Hey, fam, welcome to the free trail podcast. Of course, I am your loving host, Dylan Bowman, and today I'm joined by Lottie Brinks, one of my new favorite runners in the sport.

Originally from Germany, Lottie runs for Solomon, now making her home in beautiful Boise, Idaho, and like many of the interesting people in the sport.

Lottie is also incredibly talented off the trails.

She and her husband, Aaron, operated design consultancy.

And if you follow Lottie on Instagram, you know that she designs and produces some pretty

cool stuff by hand while she's huddled over her sewing machine at home.

And at only 28 years old, in addition to being incredibly talented and creative, Lottie is

emerging as a superstar in the

world of trail running. Bursting under the scenes in 2021, the last six to nine months have really

seen Lottie establish herself as one of the best in the game. She won the Grindstone 100K

back in September, earning a golden ticket to the upcoming Western States 100.

Then she built on that momentum this spring with victories at both the Big Alt of 50K and the Gorge

Waterfalls 100K, the two races that we at Free Trail co-own and co-direct with our friends at

daybreak racing.

So I have had the honor and the pleasure to witness Lottie's talent

personally this season. And I was really excited to have her here on the show. Some topics we

discuss Lottie's design background. We talk about some of her early running influences. We talk

about lessons from building a small craft knife operation. We talk about design collaboration and business

building with her husband. We talk about the driving force of joy and optimism in her training.

We talk about Lottie's introduction to trail and ultra running, her coaching relationship with

Tyler Green, her breakthrough performance at Grindstone. We talk about her races at the Big

Alta and Gorge Waterfalls this spring. And finally, look ahead to her final training block and

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