Hey, fam, welcome to the free trail podcast. Of course, I'm your host, Dylan Bowman. We are back with the best of TRE episode number

two. Again, this was the fun series that we did at the running event down in Austin, Texas

last week, where we talked to a bunch of industry titans and trail running to get a little bit

of perspective on what's happening in the industry. And to see some of the product innovation

that's coming down the pipeline, today we'll release two conversations. First, with Steve Doolin,

the new president of the Americas at Solomon, who joined recently after a long, successful tenure

at Hoka. We talk about him settling into this new role. We talk about

Solomon maintaining a leadership position and trail, especially with the influx of all these new

brands. We talk about the importance of media, events, and athletes. And we talk about Solomon's

growing lifestyle business, plus a lot of other fun topics. Next, we're joined

by Ryan Hitzel, the founder of Rourke. Really awesome guy. Rourke is, of course, the apparel brand

born in adventure and travel that's been really successful, especially in the surf and skate

communities, but that has recently moved into trail running to much fanfare.

So we talk about the origins of the brand, Ryan's history with running, the inspiration

for Rourke's running product.

We talk about art and culture and storytelling and a lot more.

Interestingly, Ryan also just hired a CEO to allow him to refocus on the creative parts of the business,

where he feels strongest, the decision that we also talk about in the conversation.

Again, there are timestamps in the show notes today, so you can know where each conversation

begins.

A big thank you to Boa Technology for supporting our coverage all week.

The amazing fit systems you see on a lot of trail footwear, including Speedland, of course,

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