Alpine Start

Katie and Germain both have top-10 finishes at UTMB and have won races like the UTCAM, MIUT and the Swissalpine Marathon. Together, the pair traversed from Cervinia to Chamonix in 3 days along the summer Haute Route. The project, which they completed in 2020, was documented by On Running in a production called “Taming Giants”. Among other skimo races, the two have raced the Pierra Menta, and this winter Katie raced 2 Skimo World Cups for the USA. We talk about navigating a career as a professional athlete when your partner is doing the same, training in the mountains throughout the seasons, the ties between skimo and ultra-running and much more. 

Originally from Lago di Garda, Davide Giardini’s athletic background ranges from FIS skiing to pro triathlon where he achieved 4 pro wins, dozens of podiums, and a World Championship top 10 representing Team USA.  After retiring from pro triathlon in 2018, Davide got into the local skimo scene and has since achieved top performances domestic races. In 2021, Davide founded the Boulder Skimo Club to introduce more people to ski touring and unite the local uphill community under one voice. 

Rory Kelly is one of America’s most beloved skimo racers in the humor department. A former Cat-1 cyclist, he's incredibly fast on skis and has notable performances in World Cup skimo races, at the Skimo World Championships and in teams races like the Belle Etoile, the Pierra Menta, the Grand Traverse, the Power of Four and more.  In addition, he works as a software engineer at NCAR in Boulder. 

Alex was the first American woman to finish TDS this year, holds the unsupported Wonderland Trail FKT and has completed the Mount Rainier Infinity Loop. She’s a jack of all trades- from epic mountain adventures to throwing down quick times on trails to make it atop the podium. 

Based out of Portland, OR she’s also a dog mom and dietician/sports nutritionist who works primarily with endurance athletes. In the nutrition realm we talk about fueling for performance and joy, eating enough and common pitfalls she sees with athletes. 

We also discuss TDS, how to keep stoke high with packed race calendars, the dichotomy of social media, why having amazing sponsors matters and much more. 

We discuss Rea's approach to endurance sports, the sport of OCR, her wins at the 24-hour races in Sweden and Telluride, her 24-hour vertical record attempt last year and why she loves being a multi-sport athlete. We also dive into how the pandemic was the impetuous for her recovery from an eating disorder and  the pressures of being an elite athlete. We also talk Olympic dreams and her future in skimo.

Sean Van Horn is an incredible athlete, but mostly he’s an incredible human being. He holds the second fastest time on the Nolan’s 14, nearly broke the North American Men’s 24 hour vertical record and has some impressive race results including 4th at the JFK 50 miler this year.  With a background as a professional cyclist, he is now an ultra runner and skimo racer.  In attempting the 24 hour record attempt, Sean decided to open up about his struggles with mental illness and raise money for the Aspen Strong Foundation.  He's continued to inspire with his candid, often brutally honest, openness about mental health. Among other things, we cover his experience this past year with Overtraining Syndrome, his perspective on living with chronic pain and mental illness, his relationship to sport and the stigma around eating disorder. 

What is it like to race in Europe as a young pro-cyclist? How did TrainingPeaks metrics like TSS become industry standard? How can data inform training? What is the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in performance? Is there a connection between training transparency and clean sport? Join me in discussing these questions and more with co-founder of PeakwareHolding and TrainingPeaks, Dirk Friel. 

Olof Hedberg is the Head Coach of the Summit Nordic Ski Club and Director of Applied Sports Science at Silicon Valley Exercise Analytics. He also has experience racing professionally as a nordic skier and adventure racer.  ⁣Olof has a tremendous breadth of knowledge on anything and everything from youth nordic coaching, to approaching development programs like businesses, to exercise intelligence and individualized training for high level athletes. ⁣ ⁣ We discuss how his professional racing experience and MBA have allowed him to help grow SNSC tremendously in the past few years. We dive into developing high caliber, elite athletes with a focus on longevity and health. Olof shares his take on the ever present, “skiers are built in the summer” sentiment and how this relates to a system heavily reliant upon training camps + post-grad programs. We also dive into the promising future of US nordic and the startup Olof works for in the realm of exercise analytics. ⁣It was fascinating to learn a bit more about nordic development programs and I love that there are so many pillars we can take from the training of elite nordic skiers to apply to training for skimo and mountain running.