The Pain Cave

In June, we spoke with inov-8 athlete Kristian Morgan as he prepared for an audacious attempt on the FKT for the Appalachian Trail—an attempt that was aborted less than a week in. Kristian was kind enough to return to the Pain Cave to discuss what went wrong, how he’s dealing with the disappointment of having to let go of this goal, what he learned that he’ll take forward, running in the White Mou...

The Legend returns from his pilgrimage back to the motherland for the latest installment of TMIU. We pat ourselves on the back for some not-terrible WSER predictions and recap the biggest storylines and surprises from Auburn (2:30) before discussing the doping mini-controversies clouding the podiums at Sierre-Zinal last weekend (19:30). Then it’s our whirlwind recap of the trail and ultra results...

Oh boy! It’s the best time of year…Western States time! And the Legend himself, Phil Vondra, is fired up to talk about it. Before we dig into what’s going to happen this weekend, though, we’ve got a bunch of news and results to get through, including Phil’s recap of this past weekend’s Manitou’s Revenge (1:30), the cancellation of the Hardrock 100 (5:00), the untimely passing of Mark Richtman (10:...

We’ve talked a lot on the show about the role that the brain plays in determining performance in endurance events, but we haven’t talked so much about how we can actually modify the brain’s response to physical stress in order to improve our performance. In part, that’s because this is a very difficult thing to practically address. Sun Sachs is here to change that. Sun is the co-founder of ReWire...

If you aren’t yet familiar with the name Kristian Morgan, you will be this summer. On July 1, the London-based ultrarunner will leave Springer Mountain, GA, aiming to become the first person to complete the Appalachian Trail in less than 40 days. Last month, after a final reconnaissance mission on the trail’s southern section, Kristian called in from across the pond to talk about why he likes raci...

After a few quiet weeks on the ultra scene, the season starts heating up again, and The Legend returns to discuss all the latest happenings. We start off by recapping Phil’s race this past weekend at the Cayuga Trails 50, the US trail 50-mile championships, and some of the other storylines coming out of Ithaca. We also tackle the possibility of a cancellation at Hardrock, record chasing at Project...

As an athlete, filmmaker, and a race director, Sherpa John Lacroix is a seminal figure in the modern version of the sport of ultrarunning—and one who’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers either. We caught up with Sherpa John for a fun conversation about his roots in hiking and backpacking (1:30), how he cut his teeth in race directing and may have semi-accidentally started the OCR craze (7:05), h...

Sifting through the various dietary and nutritional approaches to our sport (vegan! low carb! gluten-free! fruitarian!) can be confusing and, frankly, exhausting. Don’t worry, though: elite runner/nutrition PhD/Ultrarunning magazine coverboy Jonathan Clinthorne joins us in the Pain Cave to help us sort through it all. We talked about his background as the second-fastest ultrarunning former lacross...

After a too-long absence, the Shawangunk Express is back in the co-pilot’s chair for our kind-of-monthly roundup of all the goings-on in the ultra and trail scenes. We start by recapping a second straight no-finishers year at Barkley (2:30) before digging in to all the hullabaloo surrounding the most recent Golden Ticket race, the Georgia Death Race (9:45). Then it’s time for a whirlwind tour of a...

Mike Wardian has been at the forefront of the sport of ultrarunning for over a decade, but even by his lofty standards, 2019 is off to quite a start. After sweeping all seven marathons to win his second World Marathon Challenge (en route to setting a new world record for the fastest ten marathons in ten days), Mike journeyed to Israel to attempt a new Fastest Known Time on the 631-mile Israel Nati...

The Legend is back! Finally! After a three-month absence, the Don Draper of ultrarunning returns for our latest installment of This Month in Ultrarunning, the craze that’s sweeping the nation. Phil and I start off with some final thoughts on the 2018 UROY and FKTOY voting (3:30) before turning our attention to the new year. We discuss some recent ultra-related news and headlines (14:30) before a r...

If you don’t follow the sport of ultrarunning outside of the big trail races, you may not know the name Geoff Burns…but you should. Geoff is one of the top road ultramarathoners in the US; he is the 2016 national champion at 100K, and has finished fifth at each of the last two 100K World Championships. He’s also a doctoral student in biomechanics at the University of Michigan, and he joined the sh...

For the fourth straight year, I’m both thrilled and appalled at being asked to vote for Ultrarunning Magazine’s Ultrarunner of the Year…and for the second straight year, I’ve asked one of my toughest critics to join me on the show to tell me how badly I’m screwing it up. This time, we did it early enough that I could actually make a few changes to the ballot! Upstate NY ultra stud Jason Mintz ente...

David and Megan Roche are one of the power couples in US trail and ultra running today, with seven national championships between them. Not only that, they’re the brains behind Team SWAP and the coaches of some of the most successful athletes in the country, including recent winners of Western States, Leadville, Run Rabbit Run, and more. Not only that , they’re also the authors of The Happy Runner...

We had so much fun talking with one of the fastest US women ever at 24 hours (Megan Alvarado) that we decided to do the same for the men. Pete Kostelnick is a two-time winner and the course record holder at the famed Badwater 135, as well as #5 on the all-time US 24-hour list, but he’s perhaps best known for his record-setting run across America in 2016, breaking Frank Giannino’s 36-year old recor...

The cancellation of the North Face championships meant that many of the top athletes who had been aiming to end their season in northern CA wound up journeying east for the venerable JFK 50 mile, the oldest ultramarathon in the country. The smart money was on previous winner Leah Frost (#3 all-time at JFK) or former Western States champ Kaci Lickteig for the women’s crown. But when the dust settle...

In the past few years, as ultrarunning and trail racing in particular has continued to grow in popularity, there’s been a concurrent increase in the number of world-class racers exploring their limits in timed events, and the competition at these races has become fierce. This week we welcomed Altra / T-Starr Running / Drymax athlete Megan Alvarado, the newly crowned US 24-hour champion, into the P...

Ultrarunner and filmmaker Sanjay Rawal joins the Pain Cave to talk about his latest documentary, 3100: Run and Become . The movie follows competitors in the 2016 Self-Transcendence Run, a 3100-mile ultramarathon around a single city blog in Queens. In exploring the secret of what drives these runners, the film journeys to a Navajo reservation in Arizona, the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa, and...

The Legend returns to the Pain Cave to rescue you from the ultrarunning doldrums, with recaps of the insanity at Big’s Backyard (3:00), Hennepin Hundred (27:45), North Coast, Run Rabbit, and more. This episode was recorded last week, before Javelina Jundred , which we’ll recap in our next episode. Also, I did want to point out one error/omission from this episode. While discussing Barkley (why are...

The fastest 100-mile of 2018 doesn’t come from a resident of California, Colorado, or Arizona, but from right here in upstate New York. Albany’s Jim Sweeney sits down in the Pain Cave to discuss his cool new gig at the West Kill Brewery (1:00), his background in ultrarunning and how his training has progressed heading into his breakthrough 2018 season (3:00), his early-season success at Umstead (1...

It may have been a disappointing year for many of the top Americans at UTMB, but US runners came through with podium finishes at TDS, the 121km companion race. We welcome mens’ runner-up Dylan Bowman to the Pain Cave to talk about his fantastic early season (4:45), how he prepares for big mountain races (20:15), his race at TDS (33:00), the carnage at UTMB (49:55), his plans for the rest of the ye...

We hadn't planned on a UTMB recap episode, but after the craziness that transpired last weekend in Chamonix, Phil and I had to sit down for an emergency pod to discuss Killian's allergic reaction, Xavier's redemption, disappointment for the US men and women, and what this all means going forward. Tonight's beer: Zero Gravity Grand Royal Intro music: "Fine Line" by the Bloodletters Outro music: "Wh...

Ultra geeks rejoice! We're joined once again by our "This Month in Ultrarunning" partner in crime, Phil Vondra, for an in-depth preview of UTMB. Phil and I recap a fantastic week in Colorado, including Leadville (2:00), Pike's Peak (15:30), and Transrockies (21:00), plus other news and results from the ultra world (24:00), before we go deep on everything happening in Chamonix, including results fr...

The Legend returns to the Cave for this month's installment of TMIU, where we quickly recap some of the major storylines from Western States (3:00) before dissecting Perrier-gate at Hardrock (11:00). We also discuss the controversy surrounding the awards at the Vermont 100 (38:00), review some results from Lavaredo and Cayuga Trails, and get into some recent FKTs. Intro music: "Fine Line" by the B...

Look, if we do these things for long enough, eventually we're likely to get injured. And those of us who have been there know the truth: just like training and racing, recovering from an injury is as much a mental exercise as it is a physical one. In this episode we chat with former elite mountain biker and injury recovery specialist Heidi Armstrong, founder of The Injured Athlete's Toolbox, to le...