Borderlands Trail and Ultra Running

Dylan Bowman has spent much of his life in trail running, first as a professional athlete and now as the founder of Freetrail, one of the sport's most influential media platforms. But what happens when the thing you love becomes the thing you're responsible for building? And how do you know whether the sacrifices have been worth it?
[Long Live the Local Ultra | Nov 1 | Salt Lake City]
Presented by Kiprun.
Josh sits down with Dylan at San Francisco Running Company for a conversation about ambition, identity, and the complicated relationship between running and the business of running. They get into the personal and financial cost of building Freetrail, the pressure of becoming a prominent voice in the sport, the strange world of trail running memes, and where professional trail running might be headed. Somewhere in all of it is a guy who's accomplished a lot and is still figuring out what success looks like.
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Thumbnail photo: Ryan Thrower
If you’re new to Borderlands, start here.
Topics / Timestamps
00:00 — Cold Open: Was It Worth It?
02:20 — Dylan's Complicated Relationship With Running
10:23 — The Personal and Financial Cost of Freetrail
15:42 — Ambition, Competition, and the Inner Critic
23:41 — Building Freetrail Into an Institution
29:56 — Influence, Responsibility, and the Future of Trail Running
40:48 — The Future of Professional Trail Running
46:35 — Backyard Ultras, Barkley, and What Defines the Sport

Resources / Links
Freetrail
Salt Lake Foothills Trail Races
Josh Rosenthal on IG
Borderlands.cc

Related Episodes
Ultra Running isn't Just Running

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Borderlands explores trail running through culture, media, and the forces shaping it.
Watch on YouTube
Read on Substack

Ultrarunning gives ordinary people a rare place to feel strong, capable and tested. You don’t have to be elite, or even particularly good at it, to experience that. I know because I’ve DNF’d plenty of 100 milers, and when I finally finished Zion 100, I was the last guy across the line.
Watching The Rookie with my son made me realize why that feeling matters so much. As adults, most of us lose the arenas where we get to find out what we’re made of. Maybe ultrarunning is one of the last ones we have left.
Presented by Kiprun.
Please give us a follow, rate the podcast, and give a review.
If you’re new to Borderlands, start here.
Topics / Timestamps
00:00 You Don’t Have to Be Good at Ultrarunning
01:03 What The Rookie Made Me Realize
03:46 Adults Lose the Arena
06:16 Stepping Back Into the Arena
12:26 Finishing the Zion 100
16:31 The Dignity of Ultrarunning
20:17 Long Live the Local Ultra

Resources / Links
Salt Lake Foothills Trail Races
Borderlands.cc

Related Episodes
Ultra Running isn't Just Running

----
Borderlands explores trail running through culture, media, and the forces shaping it.
Watch on YouTube
Read on Substack

Anton Krupicka has spent two decades becoming something harder to define than a trail runner. This conversation is about how that happened, why he stopped caring about fitting the sport’s mold, and what it looks like to keep evolving without chasing relevance.
We talk about the injury that changed his relationship with running, the move toward scrambling and climbing, his influence on trail culture, the Leadville comeback, and why La Sportiva still makes sense for the athlete he is now. More than anything, it’s Anton on identity, aging, design, and trying to stay the peak version of yourself without pretending you’re still who you were ten years ago.
Please give us a follow, rate the podcast, and give a review.
If you’re new to Borderlands, start here.
Topics / Timestamps
00:00 Anton Krupicka on why trends don't matter
01:30 From trail runner to mountain man
03:52 When the whole landscape opened up
08:24 Identity, trends, and trail running culture
16:45 The Leadville 100 comeback
21:12 The peak version of yourself

Resources / Links
Unbreakable | Western States Film
Anton's 2021 Leadville Race
Salt Lake Foothills Trail Races
Borderlands.cc

Related Episodes
Ultra Running isn't Just Running

Presented by Kiprun.
----
Borderlands explores trail running through culture, media, and the forces shaping it.
Watch on YouTube
Read on Substack

Trail running is growing fast, but what happens to the races that don’t scale cleanly? After spending one night volunteering at the Wasatch 100 and the next day at a brand-new UTMB race, I came away wondering whether the messy, human parts of ultra running are exactly the parts we can’t afford to lose.
Pacers, old-timers, exhausted volunteers, DNFs, polished finish lines, UTMB, and the strange ways a race becomes more than a race. This isn’t an argument for grassroots over corporate. It’s about why trail running needs both, what each is uniquely good at, and what disappears when every race starts looking the same.
Presented by Kiprun.
Please give us a follow, rate the podcast, and give a review.
If you’re new to Borderlands, start here.
Topics / Timestamps
2:22 Races like Wasatch fill the human spirit.
6:09 I love ultrarunning pacer culture.
10:29 Someone else’s problem becomes mine.
14:55 The back of the pack is where I come alive.
16:52 Wasatch rewards staying.
22:04 You can’t manufacture heritage.
26:21 The fragile one is not the one I thought.

Resources / Links
Salt Lake Foothills Trail Races
Borderlands.cc

Related Episodes
Ultra Running isn't Just Running

----
Borderlands explores trail running through culture, media, and the forces shaping it.
Watch on YouTube
Read on Substack

Ultrarunning rewards people who can keep going. Biel makes you wonder what happens when stopping no longer feels like an option, and where ambition ends and compulsion begins.
Biel is a Brazilian ultrarunner, Speed Project athlete, tattoo artist and printmaker living in Berlin. He has represented Brazil at the 24-Hour World Championships and set records from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and Chamonix to Marseille. But the more interesting story is the force connecting his face tattoos, his art and the extreme experiences he says he needs to stay alive.
Please give us a follow, rate the podcast, and give a review.
If you’re new to Borderlands, start here.
Topics / Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
02:27 Face Tattoos, Identity + Freedom
05:17 Why Ultrarunning Keeps Biel Alive
07:19 TSP | Chamonix-to-Marseille Record
10:59 24-Hour Racing x The Speed Project
13:07 A Perfect Fit for Biel
18:40 From Nightclub Cleaner to Pro Runner
22:48 Art + Life Beyond Running
27:39 Beyond Records + Limits

Resources / Links
Salt Lake Foothills Trail Races
Borderlands.cc
Additional photo courtesty of Tycjan Trzpioloa

Related Episodes
Ultra Running isn't Just Running

Presented by Kiprun.
----
Borderlands explores trail running through culture, media, and the forces shaping it.
Watch on YouTube
Read on Substack