DFL Before DNF

For the first time in months, I'm stepping away from interviews and monologues for a Borderlands Trail Running founder update. By the time this episode goes live, my family and I will be somewhere over the Atlantic, leaving Paris after two years and moving back to Salt Lake City. I came to France thinking I was building one thing and left building another. I'm leaving with a much bigger vision for...

Western States 2026 is over. The course records have been set, the winners crowned, and the internet has already moved on. This isn't another race recap. It's a cultural breakdown of what Western States revealed about trail running, its media, and where the sport is headed next. From Dylan Bowman becoming the voice of trail running, to Hans Troyer's fearless pacing, to why Thomas Cardin exposed a...

Western States and UTMB are often framed as opposite visions for the future of trail running. One protects through limits. The other protects through growth. But after publishing an episode on that tension, I received an unexpected response from Bob Crowley, former President of the International Trail Running Association (ITRA). Bob argues that both sides may be focused on the wrong thing. What fo...

Western States and UTMB have become the two most influential institutions in trail running, but beneath the debate over lotteries, race series, and growth is a deeper question: when something becomes successful, how do you protect it? Josh explores why UTMB believes trail running is important enough to scale globally while Western States believes it's important enough not to. Along the way, he exa...

Wasatch 100 and Bear 100 are two of the hardest races in ultra running. Michael Whiteside ran both just three weeks apart, and what stayed with me from this conversation wasn't the accomplishment. It was the way he talked about suffering, expectations, and the moment he realized he wasn't going to feel better. What follows is less a race report and more a conversation about endurance. Crew guilt,...

Modern trail running shoes are better than they've ever been. So why do so many runners still find themselves drawn to older designs like the Nike ACG LDV? Josh and Inky use one nostalgic shoe to explore a bigger question: what happens when an industry spends years optimizing toward the same answer? Somewhere between old Nike catalogs, modern trail shoes, and a sea of increasingly similar products...

Western States 100 occupies a different place in trail running than almost any other race. Months before the starting gun, runners and fans are already studying the field, imagining the canyons, debating contenders, and wondering what story will emerge from Auburn. This episode explores why Western States feels bigger than a race. From Jim Walmsley and Kilian Jornet to Wendell Robie, Rucky Chucky,...

Trail running culture loves winners. That's obvious. The sport builds documentaries about them, fills Instagram feeds with them, and spends months debating who will win Western States. But the more Josh thinks about it, the more he wonders whether trail running is actually comfortable with the competitive mindset that creates those winners in the first place. As Western States season begins, this...

Professional running can quietly turn into pressure, performance, sponsorship obligations, and constant visibility. This episode with Jacob Puzey is for runners who have felt burnout creeping into the thing they once loved and want to rediscover simplicity, rhythm, and freedom in running again. After twenty years as a professional runner, coach, race director, and sponsored athlete, Jacob reflects...

Trail running usually becomes real for people at a local ultra, not while watching UTMB or Western States online. The parking lot at 5am with 53 runners, one exhausted race director, and volunteers giving up their Saturday to help strangers keep moving is still the clearest entry point into the sport. This episode is for the runners who believe the soul of trail running still lives there. Josh exp...

Trail running culture melted down this weekend after a Satisfy x Adidas event triggered accusations of cringe, elitism, rich-kid cosplay, and the death of authenticity. But the backlash revealed something much deeper about where trail running is headed and why so many runners reacted emotionally to it. In this episode, Josh explores why the footage felt so disconnected online, why Satisfy exposes...

Trail running is getting bigger fast. Bigger races, bigger brands, bigger media, and more money entering the sport every year. What happens to trail running culture as all of that growth accelerates? And will the human side of trail running we all love survive? Recorded in Stockholm at Klättermusen headquarters, Josh sits down with Gonz Ferrero, CEO of Klättermusen, and Billy White , founder of Sö...

Cocodona 250 exposed something trail running still doesn’t totally want to admit: the audience is already here, but the fan experience still hasn’t caught up. After spending more than 13 hours inside the livestream tracking viewer behavior in real time, Josh breaks down why thousands of people kept tuning in while constantly disconnecting from the coverage itself. This conversation goes deep on au...

Ultra running nutrition is getting more extreme. More carbs, more precision, more pressure to “get it right.” But if you’ve ever had your stomach shut down mid-race, you know something isn’t adding up. This episode is for runners trying to fuel better without breaking their body in the process. I sit down with Chris Bellamy, engineer, ultra runner, and founder of Yanaa , to explore the hidden cost...

Ultra running promises performance, progress, and control. But for a lot of people, it’s filling a gap that normal life doesn’t. This episode explores what ultra running actually gives people and why it becomes something they need, not just something they do. Joshua Landvatter and Kaden Coleman are attempting four 100-mile races in one summer. They both have real lives, real responsibilities, and...

Why do some people keep going when everything says stop? If you’ve ever hit a breaking point in endurance sports and wondered what actually determines whether you quit or keep moving, this conversation is for you. This episode explores the real mechanics of the ultrarunning mindset, beyond training or toughness. Matt Johnson has spent a lot of time at that edge, where the body is failing and the d...

Nobody plans to become an ultra runner. There’s no clear path into the sport, no obvious starting point, and most people don’t grow up anywhere near it. So how do people actually find their way here? In this conversation, Josh sits down with Emory Atterberry, founder of Hyperlyte Liquid Performance , and rising ultrarunner Cade Michael to explore how three people from the same unlikely place all e...

Trail running is growing fast, but is it actually scaling? If you’ve ever felt like the sport looks bigger than it is, or struggled to follow it as a fan, this episode breaks down why. This is for runners ...

Trail running and running culture go beyond training plans, races, and performance.  Raziq Rauf  explains why running isn’t just a sport, but a reflection of identity, place, community, and modern running culture. Raziq is the aut...

Kiprun used to feel like an entry-level running brand, not one serious runners would put in the same conversation as the best trail running shoes in the sport. If you’re curious how a brand changes that perception and what it looks like when a running company genuinely reinvents itself this episode is for you. Josh sits down with Inky Steve to break down the shift they’re seeing at Kiprun through...

Ultra running reveals what happens when race plans fail, training falls apart, and things don’t go the way we want. Running helps strip away all the things we distract ourselves with and forces us to stand face to face with them. In this conversation with Mike Kratzer, a former DJ turned runner, we explore what happens when there’s nothing left to hide. From quitting drinking without rock bottom t...

Why do people run 100 miles and keep coming back to ultra running even after it hurts, slows them down, and offers no obvious reward? If you’ve ever been curious about ultra running or felt the pull toward doin...

Trail running culture is starting to look a lot like skateboarding—crews, aesthetics, a more raw identity. But if you’ve ever wondered whether that comparison actually holds up, this episode breaks it down. There’s a reason the connection feels right—and a deeper reason it might not be. This isn’t about dismissing what’s happening in running, but trying to understand what it actually is. This epis...

Many runners come to ultrarunning through performance, but what happens when running comes after everything else falls apart? This episode explores how sobriety, loss, and identity shape the path into ultrarunning and what it actually looks like to rebuild a life from the ground up. Josh sits down with Tommie Runz to trace the arc from heavy drinking and personal collapse to running across the des...

Ultrarunning is evolving and growing fast and with that growth, ultra running feels different. Josh digs into how the sport is changing as it becomes more competitive, more visible, and more professional than ever before and asks whether something essential is being lost along the way. From duct-taped water bottles and campfire start lines to global races with thousands of runners and highly engin...