Welcome back or welcome to the single track podcast. In this episode, we meet with Mike Foote,

a professional athlete for the North Face and race director of the Rut Mountain races based in Missoula, Montana.

Mike and I talk about his entrance into and early influences in the sport like UTMB,

his relationship with the North Face, why Missoula is such a great

place to live and train before focusing the bulk of the conversation on his experience as a

race director and how he views and thinks about the sports past, present, and future through that

lens. I was particularly excited to have Mike on the pod because he is so fully

immersed in our sport and things critically from so many different angles. As an athlete,

business person, fan, activist, the list goes on. It is my hope that the growth and increasing

sophistication of our sport allows for more people like Mike to devote their life's work to it.

Anyways, let's get started. I really, really enjoyed this one. Welcome, Mike Foote.

Mike Foote, welcome to the single track podcast.

Good to be here, Finn.

I got to say, by the way, before we get into this, you have one of the best running names of all time.

It doesn't get much more specific than foot.

You are not the first person to tell me this.

Yeah, as somebody who worked in a running store, as a shoe salesman for many years in my 20s,

I got that feedback a lot as well.

I think that the best place to start, because I don't personally know this story, is how did you get into ultra running?

Yeah, you know, it's a circuitous path.

I grew up in northeastern Ohio playing ball sports and not running at all or doing any sort of endurance activity. But through my undergrad and time of college, I bit by bit made my way out west and found trail running through,

you know, just, I guess I began running and got into 5Ks, 10Ks, but quite quickly transitioned

...