Hey, fam, welcome to the free trail podcast. Of course, I'm your loving host, Dylan Bowman. Here today was Zach Miller, the legendary trail runner who will need no introduction.

Zach is, of course, one of the most decorated and most beloved trail runners of the last decade

plus. As we talk about here, people admire Zach, of course, for his success and his results,

but obviously more so because of how he approaches the sport and how he displays his personal character.

As we are releasing this episode, this week, Freed Trail is also releasing a new film about Zach's Race at the 2025 Hard Rock 100.

The film is entitled A Lap for Bill, a moving tribute to his friend Bill Dooper, who I'm sure many of you

are already familiar with and who we discuss at length in this episode. So if you haven't yet,

after you listen, go check out Ryan Throer's newest beautiful art piece over on the Free Trail

YouTube channel, a project that we did in collaboration

with the North Face. And while the episode does function as a bit of a companion piece for the

film, it's more just an exploration of Zach's values and an opportunity to catch up with the

legend himself, some topics that we discuss. We just sort of get a

current life update from Zach, his various construction projects, how they overlap with his running.

That led to a fun exploration of the art versus science debate in sports, something that Zach just

wrote a piece about in I Run Far. Then we reminisce a bit about the good old days.

We talk about the impact of Bill Duper, reflections on his experience at Hard Rock this summer.

We talk about Zach's personal life orientation for a while, his high effort level, his toughness, has no excuse his attitude.

We spent some time on the world champs,

talk future goals, and a lot more. It was a super fun convo. Always great to catch up with Zach,

and I'm grateful that he came back on the show. Before we get to it, thank you to our sponsors who make the show possible. Osprey, never second, and keep tone IQ, find links

and discount codes in the show notes cut corners on is your pack.

For me, that's Osprey. Osprey makes packs that are purpose-built, incredibly comfortable, and most importantly, totally dependable when you're enjoying big days out in the mountains. Their Duro and Dina

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