The Buzz

Adventure Racing Legend Danelle Ballengee on a 60-Foot Fall, Two Freezing Nights, and the Dog That Saved Her Life

Danelle Ballengee is one of the most decorated endurance athletes in American history, a four-time Pikes Peak Marathon champion, two-time Adventure Racing World Champion, and six-time US Athlete of the Year across four different endurance sports. In December 2006, on a routine training run near her home in Moab, she slipped on black ice on the Amasa Back trail, fell roughly 60 feet, shattered her sacrum, broke her pelvis, and spent two sub-freezing nights alone in the desert before her dog Taz led search and rescue to her location. In this conversation, Buzz sits down with Danelle at the Moab Public Library to revisit the golden era of adventure racing under Mark Burnett's Eco-Challenge, coming back two decades later for Bear Grylls' rebooted World's Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji alongside Travis and Mark Macy, the fall that should have killed her, and what it feels like to live what she calls borrowed time. Danelle is the founder and race director of the Moab Trail Marathon and Half Marathon, held the first weekend in November. Check out VKTRY performance insoles that allow you to make any shoe a carbon shoe for a fraction of the cost. The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

Matt Carpenter on Records, Obsession, and Knowing When to Stop

Matt Carpenter is the most decorated mountain runner in American history, 18-time Pikes Peak champion across twelve marathons and six ascents, holder of the Pikes Peak Marathon course record at 3:16:39 since 1993, and the man who took 90 minutes off the Leadville Trail 100 record in 2005 with a 15:42:59 that stood until 2024 when broken by David Roche. In this conversation, Matt walks Buzz through what 33 years on top of Pikes Peak actually requires: the obsessive training math behind the 3-2-1 workout above 12,000 feet, the consistency-quality-quantity-rest pyramid that shaped every season, why a 90.2 VO2 max isn't the whole story (running economy is, and his was poor until he trained it), and the moment Ricardo Mejía's 1992 win lit the fire that produced the record the following August. They get into Matt's Fila SkyRunners years racing flat marathons at 17,060 feet in Tibet, his unconventional Leadville fueling system, 50 calories every ten minutes, watch set to beep, why he carried bottles in his armpits before running vests existed, and what made him retire on his own terms at 47 after winning Pikes Peak six years running. Plus the custard shop, the Planet Fitness bench-press streak, and a clear-eyed take on whether his marathon record will ever fall. This episode is brought to you by the Wahoo Kickr Run, the smart treadmill with run-free mode and automatic grade control from -3% to 15%. Learn more at wahoofitness.com. The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

Dave Mackey on the Accident That Changed Everything, and the Career He Built After

Dave Mackey is a two-time USATF Ultrarunner of the Year, former rim-to-rim-to-rim Grand Canyon record holder, JFK 50 champion, and, after a freak fall off Bear Peak in May 2015, thirteen surgeries, and a voluntary below-the-knee amputation in November 2016, one of the more improbable comebacks in the sport. Buzz and Dave recorded the first part of this episode on the exact rock Dave fell off, on the summit of Bear Peak, in an actual snowstorm, wearing actual shorts. In this conversation, Dave walks through the accident itself and the friends who got him off the mountain alive, why he ultimately chose amputation over more reconstruction, what proprioception feels like on a carbon-fiber running blade, his pre-Western States taper (rock climbing in Tuolumne Meadows), being one of the first American athletes to lace up a pair of absurd-looking early Hokas, and why he thinks modern ultrarunners are faster, better rested, and, for the most part, smiling more than his generation did. He's signed up for the Leadville Challenge again this summer, and he's still, as Travis Macy puts it, a runner's runner. This episode is brought to you by the Wahoo Kickr Run — a high-end smart treadmill with Run-Free mode (the belt auto-adjusts to your pace) and automatic grade control from -3% to +15%. Check it out at wahoofitness.com. The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

Jason Blevins on Water, Snow, and the Future of Mountain Towns

Jason Blevins is a veteran journalist at the Colorado Sun who has spent nearly three decades covering outdoor recreation, public lands, and the mountain communities of the Colorado high country. In this conversation, Buzz and Jason dig into the slow-motion crisis unfolding across the Rocky Mountain West, a snowpack at 61 percent of normal, a 103-year-old Colorado River Compact straining under the weight of 40 million people's water needs, and ski towns facing an identity reckoning that has been building for years. They talk about what it looks like when mountain communities diversify away from a sole reliance on chairlift riders, why the ideal town might be "just shitty enough," and how the housing crisis in places like Crested Butte and Aspen is a preview of pressures playing out across the country. The conversation opens up into something larger: outdoor recreation as a $1.3 trillion industry that has earned a seat at the policy table — and the responsibility that comes with it. This episode is brought to you by Wahoo KICKR Run. The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

The Winningest 100-Mile Runner on Earth: Karl "Speedgoat" Meltzer on Chasing 100 Hundreds, the Hoka Legacy, and What It Means to Live First

Buzz sits down with Karl "Speedgoat" Meltzer, 50-time 100-mile winner, previous Appalachian Trail FKT holder, and the man behind one of trail running's most iconic nicknames , for a conversation about a career that has never followed the obvious path. Karl is currently at 93 hundred-mile finishes, closing in on a goal he set four years ago: 100 finishes by the summer of 2027, with Hardrock 100 as his dream finale. They dig into the origin of the Speedgoat nickname (a jackrabbit, Highway 70, a Fila shoe called the Escape Goat), what it looks like to hold a perpetuity royalty deal with Hoka on one of the best-selling trail shoes in the world, and what Karl learned across three AT record attempts about the difference between being an elite hundred-miler and being ready for multi-day. Plus longevity, old-school zone-five-or-nothing training, speed golf at Bandon Dunes with Bernard Lagat and Nick Willis, and the homemade bobsled runs that once left Buzz's sacrum bruised for four days. Karl is 58, still running for Hoka through 2027, still operating on the same principle that drove him through his Snowbird bartending years: live first, die later. The record will stand for a while. The shirt is coming. This episode is brought to you by Wahoo Kickr Run: run-free mode, automatic grade control from -3% to 15% incline, and the closest thing to outside without going outside. Learn more at wahoofitness.com.