265. Western States 100 Failure, Being Human in Public, and Growing the Hard Way

Some Work, All Play

David Roche and Megan Roche

Sports, Running

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 July 2025

⏱️ 96 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Western States 100 ended in a DNF at mile 62. It’s partially the normal story of a race that didn’t go to plan due to simple errors with hydration leading to a cascade of physical issues. But it’s also a lot more complex than that, like life is always more complex than the simple narratives. This episode tries to share the complex story while it’s still raw.

We talk about anxiety, fear, shame, and embarrassment. We also talk about love, perseverance, and moving through the crap.

It’s just running. But it’s also so much more.

Thank you for being here for all of it! We experienced so much love in a tough week.

We also talked about the magic of the race, breakthrough performances by Abby Hall and Caleb Olson, and even getting to share miles with Kilian Jornet!

Your story matters. Your goals matter. You don’t need to be a champion.

You just need to be you.

-David and Megan

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Woohoo. Welcome to the Some Work All Play podcast. We are so happy to with you today. Happy Tuesday. It's
0:05.6	Tuesday. And hot damn, we made it to Tuesday. Yeah, barely. We're trudging. Oh my gosh. You know where I'm
0:13.4	coming from today? Where? I'm broadcasting live from a shame spiral. A shame spiral. Yeah.
0:18.3	That sounds rough. It is pretty rough, actually.
0:21.8	So for those that don't know, Western States was this past weekend.
0:24.5	We've talked about it a lot.
0:25.9	So this would kind of have to be your first episode.
0:28.2	And it did not go great.
0:30.3	I mean, it went great until it didn't.
0:32.2	And when it didn't, a lot of shit happened that we're going to get into today just like emotionally and physically that'll make me a better person long term maybe um but coming to you from the bottom of the shame
0:42.0	spiral of it all um i think that we're going to share a little bit today about like what that feels
0:46.6	like and hopefully you know i was thinking about it before this episode it's like well i guess everybody
0:51.0	feels this about things at times and And you know, running is interesting
0:54.3	because you feel this, I know on some level it doesn't matter, but like people also feel
0:58.3	this about like their body image, money, relationships. I mean, you know, we shit the bed in
1:04.7	life sometimes. And so here's the shit in your bed episode. Yeah, I especially despise
1:09.6	shitting the bed, actually. I feel like
1:11.0	I have a below average tolerance for sitting the bed. And so I totally in life, like I totally
1:15.1	understand where you're coming from. But I feel like what better way to get rid of a shame spiral?
1:19.6	Also, I like the term shame spiral. Do you just come up with that? It sounds like a shame volcano or
1:24.0	like a shame tornado or something like that. Did you just come up with that? It's not a volcano implies going up. I'm still going down. I feel like this podcast is going to
1:32.1	make you go up. I think the best way to get rid of shame is to talk about it, actually, like for real.
	...

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