Faster Forward with Troy Busot

019 - Justin Ricks - Mad Moose Events

Sometimes, in order to live a life of purpose, one must sacrifice the spoils coveted by the rest of us. 

In order to live their dream of building a life and family business centered around running, today's guest, Justin Ricks quit his corporate job and moved with his wife, and two young children into the 60 square feet of their pickup trailer to save costs while building Mad Moose Events from scratch.

Today, Mad Moose hosts 20 events annually - mostly trail ultras in and around Moab, Utah, and Colorado Springs, Colorado. The family business, co-owned by two generations of Ricks, is poised to grow in 2021, in spite of the effects of COVID on our industry. 

2020 has changed the perspective of many of us for how we see our lives. If you're looking for a nudge or a shove in the direction of following your dreams, please listen to this, Episode 18 of the Athlinks Podcast.

So if you're ready for the show, crank it up and let's go.

Justin Ricks' Athlinks Profile

Thomas Ricks' Athlinks Profile

Mad Moose Events Website

Mad Moose Events Instagram

Outro:

The best way to support this podcast is to be sure to click subscribe on iTunes or follow on Spotify to be notified of new shows and give us a rating and a quick review on iTunes.

We do a special post for each episode on Instagram, so look for the post for episode 19 with a picture of Justin if you have comments or questions - we are @athlinks or shoot us an email to [email protected]. 

Share it with friends far and wide to help spread the word, tell people about it when you're in line at the grocery story - and, until next time, happy racing everybody.

17. Claire Bird

A seed is acquired a generation before watching her father run the Montreal Marathon, planted years later at a Mother's Day 10K in Calgary, and grows into 3 Boston Marathon finish lines of her own - and counting.

Our guest today is a wife and mother from Calgary who has self-coached her way to capturing 4 of her 6 stars in the Abbott World Marathon Majors. Join Claire Bird and me as we discuss her Marathon journey and how she has used consistency, the force of will, and an ear-to-ear grin to cross some of the biggest finish lines in the world. 

One of the goals for The Athlinks Podcast is to give voice to not just the elite endurance athletes of the world, but to folks who are crossing their own epic finish lines while juggling work and life along with training and racing.

Claire Bird Athlinks Profile

Quote:

18:24-19:15

I like to look at all of the training plans and sort of pick and choose what I think works for me and what I think I'm missing and usually if I feel like it's something that's too hard it's probably because that's what I need in my training.

So to push yourself, I hate short sprints,  like 400s are probably what I hate the most, so it's probably what I need the most.

Social Connections

Boston (Finished)

Chicago (Finished)

Berlin (Finished)

NYC (Finished)

London (Registered)

Tokyo (Registered)

Abbott World Marathon Majors

https://www.instagram.com/wmmajors

And that's the show! Hope you enjoyed it - more people racing more often having more fun in the process is our mission. Thanks again to ClaireBird for sharing a slice of Calgary with us. Best of luck chasing the 6 Stars.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. We do a special post for each episode on Instagram, so look for the post for episode 17 with a picture of Claire if you have comments or questions - we are @athlinks  or shoot us an email to [email protected]. 

Share it with friends far and wide - give us a review if you dig it - and, until next time, happy racing everybody.

Ep 16: Bill Bucklew

Our guest Bill Bucklew, waxes philosophic as he shares his journey through a diagnosis of young-onset Parkinsons in his early 40s. Not one to let it slow him down, it launched a series of finishes from Ironman Wisconsin, a stroll from Georgia to California, and has put him in-line to earn his 6-stars of the Abbot World Marathon Majors.

This is a conversation that I think will stay with me for the rest of my life. Bill is a super inspiring guy - a totally unassuming savage as you will see - I think you're going to love hearing his words and his story. 

Athlinks Profile:

Foundation: Uncorked Adventures:

Parkinson's:

1999 Chicago Marathon as a 1 and done

Symptoms in 2005, misdiagnosed as sciatica

2012 Diagnosis

2014 Attempted to swim across Lake Michigan

2020 Napa:

Hope you enjoyed it - more people racing more often having more fun in the process is our mission. Thanks again to Bill Bucklew for sharing this story, making us think, and hopefully, start being a more savage version of ourselves.

The best way to support this podcast is to be sure to click subscribe on iTunes or follow on Spotify to be notified of new shows and give us a rating and a quick review on iTunes.

We do a special post for each episode on Instagram, so look for the post for episode 16 with a picture of Bill if you have comments or questions - we are @athlinks or shoot us an email to [email protected]. 

Share it with friends far and wide to help spread the word, tell people about it when you're in line at the grocery store - and, until next time, happy racing everybody.

Rebuilt from a pile of bones scattered on a California roadside after a speeding truck interrupted his lunch ride, our guest has forged a savage will and unmatched intensity over his 30-year racing career to notch:

I sat down with Kevin Gillotti - today's guest - to discuss his philosophy on discipline in both life and racing, and what it has taken him to prioritize finish lines above nearly all else in his life. 

Athlinks Profile

Blog

Instagram

14. Fitz Koehler - Overcoming Cancer While Leaning Into Races 

Runners. Set. Go. Our guest today has exalted these 3 simple commands over loudspeakers at races like the Los Angeles Marathon and countless others to kickstart the journey of tens of thousands of runners over the years. But when she found a pea-sized lump in her breast that turned out to be cancer, those commands became her mantra to begin her own race against an aggressive tumor. 

On the podcast today we sit down with Fitz Koehler - renowned race announcer, fitness advocate, author and, now, cancer survivor about her journey and, like the title of her book, My Noisy Cancer Comeback - Running at the Mouth While Running for My Life, - her survival.  

Athlinks Profile

Blog

Instagram

Morning Mile Program

Quote:  "If I wasn’t so aware and physically engaged with my own body and aggressive in the pursuit of health, I’d be dead. You'd be talking about me, instead of to me." 

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. We do a special post for each episode on Instagram, so look for the post for episode 14 with a picture of Fitz if you have comments or questions - we are @athlinks  or shoot us an email to [email protected].  

Share it with friends far and wide - give us a review if you dig it - and, until next time, happy racing everybody.

013 - Kelly Catale

Grinding through deep valleys and high over mountain peaks, pushing and suffering through despair and isolation - these are feelings familiar to any elite-level mountain biker. But when the physical pain is exceeded by the emotional ache of depression and anxiety, no amount of fitness can ease the torment.

Instagram

THE FAQ SERIES: HOW DID YOU GET HERE? (PART 1)

Quotes:

"I’m a coward because I am willing to accept praise without sharing everything. Even worse, I was inadvertently exploiting a system that is designed to repress publicizing something so incredibly common in our population."

"Part of my motivation to stay active and insanely busy is to keep myself away from the Darkness."

Like Thelma and Louise, our guests today take an epic leap from a cliff – only they land in the Pacific Ocean off the shores of Catalina Island. Hear their race recap of the 2020 Ötillö, a race featuring a total of 7km of swimming intermixed with 31km of running.

If you're looking for something a bit more challenging than your neighborhood 5k run, join Jen Pfeifer & Erica McClurg on the Athlinks podcast we sit down and relive their March Ötillö Catalina race and describe what it takes to complete this grueling swim-run event.

Quote

Links:

Jen Pfeifer

Erica McClurg

ÖTILLÖ Swimrun

Michelle Duffy

Imagine being buried alive inside your own body. As rescue workers and loved ones work furiosly to save your life, they are unable to hear the words that are so clearly formed in your brain, but unable to manifest from your lips. On the podcast today, we hear the terrifying and ultimately triumphant tale of Michelle Duffy, who, at 29 years of age, suffered an ischemic stroke, and bounced back weeks later to finish a 50 mile gravel race.

Michelle Duffy on Athlinks

Bleeding Kansas Gravelduro

Two roads diverged in a wood, and 200 gravel riders in Pennsylvania took the one less traveled by. And this damned COVID made all the difference. On the podcast today, we relive the 2020 riding of unPAved, a 120 mile gravel race through the Susquehanna River Valley in PA as told by its race director, Dave Pryor, and Kelly Catale, it's female race winner. Dave walks us through the myriad steps taken to trim a normally 1500 person race field down to the state-mandated 200 riders as Kelly clings to one of the few races on her calendar that wasn't cancelled in 2020. 

A Texas firebrand learns to repair Helicopters - and bodies - in the Navy and spends the next 25 years crossing finish lines in races like the Spartan Death Race and World's Toughest Mudder while energizing literally millions of athletes. Today's guest, Yancy Culp - program manager for Spartan's DEKA product shares it all on the Podcast. Make sure your shoes are on tight for this one, folks. 

Athlinks Profile

Instagram Profile

Spartan Death Race