A Year of Chasing Trail

Plus some GPT100 recap. Thanks for being part of the journey!

My first post on Substack was November 20th, 2024. It was a short one, basically just saying I was going to start writing. The original intention behind writing was to exercise my brain and create an archive of experiences I could look back on someday to remember this special time of life that I’m calling my ultrarunning career. I felt like I was constantly consuming content and not outputting anything or taking time to process what I’d consumed. Fairly frequent writing has given me the opportunity to reflect, express opinions, and I’ve also found it has been a way to connect to community. Here’s what has come of the past year of Substacking by the numbers:

• 41 articles published

• Over 3,000 regular readers

• 1 presenting sponsor (thanks Precision F&H!)

• Most read article: Western States recap (over 11,000 reads)

• 36 posts sitting in my Drafts folder that may never see the light of day, but have been productive to think through anyway

For anyone looking for tips on how to grow their audience, what I’ve found works best is to win Transgrancanaria and Western States, and write about the experiences. Post-race reflections usually tend to be some of my favorite articles to write, especially when they go well. Interestingly, I’ve had a little bit of a hard time writing a recap for the GPT100 race that I recently completed in Australia. I’ll take the next few paragraphs to give it a shot though.

Some of the rocky terrain typical in the Grampians. Photo by Calumn Hockey.

The GPT100 checked all my pre-race boxes. The course was hard, I had to practice racing through the night, I dealt with hot and cold, dry and wet, I made some mistakes that I’ll do my best not to repeat, I got a Hardrock qualifier, I moved to the top of the World Trail Major standings, I saw 100 miles of beautiful Australian peaks in the Grampian mountains, and I connected with the local wildlife and community. On paper, it was a total success. So why does it feel like I sort of just got the job done? I think it’s because even though I won and am proud of it given the circumstances, I didn’t really get the most out of myself.

I love that ultrarunning pushes me to extreme limits. GPT100 pushed me in many ways and took more than 6 hours longer than any other race I’ve ever done, but I was so alone at the front of the race that I was missing having competition to help me get the most out of myself. I was cold and wet, my feet hurt, I had a big buffer, and it was too tempting to ease back and relieve some of the discomfort. I feel slightly dissatisfied knowing that I gave in to that temptation and there was probably more in the tank that I didn’t touch.

With that said, I don’t regret racing GPT100 at all. I knew going into it that it wouldn’t be the same level of competition I’ve seen the rest of this year, and I was ok with that because of all the other benefits it offered. It was still an amazing trip with the family and we all really enjoyed it. The Grampians are a magical, unique area—a part of Australia that is well worth a visit. This is still a young, growing race and now that it is included in the World Trail Majors I’m excited to see it attract deeper talented fields in the coming years. The race organization is top notch and the elite athlete support is a case study in how it should be done. It deserves to be recognized with some of the best iconic global races and I believe it will be.

I’m planning to keep this thing rolling for the foreseeable future. I want to continue documenting the process of trying to balance a happy, sustainable life with my family and pushing my limits to progress in the sport of trail running. And sometimes mixing in ideas about the professional side of the sport, reactions to interesting things I read or hear, or whatever other random topic is inspiring me to use my brain for some critical thinking. Here’s to another year of Chasing Trail!

Chasing Trail is supported and presented by Precision Fuel & Hydration. I’m a long time user and fan of PF&H products and use them exclusively for my training and racing. Find out more here.