Hey, everyone. Dylan Bowman here. Welcome to Pillars. Thank you so much for being here as always, but especially for

this one, an episode that I view as a very, very important episode. Today, I welcome my good friend

Mario Frioli to the podcast to talk all about the big news in Trail and Ultr Running.

That is the recently announced partnership between UTMB and Ironman to create a new organizational architecture in Trail and Ultrunning

called the UTMB World Series.

This announcement was made last week and understandably sent shockwaves

through our little sport with a lot of confusion and strong feelings on both sides of the

argument. And Mario is here to talk all about it. In addition to being a really

good friend of mine, Mario is really one of the most knowledgeable and thoughtful people that I

know about the industry side of running at all levels. You probably know him from the Morning Shakeout

newsletter and podcast, which is hands down

the best collection of running content to grace my mind space every week. He's a person I really

respect a lot and really, I think a perfect person to have this conversation with.

And while he and I definitely don't agree on everything,

our goal was to help each other think a little bit more deeply about this topic

and what it potentially means for the future of the sports of Trail and Ultraming.

But keeping the conversation friendly, never straying from our commitment to stay civil and honest

with one another and with you, the listeners who also care as much as we do about the sport.

We start the episode just by laying out the facts of the announcement as we understand them about what the new series will look like

on a practical level before we shift and add our own editorial commentary on what we think about

the news and its potential implications.

We tried to keep it balanced, obviously addressing both what we view as potentially

...