48. Bonus Podcast! Gavin McClurg and the 2017 X-Alps

Hi there, everybody. Welcome to a special episode of the Cloud-Based Mayhem. I did a little interview where I was being interviewed by a good friend of mine, Nik Hawks, all about the 2017 X-Alps. We wrapped that up, I guess, here about a month ago. And this is just exclusive to you, our Patreon supporters and the folks that support this show. And I hope you enjoy it. We get into all kinds of stuff about why we did what we did and where we went wrong and where we went right. And nutrition and supplements and training and flying and what I'd do differently if I do it again, if I'm silly enough to do it again. So, I enjoy this conversation for you about the 2017 Red Bull X-Alps with me.

So, Gavin, thanks for having me on to ask you a bunch of questions about the X-Alps. I'm really excited. I know that a bunch of us were following along during this year's race, the 2017 race. It was, for some of the folks who are listening who may not be aware, be totally up on it, 1,100-kilometer race, just over 1,100, 1,138. A guy named Chrigel Maurer won it in just under 11 days. I think it's like 10 hours, 10 days and 23 hours. And only one other pilot made it to goal. You finished 14th, about 300K from the finish. And you had a Canadian right behind you, like 7K behind you. So, it was a pretty strong race for you all the way to the finish line. So, first off, congrats for getting out there and charging.

Yeah, thanks, Dick. It wasn't the result we were looking for. But, man, it was just such an epic journey. And, you know, the weather was just terrible this year. And we were really psyched to just, you know, feel strong at the end and be able to keep pushing hard. And it's an epic race. And just hats off to Chrigel again, five times in a row. It's just ridiculous.

It's pretty inspiring, for sure. Super. 31 pilots started. Only 19 of you finished. How do you think this goes? Compared to the 2015 version?

Well, yeah. So, I can only compare it to that one because that's the only other one I've done. This one, physically, for sure, was way harder. I think we had 19 people make it to Monaco last time. Last time, I was eighth. And I never imagined that it wouldn't be possible to get to Monaco, even though I think the race, historically, has like an 11 % finish rate. So, this was certainly more in line with history. But they're definitely saying this one was, by far, the hardest of all of them since 2011. 2003. Certainly, way harder, physically, than the 2015 race. Although, I was quite a bit more beat up, surprisingly, in the 2015 race, even though the training was pretty similar. But, yeah, I mean, the weather was just atrocious. And actually, even scary, I would say. It was overdeveloping most days.

A lot of lightning and thunder. A lot of gust fronts almost every day. And what was unusual about this one was that usually the leaders, the guys that get out in front, a.k.a. Chrigel, it's almost impossible to reel them in because the race works really backwards across the Alps for how we typically fly in the Alps. You're kind of beaten against the wind the whole way until you make the last leg down to Monaco. And so, just how weather systems work with the jet stream, whoever is out in front gets the weather first and then it tends to slam whosoever in the back worse. So, the longer that gap gets, it gets harder and harder to reel the leaders in. And in this case, in this race, that was still the case.

But the guys that were approaching the Matterhorn when they did, just atrocious wind. So, no one was really able to fly the mountain line from the Matterhorn down. So, that was kind of cool because it kind of kept everybody together more. And it allowed me and the guys in the back, you know, because we, well, I can only speak for myself, but I had a pretty, I had an unfortunate thing happen. Day three, where I was in really good position. And then, you know, the guys that I was with that morning were 180K ahead by that evening. And I just couldn't reel them in because the weather between them and me was worse. And so, it kind of allowed me to catch up a little bit and make some ground at the end, which was pretty fun.

Yeah. Let's see, following you throughout the race was really exciting on Facebook and Instagram and watching what was happening on the Red Bull site. I had a ton of questions as we went along. So, taking it from the top, the first one was you pulled the night pass early. Every athlete only gets one night pass where you can hike through the night. Otherwise, you have to be flat on your back. Why did you pull it early? Was that a good decision? And do you think saving it would have allowed you to have a different outcome?

Yeah, the night pass is an interesting thing. You know, in the 2015 race, because I got third in the prologue, so the top three in the prologue get an extra one. And we used my first one in that race early. And it ended up really costing us because the weather was atrocious. And I ended up walking through the rain all night and kind of smashing, smashing my feet. And, you know, really, you only get five hours anyway. And you can't fly at night. That's against the rules. So, you know, at best, you're going to get 35, 40K under your belt, which is, you know, two hours in the air, hour and a half. And so, in a lot of ways, we view the night pass as almost a penalty because that loss of sleep really takes its toll. So, our plan going into the race was very much we are not going to use the night pass unless we absolutely.

Like, if we're in danger of getting eliminated. So, you know, who's ever in the last every 48 hours gets eliminated. So, we would use it, of course, in that instance. Or we would use it if I hit airspace, for example, and got a penalty that way. But otherwise, we weren't going to use it, period, or use it the last night, you know, to make some kind of hero move to try to beat somebody that you're racing hard against at the end of the race. What happened was this. We had a weather router. We had a weather team. And it was the same guy that was helping Gaspard. And who was doing really well, obviously, until he had his crash. But we started getting weather from him a few days before the race started. And knowing that the weather was just atrocious on the north side of the Massif.

So, between the start of the race and getting up over the Massif on our way down to Slovenia was going to be just terrible. No flying, for sure. And we kind of proved during the 2015 race and the 2017 race that I'm not a runner. But my average speed on the ground is pretty fast. But knowing we weren't going to be able to fly off the Geisberg, and that's a long downhill, we just basically assumed that first day I was, you know, at best going to be middle of the pack at the end of the day. And it was 95K from the start to the top of the Massif to get to the south side of the Alps. And so, a pretty big day. And we, our weather was showing that the south side, it was going to be strong north firm. But the south side of the Alps was going to be sunny. And dicey, you know, quite a bit of north firm, but flyable.

And we just, we took that weather report as way too specific. You know, it took us quite a few days in the race to really understand and interpret the weather we were getting from this Medio France guy who was fantastic. His name was Laurent. But we were taking it really like exactly, you know, okay, this is what you're going to get. These winds at 2,500 meters and this kind of sky and these kind of thermals. We were taking that really specifically when, of course, they're just models. And so, but anyway, knowing that the weather was going to be better on the south side, we really felt like, you know, getting there first and getting in the sky first was maybe going to put us ahead of the pack by two, three, four hours.

And it was just, it was that day, the next day, and the next day. The first three days of the race, we were really seeing wind and sky and sun. In a certain way that we felt like, man, this might be a brilliant move if this works and maybe it's worth doing. So knowing this was potentially coming, you know, two days before the race, I checked myself into a really nice hotel. I slept a massive amount. I really tried to kind of prepare for it. And then the day of the race that morning, we had basically decided that we weren't going to do it. You know, and I asked Gaspard, who had the same weather guy, if he was going to do it. And he was like, no, why? Why would you? You know, it's, yes, it's going to be better on the south, but, you know, pulling a night past the first night and all those extra hours and no sleep, I just, I don't think it's worth it, you know?

And so I, and then I got a text from the race organizer about an hour before the race start that we pulled our night past. You have to let them know before noon, you know, Bruce didn't check with me. He was just really excited about the move. And, uh, you know, and I, I leave all those decisions to him. And so I was pretty surprised. I was pretty upset. Uh, and then, you know, I got him on the phone right away and I was like, Hey dude, why are we in such a rush? Why didn't you run this by me? And, uh, why are we doing this? You know, is it going to matter the three or four or five hours that we're ahead? You know, it still sounds pretty bad there in the morning. And anyway, again, it's, I don't want to beat this up, but it was when we got to the past that night. So I, I only, the other thing too, was that because I was pretty slow in the prologue, because the prologue was just a running event.

And again, I can't walk. I can't walk down. I'm really bad going down with my knees. So, you know, I was really fast up in the prologue and then I just really took my time down. So they penalized us for wherever you finished in the prologue. If you were an hour behind the leaders, then you had an hour delay on the second day of the race. So I had like an hour and a half delay. So I stopped walking at 3 PM, which still gave me three and a half hours of sleep, which is pretty, which is fine. That's plenty. Um, and so we really felt like the risk was kind of worth it. What ended up actually happening is when we got up. I think I was in third place at that point, Toma and Huber had both also called their night passes. Uh, so they kind of saw the same thing and we all got up there and it was just totally atrocious, completely unflyable, totally in the cloud.

Um, we ended up having to walk all the way back down. So a few hours later, uh, when the sun did start kind of coming out, it was still completely nasty. Uh, I turned around and started seeing these guys fly down out of this Canyon. So not the way that Chrigel went, but pretty, pretty much everybody. But him and a few other people, um, went the route, the kind of direct route. And I mean, dude, it was the scariest flying I have ever seen. Benoit, who was the other guy that ended up finished, he crashed into the trees and it was just full on SIV for these guys, uh, flying down out of this kind of unlandable Canyon. And so huge risk. I was really glad I wasn't where they were. Cause I probably would have done the same thing for a couple of those guys that actually pretty, it paid off. They were able to stay in the air. Um, most of them just spiraled down to the ground to try to, you know, not die.

Uh, and some of them, some of them kind of kept going. Paul Guschlbauer. I actually ended up getting up to another launch and flying. So we didn't really get penalized for it other than the lack of sleep. You know, that by the next morning, you know, I was taken off with Huber. I was with Nick Nanen's Pal Takats. I was with the guy, you know, I was in sixth place. So it wasn't, it didn't really, it didn't, it certainly didn't pay off and it meant we didn't get to use another one, but you know, it wasn't really a mistake other than you just can never really quantify. What that lack of sleep does to you, you know, maybe on that third day when I was with those guys, maybe if I'd had more sleep, I wouldn't have bombed out. So, I mean, the real mistake was on day three, flying with Huber and Nick and those guys. And it wasn't even really a mistake. It was just, you know, kind of luck of the draw, but you know, sometimes in the X-Alps to go fast, you got to go slow.

And, uh, you know, it was a low cloud-based day and I was, you know, we did a crossing and I was actually quite high. We did it with Nick Nanen's. And when we got across. This big Valley, you know, it was totally shaded out and, uh, he was able to kind of wander around, uh, and, and search and search and search. And I was about a hundred meters below him and we were both just frantically looking for another climb and I didn't get one and he did. And, uh, you know, and then that turned into, we can get into that later on, but that was, you know, that was 180 K a bomb out for me in terms of what the other guys ended up doing. You know, I was with their Agati. I was with the guys that did really well. All that day. And it was just, it was a bummer. And that was really my race. You know, that, that by the end of that day, I think I was in 25th.

Yeah, no, we all watched that. It was just like, Oh my God, what's happening. Cause you're in third. If we're all psyched for it.

Yeah, it was, it was a bummer. I mean, it was, it was definitely, you know, in retrospect, um, you know, and we talked about it a lot as a team, you know, it, it could have gone our way and then it would have been awesome. It didn't. And, you know, we learned from it and, you know, it was, it wasn't, I don't even know. That it was really a mistake. I really liked talking to Chrigel, you know, a couple of weeks ago on the podcast and he talked about, you know, how you really have to gamble and, um, it was a gamble and we lost, but that one didn't work.

Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes the brakes go against you.

Yeah, absolutely. So that's what happened on day three. And that's, that's from your perspective. And it sounds like it's probably correct. It was kind of the race, at least the race for the podium. Um, but from then on, I mean, it was like nail bite. Every day, watching the progress and watching the lead guys kind of creep ahead after that big jump and watching you hustle and come back and knowing that in that race, anything is, is possible. Was there one day that stood out as, as the, really the hardest day for you?

Yeah, there, there were a couple, I mean, in terms of this, the emotional side of it, it was that day three, that was incredibly frustrating. Uh, and not necessarily. The hardest physical day. There was a couple others that were probably much harder, but that day three. So, you know, when I did the crossing with Nick, it was pretty early in the day. It wasn't a great day, but it was certainly looking better and obviously gotten way better. Um, and so when I, when I bombed out there, I wasn't in a terrible position that people were flying really slow. There was a lot of cloud. It was low base. Um, so, and, and I was in a pretty decent spot. There was a road, a dirt road that kind of zigzagged up the back of this mountain. Um, so I packed up really fast, started jamming up and then things got terrifically bad.

I, I was, you know, I had all the maps on my phone and you know, the zigzag was just frustrating because, uh, and I thought, oh man, I could just cut these things off and go direct. And so I tried to take a shortcut. The shortcut immediately turned into really steep jungle that was just covered in stinging nettles, you know? So it was just that like in, in South America, they call it the Malamu hair, like bad woman. I mean, it just, it just. Shreds you. And, uh, so I, you know, in no time I'm cussing and I'm like, God damn it. Why didn't I, why didn't I stick with the road? It would have been faster. And so, but I'm just trying to haul ass up through this stuff and I've got my phone, uh, it's got Velcro on it and I put it where my water bottles are on my shoulder. So it's a pretty safe spot for the phone. And, but I've got a, uh, like a tether on it for when I fly.

So I don't lose it. And it's, you know, a little bit of string and that thing must've caught on a branch or something when I was going through all this stuff. And so I finally get up and realize I don't have my phone and my phone's my instrument. That's everything. That's what ties to my, uh, Vario and it's got all my maps and it's how I talk to the crew. I mean, you just can't do it without, it's not, otherwise I would've just kept going. So then I'm trying to use the Garmin InReach, which is really hard to use without the phone. You're, you're trying to text on that little tiny board, you know, and I'm texting my crew, like call me and don't stop calling me. I gotta find this thing. That's the only way I'm going to find it. And, uh, and so it was, it ended up being an hour and a half of just farting around in the jungle. And I, and it got incredibly lucky. I walked back down through this stuff and it was like four or five foot, just super thick.

I mean, there was no way I was going to find this thing and getting really frustrated and kind of almost like panicking. And, uh, and then it starts ringing literally like right when I walked right past it and they hadn't even gotten any of the text, he was just watching live tracking and wondering why I was motionless. And, uh, and so I found the phone. Rallied back up, took quite a while to get to a proper launch because by that point, the South wind, which always blows down in Slovenia, down in that, that's what makes tree lab really pretty tough. Um, is it, is a turn point because we're, you're flying South and you're flying into the wind. Yup. And, uh, and we, so I, I, I launched just as Powell and Aaron and Huber and all those guys had tagged the turn point and we're coming back out and, you know, so I was, I'm going the opposite way.

Those guys, I'm looking at these guys going, man, there's a lot of wind. And uh, anyway, got it finally got out of there. It was, it was really cross and dicey and, uh, got some height and crossed over to the, the massive on the Slovenia side and couldn't really get a good enough climb to get over this Canyon top landed, you know, thinking, well, maybe I should just wait it out and the wind will die a little bit. I'm losing these guys, but I think patience is probably smart here. There was a couple of other guys at that point. They did bond out. Crescia had actually crashed in one of the, in the bushes. I mean, it was blowing pretty hard. And uh, so I waited, waited, waited, and then I wouldn't say I got impatient. It was just, you know, the sun was out and it was getting later in the day and the West side, the West side stuff were really starting to work.

So I relaunched and, uh, didn't get really enough height, flew into that Canyon where, you know, people were getting flushed out and got flushed and where I landed was about as bad as it gets in terms of getting to the top. It was just, you know, a monster walk and, uh, very clearly was not going to be able to fly again that day was not going to be able to get the turn point that day. And yeah, I mean, I, I made 30 K progress that day on a really good day. So, uh, that was just, you know, I wasn't able to tag the turn point until the next day. And, you know, like I said, I think at the end of that day, I was almost in last, you know, I was, I'd gone from a pretty strong position to a very, very weak position. And, uh, and then it was just a crawl back. Yeah. From there, it

was something, something else to watch, you know, a bunch of us are kind of sitting there pinging away on Facebook, like, I mean, for

us, for the team, for me, I know, I know that that was definitely, you know, from the, I mean, it was just really clear that we'd learned in the 2015 race that just a lot happens in that race and you have to stay optimistic and you can't be focused on, oh my God, there's a thousand kilometers left to go. You know, you, oh my God, I've only made the second turn point. It's day or actually I didn't make it till day four. Um, you, you can't think like that. You have to just think like, okay, look what I've covered. Look what we've done. Look how amazing this is. You have to stay optimistic because you know, things really can happen and you can make big moves. Um, but, and, and other people make mistakes. People hit airspace like they did on this race. People get hurt, you know, people get eliminated, you know, so you, it's a long race and you have to have that mentality.

But that was the day for sure that it was like, okay, my podium chances are over, which is what we were really hoping. And so, you know, we had to just really shift our whole mental strategy from that point. Just like, Hey, be safe, have fun, charge, go as hard as you possibly can and, and things will happen. And they did, you know, I did crawl back, but that was tough. Just mentally, just kind of getting my head around like, oh man, all this training and all this preparation. And there's no way, I mean, just getting in the top 10 at that point was looking really unlikely. So in terms of other times that were, you know, I had some other days that physically were just. Manic, like the day getting to guard, uh, you know, I think it was 17,000 vertical feet of climbing, uh, the actually getting up to guard.

And once I flew across the lake, you know, it was middle of the day, hot as hell. I was raining sweat. I've never, I mean, my wing was soaked. My harness was soaked. Uh, it was just, you know, just dripping, like not dripping, just showering off my shirt, my, my shorts, um, felt great, you know, but just, uh, you know, and I took off, flew back across the lake, landed in the trees, walked another 20. 25 K did another 2000 meters. I mean, that was a ridiculous day physically, but, uh, but it was also really fun. You know, I think it was four or five flights that day and a nice evening glass off. And, uh,

Kevin, was that your first tree landing that I remember? Yeah,

that was, that was the first one. Yeah. That was kind of funny flying into that Canyon. So that was kind of the route that most of them had taken. And what I didn't do is right when I left guard, uh, uh, I was actually launching in the cloud and it was just kind of orographic cloud. It wasn't like the kind of cloud that they get upset about you flying in, but I just went for it right away across the lake rather than, you know, most of the guys had gone North topped up and then crossed the lake, got a little bit more height. So, but just kind of eyeballing it and knowing how much wind there was down the lake, I felt like I could just get out over the lake, turn it downwind and slam it into that Canyon with enough height to get through. But as you saw in the video, when I went in there, I was right off the bottom of the valley, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, of the Canyon. And when I went in there, I knew that I didn't have the height to get to the end of the lake.

I was, I was going to land in the lake if I, you know, so that was kind of my only option was to stick it in there. And then as soon as I got in there, I was like, yikes, it was, there was a ton of wind coming down out of the Canyon. So like from both directions and, uh, and it was just immediately like, okay, there was that little road and you see it in the video. Um, there was some bikers sitting on a bike there, but you can't, what you can't really see is there's some telephone lines. And so it was impossible. There was no way to actually just spank it in there. And so when I kind of went over towards those bikers and realized like, yeah, there's, I don't have a chance. I have to go under the trees. And, you know, I was pretty, pretty set on just trying to find a place that was going to be safe. And, you know, that was a beautiful canopy, but no, I'd never had land in the trees.

What I didn't see was that wall. Uh, you know, of course, as I came down through the trees, I was like, you man, I'm glad I didn't hit that wall. But yeah, I mean it. It certainly probably looked more, more dicey than it was. It was actually really funny after it, I got back on the road pretty quickly and started walking up and, you know, met up with Ben and Bruce shortly thereafter. And, you know, the adrenaline's kind of pumping and you want to tell your story and, and Bruce just wanted nothing of it. He was like, okay, here's where you're going to go. Here's the next launch. I was like, God, man, I just landed in a tree. Shouldn't we talk about this a little bit? You got to go. So yeah, it was, uh, yeah, but no, I never have landed in a tree. You know, there are those that have, and those that will.

And you got it, got that box checked. What was, uh, so that was, that was the hard day. Um, what was the, what was one of the easier days or was there one?

Well, I wouldn't say there was an easy day, but the, um, the most rewarding day for sure. And this is what's so hard about live tracking is, you know, you just don't see the skies. You don't see everything that's going on. But when we got to the, uh, Ashout turn point, so I had a magnificent day, uh, I had a day five or six, you know, I flew from basically Gerlitz and, uh, to the Ashout turn point and right up over, almost right over the top of the grass, grass, Glockner glacier. And, you know, I went on Facebook live for a while. I mean, it was just easy, awesome, tall, really good flying quite a bit ahead and went, but, uh, the route that we took there was, you know, I think that morning I was still kind of in the mid twenties and, uh, passed a lot of guys that day.

So, so that was. That was a big day for us and got to the Ashout turn point and rallied and got a nice little evening flight across the river, uh, to kind of head into towards the Laramie's turn point. And that was a really interesting decision point. So everybody that was in front of us, so Tom Dorlado and Michael Gerlach, and I think Jesse was right in there that day. So there was like seven or eight or nine guys and we were all kind of clumped together and I was kind of at the tail end of that, but just barely. And, uh, and they were, they all. Took the end Valley. So the, the route towards Innsbruck and the weather report we were getting from our guy was the next day was basically unflyable, you know, 40 K headwind, um, no thermal strength, almost a hundred percent cloud. Uh, and so we were trying to decide, okay, you know, should we, if we go the end Valley, what, which is what everybody did, you can basically fly in the Lee and there, there was a chance of getting a flight if you went that way, but it was 25 K extra distance on the ground.

And, and, and it's just. It's, it's kind of shitty going that way. There's a lot of airspace around Innsbruck. There's not a lot of launches. I don't know it for, for my gut reaction was that that was the wrong call. He actually even called Tom Dorlido before he launched that day or that night. And it said like, Hey man, are you getting it given any consideration to go North? I think that's the move. And he's like, nah, all those guys are going that way. I think I'm going to go that way. And so, uh, and, and Bruce was, we were all kind of on the fence and I was just really thinking about it from the ashram going, you know, I was like, God, you know, even if it's 40 K ahead. And that's, that's a lot of headwind, you know, it's going to be tough to fly, but kind of like the Chrigel thing. It was like, I, I want to, I want to risk this because if, if we can't fly, it's a hundred K on the ground. And, uh, and, and at that point, you know, that, that was just going to be not, not the way to catch up.

And so I was like, man, we got, we got to, this is time to roll the dice now, you know, who cares? We're in the back. We got to do something. And so that I didn't actually make up my mind until I was in the air. I started flying. And, uh, Ben was with me. He was flying right behind me. And, uh, and there was no thermals. It was right at the end of the day. We were actually like, it was like eight 40, you know, sweet. You got to be on the ground by 9 PM. And, uh, so I just made the decision in the air, like not, I'm going to take the North route and which is an easier way to walk and it's shorter, but it also gave us the option. If there were some North in the wind, you know, in other words, when the Bavaria winds start blowing, which they mostly do every day, it meant, you know, even if there were no thermals, we could maybe kind of do some ridge. We're in flights and make some progress.

And, uh, and it was also a way that I, I really knew I've flown through there a lot. And so just kind of last minute decided to go that way and which really was risky, but also, you know, and I think it, it basically meant that, you know, flying in the Lee, the end Valley where everybody else went, we were removing that as an option. So I think Bruce was kind of like, no, no, no, no, but it's any, for whatever reason, it just felt right. And, uh, and Jesse followed me. So he went that way too. That night he and I camped in the same, you know, a little parking lot. And then the next day, uh, he and I both launched from a pretty similar place. He kind of got lost. He was ahead of me, but he got lost. So I launched first, he was behind me maybe a half an hour and it was just blowing his tits off. Just 40 is exactly what the forecast said.

You know, it's 40 K right on the nose, pretty wild. And, but I stuck with it. I only flew like 10 K, but I stuck with the, with the plan and Jesse dove in towards where, where everybody else had gone. And he basically didn't move the rest of that day. I mean, and none of those guys did, they were just walking. And, uh, and anyways, I made, did this 10 K flight. And when I landed, it was like, man, I, I don't think there's that much wind. The wind seems to be less, you know, like, Hey guys, find me another launch. Because if, if it's 40 K there's no point in burning all that energy to go up. You know, you're just going to best get a 10 K flight. Is that kind of how it works?

I'm just going to interrupt you there for a second. Yeah. Yeah. You're flying along and you land and you're immediately assessing the conditions and then reaching out to the crew. Like, Hey, I don't, I don't have eyes on all this stuff. What's next. Is that how it works? Yeah.

Yeah, totally. So, so basically, you know, Ben is my ground guy and Bruce is my air guy. And so Bruce is constantly in touch with our weather guy. And then he's also doing his own weather. The two of them are working together real closely on Google earth to try to find launches. A lot of them we've picked out in advance, but you know, you just can never predict where all the places you're going to be. So, yeah, so they're, they're really compiling as much data as they possibly can. So I can constantly be moving, you know, so even if I'm not in touch with them, uh, we'll have planned it out before I launched. Like, Hey, if you go here, here's what you're doing. If you make it here, here's what you're doing. Here's, you know, so we kind of have all those options covered. So basically I'm just packing up and I'm hitting the road and, um, trusting that they're going to get me to the right place, whether that's walking or getting to another launch.

And so, um, at that point, I'm like, Oh, I'm going to do this. At that point, it was still pretty early in the day. There was quite a bit of sun, but it just seemed like the winds were backing off. It seemed like the winds were going to be less than what they were saying. And so we just made a collective decision, like get me up to another launch. By the time I got to that launch, it was quite cross, but it wasn't too windy and it was really cloudy, almost a hundred percent. And I thought, okay, you know, maybe I'll get eight, 10 K out of this. I mean, I didn't have much expectations, but we kind of were able to cut off, you know, it was, it was faster still than staying on the ground and walking around. Staying on the flats, you know, kind of the Bavarian and the German flats. And so launched and flew 35 K it was, it was one of the most, a miracle. I mean, that's nothing, but on that kind of day, I couldn't walk

in it.

Yeah. I mean, half, half the time I was, you know, I could see the van below me. I mean, I never got high half the time. I had one of the biggest blowouts I've ever had in my life. You know, it was, it was kind of rough, but it wasn't, it wasn't that dicey. There was no sun. I mean, literally none. It was like. I don't know where these thermals were coming from, but it was like, there was always just another climb. I'd be going, Oh, I'm going to land. Nope. I'm not going to land. I'm going to get another climb. And you could kind of ridge soar in some places and just really patient, really fun. Half the time it was kind of raining lightly, but never dangerous. You know, and I was getting texts from like, Crescia was on the ground, Swiss, you know, at one point I flew over him and he sent me a text and he's like, dude, that's a ballsy move. That was awesome. But it actually wasn't that ballsy.

It was like everybody on the ground. Thought it was unflyable, including myself. And it wasn't, it was pretty flyable. And so again, one of these risks things. So there was that flight landed, rallied again with Ben through this fly infested swamp, terrible area and launched again and got almost to Garmisch on that are pretty close to Garmisch on that flight and then rallied up again. And that time we made a huge, uh, I mean, it ended up working out, but that was one of the times, one of the rare times where the guys totally screwed up. They. Using Google earth, they thought I could get off at the top of this lift. It was a little, it's like the little tiny ski area above Garmisch. And, uh, and so it was really steep, really hard work to get up there. And I got up there and it was completely flat, surrounded by trees. There was nowhere to launch.

And this is one of those, like, God, I wish I could have had this on video or that the people watching could see this because I just rallied around rally. I couldn't find a launch. And this was just going to be a sledder. It was the end of the day, you know, just, just to get a few more K and, uh, ended up walking down underneath. This chair left and there there's nowhere. It's just total trees. I

can remember seeing that. It's like, what's he doing? Walking down the mountain? Like, come on, dude,

fly. Oh my God. You should have seen this place. I was just, it's just, it's criminal that I didn't have a camera on this because I finally got down to this one little spot. And at some point in history, they had cleared this little tiny runway of trees, but it was, it wasn't like to go, it's hard to describe. It is basically flat. So to get out of this thing, there was, I ended up just leaving. Even my gear and walking it all out and trying to eyeball it to see if I could actually fly out of this thing. But basically I had to launch on this little tiny Hill, take an immediate 90 degree left hand turn. And then I'd be flying maybe five to 10 feet off the ground through basically down through these trees that was almost flat. And then take another, there was a little ditch point. If this wasn't going to work, I could bail right there.

And then, but if it wasn't going to work, I could take another hard right turn 90 degrees. And then I could just see this little window that was going to be just about the same height. If I got the width of the wing, if I got through that, then it looked, it looked like I could make the glide over these trees that were like a hundred feet tall. It was just like, okay, I think I can make that. I think that's going to work. So I ran back to my gear and laid out. And meanwhile, they're calling me constantly. They're like, dude, what are you doing? You know, and I just ignored that. And anyway, did a forward launch because there was no wind whatsoever. I mean, you know, I was, I was basically down in the trees and, and it worked. It was just. It's the coolest. Like those kinds of things are so fun. You know what I mean? In the end it was, we probably wasted, I would have gone farther if I just stayed on the road and walked, but it's, it's always more fun to fly.

And, and so anyway, that night we, we almost got to the Laramie's turn point. The next morning I had a little flight, got to the Laramie's turn point. And, you know, instead of walking a hundred and some 125 K, you know, we didn't end up walking that much and made a huge jump. I almost had Toma by that night. And this

was the race for him.

And yeah, yeah, it totally, God, that guy moves fast on the ground. It's unbelievable. But yeah, so that, you know, that, that was one of those where, God, I wish that kind of stuff could be seen by the folks watching the race. Cause it was just magnificent. Those kinds of experiences. It was really cool day.

So as you're going through, obviously you guys are kind of working through some pretty difficult problems together, like when to fly, when not to fly, where to launch from, you know, and I'm sure at some point everybody's. He's blowing up at each other, but what were some of the, you've, you've talked about having a ton of fun in the race. What were some of the funniest moments in the, uh, in the race?

Oh man. You know, I, it's, it's really hard to say cause you don't, you don't interact that much with other teams, but I, I feel like we've got something really special with our team because we never stopped laughing. I mean, there, there are times where it's pretty intense for sure. Um, you know, like the last day I, there was definitely some grippage going on. With the Canadian behind us, because that dude moves fast. He's incredibly tenacious. I mean, I just couldn't shake him this whole race. And, and, uh, and I mean like the night before this is, this is terrible to admit, but I got to do it because I got to give props to him. But the night before, you know, so he and I, and the pole had big, a pretty big day and I chose a different route up the Sandrio Valley on the North side.

They were on the South side. I got slammed by a bunch of wind at one point, top landed and was horrified to learn that they were going to crash. They were both ahead of me. I just couldn't believe it. I was, you know, I'd been flying well and I thought our route was really strong. And, and, you know, Bruce was like, well, they're not tearing you up, but they're both ahead of you. And, uh, and so that was just a magnificent day. I won't get into it, but some of that is in that video that I put up just, you know, it was tall. It was beautiful. It was fun. It was good flying. I, at one point I top landed and had to launch off this cliff that was like 2000 feet straight down. It was really cool stuff happened that day. But at the end of the day, I was like, I'm going to crash. And at the end of the day, I've landed 2k in front of him. He just a tenacious pilot. He was scratching forever. And had he known that I was coming up over his back, he probably should have just landed and walked.

He would have had me, but, um, he was scratching and scratching and scratching forever. And I didn't try to scratch at all. I just was, you know, I was watching live tracking when I was in the air and I was like, ah, I got him. And, uh, and I landed like 2k ahead of him, which is usually, you know, that's enough of a margin. All you got to do is just keep live tracking on and make. Sure. You stay ahead of them. You know, there was only one way he and I could go in the next day sounded totally unflyable. And so I don't know if at one point, but I thought he was just going to be, you know, like walking fast, like we normally do, but it was very clear as soon as I hit the ground and, you know, it was 2k ahead of him. And then when he stopped flying and packed up, he was running. I mean, I can tell him he was at a trot. And I, like I said, I can't run. My knees are trash.

So I was like, I can walk really fast forever. But I'm not a runner. And, uh, so I started running and, you know, two hours into it, he still was trotting along. He's still running. I wasn't putting any distance on him. And, and, uh, and so I texted him and I was like, Hey dude, I don't know that 14th and 15th really matters. Like why don't let's, let's have a gentleman's agreement here. I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to let you catch up, but I am going to stay ahead of you. But, you know, does it matter if we're five or 10 K farther along, we're not going to catch anybody. Like, let's. Let's just walk and have a nice time. The race ends tomorrow at 11 AM and, uh, you know, please stop running. And he was like, you know, if you let me catch up, I'll have a beer with you. But nah, this is a race.

Nice. Oh, good on him. It was

really cool. And I even fired back at him and I was like, God damn it, you know, up yours. And, uh, but, but then I thought about it and I was like, yeah, right on. Cool, man. That's cool. That's awesome. He pressed hard. I mean, so I ran that night until 10 30. You know, until the shut off. And then in the morning, I mean, it was literally like standing on a starting line at the morning at five o 'clock, we were ready to roll. Yeah. And, uh, sure enough, he ran and then we started going up over the past at Domodossola and, you know, it was really obvious that we had him. And, uh, and then, you know, the only thing that could be dicey was that if he went to try to fly, because it, it, like I said, there was a lot of headwind, but it was sunny. It looked flyable and there were places to launch it, you know, constantly going back and forth to Bruce and Ben. Like, are you ready? Are you sure he's not going to go to a launch?

Are you sure? Are you sure we shouldn't go to a launch? And they're like, nah, you got him. You got him. You know, it's, it's way too risky. He might try cause he needs to, he's not going to catch you on the ground. He needs to try something, but don't worry, you got him. And then he did, he went up, you know, he broke off the road and started going up to a launch and holy shit, we were nervous. It was like, oh my God, if this works and he flies over our head at the bell, it's going to be so depressing, but it ended up, you know, it ended up, they were totally right. But there were, there were moments like that that were pretty serious. But for the most part, you know, every single time Ben drives me in the car, he, he honks his horn, flips me off, you know, and that sounds harsh, but it's hysterical. It's like, we just never stop giggling. And I think, uh, it's a pretty precious, it's really hard that your support crew, it's a really hard job.

You can imagine them and they get, they get no sleep. Uh, it's, there's a lot to do. There's a ton of logistics, but you know, from, from the experience of the 2015 race one, that really helped. So these guys were. Super tight this time. They were just totally on it. And I mean, in terms of, and the 2015 race, you, we needed pages after the race to write down all the mistakes we made and, you know, just to try to clean it up for this time. And just because we were rookies, we didn't know. Sure. And, uh, this time, you know, really the mistakes we made, you know, there was that early one, you know, with the night pass that, that could have gone our way. I don't even know if that was a mistake. And then, you know, me bombing out. And again, that's, that's just paragliding. That's what happens. You know what I mean? Other than that, you know, they were just incredibly tight and we, I can't isolate any one time that was more hysterical than another, but I just promise you, we just, we just never stopped laughing partly is because they give each other constant shit and they give me a ton of shit that that's our, that's our conflict resolution.

You know, we, you, you need to have a plan for conflict resolution, but I see a lot of the other teams just, I don't know, in a way, I think they're taking it too seriously. It, it, if you, if you take it. Really seriously, it just piles up and you just can't, you know, if you start placing blame on, on others or, you know, it's that dynamic is way more important and way more. It's funny, you know, that you'd think the race, you know, the takeaways are, you know, the flying and the beauty and being in the Alps and that stuff's all great. But for me, it's that it's, it's the team it's, it's, uh, you know, that at the end, that's what we all cry about. It's not, it's not the, uh, it's not. It's not pulling it off or, you know, even being healthy or any of those kinds of things.

It's just like, man, you guys are, you guys are my best friends and, and I, I can't believe that the, that it's over. It's depressing that it's over because you're, you're, you're not with them anymore. That's what hurts at the end of it. It's not actually the end of the race. It's that, that bond and that what you create during that time and the trust that you put in these guys and, and the hell you go through is, you know, it's, I haven't been to war, but it must be similar. Yeah.

I mean, Sebastian younger talks about it and yeah, certainly hard circumstances and hard dudes and or girls and it's, it's pretty good time. Was it, uh, was it this race or last race where they fed you cat food in the last

one? They kind of did it again, this one, but it was a tired joke by that point. But, uh, yeah, the last one, it was, that was an awesome night. So it was the night we pulled my first night pass. Uh, there was a river coming down the road and these downbursts, I mean, we could not have pulled a worst day. I had to pull my night pass and it was just the worst weather and about 10, 10 30 that night. Uh, it was raining really hard and I called the team and I was like, you guys gotta get back here, man. I, I gotta get in the van and just wait this out. This is ridiculous. And, uh, and so they drove back and I jumped in the van and there was this girl that, uh, was just, you know, a fan of the race that had been riding along with me on her mountain bike. And we, we'd just been chatting for the last couple of hours and she was just fascinated with the race. So, so, so she got in the van too, just to get out of the rain. And, uh, you know.

I changed out all my stuff and I was kind of grumpy and, you know, tired and my feet were hurting. And, and, uh, so I was like, Hey, you know, uh, Bruce, can I have some dinner? Cause Bruce does all the cooking, he's an awesome cook and Bruce, can I have some dinner? Yeah, no problem. Gavin. They put out this, like it was weird. I knew something was up because they put out, you know, they like proper, you know, here's the fork and the napkin, like a proper table setting, you know, we don't have time for that. And then, and then it just a can of, of, uh, whiskers, cat food.

And the girl was like, what the hell I knew what was going on. And Ben was like, stop being a pussy. Get out the door. It was classic. So, I mean, just to have the, just to have that all planned in advance, like knowing that at some point I was going to be a jerk and this was going to be how they were going to defuse the situation. It's conflict

resolution. It's a good way to do it. Totally. Totally. It was awesome. So every race, it sounds like, or every, every pilot in the XL program. Oops. Has some pretty scary moments. Was there anything this time that stood out as like, wow, that was, that was truly terrifying.

Not, no, not really. And it was kind of the same case in the first one. You know, I, I, in, in the first one there, there was a day where, you know, I, I basically should, I should have died. Yeah. Well, I got caught in, on the Lee side of really strong, like 60 mile an hour winds and Valley winds. Um, and you know, at one point my burial was minus 20, you know, I mean, just, just, just re just terror, terrifying air and, uh, and kind of got lucky on that one. Um, so, so I shouldn't have said, so the first one, it was interesting at the end of the race at the first one, you know, sitting around in Monaco that night with, I think it was Paul Guschlbauer and Ferdinand, uh, Aaron Durogati, a couple others. And, uh, everybody had a story that was pretty terrifying, you know, and it was, it really kind of set me back because the euphoria of being there had kind of clouded that experience.

And maybe a couple others. That were, that were a little bit nerve wracking, um, but you know, for the most part, even in that race, even with that experience, I felt like, you know, that, that, that can happen just normally and normal flying. That's just part of the game that we're playing. And it wasn't, you know, I think what's different about the X-Alps is that you, you get in a mindset where, um, and you've done the training and you trust in that training, you get in the mindset where you can handle stuff. That's way beyond record. You can handle recreational flying, but you can handle it safely. And I never really felt like in this race, I never felt like I was really out there on a limb. Um, there, there were certainly a lot of days that were kind of overdeveloping where you you're like, man, if I was not in this race, I'd land now.

Whereas I pushed it maybe another 20 minutes or something. So you, you know, judging, judging when, when the Gus front's going to hit and when the lightning is going to start is impossible. And so. That's just, that's a game. That's not going to end. Well, if you keep doing that over and over again, and I'm sure a lot of people in this race had that happen, but for the most part, like the day getting to girl, listen, you know, the, the, it was just completely blowing up, you know, flying was starting to get way too easy. There was lift everywhere. Um, you could see big areas of rain, uh, around, around me, you know, to every direction. And as I got across, I flew across the girl, listen, Valley, and it started getting really shaded out. And, uh, you know, top landed next to this little tiny house and, you know, 10 minutes after I landed, it was raining pretty good.

That's kind of close, but, but it was, you know, the wind hadn't hit, you know, so there were, there were things like that, but probably the diciest thing I did wasn't actually scary. It was hysterical in some ways, but there was another launch. I was up there with Ben. Uh, we were going up the, uh, I can't remember the name of that Valley. We were going to heading up towards the Timels Yacht and, uh, and we were rallying up to try to just find, it was really unstable and we knew it was going to get worse. And later in the day, we were like, we had a really narrow window to fly. And, uh, and, and I'd actually been up this one in 2015 training this, this one kind of Ridge line, but I'd gone way higher. We were trying to find a launch that wasn't so high as I could get off the Hill quick. And there was nothing, there was just, there was no way to go is just huge, tall trees. We found this one place that looked like it had been logged at one point a little bit.

So there were still big trees, but there was, there was some big gaps in them and there was this little. Like ramp and then, and it was just completely covered in small twigs. So, you know, and then at the end of the ramp, there was like a 10 foot cliff and then, and then just basically trees and, uh, and, but the angle of this thing was that there was no air coming up, you know, we were kind of being blocked. And so to get off it, I basically had one step. So to get off this, you know, I was basically standing right at the top of the cliff, kind of one step back from the top of the cliff and it was only a 10 foot cliff. I mean, it's. I wouldn't have died if I didn't launch, but it would have been really messy and the glider would have gotten ripped and wouldn't have been nice. And so first we tried to clear off all these kind of branches.

So it wasn't going to get caught in my lines that took forever because there was a million of them. And then just as I was about to pull up, basically if I made it off the cliff, then I had bank right 90 degrees and then immediately left to miss these two trees, but it looked pretty possible. It didn't look that bad. And. And, uh, but right before I pulled up, I just changed my mind and went, nah, cause I was going to do, I wanted to do a reverse and make sure there was no twigs in my lines. But if it was a reverse, then with no wind coming up with a 10 foot cliff, it just didn't seem like that was going to work. And so, you know, Ben's standing there holding up the wing and, uh, right at the last second, right before we were kind of ready to go, I ducked under it and just yanked and did a forward. And I, we had agreed that he wasn't going to say anything unless there was a major problem with the wing.

And like, you know, a big, huge branch, you know, in something. And so all I heard from him was you're fucking crazy as I kind of lopped off this cliff and did the right 11 and it worked, you know, it was totally fine, but, um, and it wasn't actually, like I said, it wasn't that scary, but that's what I love about that race is it puts you in the craziest positions and, um, and you, it's just funny. Your brain starts operating. I mean, maybe some of the other guys, they operate like that all the time. But for me, it's kind of the, in the ramp up to the race, you know, you just, you get in this zone where you got it and, and everything's going to work and you're going to be fine. And, you know, I don't always have that when I fly most of the time, I, well, not most, but a lot of the time I don't at all, you know, where you just like, Ooh, I don't know, this doesn't feel right.

Or man, it is really rowdy today. Or, you know, there's, there's times where you just have that kind of like true grit where you're like, yeah, bring it. Yeah. This is rough right on. And there's times where you're like, this is rough and scary. I don't like this. And, and for some reason with the race, it's like, I, you're, you're definitely more in that ladder mode where you're like, yeah, I got this. This is cool.

That brings up a question of one. That's one thing I've heard you say a couple of times is, is the mantra. Like I got this. Was that something that you thought about specifically for this race is like some default thought patterns you were going to have, or was that just, do you think the race kind of brought that on and you weren't super conscious of how you were? Or managing the mental aspect?

I think both, um, both in the 2015 and this race in June, kind of the month before I went through a lull where it was more scary than the whole kind of bill Belcourt concept of bringing it, you know, that you, you just have to be super calm. I mean, I, I've just always believed in paragliding, you know, to not get hurt, to keep it safe. You've got to be really mentally strong. You've got to really be confident. And I'm naturally a confident. Person, but you know, there are, there are times where those lulls come, you know, maybe after a really scary flight or a near mistake or, um, and in the 2015 race, I just, I went through this week where I was flying down in South France, uh, the kind of the line down to Monaco and it's just dicey down there.

It's really, you know, no one flies down there typically, except in this race. And you're, you're dealing with a ton of value in and lots of high tension power lines and very few places to land in some areas. And it could just be, it could. It'd be pretty scary down there. And I was just having flight after flight. That was really scary. And I, I started thinking like, what the hell, what am I doing? There's no, and it also saps a lot of your brain energy, you know? So it's like you, you get, you don't realize it, but your brain's getting tired. You know, we think about the race as being this major physical event, but, um, I think a lot more of it is just, is, you know, you, you have to get sleep. You have to get recovered. You have to get your brain. Uh, you know, before the race I'm talking about in the race, it's kind of, it's big, pretty tricky to get all that, but you know, like Chrigel talked about that, that there are times where it's really on and you have to be really focused.

And so when it, but so when it's not, you have to be really focused on being not focused. You know, you have to be, you have to give your brain a break. You got to relax. You got to back off. You got to enjoy, you got to look around, you got to laugh, you know, that's that whole part about not being so serious. So, yeah. So anyway. And then the 2015, 2017 event, I would go through these, I went through a lull where I thought, holy shit, man, this is not the frame of mind I need to be in for this race. So I think it was a combination of, you know, just going to bed thinking like tomorrow, I'm not going to be like that, you know, tomorrow I'm going to bring it. And, uh, and, and also just, I think it's the natural cycle of paragliding. You know, there, there are days where you're just a lot more confident. There are days that you can bring it easier and there are days that, that, uh, you know, when it's really rough and spicy and sharp that you're, you're loving it and you're, you're like, yeah, come on, bring it.

I got this. And, and, you know, you have the trust in your wing and you have the trust in your training and there are days where you're like, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to land. I'm like, this isn't, this isn't working for me, you know, in the, in the X ops, I, in both races, I never had that. I mean, it was, I never had the feeling like, oh God, I need to land. It was always like, yeah, right on beat me up. Bring

it. I mean, there's significant pressure and there's a really clear goal. Like those things really help, um, keeping your mind right to, to achieving something.

Yeah. I think you just have to believe it'd be interesting to talk to the guys that flew out of that Canyon day too. Cause I, I, I have not seen flying that dicey before. Uh, and then I actually, when I got in the air, um, I was out of the Canyon, so at least I had places to land, but I mean, it was terrifically bad and flying in Fern is always really scary. And, uh, I mean, there's just huge holes in the air, you're just flying in total rotor and, uh, it's not nice. So, but it would be interesting to talk to them because a couple of those guys just dialed down out of the sky, just, you know, just spiral right to the ground, started walking again. So clearly it was beyond some of their, you know, margin levels that were, that they were comfortable with. Yeah.

So one more question that's kind of really specific to this race. And then I want to talk about some prep stuff for, for this. You did beforehand and maybe what you're thinking after one of the points that Chrigel brought up in the conversation you had with him was how he chose his glider, um, and safety versus performance with that in mind. Like, how do you feel about wing choice, um, in general, did that change the way that you thought about your wing?

Yeah, that's really interesting. It didn't change the way I think about it. Um, I, I guess I found that quite surprising and, and it's obviously, uh, you know, he, he's, he wins. Uh, and I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, and I also appreciated, I didn't appreciate that, uh, no one's been in the top four on a two liner that also really surprised me. So, you know, for me, it was more of a factor in the 2015 race that, you know, I, on that, on the first day of the 2015 race, we had, you know, awesome weather and, uh, uh, really good flying day. And I could just, I was the only one in the race on a two liner in the, in the 2015 event that I know of anyway. You know, the, the Zeno, the Zed Alps. I wasn't around then they didn't have the Zeno. And I mean, I think everybody was on a three liner, except me.

I was on the, the, the peak four or the, sorry, I was on the ice peak seven in 2015. So normal weight glider, which that, that was a bummer carrying that extra weight. But, uh, you know, I could just really see it that day that I had a hotter glider and it really helped. And the reality is, is I'm not as good a pilot as Chrigel and, uh, Gaspar and some of those guys that do a ton more racing and then have just a lot more years. So. For me, that was just a decision that I'd made because I've flown that glider so much. And that's the glider I fly in some Valley, which is just rougher than anything in the Alps. So to me, that, that, that was just the right choice. Then, you know, I think his, you know, then this, this race, I used the climber, but there was, uh, you know, I, I think that there were a lot of guys on the Zed Alps on the Zeno, the lightweight Zeno in this race.

And Chrigel beat them all. So, you know, I think, I think in this race, it was less of a factor performance because the weather was so bad. It was just better to be on a, on a safer, easier to handle glider anyway. But yeah, I, I, I thought what he said was really interesting because it was probably not a pilot in the world that's more comfortable on a two liner. So clearly he's onto something clearly. I probably need to rethink my strategy there. Uh, if I am stupid enough to do this again and, uh, yeah. So I, it's, I, I found that really fascinating and, and I'm going to follow up with him on that in our kind of bonus talk. Yeah.

Maybe next time you'll be on the, uh, the hook for, yeah, right. Uh, it's funny. Okay. Let's, let's shift to, um, kind of pre and maybe some post post-training stuff. Your physical training was obviously thorough. Seemed like it was pretty similar to the year before, but it also seemed to follow in you up into the race that you were doing, you know, the year prior to the race or two years, you're doing something different for flight training. Can you talk a little? A little bit about any specific flight training you did for this race and if you think it was worth doing, or if you should have done more of one or another thing.

Yeah. So I was a little hamstrung this year because I had a mountain biking accident last September. So basically a year ago and a really major surgery, rotator cuff surgery and stuff was October 4th. So we officially start my physical training October 1st. That gives us, you know, nine months and a few days before the race this year, the physical training was very similar to what we did. So we had to work around the shoulder, uh, for, you know, so instead of doing a ton of ski touring and, you know, November and December, I was doing a ton of time on a stair mill. It basically just meant my training was a lot more boring, but, but yeah, Ben arranges all the physical training and he just kicks ass. And, uh, you know, from that side of it, we felt really strong. We did change a lot in terms of diet, which we'll get into here, but, and, and supplements and stuff that, that worked really well, uh, this time around.

But the, the, from the flying side, because I was, because of that surgery, I basically couldn't start flying again until March. So I missed, you know, I, I had plans of Brazil and Columbia and Mexico this winter and, and had to, you know, skip all those. So definitely came into the season a lot more rusty. I mean, I think even right now I've got, you know, 150 hours this year, which is way below my average. So, and way below what I really wanted to have going into the race. So. Um, how much did that affect me? That's kind of hard to tell, you know, I felt pretty tuned up when the race went, but, you know, certainly, uh, you know, mistakes were made in the air and had, you know, just hours add up. So for sure, I was probably, uh, behind there.

What I did do, uh, very specifically this time around that I didn't do enough of in 2015. And that was just because what I learned in the 2015 race was, um, how important ground handling is. I've always had an emphasis. Anyway, I know how important it is, but in the race, um, you launch and land in some really tricky spots. And so I tried to put a lot of emphasis on ground handling. And then I also tried to do, um, quite a bit more acro training. And if I could have done anything more, uh, I would have done a lot more acro training. It's kind of tricky for us where we are. We don't have water. And so all the acro training I did was with Cody Mittanck, and we did it over the desert. And, uh, he has. Now changed his philosophy on that.

He doesn't really like that. We're doing that over the dirt. And so we were, we were doing it in a way where we felt like it was pretty safe, but it's just still not very safe. So before, if I do it again in 2019, that's what I would focus on the most would be more acro training. And you saw it with Pal Takats, you know, he, he's just a acro legend. I think in that, in that race, the more wing control skills you have, the more SIV, the more acro and the more ground handling, I think that's way more important than time in the sky.

Huh? So that's, that's another question I was going to ask you is that there, there's a bunch of different types of paragliding athletes in that race. There's world cup racers and general adventures and acro pilots and endurance athletes. It sounds like you're saying that, that you think the guys that have maybe the most advantage might be the acro guys. If you were to decide to do it again, is that what you'd focus on or would you put a bunch more racing experience? Into your, in your quiver?

I mean, I, ideally you do it all and you know, we, we, we have, we have the template to follow, which is Chrigel and you know, he is one of the best in all of those things. You know, it was surprising for me to hear that he feels like he's not a very good climber compared to some of the top guys on the world cup. But you know, this, this, this isn't meant to be a slight against anybody, but we could look at some of the, you know, real contenders. And kind of look at their strengths and maybe their weaknesses, you know, somebody like Aaron Durogati, for example. So he's been, you know, world champion, uh, twice in the last five years. I mean, he's, he's the only person that's done that. He's won the Superfinal twice. He's young. He's incredibly strong.

He's incredibly fit. I think in the 2013 race was the first time he'd flown over 200 K, uh, in a day. So, I mean, he's, he's one of the best, uh, certainly. Yeah. Certainly one of the best racers, probably even better now than Chrigel in terms of like world cups. Uh, but then, but Chrigel still beats him pretty handily and he has the last three times. And so, and then you have somebody like Pal Takats who, you know, more recently got it. He did the X-Ops back in 2009, I believe too. So, I mean, he's been a cross country pilot all along, but he's got, you know, just, he's by far the best acro pilot of any of us in that race by far. And, uh, and, uh, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and he's also become a really solid XC pilot, but where, what you could see him focus on the last couple of years where it was racing, he's been doing a lot of races and a lot more bivy flying.

And I mean, he clearly, he, his preparation for this was, I think he even told me that his physical training was not that intense. He was really more focused on becoming a really good cross country pilot. And for him, that was the racing side of things. And Chrigel mentioned that in his, you know, when I talked to him that he, I asked him, you know, what, what do you have that the rest of us don't? And part of it was his attitude and the scramble philosophy. And, uh, clearly a lot of it is the training, you know, just flying in absurd conditions. So he's, you know, so he can handle it in the race, but, you know, he's done all of that. You know, he was one of the first guys to do the infinity. He won the world championships three times. I keep saying world championships and that's, he's won the world cup three times. Um, there are two different things, but you know, he, he has, it's kind of all those things.

So like a Paul Guescher Bauer, uh, third now twice or maybe three times and then ninth in his four events. I mean, so he is crushing, you know, and makes really good decisions and is very strong, is very fast on the ground, very fast up mountains, but he has very little racing experience. And so, you know, I think for each one of us, we have to, you know, we have to carve out time to take on our weaknesses and, you know, so like for, for somebody like Aaron Durogati, he's got to, you know, I would suggest that he's got to do more bivy flying and he's got to do more, you know, try to do more big, long flights, you know, and, and get off the bar and fly slower and go back to climbs and, you know, do stuff that you would never do in a race in a, like a world cup, you know, that's all about speed, speed, speed and short.

And they're not very, they're, you know, it's very rare for a world cup to go more than like two and a half hours or three hours, you know? So, you know, he's got to learn how to fly 10, 11, 12 hours. Um, because that's, that's Kriegel's genius is he can stay in the air all day.

So it brings up this, this point. There's, it's almost like we're missing some important parts or, or an important part, and that's the decision piece. Um, it seems like it's a huge part of the success in the event. Did you find a way, or did you think about a way to practice making big decisions before you started at this time?

Yeah. So basically what, what I worked on really specifically, specifically was when, when we, when we looked at our 2015 event and we kind of wrote it all up after the race, we, what the mistakes kept coming down to over and over and over again was Gavin bombing out or Gavin flying too fast or Gavin being impatient, you know, because I, I have more of a race mentality and I, I haven't done nearly the world cup experience to, there's a lot of the guys in the race, but you know, I, I, I flew the X-Alps like it was a world cup. And, you know, when you look at the guys who do really well, you realize that slow is fast. You know, it's all about staying in the air and top landing when there's a little bit too much cloud and waiting it out.

And, you know, we'll basically top landing all the time and, or in going back and topping out climbs. And there, these are things that I don't naturally do very well. And we see it. That's, that's kind of an American thing. Uh, it's kind of funny. We, we see that in racing and we, we are, we're just impatient pilots. And, uh, and so this year when I went over to Europe and even before that, when I was back in Sun Valley, we actually had quite a good spring for flying. My whole philosophy was just to fly slow. And anytime I was, anytime I was kind of unsure about something, unsure about the weather or maybe too much serious or the wind or anything, I would top land instead of, you know, trying to eke it out and bomb out and walk back up, uh, I would top land and wait it out.

So I think from that. From that perspective, the, the key there is recognizing when it is good and, and putting down the hammer and flying really fast. You know, you can't, you, you know, they're, they're too slow too. Um, but I think that I didn't do anything to answer your question. I didn't do anything mentally specifically in that regard, like to just kind of prep in terms of being, uh, bullish or stubborn or, uh, really solid mentally. But I did, what I did was just try to really change my flying. And, uh, and I think that really paid off. I think that was, that was, that really worked.

Interesting. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of a woo topic. It's really hard to, to lay out. Let's hit some more concrete stuff. So you had the, the physical training was the same. Was there anything prep, uh, nutrition? You said some supplements, weather, geekery gadgets, like anything that you found this time. It's like, oh, that was really useful. And I'll incorporate that into future races or future flights. Um, that was, that was different. What'd you learn?

Yeah, that was really cool. So we, we basically in the 2015 event, I had a lot of problems swelling, uh, at night and I had a lot of trouble sleeping. So I would just wake up and just lakes. It wasn't like wet, you know, I would, I would literally wake up in a lake of water that was just from sweating. And so my feet blew up, uh, which meant my feet wouldn't fit in any of my shoes, which led to really, really, really bad blisters. You know, and basically it was kind of like when we looked at it at the end of it, it was like, well, I'm not going to be able to do this. So Jesus, I just lived on goo for 10 days and tons of Coke and, you know, just carbs, basically just sugar, Coca-Cola, not cocaine. Yeah. Coca-Cola. Yeah. Right. Good to point that out. Yeah. So, I mean, it was just, it was, you know, I, I tend to eat pretty well, but it wasn't, you know, we, I wasn't eating like that in the training.

And so suddenly we were in the race and it was just, you know, your heart rate so high a lot of the time that you just don't, it was hard to get down real food. Right. And, you know, obviously big dips. Yeah. And try to be pretty big breakfast, but in between it was just living on sugar. And so that was the first place we attacked. I actually went to a guy down in Pocatello that does a lot of works with a lot of Olympic athletes and we did massive lab tests. So tons and tons of blood tests and his kind of specialty is, is hormone stuff. But basically we, we, we went into this one with the idea that we would make me a lot more fat adaptive and use a lot more protein. Yeah. A lot more fat and, you know, carbs still have their place in a race like that for sure. But the big difference is like in an ultra thon, you know, you, for 20 hours, 16 hours, 24 hours, whatever, you need whatever you want.

If you've done the training, you know what I mean? You just, you just need calories and you need sugar and, you know, you can do that Coca Cola and goo and all that kind of stuff. Cause it's going to end. But our philosophy going into this time with 10 days or 12 days, this was 12 days. Basically it was just an hour under 12 days. Um, that you just, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, you just think about it like, Oh, that's not how you would eat if you're just living. So, um, we really tried to go, you know, most of the days were kind of six to 8,000 calorie days. Um, that's pretty hard to replenish, but what we were, what we really tried to do from the very beginning of the training was make me a lot more fat adaptive. So, you know, things like MCT oil and, um, just a lot of fat and a lot of protein. And, and then during the race we used, you put me onto this.

Um, you know, some of the supplements we used were just wicked. So one of the things I got from the doctor in Pocatello were these magnesium sticks. They're like deodorant sticks. Um, that's just basically pure magnesium. There's a couple of different ones. There's one before you start and then there's one as you're going along. So, you know, it's basically impossible to keep your magnesium levels high when you're working that hard. So this was just a way to get magnesium into my body immediately through the skin rather than taking pills. So your stomach had to churn it out. So that was huge. Using Peter Defty's. Was huge. So these are like, you know, basically drinks, you know, drink mixes, uh, that you, that you just fire off. Um, and we would do three or four of those a day. So basically during any of my big climbs and that's, this is a mix that's just basically fat and it's made from, uh, wasps and it's delicious.

And I just noticed a huge difference. Um, there's like the little goo

packets and it's, it's more water than goo for sure. Or a little watery. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean the, the, the goos, you know, just take a lot of water to digest. Um, and so they're, they're, they're working against you when it comes to hydration. And so the vet Vespa was, I almost felt like that stuff was like cheating. Uh, so that, that was, that was great. Uh, we used a lot of stuff from on it, just, you know, liver cod oil and joint oil and MCT oil. And, you know, I just loading up on that stuff. They've got this stuff called total primate care. Uh, there's a. Morning and an evening packet. And that's just like, just good stuff. Kelp and cod oil and stuff for your joints. Um, you know, I found since I've been on that stuff now about a year, I haven't had a cold, you know, so I, stuff like that really helped. Whereas in the last race we were, I was just eating Advil like it was bananas.

You know, I was living on Advil, you know, four or five morning, noon and night. Not

good for your system.

Not good for the system. Because the swelling was so bad that what we've discovered is that it was just murdering my liver. And that was leading, that was actually helping the, this time I had no swelling whatsoever. I slept like a baby every night. I, my feet didn't get bigger. Uh, you know, it was just clearly, we kind of nailed that. Significant improvement. Really significant improvement. Sleep. I slept great. I worked with Ian Dunican who you put me in touch with. I'm actually been doing a podcast with him about sleep. That was really useful. Uh, yeah. I mean, I think that one of the huge things I saw that one of the massive differences in the 2017 and 2015 race was the preparedness of the teams. When I went in, you know, you spend a week there at the, in Fuscial in the camp before the race kicks off.

And when I went in 2015, you know, pretty much right away, I was like, half of these people haven't prepared. Right. You could just tell by looking at their bodies, you know, there was like, okay, you know, I know all these guys are good. They're good pilots, but I basically wrote half of them off right from the beginning. I just thought that they're going to, they're going to crumble, you know, come day five, six, seven, eight, nine, we're going to see people drop. And that's exactly what happened. And in this, this time I was like, shit, these guys are fit. I mean, there was, it was just a whole nother level. People are really, and that's, it was interesting talking to Chrigel before the race. I had dinner with him one night and, you know, he was talking about back in 2009, even 2011, you know, it was just he and Thomas, they could handle it. Just the two of them. And he said, he made the comment that it was truly more of an adventure race.

Then it was, people were moving a lot slower and, you know, you'd wait five, you'd wait an hour for your buddy to catch up with you. And, you know, it was, it was more like a backpacking race across the Alps. And whereas now it's just every, it's just getting really fast. You know, you've got these guys that are ultra thoners that are also really good pilots and they're taking it really seriously and people are training really hard. And, and so, you know, going into this time was actually quite intimidating. You know, you've got all these young guys that looked really fit and, uh, and then you could see it prologue how fast these guys were. And so, yeah, that, that's pretty interesting. There's a huge spread now in age and, you know, me being one of the oldest right by far, uh, 45,

45. Okay. Was there anyone older?

Yeah. The couple of guys, Claudio, the Argentinian guy, I'm not, maybe, I

don't know. I might've been it. Yeah. And a bunch of dudes. It was, who is the youngest? You know, Nelson to Freeman

was the youngest in 2015, I believe, but all those guys are pretty young. Nelson Stanislav, um, Benoit is young. I don't know. I think he's 28 there. There has to, I'm missing some guys here, but I think there's a couple of guys kind of in their mid twenties,

twenties. Okay. So going up against 45, that's, that's a significant difference in, in physical prep. But I mean, it looked like, looked like you had it, that there wasn't a, uh, a big problem with keeping up the pace on the ground.

No, no, I was really quite surprised at the end, you know, Red Bull keeps statistic and statistics are, you gotta kind of be wary of those because you, you know, they're, it's all, it's all depending on that device that they give us tracking us accurately. Uh, you know, like when it, when it says that we've flown a thousand K that's counting all the circles, that's kind of all the turn turns, which, you know, in a database like X contest doesn't count any of that stuff. So that's not really how we count flying, but for the ground stuff. I think they're pretty accurate. And when he looked at the stats at the end, I was pretty fast. So yeah, I, I, that's interesting. You know, like Toma is really the only guy that runs consistently and he's kind of jogging, but he can do it all day. You know what I mean? He really can move fast on the ground.

What was great was, uh, that I was stronger at the end, you know, like I didn't get slower as the days went by, I got faster and I felt better and that was different than 2015 and, um, and, and it was harder this year. I mean, we did a lot more time on the ground, so I'm encouraged by that. You know, it was, it was encouraging at the end of the race to go, you know, I think, I think that's the cool thing about paragliding is that we, you know, it's, it's not a young person sport necessarily, you know, and, and we, we see it in the results. And so you certainly see it in the world cup results. So, you know, if I decided to do it again and we're basically not going to make that decision for a year now, but, uh, you know, if I decided to do it again, you know, I'm, I think my body could handle another one.

That's encouraging. Yeah. It feels good. So that brings up the question. I mean, you got a bunch of folks listening to this podcast. I know every time I, I hear your name mentioned, guys are talking about the X-Alps. Um, you're, I'm guessing you're going to inspire a bunch of folks to, uh, to get out there and do that race or races like it. If, if those guys or girls were to come to you with, um, requesting advice, what advice would you give them kind of in general for these X-Alps, X peer, whatever it is, type races?

I don't know of a better thing to do with your time. So the juice is worth the squeeze. All right. You know, when I, when I first started watching the X-Alps, when I was a very new pilot, I think the first one I watched was 2007. Um, I just thought this is the coolest thing I've ever seen. Like, I mean, it's way cooler than an ultra thon. It's, it's, it's, it goes many days. It's dicey. It's got all the elements of just, just insanity. And so, uh, I, I didn't know. I just couldn't back then. I couldn't even perceive that people could do it. Uh, it just blew me away. And so, you know, a few years later, I started flying a lot more and it started being like this little, like, God, I wonder if I could do that. So I guess what I would say to people that are, that are, you know, if you're thinking about it, you know, seriously, the first thing is it's going to take a lot of time, you know?

So if you don't have a lot of time, then I wouldn't consider it. It's just, it's just too dangerous. You really need the hours. But if you, if you have this, if you have this, if you have this, if you have this, if you have the time, uh, and you're thinking like, God, I wonder if I could do that. I would say, give it a go. Half of it is getting in. Uh, it's not a slam dunk to get into this race. And so, uh, and you have to remember that it's for Red Bull. This is a marketing event. Uh, you know, this is a big, you know, there's the journalists and the cameras and the helicopter and all that stuff. A lot of that, that I think all of us from the athlete side find really annoying, but you know, they have to do that. And we're happy that they do because it means that we've got an event to go do. But, um, you gotta be thinking about that a lot, how you're, how you're going to get into this.

Cause it's, you know, you either have to, you gotta have a name, uh, you gotta have results. You get, you know, they won't take you if you're, if you're not, you know, a proven mountain athlete that doesn't necessarily need to be paragliding, but they want to make sure that you know how to navigate and operate in remote terrain. Even if it's the Alps, it's not remote, like what you and I think of it as remote, but, you can get into terrible places in the Alps and you can die. So, um, so it's the whole, yeah, getting in is the first thing I would, so like Ben's wanting to do the X peer next summer. And so I'm coaching him right now. Cause I would be his supporter. It'd be kind of fun, you know, like turning the tables around, you know, Ben's probably 150 hour pilot at best, you know, so he's way lower hours than the guys that are going to win that thing.

And so, you know, he's not going into it with the idea that he's going to get top five, but he wants to be safe and he wants to have fun, you know? So that's where I would start. Is it, you know, the borns to fly or the expert or the, uh, the X peer, a race that's much, much easier to get in. It gives you something to focus on. It gives you something to train for. And the training I'm doing with him is basically the same training I would do, um, for the X-Alps. So once you've got the getting in handled, um, then it's basically a lot of the stuff that you and I have talked about, you know, like in the ground handling podcast, you know, so his, his weekly training regimen. And he's handling all the physical stuff. I'm not doing any of that, but from the flying perspective, it's, you know, listen to Chrigel podcast, uh, watch, you know, watch ground handling videos, ground handle as much as you possibly can, especially when it's not very good weather, you know, like, like in other words, when the ground handling is tricky, um, and then, you know, you, you gotta get it, you gotta become a Jedi with your wing on the ground.

That's, that's step one. And then, you know, as much SIV as you can. And then basically you're wanting to. Fly with a lot of purpose that every flight is a training flight. And that's something we hit on, on the podcast again and again and again with other guests, but you know, that you're not just flying around, you know, that you're, you're doing stuff that's, uh, that's purposeful. You're top landing. You're, you're trying to fly when the conditions are weak. You're, um, trying to extend flights. You're, you're using your instruments, you're setting up routes, you're setting up tasks, you're flying tasks, you know, and then if you have the time, you're going to comps. Uh, you. You learn way more in a comp than you can when you're at home. So, um, the more comps you can go do the better that's going to teach you how to fly fast, which is really important.

That's also going to teach you how to switch gears, which is really important. So, you know, slowing down when the day's not on going, switching from survival mode to race mode faster than, than other people, you know, things like top landing, uh, in a, in an adventure race, you have to have that dialed and that is really dangerous. And it takes a lot of time. And so, you know, we're not going to have been where I would like to have them by next July for that, because of where he lives, he lives in Albuquerque, the flying's, you know, you get one day every 10, if you're lucky. Um, so we're not going to have the hours. We're not going to have the places to, for him to top land. So that means you have to make different decisions when you're in the race. You know, you, you can't just do fly on the wall type stuff. That means he's going to have to fly down to the Valley and put his shoes on and do a lot more walking, you know?

He, he knows how to walk. He knows how to walk. Yeah. He can hustle. He's fast. So, yeah, I mean, I, I think it's all those, it's all those things. It's all the things we talk about on the show, but I, you know, like, uh, like pal attack had said, you know, in those races, sometimes fast and slow. I think that that's the big thing is just having the mental fortitude to not rush to, to be patient.

That's hard to do. At least for me, that's pretty tricky. Yeah. I mean, that's why it's so fascinating is it requires so many things. You have to be a good ground handler, good acro. Good racer, good mental game, good nutrition. I mean, everything's got to add up for you to win. Um, yeah, that, that's what makes it fascinating. So,

yeah. And it, I mean, and I think that, I think people probably, uh, you know, the, a real luxury that I have is the time and, and, you know, a lot of them don't like Nick Nanans who crushed it this year. He did so well. You know, he, he, he hasn't flown in the Alps much and he's got a full-time job. And so, you know, he came over two days before the prologue, you know, so he hadn't scouted any of the course, which Chrigel doesn't either, but that's, you know, that's different. And Kregel's flown a lot in the Alps, you know, and he did really well. So you don't, you don't have to necessarily do it by that recipe, but that's the recipe that I would suggest, but it's, it's just nice to have, it is really nice to have the time, but, you know, especially for the physical training in the, the, the, the reality is in the race that the, the weather isn't going to be good all the time.

And, you know, if you can handle the miles on the ground. It, that you're, you're going to, you're going to do much better and there is no real way to do that except to train unless, unless you're just killing in Jornet and you, you know, you just, you're, you're, you're, uh, you're that kind of level, you know? Yeah. That's,

that's not the racer. So last, last two questions I've got are not on the race. What, if anything is next on your list, it sounds like that the X-Alps decision is up in the air. Um, but what else is, what else is in the works that you can talk about?

Yeah. Well, so, uh, eight days ago I had a little girl, uh, yeah, thank you. That was, uh, totally unplanned and really exciting. And so, um, yeah, I'm a dad, so I'm on this kind of next journey and, uh, being a father, which is really exciting. And, uh, so yeah, right now I'm basically, basically how I'm approaching the next race is this, this next year. I'm going to try to fly a lot. I'm really excited about maybe trying to break some state records and, um, excited about flying some new areas. I'm really excited about flying home. You know, Sun Valley is still a place that we just haven't tapped. And so, uh, I'd like to be home a lot more and flying as much as I possibly can. So then if we decide to pull the trigger next July, when it comes time to apply, you know, I'll at least have that box ticked.

I don't have to worry too much about the physical side. Um, I'll just keep doing that. Um, I'll just keep doing that. I normally do, but no big expeditions. You know, the big one was Alaska last year. And, uh, I just think, you know, now being a dad and taking care of this little one, uh, you know, I, it'd be hard to get away for a huge project like that. So I don't have any huge missions like that planned this year, but I do have some big ones planned the following year, but, uh, can't talk about those yet.

Changes your priorities having that little kiddo.

Yeah, totally. Which is pretty exciting. People keep telling me that it's great because it's, it's probably means I'm going to live a little bit longer.

Maybe so. Maybe, maybe it should keep you alive. That'd be a nice little gift. Right. Totally.

Cool. I think that covers most of what, uh, most of the questions I had for the 2017 X helps. Thanks a ton for taking the time to answer them. It's pretty exciting to go back and to think about, you know, while you're talking, what we were seeing on the screens and, uh, yeah, super cool. Thank you. Awesome. Thanks, Nick. I appreciate it. Thanks for your time, man. That was fun.

I hope you enjoyed that. Uh, as promised, we've got a special, uh, special episode coming up next week. We've got a special episode with Chrigel Maurer coming up. Sorry. I haven't put that up yet. Uh, still working on that edit and a little more questions for him and, uh, hard to pin him down of course, cause he's busy and he's got kids and a lot of things going on there. They just had the world cup over there in Decentis with terrible weather. But anyway, we're going to get that up here shortly. Stay tuned. I think you're going to enjoy it and we'll catch you on the next episode. Cheers.