Jon Rea | From Runner to Racer
The Freetrail Podcast with Dylan Bowman
Dylan Bowman
4.8 • 866 Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2024
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jon Rea is a professional trail runner for HOKA, living in Boulder, CO. In 2023 he finished 4th at CCC and broke the CR at Javelina Jundred. Next weekend, Jon lines up as one of the favorites at the Black Canyon 100k. This podcast is a companion conversation for a training video Freetrail released, documenting one of the final key workouts in Jon's build to Black Canyon. In the podcast we discuss the following topics:
- Jon's background and family
- "From runner to racer" philosophy
- Team sports as the foundation for his running career
- This important moment in Jon's career
- His training for Black Canyon
- Flux workouts
- His unorthodox taper strategy
- The value of hardwork
- His PhD work and career at RMI
- Not needing a Golden Ticket
- "Big Cat Mode"
- Who Jon admires
Sponsors:
- Grab a trail running pack from Osprey
- Use code freetrail10 for 10% off Speedland Footwear
- Use code freetrail15 for 15% off Gnarly Nutrition
- Roark Apparel -- Listen to the ad or DM us for the code
Freetrail Links: Website | Freetrail Pro | Patreon | Instagram | YouTube | Freetrail Experts
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Other Freetrail podcast episodes you might enjoy:
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, fam. Welcome to the free trail podcast. Of course, I'm your host, Dylan Bowman, and today our guest, John Ray, |
| 0:22.1 | the ascendant trail running star for Hokka, living in Boulder, Colorado. Last year, John was fourth at |
| 0:28.2 | CCC and then secured a huge victory and course record at the Havillian 100, two performances |
| 0:34.1 | that have firmly established John in the upper echelon of professional athletes |
| 0:38.4 | in the sport globally. And now here we are, 24 and it's Black Canyon Race Week, one of the most |
| 0:44.7 | competitive events ever to take place on American soil. And John Ray goes in as absolutely one of the |
| 0:52.4 | favorites to win. And here he is, finally on the pod to go long form. |
| 0:56.6 | This episode is sort of a companion piece to a training video we released today on the |
| 1:01.3 | free trail YouTube channel documenting one of John's final important interval sessions before Black |
| 1:06.9 | Canyon. Again, that video is up on the free trial YouTube channel now, and there is a link |
| 1:11.0 | in the show notes of today's episode. We talk about the session that we document a bit here, |
| 1:16.8 | but it's a different type of workout that might influence your own training. So again, |
| 1:21.6 | make sure either before or after today's episode, you go check out the full video too. |
| 1:27.2 | It's about nine minutes in length, |
| 1:29.4 | and in my opinion, it is one of Ryan Thrower's best efforts yet. In this episode, we talk about |
| 1:36.6 | John's background. We talk about the from runner to racer philosophy that he's focusing on right |
| 1:41.7 | now. We talk about his team sports background, this critical moment |
| 1:46.2 | in his career as I see it. We talk about his training, flux workouts like those we capture in the |
| 1:52.3 | video and why they're useful. We talk about the value of hard work. We talk about his PhD work and |
| 1:58.4 | his career in the environmental space at RMI. Of course, we talk about Black Canyon, |
| 2:03.8 | not needing a golden ticket, how that might influence a strategy, and a lot more. It's a great |
| 2:08.7 | conversation. And as I said, it is Black Canyon Race Week. So, of course, fantasy is open for |
... |
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