Hey folks, I am excited to share this conversation with Jim Walmsley recorded just a few days before the 2025 Western States 100.

We originally live streamed it on our YouTube channel, but I decided to hold off on releasing the audio version until after the race.

There were just so many timeless big picture topics that weren't directly tied to this year's event and I did not want

them to get lost in the pre-race hype. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as Brett and

Jeff and I did. And just a heads up, we also have a few more of these conversations from Western

Week going up on Apple and Spotify in the days and weeks to come, including our conversations

with Scott Jurek and Tover Gaylord.

Before we dive in, though, a quick thank you to our partners for making this episode possible.

Our apparel partner, Goreware, our footwear partner, Norda, our nutrition partner NACC,

and our equipment partner Raid Research.

None of this would be possible without their support, so please be sure to

check out their links and use their discount codes in the show notes of this episode. With that,

let's get started. All right, quick station ID. We are here live. This is day two of single

tracks coverage of Western States, the 2025 edition. We are fortunate to be joined by Jim Wamsley,

also returning guest, Jeff Cole, obviously trusty colleague, Brett Hornick here. A lot of ground

to cover. There was a lot of stuff we just talked about offline that we should have had online.

Maybe we start with just recounting some of the moments from the battle with Rod last year.

Yeah.

Between the river and ALT, where you did kind of put that final decisive move on him.

But I was laughing about reading Rod's blog, and he remarks on, like, he's talking with Tim,

and he's debating with Tim, his pacer, whether like you're playing

chess with him. And he sees you make this move where you dart off into the trees down to the

...