Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. This is the last episode we are recording in this studio.
So right now I'm in our old HQ, our previous HQ, and there's not much left. We have officially moved into our new headquarters, where our new gym is at, our new warehouse and fulfillment is at, our new offices are at.
And where we were previously at, where I'm sitting right now, it is pretty much getting torn down to the bare bones of what it was in 2019 when we first signed the lease.
So someone else will come in here after us and the landlord has brought in his crews and they're just bringing it back to working order.
But this room, we've been able to maintain up until today.
And this is the last episode we're recording.
So if you're watching the video and it looks a little different, it's because we've pulled all of our lights out and we've moved it into the new studio.
So we've made some modifications and we added some lights in here temporarily just to record this episode.
episode, the end of an era, the end of the old HQ, and now we're in the new one.
But in this episode, what I want to do is recap this past weekend, which was the Go One More Ultra.
And the Go One More Ultra was such an experience.
I mean, there haven't been many things in the history of this brand over the last 13 years that have created such an impact and reach and interest ever, like the Go One More Ultra did this past weekend.
There were hundreds of thousands of people tuning in, watching the race.
We were doing live streams online, and we knew, or at least I knew, it was going to to be a powerful event for the brand and the team and the community.
But I'll be honest, I did not expect or anticipate just how big it was going to be.
And if you tuned in and you watched for the 56 hours that it lasted, I'm sure you can attest to the fact that it was an inspiration to watch as the last two runners battled it out for an additional 100 plus miles after the previous last runner DNF'd.
And I'm still trying to wrap my head around what exactly happened this past weekend.
Not necessarily just from the race itself, But what it did for the brand, what it did for those two runners, what it did for our community, and the impact we're going to feel for years and years and years to come.
Truly a surreal experience and one of the top three moments of BPN history for me over these last 13 years since I started the brand in 2012.
but what is the go one more ultra if you didn't tune in you're not familiar let me just give a a brief synopsis of of what this race was it was a last man standing style race and it's not who runs the fastest fastest, it's who won't quit.
And the goal with a last man standing race is that there is one finisher.
There's only one finisher.
Everyone else is a DNF, did not finish.
finish. So we hosted this race on Bear Ranch. Bear Ranch is a 240 acre ranch that we have been working on now for the last six -ish months and building it out in preparation for this race.
This race, the Going More Ultra, was the first event, the first of many events that we will host on this property, but it was the first event that we put together.
And there's a 4 .2 mile loop that we built out.
And that loop restarts every hour on the hour until there is one runner left, just one finisher.
And the way this course was set up is, you know, 240 acres.
And a few months I went out and I started planning the course on this property.
And in order to get the best course possible, we had the two loops that made up the entire 4 .2 -mile loop.
So it was a small loop you did from the start and finish.
And then it wrapped back around.
Then you did a larger second loop.
And then when you finish that second loop, you came back in the start and finish line.
and that provided you your 4 .2 miles.
So at 12 p .m. Central Standard Time on May 24th, we had all the runners, 120 runners line up in the corral and we had 120 runners from 35 states and six countries represented and they lined up in that corral And we had this big bell that Tony Reyes, our partnerships director, found.
And we rung that bell three times and the runners went off and they did the 4 .2 mile loop.
And they had, like I said, one hour to finish that loop.
So they had to be back by 1 p .m. Central Standard Time.
If the runners came in at, say, 12 .40 p .m., they finished the loop in 40 minutes.
They then had 20 minutes to rest before they had to tow the line again, line back up in the corral.
We rung the bell at the top of every hour, and they went out and ran that loop once again.
And the intent of a last man standing race is that you just keep doing this until there's one person left. left, so there's strategy involved.
You don't want to run the loop too fast, but you don't want to run the loop too slow.
You want to run the loop at a pace that is sustainable where you're not burning yourself out.
However, you're allowing just enough time on the back end to come in, go to the bathroom, sit down for a little bit, change out your socks and shoes if if you need to, get some fuel, get some food in you, top off on your nutrition and water, and then line back up for the top of the hour before the bell rings and you go back out.
And this just goes on over and over and over again until, like I said, one person is left. That is the way a last man standing race works.
4 .2 mile loop every hour on the hour until just just one person's left. Now, the outcome of the go one more ultra, uh, let's talk about that a little bit.
So it ended up going 56 laps, 56 loops, which is 56 hours, 56 hours of running running 235 miles 235 miles just think about that for a second running for 56 hours and over those 56 hours covering 235 miles when you go out your next run and you're four or five six miles in and you're feeling uncomfortable and you want to stop you want to quit just think of of these guys that I'm about to talk about right here, who didn't stop for 56 hours and 235 miles.
Now we ended up having a shared win.
There were two finishers and I'll explain why.
We had Kendall, Picado Foss, and Kim Gottwald, each 21 years old.
uh kendall is from costa rica and kim is from germany and they had a shared win because this crazy storm came in to central texas and wiped down our course wiped down our base camp as we were going into the 57th loop in the 57th hour now mitch amens he was the last person to to drop out of the race mitch amens is a bpn athlete he was the last person to drop out of the race prior to uh kendall and kim dropping out And Mitch dropped down at mile marker 126.
Mitch logged 126 miles.
His PR prior to this was 50 miles that he did at the BPN Survive the Night Ultra last year that we did on this ranch. So Mitch ended up running 30 laps for 30 hours.
And then after Mitch dropped out, both Kendall and Kim battled for an additional 26 hours, just those two.
And then a storm came in.
Before I talk about a storm, I want to talk about what makes a race like this special.
You need two very tough athletes to battle it out for a race to go this long.
If, for example, Kendall wasn't there or Kim wasn't there, and after Mitch dropped at mile 126, which is very impressive, Mitch went from a PR of 50 miles to 126 miles.
Mitch is just an incredible athlete overall.
He can go far and he can go fast. I'm having Mitch on the podcast here in a few weeks to talk about his story his race history how fast he is in the marathon I believe his PR is 2 hours and 16 minutes in the marathon phenomenal athlete but if Kim wasn't there or Kendall wasn't there after Mitch dropped at mile 126 one of them would have gotten the win win.
They would have had to do one more loop and they would have finished at 130 miles for the win.
You need two, at least two, really tough athletes to push a race to the extremes, to the limits.
I mean, it was such an incredible thing to watch and witness.
These two guys, these two young men 21 years old, Kendall Picado Follis and Kim Gottwald battling it out for 100 plus miles by themselves.
And I just watched these guys toe the line, enter the corral, line up, bell was rung and they went out over and over and over again.
again, just digging deep.
You need two athletes to really push these races to the extremes.
You can't just have one extremely tough athlete.
You need two people, two individuals who are willing to go to war, who are willing to fight.
And neither of them was willing to accept defeat.
Neither of them was willing to quit.
I mean, I guarantee this race, it was about to go into the third night.
If that storm that happened didn't roll in, this race would have went into the third night.
It would have went into Tuesday.
It would have kept going.
I'm convinced these guys weren't ever going to quit.
And some force and act of God had to happen, which was the storm to pause the race.
race. And that's why we were left with two finishers.
So here's what ended up happening.
Like I said, the race started Saturday at 12 PM central standard time.
This is May 24th. We went through Saturday and then we ended up going through Saturday night and Sunday and Sunday night and Monday.
And we got to the point where these two are battling.
And so as we're going into Monday night, we're about to enter the third night.
We got warnings that there was severe weather coming into central Texas.
The ranch is located in a town called Liberty Hill.
And we were watching the weather radar and we knew something was coming in.
But the hope was that it would just be light.
It'd be quick. It would pass.
And you could see the clouds rolling in come Monday night.
It was starting to get dark.
It was getting cooler.
It was really hot during this race.
During the day, 96, 97, 98 degrees.
It was a brutal weekend to host a last man standing race in Central Texas.
Limited coverage. These guys were just getting beaten by the sun all day, but the weather was changing Monday night and they ended up finishing 56 loops, 56 hours.
And we sent the runners out on the 57th hour for the 57th loop.
And shortly after they left, the weather turned very quickly.
It started getting extremely windy.
It started raining.
raining and then out of nowhere, this storm rolled in hot and heavy.
And we were holding onto the tents we were under and the wind was ripping these tents out of the ground.
The rain was going sideways.
Like you couldn't get any coverage.
We were under this massive event tent and the rain was coming sideways into the tent.
We had a medical tent on the the side of base camp near the start and finish line.
It was this huge stakedown tent.
The wind came through, it ripped that tent out of the ground and it threw it into the trees.
So at this point we have our event staff there, the BPN crew, which hats off to the BPN crew all weekend.
I mean, I couldn't get people to leave the ranch. We set up shifts prior to this whole event and race starting so that people had a rest plan and they worked a few hours each day and they can go home and rest or rest during the day.
We built it out very intentionally so that people weren't overworked and they could come support and help, but also rest. I couldn't get some of these people who work for BPN to leave. So these employees, they wanted to be there for the entire thing.
They wanted to support.
There was no negativity.
There was no complaining.
People were exhausted.
People were tired. People didn't sleep the whole weekend.
And you could see it on their faces.
You could feel the fatigue and energy, even though they weren't running necessarily.
This crew was working.
I'm so proud of this team.
I'm so proud proud of this this organization and the culture and the people i'm leaving this weekend as big as it was for the brand man i'm just like i'm so proud of the people that work for this organization and i just leave this weekend inspired by not just the runners and the community and the people showed up to throw down but man the and the employees and team members and the staff just just constantly blowing me away, going above and beyond, and just dedicated and committed to our mission and our craft and what we're doing and our goals and our purpose.
Man, I'm so grateful to have so many good people in my life who come alongside me and want to serve the mission that I'm working towards.
which is very grateful and appreciative of this team and the people.
And as the storm was rolling in, we're holding these tents down and there weren't many people left. Like I said, it was Kendall's crew and then Kim's crew and our team and Eric and Kerry from El Hombre Taco.
They were there the whole weekend serving food for everyone, and even during the storm, they battled it out with us.
Talk about good people, good, good people.
Eric and Kerry from El Hombre Taco, they've supported me and the BPN team in so many of the things we've done over the years.
And I'm so grateful to have them in my life as well.
It's lots of gratitude coming off of this weekend.
That's the main thing that's sticking with me.
And then this storm rolled in and it was nuts.
It was nuts. And I was torn because I didn't want to pause the race because I knew once we paused the race due to weather, it changed the course and trajectory of the outcome forever.
You can't go back from that.
So I ran over to Kim's crew and I'm just getting pelted by rain.
It is downpouring. This is no like light thunderstorm.
It was lightning. It was thundering.
It was chaos. And I asked Kim's dad, I said, what do you want to do?
Do you want to pause the race?
Do you want to leave these runners out here?
here. We need to make this decision collectively.
And he said, whatever you want to do, let's pause it if you want to pause it.
Then I went over to Kendall's crew and Kendall's mom was begging me to pull them off the course just because the weather conditions were so bad.
So at that point, I made the call.
We're going to pause the race.
We sent out gators and we pulled those runners off the course.
You couldn't see anything.
You couldn't hear anything.
And we got everyone going back up to the ranch house.
We rolled into the ranch house and the wind was so strong that it blew the back doors open of the kitchen.
And there was about an inch of rain in the entire house that we just remodeled, just destruction.
And we got as many people as we could in that first load up to the house.
But then we had to go back to base camp where the start and finish line was was because people that were waiting in their car, trying to wait it out, it rained so fast and so hard that it flooded the field and their vehicles were stuck.
So we were having to use the UTVs, the Gators, four by four trucks to get people from out of their cars up to the ranch house to safety.
We got all the runners, we got all the crew, we got all the staff up to the house.
sat down for a second, took a breather, and I felt like in that moment I kept thinking about the movie The Patriot.
That's all I kept thinking about where I'm trying to keep the peace between these two guys who are at war with each other for the last 26 hours and now I have both crews is in one house.
Kendall's on one couch. Kim is on the other couch. And I'm trying to prepare to bring the peace between the two, because you got to keep in mind up until that point for the previous 26 hours, those guys were out for blood.
I mean, I would stand at the start and finish line.
one, they would line up and the look on their faces, like they were at war with each other.
And now we're all in one house together.
It was quite the unique experience.
And I presented these guys with the opportunity.
It's like, all right, we obviously paused the race.
So we have a few courses of action we can take.
And I want to make this decision collectively.
One, we can wait the storm out.
We can go back out and we can resume.
Or you guys battle it out for the win.
Not sure how long we have to wait.
The course was destroyed at that point because it rained so hard and so fast. It just flooded out the course.
or we can consider this a tie and you both win the 2025 Go One More Ultra.
Or if neither of those decisions work, we can discuss some other options.
And they both agreed to call the race right there and share the win.
And they shook hands and we all celebrated.
you know, obviously it wasn't necessarily the outcome we were expecting or wanting when we kicked off the race.
But for me, it was the perfect outcome.
These two runners who are battling it out, who were at war, who weren't willing to quit and God himself had to say, I'm going to end this race right now.
It truly felt like an act from God.
And we decided that those two guys were going to be the winners of this year's Go One More Ultra.
And we ended it there.
We celebrated and we rested.
We got people back to their Airbnbs and home.
And the following day and the last couple of days, we've been cleaning up the ranch from the destruction of the storm.
because it wasn't just this light storm.
It was absolute chaos.
It was thunderstruck, if you will.
So that's the way our first go and more ultra last man standing style race ended on Bear Ranch for 2025.
56 loops, 56 hours, 235 miles.
A shared win between Kendall, Picado, Follis, and Kim Gottwald both those guys 21 years old but fighters fighters man battled it out what inspired this race like why did we decide on this style this concept because last year the race we did on the ranch was an overnight 50 mile ultra we had a five mile loop you had to complete that loop 10 times and then you ran your 50 miles and it was just a straightforward race as such. But we wanted to do something different this year and I'll explain a few reasons why.
In 2023, I did my first ever last man standing race.
It was in Pineland Farms, Maine.
I ended up going 24 loops, 24 hours, 100 miles.
And I believe that a last man standing race for a runner specifically is by definition, go one more.
For me, that was the hardest race in terms of a mental challenge than I've ever done because you don't know when the race is going to end and you can't expedite the process of finishing it because the race restarts every hour on the hour and you just keep going until there's literally one person left or in this case, an act from God that creates a shared win.
And I first came across the last man standing race in Pineland Farms, Maine because I saw Jesse Itzler talking about it years prior.
That was the first time I ever heard of of a last man standing race.
The concept is a backyard ultra.
And there's a world championship every year for the backyard ultra.
It's called Biggs Backyard. And when I first saw Jesse talk about it years ago and I was introduced to it, I found it so interesting.
And when he was talking about it, I believe it was from the race in Pylon farms, Maine, which is beautiful out there.
It's in September. So that's the race I did in 2023.
Such a different, interesting concept that I loved at the time as hard as it was mentally challenging.
And it just made sense that because it's so closely tied and related to go one more, just do one more.
When you think you can't do another, other, do one more, go one more.
You come in from a loop and you think it's going to be your last and you look up at the start finish sign at Bear Ranch and it literally says there's a big steel sign that hangs from the archways, go one more.
You find it deep within yourself to get up out of your chair, go toe the line, enter the corral.
And when that bell rings, go one more, do an additional loop.
And you just keep doing this over and over again until your body says no more or your mind quits and gives up.
It's a definition of go one more.
so we by no means created this race style and concept it's it's been out there for many many years and there are last man standing races all across the world and it's the style race that we wanted to host for ourselves this year based off of my experience in Pineland Farms Maine in 2023 23.
That's what inspired the race.
But what confirmed for us over this last year that our audience will love this concept was actually sparked by a failure.
And I talked about this briefly in the podcast that I did with Nick Lavery a few weeks ago.
And earlier this year, we wanted to host and launch an event and style race that was different from anything else we've ever done before.
We've hosted ultras before.
We've hosted marathons before.
We have been the sponsor, a nutrition sponsor, and involved in marathons and ultras all across the country.
but earlier this year we wanted to host a a shorter distance more fun easier i guess you can say race so we found this parking garage in austin and it was going to be a relay race four person teams each team member had to do an 800 meter interval throughout this parking garage So it was a two -mile race, and then you battled out against other teams in a relay race style throughout the night until there was one winner.
And what was different about this race was we thought this could be an opportunity to have more fun.
Runners didn't have to prep necessarily.
As long as you're in good running shape, you can come run an 800.
meter interval and repeat pretty easily.
You travel in, very little prep required.
You finish it. You feel great.
You can train the next day.
It's not taxing. And we thought this was going to be of great interest to our audience.
So we built out this whole event, this campaign, we launched it, and we expected thousands of people to enter.
Because in the years past, every time we've launched a race, thousands of people have entered.
For this Go One More Ultra that we just had this past weekend, it was a lottery.
5 ,000 people, over 5 ,000 people entered the lottery.
And we ended up selecting 125.
Some people didn't show up.
So that's why we had 120 people tow the line come race day.
And I guarantee next year when we open the lottery for this race again, Again, there's probably going to be 20 ,000 plus people that enter the lottery, randomly selected.
And that's what we expected from this relay race that we were hosting earlier this year.
And I believe it was something like 25 or 30 people signed up for the race.
It was a huge failure at the time.
That's what we viewed it as.
We came back to the drawing board and we're like, why did this fail?
This makes no sense.
Every time we ever launch a race, everyone wants in.
There's thousands of people who are waiting to come do it.
And this relay race didn't have the same impact or effect.
And as we thought about it, we realized and learned that our community, the BPN customer, the person who resonates and relates to our message, our purpose, our goals, what we put put out there, they don't want easy.
They don't want fun.
They don't want fast. They want hard, challenging events that leave you drained and fatigued and hurt afterwards.
We are a brand for the committed.
Our audience, myself included, I want to sign up for something that I know I have to put a huge prep in.
I have to dial in my nutrition.
I have to dial in my training.
I have to dial in my sleep.
I have to sacrifice other parts and things in my life to dedicate and commit time to this prep so that when it's time to toe the line, I can put it all out there.
There's something to risk.
There's something to lose.
So when I finish that race, I've emptied the tank.
I'm beat. I'm broken.
I'm bruised. my toes are black and blue I got nothing left but that finish that effort, it's earned it's challenging it's hard, it's difficult you grow from those type of experiences and races that's what our audience wants that's what I want and when we realized that it made sense why this relay race didn't work for us it was so disconnected connected to who the BPN consumer is and wants.
So it wasn't a failure.
I told the BPN team, I mean, after, after I realized this, we pulled everyone together and we said, guys, we, we, we, we missed the mark.
Yes. But we learned so much through this failure.
failure. Brands and companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe even millions of dollars to do brand surveys and consumer research to gain the knowledge that we just gained from this.
We know what our consumer wants.
We know who our brand speaks to.
We know what our consumer doesn't want.
And we know who our brand does not speak to.
Our brand does not speak to the easy the fun the less challenging something you can just show up for and do and not earn nope our audience our brand speaks to the opposite we are a brand for the committed so as we were planning for this year's race taking all the learning lessons that we gained from the relay race that failed we made all those changes to the going more ultra that's why it worked so well.
We failed forward. We learned from those lessons.
It's important to know your audience.
And once you know your audience and who you're speaking to, and then serve them well.
That's why the Go One More Ultra was such a success because we failed months prior and everything we planned for with intentionality was so dialed because our guts and our minds became calibrated by the misses we had previously.
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Now back to the episode.
So there was a lot of preparation that we put into to uh this race this past weekend everything from building out the ranch i mean the course last year the course that we did for the overnight 50 mile ultra we we kind of just mowed the grass down and we put up stakes and then some chem light tonight to to illuminate the course last year i showed up to the race and it was probably 30 minutes before it was starting And we had to make adjustments to the course because it wasn't long enough.
So as I rolled up, we are mowing the grass for a new section of the course because it needed to be adjusted.
We didn't want to make those same mistakes this year that we made last year.
So we went out really early on and I drove a Polaris Ranger on the property for a couple days, getting a lay of the land and finding out the best route that we could create.
And I would map it with a GPS over and over again, went through tanks and tanks of gas, trying to find the best possible solution for this course.
And I was out there driving everywhere and mapping it and driving and mapping it and sketching it.
And finally I locked in that two loop course that provided the 4 .2 miles.
and after we gps that and locked it in uh we provided those grid coordinates to a landscaping crew and they came in and they drug the course for multiple weeks they pulled down all the massive rocks we didn't want people to get injured and trip and fall and sprained ankles so we pulled down all the the massive rocks that were along this course that we identified and it was very very groomed.
We went over and over again with it.
We ended up putting pine fences at certain parts of the course so that when people were running at night, they wouldn't go off course.
We wanted to make it so easy to follow that getting lost wasn't an option.
So any turn that might've been of concern, we put fences there.
Any dead ends that would have been of concern, turn, we put fences there.
We put signage up, arrows pointing.
We named certain parts of the course.
There was this one section called the Grove.
There was the Connector.
There was the Roundabout.
My goal with this race this year was to lay the infrastructure for what we could use, not just for this race, but for years to come.
And I wanted the race and the course to look like It was already part of the property for years.
Not something that we temporarily put up, but these trails that we built out, that will be the trail we use for all the races for the following years.
The fences, they are there.
The signage we put up, we found this sign company that makes signs that look like state state park or national park signage where it's like the dark wood and it's engraved.
And then what's engraved is painted yellow.
So, you ever go to like a national park or state park, you'll see that traditional signage throughout the park.
That's what we put on Bear Ranch to make it look like it was embedded there.
And it's been there for years and years.
years, even the start and finish line, we built out these, these massive, uh, stripped down old logs, these old trees.
And then there was one each side and there was one hanging above in the, uh, in the middle.
And then we created this go one more steel sign that hung under it.
and we just wanted to make this entire course from base camp to the start finish line to the course itself, to the signage, to everything feel like it was supposed to be on this property and it wasn't a temporary race we were putting on no, it was us like playing our flag in the sand saying this is Bear Ranch this is the home of the Go & More Ultra for many years to come them.
So building out the ranch in the course over these last six plus months has been a massive undertaking, but it turned out so beautiful.
I mean, I go and run the course in the morning sometime and it's beautiful as the sun is rising or the sun is setting.
There's lots of wildlife on this property.
There's a ton of white -tailed deer.
There's a ton of turkey.
There's a bunch bunch of hogs.
I know some of the runners saw hogs when they were on the property.
Sometimes when I'm driving my kids around on the property on one of the Gators or the Polaris Ranger, you'll see packs of 20 to 30 hogs running around the property.
Kim posted this video on Instagram when he was running and he came across these massive old grizzly hogs running around.
And like I mentioned, We had this big bell that was attached to the start and finish line, one of those logs.
And we'd ring it three times at the beginning of every loop, at the top of every hour.
There was a lot of logistical planning going into this in terms of, you know, bringing everyone in, establishing their campsites.
So when you checked in, you were provided a 10 by 10 foot campsite where you could set up for the duration of time you were going to be there.
And I learned that from my race in Pineland Farms, Maine in September of 2023.
So we adopted that same plan and concept of everyone gets a 10 by 10 foot campsite.
It's first come first serve.
So the doors open at 8 AM.
And if you showed up at 8 AM, you could select your campsite right away.
If you showed up at 11 AM, an hour before the race started, you probably got one of the campsites in the back, which was furthest away from the start and finish line.
And when everyone arrived, all the runners, they had a poker chip and they had that poker chip because they were provided that prior to the race.
So when they checked in, they dropped their poker chip in this big mason jar.
And the reason we did that is because the goal intent was that the winner of the race got to take everyone's poker chips home.
Now, in this case, we ended up splitting the poker chips between Kendall and Kim.
So we split the pot, but it was the entry into the race, dropping your poker chip in this big Mason jar and the winner gets to take everyone's chips when they finish.
We also had all of these horseshoes.
So when someone DNF'd, whether they missed the time cut off or they got injured or they just decided to quit and they just didn't want to keep going, they had to go ring the bell, that same bell that we kicked off at the top of every hour and they had to take a horseshoe off the table.
And the horseshoe said BPN Gilmore Ultra and on the back it said DNF.
Like I've mentioned, did not finish.
And we had one horseshoe that said finisher.
So, you know, we're making two horseshoes that say finisher now because there were two finishers, but everyone got their medal, their horseshoe when they finished, when they quit, when they missed.
However, it's not necessarily a participation medal or award or achievement.
It's a reminder that you were a DNF.
You did not finish this race.
It's not a, hey, good job.
Here's your reward. It's a great effort.
Thank you for coming.
But here's a reminder, you did not finish.
Try again next year.
Try again next time.
Just these small things we built into the race to create these powerful moments between the runners, the land, and the mission of Go One More.
Now, the way that I see this race, especially in this past weekend's sequence of events, there's really two parts.
Part one began at 12 p .m. Central Standard Time, May 24th, when the 120 runners towed the line.
Like I've mentioned, 120 runners from 35 states and six countries.
I talked to people from Europe, talked to people from Canada.
There are people that came from all over, flew in from all over the world, Australia, New Zealand to come race the Go On War Ultra.
And I went out on the first loop with everyone.
And I will be honest, when I went on that first loop, the sun was out, there were no clouds, it was hot.
And I was thinking to myself, this is going to be a fast race.
I thought maybe it could go 36 hours.
But based off that first loop I went out on, 95, 96, 97, 98 degrees throughout those days, I was thinking to myself, there's no way these runners are making it through multiple days of heat like this.
But they did. They somehow did.
And going into night one, we had 42 runners left. So there was this natural attrition the longer the race went.
The more hours, the more miles, the more wear and tear, not on just the body, but also the mind.
It was wearing down people.
And that heat, that heat had a huge factor in just the attrition early on.
So going into night one, we had 42 runners left. Going into the next morning, which was Sunday morning, we had 20 runners left. And then after we reached the 100 mile mark 24 hours in, we had 13 runners left. And then slowly there was just this natural attrition until getting into hour 30 where it was Mitch, Kim, and Kendall and then Mitch dropping out and those two battling it out for an additional 26 hours.
So for me, part one of the race went from when we kicked it off to when Mitch dropped out.
And then there was almost a second part of the race.
and for for the second part of the race this is where the online buzz really started to build you know there's all this content being created our media team did such a good job of being on the course documenting filming editing publishing we were getting content up and we were sharing the stories in in real time as fast as we possibly could trey freeman was going live live on Instagram.
He was running the course with runners, keeping people posted.
Trey was like one of the VIPs, the MVPs of the Going More Ultra.
He was the man behind the camera running around on live.
He probably logged dozens of miles throughout the race this past weekend just to keep everyone up to date.
There were times where we had 20 ,000 plus people on BPN's Instagram Live.
The BPN Instagram account grew more than 50 ,000 followers in three days.
It was crazy. This race reached so many people.
People were sending me videos and images.
They were having watch parties at their house.
They were inviting all their friends over, and they were streaming the Instagram Live on their TV, and they were getting food catered, and they were barbecuing, they were going more ultra watch parties at people's homes and houses.
Friends that I haven't talked to for years were texting me saying, what is going on with this race?
I'm watching this and this is wild.
Who's going to win?
Is it Kim? Is it Kendall?
Like, please give me some insight.
It was nuts. The amount of people who are tuning into this and that's where it got really interesting.
Part two. the battle between Kim and Kendall.
It was a fight. I mean, you could feel a tension not just between the runners, but also between the crews.
And you're watching these guys come in loop after loop, never defeated, definitely fatigued.
But that fatigue, the heat, the wear and tear, their minds were still very sharp and very strong if you look them in the eye they wanted that equally just as bad I mean war fighters war fighters hungry for the win not accepting mediocrity or defeat or loss they both wanted it just as bad and there are a few things that happened along the way that I just want to highlight there's this clip that we shared and someone asked Kim this was deep into the race how he was feeling and it was this guy his name is Chad Cohen he was racing and he dropped down earlier in the race but he came back to watch part
two of the battle between Kim and Kendall and Chad asked Kim how you feeling and Kim goes have you ever wondered what death feels like and then Chad goes I'm sure you're going to tell me later and just hearing Kim say that Kim was saying before the race started he was coming to win this race and he said that he was willing to die for the win and he meant it Kendall was actually on my radar prior to.
Someone mentioned to me that there was a runner coming from Costa Rica and that he recently, a few weeks ago, did 50 laps in a last man standing race.
I knew we were going to have some runners coming to throw down.
and these two guys they came ready to throw down now kendall's uh crew on his crew he had uh his name's sam harvey who has gone over a hundred loops in a backyard ultra ultra, incredible athlete, incredible ultra runner.
And Sam having lots of experience in ultras, but especially this style of race, crewing Kendall, there was a lot of strategy that they were implementing that I noticed Kim and his crew, his dad, his videographer, they were not incorporating.
So there are multiple times where deeper into the race, as Kendall was coming in from a loop, His crew would run up to the start and finish line right outside of the corral, throw down an air mattress.
Kendall would literally come in.
He would face plant in the air mattress.
His crew would put a blindfold over his eyes, earplugs in his ears, and he would fall asleep for five minutes, 10 minutes.
And they were doing this throughout the day to make sure he was accumulating some sort of level of sleep.
But watching this happen in real time was absolutely insane.
I mean, he would come in, flop down like face plant hard and fast on this air mattress and his team would put him to sleep and then wake him up, force food into him and then send him back out.
Kim was not sleeping during this part of the race and his strategy was a little different and Kim actually started hallucinating out on the course and after a few loops he was coming in saying that throughout the night he was hallucinating that he was pushing shopping carts throughout the woods and at one point during the race he actually sat down and fell asleep and I mean there were so many times where we thought the race was going to be over and these guys surprised us and made it through.
There was this one loop where Kim passed the halfway mark at 35 minutes in.
And we thought for sure he's not going to negative split this course this deep into the race.
But he ended up making it by like 40 seconds.
And then when we found out Kim was very far behind on the loop that he sat down and fell asleep on the course, first, he said he fell asleep for like 15 minutes.
He woke up and he started sprinting to finish in time.
He passed us on his second loop, probably holding a 645 minute per mile pace because he was sprinting to catch up for when he fell asleep to finish in time.
the most wild things were happening between these guys lack of sleep was getting to them you know the heat was getting to them hallucinations fatigue just being beat down chafing I'm sure was an issue feet problems I'm sure were becoming an issue blisters but they kept fighting they kept battling like watching Watching a true athletic performance like this, you can't leave with any other feelings except being truly inspired.
When the race was all done and we were all tired afterwards, obviously.
and we got back to our homes late Monday night after the storm and getting everything situated and settled.
And I woke up the next morning, 4 .30 AM.
And I went on my run as I normally do.
My legs were heavy.
I was so tired. I'm like three miles into this run.
I'm thinking, and, oh, this hurts, this sucks.
And then it popped in my head.
What am I talking about?
What am I even saying?
I have no ability or justification to feel anything right now based off of what those two runners just did.
235 miles, 56 hours, 56 loops of running.
Anything I was feeling in that moment, it just, it fell to the side.
So next time you go out on your run and you're tired in the morning on your 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 mile run, just think back to Kim and Kendall battling it out.
Truly embodying the go one more mindset and mission.
So I'm very grateful that both those athletes came and threw down.
it changed their lives it changed their careers it was so supportive and helpful for for our brand and this race and the future of this race like i mentioned when i was talking about building out the course we did not build out Bear Ranch to host one race, one weekend, one year, one time.
This will be the future of endurance racing and running for BPN.
Bear Ranch, the Golden War Ultra, we're just getting started.
There will be many races for many years to come.
we might change up the style and the concept.
But one thing I can be sure of is that both Kim and Kendall set a standard. One of the things I said to them shortly after Mitch dropped out and it was just those two, I said, you guys got to push as far and as long and as hard as possible because the amount of miles that you log, amount of loops that you finish in this effort this year, that sets the standard. That sets the floor.
That sets the baseline for what is expected for years to come from runners.
Next year, it should and will be over 235 miles.
else. I want to see this race go into the 300, 400, 500 mile distance.
Kim and Kendall will be back next year and they'll battle it out to fight for that finish to be the last man standing.
But there's also going to be a new round of competitors, a new round of runners who want it just as bad who embody and live out and go one more.
This past weekend was absolutely incredible.
So much fun. It was so amazing to witness.
It was very powerful for our brand.
And the amount of attention that it received, the interest that it gained.
you know it was the first time i can say we probably ever went viral like truly viral in something and a brand goes viral or an event goes viral or anything goes viral for an organization you don't want it to be something that isn't closely tied to your mission your purpose your core values what you do because then it's It's meaningless.
But when something goes viral that is so closely tied to your mission and your product and your purpose and your impact, that is beneficial for a brand.
That is beneficial for a mission.
That is beneficial for a team.
That went viral for us.
And we'll be back next year.
We already started planning for next year's Go One More Ultra.
so look out for the lottery we will be opening it up again and 235 miles that's the floor it is only up and further from here so thanks for tuning in and as always go one more
