Talk us through the early part of the race, at what point you started making up ground.

Um, we did that first climb, and, um, I was intentionally kind of keeping it easy on that.

And then on the descent, I was kind of going into it thinking I might get dropped a little bit, and actually was right behind him, and, uh, everything was pretty good.

And then around, like mile four to 10, like, I got a peek at him once, and I was like, "Okay, they're right there." And then, and then pretty soon I was like, "They don't seem right there anymore." And then I got intel, they're like, "They're three minutes up." I'm like, "Oh, man." Like, kinda maybe just like felt these trails, like, uh, there's so many turns and quick hops over rocks.

Like, like, you really gotta, like be aggressive on it, kind of flying through it each time if, like you want to stay in it.

And I think I was just by myself and kind of thought I was going, but was maybe off the gas a little bit.

And then, um, yeah, around that second waterfall, so around, like mile 12-- 10 or 12, is where I really started pushing it, and, uh, things started to come, come together a little bit better.

... you know, in hindsight, do you think that maybe it's, like, about covering that gap or, I mean, in my mind, you executed a really great day.

He was like, "It was just so cool running with Anthony for those 15 miles, building momentum, passing people." But just the practical reset of, like, how you keep your head in the game, especially when it probably felt like the golden ticket chase was getting away from you halfway through the race.

Yeah.

It was, it...

One thing that was a little interesting on the golden ticket chase was, like, we knew it was gonna bump down a couple spots, um, with, or who, with, with who was in front of me, and it was kinda confusing.

Like, at, at a point it's like, all right, there's three tickets, there's two people that are already in Western, and, um, I just told Bumby at the time, I was like, "Let's just kinda catch one at a time." And, um, yeah, it was, uh, it was cool.

He picked me up right at a time when I started to feel good, but it was, it would've been interesting hearing his take on how I was feeling 10 miles before that.

Um, yeah.

So it's sort of like, for me, as someone who thinks about this and talks about this so much, but I'm not still in the mix, like, what does it take to, you know, be competing for the top fives now on the global stage compared to, you know, five or 10 years ago when we were getting our start? Is there any way you can describe, like, the level of commitment or the type of training or just the level of professionalism you guys have to embody that's different than years past, just to, to stay at the level as it rises?

Maybe you could walk us through it.

Um, yeah.

It seemed like a...

I think there was, like, three or four guys, like, in front of me at, um, Bumblebee.

Um, I had them, like, kind of within sight, sight distance, like.

I think I counted off, like, anywhere from, like, 45, 30 to 45 seconds.

So it wasn't a bad spot to be.

And so if you could just speak, speak a little bit about, like, what does it look like to recover here, to then actually peak at the time that it matters most in June?