Team: All right, welcome back to the Live Ultralight podcast. We are going to wrap up our touch, your Mountain fast pack. We've got the whole crew here. If you haven't listened to part one or part two, make sure to go listen to those. They will set up part three here where we're going to be finishing out the last half day or so of moving. And also just taking away the biggest takeaways the biggest Lessons Learned and some
Team: things like that. So yeah just make sure you go back. Listen to those First episodes before we start day three. So at this point just to recap a little bit we have covered about 20 or 47 miles with ten and a half thousand feet of elevation gain in two days. So two days, 47 miles 10 and a half thousand feet of elevation gain. We're all pretty beat up and I'm still battling some some stomach issues stomach
Team: sickness. Brennan on day two, his knee stabilized, pretty Well, except for one part where I tried to have him run down a hill on kind of a side Hill, and it seemed like it was that side Hill that bothered you. But other than that, Brandon was was feeling good at that point. And I think everyone else was just you know fill in the fill in the miles but doing well, I don't think anyone else had like
Team: a specific injury or problem going on for them, but So we wake up day three, it pretty much rained. A lot of the night, most the night. It felt like, I don't know. I was tossing and turning, but I don't know if I was registering that I would definitely woke up thinking, like just crossing my fingers. One of those like, you wake up and you're like, Hopefully, hopefully, my stomach is just normal and I'm gonna be
Team: good to go today and everything's gonna be great. And it didn't take me very long, stood up out of my tent, and it was just Like, nope, I'm the same. My stomach is still churning and But I I need to try to get some food down and so just again still battling some of that. But Yeah, I was cold though, too. Getting out of 10 sad day putting on cold wet shoes that day I feel like
Team: was was worse. Yeah, it was extra cold that morning and putting on wet muddy shoes. It's not Like you, I would equate it to the times when I have been doing other trips more in the winter months for him, putting on Frozen boots. Um, it was about as bad as that because not only were you putting on wet shoes. But in the winter, I usually at least have dry socks. Warm dry socks that I'm putting into
Team: the wet boots. But now it's like now, let's first like, Paint on wet socks like drag them onto your feet and then slide your feet into some lovely soaking wet shoes. I don't
Team: think I have the same experience as you guys. I did mention the last episode that I had a pair of socks for every day because they were really lightweight and really small and but anyways, I just was able to put a dry pair of socks on in the morning, which then I did put into what shoes, but I don't think it was quite the same experience that you're explaining here for me, was in too bad.
Team: Driving dry socks. they do, I What Brandon said? Yeah, I got dry socks as well. Yeah, I did too. I took a pair of socks for sleeping and a pair of socks for running. So on the third day, my sleeping socks now became my running socks for, for that day. So I ran and wet socks. The the middle day because I just didn't care, just put on wet socks. But the third day, Brandon dry socks that
Team: I've been using for sleeping. That's it, it's a mental.
Team: Yeah. I feel like you guys are on a different level here because I have dry socks, I was putting my shoes, but I knew they were gonna get wet. Five minutes later. There was no comfort with having a paradise socks that were gonna get wet for me. So
Team: as soon as you put small Comfort, yeah.
Team: To me is like I dreaded putting my nice warm feet into that way. But I mean, for me, by the time my socks are wet, you know, by the time they're in their five minutes later they're wet again, like. Yeah. That they get wet but by that point my shoes are also warm.
Team: Yeah. You just preheated just a good point. I don't think like feet were cold in the wet shoes, but yeah, something about wet, can't tell. I don't like being wet Brigham's, the cat of the office, apparently just it's the water. Any of you? I don't know. We got up, we rolled out a camp pretty quick to the same drill where we're like. All right, we'll find a place to have breakfast a little bit farther, down the
Team: trail, I definitely was trying to eat, you know, as as I was packing up camp and try to get some food down for sure, but pretty much the same as the day before, where it's just very small amounts of food, but
Team: I did have a little bit of confusion right off the bat. When we started hiking he takes off a little early because, you know, he's still in sick and so he's like I'm gonna get a head start and go slower. I'm all packed up so he's like I'm out of here. Trying to get a head start. The rest of us, could catch up to him later and I think it was daring that went with him, I believe. And anyways,
Team: Darren is always ready with his backpack, on fully, loaded up about 30 minutes before most of us wake up. He
Team: so these guys are rolling out and then my Stroke of Luck comes in clutch. And here we go, passing another Trailhead with a porta potty. And so well, I will take advantage of that this morning as well. And I hop in there and doing my thing, and I get out and there's nobody around them and everybody left already so much. I think. This kind of took off to the people that hadn't gone yet. Were just at
Team: that point, trying to catch up to taste it as well, was my assumption, I didn't know really. Anybody was even behind me at all, at that point. so I'm just kind of hiking down this Trail by myself for like three miles I think and, I really had some questions about, I have no idea if this is even The trip, like I am, just going. But I mean it's going down and I know this is day three
Team: and we're gonna get out of the mountains today. So as long as it's going down, I think I'm okay.
Team: Turn out to be. All right, I think,
Team: but ended up being, I ended up being on the right Trail and caught up to these guys chasing stopped with Darren. They were filtering some water in a stream but you know, for a while there there's a number of miles, I was a little bit confused and then I paused and looked around a few times. I just stopped running. It might just look around and think about it again and I keep running and then I pause,
Team: you know, half a mile later. Think about it. And after a couple of poses, I finally saw Brennan starting to catch up to me in the back. So I just waited for him and like, all right, well, I guess we're lost, we'll be lost in the same place because he didn't have, he didn't have A Garmin in reach or anything either and didn't know the route like I didn't. So
Team: Finally, I was pretty Main Road Trail to follow. We
Team: were we were on the right way. I just did not spent a lot. Of up in that mountain. I really enjoyed that
Team: first section. I can I thought was like me and Darren. I was like, yeah, we'll just get walking in and warm up our muscles and stuff like that, and I really enjoyed that section of Trail. It was, it was just super pretty, super rugged. Country was raining, wasn't raining for a half a second. Yeah, it was it was nice but essentially we all got caught back up. And started climbing up this past to go through a
Team: pass where we're gonna get onto a trail and go along the backside of the this Ridge. And that's where you kind of like, you know, it was probably pretty cool last night. They're still piles. Piles of hail In any kind of crevice or just areas where they pulled up and marble sized tail. Big big. Yeah. Like we're a hard hat type of pale, but it, and it didn't melt all, you know, all night. So it was,
Team: it was definitely cooler. Which kind of was a good reference for just, some of the sleeping gear in and how that worked out. But Yeah, we climb up through the pass went past, an old mine shaft Derek tried to get into it, but it was pretty well closed up so we didn't have to lose him down to mine shaft. And we dropped way way down and started this other really cool really remote, Backcountry trail that I've
Team: never been on before and before we did that
Team: taste and actually almost let us on the wrong trail but I guess I don't really know and so they were ahead of me. I was about in the middle of the group and they were taking off down this trail and I see this sign off of the side with an arrow pointing down off of, you know, the totally different direction for these. Other guys are already heading and so I yell out of them and stop him.
Team: Say I don't know, you might want to just look at this sign at least and you've got the map but Who am I to speak here? But also I'm gonna speak. I ended up being the right way. So these guys had to walk back up the the trail in the ways in this little walk of shame having watched the wrong way for about 500 yards or 500 feet. I mean and in my defense the
Team: trail I was on was much better than the trail you pointed out. So It's pretty bad. Yeah, it was burning area too, but it was the start of not the start, but it did go right along with the battle that I felt like me and Tyler were constantly having with navigation between his iPhone and my Google pixel phone because I am convinced that his iPhone's GPS is very slow to update. So he was he was always
Team: a little ways off whenever he'd pull out her phones at the same time. So when you set that on my mouse, just Tyler. It is just wait for GPS to to load up, buddy. Come on, but we we had disagreeing opinions on Whose GPS and phones were working better. Good, checking balance. It was coming out. Yeah, but yeah. But anyway, so we drop off their. Got on this really cool Trail. I really, really enjoyed the trail.
Team: There was a very steep downhill, which sucked, but then after that, it was just a lot of working our way down, or side healing across this Ridge for a lot of miles, a lot more miles than I thought that section was going to be. But just a really cool section of Trail. You guys, I was looking for wildlife really heavily, we ran into some elk, Darren Darren's awesome elk. and then these guys well, we saw some
Team: raspberry bushes but these guys we started out a little pit stop in a raspberry Farm raspberry headed. Raspberry Hollow one of the impressive things I thought was the first spring that we stopped at for today was like, It's so it was a spring and we were right at the very top of where it came out of the ground and it was like a gushing Creek. And most of the time, you don't see a spring that has
Team: that kind of volume of water just coming straight out of the mountain, and it was so like clean and nice compared to where everywhere else muddy water. We've been filtering. Yeah, run off water. Yeah that was that was really cool. Cool to see a spring with that much volume coming out of it. And then as we side-hill, there was a lot of down trees. We had to get over through the burn area and through some of
Team: those. I'll never figure out. I'll never figure out why that's Brigham's. Favorite kind of Trail. I don't really care for the down trees, but for some reason, Brigham. Just loves the down tree. I was getting pretty doubtful love that route. That it only lasts only like a mile. Yeah, he very specific when we were first planning it, he very specifically. I think called out that section of trail to like yes you better call some Forest Service
Team: guy and make sure that's not like a crappie Trail. And so we started Crossing down trees. I'm like, I'm glad he's a couple minutes behind me on the truck right. Until let's give it a mile that was hard on Brennan's knee, for sure. Yeah, we started a long little Trek through. There's probably down tree, every couple hundred feet that we had to climb over, so
Team: you'd look up and see Brendan or Darren, you know, kind of laying on it and just kind of like sliding off the other side. other guys like trying to climb up and on go off the trail and Scramble over things other guys trying to do the high knees and step over, but it was a big.
Team: It is, it isn't my exercise. Six foot three legs, really come in handy for some of that but don't get high standard as often. Yeah. Oh yeah, we did forget to cover one thing. I just was remembering was, was Brigham's, tingly face. No. Hands. Face both hands on it face and arms. Yeah, it was weird. I don't, it was really weird. Yeah. I, when I woke up that morning and like, got out of got dressed, got
Team: out of the tent and when I was kind of breaking down my tent and packing up the bag, I like knows my arms. Tingly. and I thought it was like, it felt like if you kind of have like a partially asleep arm when you're in sleeping on the Shoulder too long or something or sleeping with your arm above your head, that's what it felt like. So that's what I thought it was. But like we've got that
Team: first. Few miles. We were running. And like, it didn't go away. So I was the heck this is weird. It was it was becoming noticeable because it wasn't going away. And then when we had to walk up that uphill stretch towards the past where then we got on that other Trail, Starting on noticing, my face was going. Tingly and slightly numb. Like, I've been to the dentist where it's like, you know, where you keep like, you
Team: burn up any of your Mountain tea, know, sort of, I'm just wondering if maybe got the wrong thing here that was before we started eating everything. We saw on the trail. Yeah, I was before, maybe that was Helped a little Center. Those mushrooms by accident. Yeah, maybe
Team: Did you dabble with mushrooms?
Team: I may have I don't know. No, it was just really weird and it was it was like just a red flag because Like I, I do this a lot. I spent a lot of time a very physical and so like I am used to like the typical ailments or aches and pains or exhaustion or dehydration, when you have like a weird feeling like that, it's like new This is really weird and it makes it like thought
Team: about it a lot. So I was hyper aware of everything that was going on my body. So I was trying to push too hard and like, you know, I was the third day so I was tired and I was paying attention to it, and I also didn't have much of an appetite because it's just tired of all the food I'd had. And I was trying to I was eating thinking maybe if I just slowly eat, it
Team: would help, but I think it actually that's what started helping was just eating a little bit of a few things at a time for like, a one or two-hour period and then my my face came back. I could feel my face normally again. Yeah, it was just two or three hour time period where I just had the tingles and my face felt like I've been to the dentist and and I remember you said, you talked to
Team: some people after. Did you ever diagnose what you thought it was? Or I just exertion or yeah, the two. I talked to two family members that are doctors and just kind of gave him the whole description of the scenario and the lead up to it and It sounds like I just had really low blood sugar, and was just depleted on calories. And that's just one. One of the symptoms that can occur, you know, it sounds like,
Team: I just woke up and I didn't deep breakfast. When I got up. I didn't put anything in my body. So, yeah, we just get a three, four miles thing again. Yeah, that's what that's what they both said. Like you just got up and started running. And you like burnt through your stores in like 15 minutes. And so, then you've got your body, just started, like trying to pull everything. so, Pretty interesting stuff for sure. I feel
Team: like when we're when you push to this level you you're always going to learn new things but which will I want to dive deeper into, but I always feel like anytime you stretch your body a little bit, past the comfort zone and do some of that, you get to learn new things and you can kind of look at it. Like I don't want to experience that again or you can look at it. Like what can I
Team: learn from that? And for me, I just always like, to look at it. What can I learn? And how can I improve? But so, yeah, let's kind of talk about finishing up the trail. I mean, that section of Trail again, was just super awesome, really? Really enjoyed it. I did practice what I said. Oh, I said, we ate everything we saw on the trail but really we just got to this one. Beautiful little waterfall spot and
Team: the whole entire Hillside just covered in wild raspberries. and, Tasting and Darren had gone. A ways ahead Brennan was wanting to get ahead because his knee was slowing him down getting over the trees. So Derek Brigham. And I just like, picked out on raspberries, like black bears. Like we just climbed all the way up. Like, was all the way up the side just like, oh, look at that bush. Oh, look at this one. Like we were
Team: just spotting them and, and going for it and we ate quite a bit.
Team: Yeah, picture. This entire hillsides covered in raspberry bushes above, and below the trail.
Team: It was awesome. They were all full right.
Team: Yeah. Right, berries, they're ready. And yes, amazing. I think I'm ready for lunch now. Yes, I haven't, I didn't take my lunch today and I that's And then we found like, right currents and we actually found a little bit of mint too. On the trail. I will say just don't eat anything that you're not 100% sure what it is way out there. Yes,
Team: that was my thoughts. After I had been accepting you.
Team: Let's put the book there, put some of this in your mouth. I'm like oh okay and then shove it in. Now my you know really know the time. Starting to go now.
Team: And then, like, I have perfectly normal for sure, disclaimer. Don't don't eat anything. We said that we ate and researched it out yourself, never eat anything unless you're 100% certain, you know what it is. There are just a few things that I do know that I am 100% certain, and so like, I get really excited when I find those things, anything that I'm skeptical of or not 100% certain I would never I wouldn't eat myself. Let
Team: alone give to Derek. We did know that there was mushrooms that people with forage through four through that Forest. But we didn't know which ones it was. And it looks like there was three or four species there. And so we just didn't mess over with the Mushroom House of Wonderland looking. Yeah, we don't really get that many mushrooms in Utah. We get some but there was so much rain this last month here that I've never ever
Team: seen so many mushrooms in my life on the mountain, which definitely left me thinking, man, I really wish I knew more about mushrooms because I'm sure some of these would be really good eating and some of them might help me sleep at night. I don't know or
Team: might make you run off a cliff
Team: or its Ah, anyways, so we get to the end of this section of trial. We T into basically a road and the last section of the, the hike, the way that we wanted to do is we wanted to go highway to highway or freeway to freeway I guess more so or highway to freeway whatever and pavement to pay. I'll stick with that one and so we basically at that point got onto a dirt road and had
Team: to finish out the rest of the hike. And I think that was a about seven or eight miles that last section of running down Hills about 3,000 feet down or two two and a half thousand feet down about seven miles, eight miles and We had actually done 1800 feet of climbing in that side hilling. We kind of. Well and that time to get to that passes. Yeah. Pretty kind of thought that it was like all downhill
Team: on day three we have some pretty good climbing and then when we got off of that back country trail and had to go down the road it was all downhill and it's like to see him steep downhills the start too. It's just your quads quick. And I was like 11 miles of Straight downhill in the rain. Yeah,
Team: and I think this is, this is honestly where my hiking felt like it was coming apart. I started and I was thinking, all right, Brendan has said multiple times his knees aren't good at downhill and this and that like I'll just hang out with Brennan and and Ride This Out to the end. And then next thing I know Brennan's like flying past me down the road and I'm like, oh great. Good. Not so, anyways, so we
Team: get like, halfway down and still doing, okay. But I'm definitely starting to feel it, pretty good Brennan, Darren and Derek are ahead and it's kind of me and Tyler and bring him in the back group. And Still kind of piecing together but I can I can feel like I'm not doing as well, not doing as well. And then we get down to the last two miles and a really flat and out. And that's where that was
Team: probably the biggest wall that I had hit by far on that trip. But maybe ever because by that point in the day, it was like 1:00 and Hadn't eaten breakfast. I had maybe a piece of jerky and didn't we didn't stop for lunch because we were all just so focused on finishing the trail. And so, I, those last two miles which were literally flat, some of the easiest miles of the whole trip were probably some of
Team: my hardest miles of the entire trip, just because of where I'd allowed myself to get into. Now, it would have been much smarter, and if we were going longer, I definitely would have forced to stop forced calories. Down tried to hold them down without puking and kept moving, but where it was so close. It was just so this last signing out shiny object, right in front of you, like just finished, like it's just right here, like
Team: we don't need to stop, we don't need to eat, we don't need to help Mary, just go for it, you know? And and I, I paid for that. I I definitely paid for that crossing the finish line per se and finishing that trail. But yeah, I mean any other thoughts just on closing that before we kind of jump into just some some takeaways? I mean I feel like that super consistent steep grade downhill for those last
Team: seven miles. Was physically one of the hardest things that we did, because your quads and stuff were just kind of locking up as you're running down, down down down, and you've had your pack on and it was interesting because we all thought that would be by stuff. That was the easiest very stretch ever.
Team: I think it just depends on your training, your body type, your muscle types. Because for me, it's probably, I would assume Darren that probably was the easiest part of the trail for sure.
Team: So, if you're under 120 pounds soaking wet, It's easy to run down. It was like yeah, I was like two things for me like physical effort. Was not difficult, it was not intense, but it was the pain. It was the joints. It was my, my knees and the bottoms of my feet. so, it was like, In terms of being like difficult like most it was more the most painful miles for me because like yeah effort wise
Team: it wasn't too like effort was not intense. It was the constant like pounding.
Team: That's more to me. I think to be fair Darren and I both been doing a lot of training around like half marathons and things. So we've been running and
Team: a lot of the half marathon races that we run are downhill for 13 miles like that and
Team: you're running on harder surfaces than like we're at tip. Like at least me and Tyler been running a lot on Trails versus you guys. I feel like maybe you're used to running on harder surfaces too, like roads and we were running on a road, a very packed road for the most part so I'm sure that it was just a little bit harder surface than you know, Rhythm and Tyler were used to as well. I didn't get
Team: the knee and the joint pain or even the muscular pain. I just had nothing in the tank so I was kind of in the middle of U2. I feel like yeah
Team: for me it was just pretty easy like, like gravity do the work at that point, all you got to do is move your legs back and forth. You'll feel your feet will hit the ground. Just
Team: move your legs an hour down the trail. You just like forward kick your other leg
Team: forward. You don't really have to like, exert yourself to. Take a step, really just a moving your legs back and forth in your feet. Kind of hit the ground. You just move down a hill and gravity literally is doing it. I think, the reason some people feel pain is because they try to slow themselves down to much which There's some Woody to that with you know, trying to be careful and not fall or injure yourself but
Team: at the same time it's a lot easier sometimes just to go.
Team: Yeah, I mean definitely can run down here faster than anyone. I know some people have better cartilage and Internals in their joints that others like I'm old and Haggard and I know my joints have been damaged. So yeah. Well, so then we cross the finish line. How did you guys feel finishing it? I mean just I guess walk us through some of your guys' thoughts when you when you finish it out. There and was probably like,
Team: all right, let's go home. Easy peasy another day work, but the rest of us, you know,
Team: well, we actually Darren and Brendan and I we actually ended up walking the last couple of Miles, because we we figured man, we're just probably so far ahead that we're just gonna be sitting around if we finish two soon. And so we were gonna try to like, Slow it down and maybe give you guys in the back group of chance to catch up a little more because we really didn't, we were talking about it, we really
Team: didn't want to just sit around. Yeah, to
Team: the end. So the last part was a special easy for us because we literally were just walking through like two miles. So when we got there, like just joking around because we're walking, we're talking, it's really easy and we're kind of just joking and like, oh yeah, we made it. There it is. This is kind of a casual thing for the front group.
Team: Yeah, I agree with that.
Team: So, but it was cool to see like that, you know, where we were finishing the freeway. It's like this big old bridge right in front of us. So just seeing that Finish Line, right? There was really cool to see and kind of exciting to get to, after that long trip, it was just really beautiful sight. Never said that about a rug before. It's pretty cool. I don't know me
Team: and Darren were joking around because if for those of you that don't know, we had somebody drop off a car. At the other end so that we didn't have to have somebody come and pick us up and every time me and Darren saw a car like oh man, we hope McClinton Park this in the right spot or that would have been a really good spot for me to park. And so I think we're all just excited
Team: to kind of get on the trail, get off the trail and get in the car and just be done too even though it was an amazing experience. yeah, I was gonna say I don't think like the distance or the accomplishment said in until we were in the car and then paralleling that mountain range on I-15 and
Team: and like it took us About like 40 minutes of driving to to parallel that whole entire mountain range. And so I was just staring out the window at those mountains, the whole time, like, tracing back the distance that we had gone and looking at it and thinking, man, that's Like we went a long ways in a pretty short time and that is some really rugged country, so that was kind of when, when it really said in
Team: was like a while after when I was looking at it again. So yeah,
Team: I'd agree with that. What I thought was cool was when we were driving along the highway, you can see where know, the mountain range in the distance. what I thought was cool is we were driving, it was overcast but what was really raining but looking up at the mountains and just like Seeing the clouds and knowing exactly where we ran through. And you're like, I know what's happening in these clouds right now, because we ran through
Team: it for like three days. And like, I thought that was kind of like a fun mental exercise to, like, mentally put myself way up there where those dark clouds were and, you know, there's lightning going on and, you know, it's pouring down and windy and it's like, yo, we just went through. We just went through that and now we're just driving down the highway. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I I think, at that point, most of us are
Team: just thinking food for whatever reason, nothing sounded good. I mean, I could eat some of that jerky of Darren's, but everything else. Just sounded so terrible. but a Subway sandwich with like extra mayonnaise, for whatever reason sounded like The best thing ever from my day two on. So I was just like, get me to a Subway I don't just a weird thing, but that's I was craving and I that's about the time I was able to
Team: start putting food down. So I'm gonna Jump Right In first, I guess to my biggest takeaways. I'll start with with that. specifically, and my biggest takeaway hands down was I've been trying to figure out what the heck happened when I got home, one of my brother he said that he'd actually had a bit of a stomach bug, it could have been that it could have just been pure exertion. It could have been me flushing out electrolytes
Team: by like waterlogging on day. One, maybe just started me down about path. It could have been a variety of things but the one thing that I do feel like the big takeaway for me was, is I will now and going forward, do my best to pack a variety of food. I was packing, 4,000 calories per day to eat. I knew I was gonna be burning well over that, but was just trying to pack as much food.
Team: As I could focus a little bit more on calorie per ounce, and but there was just things like Brennan, he pulled out a tortilla, you know, and I was just like that looks so good right now, but it's like just little things. And so to me going forward, I'm gonna actually dial back. My my focus on the calorie per ounce side of things and just go for a massive variety. I finished the trail with probably 75%
Team: of my food on eating which is a lot of food. I'm eating. Over three days like I just barely, I had less than one day's worth of food that I actually ate over a two and a half day. Trip. But if I just felt like I had maybe more variety, maybe something in their would have been, all right, for me to eat and just help me push forward, but I think just varieties is, is the ticket
Team: there for me. So you're gonna see me pack more variety, even if I'm dialing back the gallery account, I can get in and say, a two-pound per day, food budget, wait, budget. I think it's more important to even get 3,000 calories in. You, then 4,000 calories and not be able to finish it because you don't like the food. So we're gonna be messing around with that. We also kind of a side note, but I think we're
Team: going to be getting a freeze dryer here in the office so that we can experiment with just even snacks. Like, I'm still a massive proponent of peak refuel, I'm still gonna use that. I'm still gonna eat their stuff all the time, but I kind of just want to play around with freeze drying, supplementary things and, and snacks, and other items that I can, that I can eat and try to keep down. So, that was my biggest
Team: lesson learned. So let's go around the room real quick and go through the biggest lesson learned and then we'll dive through the the most important thing you took and and something you could have left home. So we'll start with you, Brandon, just speaking have you out of the way so we don't talk over you and then we'll kind of move through the rest of the guys. Right now, we're just doing the biggest lesson learned, correct? Yeah,
Team: just biggest lesson learned first. So, for me, the biggest lesson learned, my biggest struggle is we've kind of talked about throughout. This three-part series, was my knee pain. And what I kind of just learned from that was just kind of get ahead of injuries, both physically, and mentally. So just the second that I start feeling it, I just feel like I need to maybe take Ibuprofen earlier. Make sure that I keep that pain down and keep
Team: moderating it. And then the biggest thing for me was like, get ahead of it, mentally as well. Like just give myself a goal, like, hey, I'm gonna make it through tonight and then see how I feel in the morning. And then the next one. Okay, let's make it through this next PATH and then we'll see how we're feeling after that. Or you can get to this downhill stretch, I think just getting ahead of the injury. Not
Team: only physically, but mentally is like something that really helped me throughout that trip and something that I really want to continue to practice. This because I saw even tasting every time we hit it downhill stretch he was in filming good and he was still running testing his boundaries and so that was something that kind of motivated me to. Get ahead of my injury injury mentally as well, which I think is kind of what gave me everything
Team: that I had that last day in the tanks. So, that's my biggest. It's awesome, Derek.
Team: You know, there's a lot of cool inspiring things that I noticed. and learned, but I say the biggest is just pretty much comes back down to toilet paper. Toilet paper. That's
Team: the thing that I keep thinking about the most since this trip, you know, on day three. I,
Team: I ran out of toilet paper,
Team: you use nothing but the public portfolio, one square per session is all you need. Well, I
Team: pretty much have just had toilet paper and in my backpacking stuff. Oh my God. I didn't like hardly use any on this last trip. And it's good for the next trip kind of a thing, right? And so I thought I'd funny which, you know, just looking at the roles like, yeah, looks like you should be fine. But You know, after for day, one and two as we passed all these different trailheads. I mean, mentioned this in
Team: the last two episodes, if you haven't listened to those go back and listen to some of those are some more comments on this about it. But we got pretty lucky and we're able to use porta potties as we navigate through multiple trails and passed different trailheads. And so on day three, the last day I ended up using some toilet paper in the woods and I ran out. Luckily I had just enough but I just start started
Team: thinking like man that was close. Like I'm gonna be honest with this. You can say, you got
Team: 75% of the way done and oh no use mint leaf. I just,
Team: I really do think I had a stroke of luck this whole trip. You know, I mentioned last episode. Yeah,
Team: you would have run out way faster.
Team: My stroke a lot came in every time I had a porta potty, just when it was a perfect time of day for me. Well, day three, my stroke will continue because I had just enough and then I would need to use any until he finished out Trail. but I did run out and I didn't even have to Use it hardly at all because of all the different trailheads, we passed. So, I've been thinking about that a lot. He's
Team: gonna use all of my, I don't think I went like one time on the trip, there's nothing coming in the top. So
Team: that was my biggest takeaway. I really think that that would have been a game changer and his gonna be a game changer. We have another trip coming up next week, that's gonna be all week long. It's gonna be a game changer for you. And there's For me to use up there.
Team: Oh, definitely not our houses. So
Team: that's been on my mind. I think of all the things I learned, that's my biggest front of mine thing.
Team: All right, that's not a problem. You want to have, its, yeah, maybe you need those little bidets that everyone's were even about now. Yeah, screw onto your water bottle. Hey, but days are awesome. Don't down. All right, Tyler. So Um, I kind of had two. The first one was just like Solidifying. In my mind, the value of working up to bigger trips the way that we have because we put a lot of time and effort into
Team: like trying to make sure we had good shoes and to make sure that we were fit enough to do it. And and like to know, What our heart rates were and to know what our calorie burn was over 20 miles. And so we had a good idea of what to take with us on the Fastback. And and then we got to go out and like, actually test that in an area where there was an option for
Team: bailout points. Like like had anything gone wrong. There was those six points where we knew someone could basically drive like pretty close to where we were because like going into The Highline Trail in the unto his next week, we're not going to have anywhere near that kind of bailout points can be 10. Miles of hiking down a trail to get to a bailout Point. Yeah, exactly. So like you learning like I feel like what you
Team: had was a probably a stomach bug or something based on the training we've done but like Learning what you need to know about calories, to make sure you got it and like, like everyone else's lessons being learned on this one, where there was less at stake, really helps us to be that much more prepared for the next one. So that was like, we knew that was going to be a good thing, and we knew we should
Team: do it, but we just didn't know what we would learn. So I think it's just really critical that you work your way up to bigger and harder trips. The other thing that I learned was like, right along the lines of like I knew that over 20 miles from our previous Shakedown stage of the hard line challenge in those 20 miles. I had burned almost 8000 calories and so like we were trying to get 4500 calories in
Team: our packs and When it came down to it, I feel like I could eat 4,000 calories a day, but like not really anymore. And and eating that much a day, which is like, literally twice what I normally eat. Made me have to go to the bathroom way more. And it was a combination of like The new medication I was taking me having irritable bowel syndrome and then just being running that much more. Like it was it
Team: was an ordeal and luckily I knew it was gonna be an ordeal. So I packed a ton of
Team: toilet. I was just gonna say, I see that you guys were in the same tent to save a little bit of weight and I'm seeing
Team: a combination of someone who used a lot of toilet paper and someone who's somehow the seriously ran out with never using it. So no Brandon was what no. But
Team: that was like a big surprise to me like just the toll that took on me. And and so like going into the next one, I'm not gonna try to pack much more than 4000 calories knowing that I can't really eat that much more. But also just knowing, like, It's a good thing to test how you do in that situation when you have a new medication before you get really far back country and before there's more at
Team: stake and so I was just really glad that we had that test before we hit the high line.
Team: So for me it kind of goes back to what if you guys have been talking about and that's about the preparation side of things. For when we were starting. Or before this trip started, literally the day before I hadn't really considered the weather. and before then I was considering bringing a little tarp to sleep under and just a cheap Poncho to run with like just in case it rained but with the weather we'd had before, which
Team: was Like, about a week of raining. You know, we're gonna be a lot higher, there's gonna be a lot more rain. And I watched the video where literally the same area where we were going you know we had a company trip there before and David got wrecked by hail and this was good whether you know, when they went. And so this is just a random storm that came through and What it comes down to, for my
Team: big takeaways, I had decided the day before. After that preparation. I better go get some rain jacket and I better bring a tent. So I took a few extra pounds. I hadn't planned on but it was the best decision of my of my trip. It was just to bring a few extra pounds. So the extra preparation that you can take is always going to be worth it. and, Even if it costs you a few pounds, I
Team: would much rather be caught with a rain jacket, then without it with that whether we had. And so I'd say for anyone, if you're wondering if you should Not bringing the protective gear. You should try to bring it.
Team: Yeah, I really like everybody. Some of them I made like a list and some of them are all the same things that people have said, I definitely Echo taste in the, on the fueling slash food calories area. Like that's a huge learning opportunity. One of the thing I was just thinking about. Before with that too. Is like, you know, you're burning more calories than you can take in, like, you can't get away from it, you're gonna
Team: run it a deficit. So, like Just make sure what you do. Take you can get, you just really like it and can really get down because I don't know if it really matters, if you're burning 6,000 calories, does how much does it really matter if you eat 4000 or 3,500? You know what I mean? Like, does that 500 get, you're already at a deficit so that was something. But yeah, I mean, it was pretty wild. I
Team: came back here. I think I threw it in slack, but I was like five or six pounds lighter than when I left. Okay, I wait in the morning, I left and was five or six pounds lighter, but I'm sorry going. No, you're good. Oh no. I I really don't know how I lost 0 weight, like a pound for pound. I was like exactly the same way and I I ate less every day. This is crazy. Anyway.
Team: Um yeah you lost a swell up, man. You get this. I get a demon in my in my legs. Like my legs. Hold water. And Yeah, so the food one, I would Echo everything tastes and said. So my biggest lesson learned or takeaway, I'll just read kind of my note was make everything as easy as possible logistically physically Packing camp set up eating drinking. Etc. So try and run through these logistically, making it as simple as
Team: easy as possible. So like we tried to piece together the most efficient route that we could taking advantage of Roads. When we could just things like that. Like, making it as simple because when you're fatigued and exhausted. Like we already talked about, like, your cognitive abilities. Like, you don't want to have to think about things. So like, if you simplify and make certain things as logistically easy, like, that's the route. That's, you know, from where you
Team: pack things in your pack and in the order that you're going to take them out and anticipating that it's going to be rain. So like just making everything is easy as possible, physically, again, like that's like easier to If there's an easier way, that's going to take less effort to get around an obstacle or over an obstacle or through some, you know what I mean? Just like, do what? Is easiest? Because it's probably now has less
Team: risk of injury, which is going to slow down the group. So that's kind of like the physical aspect and then I kind of talked about camping or packing camp set up. We talked about that earlier, just like make everything as easy as possible. Take it out of the pack in the order you can need it have things prepped in your pack so that it's a fishing as possible to use or set up that item. So like
Team: a lot of these were like confirmed on the trip like so it was just a lesson that's like in my mind. No more. More reinforced. And so, some of the lessons were like, I was a lesson learned because something didn't work so well and then backed like to the eating It's hard to eat food that you can't easily access or access. So, like having everything easily accessible so that it is easy to eat, that's like the
Team: one thing and then Like Tayson said. Simplify it by making it food that you normally eat or would normally want to eat. I what I did that I learned is not going to work for me on this type of trip is like, I Always try to be like practical and Frugal. And so, I just picked the same set of things to eat every day. So my meals were exactly the same every day except for my dinners,
Team: but like my lunch, my chest. When I call my chest food, it was the same, like, pack the exact same in the exact same quantities. And, and that became less and less desirable like each day. So like I just ate less and less which, you know, that's gonna come no matter what you'll probably lose some appetite, but it would give him me more of an edge. I would have been able to eat more and have more
Team: calories. Had, I had more variety and less quantity of Like all kinds of things like just stuff that I would normally eat. I and everybody knows, I love gummies but I would not pack half the gummies and candy that I packed because my thinking was quick, hit sugar, just keep it coming. But like I didn't, I couldn't like look at a gummy for several days after this trip, just because I had used them too much. And
Team: then, you know, drinking Having water readily accessible, but I even like bought two flasks each had a filter. So I never even had to try to filter one into the other. I could always just dip both of them in a stream capital and drink them as I went. So just simplifying and making as easy as possible to the procurement and the consumption of water. yeah, that's that's my takeaways. All right. So Tyler gave two Brigham gave
Team: eight. I think we're ready to move on. That's good. Okay we're gonna go like lightning Round Here. We gotta go quick let's let's move this forward. So we've got what is your favorite thing that you took? And what is something that you could have left behind? Um, start with you Brandon. Um, my favorite thing that I took was, I guess we all just love food was definitely the food that I chose to take. One thing that
Team: I religiously do is I try to have my food packed pretty early on in the week and then as I go through the gym, And my workouts, I just look at my Food Bag. I'm like, hey, I just did a workout. What I want to eat that like right after my workout. And if it's no it gets pulled from my pack and I replace it with something else. So just bringing food that I like, I enjoyed
Team: it, I pretty much all my food and then something that I would have left behind I would not replace the baby. I like it for that trip. I had a pair of extra shorts that I just like, never used in my pack. They're just gonna get dirty and I sleep in my underwear. Anyway, I wouldn't bring an extra pair of shorts next time. There.
Team: One thing, my favorite thing from this trip was probably a rain jacket. I I wasn't thinking of bringing one. I was going to bring just the Poncho but I'm really glad I did bring an actual rain jacket. and, Something I would have left behind. I'm gonna see there's not really a specific piece of gear. I would have used my gear but I think I did bring a little bit too much food. If I had to choose
Team: something, I think that's a, you know, good problem to have but um, I just came home with More food than I needed. So, so, for me, the
Team: best thing I took was just my Gator, wool, socks, and shoe combo. Like when we've trail run a lot in the past. It's been annoying to get rocks, and sand in there. So everyone having Gators, kept our pace. Better. I think. And that's where I spent all my money. Like I spent a good amount of money between those beforehand and I was really happy with that. The thing I could have left behind actually did leave behind
Team: halfway through. I had some sunglasses and I that I messed up by getting the 100% deep bug. Spray on him a little bit. And once they started to go, then they just got so scratching room that I ended up throwing them away at one of those outhouses. I didn't even know that and so, so yeah. I just probably wouldn't be even bothered bringing him. Well, and it was overcast the whole time. So yeah, I had glasses
Team: and they never really were on me. So
Team: For me, best thing I brought was either a poncho or a tenth as mentioned earlier so I can't really say one was better than the other but I will say both of those were my favorite and what I could have left is I had a shirt for the truck ride back. carried with me the whole time so
Team: I could have left that I could have left that Darren had a pact that could hold more capacity than anyone else's. So he had the ability to if you wanted to carry more, a lot of us were just trying to get her packed sealed up. They were at the absolute peak of what you could do with those fast packs. That's
Team: like, but that's the only thing I have like extra everything else. I was happy with what I. So
Team: yeah, it's not that bad. Oh, pretty decent. I use. Yeah, I had a tiny pack. I used everything that I took except for the food that I didn't need. My favorite piece of gear because I used everything was meant I needed to take it anyway. Stuff I take on every trip anyway so I'll say something a little different. My favorite piece of gear was my titanium pot, just say, I'm sure glad I didn't. Are pot with
Team: you because on night two when we got into our tents way early and had like 13 hours or 12 hours tent, I was well hydrated. And it was raining outside and I didn't want to go outside. So, I used the pot and a fling method. And after I cooked my meal, by the way, after I had had dinner, the pot came really handy, never had to leave the tent. Yeah, the gear I would leave was I
Team: used everything I would leave That I didn't need. I don't know. I it's important. Yeah, I would leave some gummies. At home. Nice for me. I think the best thing I took was actually my rain killed. Yeah. I mean I it's something that was just kind of a new thing. Never try to try it before and I actually quite liked it. So it was something. I'll definitely take again. Something I could have left. I could probably
Team: second Tyler sunglasses. It was so overcast the whole time. I never needed him could have left behind about 60. 70% of my food. I would have saved me some weight but not, it was I have a pretty trimmed down a list. So I felt pretty good about that. But Okay, well, that wraps up some of the takeaways, but before we close off here, I did want to cover a couple other things. This is part of the
Team: Hardline challenge. This, this particular hike was part of the Hardline challenge. The next thing that we have coming is the winter Highline Trail. All of us will be going except for Darren. Darren's not gonna be able to make that particular one, so he will be missed or as we may call him later Haystack, but we can talk about that later. Okay, so this is jerky. I will miss Darren's jerky but I did order. I don't know
Team: if you notice there's an Amazon box that came in with a lot of jerky in it, but I will be taking on The Highline. See how that goes. But yeah. Overall the that one is going to be really good one. Make sure you stay tuned. We will do our best to to podcast that. If we can do it on the trail, we will. But obviously out in nature, it is can be a little bit difficult
Team: to time, but we're definitely looking forward to that. There's going to be some interesting things. I'm definitely I feel good. I feel pretty confident that I won't have any stomach issues so hopefully that holds true. I I did get bit by a dog this week. So I'm taking some antibiotics and hopefully yesterday I got pretty red and swollen look like it was starting some infections so hopefully that will The date today looks better. So I'm trying
Team: to think what else. I mean, other things are just hard about this Trail though. I mean it's just it's 104 miles. and we're in deep Wilderness, and I mean, like, say like to get off, the trail could mean 10 miles of hiking just to get off the trail, you know. It's, it's just a whole different animal. And it'll be really interesting to see what is harder about one of these hikes versus the others, but should Just
Team: be a phenomenal trip and I'm sure we've all got the things going back on our mind that we're we're prepping for and maybe even a little bit nervous about. But overall, you're going to want to stay tuned to make sure you're listening for those podcasts. So make sure you are subscribed to the podcast. Make sure that if you're enjoying these, you leave us some feedback. Go leave a review on iTunes or whatever podcasting platform you're using.
Team: That does help us out a lot. And if you've got feedback reach out to us directly, just go on our website, open up the chat. I'm not revivals.com, and send us some feedback for the podcast. We love to hear that feedback but any closing thoughts from anyone. Before we wrap this up and turn our sights towards Highline and actually, from now just a couple days, A one thing that I just really wanted to quickly add and
Team: I know this goes unsaid, but we just have some mentally tough people. In this group, it was awesome. Just to do this. And I feel like It was just a big accomplishment, just watching Everybody, hit their different walls and still want to run and still want to hike in the rain and everything like that. Just motivated me a lot just to be in that group of guys with you. So I know goes and said but just
Team: and hang on the line because we'll be doing the Highline Trail, and we'll, I'm sure we will have more stories to go around from that trail and two additional two and a half additional days that we're planning on that trail. So with that, we'll catch on the next one.
