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.

Fred Abramowitz is a retired natural resources attorney, the author of Travels in Africa, a veteran of 75 ultras, and the co-founder and co-race director of Run Rabbit Run in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. In 2012 he did something nobody in American ultrarunning had done before: he put up a $100,000 prize purse, the largest of any trail ultra in the world, and absorbed several hundred internet comments about it. In this conversation, Fred and Buzz get into why paying ultrarunners was the right call and why the purists were furious about it, the tortoise-and-hare start that lets mid-packers watch the elites suffer in real time, the two-person team challenge that almost nobody finishes (three of twenty-one teams last year, and Fred has a theory about which half of each team is to blame), his case for a race directors' association, and the concern that keeps the lawyer in him up at night: that the entire sport runs on volunteer labor and is one disgruntled volunteer away from finding out what that's worth. They also talk wildfire smoke, air quality, and what happens to small American races if the center of gravity keeps drifting toward Europe. This episode is brought to you by the Wahoo Kickr Run, a high-end treadmill with automatic pace matching and grade control from a 3% decline to a 15% incline. Check it out at wahoofitness.com. Featured race: Run Rabbit Run, 50 and 100 miles, Steamboat Springs, Colorado, September 18 and 19, 2026. The 100 miler climbs roughly 21,000 feet through the Routt National Forest and carries the largest prize purse in the sport. Registration is full for 2026, but the waitlist is open at UltraSignup.com.

Dean Karnazes is the author of Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner, a ten-time Badwater finisher, a ten-plus-time Western States finisher, and the guy who once ran 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. Buzz catches up with him in Athens, where Dean has spent the last three years living out his Greek roots, halfway between the city and the town of Marathon itself. They get into Pheidippides and the 153-mile run to Sparta that Herodotus documented as history's first race report (hallucination included), why Greece is the best trail running destination almost nobody visits, the night Dean fell asleep mid-stride 350 miles into a run, the pizza he famously ordered to a moving target, and how he trains and eats to keep racing ultras at 63. This episode is brought to you in part by Arc'teryx, whose new Sylan 2 trail shoe is available in Arc'teryx stores and at Arcteryx.com. The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

Dan Patitucci is a professional mountain-sport photographer and athlete whose images for Patagonia, Black Diamond, and others helped shape the look of modern trail running, and who, with partners Janine Patitucci and Kim Strom, built ALPSinsight and designed the Via Valais, the Alps' first trail-running grand tour. In this conversation, Buzz and Dan compare the three mountain ranges Dan knows better than almost anyone: the Swiss Valais, where the gneiss weathers into silky-smooth singletrack; the Khumbu in Nepal, where the Three Passes route might be the best hard day of running on the planet; and the Eastern Sierra, all granite, taco trucks, and wilderness you can vanish into for 200 miles. They get into how the Via Valais came together one snowstorm at a time, why Dan shoots everything on a camera that fits in a vest pocket, what he learned chasing Ueli Steck up mountains, and his gleefully unpopular opinion about the running in Chamonix. This episode is brought to you by Wahoo and the Wahoo Kickr Run smart treadmill, and by VKTRY, makers of carbon-fiber insoles built to last over 1,000 miles and backed by a 90-day money-back guarantee (vktry.com). Find Dan's trail running guides, maps, and GPX tracks for the Alps, Nepal, and the Eastern Sierra at allmountaincollective.com. The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

At seven years old, Hunter Leininger talked his way into his first adventure race; by ten he was a national champion, and he's spent the eighteen years since turning a childhood obsession into a profession, holding the fastest unsupported traverse of Iceland (370 miles), the FKT for the 1,110-mile length of Florida, and a Guinness World Record for climbing all fifty state high points. In this conversation, Buzz and Hunter get into the strange education of growing up sleep-deprived (including the time his dad towed him by bungee cord while he sleepwalked through a 2 a.m. trek), the actual tactics of staying awake for days (pre-loading caffeine before the crash, fueling so you never fall behind, the ninety-second dirt nap )and how adventure racing builds the kind of toughness that's quietly producing today's best ultrarunners. Then the industry question Buzz can't resist: how a 25-year-old with no Western States win built a full-time career out of FKTs, TV shows, and content, and what the freelance-athlete model means for everyone trying to make a living in a sport with no teams and almost no prize money. This episode is brought to you in part by VKTRY: high-mileage carbon-plated insoles built to last over 1,000 miles, with a 90-day money-back guarantee. Find them at vktry.com.  And, The Buzz is supported by Arc'teryx, and the new Sylan 2 a propulsive trail running shoe designed for speed and reduced fatigue.  The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

Nancy Hobbs founded the American Trail Running Association in 1996, helped establish USATF's Mountain Ultra Trail Council and chaired it for decades, and has served on the international boards governing trail and mountain running for some thirty years. Buzz and Nancy get into the underbelly of the sport: the governance. They cover how the USATF Mountain Ultra Trail Council grew from a $750 annual budget to six figures, what a membership fee actually buys you (secondary medical insurance and drug testing, not just a warm fuzzies), why the biggest races, UTMB, Hardrock, Western States, aren't the official championships and what that imbalance does to the sport, the women reshaping who shows up on the start line, and the question Buzz keeps poking at: does trail running belong in the Olympics, and would it survive the trip? Also: a throwdown, a postcard, and a hard-won case for permission to walk. The Buzz is brought to you by Wahoo treadmills, and VKTRY insoles.  The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

Danelle Ballengee is one of the most decorated endurance athletes in American history, a four-time Pikes Peak Marathon champion, two-time Adventure Racing World Champion, and six-time US Athlete of the Year across four different endurance sports. In December 2006, on a routine training run near her home in Moab, she slipped on black ice on the Amasa Back trail, fell roughly 60 feet, shattered her sacrum, broke her pelvis, and spent two sub-freezing nights alone in the desert before her dog Taz led search and rescue to her location. In this conversation, Buzz sits down with Danelle at the Moab Public Library to revisit the golden era of adventure racing under Mark Burnett's Eco-Challenge, coming back two decades later for Bear Grylls' rebooted World's Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji alongside Travis and Mark Macy, the fall that should have killed her, and what it feels like to live what she calls borrowed time. Danelle is the founder and race director of the Moab Trail Marathon and Half Marathon, held the first weekend in November.  Check out VKTRY performance insoles that allow you to make any shoe a carbon shoe for a fraction of the cost.  The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.  

Matt Carpenter is the most decorated mountain runner in American history, 18-time Pikes Peak champion across twelve marathons and six ascents, holder of the Pikes Peak Marathon course record at 3:16:39 since 1993, and the man who took 90 minutes off the Leadville Trail 100 record in 2005 with a 15:42:59 that stood until 2024 when broken by David Roche. In this conversation, Matt walks Buzz through what 33 years on top of Pikes Peak actually requires: the obsessive training math behind the 3-2-1 workout above 12,000 feet, the consistency-quality-quantity-rest pyramid that shaped every season, why a 90.2 VO2 max isn't the whole story (running economy is, and his was poor until he trained it), and the moment Ricardo Mejía's 1992 win lit the fire that produced the record the following August. They get into Matt's Fila SkyRunners years racing flat marathons at 17,060 feet in Tibet, his unconventional Leadville fueling system, 50 calories every ten minutes, watch set to beep, why he carried bottles in his armpits before running vests existed, and what made him retire on his own terms at 47 after winning Pikes Peak six years running. Plus the custard shop, the Planet Fitness bench-press streak, and a clear-eyed take on whether his marathon record will ever fall. This episode is brought to you by the Wahoo Kickr Run, the smart treadmill with run-free mode and automatic grade control from -3% to 15%. Learn more at wahoofitness.com. The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

Dave Mackey is a two-time USATF Ultrarunner of the Year, former rim-to-rim-to-rim Grand Canyon record holder, JFK 50 champion, and, after a freak fall off Bear Peak in May 2015, thirteen surgeries, and a voluntary below-the-knee amputation in November 2016, one of the more improbable comebacks in the sport. Buzz and Dave recorded the first part of this episode on the exact rock Dave fell off, on the summit of Bear Peak, in an actual snowstorm, wearing actual shorts. In this conversation, Dave walks through the accident itself and the friends who got him off the mountain alive, why he ultimately chose amputation over more reconstruction, what proprioception feels like on a carbon-fiber running blade, his pre-Western States taper (rock climbing in Tuolumne Meadows), being one of the first American athletes to lace up a pair of absurd-looking early Hokas, and why he thinks modern ultrarunners are faster, better rested, and, for the most part, smiling more than his generation did. He's signed up for the Leadville Challenge again this summer, and he's still, as Travis Macy puts it, a runner's runner. This episode is brought to you by the Wahoo Kickr Run — a high-end smart treadmill with Run-Free mode (the belt auto-adjusts to your pace) and automatic grade control from -3% to +15%. Check it out at wahoofitness.com. The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

Jason Blevins is a veteran journalist at the Colorado Sun who has spent nearly three decades covering outdoor recreation, public lands, and the mountain communities of the Colorado high country. In this conversation, Buzz and Jason dig into the slow-motion crisis unfolding across the Rocky Mountain West, a snowpack at 61 percent of normal, a 103-year-old Colorado River Compact straining under the weight of 40 million people's water needs, and ski towns facing an identity reckoning that has been building for years. They talk about what it looks like when mountain communities diversify away from a sole reliance on chairlift riders, why the ideal town might be "just shitty enough," and how the housing crisis in places like Crested Butte and Aspen is a preview of pressures playing out across the country.  The conversation opens up into something larger: outdoor recreation as a $1.3 trillion industry that has earned a seat at the policy table — and the responsibility that comes with it. This episode is brought to you by Wahoo KICKR Run. The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.