Here's Brian for more on what his specific walk-up song is.

Anyone who knows me can see this one coming, but it's a Pearl Jam song.

I've got to go with Corduroy.

It's the first live Pearl Jam song I ever heard, but it just, that crescendo that builds from that opening guitar part to where they really hit it as a band.

It's just, yeah, it's like, it just kind of, I don't even know how to put it into words, but it's just one of those songs that just really gets me going.

amazing.

Yeah, so I got to Forest Hill, which is where Ben was taking over.

My stomach had been uncooperative.

And how did he nurture that relationship over that, you know, that buildup?

Yeah.

Well, you know, I've described it, he, he never was coaching me, although I learned a ton from him.

I mean, I didn't know really anything about [laughs] training prior to running with Scott.

But I, I felt like he was almost like a, a big brother.

You know, I think Scott's five years older than me, so we're not exactly peers.

Of course, he'd compl- accomplished much more than me in the sport.

[laughs]

So.

Well, yeah.

So I mean, that's where it started is, um, it was early June 2005, Scott told me that he thought I could carry the torch for Seattle.

And then, and then it was actually not long after that that I ran my second hundred.

That was Cascade Crest, and I tried to race with Todd Walker and blew myself up and napped for two hours, so I thought, "Geez, if I can't even win Cascade Crest," not to diminish the talent there, "but how the heck am I gonna go win Western States?" So there might have been a little, like, "Well, maybe this isn't gonna happen." But then by December of 2005, that was when training started just full on.

And Scott, uh, there was actually a few of us.

It was myself and Justin Angle and Jeff, um, Jeff Phillips was running his first Western States.

[laughs]