Ryan Montgomery | Western States 2025 Pre-Race Interview
The Freetrail Podcast with Dylan Bowman
Dylan Bowman
5 • 773 Ratings
🗓️ 21 June 2025
⏱️ 18 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, Ryan Montgomery (Janji). Ryan is a force in the trail world - he’s an incredible athlete with impressive performances at top races like the Javelina Jundred, Leadville, Tahoe 200 and more. Ryan is currently a student at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. As a gay, queer athlete, he is passionate about creating community for LGBTQ+ athletes and making the outdoors more inclusive & equitable. Ryan is also the Founder of Out Trails, a community of queer trail runners, that hosts retreats and group runs around the country. This will be Ryan’s 3rd go at the Western States 100.
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 provide 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 | Okay, we are back in studio here for Western States pre-race interviews. |
| 1:32.2 | Joining us now, Ryan Montgomery just finished up the vertical here at Broken Arrow, |
| 1:36.8 | the Broken Arrow Ascent, I should say. |
| 1:38.6 | How was it out there today? |
| 1:39.6 | The Ascent, that was only two plus miles. |
| 1:41.8 | But it was fun. |
| 1:43.2 | It's something I don't really do. I'm not like a V-O-2 |
| 1:47.1 | max expert, but it was just fun. It was enjoyable. Why did you jump into it? So for our viewers and |
| 1:52.8 | listeners, three Western States athletes were on the start line today. Killian, Chris Myers, |
| 1:58.0 | yourself. Why did you do it? What were the goals? How did it go? I don't think I had any |
... |
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