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A broken back, a fractured knee, and nearly a year off running—then podiums at Pikes Peak Ascent, Kodiak, and Moab. That’s the arc Alicia Vargo takes us through, sharing how a brutal dog attack in 2024 unraveled her season and how skate skiing, patience, and stubborn belief stitched it back together. We start with her fresh Moab Trail Half podium and the course’s split personality—slickrock step-ups, sandy slogs, and off-road pavement—before moving into the training mindset that keeps her sharp late in the year.

From there, we head home to Breckenridge. Alicia talks altitude as the quiet performance lever, the surprising strength of the local community, and why winter skimo and skate skiing are the perfect mix to preserve fitness without the pounding. Then we go deep on her recovery: delayed diagnoses, crutches, months of uncertainty, and the tentative first races at Broken Arrow that proved her body could hold. She opens up about Sierre-Zinal’s balcony trail, heat shock, and the crowded chaos of European starts where elbows fly and gels get trampled.

We zoom out to the sport’s big questions. Should women have separate starts or days? Alicia weighs the trade-offs—clear competition and spotlight versus thin fields and lost atmosphere. She revisits the early Nike Trail years, shifting to Hoka, and why the sport once nudged athletes toward ultras due to a lack of short trail opportunities. Now, with Golden Trail, Broken Arrow, and the Rut, short trail finally looks like the welcoming on-ramp for D1 talent and the most TV-ready version of mountain running.

We also talk storytelling. What Coca-Dona got right with long-form livestreams. Why commentators who race—like Dani Moreno—can translate chaos into context. And why Alicia’s skeptical about the Olympics reshaping trail into a TV-friendly shadow of itself, much like skimo’s shift. Through it all, her message is grounded and energizing: protect the mountain identity, invest in women’s race formats, tell better stories, and give athletes the room to come back strong.

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