The Mile 99 Interview

Send us Fan Mail We are super excited to talk to the guy behind the Tahoe Rim Trail Endurance Runs. He is not only a well-loved and happy-go-lucky race director, but he is also a well-accomplished endurance athlete in both road and trail racing with 19 hundos under his belt and endless amazing races of all distances, from the mountains to the streets. Tune in to get the origins of both George and...

Send us Fan Mail We are super excited to talk to the woman who has brought us Way too Cool 50K, American River 50, Rio Del Lago 100 Mile Endurance Race, She Rocks the Trails, and numerous other amazing races. Julie Fingar is not only a loved and admired race director, she is a well-accomplished athlete in both road and trail racing with 150+ marathons and ultra-marathons under her belt including e...

Send us Fan Mail The town of Auburn is vibrating with excitement! The 2021 Western States Endurance Run is in the final countdown for race day. The Mile 99 Crew sits down at the Auburn Aid Station to celebrate LIVE IN PERSON for WSER100 storytelling. Take a listen and see you on the Western States Trail. --- Your hosts: Jessica Harris / Greg Larkin / Mike Turner   Artwork/logo by Krista Cavender:...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is packed with epic adventures and race details for some of our Bucket List races. Ben R.E. Mitchell has created and set FKTs, traveled far and raced long. Tune in to hear about his adventures. Subscribe to our Patreon for a shout-out on the live! Support the show

Send us Fan Mail The Western States 100 Endurance Run crew joined us again for the latest updates, talked us through new policies and what this 2021 race year will look like. Download this episode with RD Craig Thornley, board president Diana Fitzpatrick and medical director Dr. Andy Pasternak today! See ya on the trails. #SeeYaAtStates Medical volunteers needed: Medical – Western States Endurance...

Send us Fan Mail Paulo Medina is a race director for SingleTrack Running and owner of The Aid Station in Auburn, CA. We spent the episode learning how he became a runner, business owner, and a pillar to our local Auburn, CA running community. Join us for a feel-good hour of community and some exciting news about Paulo! Our Patreon is up! Support us for $1! SingleTrack Running – No benches, no half...

Send us Fan Mail Hot off an 8 hour finish at the American River 50 race, Danny Murphy, the creator of UltraPacer, sat down with us to walk us through his ultrarunning career. As a dad to two young children, a husband and a busy civil engineer, Danny had to find a way to maximize his training. He has done so with a variety of techniques including his own software project and lots of early morning r...

Send us Fan Mail Grand theft auto? Podium finishes? Master’s degree? Episode 34 featured Maria Steinhauser and her journey through single parenting, grad school, full-time teaching, and podium finishes. We shared an hour laughing and reliving some of her adventures. Maria is a driven, successful, compassionate, and hard-working human. Her pacers might have accidentally stolen a car while she was r...

Send us Fan Mail Jamil Coury joined us for Episode 33. We dove right in and discussed the good, bad and ugly that came from a year of pandemic race directing. We touched on the 2021 Barkley marathons and how Jamil’s day(s) unfolded.  Mike is running Cocodona 250 while Jess and Greg are crewing him. We were itching to get all the extra details for this race. It is going to be a great week built on...

Send us Fan Mail Calling all Canyons 100k runners! Our 32nd episode features Chaz Sheya, Abigail Drake, and Sean Flanagan race directors for Canyons 100k. Get to know all three and how they became directors for E3 Epic Endurance Events. Canyons 100k is a Western States Endurance Run and UTMB qualifier, and a Golden ticket race. They had to find a new route during the pandemic to prevent a super sp...

Send us Fan Mail For our 31st episode, we sat down with Bay Area Ultrarunner, Race Director, Running Coach, and now JamOnTam200 FKT holder, Michael Li.  Michael just completed a record-setting 21 ascents up Mt. Tam, covering 200 miles, 57,162 feet of vert in 108 hours, 24 minutes, and 20 seconds.  But Michael has not always been the lean, mean, climbing machine we all know and love. Leading up to...

Send us Fan Mail During 2020, we saw the rise of FKT attempts while so many races had been cancelled and postponed due to the pandemic. The 2021 FKT season is off to a blistering start with the Death Valley N-S standard route crossing (off-trail) FKT being taken by Sarah Estrella, a local runner from Davis. Sarah joined us for episode 30 to talk about this this multi-day challenge in the famed Dea...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we sit down again with Bruce Nguyen. We spoke to Bruce last November in episode 18 after his amazing Moab 240 finish. We asked him to come back to discuss his gear. Specifically, all the gear it takes to run and crew a successful 200+ mile multiday race.  Bruce just returned from crewing his buddy Michael Li on his amazing JamOnTam200 Fatass, where Michael complet...

Send us Fan Mail For our 29th episode, we sat down with two fixtures of our trail running community, Karen and Kjell Framnes! You can count on seeing Karen, Kjell and their daughter Olivia at pretty much any trail race in Northern California from 50k up to 200 miles in length, both racing and volunteering.  They are true ambassadors of the sport, and we talked to them to find out all about how the...

Send us Fan Mail On the First 99 Gear Review we usually talk about gear attached to your body; shoes, clothing, watches, stuff like that.  But today, we are sitting down with Auburn’s very own Doug White to talk about the gear, time, and volunteers it takes to pull off the successful Dusty Corners Western States Endurance Race Aid Station. Mile 38 of the WSER is no joke. Dusty Corners is a hot, dr...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Jenny Maier joined us to talk about her unique approach to combining personal training, strength and mobility work and yoga to help build balanced runners with longevity in the sport. We got some great insights into her approach for helping runners achieve their goals and also how she made a big career change in her life from fast-paced attorney in the Bay Area to...

Send us Fan Mail Mike kicked off our Mile 99 crew favorite gear review. We peeked into a lesson from Turner’s Theory of Net Energy Balance. It led him to favoring a Gore brand windstopper vest. It has a low back and pockets originally used for cyclists. He mentioned his glasses hook up from Cody Johnson in Salt Lake City who fit prescription lenses in racing glasses. They auto-tint and he wore the...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we were joined by Western States Endurance Run race director Craig Thornley, race medical director Dr. Andy Pasternak, president of the board of directors Diana Fitzpatrick, and vice president of the board Tim Twietmeyer. We were glad to welcome them back after first talking in early December to find out more about plans for the 2021 Western States race. Back in D...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the First 99 Gear Review, I sit down again with our very own Greg Larkin for Part 2 of his Winter Off-Season Cross Training Plan. During Part 1 we dug into Greg’s indoor workouts including rowing on the Concept2 and Zwift virtual bike racing on his smart trainer. In Part 2 we head to the White Wonderland for some full body winter cross training activities. As me...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we are joined by Clint Welch and his daughter Halle. Clint has been a fixture on the Northern California ultrarunning scene for a number of years, and his daughter Halle has taken up running to follow in his footsteps. We talked to both of them about the experience as Halle decided to take on this sport, what she likes, what she doesn't like and how she is co...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the First 99 Gear Review, co-host Mike Turner sits down with our very own Greg Larkin to chat about winter cross training activities. It’s the New Year, and the time to start planning our race and training schedules. But many of us have found over the years it’s essential to take time off and let the body heal. Balancing staying fit, letting the body heal, and s...

Send us Fan Mail In our final episode with Rebecca Sperry, she joined us for a live wrap-up interview as she recently completed her twelve rounds of chemotherapy and is starting a new phase of cancer treatment. During the interview, we reflected on her journey since we first reached out to her to ask if she would share her story with us. It has been difficult for her and getting harder with each r...

Send us Fan Mail Katie Grossman, an accomplished professional mountain ultrarunner, advertising creative, soon-to-be mother of two and assistant RD of the Angeles Crest 100, sat down with us to talk about her early life, running and racing at the highest levels, life/family balance and the importance of protecting our open spaces. She and her husband Dominic and their family have built a life in t...

Send us Fan Mail In the last of our prerecorded episodes with Rebecca Sperry, a hiker from New Hampshire who was in the midst of hiking all of the trails in the White Mountain National Forest until she received a breast cancer diagnosis in August 2020, she joined us with an update on how her cancer treatment has been progressing as she nears the end of her rounds of chemotherapy. This episode focu...

Send us Fan Mail Jocelyn Watson joined us for our 24th episode to talk about her running career starting all the way back in middle school, through high school, into college and beyond. She started out in track and cross-country but eventually found her way to trail running and now thoroughly prefers that discipline. She has an impressive racing resume (including the steeplechase in her track days...