A year-in-review of the endurance world and Front Pack

Good morning and happy Friday. As always, I’m Scott 👋 and you can always reach me here. This is your Front Pack Newsletter, a source for all things endurance; we give you the best of everything happening in cycling, triathlon, and running from the week.

We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled newsletter on Friday, January 10. May you all have the best holiday season possible with friends and family. I hope you take a moment to be present, reflect on the year that was and run towards 2025 with endless ambition.

…and with that, the 2024 season comes to an end.

That’s right, Front Packers. It is hard to believe but the calendar year of 2024 is coming to a close. It’s been a wild ride across the endurance world and while we will not cover off on everything, a few highlights that stuck out to us!

We witnessed:

• A 40-year old mother, Jasmin Paris, was the first female to finish The Barkley Marathon. Women rule! [here]

• Courtney Dauwalter winning every race she entered. In giant 90’s style basketball shorts no less. She’s been unstoppable.

• David Roche breaking the longstanding Leadville Trail 100 time and winning other huge races. Guy was rolling towards the end of the year.

• IRONMAN Texas saw its men’s winner hitting run splits we’ve truly never seen before. It all looked effortless. That’s because Tomas Rodriguez was a lying cheat doper.

• Tadej Pogocar is the current face of cycling after dominating the sport, including, the 111th edition of the Tour de France.

• Kelvin Kiptum and his coach passed away tragically. [here]

• Tom Pidcock won races and Olympic gold in mountain biking. But alas, he left Ineos Grenadiers to a fairly unknown Swiss Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team.

• Fan favorite Lachlan Morton won the Unbound 200. [here] He’d later go on to ride around the continent of Australia, taking him 30 days. [here]

• Meb returned to Boston. [here]

• Keegan Swenson and Sofia Gomez Villafañe kinda sorta easily won this years LIFE TIME Grand Prix. This prompted some changes and there will be new blood in the 2025 series.

• Triathlon in the Olympic games was filled with drama (and poop). The Seine river really wasn’t (probably) healthy to swim in but alas, the athletes did it anyway.

• U.S. cyclist Kristen Faulkner who wasn’t even supposed to race went from desk job to Olympic gold in the women’s road cycling race. [here] She followed it up with a second gold in the women’s team track cycling.

• The IRONMAN Pro Series and T100 Triathlon World Tours both kicked off their inaugural years with suspenseful races and bigger prize purses.

• Matt Beers and Howard Grotts won the grueling Cape Epic race.

• What did I miss?!?

Front Pack Podcast

Traveling for the holidays or laying low on the trainer or treadmill but need something to jam to?

Dive into the Front Pack podcast.

We’ve been uploading! All dope content with great guests. Create a positive mindset heading into 2025.

Front Pack Rewind

For Front Pack, we kicked this newsletter off on February 15, highlighting it as ‘The Journey Begins.’ The below image was included in that post and we’ve always strived to bring you the best news, results, and happenings in one place.

And the journey continues everyday, every week, and every month.

What I always thought would be a group ride has actually been a full on gravel race.

The road of being an entrepreneur is EXACTLY what everyone tells you.

It is not in the least bit smooth but instead filled with constant bumps, twists, and unexpected obstacles. But its how you deal with the climbs and uncertainty of the terrain in the moment is always filled with positive wonders of ok, what’s just past this hill. It is what keeps you going. There are moments when the path feels impossible, where every step forward is met with resistance, and the doubts creep in like a headwind. But it’s in those times, when you’re forced to adapt, problem-solve, and dig deeper than you ever thought was inside of you that growth happens.

It is truly like an endurance race. You’re slapped across the face with every emotion and situation possible. – Me

Every detour teaches a lesson, and every setback becomes fuel for the next push. Being an entrepreneur isn’t about avoiding the challenges; it’s about embracing them and turning them into stepping stones toward your goals.

And it is the readers like you and the community that matters. We are clearly continuing to scratch an itch because we have thousands of newsletter subscribers and are nearing a thousand community members. [Join here!]

Just this week, we kicked off a monthly call with ‘Chasing 350’ a group of Unbound Gravel XL athletes [Join here!] that led to a free flowing jam session with those who are trying to win the race, and then those of us who are just trying to finish! It was an hour long chat filled with invaluable tips. We tackled intros, and course tactics. In January, we are going to talk training, and gear. People joined from Annapolis, to California, New Jersey, and Indiana.

It was awesome to see and be a part of. Create your own groups/teams today!

For 2025, the ride continues and we need to scale, continue to grow, and yes, make money!!

That will be my biggest task.

I don’t care about being huge but if there are a few thousand now, we can do more and bring more to you every week.

So that’s it. Love you all and of course, Stay moving…✌🏼