Going Border-to-Border, USA dominates UTMB, Climbing the Alps, Wout van Aert calls it quits, and more…

👋 Good morning and happy Friday! Welcome to the Front Pack newsletter, your source for all things endurance. Click here for the web edition.

I’ve never had a bigger week since my kids were born. It was a huge week here at HQ. if only you could see the amount of candy wrappers in my trash.

If you didn’t follow, we launched Front Pack, the platform and apps on Tuesday and I was a rubber band of pride and stress. The website was still having some final changes made and with a few media articles posting at 10 a.m., I had dread of a website that was down and everyone laughing (Nelson Muntz “Haw-haw!) at me. NOT ideal but we were ok. All went live and crisis averted. The day flew by and to-be-honest, I couldn’t even tell you what I didn’t do. Just non-stop. And did I relax with a cold beer after the day was done? Nope. Thats not what we do here. I read ‘Walter the Farting Dog’ to my son and put him to bed. Wouldn’t want it any other way though.

Thank you to everyone who has jumped into the Front Pack platform and app, built out your profile and started connecting. Huge things to come!

I really loved this article from, Athletech News. They did the best job at really highlighting where we want to be and accomplish with all of you.

Lastly. Did want to point out something very cool. We have a really nice melting pot of athletes these first 2 days. We’ve got Front Packers from all over the US, Canada, Malaysia, India, and Vienna all diving in.

A much cooler and in-shape United Nations of sorts! Let’s keep it going.

Stay moving…✌🏼 – Scott

Headlines

🏃 Brain Can’t Compute: What Kilian Jornet just did over 19 days. The LEGEND completed all 82 of the 4,000-meter peaks in the Alps. All self-powered, meaning after he finished running and climbing a peak, or set of peaks, he traveled by bike to the next one. In total, the ‘Alpine Connections’ was 1,207 KMs (750 miles) long and had 75,344m (247K feet) of elevation gain over 268 hours. This feat doesn’t seem like its being talked about enough but when you’ve won every big trail race in the world, including UTMB four times, the Hardrock 100 five times, and the Zegama-Marathon 11 times, do people just not talk about you as much. Read more…

🚴 VC Adventure Time Adventures Border-to-Border: The man formerly know as Vegan Cyclist; Mr. Tyler Pearce himself set off on a fully self supported border-to-border journey that takes him from Canada to Mexico. With the hopes of breaking the Canada to Mexico border record of 9 days, he’ll do it all himself. No film crew, no safety net. Just he, himself, and his bike. He started on Tuesday but follow along here and as always, he’s making the trip entertaining. Read more…

🚴 Let’s just skip to 2025: Is probably something Wout van Aert is thinking at this point of the year. Why? Because he crashed out of Vuelta a España this week on the descent off the penultimate climb of the day, the Collada Llomena. Bloodied and banged up, van Aert had already won 3 stages but it’s another painful reminder that cycling just ain’t fair to even the best. *UPDATE – van Aert has decided he will hang it up this season to recover. Read more…

🏊 Crossing Lake Geneva: Feels like each week this past month, a new endurance swimmer takes on a new challenge . This week it was Sam Farrow of the UK crossing the length of Lake Geneva, all 45.2 miles (72.8km) – in 22 hours and 48 minutes, a world-record. During the swim she had to tread water when taking breaks for food and drink. Read more…

🏃 America. The Great: Not being that guy but look, Americans are having a great 2024 in the ultraverse. Last weekend it was American Katie Schide winning the 2024 UTMB for the second time in three years breaking American Courtney Dauwalter’s course record and backing up her win at Western States in June. In the men’s CCC race it was American Hayden Hawks and sponsor teammate Adam Peterman, taking 1st and 3rd respectively. At CCC, the American human swiss army knife, Heather Jackson finished 5th. Read more…

🚴 Badass at Badlands: The annual race in Spain saw Cara Dixon (UK) be the first woman and seventh rider overall to finish the 2024 Badlands event. She rode the 791-kilometer route in a little over two days, just seven hours behind the first-place finisher. She’s no stranger to ultra-endurance events, having finished in 10th place overall (second place for the women) at the 2023 Badlands event as well as fourth overall (first woman) at the 2023 TransAtlantic Way race. Read more…

Meanwhile

🏃 Full-time Hoka shoe engineer wins UTMB title: Very cool story from UTMB as 31-year-old Frenchman amateur (NOT PRO) runner Vincent Bouillard not only won the race, becoming the fifth runner to break the 20-hour mark on his debut, but he did it in prototype HOKA shoes he helped DEVELOP. An athlete who trusts his work! Read more…

🚴 298!: That is the average power in watts pushed by reigning PTWC Paralympic champion Jetze Plat over 10 kilometers on the handcycle. Let that sink in. I think most of us would be thrilled pushing that with our legs much less our hands. Bravo to Jetze and if you haven’t paid attention to the Paralympics, do so. Read more…

🚴 Can Energy Deficit be an Advantage?: It all totally makes sense but not something I’ve ever really thought about. I always just called it “eating well 2 weeks ahead of a race to slim down and crush said race.” But yes. Go into an energy deficiency ensuring they are at peak racing weight without compromising their training quality. Read more…

Training Tips

Because training is life.

🏊 Why Swimmers Need to Use a Snorkel: As a good swimmer, I can admit, I absolutely hate the snorkel, always have, but it’s a hugely beneficial tool in my arsenal. With it, you can solely focus on critical things like your pull, and body rotation. Read up on why it’s so important. Read more…

🏃 Suffering From Sore Calves When Running? Here’s Why: I find it is always the shoes but CHRONIC calf soreness, stiffness, tightness and pain, shouldn’t be part of the challenge… Explore with the GCN crew the reasons why your calves might be sore when running and what you can do to fix it!

Rewatchables

Content for long training days inside or just everyday life.

🏃 2024 XTERRA Trail Run World Championship Highlights: With its stunning landscapes and demanding courses, competitors returned to Sugarloaf Mountain for an unforgettable race, highlighting the strength and endurance of the world’s top trail runners.

🚴 Garmin Gravel Worlds 2024 – Elite Men’s Raw Highlights: Always a fan of his channel, I hadn’t posted any Gravel Worlds recap content even though it was 2 weeks ago. But whatever. This is good!

🏊🚴🏃 GoPro Hero 13 Black Review: 27 Things You Should Know!: With the all-new GP 13 being announced this week, Ray at DC Rainmaker dropped a video with his thoughts. If you’re in the market for a new action cam, check out his video before you make the purchase.