25:13Like just thinking of, you know, it's the it's another one in the 135 kind of series and just like, yeah, totally opposite. Well, it does. And, and you know, I'd love to, if somebody would say, would you like to come and crew? I would jump at it. You know, so if you need a crew, you know, I would because I'd love to experience that, it's like the other end of the spectrum, right? You know, it's it would be a totally different sort of way of approaching it. And the one thing I would say is I would guess that there's maybe a little less danger with the bad water race. I mean, you could get heat exhaustion, but you're probably, you know, not going to really be in danger of like losing a limb because you've got frostbite so bad. There was one woman that was in the race this year and she was from Florida. Now, I don't know how you do this kind of race and living in Florida. So I don't know how she trained. But anyway, she was here from

26:16Florida and she got frostbite so bad. She dropped out again after that first night, but she flew home and when she got into back home in Florida, she was starting to feel the effects of the frostbite that she had and she went into the ER and they didn't know how to treat it. And finally, somebody that actually was from Minnesota of a nurse that was there was familiar with frostbite and and they were actually considering doing an apputation on her because she had it so bad. And so, you know, that's really a danger here is if you don't take care of yourself, you can really get into this a bad place and it happens quite fast. So, you know, I'm sure bad water has got its, you know, dangers as well, but I kind of feel that this might be a little more

27:20towards that line, maybe a little easier to go over that line. Yeah, and it's the nice thing about bad water too is while you could get into a really tough spot and being in trouble, your van is always there. You're always, it's kind of the opposite with the support where it's remote and things are far apart. It's like you are constantly supported and if anything was really wrong, you get in your air condition van and you get taken to the hospital and it's like you're, you know, that I imagine it's a little different than Arrowhead where it's a bit more of an ordeal to get real help. Right. They tell us that, you know, they require us to carry all this survival gear, you know, a minus minimum of a minus 20 sleeping bag and our stove and all this other stuff that we it ends up being almost 50 pounds a gear that we have to carry. And because they tell us that we may be out there, if we run into problems, we may not see a

28:23medic for 10 hours. So we have to build the survive on our own for 10 hours. Well, yeah. So that, I mean, that kind of brings me my next question is in, you know, these multi-night races, 200 plus, but also just something like a bad water or an Arrowhead, like there's ultimately going to be things that go wrong. You're going to miss a turn, you're going to forget something that you really needed to not forget. Those things are always difficult to deal with, but especially when it's, you know, temperatures are in the negative, the winds are high, the conditions are brutal, like the margin for error becomes more consequential and therefore, like just more frustrating. So, you know, I know you mentioned that you missed a turn off at Gateway, added a half mile onto your race. You accidentally packed some fuel in one drop bag and it was supposed to be for another. How do those sort of things impact your race in something like Arrowhead,

29:26in those brutal conditions, whereas in other races, you know, maybe the aid station is another nine miles and it's just not that big of a deal. You'll remedy it then. We're out here. It's a little more consequential. Yeah. Well, the missing the turn off and adding on a half mile wasn't really a big thing for me and there was another racer following me and I think both of us sort of just took it and stride. It was early on and stuff, so it wasn't that big a thing, but then when I got to Gateway and I have a bag inside of my sled which has got all the stuff I need now for the next which would be going to Mel George which is 35 and a half miles. Now, we just went from the start to Gateway is 36 and a half miles and so I carry everything I need on my person to get to Gateway and then when I get to Gateway then I pull out another bag that was in my sled and when I did that

30:32I had all my energy bars in there but I also get half of my calories by the the energy drink that I drink and I have these powders that I mix with the water and plus it also has, you know, electrolytes in there which help keep the water from freezing when it's really cold because there's salt in there and I turns out I misplaced and packed that in my drop bag that was at Mel George so now I discovered all I could do was fill my bottles that I needed to go the next 35 and a half miles with water and that's I was going to lose half of my calories plus I knew I was going to get somewhat dehydrated because I knew my water was going to freeze up and and this happened to be the coldest night. They said when we hit the low areas, you know, like into the swaps and stuff

31:33we could have easily hit 35 below there because it was another 10 degrees colder in those low areas. So I'm not sure what the temperature was but it was it was brutal and and there was that wind as well. We were in more tree cover this second section but you still felt the wind and then the odd thing was it snowed on us an inch which typically when it's really cold up here it doesn't snow that's unusual. Snow usually comes when it's warmer and of course that made everything slower fresh snow is the worst for pulling through and so it just was I mean that was a real shock when I saw that I didn't have that and I mean I knew I was still going to go and try to get through it but I just wasn't sure what was going to happen and it was hard. Yeah and then in preparation for this one one story jumped out and that's this an energy bar situation which isn't that same

32:37section so you're low on fuel you have this energy bar you've got to eat it's freezing and you know back to your points about frostbite and all that it's it's really hard to open you know packaged food so you have to weigh in gloves no gloves like you had to dive into that story and I think this illustrates that you know flirting with the edge in this room. Yeah right so I can't carry four different energy bars because I like the variety so I don't get palate fatigue and I found that one of them was so hard I could not eat it it just was like it might it might well have been a stick of concrete I could not break it off I put it in my mouth to try to warm it up it still wouldn't warm up enough so I just abandoned those I put them in my sled and left them concentrated on eating the other three and they were hard too but at least in time I could break

33:38them off so now I was down to three of the four energy bars and of course I had no liquid calories which typically I'm relying on for half of my calories and I get I get about I would say maybe 20 miles into this 35 mile section and I'm starting to bark and you know I can tell that I just I'm not getting enough calories in for the work that I'm doing and so I just started to try to force more down and then finally I get about five miles before well actually I about 10 miles before the age station Mel George I've had to just sit down I told myself just sit down on the sled and just eat and so I did I just sat on the sled and I took the bars and just sat there and

34:40because every time I would eat energy bar I I have two pair of gloves on I have a light pair and then I have a big chopper you know big heavy mitt over them well I couldn't I couldn't even do anything and then I got poles on my hands as well so I had to plant my poles pull my choppers off and then I could take a bar and my fingers were getting numb from the cold so I didn't have a lot of dexterity and I it was I was finding it really hard to rip open the wrappers on some of these bars I found that a corner of my sled you know I built my own sled and so I have an aluminum frame box on the back that's got two inches of foam all around it and inside that box is where I keep all my stuff so it doesn't freeze well one corner of that aluminum luckily was sharp I could go back and it would rip open the candy bar wrapper so you know so that I could get it

35:43open because I just I didn't want to have to take all my gloves off and and I ended up getting frostbite on the upper parts of my arms because of taking those choppers off all the time but I had to do this every time I wanted to eat and you just got to be eating constantly I think we we figured that you know we're burning something like 8,000 calories and a 24 hour period out there because of the cold and the work that you're doing and you know I don't know what it ends up being but it's probably close to that and and so I was trying to shovel in this stuff and you know it it just slows you down and it just makes everything harder so um and then about five miles before male George I I got palate fatigue and I'm sure you guys know how that is and I could I basically I was getting a gag reflex every time I tried to eat a bar and so I finally just told myself I'm just gonna not eat anything and just push to

36:48male George because I knew once I got there I would be fine because I had all my my drop egg and I would get everything and then I could get some real food as well there so how much of the like food prep how much are you taking into account like what will and won't be edible at you know negative temperatures I know we we have a friend who it feels like he's prepared for arrowhead 135 like 14 times but still hasn't run it but uh it seems every year the universe is out to get him and he either gets sick or um something happens where he hasn't been able to run arrowhead actually I guess two friends Peter who who can't seem to get to this dart line but uh like I know when in their like prep and research they were looking for like food that doesn't freeze much like you know sort of like shortbread bars and like stuff that is did you do any of that or have any like um pre prep for things that might fare well in very cold temperatures yeah I mean

37:50I I certainly did that and even did it somewhat in training as well and but we had colder temps than I mean like you know I would put stuff in the freezer but a freezer gets down to I think they say around zero and so you know it's a different story when it gets down to 30 below that's and and there was no I didn't have those kind of temps back here in Duluth to train in so that I couldn't really train for those kind of temps I was you know I knew I was good from zero to about 10 below I knew everything would work but I didn't everything past that was a new experience so maybe that that that brings us to sort of the third day where I think you know it kind of things are all coming to a head so you you make it past melgeorge which is uh uh seems to be like a critical eight station or or stopping point for for the race a lot of people it's that way

38:50and a lot of people don't make it out of melgeorge a lot of people quit there am I get is that correct yeah it's pretty comfortable there it's I can imagine it's pretty hard to leave when it's negative 20 outside and you're at a comfortable place with food and yeah so you know you you you leave melgeorge you're going into the third day you're several of your friends have dropped at the halfway point so at this point you're sleep deprived it's well below zero again and you start having some gear issues where your headlight won't turn on because the plastic button is actually too frozen to like go down so maybe I guess I probably expanded and won't actually press in your backup lights dying you're putting you know like when those lights get really annoying when they start to die and they like keep forcing themselves into their dimest setting which is almost as helpful as them being turned off so you're you know going downhill it uh you know with your try to manage your sled going on the downhills in the dark like no visibility

39:53what's going through your head at this point like are you you know because you're also living with that the ghost of yourself who who didn't make it to the finish line last year after being so close but the conditions this year seemed significantly harder than in 2024 whereas at the DNF in 2024 was more of a wild circumstance so in the end there whereas like a lot of the drops in 2025 were probably driven by weather and conditions so yeah what when you're three days into this and it's that brutal like what what drove you to that finish yeah I mean well part of it I didn't want to have to face having to come back again and and and I just I knew that I was in better shape this year for it I had worked harder and and I was actually ahead of my time from 2024 where I was at during the race especially up through that second night um and you know but

41:01this was the first time I ever took a bivvy and that's where you pull out your sleeping bag and and you're you know you got a pad in there and you got a bivvy over the sleeping bag and you sleep right on the trail in the past what I did is I never pulled anything out I just laid down on my sled and slept for 15 minutes and you get cold and the cold wakes you up but this time I was so beat that second night and this was about 4.30 in the morning I and I had about four miles to get to the last checkpoint um they call it checkpoint three and I knew I could not make it there I had uh I was in it wasn't that I was so sleepy tired I was just beat just physically beat and of course the section I had just finished is the hilliest section which really makes it hard you know takes a lot out of you pulling up these hills and so I pulled out my sleeping bag and hopped in it

42:09and you know I've got a 30 below sleeping bag and I thought well I'll be nice and toasty in here and as soon as my head hit the ground I was out and you kind of I think Kevin you kind of asked me earlier about you know I slept for an hour and five minutes because I looked at my watch before I went hopped in the bag and then I as soon as I woke up I looked at it so I knew how long I slept and it wasn't that I sat in the alarm or anything I just woke up I I take a lot of naps during you know my regular life and and so I'm I'm kind of used to an hour or lesson an hour and I'm good to go I'm like a new guy and and so I woke up in an hour and five minutes but the one thing that I noticed was my feet were freezing um and I'm in this minus 30 sleeping bag why my feet freezing well I figured it out that you know my upper body was radiating heat when I

43:13hopped in that sleeping bag but the only way your feet stay warm is to keep when you're moving them in your shoes that's what keeps your feet warm and as soon as you stop moving them there's no heat being generated and probably the inside of that sleeping bag was probably the same temperatures it was outside because I've been pulling it through the day and night for several days now and so I'm sure that inside sleeping bag was probably 20 below so my I noticed it was my and I didn't notice it so after the race was over but my uh right foot got frostbite and um and but my left one was fine and I thought well how could this happen because both feet went the same place the whole race so how could one get frostbite the only thing I think of is I laid on my side and my right foot was on top of my left foot and I think it insulated my my lower foot

44:19and my top foot got frostbite in the bag and that was strange you know but that was all new to me and then I learned after they make these you know like hand warmers they make a larger called a body warmer that you throw in your sleeping bag and I didn't know about this and because I hand warmer wouldn't do anything they're so small um it would take you more time to get enough of them in there to warm that up so um but they make these larger ones and you throw them in there warm your bag up and then you hop in but all right so you you wake up I imagine yeah you you keep going so I guess skipping skipping to the end of it can you just talk through what it was like to get to mile 129 where where you drop last time uh it sounds like you got to meet the same medics that that helped you the the first time around and then what what was it like you know the those six miles you didn't get to do what was going through your head you know getting getting to uh the finish yeah well that that was so inspirational because

45:26you know one thing this race you're by yourself the majority of the time if you think about it only about 30 I think it was 35 of the runners finished it and we're scattered all over and so for you know 10 12 dollars at a time I see nobody at all and I get to this mile 129 or six miles before the finish and here Robbie and Todd are sitting on their snow machines cheering me on you know right where I fell last year and right where they hauled me on and that was so I mean that just that was like somebody just picked me up and gave me a boost of adrenaline because that was great and they told me where the five mile mark was which was coming up and um so you know I said great and I'll watch for that and kind of you know check my time and see how close I'm going to be and so then I got to the five mile mark and I looked you know of course at this point

46:32I've been out there for like 56 hours or something you know so my brain cells aren't all functioning anymore and I looked at my time and I knew what my pace was and I knew that we had a finish within 60 hours and I did the math and and my math told me that I was going to be an hour late I was going to be finishing in 61 hours at the pace I was going and I just knew that I could not go that much faster I was so spent and so wiped that there was this no way I could go fast enough to make up that hour so I called Robbie I had him on my speed dial on my phone and or not Robbie I'm sorry Todd and said Todd you might as well come up and come out and get me with the snowmobile because I just did the math and I'm not going to make it and and he was watching you know you can watch all the

47:33people on the computer on the little dots moving and he knew where I was at and he knew all fast I was going and he said oh you got plenty of time you'll make it just keep going you're fine and so he sort of convinced me that I could do it and so I believed him and so I just kept going but man I was so spent yeah well it's crazy how I mean how many times I've done the math to convince myself I couldn't do something right and then like so you can use the math as it's just math they're just numbers you can use them to convince yourself that you can do something or that you can't do something and and yeah at the amount of times I've can use math to convince myself I can't is is a large number but then like most recently at a math 200 I use math for the other side of things of like keeping myself on it and like showing myself that I can do it and just kind of kept redoing the equation so I think it's hard when you've been up for 60 hours mostly and you can you can't really figure it out

48:37too well for yourself but that's uh I imagine that was really really cool to have that uh that kind of finish for the last six miles have you know all those people there for you have your wife there and uh yes yeah just just really really cool to come see you go back and get that redemption so my go last time we spoke it was you know you would just become the the oldest person to finish a cook at owner 250 and we spent a lot of time talking about your age in that episode and and kind of you know what that meant for you to kind of keep going and and what how the goals had changed around age and you know we even talked about you beating people much much younger than you which I can imagine is still fun never gets old um and we we probably I probably told you at the time you're like you're one of my mom's favorite ultra runners because we ran Tahoe 200 together back in 2019 and uh at that point you were I mean how how old were you in 20 1968 or so yeah and uh I remember my mom saying like you're like there's going to be a someone

49:42who's 68 years old who beats you um and uh you didn't just for the record um but you know pretty close uh uh at 75 you became the the first person let not forget 75 you became the first person over 70 to finish the arrowhead 135 in any of the three categories so running skiing uh biking you know obviously that's not your identity but what what does that feel like to have that record and and have that uh that result like is that how how meaningful is that to you on top of the finish well I think for me the main thing is it's not so much a record for me but it I get a lot of people coming up to me and saying how cool it is that you know I finished it and that gives them inspiration if if if a 75 year old can do this then you know if I'm 40 why can't I do something

50:43you know like whatever it is their goal is you know and they they tell me how this has spurred their mind to try something you know to that they wouldn't have normally tried simply because they saw that I could do this and they see this as something really hard so they think gee if I half is age or whatever they're thinking you know man I should be able to you know tackle this and that's what I really love is that it it moves other people to do things that they normally would not do you know and and I just love that and I you know so many people tell me how it's inspired them to do whatever and I don't care if it's if it's a 5k or or it's even just getting up off the couch and moving is is what's important and you know I I just love that that people are it gives them some motivation because if somebody else can do it and he's this old why can't I yeah we

51:50we have a good friend who's in his early 60s but I think it's fair to say he looks up to you and I think he's trying to do some of the same things we're about to go to salt and sea and try to set an NH group record you know team with him so yeah looking ahead you know this was obviously a huge accomplishment but you've got more on the calendar for a 2026 big horn and summit 200 so yeah what does recovery look like for you and yeah how did how did you you know pick these races especially this the summit 200 you know beat a newer race yeah so it took me a full two weeks of basically hardly doing anything before I felt like I could what I would say get back into training last Friday was my first time I went out and ran nine miles you know so that's been three weeks now and you know from them so yeah this really took a lot of time and and

52:54the recovery was was hard it took a bit but going to the races that are coming up well big horn is another redemption one because I did it last year and here's another odd story as I at probably mile 75 I went into a porta potty and came out of the porta potty and was so mixed up I turned and went the wrong way down the trail for three miles and then realized I was going the wrong way and by the time I got back well I still had time at that age station but by the time I got to mile 80 I timed out just missed the the cutoff and so I got cut at mile 80 on big horn so I'm going back for redemption but I'm also looking at it it is a western states qualifier and so I'm you know hoping that if I you know if if I can do well there and then I'm gonna

54:00possibly look at you know maybe try and western states again and then summit the kind of the one of the main reasons I did that was because I had a free entry because I I think it was what three years prior I did the Nebraska 200 and that one trying to think of what that was called now cowboy yes cowboy and he had another race that was going to be about a month later that I had signed up for called Kate's it was going to be on the Katie Trail but it fell through right before we were supposed to do it and he gave everybody the option you could get half your money back or you could take that money and put it towards a new race that he was going to make up and so I knew he was making up a new race at that time he didn't even say what it was called or

55:06where it was or much about it but he's talked about another 200 so the same race director now that does cowboy does summit and that's his new race and it's a high altitude race the whole thing is up at altitude the whole race so we never get below it and so I this year I bought a treadmill and and I also bought a altitude machine so I've got the mask and everything and so I'm going to be hopefully everybody has told me that if I do those I won't have any trouble there at altitude so we'll see yeah awesome yeah well if you need anything when you're swinging through Colorado if you need to borrow any gear or I'm on the way to summit from the airport so oh thank you yeah well definitely let me know although I won't be I'll be at bad water so I can

56:08I can my wife can you can pick something up if you need need to you know you don't want to fly with it but I won't be there for summit I think they start on the same day the 29th this year 27th is it that's that Monday same same Monday all right Michael before we let you go I wanted to read something back to you that you you wrote in your recap because it it's so closely resonates with my answer to to why we train for these things and why I continue to like seek out these these difficult races so you said people ask me why I do these things well that's hard to answer what motivates what motivates any of us to do the things we do I know that after attempting these events I have more confidence in other areas of my life and I'm a better version of who I am and I think for me that's it just puts everything else in a perspective it makes other aspects of life seem so much easier and more manageable and I think I mean no real question here I just I think that's why enough for these events and I think that's a really great answer to

57:10when people inevitably ask that if they're once they get finished telling you they don't like to drive that far awesome well Michael thank you thank you so much for joining us and congratulations again we can't wait to see what's next for this year okay thank you for having me on again it was an honor well it's a bummer that summit this year starts on the same day as bad water sounds like Michael would have joined us out there yeah and that would have been fun I I'd love to see him do bad water I think he'd do really well yeah that would be really cool so I feel like Chris like like Chris let the Tim first round you don't absolutely need to crew and pace so he could probably apply and get in without crewing and pacing I think so but I also think that there's so much value in scene oh just fully how it goes down and the gear yeah that's a whole I love

58:14it when in cycling like someone like on a cheap $200 bike beat someone with a $10,000 bike it's it's kind of the same story here with Michael right he uh he's got a custom made sled on the cheap yeah oh she's limit it sounded like he built it pretty well though he worked the worked well like it was like yeah he unlocked the secret less less ground contact and he really uh yeah so it's pretty neat but now I just thought I mean I really I'm really enjoying our episode with him a couple of years ago and it was nice to catch up with them and just just so cool that he he went and did that like man especially after missing it by by just six miles a year before yeah and it's also wild to think about when he was upper sixties he was in the same finishing places you roughly you know 200 yeah don't don't let me forget it just yeah that's true yeah 2019 Totho he was right behind me and I finished that year in I think like 68 hours

59:18yeah yeah he's a beast I think we got into his history a little bit in the first up like two years ago where he I think he ran like track and cross country and he was younger yeah okay I remember that now he there was like one summer he just overdid it and ran like crazy he was like he had like a plaque in his high school he was like a pretty talented runner so it tracks but it's no less impressive yeah um Peter who should we pick for or who do you want for my fourth person on my bad water crew one of the choices uh the world the world so who's committed so far you and I think both games well two gap is already pretty good should we get a third game somehow another Peter would be good I could ask Chris you like Chris yeah Chris will be fun Chris do you want to come crew bad water no answer well maybe we'll leave it open if there's

1:00:23anyone out there that's listening yeah we'll see maybe we do a contest I don't I don't think it's that coveted uh I don't think it's that coveted at all um what else do we need to talk about what's good oh I just asked you before we hit record and I know I know it's not good for you um do you mean like what are you enjoying lately yeah okay with I like I like what's good what's good um we just finished the season finale of the traders the the peacock uh reality show I love that I used to play that game like Mafia or Werewolf like so much when I was younger so it's fun it's kind of like that only in like a TV show okay yeah we play one night ultimate Werewolf yeah it's it's then you'd love it like traders is like one night ultimate Werewolf turned into a TV show that's cool yeah okay we've been watching the pit

1:01:25on the HBO it's basically just a reboot of ER yeah you mean just you and Jenna not the kids right yeah not the kids don't watch that that's an I mean I guess it not be terrible but it's just kind of an intense show for kids yeah it's just good drama yeah it's like a soap opera I love the first season are you watching the second season yeah yeah it's cool how it takes place like in a like a single work day it's almost like it's like 24 remember that with Jack Bauer yeah yeah it's 24 but the hospital yeah it's not quite conceivable that all this could really happen in a day well I mean when you got Noah Wiley at the helm anything is possible is his name Noah Wiley Noah Wiley I don't know something like that yeah yeah what else is good I feel like I don't know my whole life has been this project up in Leadville lately project Leadville so that's what's good for me good and bad yeah but it's been fun I'll be worth it I have a snack review

1:02:26that I just did in front of you that you don't have what's sad yeah what's up the gas station today as one as one finds themselves there daily like me and there's a ruffles flavor swap Doritos cool ranch so it's just ruffles potato chips with like the Doritos cool ranch seasoning I feel like do they they must I've never seen it though like Doritos should just sell the cool ranch seasoning it's amazing like I would just put that not everything pizza and everything else for each other season yeah that'd be great well anyway this is the cool ranch uh on ruffles potato chips at the first few I didn't have much of the seasoning on it so they kind of just taste like potato chips but then I got a few really good ones and uh not surprisingly it was delicious cool yeah I'll check this out sounds good they were at a circle K which is a croger gas station so what is Ralph's your croger I think so yeah yeah um cool should we place um

1:03:30let's get deep yeah yeah let's get deep Peter what's let's get deep well let's get deep is a card game for couples that Kevin and I play for your enjoyment on this podcast there are three levels of intimacy icebreaker deep and deeper and I'll kick you off with an icebreaker so this one's fun I think we all know uh one aspect of this but I'm curious so is there anything that you regularly ate as a kid but you won't touch now um I'm definitely better now like I'm I'm I'm a less picky eater now I'm still a picky eater but like I eat more variety now for sure so I think it's mostly gone in the other direction I'm trying to think if there was anything I ate back then that I don't eat now and I don't think so I was never into like condiments and stuff uh I can't think of anything so you haven't regressed you well expanded I've only evolved and

1:04:32expanded and I'm still I'm still far from good but I'm better than I was striving for beat yesterday if you're if you're Garmin yeah all right mine's a food based one two Peter who from your friend group is the best cook who from my friend group is the best cook not me I don't know because I feel like we never cook for each other we only ever eat out but uh if I had to guess I I bet Tim is a good cook just you know being vegan like he's got to have a lot of tricks up his sleeve in terms of how to throw food together so my guess is Tim but honestly I don't I don't know okay all right you're uh deeper or deep what's the fastest way to your heart candy that's the best best gift that people can give me whenever someone gives me candy I'm a happy camper which candy uh I mean anything but I like sour gummies sour gummies yeah our realiter when we

1:05:37closed on the letville place gave us a big bucket of candy like you know a lot of times a realtor will give you like a bottle of champagne or something like which would do nothing for me but they she gave it that's a big bucket of like fun size through mosquitoes twigs knickers milky way uh and it's already half gone uh did she get to know you well enough to know to get better is that it just no that that's just she even like when she gave it to she's like I don't even know if you guys eat candy and I was like oh don't worry so yeah candy all right deep for you is it harder to break up with someone or be broken up with it's a good question not that I have much experience in this area but I imagine that it's I think it's easier to be broken up with or maybe that's just it's hard to have challenging conversations would be the one that yeah kicks it off it feels like that's the more passive like position yeah so they're both hard but like I would expect not not in a bad way but I would expect you to take the more passive position

1:06:40yeah I mean I struggle to make a phone call it's almost like asking like is it easier to order pizza online or in person yeah online all right and then you're a deeper if you could go back and talk some sense into your teenage self what would you say well I'm gonna skip all the like you know invest in apple and stuff like that I would probably recommend leaving New York sooner and I left like early enough I think I was what like 25 or 26 when I left New York but I would say like like go to school somewhere else or or or or right after you finish school leave New York just because I've enjoyed life outside of where I grew up yeah but then you never would have been a male carrier maybe I still would have been that's true and you love the UPS store I do love the UPS store we'll get to that later and make sure you I need you guys to to send me to the UPS

1:07:41store the only reason I go to the UPS store is when people order things from our sponsors and then I have to go out and send out swag so I I try to go once a week but I have to make sure I have enough I don't I don't go for just one order I have to let them build up so I love the UPS store yeah that's what I tell myself don't don't waste your time do do big things and and go go chase what makes you happy all right my turn for deeper that was your deep that was my deeper rent yeah deeper for you what is a quality or trait that you find attractive in a partner I think sense if you were it's only fun to be around people that are funny yeah joke around we can't tell any of your jokes on the air Peter no do you have do you have do you have any safer work jokes I have one for next time okay great cool good good let's get deep

1:08:43session so speaking of the UPS store if you guys place an order from John G or mount to coast again John G has a brand new line of spring stuff out and mount to coast has a new colorway and the R1 and the H1s are still what we're rocking most days love the H1s but we do run in the R1s T1s and C1s Peter still hasn't gotten the C1s but I did hear back from them they are you're you're they have been ordered they're just not available yet for you okay I don't I don't know what happened it's all right anyway place an order from those companies using the code distance that will save you 10% if it's from John G and you are a part of the collective so if you're already saving 15% off instead of using the code distance you can just fill out their post purchase survey which says hey how did you hear about John G you select podcast then a screen pops up with the podcast they support and you select distance to empty take a screenshot of that or of your

1:09:43code being used at mount to coast code is distance and we will send you we've got really cool shirts we've got really cool hats we've got creepers socks I'm trying to think I have a I might save that one for a giveaway what else do we have laying around I've got some buffs got a bunch of stickers that go in every order if you don't like any of that you could say surprise me and I'll find you something that's new and unused and worthy of being shipped out from my favorite neighborhood UPS store perfect and if you buy a wahoo kicker treadmill you can get one of everything but yeah yeah that's a big purchase though so you don't expect to you know do that if you're not ready to get a new treadmill what else we got we got our patreon that's been it's been hoppin lately it's been fun I saw you in there recently Peter yeah yeah cook it on a questions are starting to hit it's getting close to that too yeah I followed up today we got to figure out

1:10:43what we're doing with Flagstaff bound and all that stuff so it is crazy how how close things are getting here we got to do our Arizona Monster preview here soon test Peter's memory yeah doesn't that actually start this month it starts in the 27th yeah dang that's crazy that might be the next episode of this rain yeah but yeah and so yeah patreon details are all in the show notes there if you're looking for bonus episodes or just the community in discord and we have a coaching subscription there in patreon got a nice group in the coaching full tank subscriptions so check those things out if you're interested and yeah perfect I saw a moose in ledville on Saturday did you touch it no but I got a little closer than I should have but ledville is not very moosey like there's I mean I see moose in Colorado like all the time but I feel like that might be the first moose I've ever seen in ledville and I've spent a ton of time in ledville it's cool

1:11:45well I saw my first baby rattlesnake of the season oh how was it like really baby like small it was like two feet long so I think it's a baby like a teen yeah you play with that I wanted to but I didn't I said to picture of it to AI it I said should I touch this what did it say it's like no and all caps and bold I do not touch that that's a rattlesnake oh that's really did you take us range out of that I want to see what it said to you but I'll recreate it for you yeah I'm sure it saves all your history they don't they don't delete any of that stuff that's funny well don't touch it just like you shouldn't go pet moose moose moose this is moose this is all right well thank you everyone for listening and we will catch you next week