All right, welcome to the Borderlands Trail and Ultrarunning podcast.

My name is Josh.

Here we go.

Borderland.

Somehow we're still not learning.

Borderland.

We still suck at running.

All right, the year is coming to an end.

Companies are winding down, content is slowing down on the Internet.

Everyone's getting ready to, to start thinking about their 2025s where they've already been thinking about.

They're getting ready to start to release what they're going to be doing in 2025.

I am no different here at Borderlands.

Been starting, starting to wind down.

This is going to be one of the last few episodes of the year before 2025.

Before we get into it though, don't forget January 18th, if you're anywhere near Salt Lake City and want to come hang with Billy Yang and me, Flores Gearman and the PATH crew and local Salt Lake runners.

I'll be in Salt Lake City January 18th.

We're going to do a group run in the mountains and then we're going to do a live podcast recording at the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business.

And it'll be a great day of just celebration of the sport, the non elite version of the sport.

The people who are in it just because they love it.

We may love the elite version of the sport, but you know, this is going to be a celebration of the non elite.

Okay, so today, yeah, like I said, every, every business is, is, has taking a look back right now and every business is getting ready to announce what's coming.

And so today, Taylor Bodine, lead trail reviewer of Believe in the Run, is back.

And we're going to take a look at his article that he put out with his team at Believe in the Run, looking back at the best TR running shoes of 2024.

And then we're also going to look at an article that's that by the time this goes live that you'll be able to check out.

It'll be in the show notes of 2025, the year that's ahead of us.

What's happening in shoes, what's happening with these brands?

You know, what do we have to look forward to?

What can we get excited about?

Where's the mystery?

Where's the payoffs?

All that sort of stuff.

But before we get into it, Taylor, I'm glad you're with me again.

How you doing?

I'm doing good, thank you.

I'm good.

I'm excited for this episode.

I feel like it's been, well, one, a whole year of coming into it but yeah, just such an exciting time.

Like you said, on all sides of the sport and from the gear side, it's just picking up year after year after year because their sport is growing so much.

So I feel like when we kind of bring out these best in gear awards, it's really as a celebration as of our sport as a whole.

Because if there's innovation happening in it, there's growth happening and so we're seeing that.

That's a great way to put it because I was going to say that all these year end review stuff, on some level sometimes it's for those of us who are creating the content, it's like there's some nostalgia mixed in.

There's some like, my goodness, look at where we were January 2024.

What were we thinking we were going to do what, you know, what was the possible scope, what was in the realm of do ability and did we do it?

And we did it.

And here's a recounting of that.

And.

But I think you're.

And, and those are great.

And those have their place.

And that's what Brian and I did on an episode of Bad Runners.

Take.

We just kind of looked at our year.

What did we love about 2024 and trial running.

But yours, as you just put it really well, is like there's, there's the look at shoes and the development that really is a, there's a, it's, that's an avenue to celebrate the year that we had because, you know, so many, so many of us love shoes.

Yeah, well.

And we feel pretty strongly at believe in the run that the gear that you're putting on is going to really alter your experience.

And we want running to be the best experience possible.

No matter if you are out there for 100 miles or you know, just going straight up doing a vk, it doesn't really matter.

And especially those training days, right?

Like those are the days that really matter, the overall experience.

And we can now nowadays shop for the experience we'll want basically.

And so that's kind of what I imagine this episode will be of, kind of enlightening consumers because we've talked about it in past episodes of.

Even before I was doing this gig five years ago, I was basically a one shoe kind of guy.

I had one shoe that I needed for it to be able to do a bunch of different things, including race day.

But you don't have to do that.

And I know a lot of people are in that boat, but again, you don't have to do that.

There's a lot of other options which makes me feel like our job, especially going into 2025, our job as being more of a, a sounding board for all these different brands and different ideas coming out and different sensations for just building informed consumers as much as possible for the experience they want.

So.

Yeah.

And what's cool.

Speaking of, you know what, what's your, your job, I mean literally your job is going to be this full time here pretty soon, right?

Yeah.

Because it's growing so much and there's so much interest and believe in the run does such a great job with content.

You're going from bi vocational of lead trail reviewer and teacher to just lead trail reviewers or something like that.

So tell me a little bit more about that before we get in further.

Yeah, yeah.

So like my day job now is I'm a teacher and a coach and our industry, the trail running industry, the outdoor industry as a whole has grown so much over the last five years.

But especially when you look back to the last 15 years as we've talked about on a few different episodes, it's just taking it an exponential curve and it doesn't seem to be slowing down.

And Thomas, our founder said it really well last year of as we started to get into more events on the trail side, we've always had a great team of trail reviewers and we do a lot of the write ups.

We're starting to get into some of video some of the things that our roadside is known for.

He thought we felt like a guest at some of these events as believer in the run as a whole.

And we don't have to be.

We can be an integral part of the trail running community and I feel like we have in some ways but a bigger part to help inform consumers about the gear they're wanting to get and also try to help build communities through that avenue.

And so that's going to be my job with the dirt division, building out the dirt division, how we can fit into the broader, broader landscape of outdoor and trail running.

And it's just really exciting.

Yeah.

That we're at this point.

I hadn't really thought about it too much.

As you know, as a teacher I just, I've always kind of thought of this is my career and that's okay.

I've loved teaching.

Of course it's really hard but it's, it's fun to be at this point in my career can and going to be having a big career change toward a big passion project and yeah, it's just kind of crazy that trail running can Offer full time positions.

Yeah.

Which is just awesome.

Yeah, man.

Well, congrats.

And so on some levels, again, another using that word again, celebration.

Like all this work that you're about to highlight, and you've said it before, you have a team of six or seven who do this with you.

You know, all of this has been done with all of you probably, probably all of you having day jobs and many other responsibilities.

So on some levels, it's kind of cool to say this is what you accomplished in 2024 with these multiple hats.

And then 2025, partway through, you're going to be wearing just the hat you have on, literally.

And you know, be cool to see sit here a year from now and say, you know, what's the difference with what's your output?

What's the difference in your output when you're full time versus what you just did?

Because this article, as I look at it now, I mean, doesn't feel like it came from part time people.

Like, there's just, you guys have just done so much, so much reviewing and wearing of shoes.

It's incredible.

Yeah.

And I mean, looking just back at just the list of shoes that we've done this year, we're into like the 60s bordering 70 different trail shoes.

Like, who even knew there were there were that many trail shoes out there?

Right.

But that's starting to be our reality and next year we're going to be looking forward to new brands.

Many brands are bringing multiple new models, updates to old models that we'll even talk about today.

So yeah, it really is.

It's a growing industry and we're excited to be a part of it.

And thanks for highlighting that all of we do put a lot of hard work into the miles we put in and the thoughtfulness behind.

Yeah.

Have you, have you grabbed that metric?

Cause if not, you should do it for 20, 25.

How many miles have your team ran in the shoes that they've reviewed?

That that would be incredible because at, at minimum, and usually most runners get more than this.

At minimum, we say 20 miles per shoe.

20 trail miles is good.

Yeah.

Perch per shoe.

Yeah.

So yeah.

And so, yeah.

And a lot of people will get like 30 to 50 miles in, in a particular shoe just because we want to give it a thorough test.

Yeah.

And so yeah, it's a lot of hard work.

And that just this last article, being a full time teacher and husband and dad, it's, it was like weeks incoming of putting that together and talking to all of our trail reviewers.

Our overall votes for this and that.

And there is some subjective nature to all this, of course, but we try to be as high level as possible when we bring these together.

So I mean there's, there's this idea that like that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Like, you know, who's to say what art is good and what art isn't.

But on to, to some degree with shoes, there could be that same thing of like, well, how do you actually like.

Isn't it really just if that person likes it, but really a great artist, There are things that make a great artist a great artist.

There are things that they do that make them, can make them objectively great, if not, you know, only subjectively great.

So as you're, as you're reviewing these shoes, like there, there's like a lens that you have to be looking at this through because you're thinking about, you're not thinking necessarily as much about you as you're thinking about the end user who's going to buy this shoe.

And you're trying to help them prevent regret, you're trying to help them prevent wasting money.

You know, and on the same level that serves the company because then they get a return of a used shoe and there's all these buyback issues and you know, there's so many, so many things.

Yeah.

That you know, a good reviewer can help with.

So let's.

Where, where do we, where do you want to start by tackling this article from last year?

Do you want to start from the bottom and work your way up or the top and work your way down?

Well, well, let's start from the top.

Just because a lot of times when we look at the top, the high performance, that's the type of technology they want to be able to trickle down into the rest of the shoes.

And one thing that I just want to hit right away is that just like on the road side, on the roadside, you might have your race day marathon shoe.

You might use a different shoe for race day, half marathon or 5K, something that's lighter, low, peppier.

But those aren't the only two categories.

Of course.

There's a daily trainer, but within the daily trainer, there's a few different categories too.

You could have a super trainer that's closer, linked to the race day with some sort of plate and a high energy foam.

Or you could do a trainer that's just meant for low and slow.

There's a lot of different options and in the trail running space, I would say those options are expanded even more because we have the terrain specific and overall fit is really important for depending on the terrain.

And then you have to consider the outsole.

And just all of these different measures we're looking at.

And so it creates a few different categories that these brands try to create a shoe for.

And so you have everything from the.

The speedy technical shoes that you might take up a mountain on a race, or you have the easy door to trail shoes that are meant to cross a few different types of terrain.

And so there's just a lot of different categories to consider.

And so that's reflected in our article that we have.

We have.

I'm just going to go through them real quick.

Yeah, we have our overall.

So we have our reviewers talk about what.

What overall was their favorite shoe, the best experience for them for the year.

And so we have that category.

But then we go into.

Let's see here.

Then we go into like the best overall trail shoe.

So just what would be best for a lot of different conditions, a lot of different uses?

We have the best max cushion shoe.

We have the best technical trail runner.

We have the best door to trail.

I like that category.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you just made a purchase and kind of.

I mean, it's funny we never use that term previously, but as soon as you said that, I was like, yeah, that's always what I'm looking for because I need to.

No matter where I'm at, I'm always starting on concrete asphalt before I hit a trail.

Like, even when I'm back in the.

Like.

Yeah.

Anyway.

Okay.

And.

Yeah.

And then we have like, best value, best race day ultra.

Best race day sub ultra, Best race day technical.

So there's all these different options that are to consider, especially when you're buying a shoe for whatever experience you want.

And we'll kind of come back to that quite a bit.

Great.

So should we just start from the top and.

Yeah, let's do it.

Start going down.

Some of these shoes are ones we've talked about.

And so it might be fun for listeners to go back and listen to some of these episodes that we've come out about brands.

Yeah, yeah.

Because like our first, the overall best trail shoe of the year for our reviewers was the north face Vective Pro 2.

And so this is again, this is a race model shoe meant for ultra races.

It has a carbon fiber plate, unique technology that forks that out.

Not the same in.

In the road running category.

Plus it has just a great fit up top and especially in the heel and the midfoot that locks you in and makes you feel in control of everything that's going on and it has a really high energy, modern, you could call it a super foam underfoot.

And so all those come together to just make a really fun experience.

And at the end of the day, don't we just want trail running to be fun?

And so that's, that's it really.

The fun factor is why this shoe was overall the best shoe of the year.

And so, yeah, that's what our trail reviewers loved about this particular shoe.

We did a big episode on on the North Face.

Was that our first one or.

We did.

That's what I was just trying to remember if that was our first or if it was our second.

Solomon might have been first, but yeah, I think so.

I was when I was most surprised because you, you talked a lot about foam then and, you know, that's the first time I heard you talk about, you know, the future is in foam.

And I was surprised at how many comments I got where people referenced certain nuances about the foam.

Like, I'm just so out of the loop on that, on that level of assessment of gear, but how, you know, how much people care about, pay attention to think about, are aware of foam was surprising to me.

Huh?

Yeah.

And, and again, like, when we talk about experience, foam is going to be the, the leader in that experience of what you're feeling directly underfoot.

And a lot of brands, especially looking into, looking into the future, a lot of brands and product are going to look very similar on paper.

Yeah.

And that's kind of my big takeaway for 2025 is that basically all of them have some of the same materials or the same applications of materials, but it's their slight ways of altering it that's going to make a difference for the, the runner.

And so, like, even this dream foam that's in here, they might stiffen it up a little bit for one particular application even, or they might soften it up.

And so in this one, it's going to be softer because there is is a carbon fiber plate that sits above it and it's going to stiffen that application just a little bit.

But you do need that softer to get reaction out of the plate.

We know that that is just science.

And so when you have a carbon fiber shoe that's meant to be really zippy, you're often going to get a softer foam underfoot to get some action out of that plate.

And so you're right, the foams are going to be a big deal this year.

It was a big deal.

And Even more so into next year for sure.

And so I'm just going to go there real quick of like, we already have this shoe for next year, and if you're watching on YouTube, you can see the difference between these two.

And so it's a lot of the same materials from a material standpoint, almost identical, but they're layering it differently in the new version, the Vector Pro 3, and they have two different plates that are acting differently in the Vective Pro 3.

And so in a lot of ways, it'll seem like almost an identical shoe, but once you have it on foot, it's a very different shoe, very different experience that you're getting.

And so this is one of the shoes we're really looking forward to in 2025, so.

Nice.

Yeah, I feel like we're going to be doing that a lot because a lot of this.

Yeah, that's actually a perfect way to look at 2025 on some levels.

If you've got the 2024s and 25s and yeah, you can put them side by side.

That's pretty awesome.

Okay.

Yeah.

And.

And it just shows, again, like, innovation is happening and it's happening quicker than ever before.

And we'll see that with Brooks, which was our runner up, our best, the Brooks Catamount 3.

We've talked about the shoe a little bit.

The Brooks Catamount 3 was our runner up for the overall trail shoe of the year, but also took top, top, top of the stand in the do it all category.

And so.

Okay.

And which is interesting because usually we think of it as like, again, the race day, and this is a race day shoe, but in terms of.

Wow.

Technology, it's not all there, but they just bring it together in a really nice way, the technology they do have.

And so the Brooks Catamount 3 again, was taken runner up overall of our favorite trail shoes.

It's just.

It could be a workhorse for you, but it could also be a race day shoe.

And our trail runners use it for a lot of different things, a lot of different terrain.

It felt.

Felt really good here in the mountains, but also felt great down in.

In the east coast, where most of our reviewers are, and down south, too.

And so a lot of different train, and that's what we loved about this.

So you can access a lot of different train, a lot of different paces.

It just feels good.

Feels fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I actually saw one in person just like a day or two ago at one of the running stores here.

It looks really good in person.

It didn't quite hit me in pictures, but in person I thought, oh, you know, because, you know, that's one of my highest values.

It looks pretty good.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

It's an important thing, right?

That's one.

One way to make you feel good on a run.

It matters.

Look good, feel good.

Exactly, Exactly.

And so you'll look good, feel good, and perform well in a shoe like the Brooks Catamount 3.

Nice.

I put it in our article for the 2025.

But if we were to do cross country scoring on our best.

Best in gear 2024 shoe reviews, our.

If we do cross country scoring, which if you're not familiar with cross country scoring, you score basically the place you get.

And so, like, if you got fifth place, you would get five points.

If you got 20th place, you get 20 points.

And so if we took all the categories for our trail shoes, Brooks would come out on top as the top brand.

Really?

Which is crazy.

I mean, scoring it like a cross country, that.

That's really funny.

So I like doing that to, like, UTMB and big races to see what brands are coming out on top.

And so I just kind of did that for our shoe review to see what brand came out on top and Brooks and that the company that we said as like our big conversation around Brooks as the brand was like, just keep it going.

Like you have some good things, but keep it going.

Nothing necessarily.

Super wow factor again.

Right.

But obviously good enough to went out on our Best in Gear awards, and second was the North Face.

So also a brand.

We're kind of surprised.

If you look back five years ago, we'd be like, yeah, you're writing a fable here.

And so it's just an interesting thing to look at.

And Brooks for 2025 is coming out.

We talked about how.

Which I'm just gonna say this.

They listened to the podcast.

They listened to that podcast and they said, we nailed it.

We nailed.

We nailed exactly how the past has been and looking toward the future on what they need to do.

And so they're.

They're putting pedals to the metal.

So 2025, they're having updates to, like this Brooks Catamount 3 is going to have a Brooks Catamount 4, which looks amazing.

Like, that might be the shoe I'm looking forward to most next year.

It's going to have.

It's going to resemble some of their Hyperion road shoe a little bit in terms of getting new foam, a lighter upper, and they're being more thoughtful with how they use this sky vault.

Plate in here for both stability and propulsion.

And so it'll be interesting to see all that technology come together.

They're also updating the Caldera and we have some YouTube videos that are highlighting all this.

I'm believing the runs YouTube.

Okay, great.

If people want to see all the upcoming shoes from a particular brand.

And they're also.

This is crazy.

That shoe that Scott Jurek we talked about kind of started it all.

The Cascadia is in its 19th edition and I'm actually really excited to get in it.

In the past, people are often asking like, do you ever give a shoe a bad review?

And it's been hard in the last five years because there's, there's just so many great things and, and brands are creating products with such a specific description to it.

So I weigh it against the description and there really haven't been many bad shoes overall.

But the last two shoes that I gave really poor scores to, both of them were Cascadia like four years ago.

And now we're here and going into 2025.

And it's one of the shoes I'm most excited about because they're bringing a lot of innovation across to it.

And not, not just that it's getting the modern take, it's that they're really trying to maintain what it's always been.

But think of the consumers experience in that, giving them kind of the best bridging on premium experience with that.

So I mean that's, that's got to be hard.

Is this.

So will this one be version 19 or this.

That shoe has been out for 19 years, so this will be version 19.

Both.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, that's got to be hard.

Like 19.

Yeah, it's the 19th edition, but they, they don't always come out with one.

I think in our video the, they said it's the 19th year, but it's been more than 19 years, I believe.

Yeah.

Because I, I think about how, how, how can you iterate 19 times?

And I think probably, and this is probably because I'm not a product person.

I'm sure a product person would, you know, they're thinking three, four, five iterations into the future and they're trying to position that shoe for what it's going to be like in five years from now.

So they add a feature that's not that great now, but compounded over three or four years, it's going to be great.

19 years is.

That's hard.

So I mean, and, and special, especially for our, our young industry.

Exactly.

And, and with that shoe in particular, just like the Speedgoat, like it's, it hasn't changed if you consider the first versions to now.

Yeah, it's changed, but over a year to year to year it doesn't change that much because it's, it's amassed a, a following.

A kind of like a cult user, you could say.

And just like the Brooks Ghost, they're doing just fine selling just Brooks Ghost.

They don't necessarily need to have any other shoe on the market if they didn't want to because so many people will buy that.

That was the Brooks Cascadia for a long time.

And so they really don't have to innovate.

But it shows a lot about what a brand wants to do in the space if they are trying to innovate that particular model.

And so they're really excited about 2025, as am I for Brooks.

But they said, just wait, 2026 is really our year.

Oh, so there it is.

There's my point.

Like they're positioning themselves, they're on their way.

Okay, I like that.

Yeah.

And New Balance said that too.

2026 is our year.

There was another brand that, that was kind of going that way on, was saying 2025 is their year.

And so it just goes to show like even trying to, if I was going to try to validate the position that I'm going into a full time position, like it's going to be needed here soon for a lot of places just to be able to cover everything that's happening.

And these marquee brands, these heritage brands, big brands, are saying like the best is yet to come, the growth, they're still investing in this space, all of their resources, their design people, product people, allocating supply chain to it.

So I mean, even if you don't know the exact number, the exact compounded annual growth rate of the industry, just to see Brooks, who's fiscally conservative, Berkshire Hathaway, you know, they're not going to waste money, they're not going to piss money away in any way, are throwing lots of money at this and say, oh, 2025 is gonna be good.

2026 is gonna be our year.

Like that's, that's a good sign for us.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And I know like those especially in our kind of weird space of trail running, that can be kind of weird and scary just to see.

Cause there is something we really want to preserve about this, the culture of trail running.

And I feel that even with all this innovation, even with the focus on the high End athlete.

I feel like if we ever lose that piece, it'll be very noticeable of the special piece of trail running.

And so.

And I.

But I don't think we're there.

Yeah, I mean, on some levels, this is a different.

A different conversation.

But I think on some levels, one of the things that protects that is our, our permitting process in America.

Our races just, we just, we have this ceiling to some degree of like, maybe our shoes grow, maybe our gear grows, but Western states can't have more than 320 people, and Hard Rock can't have more than 100, and Western and Wasatch can't have more than, you know, 350, you know, so there's some, there's some interesting caps there, but at the same time.

So this corporatization piece, this is a.

There's an element here, like where we're all benefiting and I hear you loud and clear, like.

But we want to make sure that all this is doing is helping us get out there and run and continue to enjoy the.

The sport that we love.

Exactly.

And so again, when we put articles together like this, I like, I like thinking of it and like, just like kind of sitting and reminiscing of all the tools I've been able to utilize to have like my favorite day in the mountains.

And so again, that's kind of where we're at with all these different shoes.

We'll get back on board here.

Well, we were talking about.

Sorry about that.

No, that's great.

We were talking about Brooks and they had another top shoe.

So we had the Catamount 3, which was our runner up for overall, our favorite.

It was the best for Do it all, but we also had a best for technical race day.

And we've talked about the shoe quite a bit.

It's the Catamount a Geo.

And again, it's just a super light kind of like a track spike for the mountains.

And so this is for more of the.

The race day, but you want to be.

Be light on your feet.

You want to be really sure of your foot placement.

It's meant for technical terrain, meant for fast.

And so just kind of knowing that category instead of just like having a big umbrella over race day, if you can think of, we broaden that out or specify that more for different terrain and different lengths.

So this would be kind of the short and fast.

Think of it kind of like a 5k type shoe for the technical terrain.

And again, this one I think we'll see an update to in not next year, but 2026.

Okay.

I think based on the conversations they were alluding to, I would guess something like this.

It'll be an update in a couple years.

But again, just goes to show that the, the industry is growing and specifying and putting a lot of money.

Money where they want their mouth to be.

So.

But then you have like in that same application of like Solomon's application of it is a little bit different and so a little more foam underfoot, a little more aggressive in terms of leaning you forward and pushing you through your stride.

It's still super light, sticks super close to foot, but just somewhat of a different application.

I would take either of these on like I would take the Brooks on more technical terrain, whereas this I would think of as my easy trail to moderate trail difficulty, but where I can really like let my legs churn and go fast.

And so that's kind of like the short, short course.

Um, yeah, those are great.

I love, I love that category.

Is that mtl?

I don't want to get ahead of you.

Is that the Merrell mtl?

That's in that category too.

Right.

It, it could definitely be in that category for a race day shoe.

For us, this was our runner up for a technical train.

Just an overall like if you're it, it's more versatile than those two shoes.

I would say it has more underfoot for protection.

It has a wider base.

You can definitely use this for race day.

I've used it for race day this year.

It's a, it's a great option for that for sure.

And having that really technical fabric up top kind of aims it toward being a race day shoe.

But overall we found ourselves using it as just a good day in the mountains type of shoe.

Yeah.

And so.

And so this was runner up in that category of just like a technical train runner, which I'll bring out.

Our winner in that category for a technical train was the La Sportiva Prodigio.

Nice.

Yeah.

And so again, these are similar shoes in a lot of ways.

They, their fit and feel is actually quite similar.

They have a really nice lockdown in the heel and the midfoot.

The forefoot I wouldn't say is generous for a technical shoe.

It's not typically going to be a generous forefoot because you do want it all just to stay closer to foot so you can be confident in what you're doing, whether going uphill, downhill on the side of a hill.

That's one of the things I test quite often is how does it feel on a on off camber terrain and Both of these shoes did really well in those categories.

To set these two apart, the Prodigio is going to be a little softer feeling all the way around underfoot and around on top with this upper.

And so it's just going to be a softer, more comfortable experience when you're in the mountains.

Whereas this is going to feel a little more aggressive, a little lighter, a little airier.

And so those are two options that just did really well for us on technical terrain this year, whether you're going long or short.

So I would take the Prodigio for a longer day.

I would take the MTL Long Sky 2 for a more technical romp in the mountain.

So yeah, yeah.

But both of these shoes shoe that.

MTL Long Sky, I don't know if I had the one.

It was.

They were black and white.

I.

I loved them.

I put a ton of miles on them.

They just.

I was surprised for a shoe that was so like low profile.

Just how great my feet felt in them.

I just loved them.

Yeah, exactly.

And that comes down to the foam.

A lot of the times this float pro foam, it's a little more dense than a lot of the modern foams, but it still feels light and it breaks in really nicely.

And so it gives it a consistent experience throughout the whole time.

And so.

But then if you get to more of these nitrogen infused midsoles, it's probably going to break down and feel different as the miles go on.

Whereas the float profoam, we've had an experience of where it's just consistent and so.

And I love that about this shoe too.

It's just a great option.

Both of these shoes were also in our kind of do it all category.

They could easily be a shoe that you pick up for, for all day, every day on any type of trail.

Nice.

But they also were specifically made for more technical trait and so that's what we weigh it against.

So whatever description the company puts out there, that's what I'm really reviewing against.

And then we can place it in these different categories of what it could be used for.

Do you know the.

The future of either of those two shoes or brands going on next year?

La Sportiva is investing a lot right now in Cirque series and I saw it just renewed or just came back to Leadville.

Yeah.

As the title.

Throwing some cash out.

Yeah.

And what does Lavaredo and Italy, they previously they've been the sponsor.

I could see that.

That makes sense because La Sportiva is an Italian brand, right?

Yep, yep.

Yeah, exactly.

And so, yeah, so just kind of going into 20, 25 with the Prodigio line.

Specifically, there's the Prodigio Pro, which is kind of their race day shoe.

They're taking the same last.

They're making it lighter.

This is like, even in hand, like, this is a fairly light shoe, the original Prodigio, but the Prodigio Pro here is like noticeably lighter.

So that's one thing, they're making it lighter, they're giving it more cushion underfoot, but they're using the same last so that hopefully you can take this on a lot of the similar terrain, but just focus more on race day, faster terrain.

With the race day shoe, the Prodigio Pro.

And so that's another shoe that I've, I've had it here for a few weeks and I, I should just show you my corner over here that I'm hiding of boxes and boxes and boxes.

But this is one of those shoes that I'm like, I need to get these few reviews done and then I'm going to put a ton of miles in the shoes because it just feels so good when it's on foot.

So it's an exciting shoe and it's a race day shoe that says they're being intentional about not putting a plate in the mix.

And so it's just the foam and they have really quite aggressive grip for a race day shoe.

Oh, it looks good too.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And then a lot of brands are going to be using this like wiry TPU or TPE material up top.

And so it's mapped really closely to foot.

So this I would imagine is going to be a favorite for a lot of people, race day long ultras.

But it's also going to feel really good as just a daily trainer probably.

And so nice.

I'm, I'm really excited about that, for sure.

Yeah.

I think we, we've dreamed about this before, but I think, you know, as we get into 2025, to do an episode of like some top European brands that Americans don't know that well would be fun.

And I think La Sportiva, you know, toward the top of that list for me, I, I've seen it.

I mean, thanks to Anton Kaprichka, I've seen it, but I don't know, I'm not familiar with it.

And I think, I mean, it just seems like just this moment here, just really interesting looking shoe.

Great, great shoe.

Yeah.

And I live in an area in Estes park where there's a lot of hikers, a lot of hikers, a lot of climbers.

And so they know La Sportiva as being a kind of a standard boot or a standard approach shoe.

And so I see La Sportiva a lot, but rarely La Sportiva in the running department, unless you go down to Boulder.

There's a big contingent of La Sportiva folk down there.

That's where their North American headquarters is.

And we're like scrambling and running intersect really well.

And so you might see it there if you're in Boulder.

But in terms of just general running shoes on the trail, you don't see a lot of La Sportiva in America.

But I would hope, and I, I've seen it at the race I've been at this year, like going to Speed Goat this year, I saw a lot of these La Sportiva Prodigio shoes, a lot more than I thought I would.

And so it's just a great shoe overall.

And I would hope that people would give the chance for something like the La Sportiva Prodigio Max as a race day shoe, because it's, it just has pretty much everything you'd want in a race day shoe, at least on paper.

It's light, it's cushioned, it's highly energetic.

You have a great fit on top.

And of course, I haven't done the review.

This is what they're saying.

So hopefully, hopefully that's the case.

That's what a lot of people would want.

Yeah.

And so it's exciting, again, exciting to look toward the future.

So that was what's the best max cushion shoe?

Yeah.

Because I have a question about it.

Yeah.

So our best max cushion shoe for our trail reviewers, I'm going to bring out both of the max cushion shoes that we.

Yes.

Voted on.

So our best max cushion shoe overall was the north face Ultima 500.

And so this, this is a brand new shoe as of this year.

It has that big slab of dream foam and pretty much nothing else.

And so that you're getting all that foam directly underfoot.

And that's the big reason for this being our best max cushion shoe.

Just because this foam is so versatile.

You get some bounce, you get some cushion, you can take it on easy to moderate trail.

It has a more subdued outsole so that it's easy to take.

Like most of my runs, I, I'm on kind of like ranch land back here where I just take gravel road to the nearest trail.

And this works really well for a lot of applications.

Yeah.

So do you have a question before I show the other one?

They want to interrupt you.

Okay.

So I This.

I was going to buy that shoe.

That was a shoe I was going to buy.

And, you know, I'd had all this anxiety.

We did it in the episode, and I went in to the North Face store ready to buy, and I go in, and all they had was a Altamesa 300.

And the price was really low.

And maybe you're shaking your head and that's why it was low.

I was like, okay, this is great.

But I.

The Taylor's never said anything about a 300.

I'm not doing this.

And I go back into my anxiety cave and reemerge with 50% off zegamas from Nike.

Yeah.

Ridiculously happy.

We can talk about that another time.

Yep.

So 500 versus 300.

Why shake your head at 300?

What's the difference?

Well, the 300 has.

It has a different foam, and so it changes the experience right off the top.

It's.

It's a traditional EVA foam, which you're going to find in, like, the Hoka Speedgoat, the Brooks Cascadia, those kinds.

So it entered that category of being.

Trying to be a do it all, and it did fine for that.

But it's not.

It's.

There's a whole lot of other shoes that I would recommend before that in that same category.

Okay.

And so, yeah, it's.

I'm not saying it's a bad shoe at all.

That's what Zach Miller ran his last, like, 35 miles in for his UTM, like his most recent UTMB success.

And he likes it.

It's.

It's stable.

You can take it on more technical terrain than the.

This version of the Alta Mesa.

And so there's just a bunch of other shoes I would recommend before it.

And I'd like to point out, because I saw the 300, I was like, it was like €125 or something like that.

$125 bucks in the U.S.

i think.

And now I'm looking at that, thinking that.

I mean, that thing does not look like it would be $155.

Maybe there's no carbon plate.

What's.

Why is that not 250?

That looks like one of those 250 type shoes.

Yeah, it really does.

Yeah.

There's no.

There's no plates in here.

There's just basically a big slab of dream foam, which.

That's what the.

The North Face.

Going forward, everything is getting the dream foam treatment.

Okay.

And so every shoe that they have coming out, the Ultima, so won't get an Update until after 2025.

But it will get an update.

But the Dream foam, it just hit ticks a lot of boxes.

It's kind of like Brooks is really riding their nitrogen infused foam.

And for good reason.

Every, every brand is having their phone.

But the Dream foam for trail application just has been.

It just had my number in particular.

And a lot of our reviewers have really loved it too.

And so you get a lot of character out of it.

It's lasted for a long time.

This is the shoe I put more miles in than any other shoe over 2024.

It's just easy to throw on.

Feels good for a lot of applications.

Yeah.

Just a good.

A good feel good shoe.

And that's what you want out of a Max cushion shoe most of the time.

You just want to feel good Max.

He's with.

He runs with Satisfy.

I hate that.

I can never remember his last name either.

Exactly.

But he wore this.

This was his shoe for Moab240.

Okay.

Yeah.

And so he said on.

Based on recommendation and he took it.

I'm pretty sure.

I can't remember if don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure he said he had this shoe the whole time.

Wow.

And this is the shoe he wore the longest during that time.

I can't remember exactly what he had said about it at the running event, but this was the shoe like that basically saved him and so awesome.

That's good to hear that like even our recommendations are.

Have really elite level applications too.

Yeah, of course.

If that's.

I mean, if that's a.

If that's a Jean Marc Dejan shoe, he's in luck because he's gonna have.

Probably have to be wearing Satisfy shoe next year.

Which is a Jean Marc shoe.

Yeah.

Which they've said some about it on their.

They're really smoke and mirrors about this shoe.

It's so precious.

I almost hate that I know everything about it, but I can't say anything.

Oh, because you're not getting like.

Because you would be like a kid in the candy store with these little details.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

So we had our hands on it.

I put it on.

It's called the Satisfy Rocker.

And that's pretty much all that can be known right now.

And it's.

That's one to look forward to.

It's on our.

Our next year's 2025 excitement list of.

It's just.

It's going to be a shoe to look forward to.

Offering a familiar experience yet a different one at the same time.

It's just, it's very satisfy of them.

Yeah, I'll say that.

It's awesome.

So, yeah, totally agree.

So we just talked about the Ultima 500.

And then our other max cushion category, our runner up was the again the Brooks.

We're keep coming back to Brooks.

How is this happening?

The Brooks Caldera seven.

Yeah.

And so this, this one, our reviewers love that it had a more technical feel to it.

That if you're going long and you want some technical prowess, you want your foot to be sitting down, you want all the stability.

One of the negatives I had with the shoe is like, it almost tries to control your ride so much, especially on the downhill.

But that's what you want right in late, in 100 miles, you want something just take control and not work against you.

But the control it took from me was really kind of moderating everything in my foot and so bringing it back to center, which is great overall.

When you're really tired in the mountains and coming down your last big descent and it's kind of controlling that foot for you.

So it can be a positive.

And when you're trying to run a little faster and it may be a negative, but it just has the protection, it has stability, it has great grip.

This would be a great, like, mountainous 100 mile shoe, I feel.

And.

And it's 150 bucks.

Again.

I'm surprised.

You know, these days, unfortunately that's feeling like a steal.

But like, our two max cushion shoes are around the same price at 150.

Yeah, it's kind of nice.

Exactly.

Yeah, it is really nice.

Especially like we'll get to our best value shoe next, maybe.

But the.

Our.

Our best value isn't crazy anymore.

Just two years ago, our standard was $120, and this year it's already up to $140 for our best value shoe.

So.

Yeah.

And just one more thing on the caldera, it's going to receive an update for next year of just kind of focusing on the upper.

So if you like this shoe, this particular version and you don't have to be on the leading edge of everything like this, this is probably going to go on sale in the spring and this would be a great one to stock up on.

So even.

Probably even a better price.

Yeah.

I mean, because the technology is so good on them.

And yes, the next.

The next year, the next iteration, it's in all likelihood going to be better.

But as I'm living with these zegamas that I just bought, I'm super happy with it at the time they were cutting edge technology, like, because I'm.

Because mainly I just want to be out running and I needed to just get out of the headspace and the anxiety of trying to pick the right shoe.

I'm so happy.

And, you know, the technology is incredible, and I'm sure the twos would have been better, but I have the ones.

Yeah.

But there's not a lot of difference between the one and the two in terms of underfoot experience.

And the two, the Zegama two, I'm holding right now, it was our close third place in the high stack category.

Okay.

And.

And so.

And the reason for that, that Zoom X foam is.

Which is known in their, like, race day lines, super, super plush, super responsive.

Just feels so good underfoot.

They have that as a core in this shoe, and that's the same in the first version.

In the.

In the first version, you get more of that.

And.

And so.

And then they have a different foam that's a full firmer that wraps around it.

Okay.

And so.

And that.

And that type of technology of having a softer, more responsive foam in the middle and having a firmer one on the outside is.

Is fairly new in the industry.

And we're going to see a lot of that going into 2025 on how they place and.

And put different durometers and different foams to get a certain experience.

But, yeah, there's nothing.

There's not much that feels better than the Zegama underfoot.

It just feels so good.

It does.

And.

And I looked out where.

Yeah, yeah, you left.

We didn't talk about it.

We didn't talk about it because we were talking about, like, your races.

Right.

So I went to the Ultra Fly that has more of that Zoomax foam.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I mean, this will serve you well, too, because it does have a broader forefoot that.

Yeah.

That compared to most Nikes, is still fairly average.

Do you feel that?

Yeah, I mean, in terms of, like, I just went out and just, like, ran fast and just had a good time in them.

And my.

My feet, like, they splayed really nicely in them.

I didn't feel like some of the pressures I would feel of a tighter shoe.

I was just really happy right out of the gates.

Exactly.

And so, yeah, it is a broader forefoot, just like the Ultra Fly was, too.

Okay.

And it's a softer engineered mashup, so it will expand a little more.

And so it's kind of weird to me that they called this the Zegama.

They probably should have picked a Different race because the.

The Zegama is fast, steep, muddy, technical, and I would never take this.

And, and so I wish, I just wish they went with a different name.

It's a cool name, but I would never take this on that terrain.

But overall, yeah, for a door to.

For a door to trail, shoot this.

The Zegama one was our door to trail option last year.

I believe it was either high on the 2023 Max cushion shoe or door to trail.

I'm having a hard time remembering where, but it was on there, that first version.

Nice.

So, all right, what about your best road?

Road to trail shoe?

Best road to trail.

Yeah, that's what you call it, our.

Best road to trail shoe.

And I just did a video of this for Craft and I had me reminiscing again.

I, I love being able to come back and like reflect on all these.

Sometimes it's hard to remember it because I had this last winter almost a year ago.

It's the Craft Explorer Hybrid.

And so what I was kind of talking about in this video that I made was that this category, door to trail, is so new, it's just a couple years old.

And with that in 2024 and 2025, basically every brand is going to have an offering in this particular category.

Whether you call it gravel, whether you call it door to trail, they're.

And they're coming with their own ideas, their own what it should look like, what it should feel like.

And so CRAFT was one of the first ones to go into this gravel or door to trail category.

And this year I thought that's what they were going to try to own because a lot of their shoes are kind of centered toward that, the gravel, the door to trail type of category.

But this one, the Craft Explorer Hybrid has.

We're coming back to the foam again because the upper is actually, if you're taking this on more technical train, it's not going to be what you want.

Let me say that keep this to the gravel, keep this to the lighter end of the trail and you'll be very happy because even seeing you handle.

That upper, it looks very flimsy.

It's very flimsy.

And so in some ways that feels good.

It's really light, comfortable on foot, almost sock like.

But it doesn't keep your foot over top of the foam where you want it when you get to the more technical stuff.

But that's okay because this is meant for door to light trail.

And if you keep it there, you're going to be very satisfied.

But this foam is a little different than most, than most applications of.

It's a beaded midsole.

So there are some shoes that have a beaded midsole.

So they take all these beads, kind of like, kind of like Styrofoam, and they place them together.

So there, there's these really.

There's a super critical TP E, which is softer derivative of tpu.

And the process, they just, they get it to a certain temperature and it pops into this form and then they put all those little beads together.

So you can imagine this just feels like kind of bouncy, quite cushioned.

It just.

And it just feels unique for a trail shoe.

So I, like, our reviewers thought that this is one of the best feeling foams underfoot.

Yeah.

When I got into Borderlands and I was starting to build these trail teams and I had like 75 trail teams or 65.

75 trail teams in 65 cities.

And so in.

Craft was kind of like a de facto sort of sponsor of that.

And I was wearing some of their shoes.

This would have been a year and a half ago now, two years ago.

And I just really, I mean, design matters to me.

They're.

They're a Scandinavian company and it's, it's, it's in their design, in their ethos.

Totally.

What I learned when I was in Sweden is that maybe the, the locals see craft as an old 80s brand, an old school like.

But for me, having never, like, I was introduced to Craft through their shoes, through ribs, you know, in the last few years, to me, they're like, just cool.

Yeah, they do certainly have the coolness factor.

And the coolness factor is going to go up for these shoes too, in the next coming years.

So those are.

There's a few shoes that they're coming out with that take some of the things we love most.

But it seems like they're really listening to the consumer and into reviewers that, like, this shoe is going to get a pro version of it.

And it's almost solely focusing on the upper and a better location and more material.

And so, like, that's exactly what I want out of it because I'd love to take this shoe for hours out on any trail.

And this underfoot experience, because it's really wide, it's quite stable, it rolls really nicely through your stride, whether I was on pavement or not.

And then this Vittoria outsole, which is cool.

It's like a bike tire brand.

Okay.

They really have a really unique take on.

On tread because they want it to be able to go across different.

Different surfaces.

Really?

Well, just think of it as like a Fat Tire bike.

That's basically what this shoe is.

Oh, that's cool.

That's a good way to talk about it.

Yeah, yeah.

So craft.

They're a brand to definitely keep your eye on in the future.

Again, I love their aesthetics too.

And even if you like look at our house, the Swedish aesthetic is.

Yeah.

There.

And so I love this.

Well, okay, so as we start to wind down here, I want to make an observation on the whole list.

We can get back into individual shoes too.

Here's an interesting observation.

When I look at your stats that you've brought before of shoe counts at UTMB Western States compared to what I'm seeing in your best of.

It's really interesting to see prime, most notably the absence of Hoka, with the exception of the Tecton 3 2.

Yep.

That tucked on X3, which to be fair, it was.

It wasn't.

It was in our top three, but it wasn't in our top two for race day shoes.

Yeah.

From our reviewers.

And so I put it on there personally because I felt like it offered a slightly different experience than the ones that won out, which was the Adidix Terex, a Graphic Speed Ultra.

Such long name work in their naming department.

Yeah, exactly.

And the North Face shoe that we've already.

The Vective Pro 2.

So those were the ones that won out.

And even if you look at podiums compared to the Tectonics three itself, the one they came out with.

Yeah, necessarily the 2.5 which a lot of their athletes are wearing like the Terex shoe and the North Face shoe probably have more elite podiums this year, especially compared to the tectonics 3.

And so, you know, I'm sure a.

Lot of people pay attention to that.

I've never really thought about that.

My head's gone to immediately gone to like overall shoe count.

But podium shoe count.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

And we know that's the tip of the spear, but that's where a lot of the innovation comes from too.

That trickles down.

Yeah.

And so yeah, it's just.

Just an interesting.

But you're right, we.

There was.

There wasn't even another HOKA shoe on there.

And.

And that's not necessarily saying that since that brand is absent on our list.

It's not saying that they have poor offerings or anything.

It's just nothing that really rose to the top in their particular categories.

Yeah.

And so.

All right.

Two other brands I want to make note of.

Yep.

Again, a higher shoe count but not present really.

Here is Ultra and we haven't even done an episode on Ultra.

You know, they, they warrant some attention.

Their stories interesting if not odd.

But they did make a presence on there with the.

Which one was it the best surprise trail shoe and that I've never even heard of.

The Experience Wild.

Yep, the Experience Wild, which was their first trail shoe with 4 millimeters worth of drop.

Whoa.

And so.

Yeah, okay.

And so you.

We know Ultra as being like they have their ego foam and they also have an ego of maintaining that zero drop from heel to toe.

Yeah.

But this year we've seen both road and trail offerings that have their Experience line is what it's called.

So it's going to have 4 millimeters of drop from the heel to toe.

So it has a little bit of drop.

And that's something that we've just kind of thought about over the last especially like three years ago when they have had more offerings, more exciting offerings like the Mont Blanc.

They have the Ultra Mont Blanc which is like their race day shoe.

And now they have the Mont Blanc carbon and stuff like that.

That was one of the best overall feeling shoes like that foam and just the upper fit and everything was so good.

But only a select people are going to be able to wear it because it was zero drop.

If they had that shoe with 4 millimeter drop to alleviate the Achilles for most runners, that'd be one of our top shoes still.

I'm sure of it.

And so, so it's just interesting and.

But this one came in and I think partly because of the 4 millimeters and partly because of the foam underfoot, just felt good for a lot of different things.

Overall, it's just a really comfort oriented shoe.

You can see that.

I don't know if you can see.

You can see that I have a lot more miles in it than it was on my Strava because I wore it around a ton.

I wore it for teaching, wore it for coaching.

I wore it for mowing the lawn.

Like basically anything.

It's just a really.

It feels good.

And so that's one of the reasons why it was just a surprise shoe.

Yeah.

And I'm skewed because I, I'm, you know, I became a runner in Utah around the time Ultra was really getting going.

And I mean 90 of my friends were in Ultras.

Totally.

And I mean to me, like I, I wore maybe was it the Lone Peaks?

I think I bought several pairs of the Lone Peaks.

Yeah, I think that's what it was.

I mean, I thought probably five or six pairs before I just.

The Achilles thing just became a little bit too much for me.

And so to hear, to hear the 4 millimeter drop in ultra, even though they're, you know, no longer really a Utah company, though Brian Beckstead still lives in Utah, so that's cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's interesting.

I mean they're.

Because the shoe count's high again.

I'm just thinking of shoe count compared to best of.

And maybe that's more of a discussion of brand loyalty to a degree or, you know, just how everybody can be.

Different in some ways for sure.

And I know we talked about having like an Ultra and Topo Athletic.

Yeah.

Episode.

And so like Topo Athletic, The Ultra Venture 4 was one of our top shoes as well.

It was a runner up in the.

I think it was the door to trail category.

And so this has some similar.

This also has.

I think it's 5 millimeter.

Yeah.

This one has 5 millimeters of drop compared to that shoe.

We just talked about the experience.

Wild.

Both of them are going to have a more anatomical shaped foot shaped toe box.

So they share a lot of similar design principles.

But it really comes down to.

Yeah.

Overall fit.

A lot of people have in recent days left Altra for Topo Athletic because it has had some drop.

They, they offer zero drop.

Topo Athletic does, but they also offer options with low drop.

So the, the 3 to 5 millimeters.

And so that I see that's where I was kind of hinting with that ego with Ultra that they're.

Yeah, I think they're coming back on it.

Like, you know, there, there is space for a little bit of drop even within our line, within our design principles.

Even as their idea is that it's going to help you access the zero drop eventually.

And so I think I'm glad that.

You brought that shoe back up because I did have several people after our last episode reach out to let me know that it was DSW is who owns them.

Yeah.

Now owners.

Okay.

But some people.

Yeah, I think three or four people reached out.

I would like it dsw, which is.

Important to know because I know like DSW and some of those other brands were really present at HOKA or some of those parent companies were present.

Present at utmb.

Excuse me.

Oh, I see.

Of just broadening their perspective of trail running in general.

Okay.

And, and so that, that says a lot.

If a large parent company like that is.

Is present, it's gonna probably mean good things for the future of at least investment into our sport.

So.

But yeah, another great one last question.

And I think, you know, we've got, we've got content ready to go for our next episode to, to dive in deeper to 20, 25.

But yeah, value shoe.

I want to get that one out there.

What's the, what's your, what did you rank the number one value shoe?

Because I think some of us just want to get out and get running and spend as the least amount of money, get the biggest bang.

And this is the shoe that you think does that?

Totally.

This is the Solomon Genesis.

And to be fair, there's a lot of a ton of shoes that fall into this do it all category and the Solomon Genesis would fall into that too.

So if you're looking for just a shoe kind of to do it all for you, there's a lot of shoes in that category, but also fairly close to this price range.

The Solomon Genesis was at $140.

Or is it 150?

150 is what I'm seeing.

Yeah.

150.

Okay, $150.

And why we say that as the best value for this particular shoe is because it has a lot of premium, premium aspects to it.

So like this foam underfoot is a really nice soft energy foam.

It's the same that was in their high end shoes S lab Genesis, which a lot of people wear.

Courtney Dewalter is probably only a name I need to say and people are interested and so, so they're high.

A lot of their application to their high end shoes boils straight down into this shoe and in a less aggressive, less heavy on the wallet type of application here.

And so yeah, they have this energy foam.

It's softer, quite versatile.

To have Matrix and $150 shoe, that's this upper material which is super, super tenacious, really light and they can, it's a really technical woven fiber so they, they can really map it to the foot really nicely.

And so to have matrix in such a low cost shoe is, is tells that they're really going for quality here.

And so, and then they.

So what you're saying with value is not so much.

You're not saying it's the least expensive shoe out there.

You're saying for what you're paying, you're getting the most exact price.

Because another, another company who might have some of those features, you could be paying 170, 180, 220 even.

Yep, exactly.

Because a lot of the same features that I'm talking about would show up in this Merrell MTL Long Sky 2.

It would show up similar types of materials in an order.

I'm just looking around here.

Similar types of materials in a lot of different shoes.

But for the price here, this is.

Or this normal towmer 2.0 also has a similar style of upper and.

But not the same price as this.

And so even the outsole is their.

Their standard contagrip, which is proven to do well year after year on a lot of different terrain.

So it has a lot of premium ish products in one shoe.

And for 150 bucks, you do.

You don't usually get all that.

And so.

Nice.

Well, man, I think it's.

It's good.

It was good that we touched on 2025.

We did it.

It was great to go through all those shoes.

And it's nice to know we got our next episode teed up for us because by the time this releases, there'll be an article that Believe in the Run is released on 2025 and we're going to talk about it next time.

That sound good?

That sounds great to me.

It's.

I know we planned these as like being able to bridge the two, but there's so much to talk about in just one of the years.

I know we can go off on many different tangents too now.

This is awesome help, but yeah, a ton of value here.

This was great and I'm stoked to do2025 with you.

Yeah, same here.

All right, man.

See you later.

Bye.