Welcome back or welcome to the single track podcast. I am your host, Finn Melanson, and the golden ticket talks keep on rolling.

In this episode, we talk with the second place female finisher at the 2022 Bandera 100K, Ellie Pell.

Ellie is an east coaster based in the Finger Lakes region of New York, where she has put up strong results on the local circuit there, as well as at the JFK50 in recent years.

In addition to the recap of her race at Bandera and her initial thoughts on Western states, we talk about her mental approach to Ultras, the East Coast trail running scene,

including a relatively new media establishment, the Trail Collective, that definitely caught

my attention and much more.

Ellie dropped a ton of memorable quotes in this one that I will be thinking about for some

time.

Her approach to racing is interesting and I think it will

bode well at Western States, but we will see. At the very least, as an East Coast expat myself,

I will certainly be rooting for her. Let's get started. Ellie Pell, welcome to the single track podcast.

Thanks for having me, Finn. It's great to meet you.

And I should also say,

congrats on punching a ticket to Western States in June.

What's the immediate reaction now that we've had a couple of days to digest?

Yeah.

Well, once I finally got a good night's rest,

I'm able to like soak it in.

But I have to admit that Saturday night through

Monday night, I was, I was kind of like a shaken up bottle of cherry pop. Like I was just like very

overwhelmed and very just not sure what happened. But also I knew something happened because I have

this golden ticket on my wall

...