Brian Metzler on UTMB, Trade Shows, and Trail Running Hot Takes

Shaun Martin is a Diné (Navajo) runner and coach, the founder and race director of the Canyon de Chelly Ultra, a five-time Shiprock Marathon champion, and one of the featured runners in the documentary 3100: Run and Become. In this conversation, Buzz sits down in Shaun's kitchen in Chinle, Arizona, the day after this year's race, with race gear still being unloaded and a houseful of runners milling around. They talk about the four reasons Diné runners head east every morning (to celebrate, pray, grow, and heal), and the sunrise fire ceremony that opens and closes the race. Shaun explains how a race works inside Canyon de Chelly: the bib doubles as a permit, the field is capped at 150, and the lottery is drawn from his mom's stew pot. They also get into the scholarship the race funds, which stays with a local student all the way to a bachelor's degree, and Shaun's longtime mentorship from Billy Mills. Running's place in Navajo ceremony comes up too, along with hózhó, the idea of walking (and running) in beauty and balance. Fifty-nine years after his first ultra, Buzz finds a few new reasons to keep going. The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

Karina Andersen is a 23-year-old skyrunner, former University of Colorado track athlete, and holder of the fastest known women's time on the Matterhorn's Lion Ridge, which she ran unsupported from Cervinia in 5:14:53 this August. In this conversation, Buzz and Karina get into why a 10K on the track might be harder than the Matterhorn, what happened when she walked off her NCAA team and into the Skyrunner World Series two months later, and why she spent three summers learning one mountain before she ran it. They also cover getting chased by a herd of goats on record day, what an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex has to do with alpinism, the double standard on risk for women in the mountains, and her long-game plan to get into France's elite ENSA guide school. Karina also talks with care about her friend Kalie McCrystal, the Canadian skyrunner who was lost on the Matterhorn on September 1 while scouting her own record attempt. This episode is brought to you by Wahoo KICKR RUN, the treadmill that matches your pace automatically and simulates real terrain from a 3% decline to a 15% incline. Learn more at wahoofitness.com. The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

Stephanie Case is a human rights lawyer, founder of Free to Run, Hardrock 100 board member, and the runner who won Ultra-Trail Snowdonia in 2025 while stopping to breastfeed at aid stations. Chris Twiggs is a longtime Hardrocker and fellow board member. Together they wrote the race's new inclusion policy for transgender and non-binary athletes. In this conversation, Buzz asks the questions everyone else is asking online: why the policy lets athletes register in the category that matches their gender identity, why Hardrock declined to follow World Athletics and the IOC toward gene testing, what the evidence actually says about performance advantage over 100 miles at altitude, and how the race is handling awards. Stephanie walks through the history of sex testing in sport, from the chromosome checks of the 1960s to the SRY screening now being rolled out, and explains why she thinks a lottery-based mountain race has no obligation to import elite track rules. The Buzz is supported by Arc'teryx. The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup podcast network.

Mario Fraioli has spent nearly thirty years in running and still describes himself as infinitely curious, which is how a guy who came up through cross country and track ended up coaching Western States champions, marathoners, and mid-packers alike. In this episode, Buzz talks with the host of the Morning Shakeout about what's actually changed in coaching over the last decade: why the conversation shifted from calories per hour to grams of carbohydrate, why super shoes and better fueling have quietly rewritten how fast athletes recover, and why he thinks a "triathlonification" of ultrarunning is underway, with the Ironman playbook showing up everywhere from UTMB's qualification system to the expo-week vibe at big trail races. They also hash out whether or not running 100 miles is actually healthy. From there the conversation goes to the Dipsea, the oldest annual trail race in the world and the one race Mario has zero interest in running, and then through the seven training fundamentals he laid out in Outside: good runners are athletes first, rest is training and not punishment, small deposits compound, consistency beats intensity, perceived exertion is the most reliable metric you've got, once you get fancy fancy gets broken, and find joy in the drudgery. Find Mario's weekly newsletter and occasional podcast at themorningshakeout.com. This episode is brought to you by the Wahoo KICKR RUN. Learn more at wahoofitness.com.

Trueheart Brown is the fire chief for the Coconino National Forest, a former hotshot, and the 2022 Black Canyon 100K champion who set a course record at the Sedona Canyons 125 this May. In this conversation, Buzz and True get into the golden ticket he won at Black Canyon and the Pipeline Fire that kept him from ever starting Western States, what a hotshot crew teaches you about suffering that no ultra can, why a Ponderosa pine forest that used to burn every two to fifteen years is now carrying 150 years of missed fire, the reason your local prescribed burn deserves your support instead of your complaint, what PM 2.5 actually does to a runner's lungs, and why the whole vocabulary of "fighting" fire might be the wrong frame entirely. This episode is brought to you in part by Arc'teryx and the new Sylan 2, built with a supercritical foam midsole and a forked carbon fiber plate for moving fast on technical terrain. Find it at an Arc'teryx store or at arcteryx.com.