You should be reflecting all the time and looking inward and like what am I doing wrong in my life right now. I'm trying to improve it. Welcome to Trailhead, a trail runner nation. We go on virtual trail runs every week. Boy, we're diligent.

And we go on runs with people that are going to motivate us, inspire us, and teach us how to be better runners.

And hopefully that translates us into being better human beings.

And today we're on our series of aging athletes and we bring Bronco Abilian, not because he's aging,

but he has brilliance he's going to share with us. I was surprised at all the information that came out. Scott. Hey trail runners, have you seen John G's brand new fall gear? They just released the John G collective exclusive print called Flow State. If you're part of the collective, you don't want to miss it. If you're not part of the collective, go to johng.com and find out while you're on johng.com check out their new travel log. This is where Ricky Gates is curating the trail runner's handbook exploring iconic trails and cities across America. The most recent stop here in San Francisco, routes climbing over 4,000 feet weaving past the Lombard Street and Quake Tower. You'll love what he's done. John G's more than just gear. They're about community and giving back. So explore the new fall line, the flow state print, and Ricky's travel log at JohnG.com. And as a bonus for trail runner nation listeners, take 10% off your order with the code trail runner.

Out on the trail you learn quickly, not all energy bars are created equal. That's why we grab Jam Bar created by Jennifer Maxwell, the same runner and nutritionist who co-founded Power Bar back in the 80s. She's come back with something even better.

Jambars are made from real food, gluten-free grains, natural sweeteners, dried fruit or premium chocolate, and a solid 10 grams or more of protein in every bar. And they hold up. There's no melting, no crumbling, no freezing. And I'll tell you recently, I've been using it as I've been traveling for work as a meal replacement bar, especially those early morning breakfasts. It tastes great. It just sets you up for the day. Half of Jam bars after tax profits go to support sports and music programs. So fuel your run the right way with Jam bar. Go to jambar.com and use the code TRN20 for 20% off. Welcome to another edition of Trail Runners Nation. My name is Don Freeman. And I'm Scott War. What if aging wasn't something to fight, but actually something to anticipate and to look forward to? Welcome to the aging athlete series. It's a special series here at Trail Runner Nation, where we are exploring how the passage of time shapes us not just as runners, Don Freeman, but maybe as whole humans, whether you're in your 20s, 30s, or you're pushing into your 70s or 80s, this series is about finding longevity, joy, and strength on the trail and at every stage of life. Co-hosted, we're welcomed again by Chrissy Male. She's a two-time UTMB champion from 2003 and 2009. She's the youngest woman to ever complete the grand slam of ultra running back in 2005. We just found out or what were reminded that she killed it at hard rock 100 Which we're recording this just the week after hard rock, but she won that back in 2007 and was third place overall Following in the footsteps of Scott juric and Carl Meltzer, right? Is that right Is that right? So that's a good trio for you to be finishing in that 2007 hard drive. She's a coach, she's an author, she's a longtime race director of the Chuck Nutt 50K. She brings decades of experience and insight to these specific conversations about aging athlete and she she also has kind of a really deep curiosity, which is fun to see her mind work. Every five or six weeks, we're going to have a new aging athlete episode, where we'll invite runners, coaches, scientists, nutritional experts to unpack how we train and recover during different shifts in our age. What it means to fuel and fuel this changing body, why motivation ebbs and flows, and how to adjust without giving up on what we love. We're going to talk about some hard stuff. We're not saying that we have all the answers, but we're going to try to provide some answers. So you need to do the experiment of one of your fellows and ladies. This is the fifth episode in this mini-series, and we're talking about how to adapt your training plans as you age from the late teen years all the way through your 90s and beyond. coach and seasoned and seemingly ageless athlete, Jeff Browning is joining us today. Now Jeff Browning is a legendary ultra marathon runner widely respected for his longevity, his grit, and his tactical brilliance on the trails. Known in the trail, ultra community as Bronco Billy. At Western states run 100, Jeff has consistently delivered top tier performances. Top 10 finishes for consecutive years 2016 through 2019. And very recently, 2025, talking about longevity, the 2025 finish, 29th overall, 18th in his division and with the time of 1912 58. His accomplishments span beyond Western states with wins and course records at some of the toughest altars in the country, Hard Rock 100 in 2018, Moab to 40, winner of course record, 2022, and multiple course records at the big horn 100 in Sedona Canyon to 125. Jeff is also known for his role as a coach and a symbol of durability in this work where longevity is rare. Speaking of longevity, was your intro or my intro longer? It was a tape finish. Is Jeff still with us? He's aged during that intro. Yeah, dude, I aged a whole other year wish the whole other year. To tell you about longevity you have a long set of credentials. It was hard to chop it down. What was I going to leave out? I can't leave it. There's a lot there. I have to pinch myself sometimes. Hey thanks for joining us Jeff. Yeah it's good to be here. I have to say I was there to witness Chris's performance a hard rock in 2007. Oh, it was my first hard rock and I was a newbie to that kind of altitude and terrain. I had done big horn twice, one at twice got the course record. Those are my only two wins and I came there in 07 with a quite a cocky attitude. Went out with went out right behind and Juric and Meltzer and I came there in 07 with a quite a cocky attitude, went out with, went out right behind Jeric and Meltzer and I blew up like halfway and Chrissy passed me coming out of Ure, she was with Darcy Africa and Darcy Pysu and now and she, they all I could hear was girls chatting, there's another crazy note that Jason Koop paced me from your ready to tell your ride. It was his first time at Hard Rock. He was like early 20s, had just started working for CTS, and had never been to Hard Rock. That was our first meeting was in 2007. I was just a poxic beat up, walking up the road, a campbird road, and I hear chatty Kathy's coming up behind me, and it's Chrissy and Darcy, just just motoring and talking up the road. So yeah, I slept at Chapman for 45 minutes. I finished in 3318 that year for my worst 100 ever. So that was my intro to Hard Rock. So that's part of an aging athlete is overcoming the cockiness of our youth. Isn't that right, Jeff? Yeah, I mean, respect the distance, respect the terrain. Culture has definitely teach you some humility from time to time. I wanted to bring Bronco and I've grown up together. I spent a lot of time in Smith's rock with him. I lived in Bendorgan for about a year and a half. And that was, that's nearly 20 years ago, Bronco. I lived there in 2007. You don't even live there anymore. And I never really had to say much. I could ask a question and we would be entertained. I would be entertained for two, three hours. Maybe I'd grunt or prompt him with something else. And the only thing that stopped us was, I would get these massive nosebleeds. And you said that I have a lot of curiosity. This guy and his wife do too. And we were able to work through my iron deficiency and so that we wouldn't be stocked on the trail all the time. We go back further than that though. When I was the promotions manager for Montrel, Bronco was on the running team and that started in 2001. So we're going on a quarter century here and talk about aging athletes. We've just, like I like it. We've grown up together. I would go so far to say that you've always been a great runner and performed well, but this what I think has been really cool is watching you in your latter years, these last 10, 15 years, really learn the lessons and change your body even. And I think we'll get into that a little bit on this to be able to do this and something maybe that's a ability or a a lead end point on a first question is I remember being down in Patagonia with you for the mile for mile filming. And you, like there were some really funny clips of your belly. You were having some issues with digestion and you were in like, had a bit of a belly on you for being an ulcer runner and there was comments from Jen about it as well and after that trip I feel like that was a huge turning point. Maybe even in your competitiveness too. Would you call that point and what age were you at that point? So I was 43 at the time I believe. This would have been like 2014 into 2015, maybe in 42, maybe when we were in Patagonia, but then I went back in April to race Ultra Fjord in 2015. But 2015 was a really rough season for me. I had a lot of health issues that year. So I was having a major gut stuff. I don't know. It's probably, I mean, looking back, it's probably from drinking unfiltered water and patagonia ton, especially in the race at ultra fiord because there was some very questionable spots. It wasn't that bad when we were there because it's summertime, but I was there in their late fall when it's raining and there's a lot of runoff. I was thinking of you, I was also fear of that. Oh, that's right, you ran the hunter K. Yes.

So I mean, like just a crazy conditions for that race. And I it really, I was having issues that whole season after that trip. And for me, like I was a high-carb athlete had been one for 15 years of kind of the standard standard high-carb diet, high-carb approach. Back then, I was pushing 100 grams of carbs an hour during races. Some races I was taking up to 75 gels in 100 Milers. Wow. And so I just really was struggling. It was a struggle bus year. I was kind of I mean I look back at photos and I was kind of inflamed like systemically. Like when I look back in hindsight. And that's at the end of that year I did a bunch of research. I started talking to Zach Bitter and then he put me in touch with Peter Defty at Vespa. We started talking to OFM, Optimize fat metabolism kind of becoming more fat and dabbid athlete. I switched to a paleo diet, and I had already decided to do that before I got hold of Peter because I'd done so much research. I kind of stepped back and knew I was dealing with some kind of Candida, you know, like yeast overgrowth in my GI and something was going on weird and it was very imbalanced and I decided I needed to quit feeding it sugar so that meant low car and I didn't know how to do it I just knew I needed to go more like grain-free sugar-free in my everyday diet and lifestyle diet and pushed back from about 30 hours of research one week and told my wife I needed to do paleo and she's like I have two cookbooksbooks. And let's do it. She'd been wanting to do it for years. She was a little hypoglycemic. Carbs really affected her in a negative way like bad headaches or crashes. And we had kind of started to figure that out maybe a few years before through an alternative nutritionist in Bend. But I had still been holding out because I needed my pasta for ultrunning and my 75 gels in 100. So I wasn't willing to like back off and that finally I had a need selfishly. And then I, you know, in hindsight, I feel bad about that because I should have done it way earlier because she would have pushed me to it earlier if I if I've been listening But I wish wasn't there just like anything you have to have kind of a revelation to make a life change And I needed that at the time and then I got hold that it might be a performance enhancer a little bit And that got me really focused on like oh, I can do this if it's gonna help my ultra running, then I'm all in. And so I've been all in, we're almost 10 years now on that on OFM approach. I wanna, I just wanna go back to your old belly for a second. Was it the type of belly that you could pinch an inch or two or was it more of a bloated type of belly that you were carrying? It was a little bit of both at times. I was getting more bloating that I ever had. I was having trouble getting down to my race weight. You know, I always felt like I had a... I'm not anal about being on the scale, but I am as I get close to an a race. And I check in like once a week and see where I am. And I was having trouble. I naturally was able just on a high carb diet to get down to my Kind of what I call my fighting weight And for an a race and I was having trouble doing that two three pounds shy and I just was struggling during that time and so That it was a it was a big change lifestyle wise, but it was a huge performance enhancer. I mean, if you look at my performances from 2016 on, they kind of speak for themselves. Yeah, and that's right in that age group timing of the almost mid-40s, like early to mid-40s, where that... Yeah, 44 was when I officially kind of did it. Cool. We're trying to focus each of these episodes, especially these first six ones with some topics. And the reason I wanted to chat with you is with the coaching, is like training plan adjustments. And there's lots of different ways Don's got and I can take this. One, like just way to get it started was mileage. Like, as we're aging, is there an argument for increasing mileage, reducing mileage? Where do you go with your athletes? And have you, I guess, first, have you coached athletes through various decades like that? Like one person through the decades and or do you just see it in like some of your 20 year olds versus some of your 50 or 60 year olds? Well, coaching really is individual. So it depends on their history and what they do if they cross train if they have a history in cycling do they have a history in triathlon you know those kind of backgrounds so you have to take those things into account you can't just start throwing someone on a bike when they've never ridden a bike without some kind of instruction on you know proper seat height and technique and cadence and all kinds of things. And then you have the risk of them crashing and getting injured on a bike when they're not used to riding a bike. So it really depends on the individual. Me personally, I like to mix the bike in. I always have. I came from a mountain biking background, cycling background before ultra running. I was primarily a cyclist and climber and and I felt like ultra running kind of brought those two disciplines together light and fast in the mountains and no restrictions because you're on foot, but I do use that in coaching if they are cycling or they have dabbled in cycling we try to mix in a percent of volume on the bike. It's a great way to really stay in a strong zone to work out, especially after bigger workouts. So like say a speed workout or another strategic speed workout. So one may be running and one may be cycling. So you have less chance of injury, but you get more quality work. And the other way I like to

use it personally is as it go to if you're feeling niggles or beat up, get on the bike instead of a run, like replace it on the fly. So they have the flexibility to do that. We talk about the training plan being custom to them, but a general guideline and they need to listen to their body and be willing to pivot and listen and give

themselves some grace on days where they can go and ride their bike instead of run if they're feeling beat up. Another great way to use the bike I find and I'm going to talk about the bike because that's what I use and that's what I love. I feel like it really carries over and a lot of like elite ultra runners use the bike for extra volume.

Killian does, David Roch does. I do know that Ryan Sands has over the years. So when you look at people that have been in the sport a while, like Killian and folks like that, they are mixing the bike in for extra volume. And to get through things where they might have a sort of kill ease and they need to like give the body a break but they don't want to lose their fitness. And so the other way we use it is like a long zone, high zone to workout. So you might be going, if you went and did dealt back to back, like say someone's injury prone. Let's say we might do a long run,

and then the next day, you know, the typical things to do a back to back long run when you're in kind of peak volume phase for training and ultras, or that's kind of like passed around a lot in our community, right? As like you should do this. I'd rather see someone do a long run on a day, and then the next day, They're kind of kind of have a sloppy, crappy workout.

It's not going to be that great.

It's going to be pretty easy.

They're going to feel pretty beat up. But if we get them back out on the bike for three hours, they could push zone to the entire time with a high cadence. And they would feel better after the workout and they wouldn't be that beat up. And they'll get that benefit. would you say that the you're seeing mileage swap from maybe on foot to the bike? Each athlete's gonna have their own take. It could be at any age that this could happen. I'm just as we think about time going on, I've found myself wanting to be on the bike on days where I feel more beat up. And I don't come from a cycling background. I had to figure out how to ride a bike

and other options. Well, I think a lot people will have an injury at some point in their career and they're forced to go buy a bike or something. You know, I think the other thing they can use is hiking or cross-training in a gym, you know, like elliptical things, skier, stuff like that. I mean, you could do that kind of stuff.

It's not as sweet and cool as going out on like a gravel.

No, it's not as a gravel bike. I mean, I guess I would say this to the listeners, the one thing I do caution athletes, don't road bikes my last choice, because it's so sketchy. Like your risk of injury goes way up on a road bike. Like way high. It's probably one of the highest high risk categories for injury because of accidents. Because cars just don't see you and everybody's distracted on their phone. Even though they're not technically supposed to be on their phone, everyone's on their phone at times on the road. So I prefer a gravel bike, an older mountain bike that you might put, you know, slicks on, stuff like that. So that way you could get out, you could trailhead commute with it, you could just cruise around town on it and just do like neighborhood cruises, you know, stuff like that, simple things, flat pedals, very simple wider tires, you know, fall over or slide out in a gravel-y slick section. You know, just trying to keep things safe. Jeff, you know, I agree with you. I was putting in high mileage, but had to go to the bike because I didn't have much left of my body. I couldn't put anymore miles in without risk of injury. So I transitioned to do some combination of the two. And as a result, not only did I keep healthier legs, but I developed strength in my quads that I didn't have from just running. And all of a sudden I felt like below my waist, I was more of a machine down there instead of a one-sided machine. It was really good for me for muscular development and creating a complete system. It was an eye-opener. I was really surprised if that happened. Hey Jeff, I'm curious. The logic would say as we get older, we have a longer recovery time or more difficulty to recover from a hard workout. And that's kind of the truth that I have in my mind, but as you're talking about this, I'm thinking if you're training smarter, maybe as you age, you can get better and more efficient at recovery. Is that what you find in your coaching clients that we can actually train our body to be more efficient recovering by the types of workouts we do? Or is it a linear graph that as we age, our recovery slows? I would argue, most of your recovery is coming from mobility and nutrition. Not workouts, because that's one thing everyone overlooks. Everybody focuses on working out, and it's actually nutrition and mobility and strength, I I think that helps you be resilient and gives you the resources you need and it helps you explore like with mobility work it's going to help you explore where like oh my right calf is tight before it trickles down into your killies and then you have a chronic Kikili's issue right or my hip flex hip flexor from doing cobra. Oh, man, my hip flexors are really tight. I need to spend a little more time on those. So for me, I do a 10 minute mobility routine at minimum of three times a week. I always do it when I do my three strength sessions a week. So a minimum of three days a week, I'm doing some kind of mobility work to explore where I'm tight So I can head things off at the pass and stay Keep really good movement patterns, but also because one of the things that happens is we age we lose our range of motion So let me say slower on down hills if we kick a rock and go flying down the trail We're gonna kiss dirt instead of being able to pull out of For example, and then the other thing is nutrition and high protein as we age because high animal proteins because they're more bioavailable. And if you're vegetarian out there, you need to double your protein based on the recommendations I'm going to give for animal proteins. So that's a minimum of gram per pound of body weight per day. That's your minimum baseline on a bigger day. which probably be 1.2 to 1.3 grams per pound of body weight. And if you're a vegetarian, that needs to be double that number, or at least 1.5 of that number, because the bioavailability and absorption of those vegetarian sources of protein, there's a lot of anti-nutrient sent them. And you actually, you only have about less than 50% bioavailability of those vegetarian sources of proteins. So whenever we have vegetarian athletes, we really have to have a long discussion about bioavailability because they'll be like, oh, I'm getting plenty of protein. It's like, no, you're not. It's not bioavailable. So we need to have those discussions. So they're educated on actually what they're putting in their body. Boy, just on that last comment you made, I came up with like 10 questions, but I'm going to start with the easy one. And that is, tell us what mobility is. I've heard that term many, many times. We know it's important. Is it stretching or is mobility different than stretching? Tell us, give us some examples of definition and some examples of what is this mobility training that you do three times a week. Active stretching. So think like yoga style moves. I am very time efficient with my stuff. So I can't go to an hour yoga class. I'm not going to have that kind of time in my day with a full-time coaching load and training. So for me it's a 10-minute routine, it's about 10 moves. I'm going each one in a one set, say of 12 moves of that move or 12 reps of that move. And I'm spinning about an exhale or two or three within the move, right? So I'm counting my exhales and how many I'm doing. So for example, I have a, it's a progression workout for me so I would start with like cat cow and then I would move to down dog to cobra and then between those two, I might throw in pushups with it as a warm up for strength. So in between or a pushup plank where you'd hold a plank in a pushup position. So there's some core work mixed in. Then I would move to like mountain climber lunges where I'd lunge up and then reach to the sky. So I, and I'm moving my neck and shoulders and everything. So I'm keeping really good range of motion through my upper body too. I'm trying to work on upper body and lower body and midsection. And then, you know, I'd work in the 90s. So you work in hip mobility. I even mix in some some leg raises where you're in the 90-90s, so your back foot's coming off the ground, so you're doing hip mobility. Then I go to the quad stretch against a wall where you're doing a forward lunge, like on a knee. If you ever see ever seen the couch stretch, sofa stretch for your quad, it's similar, but against a wall. What else? Side lunges and ATG split squat. ATG split squats are big one. In my 50s, I felt like I was losing range of motion and good downhill speed. And I started working about two years ago. I really started working on ATG split squat three days a week. And you know, which is kind of the knees over toes move. And And to really work on ankle flexion and knee strength in the full deep lunge, where the knees jutting way out over the toe, like at least we say a good knee flexion and ankle flexion with your foot flat on the ground when you're in that deep lunge should be a full hand width in front of your knee, of if you've tried runners are not going to have that kind of mobility. And that really improved my downhill running in my 50s. I got my speedback with that kind of move. And no knee pain either because I'm always like making sure that I don't have any tightness there. Right? So those are kind of what I'm talking about, I guess, when it comes to mobility. Because we lose that range of motion as we age especially. I want to ask both coaches, Jeff and Chrissy, how many times or when runners come to you new, are any of them doing mobility training? I do no mobility training whatsoever.

I have done a little bit better on strength training

because I know that as you age,

you should get in the gym more and build lean muscle mass,

but I don't do any mobility training.

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