Rod Farvard | Western States 2025 Pre-Race Interview
The Freetrail Podcast with Dylan Bowman
Dylan Bowman
5 • 773 Ratings
🗓️ 24 June 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This interview is part of Freetrail's coverage of the 2025 Western States 100, the most important trail running event in North America. Our shows and athlete interviews are hosted each day by Dylan Bowman who sits down to talk with some of the favorites who are racing this year.
In this interview, Dylan talks to professional runner, Rod Farvard (HOKA) for a pre-race interview in advance of this weekend. Rod lives and trains in Mammoth Lakes, California. Rod was the breakout star of the 2024 Western States 100, throwing down an incredible performance to take second place behind champion Jim Walmsley. He is the second fastest man in Western States race history. Rod comes in as the fastest returning male runner and no doubt a favorite. He is hungry to be at the front and drive the sport further. Good luck, Rod!
Make sure to tune into all of Freetrail's coverage leading into the 2025 Western States. We'll have a daily show Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of race week before we set our sites on the official broadcast where Dylan will be commentating, and we’ll be providing photo and video coverage of the race for the Freetrail social channels. Make sure to follow along here and @runfreetrail on Instagram.
Make sure to play Freetrail's own fantasy trail running at https://fantasy.freetrail.com/events and pick 10-deep for Western States. Fantasy winners this week will receive a head to toe trail kit from HOKA as well as other sweet prizes from Freetrail and brand partners like Ketone and Neversecond.
Our Western States coverage is brought to you by our good friends at HOKA. We're grateful for their generous support and belief in Freetrail.
Make sure to check out the latest and greatest from HOKA, the Mafate X. The Mafate X is all about innovation and pushing past limits. HOKA evolved their max-cushion trail experience to provide the confidence, control, and adaptability ultra runners require for their biggest trail efforts. Embracing the paradox of max cushion and stability on trail to develop a new experience for the longest adventures.
You can learn more and shop here: https://www.hoka.com/en/us/mafate/
Freetrail Links:
Website | https://freetrail.com/
Freetrail Pro | https://freetrail.com/pro/
Patreon | / dylanbowman
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/runfreetrai...
YouTube | / @freetrail
Freetrail Experts | https://freetrail.com/experts/
Dylan Links:
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/dylanbo/?hl=en
Twitter | https://twitter.com/dylanbo?lang=en
LinkedIn | / dylan-bowman-06174380
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to free trails coverage of the 2025 Western States 100, the grand daddy of Trail 100 mile racing celebrating its 52nd year in beautiful |
| 0:22.9 | Olympic Valley, California. I'm Dylan Bowman and the whole free trail team is here on the ground |
| 0:27.7 | doing daily live shows in partnership with our good friends at Hoka and we couldn't be more |
| 0:33.6 | excited. It doesn't need to be stated, but Western States is truly one of the great sporting |
| 0:39.2 | events in the world. It's been a major part of my life for the last 15 years, and it's an honor |
| 0:43.9 | to be able to bring our coverage to the global trail running community. As I said, our coverage |
| 0:49.1 | all week is made possible with support from Hokel the brand born from Trail Running, the presenting |
| 0:54.0 | sponsor of Western |
| 0:55.1 | States and the makers of some of the most popular footwear and apparel products on the market. |
| 1:01.2 | You'll hear more from Hoka during the show, but please visit Hoka.com to check out all of their |
| 1:06.1 | amazing trail products. Best sport ever, best week ever, best race ever. Western states is here. |
| 1:15.6 | Thanks for joining us. |
| 1:27.2 | Fire it up. Okay, we are back here with our pre-race interviews the second fastest man in western |
| 1:33.8 | states history returning second place finisher also rod farvar welcome to the studio buddy thanks doing |
| 1:40.4 | great to be here the hoka coffee Yeah. The highest placing returning finisher. |
| 1:47.3 | Does it feel like you have a bit of a target on your back this year? Not really. I feel like |
| 1:52.8 | other people have put themselves in the limelight and I'm all for it. Say more. What do you mean? |
| 2:00.3 | No, I mean, because your race last year, we will all remember. |
| 2:03.5 | It was one of the Western States races in history. |
| 2:07.7 | You and Jim Walmsley doing battle all the way to the closing miles. |
| 2:11.4 | You getting then pushed from behind by Hayden Hawks, both collapsing on the track together. |
| 2:16.5 | For those of us who are there in person, |
... |
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