The Hobby Jogger Podcast
E14 | Brynn Cunningham Talks FKTs and Laurel Highlands 50K
What drives a trail runner to conquer some of the most challenging terrains in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia? Join us as Brynn Cunningham, a celebrated trail runner with multiple fastest known times (FKTs) under her belt, reveals her journey from sprinter to long-distance ultra runner. With two victories at the Laurel Highlands 50K and an unrivaled love for the outdoors, Brynn shares her strategies for achieving and verifying FKTs, her encounters with the rugged landscapes of Ohiopyle, and her future aspirations, including the fabled "gate to eight" route on the Laurel Highlands trail.
Brynn's commitment extends beyond personal achievements—it's about giving back to the community and preserving the environment. She shares how she balances her active life with family and work. Her family's involvement in trail maintenance and river clean-ups underscores their dedication to environmental stewardship.
What drives a trail runner to conquer some of the most challenging terrains in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia? Join us as Brynn Cunningham, a celebrated trail runner with multiple fastest known times (FKTs) under her belt, reveals her journey from sprinter to long-distance ultra runner. With two victories at the Laurel Highlands 50K and an unrivaled love for the outdoors, Brynn shares her strategies for achieving and verifying FKTs, her encounters with the rugged landscapes of Ohiopyle, and her future aspirations, including the fabled "gate to eight" route on the Laurel Highlands trail.
Brynn's commitment extends beyond personal achievements—it's about giving back to the community and preserving the environment. She shares how she balances her active life with family and work. Her family's involvement in trail maintenance and river clean-ups underscores their dedication to environmental stewardship.
Our next guest is Bryn Cunningham. She has a plethora of fastest known times around the Pennsylvania area. She's a two-time winner of my favorite race, the Laurel Highlands 50K. She is also a mom, a yogi and a whitewater kayaker, and I have seen her in action at least two of those last three. Bryn Cunningham, welcome to Hobby Jogger.
Speaker 2:Hi Payne Bryn Cunningham, welcome to Hobby Jogger.
Speaker 1:Hi Bain, Thanks for coming on the show with your busy schedule. We appreciate it. We also have Nate with us as well. Nate Reyes, our co-host.
Speaker 3:Just so excited to have you on Bryn. Been fun over the years to see you in action, whether it's on the trail, whether it's on the water with the family.
Speaker 2:You bring it with everything you do so I'm excited to talk to you and thanks for being on. Thanks, nate, good to be here.
Speaker 1:The first thing I want to ask you about Bryn. It's something that's kind of it's popular, very popular in trail running. I don't think any other form of running has this fastest known times. I've been checking out the fastestknowntimescom recently. We have a couple in my area. I'd like to attempt a couple in your area. I'd like to attempt as well. How many of those do you currently hold? Do you know?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, good question, maybe 10 to 14.
Speaker 1:And most mostly all located in, we'll say, the mid Southern, we'll say the mid-southern well, southern Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2:Yeah, southwest Pennsylvania, I have one in Maryland and, oh yeah, my favorite one is in West Virginia on the North Fork Mountain Trail.
Speaker 1:My first one was in Maryland, but it's all the tri-state area, so All within Appalachia, yes, all within two or three hours of my house, gotcha, which, which is located in Ohio pile area is where you're from, correct, yeah, and a lot of them are local that I got verified.
Speaker 2:I kind of created the routes and then submitted them and then they verified them as new routes, which was fun to establish. And I did submit some that did not get, you know, verified and that was also just fun to see what they would take and what they wouldn't.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. Do you know what the exact grammars are for what they will use and what they won't use?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's something like it has to be more than five miles. It has to be very popular miles. It has to be very popular, like what is the incline? The Manitou incline? Less than five miles, but it's a famous route so of course that's an FKT. I submitted a five mile loop close to my house. That did not get verified, but I have a handful of 10 to. Most of mine are 10 to 25 miles.
Speaker 3:I think they look at Strava, which I'm not on Strava, but they look at Strava for routes that are very popular and FKTcom does have, or I see 14 here, if that's correct.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 1:Sweet, I'll take it. Great, you have 14 FKTs. That's pretty considerable, especially where a bulk of them seem to be Ohio pile.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people kind of underestimate how difficult the running is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is very challenging. I always joke that the rocks move here, so you have to be ready for moving rocks at all times. On average on my local runs, you gain 150 to 250 feet of elevation per mile. You know a daily challenge, but I like it that's a lot.
Speaker 1:I mean you can. You can really get a lot, a lot of elevation out there relatively quick. Now I noticed your name isn't on one in particular, which actually surprised me when I looked at it.
Speaker 2:I know the one.
Speaker 1:Because it is people out here talk about it. And I live in Akron Ohio, so people out here talk about it. I actually go out and run it.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I think it's within my range to get, let's do it. Well, that's what I'm thinking. Here's the thing, and I know you know people think I'm a big wuss or whatever. I don't feel like I would be comfortable enough sending it without someone out there with me.
Speaker 2:Oh, you'd be good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I probably would be, but that first big downhill that's just super steep coming down the two-mile I don't. Before we started this I actually looked at my times out there running gate to eight and back.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what is the current male's record?
Speaker 1:It is. The current male record is 250, held by Ian Wojcic.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't know that name, but well, that's pretty good, I may have missed this.
Speaker 3:Don't keep the audience in suspense. Which which trail are we talking about?
Speaker 2:nate. This is the lower highlands and they call it gate to eight.
Speaker 2:So you run from the trailhead, so your hand is on the gate yeah where you start on the lower highlands and then you run to mile marker eight and back and I think it's something like 3 000 feet of climbing or 2 500 feet of climbing. I know going to mile marker 11 is 3 200, so it's probably about 2 000 feet of climbing in the just in the first eight miles, not counting like what you would kind of climb up and then you run back down. So honestly, casey, it's not a run that I can say I have ever done.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yes, which is crazy.
Speaker 1:You've run gate to eight in the in the Laurel Highlands.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't turn around Because we live so close. I will often just do point to point and my husband can pick me up. So I'd rather run zero to 11 or zero to 15 and get picked up. But once I saw that gate to eight was an FKT, which I think it became an FKT last year it's fairly new I thought, oh yeah, I'm definitely going to do it because the time to beat is not for the female record. Anyways, the time to beat, I'm pretty sure that I could.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I think I. I have a lot of confidence that you would beat that time. It's looks to be four hours and 56 minutes, set by Julia Martin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I did. I actually. It's funny because I wrote this on my 2024 kind of running goals. But the thing is I don't have Strava and now the FKT site encourages you to look at the queen and king of the mountain record, oh, to compare to the fkt record. And if someone on strava has that record then it's something like a courtesy to. I don't know if you have to reach out to them or try to beat that time, because it's not a fastest known time if you don't beat what's also on Strava.
Speaker 1:So I need some Strava people to tell me what those records are, because I might just be totally out. Yeah Well, I guess I didn't think I do use Strava. I am a Strava user. I guess I didn't really think of that, which I guess I should have because that would be a known time.
Speaker 2:It is. So I do help out or I'm kind of part of the women who FKT, which was started by Marta Smith out in the Pacific Northwest, and I'm on their newsletters and helped them edit some stuff on their website and they've outlined those parameters. And I wasn't aware of that when I started doing FKTs. It was before COVID hit and then, once COVID hit, fkts skyrocketed for obvious reasons. So lots of new regulations came about with the influx of FKTs. They grew something like I don't know 200% or 500%, I'm just throwing that out there, but it was a massive growth of FKT records.
Speaker 1:Which is good, I mean it gets people out and it shows interest in, I think, a little bit different side of the sport, which is kind of going out there and doing it on your own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's great. I love it because the first time I heard about FKTs was through Scott York's Appalachian Trail, running south to north, and I thought that Fastest Known Times were really just for those long trails like the PCT and the AT and even just the long trail in Vermont, until my sister sent me a link to a magazine article about a group of runners in West Virginia who established a new FKT on the North Fork Mountain Trail and when I opened it I saw that it was only 24 miles and my whole world changed. I didn't know that an FKT could be that short and my sister said you need to do this. And I said oh yeah, I'm definitely going to do this. And it took maybe a year or two for me to get to West Virginia to run the North Fork Mountain Trail.
Speaker 2:In the meantime I had done my first one was 17 miles on a trail that had 203 downed trees and it was not the wonderful experience I was hoping for down trees and it was not the wonderful experience I was hoping for, but I did it and I do want to go back on the big, savage mountain trail to beat my time because a friend of mine actually became like involved in that trail and cleared all of the trees. So I'd like to go back to run without 200 trees in 17 miles in my way. But anyways, I went to the North Fork Mountain Trail a couple of years ago and I was finally able to do the first FKT. That inspired me to look into those.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, and actually you helped me find new trails to run out there. Oh, awesome, yeah, there's the Bauman Trail. Oh, bachman, bachman, sorry mispronunciation, you know.
Speaker 2:It's like I call it, the sister of the lower highlands, because they're right across the river from one another, like the overlooks are kind of looking at each other.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 1:So, yep, found that one. And the Sugarloaf Trail, which is also an Ohio pile. Oh, yep, found that one. And the Sugarloaf Trail, which is also an Ohio pile.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's awesome and that was one of my inspirations for doing it. The FQTs I established locally were these sort of must-do routes Like the Bear Run. Black Loop is a 12-mile loop on a beautiful single track. Black Loop is a 12-mile loop on a beautiful single track. The Quebec Outer Loop is about 11 miles, so when people are going to new areas they can find those on FKT if they're not on an app no-transcript.
Speaker 3:Well, brynn I was just thinking like FKTs aside you were already a legend prior to any of that stuff coming out, and I want to hear a little bit about how you became Brynn the legend.
Speaker 2:No, I don't know if I'm a legend. Don't you have to be dead to be a legend?
Speaker 1:I don't know anything about this legend story, so I would like to hear it.
Speaker 2:No, I don't either.
Speaker 3:I don't know, I don't think that's high purple, I think you know. Everywhere I go in Ohio I think everyone knows about brain, gut and hammer and it's just a really cool experience to see, like, how much you get involved in the community and with your groups of folks that you hang out with and you still strive as an individual, push yourself, you know, make yourself kind of your own competitor. That's the way I look at it. I've noticed you in the short time that I've known you. You know, just always push yourself to new limits. So where was the genesis?
Speaker 2:of that. I guess I grew up in Ohio Pile. I'll start from there. Actually, I'll start way back.
Speaker 2:The first settlers in Ohio Pile were my ancestors, the Thorp Knob Overlook. Casey, you may have heard about the Thorp Knob Overlook. That was named after family on my mom's side. Then the Cunninghams on my dad's side came in the 1700s. Their homestead was where the Lower Highlands Hiking Trail now is. That's where their property is and they're buried in a cemetery that butts up against that state park property. And Francis Cunningham got a Medal of Honor in the 1700s for capturing a flag from the Confederates and winning a battle for the Union and he's buried just down the road from where we live.
Speaker 2:So I think, just you know having family. So I'm something like eighth generation Ohio Pilean and I never thought that I would come back here to build a family. So Ohio Pile when I was 18, I lived just one block from the community center. I call it downtown Ohio Pile, which is funny because it's just a few blocks but it gets 2 million visitors a year because of the whitewater and falling water. So I left Ohio Pile.
Speaker 2:For a decade I lived in Southern California and gosh, even places like Vegas and Georgia and South Carolina, and most of my time was spent in Southern California, but I traveled all over Washington state and Oregon and finally my husband, which we weren't married at the time, but we went to New Zealand where we lived for three months and we had zero direction in our lives besides whitewater kayaking. And when we had nowhere that we knew we were going, I realized that my hometown actually offered everything that we wanted. We could whitewater kayak in class four and five every day. The trails were at our doorstep, so I said we could go back to where I grew up.
Speaker 1:I know like at least you're a little bit of a legend, because I walked into. I want to say it was like the general store in Ohio pile yeah, and there's a an advertisement for one of your yoga classes there. I was like hey, I know her and so I oh yeah, I was like hey, I know her and so.
Speaker 2:I felt really cool.
Speaker 1:I was like yeah, I know the local Yogi here, brynn. Yeah, she's cool, isn't she? So, yeah, you, you are a legend in at least that regard. So so Nate is correct.
Speaker 2:I couldn't be happier teaching right in downtown Ohio pile and having all the same yoga students who I was doing yoga next to for so many years. Yeah, just down the mountain. But yeah, Nate, I started running when I was 11.
Speaker 3:Well, I do appreciate the story and I think I'm interested in, like when you found out you're fast, you know. How do you find that out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that out. When I was 11 years old, my fifth grade track or my sorry, my fifth grade teacher took the class outside and he said we're gonna train for the fifth grade track meet and he just had us line up and race and I beat everybody and it wasn't a challenge and I was like, oh my gosh, I couldn't believe it. I was terribly shy. It was so, so, so shy. But when I found out that I had this strength, it opened up so many connections and relationships and just it's definitely brought me out of my shell.
Speaker 2:So then the fifth grade track meet happened and I was in six events after winning five of them. On the sixth race, this was like the shy person coming out of me. I I felt bad and I turned around during the race to let the person behind me pass me because I felt bad about winning five trophies in a row and I was about to win six. So I turned around and slowed down and let the girl beat me and then afterward I was like that was so dumb. You know, no one wants to win like that and no one wants to lose like that. No one wants to lose like that. So that was pretty much. Yeah, that was the last time I ever did anything like that talk about sports psychology.
Speaker 3:That's uh, that's an internal struggle. That uh I uh, I wish that I had, but I don't I did.
Speaker 2:I felt bad. And then junior high I ran um, we didn't have uniforms or anything like that, it was so much fun. I think I won every meet. So I would run the 100 meter, the 200 meter and maybe, if they I don't know if they had like a 50 meter in junior high, but in high school I ran 100, 200 and four by 100. I was strictly a sprinter and I loved it. And so when I got to high school there were much faster girls and we had this really fun sprint squad and my team broke the 4 by 100 relay in our freshman year and and we call ourselves the double stuffed Oreo because it was me, a white girl and two black girls on the lead and the anchor we had so much fun.
Speaker 2:And then in my junior year I I had a really bad season. I became a vegetarian, and I'm not saying anything bad about vegetarianism, but this was like 1999 and I had no idea how to do that well and I became anemic and deficient in B vitamins and I didn't. I could hardly finish a race. It was awful, I didn't have Google to look up what to eat. You know, I didn't know a single vegetarian.
Speaker 1:So so how did you take that then? Because you don't see a lot of sprinter backgrounds in the ultra world, the trail running world, it's usually cross-country guys 5k, which I guess would be cross-country. I don't think there's really an outdoor or a track distance other than the mile outside of-country. I don't think there's really an outdoor or a track distance other than the mile outside of the mile. I don't think there's a two mile, maybe there is. That's kind of a, a big jump in distance to go from 400 meters to a 50k. So how did you decide oh, hey, this looks fun, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just go out there and rip it through, uh, through the Laurel Islands. How, how do you? Just just woke up one day and said, hey, I'm going to go do this.
Speaker 2:No, no, it was a long development, so I guess it it started in high school, actually, without me really realizing it. So I would run the same trails that I do today. So I went one day and I ran with a cross country team and I, we were on this bypass and it was terrible. It wasn't wasn't what I did in the woods. I would run in the woods, I would drink out of a stream, I would like stop and sit on a rock and meditate, and then I'd run back and I didn't know until I got a GPS watch in my adulthood, that I was running six to eight miles. As a teenager, I just I just thought of it as spending time in the woods. So even though I claimed I was just a sprinter, I was doing these long days in the woods. I didn't even have a watch to know what time it was. So, yeah, so I graduated high school and then college happened and you know, know, you don't really find races as an adult that are shorter than 5k no, no, that's.
Speaker 1:That's one thing you can definitely say. There's not, is I and I, I guess there's like a circuit of people that do it like one that they have like these meets at tracks for adults, I guess around here, right, but not for, like, the general population, like us.
Speaker 2:So I just started running in my 20s. So college was like a big party fest fun. I was recruited to run on the track team, do other stuff so college. But the day after I graduated college I started running again. I drove to Las Vegas with my best friend and we were staying in an apartment and I just went out for a run. And then from that day forward I just started running, no matter where I lived, and eventually signed up for a 5k in my mid-20s or so and speaking of 5ks um not to.
Speaker 1:Not to change the subject there because it's going the race that goes up to summit, before I forget the race that goes up to the summit is that a 5k?
Speaker 2:it's 3.5, so just a little more. Do you want to come and do it this year? Have you done it?
Speaker 1:what's it called?
Speaker 2:the mount summit challenge. I'll send you the registration form gotcha okay yeah, and they don't. You can't sign up online.
Speaker 1:You have to mail them a check or just pay that day oh, it's one of those types of of races where it's it's it's like secret yes, it is jc, it's, it's how legends are made.
Speaker 3:Okay, it's how legends are made okay.
Speaker 1:It is how legends are made.
Speaker 2:They literally will advertise it in the local newspaper.
Speaker 1:Now have you won that race.
Speaker 2:I have won the summit four times.
Speaker 1:Four times, four times, four times champion.
Speaker 3:Well, brynn, I look at you on Instagram and just see all this cool, fun stuff that you do day to day. Let's go ahead and have you list what your handles are there on social media, would you mind?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, at Brynn B-R-Y-N-N. Underscore Cunningham, so it's just my first and last name on Instagram. On Facebook, Brynn Cunningham. I do have my yoga is inhale exhale run, where I put my yoga schedule up and that's pretty much all I do with inhale exhale run, where I put my yoga schedule up, and that's pretty much all I do with inhale exhale run, because I post everything on my social when I view that, I see you're a multi-sport type of athlete.
Speaker 3:You're a mountain biker, you're on the kayak, you're doing yoga by the side of the river. You have your running club, which we haven't even got to yet. Oh, yeah. You know we see this and it seems like a fun life, but underneath we've got to figure that there's some discipline in there, and that's amazing to think that you have time to do that. How does the discipline eating, training, family life how does that work out for you? Where does that support system come from as well?
Speaker 2:Oh, my husband is a huge supporter, especially for races and traveling. He's always happy for, you know, crewing or anything like that. Gosh, I couldn't do half of what I do without him, that's for sure. But we also were a lot alike. So we met kayaking, and if we have an opportunity to be without the kids, then that's what we're doing we're kayaking or we're mountain biking, or we're backpacking, or I'm talking him into fastpacking and he's always game. But we also involve our kids and a lot of what we do.
Speaker 2:We went on a backpacking trip on New Year's Eve in the snow with the kids. It was almost seven miles and they're six and 10. They loved it. It was, you know, it's just our lifestyle. Like I said, ohio pilot, I'm not going very far to do the activities that I love. I can either run from my house to the single track, I can bike from my house to the single track, I can bike from my house, but if I'm driving, then I'm driving, gosh, five to 10 minutes. For me to drive far to a trail is 15 minutes and we, you know, we moved here even before we had kids because of the whitewater and that's just right down the hill. So yeah, the discipline.
Speaker 2:I think that one of my strengths is just having a lot of energy, and over the years I've learned where to put the energy and where to apply it, and athletics is one of them. For me to run six or seven days a week I need the variety. I want to be on my mountain bike. I want to spend time with friends who mountain bike that might not trail run. I want to be on the water with my friends and family and a kayak. My husband's the Yakagini Riverkeeper, so you know we're always on the water. It's part of his job now ensuring the cleanliness of the waterways.
Speaker 2:And I'm lucky enough to work three amazing jobs that I work from home. I work for a local outfitters that does bike tour vacations and I teach yoga, which is very flexible but a lot of discipline. You know I wake up every day early and I either get on the mat to do yoga or that's when I do my most of my weightlifting at my house. I'm not driving to a gym to do these things with kids. You know, nate, you have kids. Like all that changed. I wasn't driving to do yoga at studios. It all happens from home. So for me to have a home base, that's by the water and by the trails. It makes it a little easier to be disciplined. However, it also makes it a little bit like living in Neverland Neverland interesting.
Speaker 2:It's interesting that you say that and go into that a little bit more there's always something to do if you get caught up in it, and I think kids obviously will like pull you out of that and ground you because there's just not enough space. But if you get caught up in it you're just. You don't ever have to leave the mountains or come down to reality. You're just in the woods all day doing what you love, and that's great. You know, I definitely went through phases of life like that, so that's kind of like the Neverland analogy. You know, we're raising our kids here and I think there's value in that too Just being outside and not even teaching, but showing them how to be environmentally conscious and involved in the community, and not just doing these things for ourselves but being involved in the community.
Speaker 2:Like I took the. You know I I'm on the lower Highlands hiking trail volunteer crew and a lot of that work I do on my own. But I took my kids and we had a three and a half hour workday and you know I showed them how to use hand saws and how to move trees off of the trail and explained why that was important, because backpackers are coming up with heavy packs. They don't want to step over the trail. I'm trying to run this stretch and there's 11 trees in my way, and you know we live right here, so why not just do it?
Speaker 2:Or being on the river and picking up trash. That's going beyond our you know our personal passions of yeah, I want to go whitewater kayak so I can surf this wave, and yeah, that's true. But let's look beyond that and think about the community and the planet a little more and maybe pick up some trash and talk about why we don't stack rocks in the middle of streams because it's bad for the aquatic life and why we don't decorate Christmas trees on the public lands and never take them down, and so, you know, showing the kids just through the way we live and in this very outdoor activity oriented place and in this very outdoor activity oriented place.
Speaker 1:But I would like to thank you for the volunteer work that you and the trail group do do out there. So by the time I get to go out there and run in April, it's clear it's perhaps new steps have been built, like they were this year. So you guys do a lot of great work out there and I know it's something that's very important in the trail running community that you know people do volunteer, which is something I need to work on here locally, but I do have a parks department that does all of that for me. For some reason they help the trails. But I do think that's very important and I personally thank you guys for that work that you do out there because it does make a much better running experience and the trails out there it's the wild, the rocky, the rooty, but the stream crossings are taken care of.
Speaker 1:You guys have built crossings over all the streams.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So we don't have to go down into the, into the bottom of the very bottom of the canyon where we're going to go across the streams. Yeah, you guys have done a great job out there like I said earlier, some of the best trails there are to run anywhere is is out in the laurel highlands area and I I feel like a big part of that is your volunteer group.
Speaker 2:So thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart well, I feel like it's a responsibility, it's like I can't, I couldn't just be here and do all these activities without taking care of what we're treading on. And you know the same, for we have an Ohio pile biking club. It's all the mountain bikers and we do the same thing. And you know we text each other. I don't have the chainsaw, I have a handsaw. If I see one that requires a chainsaw, I text the guys in the biking club and you know it's the trails across the lower highlands, but they're just as used and just as amazing as the lower highlands.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's like you know we, we are putting our footprint on these trails. Is mountain biking the best thing for the terrain? Well, you know, sometimes no, and we're building new trails and I love it. But sometimes I'm thinking, you know, do we need to do that? Do we know what habitats you know, even if it's just like some type of bug or something, we're just digging up trails. I don't know. Maybe there's like a little bit of that, like a guilt that comes with. Are we doing enough for the earth that we're using to do all of the fun things that we do? You know, we're trail running and it's so fun.
Speaker 1:We're mountain biking, kayaking and so fun, but we have to think beyond that that's a very good point and I I feel like, for the sport that we participate in, whether it's fkts, whether it's just going out in the woods and and running you, we do need to be responsible for it's just going out in the woods and running you. We do need to be responsible for whether it's just conserving, maybe reducing your use of one, and I'm not trying to be preachy, but it's something I certainly try and it's hard to talk about it without being preachy, but I mean, the truth is like I I'm not always great at recycling, but like, are things actually getting recycled?
Speaker 2:I don't know, but I'll pick up a piece of trash if I trash.
Speaker 1:I think that's the simplest way to help. Nothing makes me more angry than running either my local trails. Maybe the weekend after, say like Buckeye 50K, and you see, like goo wrappers.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Like you're supposed to be the ones that don't do this. You're not supposed to be the ones that are contributing to the garbage? And it's. I don't think and again, it's not preaching, it's just common sense of if you want to use this, you need to at the bare minimum clean up for yourself. Like, don't leave stuff. Make sure if you bring four in, four come out with you. What you pack in, you pack out.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, I think that needs to be, you know, said a little bit louder by maybe some of the RDs and the people around it. Because people like you do put a lot of time and effort into the trails, into cleaning up around that area, into the trails, into cleaning up around that area, you shouldn't have to also go up and clean up after you know, when the Laurel Highlands Ultra comes through, there should be no wrappers left.
Speaker 2:I have never seen a wrapper on the Laurel Highlands.
Speaker 1:You have or haven't I?
Speaker 2:have not, that's not good. They're not there. Yeah, maybe because after I run the Laurel Highlands I'm just not. Yeah, maybe because after I run the Laura Highlands I'm just not going out there for a week or two.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you know, and I get mistakes happen. Not everyone's perfect you know, you thought you put it in your pack. I very well may be guilty of that, but if I see one, I also certainly pick it up and throw it in the top and drop it off with the rest of my garbage and I'm done. I think that's a pretty simple thing we can all do to at least help out.
Speaker 3:And I think it's okay to be in that struggle, brent, where you're at, where you don't know, and how can you know unless you're out there? Do you want to protect it? Well, you haven't been out on the trail long enough. You wouldn't ever see how beautiful the land is and know what its real value is, and the passion that we have as trail runners is that it might take a few years till you get that passion and that understanding, and then, admitting that you struggle with what are we doing out here Really? Are we out here doing good or not? And so it's okay to, I believe, live in that realm where your thought process is still there.
Speaker 2:Thanks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2:It's also, you know, ohio is so tourist-centered, we want people here. We don't want people here. We want people here, we don't want people here. And yeah, but then when you think very, very locally and very close, I want to share the trails with people. I want to show them how to get around safely. I want them to get to know the trails so they can be out here by themselves, like with the women that I run with it.
Speaker 2:It's like I wanted to bring as many women as I could to show them the trails, even though it might be like a little bit contradictory to uh, there's too many people in this town, but then I'm like well, my people can come. But you know, I don't know, it's like this internal conflict, but in the end I think it's doing good. It's like my goal with the trail run tribe was to show women how to get around the woods by themselves and to help them feel safe in the woods. And if that's bringing them here and taking them on all the trails that I know, you know if it takes that to do that, then so be it. You know it's empowering for them. And now all of them can run on a trail without being led, which is amazing.
Speaker 1:Now you mentioned that you're talking about the Trail Tribe Girls. What exactly is that?
Speaker 2:I guess in 2017, yeah, so I had my second boy and then I was like, oh my gosh, I have one boy, a second boy and then a husband. I need to be around women. So so two months after my second son, I texted everyone I know everyone, I knew every woman and invited them to come run on a very short trail in Ohio pile and I told them I wanted to start a trail running club, 13 women showed up the first day and that was June 4th 2017.
Speaker 2:And we've been running together since. We've never canceled. We've never had zero people show up.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. You've started something good. Had zero people show up? That's awesome. You've started something good, something that gives back and also a part of a group that volunteers and does time, so you're also putting in the community service work on top of, as Nate said, the superhuman stuff you also do.
Speaker 2:So that's well, you do quite a lot, brynn. Oh, they're some of my best friends. We're yeah.
Speaker 1:And you've also won some hardware. The group has correct. Didn't you guys win um laurel highlands relay, I believe yeah, definitely we've.
Speaker 2:We always have relay teams and I don't even remember which groups, when I know, like I know, we've won different relays, but I can't remember who or what years I know the trail tribe girls have definitely, definitely won at least one of the times I've been there oh, you know what we did when that we were very proud of was a ragnar trail. Do you know the ragnar? Which one it's?
Speaker 1:like a collection of races, correct?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's all over the country.
Speaker 1:So we did ragnar, which one? It's like a collection of races, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's all over the country, so we did Ragnar Appalachia.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:In West Virginia in 2018. It was the worst. No, it was awesome, but we were up for 48 hours. It was crazy.
Speaker 1:Oh geez.
Speaker 2:No, you're not sleeping. You're running like three different times and I was. I had my youngest son that I was still breastfeeding. My husband was like bringing them in and it was like it was just. It was like the best and the worst experience, but we did end up winning that and we were very excited.
Speaker 3:Well, I can't thank you enough, Bryn, for all the work you've done in the past and you continue to do with the WeViews website, your willingness to be, you know, transparent about the use of equipment and clothing and nutrition and recovery all those things so helpful to so many people and I want to bring that up because it doesn't go unnoticed the amount of variety that we've seen through some of your articles and the testing that you do, and I feel like people can trust that opinion and that's been a tremendous help.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Nate. I love writing for WeViews and getting to know all you guys over the past year or two or two years, I guess.
Speaker 1:I think it's been well two years since.
Speaker 2:I've met you anyway, but yeah.
Speaker 1:I do thank you and I thank you for your time tonight, especially and again thanks for the volunteer work that you do out there to make some of the best trails around always runnable to the people that are listening. If you get a chance you like running trails. Gate to eight, uh, which we've referenced several times here is is probably one of the most legendary. I think it's definitely the toughest seven miles of trail I've ever. I've run on a on a trail seven mile section and, uh, if you're looking for a good test, head out there to ohio pile, pennsylvania, bryn's hometown and current residence.
Speaker 2:Ohio Pile is great. Thank you guys, that was fun.