UTMB Preview with Katharina Hartmuth & Robbie Britton | The Refuge

This week on Trail Talk, Sage Canaday joins the show, recorded in Chamonix during UTMB week. He gets into how the sport has changed since his first UTMB in 2015, the year he wore bib number one, fell before the Pyramides and ended up taking a helicopter off the mountain from Bertone. Four UTMB starts and one finish. Leaving the Brooks track programme in 2012 with no sponsor and moving to Boulder with everything in his car. How pro trail runners actually make a living, why the salary and the bonuses matter more than the prize money, and what that does to who turns up and who drops. Eighteen years of YouTube and what he learned making videos nobody watched. Getting older, strength work and mobility, and why he is looking at Cocodona and a backyard next.

This week on Trail Talk, Aaron and Ricki get into life after Vietnam and China, the Denis Rankin Round on 13 November, Aaron's Sydney Trail Series 24k with a sore throat, the Bhutan 40k run entirely above 3,000 metres, the UTMB major qualifying system and how deep the fields at Kodiak and UTA really are, two free entries to the Granite Peaks Ultra in the Mourne Mountains, and the weather at Moab 240. Then Mika Thewes joins to talk about two and a half months training in the Aosta Valley, the salt and cramping problems that ended her Tor des Géants, going from Tor to the Mammoth 200 on two weeks' notice, finishing as first woman and second overall in around 54 hours, and why she is going back to Tor next year.

This week on Trail Talk, Aaron Kubala joins the show, recorded in Chamonix during UTMB week. He set the course record at Tahoe 200 in June, won Bigfoot 200, and has Moab 240 still to come this year. He gets into where the time actually goes in a 200, why he slept nine minutes at Tahoe and planned for none at Bigfoot, the one to five in the morning crux and getting to sunrise, back to back to back long runs, the shift to liquid calories, why power hiking is the most undertrained thing in the sport, and running 150 miles step for step with a Serbian runner he had never met at the Gobi. Plus Cocodona in 2027 and the Tor after that.

This week on Trail Talk, Max King joins Aaron and Ricki, recorded in Moxi, Sichuan the day before the Gongga 100. It is not a race preview. He gets into the Salomon TV era and why the stories mattered more than the results, where the adventure has gone in a product led sport, and how he moved from steeplechase to Mount Marathon, obstacle racing and the 100k road worlds. Why he never had a good hundred miler, the move to Kailas FUGA nine months ago, the youth camps, and the bucket list races he is chasing now, including a glacier descent in a helmet. Then trail culture: public lands, respect, fell running, big expos against grassroots races, and what we don't yet know about trail running's history in China.

This week on Trail Talk, Aaron and Ricki get into it from Hanoi, the day after the Vietnam Mountain Marathon. Ricki's 50k in a World Trail Majors field, eighth overall with an age group win, over 3,000m of gain on clay mud in 95% humidity, and learning from how Wicklow went wrong. Kailas FUGA athletes taking the 100k, the crowds in Sapa, cows that would not move, and why the whole weekend felt so genuine. Then back to the Tor: eight days fastpacking the route with over 18,000m of vert, the pre and post race interviews, and Katharina Hartmuth's run.